Pasta Salad - a Summer favorite

I love pasta salad and rumor has it its a favorite among lots of folks in the Summer.  My girlfriend made up a batch over the weekend and invited me over for a bowl.  The great thing about Pasta salad is that you can have it on its own for lunch or a snack or as a side with lunch or dinner.  Pasta salad is something that you really don't need a recipe for.  Some of my favorite things to add to a pasta salad are ham, peas, corn, pickles, and cheese.

My girlfriend and I were discussing tips on making pasta salad and there were a few that stuck out for us.  First you can't rinse the pasta with cold water once you cook it.  If you rinse it with cold water the mayo won't stick and it goes dry the next day.  When you drain the pasta you just add the frozen peas and corn and mix.  While the peas and corn are defrosting in the hot noodles the noodles cool off. 

Then you can thrown in the rest of your ingredients and your good to go.  Nobody wants pasta salad where the mayo won't stick to the noodles.  Another great tip is to add some pickle juice to the mayo when your making the dressing.  It just gives it a bit of a kick.  The contrast in the different flavors does it for me.  Sharpness in the cheese, sweetness in the pickle and the kick in the dressing.  Love it. 

What is your tip for a really good pasta salad?

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own!

Stuffed Mushroom Caps, tis the season

Every year since the kids were little we have a night to do our Christmas decorating and we like to invite the grandparents over and make a night of it with appies and eggnog.  You can't decorate a Christmas tree without eggnog.  Because things have changed so much for the kids this year and we are making new traditions I still want to keep some of the old ones even if they are tweaked a bit.  I am a huge Christmas fan and always had to beg to set up the tree and decorate the house for the beginning of December.  Now we did it when we wanted.  I may be making the kids Christmas crazy but who cares, its Christmas.

November 19th was a long enough wait for us so we decided to invite my parents over and do appies and decorate the tree.  The rest of the house may have already been done :)  My mom is on a wheat free diet, which I am used to with my ex but haven't been doing lately of course.  So I set to work making my menu.  The kids were really into it and I loved it, we made some great memories that night! 

My menu got a little out of control because there are so many appies that we love and so before you know it you are making way to much food.  Some things like crackers, cheese and garlic coil sausage scream Christmas and even my Dad said after having one now it feels like the Holidays!  I also made some homemade potato skins, 7 layer dip, broccoli salad, stuffed mushroom caps, some homemade potato chips and dip and scallops wrapped in bacon.  I think there might have been more but that's all I remember :)

The favorite of the night though, well of Kristina and I's, was the stuffed mushroom caps.  I am a huge fan of stuffed mushroom caps but hate to order them in restaurants when I know that I can make them in about 10 minutes at home and they are just as good if not better because I get to choose everything that goes into it. 

So here is what I did.  I used a package of herb and garlic cream cheese, added some minced garlic, Parmesan cheese and grated cheddar cheese and mixed.  I took the stems out of the mushrooms and stuffed them with this mix.  Then I added more grated cheese on top and cooked them at 350 for 12 minutes.  They were so good, and not to bad for you, compared to the bacon wrapped scallops ;)   There are plenty of other great recipes for appies on Life Made Delicious that you should check out!  This is what I am thinking about making for Christmas morning, with bacon though of course.

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own!!

Hamburger Helper with a Giveaway

By now you all know how much I like coupons, I have actually gotten even more into coupons over the last few weeks.  When I was in Vancouver with my Mom, Aunty, and daughter last weekend I even did a quick walk through a drug store there looking for coupons :)  I am getting a bit addicted and its pretty funny.  I could be addicted to worse things though than saving money.

While working with the great team over at Life Made Delicious I have learned about some awesome new coupons that are in store now.  You can get $4 off chicken or beef on the Old El Paso taco kit, got one, free yogurt on selected cereal, got 2 and free juice on select fruit by the foots and fruit snacks.  The main one we are going to look at is the free veggies with Hamburger Helper. 

We don't make a lot of Hamburger Helper because Kris can't have wheat but I love the one pot meal theory.  Why not do it all up in one big pot, meat, carbs and veggies.  The first thing I would do to Hamburger Helper is add some veggies to it.  My kids love veggies, raw or cooked as long as they are dipped in sauce or in a dish, steamed veggies not so much, other than corn.  Anytime I made spaghetti sauce, chili or any other one pot type meal I always puree and chunk up some veggies in it.

