The mouth watering poultry that you are drooling over is the turkey that I made using a soy sauce brine. It was my first turkey and I must say, I did pretty darn good. It was very tender and and simply flavorlicious. Kikkoman sent us a package full of their products, recipes and a gift card for the turkey. Sadly, the leftovers didn’t last long enough for me to make the turkey fried rice that I had planned! The turkey disappeared in three days! Well, there’s still hope if Thanksgiving’s turkey doesn’t go like this one did!

For soy sauce inspired turkey recipes and Kikkoman product coupons, visit Kikkoman’s Home Cooks page. And if you’re interested, I’m giving away a Kikkoman cookbook and sauces here!

Since we’ve moved in September, we’ve felt much better about the place we call home. We are comfortable with our increased living space, the location is perfect and we are still close to family. Now that we are settled in a home that we will be in for years, we’ve been considering having parties and get togethers at our place. Maybe a spot of bingo (yeah right, lol). We even considered having Thanksgiving at our house. Ehhh maybe Christmas.

Sunday, I got a little party planning practice in by inviting my mother, aunt, and Greg’s grandmother for finger foods, facials, and manicures. It wasn’t anything big, but it was relaxing. For dinner, I made fried chicken drumsticks, fried okra, buttermilk biscuits, and cucumber salad. I set out cupcakes and Nature Valley Nut Clusters for snacks – lots of finger foods! We enjoyed each others’ company and I will definitely do something like this again. It’s always the simple things that we appreciate the most.

This holiday season, Viva is encouraging people to get “closer to their food” by ditching the forks and knives and serving finger foods to family and friends. What are some of your favorite finger foods? How do you keep meals and parties clean? Do you use paper towels? Answer either question for a chance to win $50! This giveaway will run through October 28th, 2009 7PM CST.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytF1S7qB7Cc

This post was sponsored by Viva Towels. For fun, fork-free recipes – including videos – and snappy entertaining ideas, get over to the VIVA® Diva Café!

Ice Cream Dinosaur Sundae
2 scoops premium vanilla ice cream
4 Dinosaur Fruit Flavored Snacks (from package)
6 maraschino cherries
2 tablespoons walnut topping (from jar)
2 tablespoons chocolate syrup
To assemble sundae, add 1 tablespoon of the chocolate syrup to bottom of ice cream dessert dish. Place ice cream scoops on top. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of chocolate syrup around ice cream. Add 5 of the cherries and walnuts around the sides of sundae. Add dinosaurs around sundae and top with remaining cherry. Beautiful and yummy!

Ice Age 3 brings back our favorites animals Scrat, Manny, Ellie, Sid, and Diego, and introduces Scrat’s love interest a female squirrel named Scratte. This film has the big three; love, conflict, and family. Our recipe for Ice Cream Dinosaur Sundae is a super delicious dessert that celebrates some of our favorite animal characters. Just the right amount of ice cream, chocolate, nuts, cherries and Dinosaur Fruit Flavored Snacks. A fun dessert and film for the whole family!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyOCIkjTvQs

This recipe was contributed by Reel Good Recipes – great recipes inspired by great movies!

For the do-it-yourselfers, Costumezee.com offers a tutorial on creating a scrat the squirrel costume. For Ice Age themed pumpkins, print out the Sid and Scrat pumpkin carving stencils below.

For a chance to win 1 of 3 Ice Age 3 Dawn Of The Dinosaurs “Scrat Pack” Double DVD Packs, simply leave a comment! This giveaway will run through October 27th 2009 7PM CST.

Nemo Orange Cupcakes
1 box premium white cake mix
1 small box (3 ounce) Orange Jell-o Gelatin
2 Tablespoons orange zest
1 Tablespoon lemon zest
3/4 cup orange juice
1/2 cup milk
1 stick butter, softened
3 eggs, room temperature
__________________________

Frosting
1 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
To make the frosting, mix ingredients above
_________________________

1 tube orange cake icing decoration
1 small tube black cake icing decoration

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine all cupcake ingredients in a large bowl and whip with an electric mixer on high speed for 3 minutes.
Line cupcake pan with cupcake liners. Fill about 3/4 full.

Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean.

Let cupcakes cool 30 minutes.

Spread one inch of frosting down the middle of each cupcake. Using the orange cake icing decoration, squeeze a line along the left and right side of each cupcake and spread with a butter knife. Lastly, using the black cake icing decoration, squeeze a black line along the 2 borders of the vanilla frosting.

Makes 15 to 20 cupcakes.

2003

“Finding Nemo” won several awards, including the 2004 Oscar for Best Animated Feature. The voices of Albert Brooks (Martin), Ellen DeGeneres (Dory) and Alexander Gould (Nemo) helped to make this gem of a movie an instant classic.

Like the movie, “Finding Nemo”, Reel Good Recipes’ “Nemo Orange Cupcakes” will be a favorite of kids and adults alike. These delicious and fun cupcakes have moist cake that has been taken to new heights by orange jell-o, orange juice and orange zest. Inspired by Nemo and Martin’s clown fish colors, the cupcakes are topped with a delicious vanilla frosting and decorated with orange and black stripes. We thank Mommy Daddy Blog for their kind invitation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfgeIZyrIM0

This has been a guest post by Reel Good Recipes – great recipes inspired by great movies!

