Category Archives: Food

Food

Chili’s Triple Dipper and a Giveaway

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Triple Dipper Platter with potato skins, chipotle-honey shrimp, and sliders
Triple Dipper Platter with potato skins, chipotle-honey shrimp, and sliders

Chili’s has come up with a new appetizer option! It is the Triple Dipper that you build yourself by choosing from 10 different appetizers! This is the perfect kind of dish because you can choose things that make everyone happy.

 

I recently got the opportunity to go out with the kids to try this awesome new dish. I chose the potato skins, chipotle-honey shrimp and the sliders!! The sliders were my dinner and then the rest I shared;).

While we were eating we had a conversation about what 3 things that the kids would love to see. Like most kids, they couldn’t just come up with 3. They couldn’t decide between burgers, fries, tortillas chips with guacamole and chocolate ice cream.

You wouldn’t be interested in winning a $20 gift card to Chili’s would you? Well you came to the right place!!! Not only am I giving away a $20 gift card but there are other opportunities to win cards!

Entering is super easy! Just complete the form in order to enter the giveaway (and comment to let me know you did) by June 12th!

You can also earn some extra entries (make sure to leave a comment for each thing)

  • Follow me on twitter and tweet about this giveaway!
  • Subscribe to my RSS feed.
  • Like my Facebook page.
  • Post about this giveaway and leave the link in the comments!

    • ShoutOuttoEatOut.com is giving away a $20 gift card every day! But wait! There is more! I am part of the Chili’s Good Things Come In 3′s Linky Rave Giveaway Event that is over at 2Wired2Tired!

    (I received a giftcard from Chili’s to participate in this campaign!)
     

    Food

    A Tasty and Good-For-You Treat from #SafewayDairy

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    B & L's Smoothie as part of our healthy lunch!The weather heating up around here means 1 thing: berry season!!! That means that the 4lb bin of strawberries were only $3.99!!! So of course we just had to get them! But that was a lot of strawberries at once to eat just plain, even for us. So while I was making my list off of the Vons.com site I decided to look for a great and easy recipe! I have been having a hard time filling up my kids lately and didn’t want a dessert. So I started looking at milk! I mean between the protein and the fact it would be cold, can’t go wrong with that right?

    So I found a super easy and not to desserty recipe called B and L’s Strawberry Smoothie. Most of the ingredients are things we keep on hand (an essential point for new and untried recipes in this house) and they were all something I could buy at one store (Safeway)! I also knew that I could substitute local, raw honey for the sugar! I have been looking for more vehicles for raw honey because we all have horrible allergies and eating local, raw honey is supposed to help!

    It was going to be a delightful end of the week treat to go with lunch! What can I say, I like to do something a little fun on Fridays when the school work is done. And it was so simple that at least 1 kid could help!

    First off we went and stocked up at Vons! We needed yogurt for our smoothies and I needed Greek yogurts for breakfast! And of course we needed strawberries. My kids love grocery shopping with me. But that might be because they bribe them with a cookie;). Seriously, while I might grocery shop for a small army they all really do help and enjoy helping. They even carry everything in and help me put all the bags away.

    So when Friday’s lunch time came around I assembled all the ingredients! Kids who were done with homework for the week got to help! The 7 year old got my crushed ice while the 5 year got to cut strawberries for the first time!!! This is the perfect recipe for kids to practice their cutting because the pieces are all going to get blended anyway! So after I assembled all the ingredients, I just blitzed it with my stick blender! And even though it was dessert, I topped it with a little light whipped cream. It made the kids feel extra spoiled! Paired with PB &J, it is a super good for you and filling meal!!!

    B and L’s Strawberry Smoothie

    • 8 strawberries, hulled
    • 1/2 cup skim milk
    • 1/2 cup plain yogurt
    • 3 tablespoons white sugar (subbed in equal amount of local, raw honey)
    • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
    • 6 cubes ice, crushed

    (This post’s existence, but not the content, was sponsored. This shop was compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias to celebrate National Dairy Month.)

