Winner for CSN!

The winner for the $20 gift certificate is:

Danielle said...
My 4 year old would love the Baby Boom Yo Gabba Gabba Muno Cuddle Pillow.

I'll be emailing you the $20 gift code today! Congratulations!

CSN Giveaway is Here!

I don't know about you, but I love shopping online. It is so much easier to just get on the computer and pick out what I want and then wait for it to arrive on my doorstep. Well, you need to check out CSN. CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from stylish handbags, to modern bar furniture, or great cookware, how cool is that? Here are some of the things that you can find there:

Cookie cutters: I am loving using these in EmmyKate's lunches to make lunch more fun!

Toddler beds: We will eventually have to buy one for Easton, but for now his crib is perfect!

Vacuums: I am in desperate need for a new one

So now is your chance to win a gift certificate from them. This should definately help out with Christmas shopping, which is the time of year that I do a lot of online shopping.

They are giving away a $20 gift certficate to a What's for Dinner, Moms? reader. So here is what you have to do:
1. Leave a comment telling me one thing that you would like to buy from CSN Store
2. Become a follower of What's for Dinner, Moms? and leave me a comment telling me so (if you are already a follower, just leave a comment stating that)
3. Blog about this giveaway and leave a comment with the link

Enter up to 3 times, leaving a separate comment for each item.
I will chose a winner on Wednesday, November 3, 2010. Winners will be chosen using random.org. Giveaway is limited to US & Canadian residents only.
*There is also a giveaway for $35 going on at The Maynard Moment Giveaways and Reviews. So make sure you go and enter that one too. You can only win one of the contests though, sorry!!!

Giveaway Coming Soon!

CSN has been generous to offer a giveaway to the readers of What's for Dinner, Moms! CSN Stores has over 200 online stores where you can find everything from stylish handbags, to modern bar stools, or great cookware! Be looking in the next few days for this awesome giveaway.

Bacon-Wrapped Chicken

How can you go wrong with bacon? And chive and onion cream cheese? This bacon-wrapped chicken (pg. 118) was awesomely yummy! I can see serving it for company. I'll probably make it for my mother-in-law when she comes. She cannot eat gluten, so I'm always looking for good recipes for her. I used maple bacon, which was fine, but it did add an extra flavor. Next time I'll use regular bacon. And there will be a next time for this recipe!

The ingredients

Preparing the chicken

OK, so this was a yucky mess. Next time I will have everything more organized so I don't have to keep washing my hands between every piece of chicken. I'll flatten all the chicken and lay it out. Then pull out the amount of bacon I need, have some salt in a little bowl, and cut up some butter. I didn't have it all together before I got started this time! I'm sure next time will go smoother.

Ready for the oven

Done!

Next time I will turn the chicken over and broil a few minutes so the bacon on the bottom gets browned. I did do that when we ate the leftovers and it was much better.

Delicious!

And I'm so glad I had a green with my last two meals. It's nice that someone was worried about my roughage intake! Thanks Leah!

Simplicity: 3 (next time will go smoother)
Taste: 5
Nutrition: 2.5 (I did use reduced fat cream cheese though)

Tomato Spiral Toss

I've made two new meals that I haven't shared yet! I'll start with Tomato Spiral Toss (pg. 165). I'm not the kind that has to have meat with every meal, so I made this as the main course. I had lots of canned tomatoes in my pantry, so I substituted them instead of fresh. I also wanted to make it a little healthier, so I mixed garden rotini and whole grain rotini.

The ingredients

Getting it all together

The finished product

Ready to serve!

As soon as I smelled this, I realized I would like it better served as a cold pasta salad. I did not really care for this warm, but it was dinner time and I was hungry! Allie and I ate it the next day cold and it was really good. That's how I'll have it if I make it again. Not sure it will get in the rotation though.

Simplicity: 5
Taste: 2 (warm), 4 (cold)
Nutrition: 4

Santa Fe Chicken

Last night I made Santa Fe Chicken (pg. 130). Loved it!!! It's a great alternative to a Mexican casserole. The thing I liked was that it didn't use a cream of anything soup. I already have several recipes that use those, so it was nice to find something yummy without it! The ingredients were all simple. My only complaint was that it called for chicken broth, but you don't cook the chicken before you make the dish, so I had to use canned broth. I'm trying to be a real penny pincher these days and was upset that I had to buy that!

Here are all the ingredients (my changes: I always use brown rice instead of white, and I did not use any cilantro - I'm sure the cilantro would have been good though! Also, I added a little more cheese than it called for.)

Very simple, one dish recipe. Just had to flip the chicken about half way through.

Finished recipe
It would have been a one dish dinner, but I was trying to get it made, then had to go pick up my son from school and go to a play date, so I had to put it in another dish to refrigerate. That's why it looks a little messy.

Yum yum! I'll definitely make this again!

Simplicity: 5
Taste: 5
Nutrition: 4

Next up? Something without chicken! I think maybe a pasta dish.

Barbequed Onion Meat Loaves

Okay, I know that doesn't look too appealing, but these were actually really good. I thought I had barbeque sauce, but we only had marinade, so I skipped that part. They look a little dry, but I promise they were not.

The other thing that I changed was that the recipe said to cook them in the microwave and that just sounded really gross to me, so I opted to stick them in the oven instead. It took a little longer for them to cook, however the prep work was really fast and easy, so it was a winner in my book. They can sit in the oven by themselves and cook away just as long as it leaves me with time to actually do other stuff. I hate it when recipes take forever to put together.

So, we will definately be having these again: Click here for the recipe

Simplicity: 4

Taste: 5

Nutrition: 3