Recipe: Grilled Bruschetta Chicken w/Homemade Sun-Dried Tomato Dressing

I know that recipes doesn't exactly jive with the theme of this blog, but this recipe was just too 'smack yo momma good' to not share with you...or at the very least, note for myself. :)

Grilled Bruschetta Chicken w/Homemade Sun-Dried Tomato Dressing

Ingredients:
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves (1 lb.)
1/4 cup Sun-Dried Tomato Dressing, divided (recipe to follow)

Directions:
Heat grill to medium heat.

Marinade chicken with 2 Tbsp. of dressing. Refrigerate 10 min. or even better - overnight!

Place chicken on grill; cover with lid. Grill 6 min...depending on thickness of chicken.

Turn chicken over. Grill, covered, grill 8 min. or until chicken is done (165ºF).

Adapted from Kraft.

Serve over a bed of whole wheat pasta, topped with diced Roma tomatoes (on sale!), some of the remaining Sun-Dried Tomato Dress and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.


Sun-Dried Tomato Dressing
Yield: Makes about 3 1/2 cups

Ingredients:
1 small onion, chopped (1 cup)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
2 large garlic cloves, peeled
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1 8-ounce jar oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes, drained
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
freshly ground black pepper
olive oil

Directions:
Toss ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Drizzle olive oil (eye ball it) until desired amount.  (I usually don't use more than 1/8 of a cup, I don't like my dressings oily and greasy.)  Blend again until smooth. 

Adapted from Epicurious.

Enjoy!


Tips:
I butterfly my boneless skinless chicken breasts.  That makes it cook faster, thus using less propane/energy to cook. Another side benefit of this is, it also tricks my brain into eating less. It's portion control.  It makes the meat go farther, and I spend less on buying meats, which is the costliest thing on my grocery list.  (And greener too!)

Mailbox Love

Nothing good in the mail today.  Just 2 junk mail, and a Disney Vacation planning DVD...which may or may not have a discount code in it but it doesn't really matter since we're not booking anything now anyway. :(

Price juggles

I made a lil quickie trip to Target to pick up some things and while there, I decided to get my son a Hot Wheels car to reward him for being so patient this week.  As I perused the toy aisle, I was happy to see some happy little yellow tags protruding out indicating a Temporary Price Cut.   Just in case you didn't know, I like savings. :)

I first saw a pack of 5 Hot Wheels cars for $4.49.  Not bad since they're typically $5+ a pack or .97 individually.  So I picked a pack out.  Then I saw something even better: a 10 pack for $8.99 instead of the usual $9.99.  Ok, savings of $1 instead of 50 cents.  I'll take that instead.  As I grabbed the 10 pack I noticed something else: the individually packaged ones were on sale for 79 cents each!  Ok, think quick, how much is that for 10?  Right, $7.90...um...that's an even bigger savings than $8.99.  It makes absolutely NO sense...well at least to the consumers that have been previously trained to think that buying more equals savings.  Apparently, that's just not the case anymore. Consumers practically need a degree in mathematics to figure out merchants' pricing tricks.

Needless to say, I picked out 10 of the individually wrapped ones not only for the savings, but I also got to pick specifically the ones I wanted instead of a pack of mixed in stuff that we might not want.  (Yes, I can hear my husband telling me that I didn't NEED to buy 10, but I did because now I can hide them and bring them out later as rewards. Plus they make great stocking stuffers.) The whole experience made no sense whatsoever, but it's taught me an important lesson: as a consumer, I need to be smart about the way I shop. Conventional trains of thoughts no longer applies anymore.  Merchants are coming up with new and different ways to make money off of unsuspecting shoppers.

Caveat emptor.

