Udderly Smooth~{Mosaic Review}

MOOOOve on over current lotion? Okay I couldn’t resist.  I was given the opportunity to review Udderly Smooth® creams by Mosaic Reviews..  I have to admit when I first saw this product a few years ago I was intrigued by the cute cow print, however I was not happy with the name.  Where would you get a name like Udder Cream?  Well it was first developed for use on the bovine community.  Developed by a pharmacist and made in the United States for over 30 years, Udderly Smooth® claims to be “not our average moisturizer”.  Does it hold up to this?  Read on to see.
     I have used the same lotion for the past few years.  Having Thyroid Disease my skin is extremely dry.  When you add to that being a wife and mother my hands are in and out of water all day.  My feet do not hold up to the cold temperatures either.  Now cold for us isn't like Alaska cold or anything, but it is cold for us. 

     When I find a lotion that I like I buy a bunch of it to last a while.  I have been using an Ultra Healing Extra Dry Skin lotion for about 3 years now.  In order to make it a fair trial for Udderly Smooth® I thought I would use my ordinary lotion on one side of my body and then Udderly Smooth® on the other.    I have to say that it was a pretty fair comparison.  Here is what I discovered about this product:

It is not greasy

Has a very creamy consistency

You need to use a lot less

It last a long time

It helps to soothe or heal dry skin as well as moisturize it

It has a light clean fragrance, however comes in a fragrance free formula too

When compared to my lotions and creams of the past this stuff works the same or better.  I think overall it is a better product just because it is not petroleum based so it is not greasy.  

I think that other than the fragrance I love this stuff!  As my hubby would say I like the "foo foo" scented lotions. I love cucumber, vanilla and lavendar.  The scent of this is not bad and it is light so it isn’t like you would clear out a room, or have others wondering what the smell is when you walk in. 

What did I receive?  I received and 8oz tub of foot cream (with shea butter), 12 oz tub of body cream, 4 oz tube, 2 oz tube and some samples.   I now carry the 2oz one in my purse.  It is just the perfect size!  I keep the foot cream by my bed and put it on when crawl into bed.

The real test!  Like I said before I have Thyroid Disease and it claims the softness of my feet at times, even in the warmer months.  Using Udderly Smooth® foot cream one time reduced the dryness of my heals almost completely in one application!  You would assume that it would work pretty well when it is recommended for diabetic foot care!  You can read about their claims on Onocology and Diabetic skin care here. 

Where can you get  Udderly Smooth® ?  It is sold at many major retailors like Krogers and Walmart.  You can check out a complete list here.  They also take orders from their website and you can have it delivered to your door!  Check out http://www.udderlysmooth.com/order.shtml to order yours today!   On their website they sell for $4.00 for the 2 oz tube up to  $8.75 for a 32 oz bottle with a $7.00 surcharge for shipping and handling in the US.  To purchase at the store your prices are going to vary depending on what store you purchase it at.    

You can download coupons from this link

    https://www.facebook.com/udderlysmoothusa/app_320200958091598  

Check out what my friends are also saying about  Udderly Smooth® at Mosaic Reviews by clicking here.

Check out   Udderly Smooth®

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Hello Fresh {Mosaic Review}

Hello Fresh subscription grocery delivery service is here!  Thanks to Mosaic Reviews for giving me  the opportunity to check them out.  You can check out Hello Fresh too! Then you can have meals brought to your door.   They have made the recipes, done your grocery shopping and packed it all in an insulated cooler box shipped to your front door!

Where do they get their ingredients? They are not certified  organic however they do look for the freshest ingredients. Click here to see their suppliers.

Read on from their website:

Where Our Ingredients Come From

Quality
We want our customers to be able to make restaurant-quality food in their own home. One of the key ways we make sure this is possible it by providing varied, high-quality ingredients that are packed with flavor. We use reliable, quality-controlled suppliers that regularly provide ingredients to the finest restaurants and whose products are not widely available in supermarkets.
Location
We work with trusted, local suppliers, and we try to use as few imported, non-local ingredients as possible. We believe that knowing who and where we get our meat, fish and produce from is the only way to guarantee quality.
Seasonality
We design our recipes to incorporate seasonal products whenever possible. This has environmental benefits, but most importantly means your meals are that much more delicious.

How do they compare? 

They have compared their Classic meal box for two people, with the cost of getting the same ingredients delivered for each dish from leading supermarket chains.

What exactly do you get?

  Hello fresh offers two box types with gift card options as well.

The Veggie Box                                                                                   The Classic Box

 

Each box comes with all the ingredients for 3 meals that you choose for either 2 or 4 people.   With each box comes colorful easy to follow recipe cards.

