Trip to the Asian Grocery Store

One thing I enjoy about being home is not having to shop at Whole Foods. In my area here there are a ton of ethnic groceries from Mexican to Asian, from Indian to Mediterranean. It's always fun to explore and find new foods that are typically lots cheaper than what you would find in a chain grocery store, like Publix. I finally made it out to My Lan(d) Asian Grocery and found some fun things. Now I wasn't ready the labels too closely, so the mochi ice cream does have some ingredients I don't usually eat, but it's tasty and I have to finish the package. But my loot, which only came out to about 10 dollars included:

Lychee jelly cups
Sweetened Matcha Powder (To use to make mochi, and honeydew smoothies :) )
Green Tea Mochi Ice Cream
Mochiko (to make my own mochi again!)
Strawberry Soymilk Bubble Tea Drink
Canned Lychees











The Lychee jellies are cool because I don't eat Jell-o (due to gelatin), so I hadn't eaten anything jell-o like in years. They are basically just sugar, seaweed (to make it jelly) and lychee.

The Strawberry Soymilk Bubble Tea Drink was my feeble, lazy attempt at appeasing my cravings for Joy Yee's bubble tea. I always get the strawberry milk tea flavor. This canned version though just doesn't cut it. The tapioca pearls are tiny, and the milk is very artificially flavored.

It's really not that hard to make yourself, though. All you need is some strawberries, your choice of milk variety, some sort of sweetener (I suggest agave, it's easier to mix in cold things than honey) and finally tapioca pearls (mine are colorful!). You can find these for pretty cheap at Asian groceries. All you have to do to prepare them is boil them in water for a few minutes and then let them cool. Just blend all the ingredients in a blender and add the tapioca pearls when that's done. I'm sure you could alter this recipe to use whatever fruit you prefer.