My Favorite Picnic-Worthy Recipes from Around the Web

June 25, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

Thanks to Foodie.com for partnering with me today to form this curated collection of AWESOME recipes! All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always.

Yesterday I spent 2 hours pouring over recipes online, looking for the PERFECT collection of ideas for a picnic, since July is almost here, and that is National Picnic Month! This research I did was borderline torture, as I wanted to eat most everything I saw, and I wanted it immediately (and not share, either!). All the more reason for me to plan a picnic in the next few weeks! I know what I’ll be making!

Come check out my ideas for the perfect picnic above. It’s got 15 ideas I think you will love! What would you add to the menu?

How to Make an Amazing Tomato Salad

June 23, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

This post was created in partnership with Winn-Dixie. I have been compensated in exchange for this post.

This morning after dropping my girls off at their summer program I headed straight to Bi-Lo (a sister store of Winn-Dixie) because I knew they were going to have some seriously awesome produce. Specifically, I knew I would find gorgeous tomatoes of all shapes and sizes because they were having a Big Fat Juicy Tomato Event .

I was invited to create a recipe in celebration of all things tomato, and after doing my shopping at Bi-Lo, that was no problem. I had plenty of inspiration!

I made an absolutely stunning (and shockingly easy!) tomato salad, and here’s what you’ll need to make it at home.

Heirloom Tomato Salad

Ingredients

3 tomatoes (1 red, 1 orange and 1 yellow, if possible)
1 red onion, cut in half and sliced into rounds (save the other half for another recipe)
4 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
1/4 cup corn (I used canned)
1/4 cup goat cheese, crumbled
2 Tbsp fresh cilantro, roughly chopped

Begin by slicing each of your tomatoes into fairly thick slices. Arrange on your serving platter as desired (I layered them on top of each other in a horizontal line).

Now add your onion slices on top, followed by the corn and the bacon.

Sprinkle the goat cheese as desired, and top with fresh cilantro. Serve immediately, and if desired, with oil and vinegar dressing.

This dish is a real show-stopper for parties and picnics, or you could be like me and just serve it as a special Monday night dinner surprise! Tomatoes are at their peak of awesome right now, and their beautiful colors and delicious flavors can transform a dish, or even make them the centerpiece of a recipe, like the one I made today. Don’t forget to stop by Winn-Dixie (or Bi-Lo!) this week to check out the incredible selection of tomatoes they have. You’ll be impressed, and you’ll also be able to turn them into something quite impressive!

Curried Pumpkin Dip: Rockin’ My Snack Time

June 16, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

This post brought to you by LIBBY’S Pumpkin. All opinions are 100% mine.

I’m not the world’s greatest cook by any means. And I usually leave the crazy experimenting to other folks, and just try their recipes once they perfect them. I let others take the risks and I just enjoy their yummy successes.

But a few days ago, I decided to just go nuts and try something totally off the wall with my LIBBY’S 100% Pure Pumpkin. You may recall that I’ve been on a kick lately to try to see just what #PumpkinCan do as a more regular part of our diet, as opposed to a seasonal guest star. We’ve made some crazy-good stuff, including pumpkin energy boost squares and twice-baked potatoes with pumpkin. They are both great and you should definitely pin them on Pinterest so you remember to try them later!

Curried Bean and Pumpkin Dip

My latest recipe was, in my humble opinion, a major success, and I’m so excited to share it with you. If you like curry and if you like hummus, then this is going to be a new favorite snack for you. The inspiration of the dip is definitely hummus, but there’s not a chickpea to be found in it!

Ingredients:

1 can cannelloni beans, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup LIBBY’S 100% Pure Pumpkin
1/4 cup peanut butter
2 Tbsp water
1 Tbsp grapeseed oil (or olive oil)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp lemon
1/2 tsp curry powder

Combine cannelloni beans and pumpkin in a food processor using a few quick pulses. Then add all remaining ingredients except for water. Let them process together in the food processor until very smooth. If you feel that the dip needs more moisture, add the water, 1 Tbsp at a time.

Serve immediately with a sprinkle of paprika on top (optional). This goes great with raw veggies or with crackers or pita. Also tastes great when served chilled.

If you try it, let me know what you think! I personally thought the flavors were really yummy, and my snack session with the dip turned into my dinner! And what an awesomely healthy dinner it was! 🙂

Twice Baked Potatoes with Pumpkin (For Real!!!)

June 2, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

This post brought to you by LIBBY’S Pumpkin. All opinions are 100% mine.

