In the Kitchen, Photos, Reviews

How do you work this thing?

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I had a “teaser” post up a few weeks ago mentioning that I’ll be reviewing something from CSN stores in the near future. Well that item has arrived, and I received a food processor.

This Cuisinart food processor is super tiny, and a perfect size for just the two of us.

However, what I didn’t realize is that it shreds chicken and peppers so quickly that you have to be very careful at how long you hold the button for. Whether it be 0.001 seconds, or 0.0005—I mean, it’s really that quick. Press once quickly and bam chicken is OBLITERATED.I think it’d be perfect for making salsa’s or bread crumbs, or what I did last weekend was put a full banana in, and it made it all creamy for my banana bread recipe. Genius idea, Nancy!

Before (about half a cooked chicken breast), during & after. Annihilated.

I know there’s only two buttons, but they basically do the same thing. I wish it had a slower feature, because I don’t like minced bell peppers, lol.

Love how quick it was to make my quesadillas. I’ve even done a step-by-step process on how I made them. But you can just easily view my recipe here.

Only the chicken and red pepper were put into the food processor, I cut the tomatoes by hand and added salsa on top.Mix it all together!

Get the flat breads ready. Fold them in half, and cut them up the middle. See?

Open them up, and fill them with the mixture. Yum yum.

Don’t forget to add the cheese before you close the tops down! Cheese is necessary.

Ready to bake in the oven to crisp up the outsides. You’ll notice that I laid down parchment paper on my baking sheet (makes for an easier clean up!) also a “cooling rack” with all my quesadillas on it. That’s because I find if I didn’t end up doing that, the bottoms of the quesadillas get a bit soggy.

About 35 minutes should do it, on 350ºF. This timer is such a life saver.

The magic of blogging, 35 minutes is up and voila— out of the oven.

All ready to eat!!

I know that was a bit of a lengthy post, but I thought I’d show you what I ended up making using my Cuisinart food processor given to me by CSN stores to review! Awesome, right?

The best part? It’s soo easy to clean. I’m not even kidding you guys. There are only three pieces to clean! Just have to be careful with the blade.

Thanks again, CSN stores for another great product.

I want to ask you guys, is there any sort of machine that can cut chicken, or bell peppers into bite sized pieces without mincing them? Silly me thought that the food processor would do that. But really it’s meant for grinding herbs, making dips like salsa and the like. Which I will use! I just want something that can chop stuff…

[Don’t forget to enter my giveaway]

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Contests, Reviews

Blogger business cards

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Do you have any blogger business cards? Wanna win some?

A rep from Next Day Flyers contacted me to giveaway some business cards to you guys and I obviously accepted to do so, because I think it’d be neat to carry around blogger business cards. I’d hand them out to everyone and post them everywhere and anywhere.

I mean, anyone going to blogger meet ups, or conferences in the upcoming year? Having business cards with your name, twitter, e-mail, website and possible youtube url’s help out people to remember you and also visit your blog after the meet up. It was fun going to the Toronto Blogger meetup in January, as everyone had all sorts of neat business cards, and flyers handed out. I personally haven’t thought of it, but I thought it was clearly a genius idea to have some handy to give out.

Okay, so how it works is that one reader of mine from the Continental US will win a set of 250 standard business cards printed on 14pt card stock. Full color on the front and black and white on the back.

Entering is easy as pie. Mmm lemon meringue pie.

  • Just follow me on twitter (@spiffykerms) – 1 entry
  • Follow the company who is giving you guys these business cards (@NextDayFlyers) – 1 entry
  • Leave a comment telling me how you would use these business cards.  1 entry
  • Note: Giveaway is only available to those in the Continental US
  • Giveaway ends February 7, 2011 at 1:00pm EST. Entries there after will be deleted.

Next Day Flyers will print them with next day turnaround time and ship them anywhere in the Continental US. Next Day Flyers will be in charge of picking a winner using random.org. From there, the customer service team will contact the winner via e-mail and set everything up.

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Contests, Freebies, Photos, Reviews

Thanks everyone!

140 Comments

I’m very surprised of the outcome in the poll that I had you guys do the other day.

I subscribe to about 100 blogs via Google RSS feed, and I have a handful of couple that I love seeing update daily. But for the most part I skim through the pictures and text and basically hit it as read. So I’m glad everyone (for the most part) would like that I keep updating as often as I do!

Thanks for the feedback and your support.

I have another giveaway for you guys which will be great for either you, or you can also give it away as one of your Christmas presents to someone. This giveaway will be only a handful of days long just so we can co-ordinate and get the basket out to you in time for Christmas.

I have a total of 13 gifts to buy for this upcoming Christmas, and I’m also doing a swap with a Katie on YouTube. It’s not a huge deal to some as many people give to many more people than that. The problem with me, is that I start shopping early, and I end up giving people multiple small gifts. It adds up!

I’m also responsible for picking out a small number of gifts for people at work. Christmas is steadily approaching and we all need to straighten out our gift ideas.

For those hard to shop for co-workers, friends and family? Why not get a Gourmet Gift Basket? I mean, the kind folks at Gourmet Gift basket would love to give one of you lucky readers one!

Gourmet Gift Baskets are great as mostly everything is already paired up for you. You just have to select whether the person is a chocolate / biscuit or even coffee lover. I’m excited that I even noticed the baby baskets that is available on their website. In the past I have done my Christmas shopping online. It’s much easier than having to go to a store, wondering what you’re going to pick out for someone.

There is such a diverse selection on the Gourmet Gift Baskets website that it would appeal to anyone of any age for that matter, as the baskets just aren’t simply “one set style”. Plus you can keep the adorable baskets once the receiver is done with them. Fill them with towels to put in the guest bath, or even keep it in the kitchen for fresh fruit.

The one I received from Gourmet Gift baskets was called the Christmas Gift Basket Classic filled with cookies, pretzel dip, candy popcorn, crackers and some other fun eats.

You can spot Alfie’s (my dog) nose sniffing that unopened package. (All these images you can click to enlarge)

Unopened, and then just opened! Eee!!

All the goodies spread out.

I was most excited to try these chocolates out. I’m a HUGE turtles fan, and these were uh-mazing. They’re dark chocolate and very tasty.

The first thing my boyfriend looked at were the labels — No transfat!

It’ll be exciting for the next few nights to try each and every one of these goodies out. I can’t all divulge and try them in one evening. I’d get a tummy ache! Stay tuned for my tastebuds review :)

Dark chocolate and wine anyone?

These look great.

I wouldn’t recommend trying to put it all back in the basket though, hehe!

You can also view the massive selection (on the right hand side) of gift baskets they have to offer . Anything from Italian Food Gift Baskets (which you’ll have a ton of options under that selection), tea and cookies (4 different packages), sweets (tons to choose from — drool), even cupcakes and New Years! How fun. Like i said — there’s just an endless possibility on who and what event to shop for.

How to enter: Comment on this post with the words “Gourmet Me” and…
Bonus entries: Tweet it (1 entry per tweet — tweet multiple times!). Blog it (5 entries for 1 post). Facebook fan it (6 entries for becoming a fan).
Giveaway ends: Tuesday December 6th at 10pm EST.
Who can win?: Anyone in the USA and Canada!
When to claim: Winner will be drawn by random.org and announced on Wednesday December 7th. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours I will draw another name.

Good luck!

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