Its easier than ever right now with the coupon for a free bag of green giant vegetables!  You buy Hamburger Helper and a bag of Green Giant frozen veggies and then next time you use your coupon and buy Hamburger Helper and get the bag of veggies free, and keep on doing it until the promo is over :)

One of my lucky winners will be able to skip that first step by winning three boxes of Hamburger Helper and three coupons for free Green Giant vegetables as well as a skillet to cook them in worth $60!!

Open to Canadian residents only, also please note readers can enter across multiple blogs but only win once

To Enter:

Tell me how you make your Hamburger Helper, do you have a special ingredient or something you do to make it extra delicious?

(This must be done for additional entries to count)

Additional Entries:

- add my Fun and Funky Mommy button to your blog (2 entries)

- follow me publicly (2 entries)

- subscribe to Fun and Funky Mommy

- like me on facebook (leave your first name and last initial so I can find you)

- blog about this giveaway with a link to me

- follow me on twitter @Funfunkymommy AND tweet about this giveaway for one entry (can RT daily for another entry)

***Feel free to Retweet this***

Win 3 boxes of Hamburger Helper, 3 coupons for free Green Giant Vegetables and a Skillet @Funfunkymommy #LMDGiveaway http://tinyurl.com/3q33dey


***** Contest will end on November 22nd at 8:00 PM. I will use Random.org to choose the winner. The winner will have 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. Make sure that your profile is set to public or that you include your email in your comments because if I can't get a hold of you can't win! Contest open to Canada ONLY*****

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Thanksgiving - Who is as excited as me?

I am so excited for Thanksgiving this coming Monday, I am cooking, with my husbands help, my first turkey with all the fixings!  I have been planing the menu out in my head for the past two weeks.  My parents are going to see my brother for Thanksgiving and its not a big holiday for my Mother in law so if we want turkey its up to us.  With how much I love turkey, well a turkey bun anyways, we just have to.  When we thought my parents were going to be in town we were going to buy a turkey anyways just for leftovers.  You really can't recreate a turkey bun!

So my menu consists of turkey, obviously, my secret family stuffing recipe, homemade cranberry chutney, we just canned it last week, roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes, fresh corn on the cob that I blanched and cut off the cob and froze.  Buns and pickles, home canned, and something for dessert.  I can't believe I haven't decided on a dessert.  I am trying to make the entire thing wheat free, other than the buns lol.  Wheat free buns are so bad that Kris won't even eat them. 

I am not a big fan of pumpkin pie or pumpkin itself really, other than to look at or of course roasted seeds, those are yummy, so what should I make.  Maybe I will make up a Betty Crocker Gluten Free Devils Food cake, Kris loved the last one I made, and I could decorate it with orange icing.  Or I could make a Chocolate-Orange cake with Ganache Glaze!  Check out this and more easy recipies on Life Made Delicious!  I hope that by now you use it lots, I just typed gluten free cake into the search bar and the Chocolate-Orange cake with Ganache Glaze came up, how yummy does that look!  I think I will have to make it, I will let you know how it turns out unless one of you has an even better recipie from Life Made Delicious to share with me!

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

New Betty Crocker Cookbook Giveaway

This last week has been insane for me.  My girlfriend and I have been canning like crazy people and making all sorts of goodies.  I had an ad up on craigslist looking for apples and got so many it was crazy.  We even got a bin full of pears from one woman who had a giant pear tree.  Kris's Grandparents also have a plum tree so we had a bucket of plums as well.  We started out just with good old applesauce and went from there.  It was a whirlwind few days, hence my absence here, and the amount of goodies at the end of it was amazing. 

All it cost us was the sugar, pectin, and seals.  We made 30 liters of applesauce, 16 liters of juice, and almost 50 small jars of jelly's.  We made plum preserve, pear preserve, vanilla pear jelly, spiced pear jelly, ginger lemon pear jelly, and apple butter.  Its exhausting to just write that lol.  We are both beyond exhausted and our houses were disasters.  I have to tell you though it feels pretty amazing feeding my kids free and healthy natural foods that I know exactly whats in them.  Not to mention the Christmas gifts I now have stockpiled in my cupboard :)

Brandon was in his glory.  We started out making salsa, I can't even remember, maybe two weeks ago.  Brandon squeezed 30 lbs of tomatoes and got all the seeds out and still wanted to do more.  With the apples he peeled tons of them, he loves being in the kitchen and helping us make anything and everything.