Vacay Fund Pay Day

It's Friday, so that means pay day to the vacation fund.  While reading a reader's comment on Couponing to Disney yesterday, I got a great idea.  The reader does a round up kind of thing to deposit money into her vacay fund with a max of $10 because they're on a budget.  For example, if the paycheck was $249.32, she'd deposit $9.32 into the vacay fund.  That sounded like a great idea to me so I decided to do the same.  Only, the "round off" part of the paycheck was a mind boggling.....42 cents. Yeah, I spat all over my laptop laughing so hard.  Oh well.

Anyway, we didn't spend much this week so the deposit is rather small...only $35.  Most of it came in the form of coupons, which hey, that's not bad!  The "big" part of the deposit came in the form of Swag Bucks rewards.  I got another $10 in Amazon gift cards from Swag Bucks last night, making my total rewards a record breaking (for me anyway) $20.  I'm excited to do some shopping. :D

Size does matter

We went grocery shopping last night and since it's been a while since I bought yogurt, I decided to get some. My kids wanted GoGurt.  I didn't mind, so we went to the dairy case and snagged a box.  There were 2 sizes on the shelf: a smaller box with the unit price of 12.9 cents, and the larger box of 13.8 cents.

Uh ok?  I thought you pay less if you buy more?

Sorry bub, that's soooooo yesterday.  Now the trend is buy more pay more.  Is it true? Have stores caught on to consumers thinking that if they buy more they pay less?

Needless to say, the cheapo in me snagged the smaller box with the cheaper unit price. Thanks to my husband, who taught me to check the unit price when price comparing, I caught on to the store's scheme to get me to spend more.  Lesson to be learned here: check the unit price.

Mailbox Love

I wonder if my mailman (mail-ghetto-fab-woman*) is sick of bringing me Tampons because I got another Playtex Gentle Glide sample w/coupon in the mail today, plus 2 copies of Parenting magazine. Why they send me 2 copies, I don't know, but at least I'll have one in each bathroom now. :p

* My ghetto fab mail woman...I freakin' love her. (Vast improvement over the lazyass who used to drive his mail truck up to each house, turn the engine off, walk up the steps...not disabled, mind you, drop the mail off, walk back to his truck, fire up the engine, drive the few yards to the next house, rinse, repeat.) I just love her spunk. And yes, she really is ghetto fab, complete with 6" acrylic nails that are awesome.  How she rocks those blue latex gloves with those nails, I'll never know, but that's part of what makes her awesome.  She makes me want to tell her to put the mail down and sit on my steps with a couple of bottles of 40s wrapped in paper bags.

$1 Smoothies @ Jamba Juice

Today, June 16, 2010 only, score a Jamba Juice Superfruit Smoothie for just $1!  Limit 2 per customer!  Details here.

Disney Movie Rewards

Do you have plans to see any Disney movies in the theaters this summer? I know we're super excited to see Toy Story 3 and we already got our (free!) tickets to see it on opening day!  If you don't have free tickets to Toy Story, fret not, there's a promo that'll still get you some goodies.

Disney Movie Rewards has partnered up with Fandango. If you buy your Toy Story 3 tickets through Fandango, you can get up to 200 DMR points plus a Toy Story 3 digital book.  Details here.  After you've seen the movie, be sure to save your ticket stubs because you can submit them (electronically) to DMR and get up to another 200 points!  The ticket stub rewards is good for most Disney movies including Alice in Wonderland, and Prince of Persia so if Toy Story 3 is not your style, if you see any other Disney movie this summer, save your stubs and check the DMR website to see if it qualifies for points.  You can redeem DMR points for Disney merchandise.  For details on ticket stub submitting/redemption, click here.

Mailbox Love

Not much in the form of mailbox love today. I got the July, 2010 issue of Parents magazine, and a bunch of solicitation junk.

