Bumble Bee Foods, for whom I am a brand ambassador, announced today a partnership with the top ranked United States men’s tennis player, Mardy Fish. Yes, FISH! With the U.S. Open starting in New York next week, the branded seafood company has finalized a partnership agreement with Fish that will team the Top 10 ATP player and Olympic athlete with Bumble Bee’s celebrity chef personality Scott Leibfried to promote better nutrition and healthier lifestyles.
Mardy Fish has been recognized for his remarkable return to the men’s tennis scene after making significant changes to his diet and fitness program. He enters the U.S. Open at a career-high
ranking of No. 7 in the world. Among his most recent accomplishments include six ATP singles title wins and winner of the 2011 Olympus U.S. Open Series.
“Health and fitness have been a huge part of my re-emergence and the reasons I’ve been
consistent,” said Fish. “I’m at an exciting time in my tennis career and that‟s because I’ve had to
make a lot of sacrifices including a complete lifestyle change as far as my eating habits are concerned.” He said, “As we looked at brand partnership possibilities, Bumble Bee was a great fit for me for several reasons. Apart from the fact that seafood has and continues to be a big part of my diet
and the obvious fun you can have with a guy named ‘Fish’, Bumble Bee’s focus on nutrition and
wellness and the types of programs it supports around health and active lifestyles appealed to me. I’m looking forward to teaming up with Scott and Bumble Bee to inspire others to make
healthy changes.”
Over the last two years, Bumble Bee has joined with Chef Scott Leibfried to help demonstrate and grow awareness around the simplicity and versatility of ways to incorporate seafood in everyday meals or recipes. Leibfried is sous chef to Gordon Ramsay on the hit FOX Network television show “Hell’s Kitchen” appearing on all 10 seasons and on “Kitchen Nightmares” as well as the Food Network series “Party Starters” and the “Challenge” series. Leibfried is a cofounder of HJL Restaurant Advisors Group and co-owner of Arch Rock Fish in Santa Barbara.
He is designing chef and co-owner of the soon-to-launch Fleetwood’s on Front St. in Lahaina, Maui by Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac. Announcing the partnership, Bumble Bee Senior Vice President Consumer Marketing Dave Melbourne said: “We’re thrilled to align ourselves with the opportunity to work with Mardy and to help tell his story — including his support of fitness and the importance of good nutrition —alongside Scott, who has been a fantastic chef partner in conveying how easy and affordable it is to prepare meals with seafood products from the grocery aisle.
“Together, they make a dynamic and compelling duo in spreading a message about healthful eating, being active and about overall wellness. We’re looking forward to unveiling our upcoming campaign combining two very authentic sports and culinary talents in Mardy and Scott,” Melbourne said.
Fish and Leibfried will feature in upcoming new campaigns as well as established consumer education platforms such as Bumble Bee’s signature BeeWell for Life program. BeeWell for Life is an interactive health and wellness program designed to encourage a more holistic and yearlong approach to active living and good nutrition. The program aims to inspire people to exercise, stay active and eat healthier using the dedicated resource website www.beewellforlife.com.
“An active lifestyle coupled with good nutrition is a recipe for healthy living and we’re pleased to
be able to enhance our education programs and campaigns around this with the involvement of Mardy and Scott,” said Melbourne. “We can’t wait to reveal more details as we engage more with them in the coming months and over Mardy‟s journey through 2012.”Bumble Bee is the leading producer and marketer of premium seafood in North America and one of the top 10 global branded seafood companies. The company produces and markets shelf-stable tuna, salmon, sardines, clams and other specialty seafood products under the
Bumble Bee®, Clover Leaf®, Brunswick®, Snow’s®, Beach Cliff®, King Oscar®and Sweet Sue® brands.
About Bumble Bee: Bumble Bee Foods, LLC, headquartered in San Diego, is North America’s largest branded shelf-stable seafood company, offering a full line of canned and pouched tuna, salmon, sardine, and specialty protein products. Bumble Bee is a founding member of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation — a first-ofkind initiative in the U.S. involving a coalition of retailers, non-profit organizations and food and beverage manufacturers with a mission to help reduce obesity, particularly childhood obesity by
2015. Bumble Bee also actively promotes the responsible stewardship of global fisheries resources and is a founder of the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) — a global partnership of scientists, tuna processors and WWF, the global conservation organization.
For more information on Bumble Bee, visit www.bumblebee.com.
This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of TracFone for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.