With the holidays around the corner and all those sweet goods floating around, many start to worry about the dreaded holiday weight gain. Although I could care less about packing on the extra pounds, I desperately need to in fact, I’d like to share this recipe with those who may find it helpful. Although the bread is low in fat, it’s deceptively delicious!

With extra added goodness of our BaNilla yogurt, this bread is not only O-So-Bananalicious, but incredibly moist as well. By cooking with yogurts, you can replace unnecessary fats and oils in your recipe. Plus, the creaminess enhances the taste and texture of your sweet treats.

Ingredients

1 1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
5 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup Stonyfield Farm lowfat Banilla Yogurt
1 small banana, peeled, mashed
1/2 cup frozen blueberries

Directions Preheat the oven to 350°F and grease loaf pan. Combine all dry ingredients, and mix well. In a separate large bowl, combine butter and sugar and beat on high for 2 minutes. Gradually incorporate mixture of dry ingredients, followed by the yogurt, eggs and mashed banana. In a small bowl toss frozen blueberries with flour to coat, and gently fold into the batter. Pour batter into greased loaf pan and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool on a baking rack before removing pan.

Yields 12 slices

Recipe courtesy of Stonyfield Farm

My friend Lori of A Cowboy’s Wife and My Wooden Spoon was hired by Velveeta to create a casserole recipe of course using Velveeta cheese! Her Shrimp Stroganoff Casserole is to die for! To help promote the Velveeta Casserole Challenge, Velveeta gifted me a Le Creuset casserole dish and a supply of Velveeta cheese to create a casserole recipe of my own. I thought this would be a great way to reopen my food blog, but life has been pretty hectic and time has done nothing but pass me by. There’s no telling when I’ll open my food blog, or get that recipe up, so it’s best that I at least do PART of my assignment! I can’t leave Velveeta or Lori hanging!

We made a MUCH needed run to the grocery store before I finished this post, so I was able to have some fun in the kitchen! We’ve been eating a lot of Chili lately, so I decided to make a chili casserole. My recipe is below!

Chili Squares
Ingredients
3 cups homemade or canned chili (warmed up or cold)
4 cans of Pillsbury Big & Buttery crescent dinner rolls
5 green onions chopped
1/2 loaf of Velveeta cheese (24oz) cut into small pieces

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll 2 cans of crescent dinner rolls. Spread dough across 13×9-inch glass baking dish. Press dough a 1/2 inch up the sides of dish. Spread 2 cups chili on top of the dough. Sprinkle Velveeta cheese and green onions on top of chili. Roll 2 cans of crescent dinner rolls, place on top of cheese and onions. Pinch top layer of dough into the bottom layer of dough. Bake for 30 minutes or until dough is golden brown.

This is a condensed version. More pictures as well as the chili recipe will be available on my top secret food blog!

If you’d like to try my recipe or have some Velveeta fun, there’s some cheesy lovin’ going around the blogosphere. I’d be spreadin’ the lovin’, but I choose to keep my supply of coupons, sorry! They are definitely coming in handy! So since I’m being stingy with my coupons, I can direct you all to Christine of From Dates To Diapers. She’s giving away 5 Velveeta Loaf Coupons courtesy of Lori! Also, please keep Christine in your thoughts. Her baby sister fell and hurt herself pretty bad last Friday and is now in the hospital.

Oh gosh and how can I forget about the awesome giveaway Lori’s having for a choice of a Kitchenaid Immersion Blender, a Cuisinart Food Processor, or a Kitchenaid Stand Mixer!! I’m crossing my fingers for the Kitchenaid Stand Mixer, it will make bread and apple turnover making much easier!

Lori really wants to win the Velveeta Casserole Challenge, so help a hard working momma, blogger, and friend out by voting for her every day! Here’s to Lori! HIP HIP HURRAY!

In conjunction with Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, set to hit the theaters in early November, Dole released the Limited Edition insulated Marty Snak Pak, which fits Dole fruit bowls and other on-the-go snacks perfectly. The Marty Snak Pak can be purchased at DoleMartySnakPak.com.

Alright Dole lovers, who would like to win some free Dole goodies? Well we have 32 Dole coupons up for grabs! Each coupon is redeemable for a FREE pack of Dole Fruit Bowls, Dole Fruit Bowls in Gel, or Dole Fruit Parfait! To enter this giveaway, visit the Dole product page and come back letting us know what your favorite Dole product is by 7PM CST on October 5th 2008. Two winners will be chosen, each receiving 16 coupons! This giveaway is open to US residents only.

Don’t forget to enter our Jif swag basket giveaway after you enter this giveaway!

This giveaway has ended! Winners will be announced shortly!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter! Congratulations to those who won; we will be e-mailing you guys shortly! As for those who didn’t win, don’t worry! We’re cooking up more giveaways for the near future! So stay tuned!