MomCooks

For a fun Snow Men Snack made from rice krispie treats and edible decorations, see my post up at Sprout for Parents. I was so thrilled to be asked to contribute an article!  It’s an easy treat to make and even more fun to eat, too!

I know I’m a day late, but here’s a link to the Food Network 12 Days of Cookies site. You’ll find recipes and videos from your favorite Food Network stars like Paula, Giada, and Alton. Yum!

Also, in the sidebar you’ll find the Holiday Recipe Widget from Food Network, with a new recipe every day that will give you a delicious recipe for holiday gatherings or just every day cooking. Super yum!

This week’s menu is known as “using up what I have”, also know as “shopping in my own cupboards”, also known as “why the heck didn’t we eat this stuff when I bought it the FIRST time?” To help me organize my meal planning this week, I’m using a new service called Springpad that I’d like to share with you as well. Springpad is free to join, free to use, and gives you tons of ways to organize your life.

When you create your Springpad account, you start out with a set of pre-made Springpads. Each pad is a page on your screen that you use to organize information, like your weekly meal plan including the shopping list and a page you can print out with all the cooking directions. Or a Christmas card log-contacts, cards you’ve sent, cards you’ve received. Traveling for the holidays? The Holiday Travel Planner has a page for jotting down notes about the trip, a page for your specific plans including events you will attend.

Now this is really cool and it’s available on several different Springpads- the restaurant planner. Let’s say you’ll be in Denver, Colorado for Christmas, and you want to go out for Sushi on one night.  On the Holiday Travel Planner, click the Plans tab, then click the blue square next to Restaurants. You’ll see this:

Click the “restaurants from the web” tab, and type in Sushi and Denver. Up will come a list of restaurants, click the one you want, and it gets added to your Holiday Travel Planner Springpad automatically. Participating restaurants will also show a link to OpenTable.com, which lets you click and make your reservation!

The Weekly Meal Planner Springpad helps organize your meal plan, your shopping list, even special cooking instructions, all on one handy page. You can type in your own recipes, add recipes from websites, and add restaurants for nights you know you are eating out. It’s so handy!

There’s something on Springpad for everybody, so go take a look around! Remember it’s free to join and free to use, and since the site is in Beta, they welcome your feedback as well. If anything, it’s a great way to stay organized while you are online!

In celebration of National Tomato Month, Dei Fratelli, a preferred tomato brand sold throughout the United States, has launched “The Dei Fratelli Ripened Recipe Contest.” From October through the end of November 2008, consumers are encouraged to submit an original recipe using any variety of Dei Fratelli products for a chance to win free Dei Fratelli products for a year. Ten Grand Prize winners will be chosen and their original recipes will be featured on Dei Fratelli’s web site, www.DeiFratelli.com.

Dei Fratelli’s nationwide search for original tomato-based recipes from their consumers’ kitchens
will allow Dei Fratelli, and all tomato lovers, to get creative with breakfast, lunch and dinner. It is
Dei Fratelli’s hope to also help consumers improve the health of their family by helping to
promote the many benefits that tomatoes offer and encouraging consumers to eat more
tomatoes. Tomatoes are an excellent source of lycopene, which has been found to help prevent
heart disease, kidney disease and a variety of cancers. Tomatoes are also naturally gluten-free,
which makes them allergy-friendly.

“We love hearing from our consumers about how much they enjoy cooking with Dei Fratelli
products,” said Steve Hirzel, President, Hirzel Canning Company & Farms. “This contest is our
way of thanking consumers for years of support for the Dei Fratelli family and allowing us the opportunity to see how our products have become a part of their families as well.”

Ten Grand Prize winners will be chosen at the end of the contest period and awarded with an assortment of six Dei Fratelli products sent monthly for a year. To enter the contest, individuals can complete an entry form online at www.DeiFratelli.com. OR, Send your recipe along with your name, phone number and email address to:
The Ripened Recipe Contest
c/o RMD
6116 Cleveland Ave.
Columbus, OH 43231

Contest ends November 30, 2008, so hurry and enter!

Looking for a place to find recipes from your favorite sources? Viewzi makes it simple and easy to find recipes from epicurious, SimplyRecipes, 101 Cookbooks and myrecipes and organizes them into colorful, interactive recipe cards. Save time by browsing through photos with the Recipe View rather than clicking through links. I used it to browse Pot Roast recipes until I found one that looked good, then clicked through to get this Classic Beef Pot Roast Recipe.

Don’t feel like cooking? Search for local restaurants with Viewzi’s Web Screenshot View and preview the web sites before you click on them. It just takes a minute to create a free account at Viewzi and start viewing recipes in a whole new way!