Back to school means back to after school activities, and a great way to keep in touch with your kids is with a cell phone. While they aren’t allowed in school (at least not in most schools I know of), both my boys have a cell phone they keep in their backpack so they can call me if they miss the bus, or to get picked up from an after school activity. Our budget is getting tighter thanks to the rising cost of everything, so we are considering not renewing their contract phones and becoming one of those real TracFone customers we’ve been seeing in TV commercials.
We dropped our landline almost two years ago, so I also like my boys to have phones for when I run up to the grocery store and they stay home with their sister (they are 14 and 12, she’s 5). I can call and ask them to check the pantry so I don’t end up buying duplicates of what we already have, I can’t wait for my oldest to be old enough to drive so HE can go to the store and call ME! lol
TracFone gave me some info to share with you about their phones – with TracFone, there are no contracts to lock in, no credit checks before you can get a phone, no activation charges to turn the phone on, and what I like best, no cancellation fees if you decide you no longer want the phone. I always assumed pay as you go phones were bare-bones, but TracFones are packed with so many features ! For as little as $29.99 you can get a phone with a built-in camera, access to popular web browsing sites like Yahoo! and MSN, downloadable apps, even a slide-out keyboard!
Check out what real TracFone customers have to say on YouTube, then check out TracFone for yourself!
Take a soft, chewy granola bar, dip the bottom in fudge, sprinkle chocolate or peanut butter chips on top, and you have NEW Keebler Granola Fudge Bars!
Made with oats, rice, honey, real Keebler Fudge and no high fructose corn syrup, each Granola Fudge Bar has 150 calories, 10 grams of Whole Grain and three grams of fiber. The Peanut Butter bars have six grams of fat and the Chocolate chip have five grams of fat. Both varieties have ten grams of sugar and two grams of protein.
So, how do they taste? Pretty good! We definitely preferred the chocolate chip over the peanut butter; in my opinion, the peanut butter bars didn’t have a very strong peanut taste. I eat a lot of peanut butter and was hoping for a peanuty, salty taste, but they tasted more like traditional granola bars to me.
My kids, on the other hand, were happy to eat both varieties, I was lucky I got one of each to taste! While I think of these more as a treat than as a regular snack, I would buy them again for lunches or snacks, especially if I found a coupon for them or they were on sale.
Keebler Granola Fudge Bars have a suggested retail price of $3.09 for a box of 6 bars.
disclosure: I received two boxes of product to facilitate this review. All opinions are mine.
Ghirardelli Crispy Crunchy Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
Ingredients:
1 cup Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips or Ghirardelli Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/3 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup, plus
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, or more to taste
Directions:
Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Line two large baking sheets with foil, dull side up.
Mix the flour, baking soda, and salt together thoroughly. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the butter, both sugars, corn syrup, milk, and vanilla. Mix until smooth. Stir in the flour mixture. Stir in the nuts and chocolate chips. The dough will be very soft.
Divide the dough in half. Divide one half of the dough into 10 equal pieces (each a scant 1/4 cup). Place 5 pieces of dough least 3 inches apart on each lined baking sheet. Use your fingers covered with a piece of plastic wrap to flatten each scoop until it is 3 inches in diameter. (Cookies will spread even more as they bake).
Bake the two sheets for 8 minutes. Rotate the sheets from the top rack to the bottom and from front to back. Bake for 7-10 more minutes, watching closely, until the cookies are evenly dark golden brown all over. (Pale cookies will not be crispy). Let cool on pan for 5 minutes. Slide the foil with cookies onto racks. When the baking sheets are cool, repeat with the remaining dough. Cool cookies completely before stacking or storing. Cookies keep, in an airtight container for at least 5 days.
This weekend was my husband’s 25th High School Reunion, and a good friend came into town that we hadn’t seen in over 20 years. Like my husband, she grew up in East Lansing, and the restaurant she wanted to go to on Thursday night was the infamous El Azteco. Opened in 1976, El Azteco (or just El Az, pronounced “El Ez) has been THE place to eat in downtown East Lansing ever since.
When it first opened, El Az was in the basement of a row of buildings. There was a set of steep, slippery steps leading down to the door, and on weekend nights, the line was up the steps and down the sidewalk to get in. Once through the door, your senses were assaulted with loud classic rock on the radio and a haze of smoke, mostly clove cigarettes from Campbell’s Smoke Shop next door.
People were willing to put up with a dark, loud, smoky restaurant because the food is SO GOOD. Simple, authentic Mexican food, as in, the owners, chefs, and most of the wait staff are from Mexico. We have many favorites there, and one of the ones we had on Thursday was the cheese dip, served with homemade tortilla chips while you wait for the rest of the food.
