Mission Menus Challenge

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Mission Foods. All opinions are 100% mine.
A few years ago, I tried out the Atkins diet.  The worst part for me was giving up bread.  Luckily, I was allowed to eat tortillas, as long as they were whole wheat.  One of my favorite lunches was to take a tortilla, and fill it with bacon, broccoli, black olives, and ranch dressing.  I know it doesn't sound like those flavors would work well together, but they really did.  In fact, even though I am no longer following that diet, I still like to eat this wrap.  Yes, it's that good.  We also eat a lot of tacos in this house, and with five of us, the soft taco shells that come in the dinner kits are never big enough, and there are never enough.  I always end up buying extra tortillas. 

Right now, though, I want to hear some of your favorite recipes using Mission Flour Tortillas.  You can even enter your favorite recipe into the Mission Menus Challenge as long as it uses Mission Flour Tortillas, is original (like mine), and can feed a family of five for $10 or less.  The grand prize winner will win round-trip airfare and hotel accommodations for two to the Mission Menus Challenge Cook-off on September 10, 2010 at the Hard Rock Café in Los Angeles.  How cool is that? They are also giving away a $10,000 dream kitchen makeover, and a bunch of other weekly prizes.  This contest runs until August 9, 2010, and you can submit your recipe online at www.missionmenuschallenge.com.

I'm thinking about entering my recipe.  I mean, I don't think you can get anymore original than broccoli and black olives.

My Little Cook

We were walking in the grocery store the other day, and Brandi said she wanted banana pudding. I told her I would get the ingredients, but she would have to make it, since I don't eat pudding.

As soon as we got home, she started slicing the bananas.

Then she layered them with the vanilla wafers while I cooked the pudding. (she's not quite old enough for that step yet)

Here's the finished product! She had to put extra cookies and bananas on top.

It was gone in about fifteen minutes...three little mouths and one big one enjoyed every last bit!

Gravy, Baby

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Club House. All opinions are 100% mine.

Thanksgiving was a few weeks ago, and I had my fill of turkey. The meal on that day was delicious, and the sandwiches with the leftovers were even better. My mom went all out for our meal that day, so she has decided that for Christmas, she is going to focus on the presents and family time, and not on the cooking. I think she decided on some type of pasta, which will be yummy, too.

But, my husband wants his turkey, so I will probably be preparing one at home for my family. I have done this in the past, but I have never attempted making gravy. I always used a jarred gravy. I think this time I am going to try and make one from the turkey drippings, because watching this gravy tips video made it look so easy! Using a dried gravy mix, like Club House Gravy, takes the guess work out of gravy. These packets have the perfect blend of ingredients, and they are designed to prevent lumping. Let me share this tip with you that I learned from the video; instead of using all water with the mix, use the drippings from the turkey. Just add enough water to he drippings to equal what you need to add to the mix. This will give your gravy that from scratch taste.

How would you like to win a Club House Gravy Gift Pack? All you have to do is head to the site and fill out the newsletter sign-up and contest entry.

This is going to disappoint some of you, but this contest is only open for our Canadian friends. I know, what a bummer, because that gift pack looks really cool.

Good luck to all my Canadian readers! I hope one of you wins. If so, wanna share?

Chinese Withdrawals

From now until February, we are on a really, really, really tight budget. One of the easiest ways for us to save money is to stop eating out. We usually only do this once every two weeks, because it is so expensive to feed our family of five, especially now that Ryan and Kasi are considered adults. A trip to the Chinese buffet can easily cost us about $45. We usually only do this about once every few months. But, since Chinese is my favorite food these days, I crave it all the time. I have been trying different recipes, in an attempt to create my favorite dishes at home. The only thing I have come close to making is the inside of an egg roll.

I recently found this store that sells asian food online. The best thing is that they also have recipes that you can follow, and a few cooking videos. I really want to try to make their fried rice recipe, because I can never seem to get this right. I have tried many times, but it never comes out tasting like it does in the restaurant. I can also buy the ingredients online, and they offer fast shipping, with a flat rate of $4.99. If I spend over $50, I can get free shipping. I bet I could easily qualify for that free shipping, because there are so many things that sound so good.

Don't worry. Once I perfect some of these recipes, I will invite you all over for supper.

Got Some Cooking To Do

I have so much to do to get ready for tomorrow, yet here I sit. I have to make pasta salad, wrap the corn on the cob, clean my nasty house, rearrange the crap in my yard so we can all hang out by the pool tomorrow, set up both gazebo tents, and hopefully make a zucchini bread, Some stuff I can't do until tomorrow, but I want to get most of it done tonight. It's a good thing we stay up late around here. Ryan has been staying up until about 3:30-4am and then sleeping until noon, 1pm the next day. I don't mind, because I enjoy the quiet in the mornings while I try and get some work done.

I guess I need to get up from here.

Homemade Chinese Food

A couple of weeks ago, Junior decided he wanted to try making something with cabbage. In the past, the only thing we have ever made with cabbage was cole slaw. I say we, but it's really Junior who makes it. I don't care for any type of slaw, but the kids love his, and request it every time we have hot dogs. Anyway, Junior wanted to try frying it in a pan with some bacon and oil, salt and pepper. As soon as the cabbage hit the pan, it smelled like a Chinese restaurant had opened up in my kitchen. Instantly, my mouth was watering. It was really good. It tasted exactly like an egg roll, just without the outside wrapper. I told Junior the next time he made it, we would get some wrappers and try and make some egg rolls. I have made fried cheese wontons in the past, and they were delicious. The secret, I think, was using peanut oil to fry them.

I figure that if I am going to make egg rolls, I might as well attempt to make an entire Chinese dinner. I looked in our local grocery store for sauce mixes so I could make sesame chicken or chicken and broccoli. I couldn't find anything. They has dried mixes that required you to add a lot of soy sauce, but I don't think that is what I want. I want to find authentic sauces, or even recipes where I could make them from scratch. This led me to searching the internet.

I found a site where I could buy online groceries, specifically groceries from China. They have so many choices! I did find sauce mixes, and am excited to try them. They also had accessories to help cook, like bamboo steamers and assorted pots. I also found a section where you can find recipes, and they had a lemon and sesame chicken recipe I can't wait to try. I need to make my list of ingredients, and have them delivered to me. They have a $4.99 flat shipping rate, so I want to make sure I get everything I need.

My mouth is watering just thinking about the meal I am going to attempt to make.