When I cook I either have to do it with my girlfriend, shes an amazing cook, or I have to use a recipe, and if its an easy recipe all the better.  I can't just wing it and guess, go buy taste etc.  I can't do it at all.  When I heard about the the latest addition to the Betty Crocker cookbook collection: “The New Edition of the Big Red Cookbook” I couldn't wait to check it out.  You don't even have to wait until you run to the bookstore either.  There are 85 of the 1500 Big Red Cookbook recipes on the Life Made Delicious site!  You can check them out before you run to the store to get your hot little hands on it!  You can pick it up at Amazon, Indigo and Chapters, BettyCrocker.com and Wiley Publishing.

Even better - One Canadian reader will win a copy of the Betty Crocker cookbook collection: “The New Edition of the Big Red Cookbook”

To Enter:

Tell me your favorite recipe from the cookbook on Life Made Delicious
(This must be done for additional entries to count)

Additional Entries:

- add my Fun and Funky Mommy button to your blog (2 entries)

- follow me publicly (2 entries)

- subscribe to Fun and Funky Mommy

- like me on facebook (leave your first name and last initial so I can find you)

- blog about this giveaway with a link to me

- follow me on twitter @Funfunkymommy AND tweet about this giveaway for one entry (can RT daily for another entry)

***Feel free to Retweet this***

Canadians - win the new Betty Crocker cookbook @Funfunkymommy #BettyCrocker2011 http://tinyurl.com/5v6sbvn


***** Contest will end on October 27th at 8:00 PM. I will use Random.org to choose the winner. The winner will have 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. Make sure that your profile is set to public or that you include your email in your comments because if I can't get a hold of you can't win! Contest open to Canada ONLY!  You can enter on multiple blogs but only win one one!*****

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Apples apples everywhere!

This is my first year hunting and gathering apples :)  I have gotten into canning a lot in the last 2 years, finally bought my own canner last fall.  I almost always can with my girlfriend and we are always trying out new recipes and ideas.  I really wanted to do something with apples because you can usually get your hands on some for free.  You really can't get cheaper than that. 

We decided to make applesauce.  I went with my Aunt and we picked a lot.  We got 2 superstore bins full and 3 reusable shopping bags full.  It only took us an hour and we got them from my cousin in law because she had so many we were able to go and get as many as we could.  Apparently she doesn't want to see another apple this year lol.

After collecting I took my 2 bins full to Christy's and we peeled and cored them, that also took about an hour.  Brandon was in such a good mood and he helped us a lot.  He was ripping up the apples into small pieces and putting them all in the bowl for us.  It was so cute, he loves helping in the kitchen.

Basically we cooked down the apples, added some cinnamon to taste and then used an immersion blender to mix, blend and make the apples all smooth so there wouldn't be any chunks.  To can the applesauce you just take the hot apple sauce, hot jars, we run a sink of hot water to put them in, and then fill the jars to a 1/2 inch from the top.  Then you stir with a chopstick or something to get out any bubbles, wipe the rim, add a hot seal and screw on a lid to finger tight.  You put it in a water bath, and once the water is boiling you time 10 minutes and then you are done!  Simple, and so cheap.  Just be sure that all of the jars seal, if not you can redo them or you can just throw it in the freezer or eat it right away.  We ended up needed to buy 125 ml jars for this so this cost us $22 for over 55 jars, all natural and soooo cheap and next year we will have the jars and just need to spend about $9 on seals!

What do you make with the apples you get?  Check out the easy recipes on Life Made Delicious!

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Coupons

I love coupons, so much so that I got a little photo album at the dollar store and filled it with coupons!  Today at the store Kristina kept asking why I was buying almost everything I put in the cart, "do you have a coupon for that?"

Annoying of her but totally true!  I love to save as much as I can.  We only make so much money every month so why not spend as little as you can?  There are so many places to get coupons!  You can like your favorite product companies on facebook for coupons, check your local paper, there are usually great ones in there.  You can also check out Life Made Delicious for some awesome coupons!  Also if they sign up for their newsletter there will be some awesome coupons coming out shortly!  You can sign up for the newsletter here!