I wanted to know how to make it, so I googled, and found a blog post on Forest Street Kitchen that also includes the recipe for El Azteco’s famous Topopo Salad. She got it from a reader who swore her to secrecy, and that reader got it from a former El Az employee who swore HER to secrecy.
El Azteco Cheese Dip
16 oz sour cream
16 oz cottage cheese [Note: if using a very dry cottage cheese, you may need to reduce the amount of Monterey Jack Cheese in order to get a sufficiently moist dip].
16 oz shredded Monterey Jack Cheese
one dash Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 bag lipton onion soup mix minus the dried onions (you’ll end up with just under 2 teaspoons of the spices)
3 minced jalapenos minus the seeds
1 and 1/2 bunches of scallions chopped.
Mix the sour cream, cottage cheese and add Worcersterhire sauce, garlic powder, and onion soup mix. Stir.
Add the jalapenos if you’re using them, the scallions, and the Monterey Jack cheese.
My 14 year old son and I signed up for Weight Watchers Online together two weeks ago. For most of our meals, we’ve just been figuring out the Points of the meals we normally eat, and adjusting our portions as needed. But because there are five of us and I want everyone to eat the same things, I was so happy to find this Family Friendly Meal Plan in the QuickBites newsletter from June 20th.
“Fitting your own, PointsPlus™ values-friendly meal ideas into a family’s eating can be tricky. So we’ve given you a handful of ideas for breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks that the whole family can enjoy, while you look forward to seeing success on the scale.”
Breakfasts
Oat pancakes — 8 PointsPlus values per serving; fresh fruit
Ham and Cheese Omelet – 5 PointsPlus vaues per serving; 2 slices light whole wheat toast – 3 PointsPlus vaues
Banana-Almond Oats – 4 PointsPlus per serving;
Stir chopped banana into 1 cup of hot cooked oats. 3 PointsPlus per serving;
season to taste with cinnamon and sprinkle with 1 Tbsp slivered almonds. 1 PointsPlus per serving .
Strawberry- Almond Oatmeal – 5 PointsPlus per serving
1 cup cooked oatmeal (4 PointsPlus per serving) with slices strawberries and 1 Tbsp slivered almonds (1 PointsPlus per serving).
Yogurt Sundaes – 3 PointsPlus per serving
Layer 1 cup light artificially-sweetened vanilla yogurt (3 PointsPlus per serving) with sliced strawberries and banana.
1 light English Muffin set open-faced (3 PointsPlus per serving) tomato slices, 1/4 cup grated Parmesan Cheese (3 PointsPlus per serving); carrots with salsa; fresh fruit.
Chicken Sandwich with Soup – 7 PointsPlus per serving
3 oz grilled or baked skinless boneless chicken breast (3 PointsPlus per serving) on 2 slices light whole wheat bread (2 PointsPlus per serving) with mixed greens, tomato and 2 tsp store-bought pesto sauce (1 PointsPlus per serving); 1 cup Italian Vegetable Soup(1 PointsPlus values per serving).
Pasta with Pesto Sauce and Roasted Vegetables – 9 PointsPlus values per serving.
1 cup whole wheat pasta (4 PointsPlus values per serving) with 2 Tbsp store-bought pesto (4 PointsPlus values per serving); 3/4 cup roasted peppers and red onions (1 PointsPlus values per serving).
Chinese Take Out – 12 PointsPlus per serving.
1 cup shrimp with garlic sauce (7 PointsPlus per serving); 1 cup brown rice (5 PointsPlus per serving); steamed mixed vegetables.
1 1/4 cups 15-Minute Vegetarian Chili (6 PointsPlus values per serving); mixed greens with 1 tsp oil (1 PointsPlus values per serving) and vinegar
Chili and Cheese Potato – 10 PointsPlus values per serving.
1 large (5-inch) baked potato (4 PointsPlus values per serving) topped with 1 1/4 cups chili and 1 Tbsp low-fat cheddar; (6 PointsPlus values per serving); steamed vegetables.
At a Japanese Restaurant – 9 PointsPlus values per serving.
4 pieces California Roll (4 PointsPlus values per serving) with 1/2 cup shelled edamame (2 PointsPlus values per serving) and 1 cup hot and sour soup (3 PointsPlus values per serving).
Breakfast for Dinner: Spanish Omelet with light whole wheat toast – 9 PointsPlus values per serving.
Spanish Omelet (5 PointsPlus values per serving), with 2 slices light whole wheat toast (3 PointsPlus values per serving) and 2 tsp light butter (1 PointsPlus values per serving).