A little observation and rant:

I think State Farm really really really wants my business because just today alone I received 2 solicitation letters from 2 different State Farm agents. I know these are rough times for everyone and I know agents need to get their names out to get business, but I'm less likely to give them my business if they keep sending me junk. In fact, I get several solicitation letters from State Farm in any given month and they're all from different agents!  Frankly, I don't have the time or patience to contact each agent to ask them to stop mailing me stuff so here's my confession: I throw them straight in the trash and they're a waste of money for those agents who send them out.  I wish there was a good way to market to new prospective clients, but for me, sending me junk is a sure fire way to turn me off.

Edited:

I went back through my mail again to discover that I got some Protection One Child Safety Tattoos!  The little envelope that it came in was sandwiched between a bunch of junk mail. It was a good thing I went through it again.  I'm so excited to get these. I can't wait to try them out!

Sample: Bacon Salt

Seriously, who isn't at the very least intrigued by Bacon Salt? Get yourself a sample here.

Review & Writing to Companies: Orajel

About a month ago, at the advice of our dentist, I bought some training toothpaste for my toddler, who doesn't quite get spitting out toothpaste. The Orajel Toddler Training Toothpaste was all I could think of to buy because it was the only brand of training toothpaste that I'd seen before so that's what I got at the store.  When I came home and opened it up, it instantly oozed out at me into a big huge, sticky mess.  Even my husband complained about how messy it was when he used it on the kiddo.  Every time I took the cap off, more of it oozed out into a puddle of mess than I would put on the toothbrush.  It was utterly wasteful. It was just a huge mess all over the place...on the cap, our counters, our hands, it was every where. It was a runny mess.  Needless to say, I was frustrated.  The product itself was fine, my kid loved it, but it was just such a pain to use that I wrote an email to Orajel complaining about the issue. In the email I explained how messy it was in a calm and kind fashion and asked that they please consider either reformulating the product or redesigning the tube so that it's not so messy to dispense.  Really, that was what I wanted and hoped for because the product itself was fine, just the dispensing method was awful.

To my surprise, I got a response the very next day from a Customer Relations Specialist.

Dear Mrs. ...:

Thank you for visiting our web site recently and taking the time to contact us regarding Orajel® Toddler Training Toothpaste. We are sorry to learn of your dissatisfaction with the product.

We appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention and are concerned that our product did not meet the usual standard of quality you have come to expect from us.  Your comments are important to us and provide valuable information that helps us maintain the high level of quality associated with our products.

As we guarantee your satisfaction with our products, we would like to send you a refund for your purchase.  Please respond using the link below to provide your full name and mailing address at your earliest convenience.

Again, thank you for taking the time and having the interest to contact us.  We value your patronage and trust you will continue to purchase Church & Dwight Co., Inc. products with confidence.  If you have any questions or concerns in the future, please call us at 1-800-952-5080.

While I know the email seems pretty canned, the message made me happy.  They offered me a full refund of the product, which is very nice.  I replied to the message accordingly as instructed.  Three business days later, I got another response from the same Customer Relations Specialist:

Dear Mrs. ...:

Thank you for visiting our web site recently and taking the time to contact us regarding Orajel® Toddler Training Toothpaste. We are sorry to learn of your dissatisfaction with the product.

We appreciate your bringing this matter to our attention and are concerned that our product did not meet the usual standard of quality you have come to expect from us.  Your comments are important to us and provide valuable information that helps us maintain the high level of quality associated with our products.

At Church & Dwight Co., Inc. we guarantee your satisfaction and under separate cover, via the United States Postal Service, have sent a refund check for the product you purchased.

Again, thank you for taking the time and having the interest to contact us.  We value your patronage and trust you will continue to purchase Church & Dwight Co., Inc. products with confidence.  If you have any questions or concerns in the future, please call us at 1-800-952-5080.


I am pleased.  Very pleased.  I'm quite happy with their response to my issue and offering me a full refund.  I do like Orajel's products and I sincerely hope that they will consider reformulating their product or redesigning their dispensers.  The lesson learned here is, don't be afraid to contact companies about their products. The worst that will happen is you get a canned response or no response at all.  (Or a potentially alarming response may change the way you feel about the company, but it really is better to know than not know.)  It never hurts to try and no matter how angry you may be at them, it never hurts to try to calm down, write a draft of your email first, read it, before sending it.  It's not the customer service rep's fault, and a little kindness just may sway them to go above and beyond to help you.

