Food

Byron’s BBQ Review and Giveaway!

June 20, 2011 By Melanie 54 Comments

I love pulled pork sandwiches. Actually, I could probably live on bbq if I could afford to. There is something about sweet and smoky that just rocks my world, so when the folks from Byron’s contacted me to review their fully cooked pulled pork, you better believe I said yes.

Now here’s the thing that I usually don’t like about commercially prepared pulled pork; it’s usually smothered under sauce, almost swimming in it. Well, I’m very happy to say that the Byron’s pulled pork is a different story. It’s chock full of good quality pulled pork with just enough sauce to make it moist. The pork is very flavorful, with the perfect blend of sweet and smoky.

You can find this product at both Sam’s Club and Bj’s Wholesale. The four pound tray I received makes a full thirty sandwiches, so this would be perfect for game day festivities or a family a gathering. It sure does feed a crowd. My family of six barely put a dent in ours which means I have a couple of days off this week from cooking. Bonus! And this will be one leftover the kids will be happy to have the next day!

How would you like to win your own four pound tray of bbq so you can enjoy Byron’s hickory, slow cooked pulled pork? All you have to do to enter is comment on this post with your first name, last initial, and the state you are from. Entries must be received by Friday, June 24th 11:59pm ET. Good luck!

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Filed Under: Food, Product Reviews • 54 Comments

I’ll Outwit That Camera

May 31, 2011 By Melanie 15 Comments

The other day I mentioned that I have a big event coming up which made some of you crazy because I couldn’t give any details. Well, since then something else has popped up and both events require that I be filmed and/or photographed. Thankfully, both events are a ways out which gives me plenty of time to lose a few pounds (10) in preparation. As we all know, the camera never makes us look as thin as we’d like. Quite the contrary!

Here’s a bit of insight on how my crazy mind works…… If I have to go somewhere special and wear something form fitting, I have to lose a few pounds to be mentally prepared. Even though I know in my brain that a few pounds will not make a noticeable difference, psychologically it doesn’t matter. If I don’t lose those few pounds, I feel unworthy of wearing a hot dress. Crazy but true.

Since I know how my warped brain works, I have to shed the unwanted pounds before I’m filmed, but luckily I have a tried and true strategy that works without fail.

I’m one of those people that has to feel full after a meal or I’m just not satisfied. If I’m full, I can resist just about any sweet treat thrown my way, but if I’m still hungry, forget about it. I’ll eat the dessert. And the surefire trick for me is eating a huge salad loaded with flavor. My typical power salad is comprised of two chopped hard boiled eggs, one ounce of real bacon bits, and a delicious dressing. My favorite is Stonewall Kitchen’s Balsamic Fig. At $7.00 a bottle, everyone in my family knows not to touch it, because dang it’s expensive. The kids get Wishbone. They can have Stonewall when they get jobs.

The entire salad has 320 calories which is amazing considering how filling it is. Not to mention, it tastes like I’m cheating due to the bacon bits and the dressing. So in my quest to lose those pounds so I don’t look like a pudge on camera, I’m eating two of these a day, plus breakfast and my two glasses of wine. Throw in a little exercise and I’ll be ready for the camera in no time.

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Filed Under: Beauty, Food, Product Reviews • 15 Comments

Good Food Made Simple Review and Giveaway

May 20, 2011 By Melanie 76 Comments

Recently I was invited to a tasting event to try a new product line of frozen convenience foods made by Good Food Made Simple. All of their products can be found in the frozen food aisle along with other breakfast products, but what makes them stand out from the rest is that there are no artificial flavors or colors in their products and all of the ingredients are printed plain as day on the front of the box. No squinting while trying to read a paragraph of ingredients which usually sound like some chemical cocktail. Good Food Made Simple strives to keep it, well….. simple.

The day of the tasting we tried their four varieties of oatmeal; Steel Cut Fruit & Berry, Original Unsweetened, Vermont Maple Syrup, and Brown Sugar Rolled Oats. We taste tested all varieties, but my favorite was the Fruit &Berry. Delicious.

My next runner up favorite was the Vermont Maple Syrup. What can I say? I like my breakfast sweet! At the test kitchen they topped our sample with dried fruit and nuts, which really kicked it up a notch. I’ll have to do that at home because it really added a lot of flavor and texture to the oatmeal, not to mention nutrition!

