Taste Testing Tuesday #34 Cereal

Welcome once again to our weekly Taste Testing Tuesday post! Hope all is well in your world! Today we are testing cereal. Some folks call it dry cereal, some call it cold cereal and some just say cereal! We’re talking about the kind that comes straight out of the box and is ready to eat. Most people like to pour milk over it. Some people use it for snacking. Several kinds of cereal are even made into treats. (Think Rice Krispies treats!) I would like to suggest using some small paper cups or a small bowl and let the kids try the cereal dry or with some milk added or maybe both ways. For our test today, we have 4 kinds of cereal. Here we go!

#1.) General Mills Corn Chex. There are many flavors of Chex cereal now. There are Corn, Rice, Wheat, Honey Nut, Blueberry, Peanut Butter, Chocolate and Cinnamon and maybe some I’ve forgotten. Some of them are even gluten free which is great for those on a gluten free diet. Chex cereals can be used to make the delicious Chex party mix.

#2.) Kellogg’s Raisin Bran. We just have the regular Raisin Bran, but I see there is also Kellogg’s Raisin Bran Crunch and Kellogg’s Raisin Bran with cranberries.

#3.) Quaker Life. We have the original Life cereal here but there are also Cinnamon Life and Vanilla Life.

#4.) General Mills Multigrain Cheerios with Real Strawberries. This cereal was new to me so I bought one to try. Tasty!! There are several kinds of Cheerios too…like Honey Nut, Multigrain, Oat Crunch, Cinnamon Oat Crunch, Very Berry, Frosted, Apple Cinnamon and maybe more. My favorite kind of Cheerios is the Honey Nut flavor.

So there you have our cereal taste test for this week! What kind of cereal do you like? There is always at least one whole row of types of cereal at the grocery store so there are many, many kinds to choose from! I hope you have fun trying out some new kinds of cereal and picking your favorite! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #33 Muffins

We’re baaaaaaack with another Taste Testing Tuesday! Are your taste buds ready to go? What is your favorite kind of muffin? Maybe we can help you find a new favorite flavor or at least expand your horizons a little! We’re going to look at 4 kinds of muffins that I made today.

Don’t forget to make yourself some kind of a chart so you can keep track of what you think of each kind of muffin. Something like this will work but you can make a simpler one, if you like.

Here’s how we did a chart for carrots, in case you want to follow this example for muffins.

Ok, here we go! Drum roll, please!

#1.) Cinnamon Streusel Muffin.

This one came from a Betty Crocker muffin mix. A prepackaged muffin mix is a great way to help your kiddos learn how to bake muffins.

#2.) Wild Blueberry Muffin

This kind is also from a Betty Crocker muffin mix. Yummy!!

#3.) Banana Streusel Muffin

This one is made from scratch and they are really tasty! Just look at them…mmm!

#4.) Cornbread Muffin

Ooo! Bring on the butter and maple syrup! I tend to make cornbread in a square pan most of the time, but baking them as muffins really makes them quick and easy to eat!

So there you have our muffin taste test. I would have a really hard time picking my favorite! There are so many kinds of muffins you can make! There’s chocolate chip, pumpkin, apple-cranberry, chocolate, coffee cake, applesauce, lemon poppy seed and the list goes on and on! Which kinds will you try for your Taste Testing Tuesday? 🙂 Make your taste buds happy!

Taste Testing Tuesday #32 Shamrocks for Breakfast

It’s Tuesday again and here comes another round of taste testing! (Sorry to post so late, but it’s been one of those days!) Today’s taste test is a bit different. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day tomorrow, the test today is to see if you like shamrocks for breakfast or not! 😉 You’ll need a slice of bread, an egg, some green food coloring, butter, some green sugar, cinnamon and a skillet and spatula for cooking.

First, cut the center out of the slice of bread in the shape of a shamrock. If you have a shamrock shaped cookie cutter, that’s a great help.

Keep both pieces of the bread. We’ll use both of them.

Butter the top side of both pieces of bread.

Lay the “outside frame” piece of bread in a skillet, buttered side down. Then spread some butter on the top side too.

Crack open the egg into a small bowl and beat the egg with a fork.

Add a small amount of green food coloring to the egg. Start with a very small amount of food coloring! You can always add more. 😉

Mix the food coloring into the egg.

Turn the skillet on to a medium heat. When the skillet is warmed up, add a little bit of butter into the opening of the shamrock shape.

Slowly pour the green egg mixture into the shamrock opening in the bread.

