Berries and Carrots and Tomatoes, Oh my!

Somewhere around the end of last month I made a decision.
We need alot more fruits and veggies in our diets. No more of this crackers for most snacks business (really bad, I know).
Well, when I decide to do something, especially for our health, I stick to it! So, now I (Justice doesn’t always participate and the hubby doesn’t always have room to store fruits and veggies at work but they’re both working on it) have at least one serving of fruits and/or veggies with each meal as well as having them for snacks. Justice knows that if she wants a snack she’s getting fruits or veggies except for a rare treat of (lower sugar) animal crackers or goldfish or something.
And let me tell you, I love it!!
My typical choices are things that are easy to chop and store.
Watermelon, strawberries, raspberries, black berries, pears, apples, grapes, kiwi, and clementine oranges.
For veggies I tend to stick to grape or cherry tomatoes, cauliflower, baby carrots, orange and yellow peppers, celery, and cucumbers.
One tip I have found that helps immensely is cutting everything up as soon as we get home from grocery shopping. I was doing it at each meal time but by the time I was done, the meal was almost over. So, yesterday after I got everything put away, I proceeded to wash and chop about 5 lbs. of fruit. The veggies get pieced today. Talk about easier and more efficient. Wooo!

So I just thought that I’d share this morning’s addition to breakfast.

Yummm!!!
(and Justice discovered she loved the rasp/black berries. :)


(sorry for the blur, it was a quick phone pic)

I hope that you all rethink your fruit and vegetable consumption (if it’s not already sufficient) and use this as inspiration on how you can better your diet. You’ll still get plenty of sweetness but packed with vitamins and antioxidants and fiber! Wooo!
I’m so loving it. And so is my body. :)

I’m not nuts! And neither is this delicious mix!

Salty, sweet and crunchy?? Oh yes! Yes, they are!

I was recently given an opportunity from Enjoy Life Foods ® to review the new packaging for their not nuts! Seed and Fruit Mixes.

Yay!!

Here at the Mo’s Momstuff house, we’d given up on having little treats like trail mixes. Being a completely nut-free home, we just resigned ourselves to missing those lovely little indulgences. Well…

Not any more! :)

I have to admit, we had never tried this particular product lineup from Enjoy Life ®. We’re huge supporters of theirs and love everything that we’ve tried, but honestly, their wonderful products aren’t available in our regular grocery store and we just don’t get over to Sunflower Market to get the specialty items anymore. Since they’re ‘extras’ it’s just not part of our shopping routine. But I had definitely seen them before.

Let me just tell you-

They’re delicious! I love both pumpkin and sunflower seeds so it was wonderful that they both had them. In abundance. Yum! But I’m not a big cranberry or raisin fan though. Luckily, neither of these mixes have too many of either of those things. They have enough to vary the flavors and textures, but not so many that you feel like that’s all you’re getting in each bite, which is nice. I know there are plenty of mixes out there that overload you (well…me) with raisins as ‘filler’. Enjoy Life ® hasn’t done that. Thank you Enjoy Life ®! :)
I loved the chocolate chips in the Mountain Mambo mix. I actually wish that the Beach Bash mix had had chocolate chips as well but at the same time I’m glad that they offer one without. Not everyone wants chocolate chips.

They have new packaging now.

See???

And I like it. I like the look. I like the feel of the bags. They’re a softer, not-so-plasticky feeling bag. It’s different. It’s nice. Resealable is also always a big plus in my book. The only issue I had with this packaging is that they’re not super easy to tear open. The plastic doesn’t rip all that easily but it’s nothing that a pair of scissors didn’t take care of!

All in all, I love the packages. They’ve got a great feel and I LOVE how big the “NUT FREE” declaration is! I also really enjoy being able to see the actual mix. The little ‘windows’ help immensely. I know I’m much more likely to buy a product that I can actually see. Aren’t you?!

This review was a joy and brought to you by…

For more info on Enjoy Life Foods background visit here
Find where to buy Enjoy Life products here
You can Follow Enjoy Life on Twitter here and on Facebook here

~~I was provided with the product contained in this post for purpose of review but all opinions are completely my own based on quality and not conditional or influenced.~~

Some Foodie Blog love

So I’ve recently joined a Foodie Blog Group and I’m very excited. We can help each other with motivation, questions, hints, tips, support in general. People in the same niche with whom we can share and encourage. It’s pretty great actually.
The group was started by my bloggy mentor Blogelina. She’s been an amazing resource. As a matter of fact, she did the transfer of this blog from blogger here to WordPress. :)
I just wanted to give a shout out to my Foodie Blog Buddies; share them with you and let you experience all they have to offer for yourself. :)

The Family Foodie – Family-friendly meals made with fresh seasonal ingredients. She also does Gluten Free recipes/adaptations as well
Armstrong Family Fare – Meal planning and tons of recipes
Tim and Angi’s Blog – Recipes (see the mint chocolate cookies!) as well as homeschooling, giveaways, and reviews.
Alex Shares – recipes and food stuff featured every Wednesday as well as organizing tips from a work at home mom.

So head over…check em out. Follow them and then let them know I sent you! :)

Enjoy your new sites/sources-

Mo

Mmmm….Crunchy Goodness thanks to Enjoy Life!

Who doesn’t love cookies?! I’m just sayin….
I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t love cookies. My personal faves are the soft chewy kind but a tasty crunchy cookie definitely has it’s place. And……I’ve found some absolutely delicious ones that will ALWAYS be welcome in my cabinet.