I don't want to give anything away but there will be a few $1 off coupons that are awesome!  Here is my only hint :)  Have you tried the  new  Fibre 1 100-Calorie Strawberry Flavour with Chocolatey Coating granola bar?  OMG its soooo good!  The kids eat the chocolate Fiber 1 bars like they are never going to make them again and when they tried the new  Fibre 1 100-Calorie Strawberry Flavour with Chocolatey Coating granola bars they had found a new favorite!

If you still haven't check out Life Made Delicious you really need to, the facebook page is full of great tips and chatter and the website has so many easy recipes that you could have a new recipe everyday for over a year!

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Fresh Summer berries!

We love to pick berries!  As soon as school is out we are picking strawberries, although with all the rain in BC this "Summer" we didn't get as many as I would have liked!  Then its onto raspberries and blueberries!  I like to just flash freeze all of our berries the same day as we pick organic untreated berries so they need to be processed the same day.  Flash freezing if you don't know if just laying all of the berries with all stems removed on a cookie sheet in one layer and freezing for about 30 mins until partly frozen and then I dump them into a large Ziploc bag, this was they don't all stick together.

Because its usually so hot in the Summer I tend to make all of my jams in September or October when its a bit cooler out and just thaw out the berries and have a jam day or two!  This year my Sister in Law and Mother in Law went up to Kelowna for two weeks and brought back 20 lbs each of cherries and peaches!  I would have loved to can up some peaches but with all of us on the property and all of our families they all got eaten up!  I did however get to can about 15 lbs of cherries!  I was going to make cherry pie filling to make pies and for cheesecake toppings for the rest of the year but you need something called clear gel to make it so I couldn't and was bummed!

I decided to just do good old cherry jam!  I don't own a cherry pitter because I haven't actually made anything with cherries before, we usually just eat them all up.  Of course instead of getting one I just figured it wouldn't be that bad and pitted them by hand.  Holy man that was so much work!  Trust me when I tell you to invest the $10 and buy one!!  My fingers were dark purple for about 3 or 4 full days.  It was crazy but the jam is sooooooo good it was worth it!  I have shared it all over the property and everyone said that they loved it!  A lot of sugar went into it but at least I know what else went into our jam!

I am pretty bummed that I didn't think to take any pictures while I was making it so you are just going to have to use your imagination :)

If you are looking for some easy recipes then check out Life Made Delicious!

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own

Gluten Free Betty Crocker cake mix!

If my hubby is home for dinner, and not fishing, we are a full wheat free family!  The kids and I do like to eat bread and pasta etc when Kris is away or working so we do definitely eat it but we are finding so many great wheat free options!  When Kris was first diagnosed with a very strong wheat free allergy there was not many options out there.  The options that were, were very expensive and lots of them were tasteless and sawdusty.  Not fun and because of that Kris lost about 60 lbs!

He has definitely gained a lot of that back though once we slowly figured out what he could eat.  I am happy that I am finding more and more every time I hit up the grocery store.  More and more people are finding that they have wheat sensitivities, allergies and/or celiac so the options are piling up which we are loving!

This is the golden cake with strawberry icing and chocolate dipped strawberries!

When I found out that Betty Crocker was coming out with a gluten free cake mix I was thrilled but reserved.  We have tried a few cake mixes and usually you need to add banana or apple puree to make them not so dry and to add some flavour.  When the Betty Crocker cake mix arrived I really wanted to add to it because I didn't want it to turn out not so good but because I just needed to test it out as is I went with it. 

The mix was great!  I just added water and eggs and mixed away.  When I put it in the oven I was a little worried because it seemed a bit runny but I just trucked on.  When it came out it looked like a regular cake!  I couldn't wait for it to cool to see how it tasted!  I whipped up some homemade chocolate icing, because the first one I tried was the devils food chocolate, I saved the golden for next time!  I couldn't wait to eat it and was it ever worth the wait! 

It was moist and flavourful and so good! I can not wait until I find them on the grocery store shelf (they are available in July so soon I will see them!) If you spot them please let me know via facebook and I will let you know when I find them and where! Can't wait!  Make sure you check out Life Made Delicious and their easy recipes!

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Life Made Delicious - 3 Beach Towels Giveaway

You need to know about the most exciting offer of the summer, FREE Beach towels! That’s right FREE! Starting July 15th all you’ll have to do is find the code inside specially marked packs of General Mills cereals, go online to lifemadedelicious.ca/freetowel and enter it, then pick which towel you’d like!