Mailbox Love

In today's mail, I got a box of 3 Playtex Gentle Glide tampons with a $1 off coupon.  Cool thing though, is that the coupon is good through 12/2011.

Sample: Dove shampoo

Get a sample of Dove® Damage Therapy Daily Moisture Shampoo and Conditioner from Costco!  You do not have to be a member to take advantage of this sample.

Don't forget to check in on Mailbox Love when you get it. :)

Sample: bodycology

Walmart is giving away samples of bodycology lotions. Snag yours here!

Back to School shopping

Didn't summer JUST start? Why are we thinking about Back to School shopping NOW?!? Crazy, huh? Well for one, I love school supplies. I think school supplies shopping is very fun. It makes me excited and giddy for some reason. Pencils, erasers, glue, oh my!

Two - prices. I'm a cheapass, but you probably already knew that. The bottom line is, I HATE paying for more than I have to.

With those things in mind, I will admit that I started shopping for school supplies from the moment I got my kids' supply lists back in April. Fo' realz...even preschoolers who aren't even out of diapers yet have supplies lists! Wipes, swim diapers, watercolors, etc.

Appropriately, I came across a post on how to save money while shopping for school supplies from the blog called Organized Home. I really enjoyed the article because not only did it provide tips, but it also confirmed that the way I'd been approaching the whole school supplies thing is right. My husband probably thinks I'm a little nuts for thinking about school supplies so far in advance but the truth is, if I'm prepared with a game plan, I can save us a lot of money. I've been keeping an eye out for coupons, sales, I can afford to play the waiting game on certain items, watching for them to go on sale, then attacking when they do. Time is a great advantage when you work with it on your side.

Here's another justification to my madness though. Most stores have a 90 day return policy so if I see something that's a good deal now, I'll buy it and tape my receipt to the item if applicable. (I'm storing all of my supplies in an old diaper box. If taping the receipt to the item is not feasible, I will keep it in a plastic bag and throw the receipt in the bag so I know exactly where it is and what it goes with.) I know there will be back to school sales when I can get school glue for 10 cents a bottle, but I've also shopped for school supplies enough to know that there are many things...many specific things that teachers and schools want that will not be on the sales fliers come August. Things like an 8 oz bottle of glue will be the same price now as it will be a month from now during back to school sales because it's always the 4 oz ones that goes on sale. Unfortunately, most teachers want the 8 oz bottles instead of a gazillion 4 oz ones even though you can get 20 bottles for the price of one 8 oz bottle.

So yes, I do think of school supplies now, in June while I'm taking my kids to the pool or baseball practice, or while I'm shopping for groceries. I always keep my eye out for things I'll need and stock up if it's a really good deal. The hard part is remembering where you put them. :p

If school supplies shopping is in your near future, now isn't too early to start thinking about it. I also recommend the article from Organized Home. Happy shopping!

And yeah one of the things I have to get is 24 no. 2 pencils, all sharpened. Do you have any idea how uber grateful I am of my husband for finding my electric pencil sharpener that my dad gave me when I was in 2nd grade?!?! That thing is ancient but still works great, and I'm so glad I have it. My blogging carpal tunnel plagued wrists are thankful.

