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You’re likely here because you enjoy food and cooking…so I thought I’d share a cool giveaway that you may be interested in.  My friend Kat is giving away a 20-piece Rubbermaid storage set, the one you see right here!

In these tough economic times, people are doing what they can to save money.  Some fitness-minded families are going so far as to buy they own home ellipticals and such, because it would be less expensive in the long run than gym memberships for everybody. Also, not having to drive to a gym saves gasoline.

But mostly, people are looking to save money on groceries.  That often means eating leftovers, often for lunch within the next day or two.  Well, food stay fresher longer in a Rubbermaid container, with its air-tight seal, than it would wrapped in foil or plastic wrap, or put into a plastic bag.  The Rubbermaid containers, of course, are reusable, whereas you have to throw all of those other things away.  Also, many Rubbermaid containers are safe to use in the microwave, so you can place leftovers in single-serving containers.  These can be taken to work and zapped in the break room microwave, or simply reheated at home for a quick meal.

Anyhoo, if you are interested in entering to win this particular 20-piece set, the only two qualifications are that you have a blog, and that you reside in the continental U.S.  As in, all of the states that are connected to each other.

The bare minimun that you need to do is leave a comment on the entry page about what you use such containers for the most (people do use these for stuff other than food).  But there are other things you can do to gain extra entries, especially if you use Twitter.

For complete details, please go and visit the entry page now.  You have until Sunday, May 31 to get your entries in, and a lucky winner will be drawn on June 1.

Good luck to all who enter!

I ordered this a few weeks ago, but did not get around to giving it a whirl until last night. I’m sure you have seen the infomercial for this product, the NuWave Oven.  And, as with many infomercial products, you may be skeptical as to whether or not this thing actually works.

Well, I already mentioned in a previous post that my friend Kat has one, and she absolutely loves it.  In case you’ve not read her review yet, you can find it right here.

One of my favorite ways to cook vegetables is to roast them.  This gives them a nice caramelization that you can’t get by boiling or steaming them.  So I decided to try some asparagus in the NuWave as my first project.

To prepare fresh asparagus, you first want to break off the woody bottoms of the stalk.  Hold the stalk witha hand on each end, and start to bend it, it will break off where the thick, woody part begins.  You can save these to make vegetable stock, and just cook the top part.  If the stalks are really thick, you might want to peel the tough outer skin with a vegetable peeler.  But if it’s nice, pencil-thin asparagus, no peeling is needed.

I simply followed the instructions in the recipe book that came with the oven…tossed the stalks in a little bit of olive oil, and seasoned with garlic powder, a little bit of salt (not too much for us, because Mike has to limit his sodium intake), and some lemon pepper.

The rack is reversible.    If you want your food closer to the heating element, use it as shown in the picture here.  If you need it to be further away (such as if you’re doing a whole chicken or small turkey), turn it over and use it that way.  The recipe book will tell you which way to set the rack.  The heating element is at the top of the oven.

I’ve set the rack like in the picture here, and set the asparagus onto that.  The temp was set to HIGH, for 7 minutes, per the instructions.  My asparagus was kind of thick, if it’s thinner, go for 5 minutes.

It came out perfect!  Not overcooked and mushy, but not raw, either.  Just the right amount of crispness that I like with most fresh veggies.  It got slightly brown and caramelized around the edges, which added a lot more flavor than just plain steaming does.

Next, I tried a recipe from the booklet for *air-fried chicken*, using boneless skinless chicken breasts..  The recipe was a little confusing, because it called for *2 chicken breasts*, without specifying further.  Technically, *2 chicken breasts* is really four pieces as they are sold in the store, as the whole breast is cut in half.  Also, from the amount of mayo/mustard mixture called for (3/4 cup n all), it was enough to coat 4 chicken breast halves.  So that’s how many I cooked.  I then coated them with crushed corn flakes and placed them on the rack, positioned in the higher-up position once again.

The recipe called for cooking them for something like 16 minutes on HIGH.  But I let them go for 20 because the pieces were kind of big.  Ten minutes, turn the chicken over, another ten minutes, done!  they came out nice and brown and crispy, just like oil-fried chicken, but much healthier.  It’s even healthier if you use the low-fat mayo, as called for.  And best of all, the chicken was very moist inside, not at all dry, as can happen often with boneless skinless chicken breast meat.

The next question you may have is – how easy is this to clean?  I don’t have an electric dishwasher and have to wash everything by hand, yet I found the NuWave very easy to clean.  Mine didn’t come with a nonstick rack as the newer ones sold directly from the infomercial and the NuWave website do.  But a quick spray of some Pam took care of that.  The only part of the oven you can’t immerse in water is obviously the top part that contains the heating element, just wipe that clean with a damp paper towel.

I got mine from the Brylane Home catalog, for a lower price than the infomercial.  However, that didn’t come with all of the accessories that I could have gotten if I’d ordered that way.  It seems that they are coming out with as many accessories for this thing as there are Wii accessories!  But I’m not sure if I really need stuff like the extender ring or not, I just wanted the oven, so that works for me.  Also, the older one that I got has analog timers, the newer ones have digital controls.  But as long as the oven works the same way, I’m happy.

The official NuWave website and infomercial also let you put it on a credit card and pay in installments.  That might make it more affordable for some.