They’re branded with all of our favourite General Mills characters: Buzz the Bee, Pillsbury Doughboy, Lucky Charms and more – 5 designs in total! PLUS (like this could get any better) they are proud to share the option to donate your beach towel to an underprivileged child through the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation!  How awesome is that?!?!?!?!

We have a small pool in our backyard and spend most Summer days outside in the pool, with Brandon and I on the deck or in the yard playing!  The pool is just to cold for him still, it really needs to warm up here on Vancouver Island!  Luckily for me Kristina doesn't seem bothered by it and is out there almost everyday.

There are some great new Summer recipes on Life Made Delicious!  Have you checked it out yet?  Its amazing, there are so many different easy recipes on there for you!  You can search by a recipe or by the main ingredient you want to use!  Great for a Summer BBQ or a picnic on the trampoline, that's our favorite!

You can win The “General Mills Free Towel Offer Giveaway” pack which is valued at approximately $50 and includes three (3), 60” x 30”, limited edition General Mills towels.  You may enter the contest on multiple blogs but are only eligible to win one Free Towel Offer prize pack as part of the contest.  Full promotion details can be found at https://www.lifemadedelicious.ca/freetowel

To Enter:

Share your favourite summer recipe

(this must be done for additional entries to count)

Additional Entries:

- add my Fun and Funky Mommy button to your blog (2 entries)

- follow me publicly (2 entries)

- subscribe to Fun and Funky Mommy

- like me on facebook (leave your first name and last initial so I can find you)

- blog about this giveaway with a link to me

- follow me on twitter @Funfunkymommy AND tweet about this giveaway for one entry (can RT daily for another entry)

***Feel free to Retweet this***

Win 3 limited edition towels from General Mills and Life Made Delicious #LMDConnector @Funfunkymommy #GMFreeTowelOffer http://tinyurl.com/6a2gm5c

***** Contest will end on August 9th at 8:00 PM. I will use Random.org to choose the winner. The winner will have 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. Make sure that your profile is set to public or that you include your email in your comments because if I can't get a hold of you you can't win! Contest open to Canada ONLY*****

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own!

Gluten Free Chex

1 in every 133 Canadians suffers from Celiac Disease and 71% of Canadians are looking for more gluten free options!  We are a mostly gluten free family aside from when Kris is fishing :)  He has a very sensitive wheat intolerance/allergy.  There is getting to be more and more options now but lots of them are pricey.  Because its considered a specialty item companies tend to charge a lot more and you usually have to go to a specialty store to get them.

Breakfast and lunch are the hardest two meals of the day for Kris.  Dinners are easy, meat or fish with potatoes or rice and veggies.  I have even mastered some pretty tasty desserts as well.  Breakfast though is either expensive cereal, or pancakes which are also expensive or fruit.  I was pretty excited to learn that Chex was coming out in Canada with not one but two gluten free options that would be regularly priced!! 

Chex gluten free comes in rice and honey nut!  Not only is this great for a quick bowl or breakfast in the morning you can do so much with it!  I am going to try using it (either flavour would work) for the crust of cheesecake!  I have made it before with a different rice cereal but this would be really good with the honey nut! 

There are so many easy recipes on the Life Made Delicious page that sound so good.  I can't wait to try this tasty treat! 

Cars 2 Giveaway

Are your kids pretty excited to see the new movie Cars 2?  I know both my kids are pretty excited about it, I hear all about it whenever a commercial comes on for it!  We are hoping to catch it in 3D but I am not sure if its in 3D here or not, I still have to look into it!  It doesn't really matter where you go right now there is Cars 2 products everywhere!  There it is on packages of pull ups, food, its even on paper towels!

Brandon was asking me for some of the new Betty Crocker fruit snacks the other day, he is huge into fruit snacks!  This of course went into a big long discussion about going to see the show!  The new Betty Crocker fruit snacks are delicious and come in all of the Cars 2 characters!  So not only can they play with there cars they can eat them too :)

You can win a $50 Visa to spend at the theatre taking someone special to see Cars 2 as well some Betty Crocker fruit snacks!

Contests open to Canadians residents only. Readers may enter the contest on multiple blogs but are only eligible to win one Cars 2 prize as part of the contest.