Mailbox Love

I think my mailbox is trying to compensate for the lack of goodies on Saturday because it exploded with all sorts of goodies today! Check it -

I got:

1. A Dr. Scholls For Her insole...and it literally is just ONE insole so I get to hop around trying it out but if I want the other one, well I'll have to use the enclosed coupon to spring for a pair lol.  If you want one to hop around too, you can still score one from their Facebook page. 
2. Stacy's Simply Naked Pita Chips - these are yum!
3. Nature's Bounty pedometer!  I am SO excited about this. Tylenol offered one as a promo a few months ago too, but when it came, it was broken so I couldn't really use it. I've been wanting one for a while now so I can keep track of things when I walk my dogs.  Of course, it came with coupons too. :)
4. Curel Itch Defense sample & coupon
5. Aveeno Nourish + Moisturize shampoo & condition with coupon
6. A $1 off 2 Pop-Tarts Ice Cream Shoppe pastries. (I totally forgot to throw that in the photo.) This one I got sent to me from Bricks a couple of weeks ago. Hopefully I can get the specially marked ones for more movie tickets. :D

Today's a good day for some mailbox love. :)

Mooooovies!

About a month ago, I read about free movie opportunities on Couponing to Disney.  There are a ton of free movie promos going on this year. Not sure why, economy, maybe? But hey, I'll take it!  Anyway, companies like Hershey's, and Kelloggs are running promos for free movies. The cool thing is, that these movie tickets are even good for special engagements. Some are good until 2011!  Couponing to Disney has a running list of free movie promos here.

I've personally either tried or tried for a few of the promos listed on CoD's site.  Some worked beautifully, some had finer details to be aware of, others I had no luck with.  Here's what worked for me:

Tampax/Always - For each box of specially marked boxes of Tampax or Always you buy, you get a card with a code on it.  You type the code into the website and it generates a voucher...eMovie Cash for you to print and take to a participating theater.  These are the best deals out of the ones I tried for, because not only are they non perishable, but you basically get one ticket per box you buy rather than having to buy several boxes to collect enough codes to redeem for one ticket, but they're also the ones with a bit of a catch.  The eMovie Cash vouchers do not last very long...just 1 month from the day you enter the code.  So I'd hang on to it and wait till you're ready to see the movie before entering the code. Be advised though that the codes expire October 31, 2010 so use it before then!
The math - a box of Tampax or Always with the code inside in my area is just under $7, so even if the products itself weren't being used, it's still at least a $3 savings assuming the movie ticket is $10.

Pop-Tarts -These also generate eMovie Cash, but you must buy 5 different flavors of specially marked Pop-Tarts to get enough codes to redeem for one movie ticket. (There are other things you can redeem for too.)  Even if the flavor is part of the flavor card, if it's not specially marked, it won't contain the code. I learned that one the hard way.  The best part of this promo is that you can enter the codes to redeem the ticket, and the ticket is good through October 31, 2011!
The math -  a box of Pop-Tarts at my local Walmart is about $1.70.  $1.70 x 5 = $8.50.  It's a small savings assuming the movie ticket is $10 but these vouchers also lasts the longest out of the ones I looked into so it's worth it, especially since you can use them for the fun movies that tends to get released around the holidays.

General Mills cereals - this is the one I had absolutely no luck with. I went to several different stores in my area and none of them had the specially marked boxes of General Mills cereals for movie ticket promos. 


eMovie Cash - I've had very little trouble cashing those in.  Really, it wasn't trouble at all. Most theater employees just haven't had a lot of practice ringing up the order with eMovie Cash (probably because it's new) so they just either need a manager or someone else who knows what to do to help them ring it up.  I would either get your tickets in advance or plan on going to the theater a little earlier.  My personal tip is, regardless of which promo you go for, contact the issuer of the ticket voucher to check for expiration.  I'm not sure who Hershey's, Energizer, or other companies running similar promos are using to issue the vouchers, but with eMovie Cash, the expiration date varies depending on the company running the promo (as evident in the expiration date difference between the Tampax/Always and Pop-Tarts promos.)  Email the companies involved and ask them what the fine print is such as the expiration, and use accordingly.

