My kids are (surprisingly) yogurt eaters. Even my picky 8 year old son! They don’t care what kind of yogurt they get, but their preference is the kid friendly brands that have fun flavors. As a result, I not only buy store brand vanilla for myself, but Yoplait Kids for the kids. Right now, you can go to the Yoplait Kids website and get a coupon for a free sample of Yoplait Kids yogurt. Yoplait offers drink-able and spoon-able yogurt and it’s free of artificial flavors and sweeteners!

I’ve been thinking on my loaves and fishes problem for a good 24 hours, and the best I’ve come up with is pasta and sauce. Sounds messy, doesn’t it?

The problem with planning this meal is that it could be 30 kids, or it could be 80 kids. I need something I can cook up quickly (like pasta) depending on how many kids show. And, I need to be able to return the extra food to the store, especially if I buy 50 boxes of pasta and only use 20, right? I’d really prefer to buy something pre-made, but I can’t spend $100 feeding these kids.

Forget WWJD - what would the Duggar family do?

You’ve probably heard of the iPhone and the iPod - how about iGourmet? No, it’s not a new division of Apple. iGourmet.com is a family business specializing in gourmet gift baskets. How gourmet? How about champagne? Cassoulet? Angus beef? Perhaps you prefer caviar or truffles? Their selection is absolutely outrageous, with each product hand selected by the family. They take the gift basket beyond fruit and candy and make it a memorable gift for any occasion. iGourmet.com really goes the extra mile by offering a kosher selection for shoppers who observe kosher rules. You’ll find kosher preserves, candy, wine, cheese and more. Build a custom gift basket by selecting your favorite products, and the iGourmet.com folks will ship your food items safely for you to prevent spoiling.

I really love that each product has a rating and reviews, so you can see exactly what other people thought of the brands and flavors offered. It makes it easy to decide when you’re debating between two items! You can’t even find a lot of what iGourmet.com offers in your local delis and grocery stores, so be sure to treat yourself if you see something you can’t live without! (I’m thinking Triple Chocolate Truffle Brownies. Bittersweet fudge brownies dipped in dark chocolate? I’m already drooling.)

Looks like I’ll be making a trip to Sam’s Club this week!

I took my oldest to a youth event at church tonight, and somehow ended up volunteering to provide dinner for the group next Monday night. The “group” can range anywhere from 40 to 80 middle school kids. I think I need to put on my school lunch lady thinking cap. The meal needs to be easy, and not anything that will break the budget. Even a party sub from the grocery store is going to run me $100.

Anyone have some tips for buying food (and serving food) for a crowd?

Have you ever heard of a Turducken? The first time I heard the word, I wasn’t sure what it was - a new style of shoe? A new SUV model? Some exotic vacation destination?

How about none of the above? A Turducken is a chicken, inside a duck, inside a turkey. I don’t know about you, but I like chicken, I like duck, and I like turkey. Combining the three sounds good to me! The dish is straight out of N’awlins, and it’s gaining popularity after being mentioned on FootTV and VH1. The semi-boneless turkey has a deboned duck inside, which has a deboned chicken inside of it. Stuffing is placed in between each “meat” layer to make a tasty and moist treat that serves up to 20 people! Bake it, grill it, or even smoke it….mmmmm! When you order your Turducken online at CajunGrocer.com, you get the option of choosing the kind of stuffing you’d like, from a list that includes Turducken with Creole Sausage & Cornbread or Turducken with Seafood Jambalaya. I’ve got to tell Jim about this so I can find out if we can try it for Thanksgiving!

Last week I received my Panera bread gift certificate in the mail. One of the store managers had called me about 2 weeks ago to follow up with my complaint, and then he sent me two $6 vouchers. I took the kids back (the idiot manager wasn’t there) and we enjoyed a cheap dinner.

I’m not in a hurry to go back and pay with my own money though. The service wasn’t much better upon our return visit.

Every year, at Christmas, my father sends my family a box of Florida grown citrus. That’s normally a great gift, except for the fact that:

1) We live in Florida, so the citrus isn’t a special treat.
2) I hate citrus.