To Enter:

Tell me who you want to take to see Cars 2

(This must be done for additional entries to count)

Additional Entries:

- add my Fun and Funky Mommy button to your blog (2 entries)

- follow me publicly (2 entries)

- subscribe to Fun and Funky Mommy

- like me on facebook (leave your first name and last initial so I can find you)

- blog about this giveaway with a link to me

- follow me on twitter @Funfunkymommy AND tweet about this giveaway for one entry (can RT daily for another entry)

***Feel free to Retweet this***

Win a $50 Visa and Betty Crocker fruit snacks - Disney Cars 2 - @Funfunkymommy #LMDConnector
#FruitShapesCars2  http://tinyurl.com/3wzc7av

***** Contest will end on July 26th at 8:00 PM. I will use Random.org to choose the winner. The winner will have 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. Make sure that your profile is set to public or that you include your email in your comments because if I can't get a hold of you you can't win! Contest open to Canada ONLY*****

A Giveaway from Life Made Delicious and General Mills worth $75! **Closed**

We are huge BBQ ers here. We BBQ pretty much year round, even in the rain, but not so much in the snow. Its a good thing it doesn't snow to much here! We eat a lot of meat, potatoes, rice and veggies for dinner because Kris is allergic to wheat. We don't eat many casseroles, buns obviously lol, pasta other than some rice spaghetti, or any sort of premade dishes. We have to eat basic simple foods, which isn't a bad thing as it seems to be a lot healthier than premade dishes and pastas and buns!

One of my favorite things to have on the BBQ, other than steak, is corn on the cob. We just tried this while we were camping last time and you take off all of the loose husks, but not all of them, you can just throw them all on the BBQ just like that. They don't need tinfoil or anything!  They are soooo good and so easy!  I love it.  You don't even need to boil water ;)  Check out these great BBQ recipes here!

Are you going to fire up the grill for Fathers Day next weekend?  We will be, we are going to pull Kristina out of school for Monday and Tuesday and go camping from Sunday morning.  Kris and his buddy are leaving to go fishing Friday night or Saturday morning and his wife and I and the kids are meeting them on Sunday morning until Wednesday morning to do some camping, fishing and boating.  I can't wait.  What a great way to spend Fathers Day weekend!  We are going to BBQ up some steaks and have a big old cesear salad to go along with it!

Do you have an easy recipe that you use all of the time in the Summer?  If you share it here you can be in to win an amazing prize pack from Life Made Delicious and General Mills that includes the following:

Barbecue Utensil Set

Paper Plates

Colourful Napkins

These great General Mills products:

Old El Paso

Cheerios (including Chocolate Cheerios!)

Fibre 1

Betty Crocker

Nature Valley

To Enter:

Share you recipe here and if you can on the Life Made Delicious Facebook page!

(This must be done for additional entries to count)

Additional Entries:

- add my Fun and Funky Mommy button to your blog (2 entries)

- follow me publicly (2 entries)

- subscribe to Fun and Funky Mommy

- like me on facebook (leave your first name and last initial so I can find you)

- blog about this giveaway with a link to me

- follow me on twitter @Funfunkymommy AND tweet about this giveaway for one entry (can RT daily for another entry)

***Feel free to Retweet this***

Win a $75 prize pack from General Mills and Life Made Delicious @Funfunkymommy #LifeMadeDelicious http://tinyurl.com/3g5euo2


***** Contest will end on July 7th at 8:00 PM. I will use Random.org to choose the winner. The winner will have 72 hours to respond or a new winner will be chosen. Make sure that your profile is set to public or that you include your email in your comments because if I can't get a hold of you you can't win! Contest open to Canada ONLY*****

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Do you eat your rainbow?

The closer we get to Summer the easier it can be to "eat your rainbow" because there is so much more available to eat. Sure you can use food coloring to make a cake all of your rainbow colors or you can have steak and prawns with a gorgeous colorful salad with all sorts of different veggies in it. Maybe peppers, carrots, bok choy, onions and more. You can make wraps with chicken, fish or even pork with lots of colorful veggies in them. For dessert how about some star fruit or kiwis, bananas and strawberries dipped in chocolate? That's our favorite!

If you haven't yet you really need to check out the 5 bloggers who are on Life Made Delicious who have some amazing easy recipes! There are 5 different bloggers on the site and they each offer something different! They all have one thing in common though, they are great cooks and have lots of great recipes to share! Be sure to check them out and don't forget to "eat your rainbow!"

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Happy Mothers Day

Well tomorrow morning is Mothers Day and hopefully that means breakfast in bed, or a nice homemade dinner. I work all day but luckily I don't have to go into work until 10:00 so I am hoping to wake up to pancakes :) Kristina is hoping to make me something for breakfast so hopefully Hubby will steer here towards some easy recipes here!