Snacks
Apple slices with 1 tablespoon peanut butter (3 PointsPlus values per serving).
1/2 cup fat-free bean dip (2 PointsPlus values per serving) and thickly-sliced cucumber rounds.
1 cup light artificially-sweetened vanilla yogurt (3 PointsPlus values per serving) mixed with sliced strawberries and banana.
What a great meal plan! We don’t eat sushi and black bean brownies sound disgusting, but everything else on the menu sounds good. I’ll share anything special I make from this meal plan. What are you eating this week? Find more menus at I’m an Organizing Junkie, creator of Menu Monday.
Now that the kids are home all day, my meal planning has expanded to include more variety at breakfast as well as lunches. Here’s what I’m planning:
MONDAY:
Eggo Waffles, Milk, Fruit
Meat Ravioli with marinara sauce
Fried Chicken (from frozen), baked potato, green beans
TUESDAY:
Cereal, Fruit, Milk
Chicken patties on buns with lettuce, carrots, fruit
WW Slow Cooker Beefy Spaghetti Sauce on noodles, Bag Salad, Crescent Rolls
WEDNESDAY:
Scrambled eggs, toast, fruit
Chicken and Stars soup, saltines, oranges
Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, peas
THURSDAY:
Cereal, fruit, milk
Sandwiches, chips, apples
Chicken Stir Fry, Rice, Green Beans
FRIDAY:
Waffles, turkey sausage, milk
Leftovers
Pizza Night
SATURDAY:
Breakfast is do it yourself
Lunch out
Tilapia, Broccoli and Cauliflower, Creamy Italian Noodles
INGREDIENTS:
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/8 teaspoon paprika
4 bone-in chicken breast halves (about 2 pounds)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 small red onions, cut in quarters
1 pound new potatoes, cut in quarters
8 ounces fresh whole baby carrots (about 16), green tops trimmed to 1-inch-long
1 1/2 cups Swanson® Chicken Broth or Swanson® Chicken Stock
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh oregano leaves
Chopped fresh thyme leaves
DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat the oven to 350°F. Stir the flour, black pepper and paprika on a plate. Coat the chicken with the flour mixture.
2. Heat the oil in a 12-inch oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat. Add the chicken and cook for 10 minutes or until well browned on all sides. Remove the chicken from the skillet. Pour off any fat.
3. Add the onions and potatoes to the skillet and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the carrots, broth, lemon juice and oregano and heat to a boil. Return the chicken to the skillet. Cover the skillet.
4. Bake for 20 minutes. Uncover the skillet.
5. Bake, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through and the vegetables are tender. Sprinkle with the thyme, if desired.
Serving Suggestion: Serve with corn muffins and steamed broccoli florets. For dessert serve red grapes.
Easy Substitution: To use 4 skinless boneless chicken breast halves (about 1 1/4 pounds) instead of the bone-in chicken, reduce the oil to 1 tablespoon. Proceed as directed above but do not cover the skillet. Bake, uncovered, for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. Sprinkle with the thyme, if desired.
Note: True “baby” carrots are a seasonal vegetable available in spring and early summer and are sold in bunches with the green tops left on. They can usually be found in upscale grocery stores or farmers’ markets. “Baby-cut” carrots are mature carrots that have been peeled and cut into small carrot-shaped pieces. They are widely available year round in the produce section of most grocery stores.
photo credit Alan Caldwell http://allrecipes.com/Cook/18932168/
This recipe is from AllRecipes.com user TANAQUIL. She says it’s the same breading she uses for Chicken Fried Steak and that it was her husband’s suggestion to try it with chicken breasts. I love garlic and I love breaded chicken so I think this will be a hit!
Garlic Chicken Fried Chicken
Ingredients:
2 teaspoons garlic powder, or to taste
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup milk
1 egg
4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves – pounded thin
1 cup oil for frying, or as needed
Directions:
In a shallow dish, mix together the garlic powder, pepper, salt, paprika, bread crumbs and flour. In a separate dish, whisk together the milk and egg.
Heat the oil in an electric skillet set to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Dip the chicken into the egg and milk, then dredge in the dry ingredients until evenly coated.
Fry chicken in the hot oil for about 5 minutes per side, or until the chicken is cooked through and juices run clear. Remove from the oil with a slotted spatula, and serve.
Nutritional Information:
Amount Per Serving Calories: 391 | Total Fat: 11.4g | Cholesterol: 123mg
The nutritional value of oil for frying is based on a retention value of 10% after cooking. The exact amount may vary depending on cook time and temperature, ingredient density, and the specific type of oil used.
