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.

For Christmas, I knew I wanted a single serve coffee maker. I am the only regular coffee drinker in my house, so I wanted something that would brew one serving at a time. I researched different coffee makers deciding which one I wanted based on price and the reviews that were on the web sites.

One web site had pre-Christmas sale for a complete kit – coffee, mug, coffee brewing station all for a low price of $45.00 about 25.00 less than the normal “on sale” price. I told my husband that this is what I wanted and gave him the link.

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I love Iced Coffees and Frappacinos and Coolatas and other cups of sweet, frosty coffied goodness. Here’s the thing though, many of these products are overly sweet and very fattening. That’s why I was so pleasantly surprised after sampling Caribou Iced Coffees. They were light, not too sweet and low in calories. So I can have my guilty pleasure without actually feeling guilty. Thus, total pleasure no guilt.

Caribou Iced Coffee comes in three different varieties, Regular Iced Coffee, Iced Coffee with Espresso and Vanilla Iced Coffee. Each ranged from 100 to 140 calories per bottle, with maybe a gram and a half each. And speaking of bottles, here’s something else I liked. The bottle is made of lightweight aluminum instead of glass. I can put one in my purse and it’s not very heavy.

True iced coffee and frappy-type drink lovers might find the Caribou Iced Coffee a little too light for their tests. I’m not one of them. I appreciate it’s lightness, because it has less sugar and other stuff the flavor of the delicious Caribou coffee comes through.

For more information, do visit the Caribou Coffee website.

I’m having car problems and the roads are icy today, so I didn’t feel like going to the supermarket as previously planned. Even so, there wasn’t much food to work with in my freezer. I settled on a package of chicken wings. Now, I’m not my husband. He doesn’t mind venturing out in 18 degrees to grill up a batch of wings. I’m not that ambitious. What I decided to do was slow cook them in my crockpot.

A few months ago Buff sent me some T.J.Morgan’s Basting Sauce, and I’ve been finding some good uses for it. Today I marinated my chicken wings with the TJ. Morgan’s Teriyaki Sauce - using the Vacu-Seal to get the job done quicker - and slow cooked the wings to perfection. They’re just about falling off the bone. And Ok, I sample a couple since dinner won’t be for a while, and they’re absolutely out of this world.

T.J.Morgans touts itself as a basting sauce, but I also use it as a marinade. The Teriyaki sauce is absolutely divine. Friends, don’t be afraid to experiment in your kitchen. Sometimes the best food is born out of experimentation.

I’ll admit it. The Vacu-Seal was sent to me to review for this blog and another of my blogs, Simply Thrifty. I probably wouldn’t have gone out and bought it because I use (and reuse) ziplock bags and old Chinese food containers to store my food. Was I ever pleasantly surprised!

The first thing I noticed was how lightweight and compact the Vacu-Seal is. It doesn’t take up my precious counter space and fits neatly inside a drawer with no problem. My kitchen is small, I don’t have room for anything on my counters. The compactness of the Vacu-Seal is truly appreciated.

The second thing I noticed was how easy to use. I didn’t even need to look at the instructions, it’s kind of self explanatory. Put the Vacu-Seal nozzel into the valve on the reusable bag, and press a button. Really, it’s that simple.

The Vacu-Seal comes with reusable zipper lock bags so you save some coin on foil, bags or containers. You can use it to marinate food in minutes or to keep your leftovers in the fridge longer. Because the bags are zipper lock, there’s no cutting.

I’m definitely going to enjoy this!