Each 16oz package of pre-cooked oatmeal, which is divided into two 8oz servings, retails from $2.50-$2.99. A little pricey compared to cook it yourself oats, but a time saver in the mornings if you need a quick nutritious breakfast!

After sampling the oatmeal, we moved on to their other product line offering, egg patties. You know those egg sandwiches you grab at the drive-thru? Yummy, right? Well, now you can get those same patties at home, minus the fillers.

Whole egg and egg white patties are fully cooked and ready for a quick heat up in your microwave. At the tasting the chef made us a killer pesto, prosciutto, and arugula sandwich that would have been perfect for a Sunday brunch. There are so many different things you can do with this product, but I’m sure my kids will snarf them down between English muffins before I even have a chance to get creative.

Each package of 6 egg patties retails between $2.49-$2.99 which is a reasonable price for a convenience product that will help provide your family with a quick nutritious breakfast on those hectic weekday mornings!

You can find Good Food Made Simple products at Hannaford, Shaw’s, Market Basket, Costco, Harris Teeter, Hy-Vee, Publix, Ingle’s, Lowe’s Foods, Schnucks, Bi-Lo, and some Whole Foods stores. According to George Gavris, who is one of the founders of the company, they will be branching off into other convenience food products and clean up what he calls a “mess” in the frozen food aisle.

How would you like to win 12 full size Good Food Made Simple products? The company has offered to give away two of each product in their product line including their 4 oatmeal varieties and both of their egg patties to one lucky reader. This would pretty much take care of breakfast for your family for two full weeks. (if you don’t have two teen sons that eat like linebackers) To enter, comment on this post with your first name, last initial, state you are from and which product you’d most like to try. Entries must be received by Friday, May 27th 11:59pm EST. Good luck!

Thank you to Good Food Made Simple for inviting me to their delicious tasting event and sending me home with several of their products for review. I was not compensated for this post and all opinions are my own.

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Filed Under: Food, Product Reviews, Win It! • 76 Comments

I Want It So Bad I Can Taste It

May 14, 2011 By Melanie 12 Comments

Today has been an exhausting day on every level. First of all, Blogger was down for most of the day today and yesterday which totally paralyzed me from working on The Coupon Goddess. No comments could be posted, posts vanished, and I had zero access to the control panel. What a hot mess.

On top of that I had a blogging event this morning in Boston which forced me to get up at the crack of dawn, and you already know how I feel about that. Bleck. The event itself was yummy, so I really can’t complain, but I had to race back home as soon as it was over because it was the first sunny day of the week.

Why is that so important you ask? Well, I’m crazily cranking out recipes for an online cooking contest I very much want to win. So much so in fact, that I’ve been making my family and friends nuts by incessantly talking about it. I’m pretty sure someone is going to ram a skewer up my nose soon to get me to shut up.

And I would bore the snot out of you too by talking about it, but I’m afraid I’m going to jinx myself by sharing it. Not that I believe in jinxing, but I’m not taking any chances. Once the contest is over, I’ll tell you all about it, but for now I’m a cooking lunatic and my entire family is gaining alarming amounts of weight because I’ve been force feeding them my creations. I’d feed you too if I could reach through my computer screen. No one is safe.

Back to the sunlight issue….. Every day for what seems like eternity now we’ve had rain and overcast skies. Not the best conditions for food photography. It makes no sense to bust my butt creating awesome recipes if I can’t get a good picture of it, so when I saw the sun come out today I knew I had to race home and get cooking. And boy did I cook. If you could only see my kitchen. It looks like Julia Child went on a war path. Dish pan hands here I come.

So think winning thoughts for me. The prize isn’t money or a fancy trip to Tahiti, but it would still be priceless to win and I’m giving it all I’ve got. How about you? Have you ever entered a cooking contest? What were the results?

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Filed Under: Food • 12 Comments

Getting Hot In The Kitchen

May 3, 2011 By Melanie 5 Comments

I spend a majority of my life cooking, reading cookbooks and foodie blogs, teaching others how to cook and dreaming about delicious recipes I’ve yet to make. Here in the food section of Melanie In The Middle I will review products that I find interesting for the home chef, share recipes that are delicious, and cover everything and anything else that you need to know about what turns me on in the kitchen. I expect this topic to be very prominent here at Melanie In The Middle. Be prepared to drool.