My kids weren’t home tonight, so we went with a Grilled Chicken Salad.  My kids like salad too, but sometimes they want more than just that.  We stopped off at the farm market and picked up some tomatoes and some  cheese.  I picked different types of lettuce leaves, some parsley and dill and a pepper from the garden.  I sprinkled the chicken with some dried herbs and grilled it on a cast iron grill pan.  When it was done, I added it to all the other ingredients that I had (which were torn or chopped into bite size pieces), plus I added walnut and some Welch’s dried cherries. I like adding dried or fresh fruit (sometimes canned) to my salads. They add a touch of sweetness, or tartness and taste really good especially when you get a bite of chicken and the dried cherries together. The cherries had a nice soft texture and weren’t chewy, but easy to eat.  This isn’t the first time I’ve put dried fruit in my salad, however, I recommend Welch’s brand if you want to try it.

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My mom comes to visit me once or twice a year.  She used to bring her laptop and work, but now she’s finally retired.  She does not like to sit still and always wants jobs to do around the house.  The last time she was here,  I let her do my fridge (which is an honor, I assure you).  She tackled it with gusto, and part way through holds out the little orange box with two fingers and says, "Here I think this needs to be replaced".

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I’ve been meaning to do a Market Day post for some time now. Even if the Market Day people weren’t so kind as to send me treats to sample and recipes to post, I’d still want to talk about them. It was an interesting coincidence. The same day my son came home with the Market Day flyer in his backpack, one of the publicists from that organization contacted me about doing a write up. How could I refuse?

What is Market Day?

For those of you not in the know, Market Day is offered by schools as a fundraiser. Probably one of the only fundraisers that has stuff I can use, to be honest. Instead of selling a lot of crap either you don’t need or can’t use, Market Day offers wholesome foods the whole family can appreciate. It’s not all candy or housefold dust collectors. Market Day offers meals, snacks, appetizers and more.

How Does Market Day Work?

It’s very easy. Schools send home the Market Day brochure and order form. You can either check items off on the order form or order online. In a couple of weeks, on the designated day and time, you can go to the school to pick up your purchases. If you paid online using your credit card, you can just pick up and go after checking your order with the Market Day rep. If you’re paying via cash or check you can do so at pick up.

What Kinds of Food Can I Order Through Market Day

Market Day has a nice selection. We ordered a case of the baby carrots, which my son loves, the meatballs and the riblets. I ordered all these foods because I can nuke up a few each time I need them for my son’s lunch. It’s especially handy when we have to be somewhere quickly, and I love that they come in resealable bags. I throw some meatballs and carrots on a plate, nuke for four minutes, and there you have a kid-friendly meal.

Market Day offers a variety of entrees such as seasoned salmon, lasagna roll ups, grilling pizzas, pork tenderloins and so much more. Plus there are kid friendly finger goods like the aforementioned meatballs and riblets, chicken nuggets, hamburgers and turkey burgers, steaks, fish and foods too numerous to mention here. There are breakfasts, lunches, desserts and snacks. I only ordered a few items for our first foray, but now that we know how it works and how convenient it is, we’re ordering again. We definitely need more of those meatballs, plus I wouldn’t mind having some of those freezer entrees for our more rushed occasions.

How Much Does it Cost?

Food is reasonable through Market Day. For instance, for a 75 piece bag of Chicken Nuggets you can expect to pay $13.99 and a two pound bag of Spicy Buffalo Wings are $10.25. I did find myself comparing the cost of the Market Day food to that of my supermarket and there wasn’t much of a difference. I certainly wouldn’t by anything I felt was overpriced.

How Do I Sign Up?

Talk to whoever handles fundraisers at your children’s schools to see about using Market Day. As I said above, I don’t like buying a lot of candy or junk to raise money for school. With Market Day I’m buying stuff I know I can use.

This isn’t the end. I’ll be posting some great Market Day recipes real soon!

Oh my goodness.  The.best.spices.evah!  My good friend, Kate, recommended Penzey’s to me a few years ago and I have sung their praises ever since. I’ve shopped on line with them for the longest time and recently I had the opportunity to visit one of their stores.  I was like a kid in a candy store.  I had to buy one of each.

My suggestion would be to buy a bottle of each spice, then when you need to refill, buy in a bag.  The bottles are really nice and sturdy.