Last month I shared with you just a little bit about what #PumpkinCan do for your family as a staple ingredient when I gave you the recipe for pumpkin energy boost squares. Seriously, folks, we need to get past the idea that pumpkin is only for fall. You can find a can of LIBBY’s on the shelves any time of year. And I should know, as I’ve been picking it up on the regular these days!

Did you know that pumpkin can serve as an excellent substitute for butter in many dishes? Think about it. It’s got that smooth, creamy texture! I decided to put this idea to the ultimate test by replacing ALL of the butter in a recipe for twice baked potatoes. I’m not gonna lie, I was nervous, y’all. But the results were, dare I say, smashing! 😉

Don’t be scared by how you think it might taste. It isn’t going to taste like you mixed your baked potato with a piece of pumpkin pie, I promise! Just give it a shot, and you may find yourself with a crazy-easy way to work this superfood into regular rotation with your crew!

Ingredients:

4 large baking potatoes
1/2 cup LIBBY’S 100% Pure Pumpkin
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
1/2 tsp salt
pinch nutmeg (1/8 tsp, roughly)
green onions, chopped (I used 5)

Bake potatoes as you normally would. My suggestion is to use your slow cooker. Wrap each washed potato in aluminum foil and set your slow cooker to high for 4 hours. They cook PERFECTLY this way!

Once your potatoes are cooked, cut them in half length-wise and let them cool down for 5 minutes or so. Preheat the oven to 350. Then scoop out a fair amount of the flesh so that they look something like this:

Place the scooped part of the potatoes in a large mixing bowl. Add all other ingredients except for the green onions and mix thoroughly to combine. You may need to use a hand mixer, depending on how smooth you want the filling to be.

Now gently fold in the green onions, and then re-fill all of your potatoes. Bake the potatoes in the oven for 20 minutes and serve!

My entire family really and truly loved these potatoes. The pumpkin flavor is mild…just enough to make it interesting and quite good, I have to say. And I didn’t miss the butter, not one little bit! I’m confident enough about this dish that I plan to serve it to company the next time we have some!

And as for the leftovers? We had DELICIOUS pumpkin muffins for breakfast this morning! Once again, no extra butter needed! 🙂

Want to get some great LIBBY’S Pumpkin ideas for your next meal? Follow LIBBY’S Pumpkin on Pinterest for some terrific ideas!

Pumpkin: Don’t Make This Superfood Seasonal!

April 22, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 2 Comments

This post brought to you by Libby’s. All opinions are 100% mine.

I’m sure between October and December, you consume a fair amount of pumpkin. Most Americans do, and that’s good, because pumpkin is an excellent source of Vitamin A and Beta Carotene. It’s also got lots of extra fiber. Basically, it’s a superfood.

So why do we only eat it for 3 months out of the year? True, pumpkins have a peak harvest season, which is in the fall, but you can find delicious, nutritious, Libby’s Pumpkin, on the grocery shelves all year long. And I want to show you a recipe I recently made that is going to turn pumpkin into a pantry staple for my family! These are AWESOME for a bar-type breakfast option. I personally cut a little square for myself during the mid-morning and mid-afternoon “slump” time. It gives me the boost I need to power through!

Pumpkin Energy Boost Squares

Ingredients:

1/3 cup Libby’s Pumpkin Puree
1 cup old fashioned oats
1/2 cup raisin bran cereal, crumbled (either by hand, or in a food processor)
1/3 cup honey
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup mini chocolate chips
1/3 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup pecan bits

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl until thoroughly combined.

Place ingredients in a lightly greased 8×8 baking dish or 9 inch pie pan and bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool for 5 minutes before cutting into squares and eating! Store energy boost squares in the refrigerator and enjoy for several days. FYI, your extra pumpkin can be added to oatmeal, smoothies, or portioned out and put in the freezer for later!

I absolutely love what Pumpkin Can do to help me feel energized throughout the day. What can it do for you?

Need some ideas to help you think outside of the box when it comes to pumpkin as an ingredient? I can help with that, and you very well could win something in the process!

Let’s help Libby’s launch a successful Orange Takeover! Please share this photo with your friends about what #PumpkinCan do! And don’t forget to use the hashtag! 🙂

Search around for some great recipes. Give pumpkin a try this spring and summer, and if you win the Vitamix, don’t tell me, because I”m going to be SUPER jealous! 😉 YOu can also follow Libby’s on Pinterest for more tempting pumpkin recipes!

The 10 Minute Organic Herb Garden (And What I Made With Those Herbs!)

April 17, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · Leave a Comment

This post brought to you by Organic Choice. All opinions are 100% mine.

Last month I wrote about scaling back on our gardening efforts, and going from an entire raised bed plot to just a small herb garden on our back porch. Well, one month later we definitely have that herb garden. And do you want to know a secret? It took 10 minutes to create. Seriously!