     

    Food

    Turkey Bacon Burgers #firststreetvip

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    If burgers actually had a season, this would be it!!! So when I was issued the challenge to develop a recipe with Smart&Final’s First Street brand products that is where my mind went. I have done standard burgers for years but I have never made a turkey burger. Mostly because people have scared the snot out of me about how hard they are to cook because they get dry and fall apart. When I asked for recommendations on Twitter someone recommended actually adding olive oil to the turkey meat to prevent it from drying out. So I started thinking….What has fat and is delicious? Bacon of course! Instead of adding it to the top, as is standard, I basically shaved it super thin and added it into the meat! The fat of the bacon kept the burger moist and tasty!!! These were a huge hit!!!

    Ingredients:

    3lb ground turkey
    1/2 tsp garlic salt
    1 tsp garlic powder
    1 tsp paprika
    1 tsp parsley
    6 oz shaved raw bacon
    1 tsp pepper
    1 tblsp dehydrated onion
    1 tsp kosher salt
    Buns
    Provolone Cheese slices


    Process:

    This is super easy!!! First take your bacon out of the fridge and slice it super thin, basically shaving it. This is important because you need it to be small so that the bacon will completely cook. Then mix everything (except the buns and cheese) together. I formed the patties about the size of my hand and fairly thin. Remember that the burgers shrink and bulk up in the middle.

    I cooked these inside on my griddle because I was afraid that they would fall apart on the BBQ but I think I would have been fine on the BBQ. So I cooked them on a griddle set on 325 degrees. I cooked it about 7 minutes on the first side. Look for the color to change about 1/2 up the patty and some yummy caramelized patches on the bottom. Then flip. Look for the color to change all the way up.

    Then I feel to see if it is done. You may need to practice a little bit. But basically if I press down on the center and it is firm, then it is done. If it is squishy, let it cook a little longer. Then I put the cheese on the burger and left it on the griddle about 30 second longer. Then take it off the griddle and place it on the bun. And serve!!!

    Makes 11 generous sized burgers!

    Want to try some of these awesome First Street products from Smart and Final? Make sure that you stop by Smart&Final’s facebook page to enter a giveaway for a giant bag of products and a $50 gift card!!!

    (I was compensated for this post from #collectivebias as part of a social shopper insights study. They provided the motivation and I provided the recipe!)

    Food

    Meal Planning: Getting Started

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    So I do weekly meal plans here at the NerdFamily house and recently I was in a conversation at MOPS about how to get started. I recommend that you sit down with a pad and ask everyone in your family what dinners they like. I recommend doing this when you are all sitting down to dinner. Then I take that list and compare it to the weekly supermarket ads. Then just pick 5 meals. I leave 1 night for takeout and 1 night for leftovers. Then make a grocery list based off of that menu. Now many times I will rearrange my meals part way through the week but that isn’t a big deal.

    I also post my meal plans as part of Meal Plan Monday. This has worked out for me in a couple of ways. Not only do I not need to figure out every afternoon what we are having, NerdDad will often help get things out to thaw the night before or the morning of. I would remind you to remind everyone else in your family of an addage we use here in the NerdFamily House, “This is the plan but plans change”. Otherwise you can sometimes get dissapointment when husbands don’t get the meal they were looking forward to;).

    So what are you waiting for? Go make a Meal Plan!

    (Originally published 10/8/2008)

    Food

    Sumac Marinated Chicken Breast

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    We are quickly approaching summer and it is time to start thinking about great grilling recipes. I have been doing projects for Smart & Final for a while. So when I found out what was going to be in the Smart and Final ad this week I saw a great opportunity to create a recipe!! They have Foster Farms bone in chicken breasts for only 99 cents a pound!!!

    We eat a lot of chicken and I have always used a bottled marinade and I have decided that I am done buying a premade marinade (even though it is quite tasty;). I had bought some sumac to replicate a fatoush salad that I love from a local restaurant and thought maybe it might be a tasty marinade.

    Based on the NerdFamily’s feedback, I was right;).

