Birds Eye Voila! Shrimp Scampi

On a scale of 1 - 10 I give this product a 9.

Birds Eye, Foodbuzz and Tastemaster again blessed me with an opportunity to try a new product.  This time I was sent coupons for buy one get one free to try a couple of the Birds Eye's Voila products.  I decided on the Shrimp Scampi and the Chicken Stir Fry.

I've made the scampi and boy is it easy.  With the exception of 1 tablespoon of water, everything else you need is in the bag.  In a frying pan you add the sauce mix, water and the rest of the ingredients.  Cook for about 10 minutes and "Voila!" you have dinner for 2.

The flavor is wonderful. The red and yellow peppers create the perfect blend of flavors with the garlic.  The peas give just a slight change in texture from the linguine and then comes the delicate taste of the shrimp.  This one is well worth trying.  Now I can't wait to try the Chicken Stir Fry.

"Sure Shot" Sid's Gunpowder Seasoning

Who says you have to have a grill, charcoal and a hot flame to get that wonderful charcoal flavor?

On a scale of 1 - 10 I give this product a 10!

I have to tell you about another great product from J M Exotic Foods, Inc.  This time product is called "Sure Shot" Sid's Gunpowder Seasoning - Charcoal Smoky Flavor and believe me, it lives up to it's name.  It actually does look like gunpowder and tastes like "charbroil."  You will be hearing a lot more about this seasoning in the next few days. 

Today I used my indoor, steam grill to make hamburgers.  I used a pound of 80% ground beef (more flavor than the leaner grade).  I added 2 tsp. of Gunpowder Seasoning and grilled away.  Boy were they good.  If someone else had cooked and served them to me, I would have sworn they were cooked on a good old fashion grill.  The only thing missing were the grill marks.

Next I'm cooking steaks on my indoor dry heat grill.  I'll let you know how they turn out.

J M Exotic Foods, Inc.'s Bread Dip Seasonings

I have to give you another review on the J M Exotic Foods Bread Dip Seasonings.  I've just tried the Parmesan Blend and as I suspected, it's great.  Here is what you do.

Peel and sliced some potatoes (I used 4 med.), onions (1 small) and red peppers (1/4).  Pour about 2 Tbsp. olive oil in a large frying pan and add the potatoes, onion and peppers.  Cooked over med. high heat until the potatoes are slightly browned.  Added a package of Smoked Sausage, sliced.  Sprinkled a good amount of J M Exotic Foods' Parmesan Blend over everything.  Turn heat down to low.  Cover and cook until potatoes are done. 

This seasoning gets a 10 too!

Bread Dip Seasoning by J M Exotic Foods, Inc.

On a scale of 1 - 10 I give this product a 10!

On my trip to Florida for my cookbook release of Think With Your Taste Buds I stopped in one of my favorite grocery stores...Publix.  This store has so much of everything and some really great buys but it also has a few things that I can't find here in NC, at least not yet.  J M Exotic Foods' Bread Dip Seasoning is one of those items.  In fact, I've never seen it any place other than Publix.  Hopefully that will change and we will either get a Publix or the stores that are here will start carrying this wonderful seasoning.

Bread Dip Seasoning consists of not 1 but 4 different blends.  They are simple to use.  You mix as much or as little as you want to a little olive oil and use warm bread for dipping.  Delicious!  The flavors are Tuscany Blend, Sicily Blend, Garlic Rosemary Blend, and Parmesan Blend. 

But...that's not all its good for.  I cooked a roast this weekend, sprinkled both sides heavily with the Tuscany Blend, seared the seasonings into the meat and slow cooked.  BOY was this good!  I can't wait to try the Sicily Blend on chicken.  I want to sprinkle some of the Parmesan Blend into my hamburgers.  And the Garlic Rosemary Blend?  I plan on adding that to my soup.

So, if you can't find these delicious blends through your own grocery store, ask them to check into stocking them.  If that doesn't work, go the the J M Exotic Foods site and check into ordering direct.  You won't be sorry. 

Birds Eye Chef's Favorite - Creamed Spinach

On a scale of 1 - 10 this product gets a 10 from me.  

I love creamed spinach but I want "lots" of flavor.  There is one restaurant that when I have the opportunity to go to I always order their creamed spinach.  It's my favorite!  But, since this specific restaurant is a bit pricy I don't go there often.  So, I seldom have the pleasure of eating really good creamed spinach.  That is until now!

Through the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program along with Birds Eye Chef's Favorites, I was offered the opportunity to sample and post on several of Birds Eye's newest products.  The Tastemaker program is a program where there is no compensation passed on to the tester, that is unless you call being able to sample some really wonderful new products compensation.  And I'm always open to new products.

When I received my package of Birds Eye Chef's Favorites I slowly went though the package picking out which one I wanted to try first.  As soon as I spotted the Creamed Spinach I couldn't wait to give it a try.  But I also knew that I had tried other frozen Creamed Spinach and they simply didn't meet my taste qualifications so I didn't really get my hopes up.  Wrong!


Let me 1st say that the sauce is creamy, smooth, made with half and half and parmesan cheese.  As for flavor...it's perfect.  The amount of garlic added to the sauce couldn't have been better.  Not too much but definitely not too little.  This is a product that I WILL be buying.

I served my Creamed Spinach with Chicken Delicious and rolls making the perfect, simple, easy but delicious dinner.

Audio Books

On a scale of 1 - 10 I give Audio Books a 6

This past week I traveled from NC to FL for my book release.  Since its a 10-11 hr. drive one way and I was traveling by myself, I decided to give Audio Books a try.  I was a little unsure at first.  Driving, watching traffic, watching signs and listen to a book?  Would it really work or distract me?  I waited until I got onto my 1st interstate that would take me my 1st 100+ miles, inserted my 1st disk and started listening.  It took about 10 minutes for me to get use to "multi-tasking" but after that I was fine.  I could actually watch my driving, traffic, signs and listen all at the same time.  Actually it was probably safer than having a passenger because you didn't have to talk.  The 3 book sets that I bought came from Books a Million from the reduced bin costing me about $6.00 for each 5 disk set.  That isn't too bad when you consider the cost of a new book plus the time that's required to stop everything and read.  Also, I was able to find some of my favorite authors...Patterson and Deavers.  All in all this is a great way to pass the time while driving alone.

Why didn't I give them a higher rating?  All 3 sets of books are read by men changing their voices for different characters.  Well, the books did have women characters too and the men just couldn't quite get it for me as they tried to change their voices to compensate for a more girlish voice.  I really think they would be more enjoyable if the books were read by 2 people, one man and one woman.  There may even be some out there that use both but that was not the case for the 3 that I bought.  If it had been I would probably have given them a 10.