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Cafe Escapes

Yet another fun free product from bzzagent! Nescafe Cafe Escapes for your Keurig brewer. I got to try six different flavors, Chai Latte, Milk and Dark Chocolate Hot Cocoa, Café Mocha, Café Vanilla, and Café Caramel. Café Vanilla was definitely my favorite and Café Caramel was great as well. These two are their newest flavors and whatever they did different to them was totally worth it. I thought the other four flavors were a little watered-down tasting. The flavor was good, just kind of weak. So Café Vanilla and Caramel are the two flavors that I would purchase again.

This was such a great bzz campaign for February and March because it’s still cold out and hot chocolate goes with practically everything I want to do. From catching up on my “Once Upon A Time” episodes to reading my book of short stories, or just hanging out with my Husband in the evenings. I definitely enjoyed trying all these hot chocolate flavors!

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Free Shaving Supplies

Click Here to go to Harry’s shaving cream launch page. The more friends you get to sign up (just submit your e-mail) the larger the item you will receive when they launch. Free shaving cream at 5 friends, free handle at 10 friend, free shaving kit at 25 friends, and free blades for a year at 50 friends.

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Barley Bread

My 4yr old has been begging me for weeks to make her some barley bread. I think in Sunday School they heard the story of the feeding of the 5,000 and the little boy with the loaves had barley bread. My 4yr old definitely thought there must be something special about barley bread!

So, I found some barley in the cupboard the other day and decided to give barley bread a try. Luckily I have a wheat grinder so turning barley into barley flour was noisy but pretty easy.

Next, I had to find a recipe that only contained ingredients that I have on hand. Fortunately, that wasn’t too hard and this is what I tried:

Ingredients (Makes 1 Loaf)
  • 3 cups barley flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 2 tablespoons baking powder
  • 4 tablespoons sugar
  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil, plus extra for skillet
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup whole milk

    • Directions


    Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and lightly grease a 9 inch cast iron skillet with some vegetable oil and place in oven while preheating. (Why a cast iron skillet? It is the secret to a perfect crust.) If you don’t have a cast iron skillet then grease an 8 inch square pan and set-aside (not in oven).

    In a medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, and baking powder. Mix thoroughly.

    In a separate, smaller bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium-low speed, mix together the sugar, 1/4 cup oil, eggs, and milk. Slowly add the egg-mixture to the flour mixture until everything is just moistened.

    Pour batter into the cast iron skillet or prepared pan and bake 30 – 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (internal temperature 190 degrees F. Cut into squares and serve warm.

    As you can see, it turned out light, fluffy, and crumbly, just like a cake. The barley was surprisingly mild tasting and my kids and I loved it!

    I’ll definitely be making this recipe again.

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    Morning Star Farms Veggie Burgers

    Thanks to bzzagent.com I got to try Morning Star Farms veggie burgers for free. I tried the Grillers Original variety but they have several different flavors. I really wanted to try the Black Bean burgers but since they’re Spicy Black Bean burgers and I’m not a big fan of spicy I didn’t want to ruin my first veggie burger experience with a too-spicy burger.

    I was really surprised, the Grillers Original tastes just like a regular hamburger. It’s a little thinner and a bit less filling than the burgers I usually make but put it on on bun with some mayo, tomato, lettuce, and cheese and you can’t even tell that you’re eating a veggie burger.

    I think the texture is a little softer than a regular burger and these veggie burgers would be perfect for when my next baby is almost ready to eat meat. These burgers would be easy to chew and still provide a great source of protein for a toddler.

    I also tried one of the burgers my favorite way, just cooked and cut up with a little bit of ketchup on the side. On a sandwich I didn’t notice the texture difference but just cut up and eaten plain I did notice that the veggie burgers is a little softer than a regular burger. It wasn’t bad, just a little different than what I was expecting. I may try it with mushroom gravy over mashed potatoes next time, that would be pretty tasty, and the potatoes and gravy would compensate for the texture difference!

    I haven’t tried their veggie bacon yet but this recipe for a BLT and avocado looks delicious!

    I love BLTs and I’ve never thought of putting an avocado on before.

    Morning Star Farms has all sorts of great veggie recipes on their website!

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    Campbell’s Slow Kettle Style Soups

    I recently got to try one of Campbell’s Slow Kettle Style Soups from a product review site called smiley360 both campaigns I’ve gotten to try have been really slow getting to me, but I do get them eventually and I always enjoy trying new stuff!

    I tried the Campbell’s beef stew for lunch the other day and it’s terrific! It filled me up, tasted great, and was easy to microwave. I can’t wait to try some more flavors!

    If you want to try some yourself make sure you print off this $1.00 off coupon.

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    Children’s Advil

    Trying some Infant Advil from Smiley360.com. It doesn’t work as well for my kids when they get shots or are teething but seems to work great for fevers.

    Also, if you like Advil on Facebook you can get a buy 1 get 1 free coupon.

    Smiley360 is a brand review site. You get to try products for free and review them, so if you like to try free products you should check it out!

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    Free SnapFish 5X7 Photo Book

    I hosted a Pull-Ups House party over the weekend. If you haven’t checked out house party you should. Basically, you get a bunch of products (for the pull-ups party, I received 24 pull-ups plus a few other fun things) to try and share with friends. And it’s just what it sounds like, you host a party at your house, featuring the party item. I’m always looking for excuses to throw parties!

    I have a bunch of extra codes for SnapFish 5X7 Soft Cover Photo Books. You get a free 20 pages, and the code expires 12/31/2013. You do have to pay shipping and handling which is about $1.99 but this is still pretty cheap for a photo book.

    I’m posting one code below, if you try to use it and it’s already been claimed just comment and let me know and I’ll post another code for you.

    QSKRCVSWK6FS

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    Shopping with Girls

    JoAnn fabrics was having a great sale on remnants, and I had a gift card, so me and the girls (4 and 2) went shopping the other day. The one thing about fabric shopping with 2 young girls is that they both feel that they must pick out their own fabrics.

    My 4yr old picked out hers and then we started heading for the pattern area and the 2yr old objected, so…we had to go back and let her pick out her own fabrics too. At least now I have fabrics and patterns for their Easter dresses – or Easter outfits since the 4yr old picked out a shirt and skirt pattern.

    Here’s the fabric my 4yr old picked out. The green is for the shirt and leggings and the yellow for the skirt which will have pink tulle under it as well.

    And my 2yr old’s pick. She really had to have the pink and wouldn’t let us continue shopping without letting her pick her fabric!

    Plus we have all sorts of extra fabrics from the remnant pile and a few extras we picked up while we were there. I’m going to be busy!