August '11 Cookie Carnival Round Up!

 
Welcome to our Cookie Carnival Round Up for August!


The cookie choices for this month were:

Spiced Hermits & Sweet Banana Peanut Butter Cookies

Here's what our Cookie Carnival bakers had to say:

Jackie @ foodwanderlust said " Decadent sandwiches of savory and sweet."

Christine @ Whimsical Bakery loves Anna Olsen's website and her cookies.

Katrina @ Baking and Boys! baked the peanut butter cookies but switched things up a bit when it came to the filling.

Stephanie @ Confessions of a City Eater said "You can't even taste the rum in the filling and once you eat the whole cookie sandwich, all you taste is the deliciousness of that banana-peanut butter combination."

Donna, one of our Cookie Carnival email bakers said "I made the hermit cookies today and loved them! They reminded me of the old Archway cookies I had in my lunch as a child.

Take a few minutes to check out all of their scrumptious cookies!

 ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I threw a twist into the recipes this month!
To find out what I did, sign up to bake with us!

Lucky Charms & Golden Grahams Treat Bars Review & Giveaway!

As a member of My Blog Spark, I was recently given the chance to try Betty Crocker's Lucky Charm & Golden Graham cereal bars. My kids were more than willing to jump right in with me to try them. Both kids chose the Lucky Charms cereal bars as their favorite. They loved the Lucky Charm cereal paired with the white chocolate, while I chose the chocolate and marshmallow combo of the Golden Graham cereal bar as my favorite.

With only 100 calories per Lucky Charm bar and 130 calories per Golden Graham bar, as a Mom, I feel just fine including one of these bars into my kids' lunch bags as a treat or handing one out to them with a glass of milk for an after school snack.

As a PTO board member in my daughter's school, I'm thrilled to see not just one, but two, Box Tops for Education included on every box of these cereal treat bars! That's double the money for the school with every purchase.

Included with the 2 boxes of cereal treat bars were these very cool back-to-school items:

a lunch bag
a locker white board
and a tube of colored pencils.

~*~*WE HAVE A WINNER! ~*~*

Congratulations!!

Post # 10 

Mrs T said: "I would bring these along in the car to feed my granddaughters while traveling from one after-school activity to the next, or to give them after an activity when they are hungry."

You have 48 hrs. to contact me with your mailing info. or another winner will be chosen.  

Check out Cereal Treats Bars online for great information and coupons for new products. Also, be sure to visit the Betty Crocker Facebook page and get involved in the conversation.

Now you have a chance to win one of the Cereal Bar Prize Packs of your own!

{Open to US & Canada entries only}

To enter this giveaway:

Mandatory first entry - Tell me how you would serve these cereal bars to your family.

Extra entries:  

(2 entries) Sign up to follow me on Google Friends - if you are already a follower, just let me know (thank you!)

(2 entries) Sign up to follow me through email  - if you are already receiving my emails, just let me know (thank you!)

Please make sure that your contact info. is included in each entry. The winner will be emailed and will have 48 hrs. to respond.

 ~*~* Hurry! This giveaway ends on Monday, Sept 5, 2011. ~*~*

Disclosure: Cereal Treats Bars, information, and giveaway have been provided by General Mills through MyBlogSpark.

Menu Plan for 9/4 - 9/10

We've certainly had our share of bad weather lately and tonight is no different. We had a down pour just a few minutes ago, paired with the threat of a tornado right in our neighborhood. Thankfully the funnel cloud never touch the ground. The rain is supposed to hang around all week.

Here's our menu for the week - again in no particular order: 

steak salads (using this flank steak recipe) w/garlic bread
chicken parm rolls w/spaghetti
tuna wiggle
pork egg rolls w/ fried rice
johnny marzetti w/ salad
farmer's market chicken fettuccinni

Looking for some lunch box ideas? Here's a few!

hot & crispy chicken legs
pita pizza
lunch box fruit, meat & cheese kabobs
chili cheese dog tortilla sticks

I'm linking up to:

Menu Plan Monday

Rigatoni Florentine

It feels like forever since I've posted anything to my blog. The status at our house is "back-to-normal" crazy with school back in session, soccer games and of course, a bout with the flu for me.

If you've followed my blog during the previous school years, you know that I'm all about quick and easy dinners that gets our family to the dinner table to eat together, no matter what's going on in our schedules. My recipe for Rigatoni Florentine a simple, colorful pasta dish that packs a whollop of flavors.

Rigatoni Florentine
1 lb box of rigatoni, cooked al dente
8 oz fresh button mushrooms, sliced
8 oz frozen spinach, thawed
1 jar of roasted red peppers, drained and sliced into small strips
1 tbsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. dried Italian seasoning
1/2 lb hot sausage - I had to use link
hot sausage and remove it from the casings
1 container of Philadelphia Italian Cheese
Herb Cooking Creme
2 c. shredded mozzarella cheese

Preheat oven to 350*

Cook rigatoni as directed on the box, drain and set aside.

In a large frying pan, saute button mushrooms in olive oil for 3 minutes. Stir in spinach and roasted red pepper strips. Continue cooking for 5 more minutes. Stir in minced garlic and Italian seasonings. Pour the mixture into a bowl and cover to keep warm.

In the same frying pan, brown hot sausage in more olive oil. Drain off any grease, if necessary. Add the hot sausage back into the pan, along with the spinach mixture. Stir in the Italian Cheese & Herb Cooking Creme. Mix well.

If your frying pan is big enough to hold all of it, mix together the rigatoni and Florentine cheese sauce. If not, use a large bowl to mix all of it.

Layer half of the rigatoni mixture into a 9 x 13 baking dish. Sprinkle with 1 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese. Spoon on the remaining rigatoni and top with the remaining cup of cheese.

Cover the dish with foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and continue baking for 10 minutes.

Serve with garlic cheese bread.

Making Dinner & Dessert with my SwagBucks and How You Can, Too!

Have you joined Swagbucks yet? If not, what are you waiting for?

It's really takes no effort at all to earn "bucks" that you can use to purchase numerous items at the Swag Store, including the crock pot and  ice cream maker, pictured below, that we have been enjoying all summer.

How did I earn the Swagbucks for it? I simply downloaded the Swagbucks tool bar and now every time I need to use a search engine, I use the SwagBucks search engine right there on the bar! The new tool bar not only includes a search engine box but also exclusive messages and swag codes from The Swag Guy, the official swagbucks.com homepage, social networks, merchandise stores, message boards and more! 

Of course there are many more ways to win, including the Special Offers Section -a place on the Swagbucks site where users can complete offers from major brands and potentially earn themselves big time Swag Bucks. Offers can range from surveys, watching videos and playing games to subscribing to magazines and services, and whether you want to spend money completing an offer or not, there are always plenty of rewarding opportunities available.

Swagbucks is always looking for new ways for you to earn Reward Points, and this week they've got a promotion designed to help you get your free stuff faster!

For any qualifying Special Offer you complete from now through Sunday, August 21st, you’ll receive a 20% bonus on what you earn. That bonus will be applied no later than 4:00pm PDT on Monday, August 22nd.

Offers from the following providers qualify for the bonus: 
Ad Rewards, Gambit, Trialpay (Offers & Daily Deals), RadiumOne, Paymentwall, Super Rewards, Peanut Labs (Surveys & Offers), and Sponsorpay. 

If you haven’t done Special Offers before, you can choose from a variety of different offers (free, purchase required, games, surveys, watching videos, etc.), each of which pay you a Swag Bucks reward. Get started today and earn big!