This really is a great way to take a family to see some of the summer blockbusters this year.  Movie tickets easily costs $10 a pop...even more in some theaters, or if you want to see it in 3-D, IMAX, whatever. For a family of 4 that's a whopping $40 for about 2 hours of entertainment at least and that's not including popcorn, candies, drinks, etc.  If you included that, a trip to the movies can easily cost $100!  So far I've taken my family to see Shrek 4 on opening, and we've already got our advance tickets to see Toy Story 3 on opening night, this Friday, June 18.  Needless to say, we're super excited! My kids have been talking non stop about the movie, and me? I'm super thrilled that we don't have to pay a penny for them to enjoy one of their favorites. :)

Now speaking of movies coming out during the holidays, have you see the trailer to Tangled? It looks pretty funny. IMDB says it's coming out November 24, 2010. I can't wait. :)

Mailbox Love

Nothing good came in the mail today. Just 2 pieces of junk mail. :(

Swag Bucks

I have a confession:

I'm addicted to Swag Bucks.

I will admit that when I first signed up for it, I poked around a little and gave upon it because I was so confused. I didn't know what I needed to do to earn Swag Bucks for prizes like they claimed, other than spend money and that's just not how I roll.  I gave up on it for a month if not two until a savings blog I follow kept talking about it. That's when I figured it couldn't hurt to give it another shot and see what it was about. I mean, what's all this swag about anyway?

I took some time out and poked around trying to see just what I could do to earn a few of those elusive Swag Bucks.  I checked out the FAQ, poked around and figured there was no harm in following them on Twitter. Within a few hours, they posted a hint to a code on Twitter, I figured out the clue, and voila, I was rewarded with Swag Bucks. The rest was history and I was hooked once I started earning them.  I think that was around the beginning of May.  By mid May, I'd won and accrued enough Swag Bucks to cash in for some Amazon gift cards.  Two of them to be exact.  When I received them and plugged the codes into my Amazon account and they worked, I knew for sure then that Swag Bucks was legit and not a scam.  I've been helplessly hooked ever since.

They run a lot of promos to help you get Swag Bucks.  I watch a lot of their ads (videos on the front page in the yellow rectangular sliding box) I follow them on Twitter and Facebook so I'm up to date on where they've hidden codes and participate in their code hunts (where they provide clues and you have to figure out the riddle to get the code) and I also check their Swidget.  Of course, I use their search engine which is one of the most popular ways to earn Swag Bucks. It all adds up.  They just wrapped up a week of beaucoup Swag Bucks with some huge wins each day.  Admittedly I had rotten luck most of the week until Thursday when I snagged this searching for the contact info for Orajel so that I could write them an email about a product I'm having issues with. (I'll follow up with that when I hear more from Orajel.)

Not too bad for having a crappy week of wins.  That was one of my biggest wins ever. (I had a 49 last month.)  That, along with their newly launched Trusted Surveys, net me enough to score another Amazon gift card, making my total of 3 of them just in the month of June so far. Needless to say, I'm quite happy and can't wait till the 17th when they issue the codes so I could go do some shopping. :)

If you follow me on Twitter, you can get a glimpse of how often I win by searching. I don't always post every win because quite frankly, that's annoying, but I do post with some...usually the big wins or if I haven't won in a while and it's celebratory for me. :)

Vacation fund update

I may have saved a lot last month, but it's taught me an important lesson: money that isn't cash needs to be deposited into the "no touch vacation account" right away or it will be spent. And it did. So this month, I'm doing something a little different. I'm making weekly deposits. I've chosen each Friday as my vacation fund pay day...starting with today.

I didn't have a big shopping week this week. In fact, I spent very little money and hardly bought anything. (That's a good thing, right?)  So, my savings from purchases and stuff were pretty small...just $15 and some change so I rounded my deposit up to $16.

Here's the break down:
$8.50 - Costco coupons
$5.00 - Opinion Outpost payment
$1.53 - misc grocery & hobby discounts

So there it is, the money is sent, gone, locked away, no touchy, no spendy.