Turn the heat to low and cover the skillet with a lid. For best results, I would suggest you keep the egg & bread in this position while it cooks. I turned mine over to finish cooking it and the shamrock shape isn’t quite as clear as it might have been if I hadn’t turned it over.

When the egg is cooked through, remove it from the skillet to a plate to serve it. Now for the other piece of bread in the shape of a shamrock. I placed it in the skillet on a medium-low heat and toasted it on both sides.

I removed the shamrock from the skillet and with the butter side facing up, sprinkled it with some green sugar and a little bit of cinnamon.

And there you are! A breakfast fit for any leprechaun! 😉

I hope you’ll enjoy trying this out for St. Patrick’s Day! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #31 – Juices

Here we go with Taste Testing Tuesday #31! (Can you believe we’ve done that many taste tests?!) Today we’re looking at JUICE! To make this a little more fun, I used little tiny cups. The package doesn’t say how big they are but I’m going to say they are 1-2 ounces. (They are actually little shot cups but we don’t use them for that.) I found them at our local Dollar Tree store.

I used 5 different kinds of juice for my taste test. You can use however many you like, of course. Using juices that are different colors makes it more appealing to the kiddos. I bought a couple of small bottles of juice to go with some juice I already had on hand. Pour a little sample of each kind of juice into tiny cups for each person doing the taste test.

These are the juices I used:

#1.) Raspberry Lemonade.

#2.) Apple Juice

#3.) Grape Juice

#4.) Cranberry Juice

#5.) Pineapple Orange Banana Juice

Now for a couple quick suggestions for some added fun. 🙂 Have a piece of paper handy and for each kind of juice, have the kids draw a face representing what they thought of the juice they tasted. They could draw a smiley face if they liked it, a face with a straight mouth for “It’s ok, but not amazing.” and a frowning face for “No, thank you!” A second fun suggestion is to mix some of the juices together and see what they think. For instance, grape and cranberry or grape and apple or cranberry and apple, etc.

Which juice is the absolute best tasting juice? I think grape juice or grape with cranberry was my favorite. I hope you’ll have loads of fun on this Taste Testing Tuesday! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #30 – Shredded Chicken

Do you ever feel super rushed at meal time and you need something really fast, but tasty enough for the pickiest eaters? (Does that sound like every day at your house?!) Today’s Taste Testing Tuesday can give you some mouthwatering quick ideas using shredded chicken. Sure, you can buy chicken and cook it up and then shred it yourself, but for some super easy ideas we’re going to use a can of cooked chicken. Easy peasy!

For today’s suggestions, just open the can, drain the broth and shred the chicken with a couple of forks.

We’re going to talk about some ideas where you are just adding a topping to the chicken, not adding it to a casserole or dish. Ready, set, GO!

#1.) Italian Dressing Chicken. This one is great with just Italian dressing drizzled over the top. It would be great to add to a salad too. Can use it cold or hot.

#2.) Gravy over Chicken. Open a premade jar of gravy for this one. You could also heat up some Bob Evans premade mashed potatoes to go under this kind of chicken. Or break up a piece of toast and top it with the chicken and gravy. Much better when heated.

#3.) Ranch Dressing Chicken. This one would also be great added to a salad or put it in a bun and add a slice of swiss cheese for a quick sandwich. You could also chop up some hard boiled eggs to add in and have some ranch chicken salad. Good warm or cold. (I prefer cold.)

#4.) Chicken with Marinara Sauce and Mozzarella Cheese. Open a jar of your favorite pasta sauce and sprinkle on some mozzarella or Italian blend cheese. You could also put this on top of spaghetti. Best when heated.

#5.) Chicken with Honey Mustard. Do your kids like dipping chicken nuggets in Honey Mustard sauce? This will taste similar to that. You could add this on top of half of a toasted English muffin. Can be eaten hot or cold.

#6.) BBQ Chicken. Top your chicken with your favorite barbeque sauce or stir the sauce into the chicken, heat and add it to a bun. It’s finger-lickin’ good! Can be used cold, but is scrumptious when heated!

There are lots of other ways to fix shredded chicken that I haven’t shown here. Like adding taco seasoning, salsa or sauce to the chicken and rolling it up in a soft tortilla with some cheese and lettuce. Or how about mixing it with some soy sauce or teriyaki sauce and using it to top some cooked rice? I hope you’ll make yourselves a chart and keep track of who likes which kind of shredded chicken the best. And I hope it’s sparked some ideas in your mind for some quick and simple meals. Enjoy! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #29 Cauliflower

Yep, you read that right! Today we are tackling cauliflower! I think you will be pleasantly surprised by some of these ideas. I was! Now I am addicted and think I need to run to the grocery store for more cauliflower! Let’s start with…

#1.) Raw cut-up cauliflower.

