Reviews

An Easy Meal for My Hungry Crew (and a Recipe for Barbecue Sauce)

April 12, 2013 by Sandra 6 Comments

Over the last three weeks, we’ve drastically switched up our routine.

Between 4 and 5 days a week, my two oldest kids pack up their school necessities, and we head to our local library. They work on school, while I work on client projects and other business. We stay at the library for hours. This gives them a good amount of time to work on school in peace, which allows for more uninterrupted learning. Learning is never quite uninterrupted at home, when you have 1, 4, and 6-year-old siblings.

This whole new routine is pretty amazing, and it’s working wonders for our family life. The only problem we’ve run into with our new routine is that after a few hours at the library, ~~we want to rip the door off of a refrigerator~~ we’re hungry. Essentially, my brain starts to shut down to the point where I have trouble concentrating on whatever I’m working on, and the kids start asking for food.

We’ve combated this problem by taking a snack break. We take a short break and eat foods like bananas, oranges, granola, tortillas chips, granola bars…pretty much whatever snack items I can find in the house that morning to pack for our trip to the library.

This tides us over for a little while, so that we can make it just a little while longer at the library. We get back to work after our break and then finish up our day at the library and head for home…hungry again.

Shortly after we get home, my big kids want to eat. And they don’t want to wait forever for a meal. One easy meal that satisfies my hungry kids is Tyson Chicken Fries with easy, homemade barbecue sauce. They love it, and the homemade barbecue sauce is just right. There are a lot of dipping sauces for chicken, but I think barbecue sauce is one of the best. 🙂

The best part about my recipe is that it’s ready in minutes, and there’s no cooking required! You can even have your older kids or their friends whip up the barbecue sauce while the chicken fries cook in the oven.

Here’s my recipe:

Barbecue Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups ketchup
1/4 cup molasses
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon hot sauce
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Instructions

In a medium-sized bowl, stir the ingredients together.

https://thesensiblemom.com/2013/04/an-easy-meal-for-my-hungry-crew-and-a-recipe-for-barbecue-sauce/

See how easy it is to make this recipe? And it’s delicious.

As a mom of five kids, whose appetites are growing as they get older, I’m thankful for easy, satisfying meals that my kids can enjoy on busy days.

What are some of your favorite quick and easy meals?

P.S. You can visit Tyson’s Facebook page, and enter for a chance to win a family six pack to Six Flags! It’s easy to enter, and the total prizes are 6 family six packs and 200 single day general admission tickets. If you love Six Flags theme parks, be sure to enter!

If you’d like to see my shopping trip to Sam’s Club to purchase the Tyson Chicken Fries, then head on over to check out my Google+ story.

I am a member of the Collective Bias Social Fabric Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias™ and Tyson. All opinions are my own. #ChickenFryTime #cbias #SocialFabric

The Do-It-Yourself Way to Change Your Car’s Air Filter for Cleaner, Fresher Air

April 11, 2013 by Sandra 4 Comments

As a mom (and a human being in general), clean air is important to me, especially in our car’s cabin.

We’re a family of seven, and while I can’t control weird odors that might arise out-of-thin-air (if you know what I mean), at least I can have the peace of mind that the air flowing inside of our car’s cabin is being filtered to remove the pollen particles and road dust that are trying to get in. And now that it’s allergy season, well, all the more reason to change our air filter to ensure that our family is getting the best quality air when we’re riding in the car.

Why pay someone else to do it, when you can do-it-yourself?

One way that we can enjoy clean-smelling air is by changing our car’s air filter — at home. Instead of paying out-of-pocket at an expensive mechanic’s shop or dealership, we DIY-it to get the job done. And we use the FRAM Fresh Breeze air filter.

Here’s how we changed our air filter:

First, we visited the FRAM Fresh Breeze website to find out how to change out the air filter in our specific make and model vehicle. The FRAM site makes it super easy to find out which air filter to buy for your specific vehicle, and they even have videos and downloadable PDFs to show you just how to do change out the filter.

Next, we purchased the specific filter we needed from Walmart. You can see details of my glamorous shopping trip here.

After that, we changed out the filter in a few easy steps.

(Ladies, you may need a man’s help to remove the glove compartment. ;))

After you remove the old filter, take a minute or two to marvel at how gross it is.

Next…

The final step…

And that’s it. Easy, right?

The Results

I definitely noticed an improvement in the freshness of the air in our car. (Side note: Did you know that the air inside your car can be dirtier than the air outside? All the more reason to change the air filter once or twice a year!) The FRAM Fresh Breeze air filter uses Arm and Hammer baking soda, which is going to help preserve the freshness for months to come.

I’m going to write myself a note to check the air filter again in six months.

If you want to purchase a FRAM Fresh Breeze air filter for your car, be sure to check out these Mail-In Rebates available right now. 🙂

When was the last time your car’s air filter was changed? Did you know it was this easy to change it yourself?

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and FRAM #cbias #SocialFabric #FresherCar — I love sharing my opinions with my readers.

