Time again for a Chicago Food Swap wrap up! (You can see previous food swap posts here.)

In exchange for:

• 4 half-pints Mimosa Jelly
• 1 1/2 pint and 2 4 oz. jars Pineapple Jam with Chinese 5 Spice
• 4 pints homemade, Whole Milk Yogurt

We received:

• 2 Blue Moon Cupcakes
• Cranberry Pepper Jelly
• Cinnamon Pecan Butter
• Salsa Verde
• Blood Orange Marmalade
• Macadamia Nut Caramel Corn
• Meyer Lemon Marmalade
• Cranberry Curd
• Homemade Granola
• Cherry Pie Filling
• Pumpkin Butter

This month’s swap was at Katherine Anne Confections, so in addition to the above, we also tried 3 delicious varieties of fancy-schmancy caramels : rosemary sea-salt, chocolate walnut, and vanilla. Believe me, they didn’t last long. I was very suspicious about the rosemary sea-salt, because sweet and salty is *not* my thing. But actually, it wasn’t bad. I would probably choose one of the other ones personally, but after trying it I can definitely say I would choose eating a rosemary sea-salt caramel over not eating caramel any day of the week.

This time around, Sara went in targeting marmalade, and ended up with not one, but two of them! I call that success We haven’t tried any yet. Sara said the salsa verde was the best thing she tried at the swap, but I haven’t tried that yet either (Soon, my sweet salsa verde. Soon.)

There were a lot of baked goods this time, which isn’t bad, but it’s not really what we’re in the market for. We make lots of baked goods at home, so they’re just not as exciting. Canned jams, however, seems to be what we are in the market for. Right now we have something like 8 different open jars of spreads in the fridge, with a dozen or so more in the pantry. And they are all wonderful.

I should also mention that both of our jams were delicious and interesting too. I almost didn’t want Sara to trade them! Sara bought the Chinese 5 spice powder from the last food swap, and I hadn’t been super fond of it. It’s very anise-y, and it kind of takes over whatever it is in. But something about this jam really was the perfect use for it. The flavor combination was awesome. The mimosa jelly is really good too, although I’m not sure the champagne really made much of a difference (other than being able to say it’s mimosa jelly instead of just regular old “orange”, which is non-trivial).

Sara reports that after her 3rd swap, she’s starting to recognize people and just generally feel like she’s not the new kid on the block anymore, (Look, it was a phrase before the band came around, that’s why they used that as their name! No judging.) but more like she’s one of the grizzled veterans.

The kids and I are definitely still excited about getting all of the delicious food, that’s for sure!