Because I work in a women's retail store I usually have to work on Mothers Day, a lot of moms and daughters go shopping tomorrow and I love it. Although I really miss spending the day doing fun things with the kids I love seeing what all the others Moms are doing with there kids and how much they are enjoying themselves. Rarely is there unhappy people shopping on Mothers Day. Maybe that's because they had a delicious breakfast?!


If you are looking for some really good but easy recipes for Mothers Day look no further than Life Made Delicious! They have some great recipes that even the kids can help make tomorrow morning. You can even leave this open for Hubby to find in the morning!

I hope everyone has an amazing day tomorrow!!!!!

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are, as always, my own!

Chocolate Cheerios and a coupon for a free box!

How do chocolate Cheerios sound to you? With my affiliation with Life Made Delicious I was lucky enough to be able to try them out before they even hit the shelves in Canada! I was pretty excited to try them and man are they good! They make a great snack just dry and of course they are great with milk, think nice chocolaty milk. They are also great with all sorts of easy recipes from Life Made Delicious!



These are not just special occasion sugar cereal like at our house, we rarely buy sugar cereal because, well, you just don't need more sugar during the day! You may be surprised to know that the new Chocolate Cheerios have only 9g of sugar! That's really not bad at all!! They are also made with whole grains, low in fat, high in fiber, and naturally flavoured with real cocoa!

If this is something you want to try then do I have a deal for you! There is a one day only coupon for a FREE box of Chocolate Cheerios! If you go to Websaver.ca on May 1st you can get the coupon for the FREE box of Chocolate Cheerios and then on June 21st only you can go to any store that carries them, and get them for FREE!!!! They hit stores on June 3rd so if you can't wait until June 21st you can always pick up a box early ;)

Check out all of the easy recipes that will be starting to show up at Life Made Delicious!

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. As always the opinions on my blog are my own!

Coupons in Canada

I love coupons, I really really do I just am not that good at using them yet! Sometimes its obvious when to use them and find them, like when they are on the grocery store shelf and its for a free product! I was stocking up on way to much food for camping this weekend and saw a display of some cereals that my kids will go crazy for! Nestle and Lucky Charms, yup, I love Lucky Charms too, they had coupons on the box for free ice cream!

You can't get any better than free ice cream. Its not even for a specific brand. You can use it for up to $5.00 off any ice cream, bars, or cones! I love it, the cereal didn't even cost me that much! One of the sites I use for coupons is save.ca and then of course there are lots of flyers that come in with the newspaper that I clip. I don't know how they do it in the states though where they save like 95% off of their bill!

I would love to be an extreme couponer! Any tips you ladies have I am open to hearing anything! Have you got this $1 off Cheerios coupon from Life Made Delicious? They have lots of easy recipes and are always putting up lots of coupons as well so keep an eye out! PS I don't have a hard time using the coupons, the shopping is the easy part ;) I just need to find out where to get more of them!

Disclaimer: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Connector program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

Do you eat Breakfast?

I only eat breakfast sometimes during the week but every weekend, on my way to work, I stop at either Tim Hortons or McDonalds, totally not healthy but yummy, and get something to eat and of course coffee!!!! I need my coffee on the weekends ;) I wish I made more time for breakfast, I know its the most important meal of the day, but I just can't stand moorings! I like to sleep, or at least lay in bed, until I absolutely have to get up and then I have only enough time to shower and go!

Being on the Life Made Delicious team gives me many opportunities to try out products and read all try out all sorts of easy recipes, and you can see and try them all out to! If you join the Life Made Delicious facebook page or newsletter you can receive and look for all sorts of recipes and even coupons!

Check out this $1 off Cheerios coupon here! If you need some great breakfast recipes be sure to check these out! Here are a few of my favorites, don't they look soooo good!!

http://lifemadedelicious.ca/en/Recipes/N/Nature_Valley_Yogurt_Breakfast_Parfait_For_One.aspx http://lifemadedelicious.ca/en/Recipes/G/Granola-Berry-Banana-Smoothies.aspx

http://lifemadedelicious.ca/en/Recipes/C/Crunchy-Topped-Strawberry-Kiwi-Parfaits.aspx

Disclosure: I am part of the Life Made Delicious Blogger program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own