  So, how easy it is?  What did we make and how did it taste?

  The preparations really are easy peasy.  The first recipe we made was Chili Dusted Shrimp.  I personally do not eat meat nor do I eat fish.  I have made a few fish sticks and am not opposed to the family eating it I just don’t.  We really don’t eat fish when it is there either (like family gatherings or a buffet)  so I choose not to cook it.  So I thought we would go ahead and give this recipe a try. 

We gathered our food:  The bag contains all that we need!  We were even sent the can of corn.

we dusted the shrimp                                                      We cut and mixed the veggies

We cooked them separately

The kitchen smelled so nice when we were cooking this!  We mixed garlic, ginger and scallions in with the veggies.  Once were were done cooking it we put it together

Doesn’t this look delicious?

Since I did cook the shrimp and veggies differently I did try the veggies.  They did have good flavor to them with a hint of vinegar (that part I didn’t really care for).  Jacob and Cecelia liked the shrimp and ate it all!   The meal was made for 2 so the rest of us had spaghetti!

  The other two meal that we had were:

Steak and Brussels Sprout Stir fry                                             Chicken Quinoa Stew

These recipes were also very simple to make and as the shrimp dish, all the ingredients were right there in the little bags. 

I received the 3 different meals each made for two people.  Overall the food is really good. You could possibly stretch another person out of the meals if you had to.    We were not head over heals for the meats  in either of these dishes, though.  I have been purchasing organic chicken for my family for about year now I am not sure if that made a difference or not.   The beef was chewy and stringy and the chicken had no flavor  from what my family had said. I guess that is what happens when you get used to one kind and one kind only. 

The gist of the program~

You get 3 meals delivered (for either 2 or 4 people) to your door each week as part of the subscription service. 

They are automatically sent on the same day each week.  You log on to their site to check what meals they are shipping.  They have put together 5 meals for each week so if you do not like something that they have you can swap it out for one of the other meals.  You will get your meals each week until you no longer want the service.  If you are going to be gone for a week or so, no problem!  You can simply  log onto the site and hold your subscription for that week.  It really is simple.

The 3 classic meals for 2 people cost about 69.99 per week with the veggie box about 59.99, with the dinners for 4 servings about double.  This does include delivery however I  would think that rates would vary as to where it was being shipped.

Was this a good fit for our family?  Not really.  Here is why:

Although I loved getting the box of food delivered to my door, with its ingredients all premeasured out in cute little packs. Our eating out consists of mainly pizza or a buffet since we are a family of 6 (including 2 teenage boys).   We run on the budget system and we would need to purchase one of each of the boxes (the 2 and the 4) each week just for it to be enough food for all of us.  This would cost us about 200 per week, just for those 3 meals!  Yikes!  Being a stay a home mom it isn’t the most frugal choice for feeding my family. 

You can give Hello Fresh a try and receive $20 off your first box!
Use the code UA2ZCD for your discount.

Other info about Hello Fresh

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Tasty Tuesday~Zucchini Muffins

  

  Do you need a really easy muffin recipe?  Check out this one! We love to grow zucchini in our garden and have it in the freezer most of the year.  So we can have this any time of the year!

First let me say that this is Oma’s recipe!  It is super easy and super delicious! 

  What do you need:  3 cups of flour,  1  1/ 2 tsp  cinnamon, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp baking powder, 3 eggs, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup vegetable oil, 2 cups grated zucchini, 1/2 cups of walnuts~these are optional and we usually leave them out, finally 1 tsp of vanilla.

  So now what do you do?  You take the first 5 ingredients and place them in a bowl.  Mix slightly with a fork and set aside. 

                                                     Next take your mixer bowl and add your eggs to it.  Beat the eggs well in the bowl.  Gradually add the sugar and oil mixing well.  Next add vanilla and dry ingredients and mix again.

                                                    Finally mix in your grated zucchini.  If you are using zucchini that was previously frozen make sure that you pour the juice/water in in bowl also.  If you do not your muffins will be very dry.

                           Pour into greased muffin pan or into a greased 9 1/2 x 5 x 3 loaf pan

          You may sprinkle with sugar in the raw on the top of the batter.  This will give the top a crunchy topping.

How to you bake?  If you are making muffins bake them in a preheated 350 degree oven, for about 20-25 minutes.    You can also make a loaf cooking that for about an hour.  They are finished baking when a tester comes out clean.

Place on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes them remove from the pan.

If making bread do not cut until completely cool.

When I was making this batch I realized that I didn’t have any more of the Sugar in the Raw so I improvised for the holidays and put some red sugar on some!

Enjoy!