I was recently given the opportunity to review Enjoy Life‘s New CRUNCHY Cookies.
We were lucky enough to get to try all 4 of their new flavors. They were all tasty but I definitely developed a couple of favorites. ;)

   

   

A few years ago when my amazing husband went Gluten Free I embarked on the journey with him. I quickly came to discover that I wasn’t a fan. To me, most GF products are bland and rather cardboard like in both consistency and flavor. There are occasional exceptions but they are definitely that; exceptions.
Well fab fans and followers let me tell you…
That’s not the case with Enjoy Life’s New CRUNCHY Cookies! I was rather surprised and gladly so. To be perfectly honest, although I love the other products of theirs that I’ve tried, I really didn’t expect much in the way of flavor from these. As I said before, I’m not a huge crunchy cookie fan but…
These are my new exceptions.
My favorite of the 4 is the Double Chocolate. And believe it or not…I’m not a HUGE chocolate fan! It’s chocolatey but genuinely so. It doesn’t seem cocoa powdery like so many others. They have a nice creamy texture even though they’re crunchy which was surprising. I tried to stay away from them but it just didn’t work! They’re too good! LOL  Darn you Enjoy Life for totally destroying my self control! ;) I have to tell you…I failed in my attempts to refrain. As if you couldn’t have guessed.

The Chocolate Chip comes next in my list. The usual great flavor and consistency of the chocolate that I so enjoy but not as rich as the Double Chocolate.

The Vanilla Honey Graham were quite delicious. I wasn’t sure what to expect from these. Were they going to be like a graham cracker? How vanilla-y would they be? These have great flavor but are dryer than the 1st two. Definitely tasty though. :)

The Sugar Crisp‘s are tasty but my least favorite of the bunch. No specific complaint. There’s nothing wrong with them. Just not as desired by my taste buds. Evan tried them and enjoyed them quite a bit as did Dominic. And I will be more than happy to have them again. Are you kidding?! Still get sweet tasty cookies but not the decadent kill my self control cookies? I’m in! ;)

As a note…Dominic was of absolutely no help to me whatsoever with this review. All he did was agree with my opinions and then…have another cookie! LOL

My joy at finding a company that makes wonderfully delicious treats that are safe for my family to eat abounds. A company that is dedicated to making products FREE of the Top 8 allergens, Gluten, and artificial ingredients is MY kind of company! With the ever-increasing rate of food allergies and intolerance in this nation of ours (Currently about 12 million Americans have food allergies and more than a quarter of those are to peanuts or tree nuts; Justice being one of them.) the fact that Enjoy Life Foods is still a minority is both disappointing and sad. So I’m all about encouraging and supporting a company that does both of those things for my family and their health.

For more info on Enjoy Life Foods background visit here
Find where to buy Enjoy Life products here
You can Follow Enjoy Life on Twitter here and on Facebook here
**Allergy statistics taken from here

I hope that this info and these opinions find you well and hopefully shed some new light into your healthy eating choices.

~~I was provided with the product contained in this post for purpose of review but all opinions are completely my own based on quality and not conditional or influenced.~~

Mo

Meal Plan 11/20/11

This week was somewhat difficult to plan. A change in the “schedule” just throws me right off!
I managed to get the plan done, throw in a new recipe that I’m pretty excited about, and am trying a new take on an old stand-by. Not too bad. :) And if you can believe it………………….

There’s only 1 scrounge day this week! LOL!!!

Of course….we still haven’t figured out what to do for Thursday but…..we’ll get there when we get there. ;)

So here you go; the schedule for what will tantalize our taste buds this week (minus Thanksgiving that is).

Sunday (yesterday) was a carry over from last week’s meal plan, Steak & Zucchini Fettuccine. So delish and easy. It was suggested that we try it with chicken next time so we may well do that sometime in the near future. :)

Monday (today) is holding our famous stand-by Turkey Mac~n~Cheese. Not the healthiest or greatest for our digestive health, but oh so yummy and easy. And it’s a meal that everyone LOVES so…. :)

Tuesday will bring a new twist on an oldie. We’ll be having our (tomato free) meatloaf (that’s usually made with ground turkey) but with ground chicken instead. We decided, “What the heck? It’s worth a shot.”. I’ll be sure to let you know how it comes out.

Wednesday is Sweet Justice’s 2nd birthday and our kitchen will be cookin’ up Nachos!! This is her fave meal (she asks for it almost daily) so it’s the only real choice for dinner on her special day!! Happy 2nd Birthday to my beautiful little Love!

Thursday is Thanksgiving and the meal has yet to be determined. LOL
Yeah…isn’t this one day that’s (for the most part) set pretty much all year?!?! Yep…..not in our house! LOL
Last year we went out for Chinese. It was delicious and a terrific way to celebrate our thankfulness. We were thankful to be able to go out to eat somewhere. I was thankful to not have to make a big meal that wouldn’t ALL get eaten, to not have to find places/ways to store the leftovers, and to not be spending my day in the kitchen but instead, with my family. [We have a small apartment so there's just not room for more than 1 person in the kitchen much less a family gathering.] All of our families are in New Mexico and we concentrate our efforts to go down for Christmas for family togetherness so it’s just us for Thanksgiving. :)
As we can’t go to Chinese again this year (Justice’s health is just not worth the cross-contamination risk from the nut containing dishes), we’re contemplating a couple of other family dining restaurants that are open in our area. Whatever our dinner plates hold, we will be together and that’s what it’s about. :)

Friday will feature the new recipe for the week, Ham & Cheddar Pie. I found this one on recipe.com and I can’t wait! It seems quite like a quiche (which I LOVE) but not as fancy. Right up my alley! Woo! :)

And then we end the week’s meal plan with Saturday’s Scrounge day. Not a bad meal plan for the week huh?!

Hoping that you have an excellent week and a Truly Terrific Thanksgiving,

Mo