    Finished Sumac Chicken w/ Zucchini and French Bread

    Marinade Ingredients:

    2/3 c Olive Oil
    1/2 c White Wine
    2 tsp Kosher Salt
    2 tbl Minced Garlic
    1/2 tsp Sumac
    1 tsp Pepper
    1/2 lemon

    Process:

    Start the marinading process the night before you plan on grilling for the best results. Mix up all the marinade ingredients in a bowl except the lemon.  Place your chicken into zip top then pour the marinade over it. Squeeze your lemon half into the bag. Then cut up the lemon half and throw it in the bag too! Seal your bag and stow it in the frig. When you go by and have a second, turn the bag! About an hour before grilling take your chicken out of the frig and put it on the counter.

    Throw it onto a relatively low flame BBQ for about 8 minutes on 1 side and then another 8 on the other until the internal temperature is about 170+. Take it off the grill and let it rest a few minutes so the juices redistribute. You can put a loaf of buttered French bread on a turned off portion of the grill for about 5 minutes (I got that at Smart & Final too).

    A great dinner for very little time commitment. It only took about 5 minutes to put everything to marinade and 16 minutes to cook!

    (This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias. They may have given me a subject but I supplied the ideas and opinions!)

     

     

    Food

    Instant Food for Instant Fun

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    Last week was a long and hard week here in the NerdFamily House. Anyone who reads my Twitter or personal Facebook know that by Thursday I was ready to pop. So when this weekend got here NerdDad and I knew that we needed to have a fun family night!!! We had just checked out Megamind from the library but for a truly fun family night there needs to be food too!

    While I could cook up a storm and the kids would love it, that would not be a fun night for me. Either during the cooking or during all the cleaning that would have to happen after would not be fun for me or for NerdDad. So we decided to go to our traditional Saturday night pizza. But that wasn’t very special because we usually do pizza once a week;).

    So NerdDad and I decided to step up the fun a huge step. We needed a couple of things for this week and thought a fun dessert would make family night special.  So NerdDad volunteered to bath all the kids while I went to Walmart alone to shop! Yes, you all heard me, alone!

    So my MP3 player and I went to Walmart! I know you all think I am crazy to go to Walmart to relax on a Saturday afternoon but it is all about choosing the right one! The Walmart SuperCenter in Sanger is always clean and calm. Walmart had some great clearance (clothes for the girls, Kaiser rolls, and so much more;) but I had to decide about our special dessert. I looked at doing ice cream sundays but I didn’t want to have to buy a bunch of different toppings just to have 1/2 used jars sitting around for a while. I ended up picking out some Nestle Sprinkled Drumsticks. I have always been a huge Drumstick fan but haven’t bought them for a few years. Y’all were holding out on me. When did they start putting cherry in the middle? Yummy!!!

    A Little Chillin'

    Armed with my Sprinkled Drumsticks, I stopped by Little Caesars for pizza and arrived home the conquering hero. Then we have a fun night of pizza, ice cream and a hilarious movie! It was just the break I think we all needed! Getting instant food really helped to make our night really fun. Now go away while I eat another Sprinkled Drumstick while the kids aren’t around;).

    (This project has been compensated as part of shopper insights for #collectivebias. While the generated the subject, I generated the opinions. 😉 ) You can check out my This Moment post below to see more about the actual trip!

     

     

    Food

    Wine Find!!

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    Ok, I am not a big drinker nor a wine officianado. But since it was Passover I needed a red wine (no, I wasn’t looking for Kosher wines;).

    I stumbled into BevMo looking for a Bota wine that was actually recommended by Kelly over at her Thirsty Thursday. Well, they were out of that and so I went in search of something else! Do you know how overwhelming it is to be faced with a ton of wines and no idea on what to choose? Luckily my niece works at BevMo;). I told Jennifer that I like wines liked juice wines that are sweet with a low alcohol burn. She pointed me in the direction of Vino Dei Fratelli’s Casa Rossa.

    I have never had a Casa Rossa before but if this is typical, I love it! It was very mellow and fruity. It had a good, smooth finish. I had it both cold and at room temperature. I definitely prefer it at room temperature! I picked it up for $10.99 at BevMo and I am pleased at the price!

    I am now out of it and will be picking it up this week! Oh, and make friends with the BevMo people! They have some great knowledge!