Recipes From The Kitchen Of A City Raised Mom

I normally prefer the green grapes but these were to hard to pass up when we seen them at the local farmer’s market. I thought for sure they were not going to taste great. To my surprise, they are really GOOD!

My husband (and me) are big fans of the Betty Crocker Suddenly Salads. We particularly are fond of the Suddenly Salad Ranch & Bacon Pasta mix.  I have been buying the box mixes for the last couple months and have been wanting to find a recipe to make it from scratch that would taste similar. I don’t mind buying the box mixes, but making my own sounds like more fun! Okay, so I found a recipe I thought would work for me.

Now here goes the my version of the recipe I found ….

Ingredients:

2 cups – Small shell pasta

2/3 cup mayo – I prefer the Kraft Mayo w/Olive Oil

1 package Hidden Valley Ranch Dressing Mix

8oz young peas (drained)

1/4 cup shredded baby carrots

1/2 tsp onion powder

Bacon Bits – (I used 1/3 cup of the Oscar Meyer Real Bacon Bits)

Directions:

1. You will want to cook your noodles as directed on package. Once cooked, rinse with cold water and drain.
2. Add mayo, ranch dressing package, carrots, peas, bacon bits and onion power. Stir ingredients until well mixed. You may want to cool in fridge for 1 to 2 hours before serving.
3. Enjoy

You can find a ton of yummy pasta salad recipes at the Betty Crocker website too!

I found a recipe while browsing the Campbell’s Kitchen website last night that I had to try. So today I ventured out to the store to get a few ingredients I needed. I have never made or cooked with pesto, so I was unsure how it was going to come out. While it was cooking, my daughter Hailey told me it smelled good. Boy, was I hoping it was going to taste good. To my surprise, it turned out AWESOME and my children ate all their food on their plate! I even heard “can I have seconds”.  Score, I have hand written this recipe on an index card and put it in my box of recipes to cook again.

Now for the recipe…..

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter

4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves cut into cubes (about 1 pound)

1/2 cup Pesto Sauce. You can make your own with this recipe. (I used one of the Knorr Pesto Sauce package mixes)

1 can (10 3/4 ounces) Campbell’s® Condensed Cream of Chicken Soup

1/2 cup milk

3 cups bow tie pasta, cooked and drained (I used the mini bow tie pasta)

(A picture of My Creamy Pesto Chicken)

Directions:

1. In a 10 inch skillet, heat butter until melted and add chicken. Cook the chicken in the butter until well browned. Be sure to stir often.
2. Once chicken browned, add the soup, pesto sauce and milk and bring to a boil. Once at a boiling point, reduce heat to low and cook for 5 to 10 minutes.
3. Stir in cooked bow tie pasta and cook until mixture is well mixed and hot!

This is definitely something I plan on making again. I served this with a side of white rice……..

I was looking for coupons today and came across some Hormel printable coupons that you might be interested in. Here are the Hormel coupons that you can print from their website:

• $2.00 off any one Hormel Party Tray product
• $1.00 off any Hormel Always Tender product
• $0.55 off any two Hormel Pepperoni products
• $0.75 off one Hormel Fully Cooked Bacon product
• $0.50 off any two Hormel Bacon Toppings product

You can find these coupons by visiting: http://www.hormel.com/updates/coupons/

If you like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese and you have not tried the Kraft Homestyle yet, you are missing out. This stuff is good and my kids LOVE it! They are now asking for this when we go to the store instead of the regular box.

Anyhow, there is a coupon for $1.00 Off for this stuff. You can hit the BACK button and hit it twice. For me, this is $2 in savings the next time I am grocery shopping. (Coupon expires 08/13/10)

Enjoy!

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I enjoy dinner time! It is a time when my family gets together around our dinner table to share stories about what happened that day or whatever else we want to share.  We might not eat breakfast or lunch together at one table, but dinner time is something we eat together almost every night!

My youngest child is Christopher who is 2 1/2. He sometimes likes to make dinner time interesting. Since he is just learning what the whole world of food is, he sometimes likes to “play’ with his food instead of eating it. I offer him utensils that are suited for his age as well as the eating utensils the other kids are using. It is fun to watch him used forks and spoons to eat with from learning from all of us.

Christopher has recently been using a set of the eating utensils from Trebimbi. Each box of Trebimbi Puppet cutlery has a spoon, fork and a kid-friendly knife. These neat eating utensils are made in Italy and have a stainless steel body with a colored polypropylene handle. Each of the pieces snap together like a string of paper dolls to rouse your child’s imagination. They are also dishwasher safe but I wash our set by hand.

Buy Them: You can buy these neat utensils as well as other cool products from Trebimbi on Amazon as well as many other online stores.

I received a product sample to provide you with this review. I was not paid any monetary compensation to publish this review. This review is my personal opinion only and receiving the sample has no impact on my opinion of the product.

A favorite thing I like to have in my fridge at all times is yogurt. I find when I have a sweet tooth, a simple container of yogurt can satisfy those needs. One kind of yogurt that you will probably find in my fridge at all times is the Brown Cow Fat Free Greek Yogurt. I admit that when I first heard of “greek yogurt” I turned up my nose. I don’t know why, but it just didn’t sound good. I like Greek food, but I am one that is picky about anything dairy related. I stick to what I know and (Greek + Yogurt) just never came to mind.

So what is the difference? To me the texture and overall taste. The Brown Cow Fat Free Greek Yogurt has a more thick and creamy texture compared to the regular yogurts I am used to eating. It also comes with the fruit in the bottom. I am one that LOVES to stir my fruit to watch the colors flow. It only comes in three flavors right now (Strawberry, Vanilla and Blueberry). I am hoping to see some new flavors in the future!

I now prefer greek yogurt over the old fashioned kind!

I found this YUMMY yogurt at Walmart. Be sure to look in your dairy isle to see if your store carries it too! Be sure to get your Brown Cow coupons on their website too!

I received a free coupon to purchase a product to provide you with this review. I was not paid any monetary compensation to publish this review. This review is my personal opinion only and receiving the sample has no impact on my opinion of the product.

I have found my  new favorite potato chip. I now have this thing for sea salt & vinegar potato chips. I remember when I first seen these types of chips on the shelves at the store and I thought “Yuck”. Then one day a friend had a bag and offered me some. I didn’t want to be rude so I grabbed one and to my surprise, it was really GOOD.

Below are a few benefits of these yummy chips:

• 0 Trans Fat
• Gluten FREE
• MSG FREE
• Onion FREE
• Kosher OU

I normally will just grab a bag at the gas station of whatever brand they might have. I had no idea that Lay’s had come out with their own version until this last weekend. I was complaining to my husband they didn’t have any of the salt & vinegar chips and he spotted the Lays chips. These might not be the perfect chip for those on low sodium diets, but they are SO good. I normally watch my salt intake so I only spoil myself with these every once in a while because I can’t just eat a couple. These are the kind of chips where you end up eating the whole bag yourself!

I have always wondered the difference between table salt vs sea salt. I have been tempted to buy kosher sea salt to cook with because I have heard good things about using it. I would love to hear your opinions. Which type of salt do you prefer?

My kids LOVE the Eggo waffles. I have to admit that I eat them because not only are they easy to make, they taste great with butter and syrup. Sometimes to make them even better, I add a layer of peanut butter.

On Coupons.com there is a Eggo coupon for $1.00 off valid at Target. These have been on Price Cut at Target for $1.75 each. You could possible stack this coupon with the Eggos coupon from the 6/20 Red Plum Insert for a possible deal of $.75 cents for 2.