Use the Walgreens Steps with Balance Rewards program to help you live a healthier lifestyle

April 8, 2013 by Sandra 4 Comments

Wouldn’t it be great to earn real rewards that can amount to real dollars being saved at the checkout lane? Wouldn’t it be great to save money while being encouraged to live a healthy lifestyle?

I have to shout a big, “Yes!” to both of those things.

As a wife and mom on a journey to lose weight and be healthy…and as a girl who knows it ISN’T going to happen overnight (but I’m in it for the long haul)…I need motivation to keep moving forward. I need encouragement to keep going and not give up, even when the scale makes me feel like I should’ve never stepped on it in the first place, because it’s not showing me the numbers I want to see.

Staying Motivated

I have a number of ways that I stay motivated to be healthy. They’re sort of my little tool kit that keeps me going. One of those tools that I know I’ll be using for the long haul is the Steps with Balance Rewards program with Walgreens.

Have you heard of it?

It’s a neat program where you earn Balance Rewards for setting goals (such as weight loss goals), and you can even earn rewards for exercising. For example, last week I walked on the treadmill for nearly three hours, and I earned rewards for doing so. No pedometer or anything special was needed to track my walking. I simply input the information into my Steps with Balance Rewards account, and I was rewarded points.

Easy, right?

In a nutshell, here’s what you can do with the Steps with Balance Rewards program:

Earn points for walking, running, and tracking your weight (set goals easily on the website)

Track progress toward meeting your goals

Sync a device to log activity while you are out

Connect with friends in Walgreens’ revamped community forum

How Balance Rewards turn into Real Savings

As I accumulate rewards, they will eventually translate into money that can be taken off of my total when I checkout at Walgreens. That’s pretty great.

How to sign up!

I’ve created a ‘pin’ able graphic to show just how easy it is to get started with the Steps with Balance Rewards program.

Simply hit the ‘Pin it’ button at the top of this post to pin this graphic and refer back to later. 🙂

Overall, I’m really enjoying this program. I love this it’s another tool in my belt on this journey to lose weight and be healthy for myself and my family.

One more thing you might be interested in knowing…

Walgreens has a ‘Step Up To Win’ sweepstakes going on right now, which has daily instant win prizes and a grand prize, a trip to The Biggest Loser resort of the winner’s choice — that would be a great trip to win!

So…how do you stay motivated to live a healthy lifestyle? What’s in your tool kit that keeps you going?

P.S. You can enjoy more posts like this and get fun and creative ideas for a whole lot more over on the Collective Bias AisleShare FUN website.

Take a peek at my recent shopping trip to Walgreens to snag something that helps me to live a healthier lifestyle here.

I am a member of the Collective Bias® Social Fabric® Community. This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias® and Walgreens #cbias #SocialFabric #BalanceRewards — I love sharing my opinions with my readers.

A Mealtime Alternative When You Don’t Have Time to Cook

March 27, 2013 by Sandra Leave a Comment

We all have busy days.

Life is full, and sometimes my life is so full that I don’t have time to cook. I’m working on pruning my regular to-do list so that I can regularly do the things with my family and work that are the most fulfilling. I want to stop doing things and taking on projects that make me feel frustrated and busy all the time. I want to be able to say, “yes” to my kids more often and simply have more time to really connect with them individually.

I’m not ‘there’ yet, but I’m working on it. In the meantime, I need quick and easy meal options for busy days. Sometimes, leftovers are what’s for dinner at our house, but another good mealtime option is already prepared frozen meals. Frozen meals like Healthy Choice are far different from what I remember as a kid.

Did you know? For Healthy Choice meals, vegetables are picked at the peak of freshness and most go from farm to freezer within 24 hours.

Eating Foods I Like

Another reason I like frozen meals is that they give me the opportunity to eat something that if I made it at home, I’d be the ONLY person eating it. I live among picky eaters, whom I am ~~forcing~~ working hard to change, but it’s a work in progress.

I like that I can eat pineapple chicken while the rest of my family has something they like, and everyone is happy. 🙂

Weight Management

Of course, you probably already know that Healthy Choice meals can help with weight management, because they have the calorie content right on the front of the box, and there’s built-in portion control. I also like that there aren’t any preservatives, and there’s a variety of vegetables in Healthy Choice meals.

Overall, I love that frozen meals offer busy families a quick and easy alternative on busy days.

For mealtime, what works for you on busy days?

Watch an interesting video that follows two women as they…”Discover the Future of Frozen Foods”

More About Frozen Meals

ConAgra Foods frozen meals give families access to real ingredients like crunchy, freshly cut vegetables, homemade pasta and ripe fruit year-round. Just like most people blanch veggies before freezing them – ConAgra Foods does too – to help preserve color, texture and keep them fresh!

Give it a try sometime! Marie Callender’s hearty pot pies are filled with tender meat, freshly cut vegetables and Marie’s authentic golden, flaky crust. And Healthy Choice recipes use chef-inspired ingredients like, apples instead of sugar for tart sweetness and a splash of red wine for a punch of flavor instead of added salt.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of ConAgra Foods.

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