If you are really lucky, you and your kids will like raw cauliflower just like it is…plain. But if you aren’t so lucky, try using some kind of dip that will add to the raw cauliflower taste. Like Ranch dressing, hummus or guacamole.

#2.) Cauliflower with dip

#3.) Here’s a popular way of eating cauliflower…cooked with cheese melted in it! This was my favorite way to eat cauliflower when I was a kid.

A really cool thing I discovered a little while ago is that you can “rice” cauliflower. Which just means it’s chopped up into very small pieces. You can rice the raw cauliflower yourself or you can buy it already riced and frozen in your local grocery store. To rice cauliflower at home, you put it in a food processor and pulse for just a few seconds at a time until it’s in fine pieces.

#4.) Stir Fried “Rice”. (Riced cauliflower) This turned out so good!! You can make this about any way you like stir fried rice, but this is what I did. I also “riced” a carrot while I was doing the cauliflower. I mixed the 2 together in a bowl.

Heat some oil or butter in a skillet and add the cauliflower/carrot mixture. Cook on a medium to medium high heat, being careful not to let it stick or burn. You might need to add more oil as it cooks. Throw in a few frozen peas and some soy sauce to taste. Beat an egg and pour it over the mixture in the skillet. Continue stirring until the egg has cooked in.

I was a little surprised at how much I liked this dish. If your kids will eat rice, but not veggies, you might try mixing some rice into this too and they will hardly be able to tell it has cauliflower in it. Some stir fried meat added in would be great too.

#5.) Cauliflower Fritters. This was another pleasant surprise that I think I could eat a lot more of! Starting again with the riced cauliflower in a bowl, add in a beaten egg, a little bit of flour, and tiny bit of baking powder, some Italian cheese (or Parmesan or Mozzarella) and some of the dry mix from an Italian salad dressing packet. Mix together and drop by large tablespoons into a heated skillet to which oil or butter have been added and melted. Smash it down a little with the spoon and cook around 2-3 minutes before flipping it over and cooking 2-3 minutes longer on the second side.

Serve with warmed Marinara sauce while the fritters are still hot. YUM!!

These are soooo good! I hope you will find some of these suggestions to your family’s liking! Thanks for joining me today! Happy Taste Testing Tuesday! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday – #28 Valentine Candy

It’s Taste Testing Tuesday again and what’s the one thing that a lot of us probably have on hand right now, right after Valentine’s Day? Valentine’s candy, I bet! Today let’s be silly and have some fun taste testing our candy stash! I’m guessing you have a favorite and a not so favorite, so let’s see what you think! We’re going to take a look at 2 little plates of candy. Here’s the first one:

Oh yum! It’s chocolate! I love chocolate! But there are many, many kinds of chocolate and many things that can be mixed with chocolate. First off we have…

#1.) Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate. I know I said I love chocolate, but this first one is a “no thanks, not so much!” for me. My husband loves dark chocolate, but I am more of a milk chocolate fan. What about you?

#2.) Hershey’s Mr. Goodbar. NOW you’re talking! This one is one of my favorite kinds of chocolate. I like the peanuts that are mixed in a Mr. Goodbar.

#3.) Hershey’s Milk Chocolate. Yep, this is a good one too! 🙂

#4.) Hershey’s Krackel bar. Another yes, for me! I love the little rice krispies inside.

#5.) Andes Mint Candy. Maybe you don’t think of Andes Mints being available for Valentine’s Day, but we found a small bag of them. Mmmm! Chocolate and mint definitely go together!

On our 2nd little plate of Valentine’s candy, we’ll sample 3 kinds of candy.

#6.) Conversation Hearts candy. I think these are the kind of candy you either really like a lot or you really can’t stand them. I am not too fond of these, though I do think its alot of fun to read the little message on each piece.

#7.) Valentine M&M’s candy. Oooohhhh yea! M&M’s are great! My favorite kind is the peanut M&M’s. This batch is just the plain milk chocolate M&M’s.

#8.) Kinder Joy. These are relatively new to me, but I suspect they are pretty popular with kids.