With a little help from Miracle-Gro Organic Choice, and with some plants that were already growing, we planted this garden on Tim’s lunch break and weren’t rushed in the slightest! It was pretty awesome. Here are the steps if you want to recreate what we did.

1. Get your supplies. Select a container that will hold the herbs you want to plant, the actual plants (if you are hardcore you can buy seeds. We are NOT hardcore, so we bought the plants. You will also want Organic Choice potting soil and plant food. These are perfect for edible gardening; you can find the at major retailers!

2. Put a layer of potting soil along the bottom of your planter.

3. Add your plants!

4. Add more potting soil all around the plants until they are securely in place.

5. Follow the instructions on the bag for the amount of plant food you will need. A little goes a long way!

6. Give your new garden some water and some sun. You are finished!

About 10 days after we started our garden, I decided to make a delicious meal using mint, basil and cilantro.

I started things off with a delicious mojito. The plan was to serve it alongside our dinner, but let’s be real: I drank that bad boy while I was cooking! 🙂 Click the link for the mojito recipe I used.

Then I made a fresh fish dish that called for basil and cilantro. It was really easy, and the fresh herbs packed a BIG flavor punch. Wow…once you start cooking with fresh herbs, it’s really hard to go back. Good thing I have a ready supply on my back porch, now!

Tilapia with Fresh Herbs and Mango Salsa

This recipe can be found here. I just cooked the fish in a skillet instead of firing up the grill (in case you haven’t noticed, I prefer to save time whenever possible!).

If you’d love to give your meals a flavor boost but don’t want to plant a major garden, you can definitely do something small like we did. Miracle-Gro Learn And Grow is a great site to get tips and learn about gardening on whatever scale interests you. I noticed their site even has information on how to grow herbs indoors, which I thought was pretty cool!

What are you growing this year? Any favorite herbs that you absolutely MUST use fresh? For me, it’s basil!

A&W TEN Root Beer Float Hack (I Made It Skinny!)

March 27, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 6 Comments

This shop is part of a social shopper marketing insight campaign with Pollinate Media Group™ and Dr. Pepper Snapple Group but all my opinions are my own. #pmedia #TENways http://my-disclosur.es/OBsstV.

So last week I was shopping at Walmart and I found this:

Several different sodas in the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (DPSG) have been released with ten calorie versions. Pay careful attention to the one in the middle, A&W. That’s the one I zoomed in on almost immediately. Root beer is my all-time favorite carbonated beverage. In an effort to save calories, I’ve ventured over into the diet root beer realm before. I know a lot of people like it, but the flavor, for me, was just too different.

That’s why I was so thrilled to see this ten calorie version. It promised to have all the flavor of regular A&W, only without all but 10 of the calories per 12 ounce serving. I was sold.

All the Flavor, So Few Calories

When I got the product home, I tried it out just to make sure A&W TEN didn’t just taste like diet root beer. And it totally didn’t! If I had been offered it in a blind taste test, I would not have hesitated to say that it was a full-calorie soda. So they definitely nailed getting the flavor right!

Since A&W was able to produce something I loved so much while leaving all those calories behind, it left me wondering if I could do the same thing with my beloved root beer float, which is my very favorite dessert. After all, spring is already here and that means summer is right around the corner. Summer means trips to water parks for my family. And that means swimsuits. I don’t know about you, but for me, it would be a very good idea to start cutting back on sweet treats and getting some more exercise.

But what if I could take a note from A&W and figure out a way to recreate a root beer float that kept the taste and dropped the calories? Well friends, I did it, and it’s going to knock your socks off!

The 58 Calorie Root Beer Float

Ingredients

12 ounces A&W TEN Root Beer
1/3 cup whole milk

Fill your glass with root beer (2 ounces is 1 1/2 cups).

Then slowly add the whole milk. Stir and savor the taste!

Some of you may be wondering why I opted for whole milk in a “skinny” recipe. While you are welcome to try this recipe with 2 percent or even skim milk, if you really want the TRUE flavor of a root beer float, go with whole milk. You can even stick this in the freezer for a little while if you want it to get a little bit thick and icy. The texture is going to be different than it would be with ice cream in it, but the taste is spot on, and the calories are significantly reduced! A root beer float of this size made with ice cream and regular (full calorie) root beer would have roughly 300 calories!