And so far, I am very happy.  This will probably get a lot of use now that summer is coming, as I won’t have to fire up the regular oven and heat up my kitchen.  It’s also an energy saver, using far less power than the conventional oven.  And I won’t have to sacrifice the quality of cooking.

You also aren’t limited to using their recipes in the booklets that come with the oven.  There are instructions for converting your own favorite recipes for use in the NuWave.  Remember that this works like a convection oven, which is why food cooks faster.  So you have to read all instructions very carefully and learn the differences between this and a conventional oven.

So, if you’ve been thinking about ordering one of these things, go ahead and do so.  I think you’ll really like it!

A few weeks ago, I blogged about getting a NuWave Oven.  Well, it came over a week ago, but I’ve yet to use it.  It’s out of the box and just sitting there.

Honestly, I haven’t been cooking that much lately.  Mike’s appetite has been bouncing up and down since getting out of the hospital, probably due to side effects of one of the meds he’s taking.  For the most part, we’ve either been eating out or picking at leftovers.  Mike is still out on disability, so we go out to break the monotony of sitting in the house all day, watching judge shows and commercials for Mesothelioma lawyers and Medical Assistant schools.

But leftovers don’t last forever, and we really shouldn’t be eating out all the time.  So I have decided that tomorrow is the day I try the NuWave for the first time.

I got some boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale at Shaw’s today, and some fresh asparagus.  I’m going to try a recipe in one of the recipe books that came with the oven, Air-Fried Chicken.  Sounds like a good hearth-healthy recipe, not much in the way of added fat.  It calls for dipping the chicken breast in a mixture of mustard and low-fat mayo and seasonings, then coating it with crushed corn flakes.  Sounds pretty tasty to me!

I’m going to cook the asparagus in the NUWave, too.  I’ll post again afterwards to let you know how it went.

Click the image to see it bigger, opens in new tab/window.

I’ve been wanting a phone with a QWERTY keyboard for a while now.  I like to text to Twitter and such, and it was getting to be a real pain doing so on a regular phone keypad.

But I’m too cheap to sign on for a traditional contract plan, even if they often do have spiffier phones.  I prefer to use a prepaid carrier, Virgin Mobile, for my cell phone needs.  It’s proven to be MUCH less expensive than signing on for a regular plan, and then being stuck with it if I’m not happy, can no longer afford, it, etc. I’m one of those people who’ll look for wholesale handbags before breaking down and paying retail. I try to never pay more for anything than I have to!

When I was looking for a new phone, I did consider the Wild Card, which has the slide-out QWERTY keyboard.  But when I checked out the floor sample at my local Target store, I found it to be kinda cheapy and more like a toy than a real phone.  SO I passed.

I am very glad I did, because Virgin Mobile has recently rolled out the successor to the Wild Card…the X-tc.  I went to Target to look at it, and I was immediately sold.  It looks and feels like a real piece of electronics, unlike the cheapy toy-ness of the Wild Card.  And it costs just $10 more…$99.99 as opposed to $89.99 for the Wild Card.

I found this phone to be very easy to use.  Figuring out the QWERTY keyboard took a little effort, but nothing that can’t be done by just reading the owner’s manual.  The full-color screen is a lot bigger than that of the Wild Card, which makes it easier to use this phone to surf the internet.

The camera is pretty good, but it has no flash, and a lot of the pics I took came out dark.  But this was because we were at a ballpark, and the seats we were in were in the shade and sorta under the roof.

This phone also plays mp3s.  You can load them either via a microUSB connection, or via a microSD card (neither is included with the phone).

The phone has more features than I will probably use, you can check it out on the Virgin Mobile website.

The Virgin Mobile service is top-notch, if you are looking for pre-paid, contract-free service, these guys are the way to go.  You can either just *pay-as-you-go*, or sign up for one of their monthly plans.  If you do sign on for a plan, remember that there is still no contract, you can change it from one month to the next if you’d like, with no penalties at all.  You are 100% to go with what suits your needs and your wallet at any time.

Their website is wicked easy to use, you can do just about anythng with your account from it.  But if you have problems, I’m happy to say that their Live Advisors are very helpful, and the call center is not outsourced to some foreign country where no one speaks English very well.  HINT:  They have a lot of pre-recorded menus, but I have found that if you just press 0 when you’re on the line, they will redirect you to a person.

In  these tough economic times, for some people, signing up for an overpriced contract makes no sense.  But now you can have a feature-loaded, spiffy-looking phone, without the contract hassles and for much less cost.

I love this phone.  Very highly recommended!

You many need to pop a diet pill or two before you go.  TGI Friday’s is currently running a promotion to introduce some new salads and sandwiches to their menu.  Not only are all of the NEW salads and sandwiches selling for just $5.00, but so are all of the older ones on the menu.  They say that this is for a limited time only, so stop by soon to take advantage of this!

I tried the new meatball sandwich there last night.  Very tasty.  They now have homemade potato chips to go with this and other items, and I greatly love them!

If you go to Friday’s, be sure to sign up for their Give Me More Stripes loyalty program.  You can sign up online right now, print out your temporary card, and start earning stripes right away.  As a member of this program, you not only earn points, or *stripes* towards free food coupons, but you also get emails about other cool money-saving promotions.  And it is completely free to join!

Yummie!