If he wants to send us a healthy gift (and again - cash is just FINE), I’d much rather it be a one of these fine fruit baskets from The Fruit Company! Big selection, great variety, unique things you won’t find anywhere else, and it’s all topped off with fast shipping. I’d love to get a gift of fruit that we can’t find at our local grocery store, like huge Rainier cherries from the Northwest, or these beautiful StarCrimson pears:

I’ve never seen such a thing! I’m not a huge fruit eater, but even I’d try something that looked that neat. The company also sells cheesecakes and those are right up my alley! Caramel apple, Bing cherry cheesecake, apple crisp, Marionberry, strawberry swirl…the cheesecakes are made with a graham cracker crust, fresh cooled, and then it heads to your house in a special cool pack container so that it won’t warm or spoil.

::drool::

(So how do I get my dad to send a cheesecake instead of the oranges?)

I bought a few Stouffer’s French Bread frozen pizzas this week, to serve as lunch for myself and the girls. I always buy the same kind - sausage and pepperoni. What can I say? When I find something I like, I stick with it. I opened a new box and began to heat one up the other day, and noticed there was just cheese on the pizza. I double checked the box, and sure enough, I had purchased my usual brand - so where were my bits of sausage and pieces of pepperoni? I checked the 2nd pizza in the box, and found only cheese on that one as well.

I called the 800 number listed on the box and talked to a rep, who took down the UPC code, and some serial numbers on the box, as well as my name and address. She’s sending me free coupons for my trouble, which wasn’t really any trouble as all. In return for eating pizza minus the toppings, I’m getting Stouffer freebies!

The moral of the story is, if you buy something - a food product, paper towels, a case of soda - and it’s not as you expected….call and say something!

What mom on the go doesn’t need quick and easy access to quick recipes? I enjoy eating out, but let me tell you - after a week straight of eating out on vacation, I was ready for a home cooked meal! (And I got it last night. Jim grilled steaks!) At any rate, I get bored quickly with cooking, so I’m always looking for easy recipes the family will like, that don’t involve weird ingredients or extra trips to the store. It’s easy to get sick of burgers and spaghetti and easy recipes quickly, so I turn to other sources.

In fact, my 9 year old is one of those sources. She got a little Campbell’s soup recipe book for Christmas, and that thing is a god-send. A lot of the recipes in it are totally kid friendly, meaning I can leave the cooking to the kids. Seriously! The most I need to do is pop a dish into the oven and take it out when it’s done. God bless Campbell’s soup and the wonderful thing it does to plain old chicken or beef!

We DID come home with some real maple syrup from Canada, but none for ourselves! I bought a bottle for my sister, and we got a bottle for Jim’s mom. I did taste the real thing at a diner in Toronto, and decided I’m a plain girl, and I’d stick with my Log Cabin generic syrup for now. No sense in buying a $10 bottle for my own home that I won’t ever use!

Yesterday was tiring. We were out in the heat picking blueberries, and I was wiped out. But we g got another 2 pounds of fresh berries, and for only $3 a pound! Check your prices for a small pint in your grocery store and you’ll see we saved a lot. But man oh man, it was freaking hot. I didn’t have an energy supplement to give me a boost, so I had to settle for going back to my car and sitting in the a/c for 20 minutes once we were done.

Totally love the u-pick concept, just need to do it when it’s not so darn hot.

I have to bitch to Chili’s about our lunch experience yesterday.

We took my mom to lunch (my kids, and my sister and I) for Mother’s Day, but it was also my son’s 8th birthday. As soon as we were seated and our drink orders were taken, my sister whispered into the server’s ear about getting a birthday sundae for my son after we were done with our food.

The meal progressed, and we really had a hard time getting our waitresses attention once we were done eating. She came back to the table to give us the check, and obviously completely forgot about the sundae. At that point, it was way too late - we had been sitting and done eating for over 20 minutes, and we were ready to go. Bummer. My son didn’t know about the birthday treat, but I’m a little bummed that the waitress couldn’t remember it and give him a nice surprise.

I’ve got one of the manager’s business cards and I’ll probably call him today.

Tea has always been thought of as a healthy alternative to drinks like coffee, but in recent years, people actually looked into how healthy tea is, and you may be surprised at how good drinking tea is for you! Tea is loaded with antioxidants (which counteract the harmful effects of free radicals) and green tea contains something called “catechins”, which are more powerful than certain vitamins! Antioxidants can also help your cholesterol. Studies are now being done that show green tea may have an effect on certain cancers as well.

As for me, I’ve tried lots of different styles and kinds of tea. Last year for my birthday, some friends and I went to a local tea house where we sampled raspberry tea, blueberry tea, and even a a tea with a chocolate flavor! I’m not sure if any of it was organic, but that’s something I’d like to try. Drinking organic tea can be an added benefit as well, since it won’t contain any traces of pesticides or fertilizers. Since the tea is all natural, you may even think that it has a richer taste than non organic tea as well. If you’d like to try organic tea, you can find it online. Be sure to look for a label of certification to make sure what you’re buying is truly organic tea.