I’m about to start heading back to the gym and my beloved Zumba classes, as I know I need to get my body moving in order to feel more confident in my swim suit this summer. But for me, denying myself indulgences like dessert never works…I only feel punished and eventually rebel, jumping off the deep end into a pan full of brownies or something similar. Now I have an option on hand that isn’t going to wreck my progress made during my workouts, and that tastes just like a guilty pleasure. I feel spoiled without spoiling my calorie intake for the day. Everybody wins! 🙂

If you want to keep up with the latest happenings with Core Four DPSG products, be sure to follow their Facebook and pages. And if you are ready to try out my fabulous skinny root beer float recipe, let me help with the bill! Right now you can score $0.50 offthe purchase of TWO 2 Liter Bottles or TWO 4-pack cans of A&W TEN (or 7UP TEN, Canada Dry TN, RC TEN or Sunkist TEN). But get this: if you share the digital coupon via email, FB or Twitter, you will be brought to a coupon that will save you $1.50 insted of just $0.50. Talk about a great reward for spreading the love! Offer available while supplies last, from 3/27 – 4/17. Jump on it before it’s gone!

Chocolate Mint Brownies (You. Will. Die!!!)

March 3, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 7 Comments

So my neighborhood swanky grocery store has had what they call an Andes Mint Brownie on display for the past month. It is approximately the size of my face. So naturally, I bought one when nobody else was around so that I wouldn’t have to share. What with it being so tiny, and all.

And OMG, I wanted to marry that brownie! It was heaven! So I determined that I should make some chocolate mint brownies at home so that I could have a whole pan of this goodness, and not just 1/3 of a pan (seriously, guys, those brownies were super-sized and then some…). These are perfect for St. Patrick’s Day or for Easter celebrations. Or you could just make them on a Tuesday. No judgment here.

I used the Betty Crocker Recipe as my guide, and did make a few modifications. Be sure to check out the original and decide how you’d like to proceed!

The recipe has 3 parts: a base, a filling, and a topping. Each layer requires a bit of time to cool down or set, so don’t get this started 30 minutes before dinner! Here are the ingredients:

base:

1 box brownie mix (you will make this according to package directions).

filling:

5 cups powdered sugar (I know!!!)
6 tbsp butter, softened
6 Tbsp whipping cream
4 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 tsp mint extract
4 drops green food coloring

topping:

1/3 cup whipping cream
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup butter

Directions

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom only of 9 x 13 inch square pan or line it with Reynolds pan lining paper. (For easier cutting, Make and bake brownie mix as directed on box. Cool completely, about 1 1/2 hours (I made the brownies in the evening, and then let them cool overnight).
In large bowl, beat filling ingredients with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Spread over cooled brownies. Refrigerate until set, about 2 hours.
Meanwhile, in 2-quart nonstick saucepan, heat topping ingredients over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until melted and smooth. Cool about 10 minutes.
Pour topping over filling; spread to cover. Refrigerate uncovered about 2 hours or until set. Before cutting into bars, let stand 10 minutes at room temperature. Store covered in refrigerator.

These are VERY sweet, so if you have more than your family can eat in a reasonable amount of time, just freeze the rest!

Simple Slow Cooker Pear-Apple Butter

February 21, 2014 · by Tiffany Merritt · 24 Comments

So lately I’ve been really struggling to find something that both the girls will happily eat. Especially something that doesn’t require effort on my part.

Just being honest about that!

Last week I bought some pears at the store because they were a really pretty deep red color, and you know…fruit…healthy….I’m sure my kids will happily eat it, right?

So they didn’t eat it. And to be fair, the pears were hard. Not unripe, just one of the types that is naturally hard. Know what I mean? So they weren’t super yummy.

But in a moment of sheer genius, I realized a few days ago that I also had a few apples languishing on the counter, right next to the pears. And I decided that in order to get my family to actually eat them, I was going to need to sweeten things up a bit. So I grabbed my slow cooker and made this:

Slow Cooker Pear-Apple Butter

3 apples and 2 pears (roughly 3 pounds total), peeled, sliced and diced
(1) 50 oz container of unsweetened applesauce
2 cups sugar
1 cup apple juice
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground allspice

This is soooo simple, which is what I love. The most time intensive part is peeling, slicing and dicing your fruit. Once that is finished, throw the fruit in the slow cooker, and add all other ingredients. Give it a good stir, then turn it on low for 10 hours. That’s it!

Apple butter tastes FABULOUS in yogurt or oatmeal, and it even makes a great addition to homemade muffins if you are hardcore and actually make such things from scratch. I just put some in a little bowl and serve it as a side dish to my kids at lunch. It’s a hit!

Do you have any new ideas for kid-friendly foods that are working in your home? I’d love to hear them!

Want more slow cooker ideas? I’ve got a great list of slow cooker soups and a list of easy crock pot recipes. Give them a glance to see if anything intrigues your taste buds!