The egg shaped container splits into 2 halves. One half contains 2 little balls of cocoa wafer bits nestled in layers of a light creamy soft candy and soft chocolate.

The other half contains a toy surprise that you can put together. Which is the reason I think kids probably like these. 😉

This one makes a bird. (An eagle maybe?)

But back to taste testing our Valentine’s candy. I think my favorite would be the Mr. Goodbar candy bar. What kind of fun candy did you get for Valentine’s Day? Which one is your favorite and which one is your least favorite? I hope whatever kind of candy you use for your Taste Testing Tuesday, you have fun sampling each one! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday #27- Crackers

Hi everyone! How’s your Tuesday going? Kids going bonkers? Here’s a fun way to get them to sit still for a few minutes! Today’s Taste Testing Tuesday is all about crackers! So round the kids up for a quick silly snack and let’s get started! You can use whatever crackers you have on hand. Here are the 5 we taste tested.

#1.) Chicken in a Biskit

#2.) Almond Nut-Thins Cheddar Cheese

#3.) Honey Maid Graham

#4.) Cheez-It – there are many kinds of Cheez-It crackers but I love the Extra Toasty ones.

#5.) Ritz

For added fun, draw a quick chart…nothing fancy…with a place for each person’s name and across from their name a place to draw a face for each kind of cracker. Something like this maybe:

After they taste each cracker, let them draw in a face that describes what they think of it. A smile means yummy! A straight mouth means it’s ok, but not amazing. And a frown means no thank-you!

Did you notice that Rusty liked ALL of the crackers? Wow! Oh, yea, Rusty is a dog so that might explain it. Haha! 😉 I hope you have fun with our latest Taste Testing Tuesday and you find some crackers that you really like!

Taste Testing Tuesday #26 English Muffin Pizzas

Does your family love eating pizza but its hard to buy one because everyone likes different toppings? I hear you! Enter English Muffin Individual Pizzas! This is the fastest way you will ever make pizza at home and everyone can have the toppings they want! Let’s take a look at what you need for today’s Taste Testing Tuesday: some English muffins, pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and your favorite pizza toppings like pepperoni, mushrooms, onions, peppers, ham, pineapple, black olives, etc.

Start by cutting an English muffin in half.

Spread each half with pizza sauce. (Or some people use spaghetti or pasta sauce.)

Top with mozzarella cheese.

And now for the toppings! Let each person add whatever toppings they like to their personal little pizza. Here’s one with mini pepperoni slices…

One with pineapple tidbits…

One with pepperoni and mushrooms…

And one with extra cheese.

Now your pizzas are ready for the oven. Special tip: cover your cookie sheet or pan with aluminum foil and cleanup afterwards will be a breeze! 😉

Bake at 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes until the cheese melts and begins to brown just a little. Remember, ovens differ so keep an eye on your pizzas.

Don’t they look scrumptious?! They are! 🙂

Except for cutting the English muffins in half, this meal is a great one for even really young kids to make. Even teenagers can have fun making their own pizzas. Have fun and I hope your bellies are smiling when you finish! 🙂

Taste Testing Tuesday – #25 Cornbread

What’s your favorite way to eat cornbread? It’s one of the most versatile dishes there is! Some people like cornbread with a little sweetener added in and some think it’s ruined if you add sugar! I like my cornbread a little on the sweet side. It can be added to other dishes for great combinations…like bean soup and cornbread or chili and cornbread or even vegetable soup and cornbread. Some people make their stuffing for Thanksgiving using cornbread. Whatever your favorite way is, maybe you can find another way to enjoy cornbread today. Let’s look at 6 different suggestions.

The first way we’ll look at is maybe the most popular way to eat cornbread…

#1.) Maple syrup…and milk. This is the way I usually eat cornbread. But I may find a new favorite today.

#2.) Topped with an egg. I actually hadn’t tried this way before but it’s very tasty together!

#3.) Butter and Jam. Pretty good together on cornbread!

#4.) Butter and Molasses. This is probably my hubby’s favorite way to eat cornbread. But not so much for me… 😉

#5.) With some cheese melted on top. Quite tasty!

#6.) Butter, Honey and Cinnamon. This is really good! It might be contending for first place in my book!

If you google ways to eat cornbread, you might see putting chipped beef gravy over it. That sounds wonderful! I also saw a recipe for cornbread pizza, using cornbread for the crust. I’m betting taco ingredients would go great too! However you try it, I hope you enjoy taste testing some cornbread! Let me know your favorite! 🙂