My highest recommendations are for the following spices:

• Ground Red Chipotle - I use it for all Mex/Tex-Mex recipes
• Cayenne Pepper - I put cayenne on everything.  Well maybe not fruit, but…
• Granulated Garlic Powder - when you need powder instead of minced
• Oregano (Turkish) - for all Italian and Greek recipes.  I use it in my Matrix sauce and sprinkle it on pizza
• Basil (California Sweet) - the tomato’s best friend.  Matrix and pizza as well
• Oriental Mustard (Powder, Canada Hot) - I mix up a paste with equal part water/mustard powder and a dash of soy sauce for take-out egg rolls.  Even the HMIL would love it.
• Cinnamon - go to the site.  Buy some.  It doesn’t matter what type.  you will love how the smell jumps out of the jar!

Special Blends:

• Bangkok Blend - spicy and sweet all at once.  I use it on steak as a replacement for Montreal seasoning
• Lemon Pepper - great for grilling Buffalo wings - it’s how I prepare my wings [which I do every week in football season].
• Florida Seasoned Pepper - in place of lemon pepper.  It’s got the citrus without the salt. 

Try these spices.  Trust me on this, you will not be disappointed.

Cookerati is happy to participate in the Bloggy Giveaways this week. We hope to have a couple of cool products for you, and here’s the first:

My husband and I enjoy both wine and new gadgets so we were kind of tickled when we received The Wine Holder to review. The Wine Holder is such a simple design, yet it’s so cool everyone will ask where you got it.

In essence The Wine Holder is a piece of wood with a hole on top and a 45 degree angle on either end. These angles allow The Wine Holder to sit on your bar or countertop or dining room table without taking up a lot of room. They’re sturdy enough to hold a full bottle of wine, yet small and lightweight enough to store in your utensil drawer.

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This is what mustard is all about.  It’s from my home town, Buffalo NY, and it’s still about the only place you can get it at a reasonable mustard price.   You can get it from places like www.amazon.com or www.budricks.com.  It’s smooth, it’s got some spice to it - otherwise I don’t think I would eat it.  And once you’ve tried it a few times, you probably won’t go back to the regular old yellow mustard you’ve grown accustomed to.    Now that grilling season is upon us, I can’t wait to use this on hamburgers and hot dogs.

By now you’ve surely seen the infomercial for the Magic Bullet. In the commercial you see the happy couple playing host to house guests on the morning after what appears to have been a hell of a party. In 30 minutes the couple whips smoothies, omelets, cheese for nachos and more with this amazing machine - to the astonishment of the their guests. The infomercial is lame, but entertaining. Is it true though? Does the Magic Bullet do all they say it does?

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Normally I’m not a prepackaged guacamole type gal. I like to make my own using fresh ingredients found out the local farmer’s market. Sometimes however. convenience prevails.

I like the Wholly Guacamole line because it’s smooth, creamy, delicious and yes, convenient. I’m digging it even more now because it comes in 100 calorie packs. You heard me right, 100 calorie packs of guacamole.

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“What?  You’ve never heard of the Big Green Egg?  Holy Jeebus.  WAYSA?” 

This is what I want to say to people.  This is by far the best outside cooking device known to mankind.  When we moved to Florida I purchased a nice sized regular grill and thought that it would suffice.  Then I was looking through some old files on the computer and …well to make a long story even longer…I bought one.  And then I got the bug…the BGE bug.   

My poor grill.  It’s only used now as a workhorse for bulk or pedestrian items such as hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken wings. 

My lovely ceramic piece of art cookware takes on the rest of my grilling and roasting work.  I’ve made beef jerky, smoked fish, roasted pork and grilled chicken.  All of these meats come out extremely tasty, with a nice natural smoke flavor and very succulent.  From the published material, I understand you can do breads and pizza in it, but I haven’t gotten there yet. 

There is one down side.  It’s very expensive.  My medium sized BGE was about $800.

Mine is a medium sized, but I am going to keep my eye out for an extra large. 

Oh my goodness …  if you know me then you know how much I love my spicy food.  I am digging on the Cholula Original Seasoning because it’s hot sauce in a powdered format.  If you like your hot sauce, then this is for you.

 According to the web site, http://cholulastore.com/detail.aspx?ID=29,  it’s big on flavor and not on salt!

Premium coarse ground ingredients lets you see, taste and smell the generous bits of signature spices without the overwhelming saltiness or heat found in other seasonings.

Captures the Flavorful Fire of Cholula Hot Sauce with an exclusive blend of coarse ground peppers, garlic, onion and spices. It’s a wonderful flavor enhancement to steak, burgers, chicken, seafood, pizza, french fries, eggs and omelets. As an ingredient it gives soups, sauces and marinades a zesty delicious flavor distinction.

And it sure is all that. I made breakfast this morning and used it liberally in my scrambled eggs.  It was dee-lish.