My mother likes tea. I think it all started when her Scottish grandmother introduced her to having a “cuppa” after school. She loved it when we visited England and got to enjoy teatime every afternoon! With Mother’s Day coming up, I’ve been trying to brainstorm to come up with a unique gift idea, and I think I may be onto something. FullBloomTea has some really neat Mother’s Day gift sets that are pretty and functional. What’s a tea bloom? I didn’t know either, so I was off to investigate. A tea bloom is a creation packaged in China that will “bloom” into a floral bouquet when you steep the tea in hot water. Once you’re done drinking the tea, you can still enjoy the bloom created by the process for a few more days. These Mother’s Day gift sets include several assorted tea blooms to enjoy, a teapot, and some even include the teacups needed to savor this delicious (and healthy) tea! Isn’t that just about the most original thing you’ve ever seen? If you don’t want to buy it for your mom, there are a ton of other ideas for tea blooms - give a friend a friendship or happiness bloom. Share one with someone special. Surprise a friend - I’d love to see one of these bloom in person!

This is a sponsored review.

I’ve been craving seafood for weeks now. Jim offered to do crab legs back on Easter, but I caved and did a more family friendly meal instead. Ever since then, I can’t get crab legs out of my head. I had a little shrimp appetizer at Jim’s work shindig last week, and it just flung a craving on me. So anyway, tonight, we’re doing dinner for this work thing, and I made the reservation…for seafood! A neat little waterfront place…me, some crab legs, and a glass of wine. It’s gonna be a nice night

We’ve been researching hotels online this week for our trip in June. I’m leaning towards staying in condo hotels. Even if you pay a little more up front, the extra space and having a small kitchen in your room is SO worth it. It’s very easy to stop at a local grocery store and buy lunch meat and breakfast foods, so that you can avoid eating out 3 times a day. I like eating out…until I need to do it for every meal, all week long.

Ooh, speaking of food - anything I absolutely gotta try while I’m in Canada? Local delicacies?

It took me 3 days, but I finally got that burrito I was craving on Tuesday. A new shopping center opened up in the town where my son plays hockey, and a Moe’s is there. Yay! Welcome to Moe’s! I got a chicken burrito and devoured it in all of 5 minutes - the whole thing. Yep, I was a little hungry.

I’d be so happy if a Moe’s or Chipotle opened up in our little town!

Is there anything worse than getting your stomach ready for lunch, and then finding out the place you wanted to eat has closed? It’s hard to tame a rumbling tummy with a ham sandwich after you’ve told it “Burrito for lunch today!”. Today I found out that not one, but TWO great burrito places within driving distance of my office closed. I’m bummed. And still craving a burrito.

I’m not a good person to take to a buffet restaurant. I’m too picky, and I’m not a big eater. My sister and I met at Sweet Tomatoes today for lunch, and I had a small salad, a few veggies, a teeny bowl of soup, and some pasta, plus a drink, for $11. Someone who can eat more could definitely get their moneys worth, but not me!

I made up for it though. I had grabbed a cornbread slice when I picked up my soup but didn’t get around to eating it before I left, so I wrapped it in a napkin and took it with me. It’s going to be my afternoon snack!

I’m a reasonably picky eater. I don’t like most veggies, I don’t do onions, I don’t like tuna fish or meatloaf or fish. I avoid mixed up foods with a lot of “stuff” in them (casseroles and such) and my food on my plate can’t touch. Finicky, much? As picky as I am about my food, I have a few things I love to eat that most people probably don’t care for. One of those foods is beef jerkey. I’m not talking about the Slim Jim variety you can buy in a gas station convenience store, I’m talking about GOOD beef jerky, from a company that specializes in making it, or even the homemade kind made from super thin beef flank steak. Mmmm!

Real beef jerky is usually thin strips, almost like bacon, and not a round tube of compressed meat like you’ll find in a gas station store. I love the mild kind or the black pepper variety with a teeny bit of bite and kick to it. My sister even stashed beef jerky in her bag on our 3-Day walk last year, and we gnawed on it as we walked the streets of Philadelphia, proving that beef jerky is the ultimate on the go snack!

I’m loving the little sampler pack available at Wilson Beef Farms - a little taste of everything they offer. What a neat little gift idea!