Tasty Tuesday~Olive Garden Chicken Gnocchi Soup

It was only rain/sleeting here this past  Friday with the promise of snow when I started to plan dinner. On cold days and nights like today as the thermostat creeps lower and lower I love to warm up the house as I cook and then fill the bellies of everyone with a hearty soup or stew.  So I went to the fridge to see what we had.  Zakery then asked if we could have Olive Garden's Chicken gnocchi soup.  We love Olive Garden however the closest one is an hour away, and on nights like tonight it is not an option to go out.  A few years ago when we first tried this soup at Olive Garden we loved it so much that I took to the internet to see if there was a recipe out there for it.  I came across a website that had recipes from several restaurants!  You can click here to check out the site.  It is called CopyKat Recipes.  I have made a couple of the recipes on this site including the Olive Garden’s copycat Chicken Gnocchi and the  Zuppa Toscano!  Stephanie, creator of Copykat Recipes has also written a book that has her fabulous recipes in it! 
     Now, back to the soup…I have made it several times now.  It keeps well in the fridge and can also be made in the crock pot!  You can find her recipe here .  I did have to leave out the onions, Joe is allergic to them and the celery as we didn’t have it on hand.  I also used what I had like homemade chicken stock instead of the canned/boxed versions. 
   Now first of all, what is a gnocchi?  It is pronounced “nookie” (according to the waiter we had at  Olive Garden waiter in Cincinnati the last time)  and it is a small dumpling.  They can be made from potato, semolina, wheat flour, flour and egg, flour-egg and cheese and the like.   The first time I planned on making this recipe I couldn’t find already made gnocchi.  So I thought I would try to make them.  They can’t be that hard, right?
  Well, I never tried it because the recipe I found for that was for a potato gnocchi.  It called for a potato ricer and a I thought this was more that what I wanted to do incase they didn’t turn out.  Then it happened to be that I was at Meijers and low and behold they were right in front of me!  I now have found them at Krogers as well.  So there you have it!  I use store bought gnocchi.

So here is what I used beside the gnocchi:  butter, flour, chicken stock, garlic, half and half, boneless skinless chicken breasts, carrots, spinach, thyme, basil and parsley.
  I simmered the chicken in the stock for about 90 minutes.  I took the chicken out of the broth and set aside.  Once that was done cooking I started the gnocchi in a second pot.  You need to boil them like pasta for about 6 minutes or so.  I then put them in a strainer in the sink until I was ready for them.
In a second pot I sautéed the garlic in the butter then added the flour , half and half and chicken stock. I boiled this for a few minutes to allow it to thicken a bit.  I then added the carrots that I was supposed to shred, however once again I didn’t have shredded.  I had whole carrots that I put in a food chopper and chopped them.  It obviously wouldn’t change the taste.  Finally I added the herbs.  This looks so yummy and smells the same.  My kiddos had asked me 3 times by the time I got to this point when it was going to be ready! 


After this cooks for another couple of minutes I returned the chicken and the gnocchi to the pot.  It is almost complete!  You want to make sure that that is warmed all the way through so I brought it to a slight boil one more time.  When you are ready to serve it you add the spinach.  It wilts fast and makes the soup so pretty!


So delicious, rich and colorful!  I am not sure of the nutritional value of this and I haven’t tried to make lighter.  I used a stick of real butter and then the half and half.  We don’t have it all the time so in moderation I really don’t even watch it.  This is served best with a hard crusty bread and of course the trademark salad of Olive Garden.  This time we had it with crescent rolls and side salads with ranch and not the the all you can eat version!  Hope you enjoy it!

Tasty Tuesday- Crockpot Mexican Chicken

  I just love recipes that don’t require a lot of attention.  Don’t get me wrong I love to cook, especially when my children are next to me helping.  However when life gets busy it is nice to have a stack of recipes that everyone loves but don’t require a lot of prep.  So here goes…  What do you need?

3 chicken breasts

1 can of whole kernel corn

1/2 can black beans

1 and 1/2 jars of salsa

rice and/ or flour tortillas

 

I took the chicken right out of the freezer and placed them in the crockpot and let them cook for 4 hours on high.   Then I shredded the the chicken and then added  to the crock pot the rest of the ingredients. I let this cook on low for another 2 hours.  During the last hour of cooking I made some rice.  The kitchen smelled wonderful!  I scooped out a couple of spoonfuls of the rice and then ladled some of the chicken mixture over the rice and Viola!  There we have dinner!  Now you could also wrap this in a flour tortilla as well.  Joe is not a fan of soft tacos at all so I chose to do the rice only option.  What a simple yet delicious meal!  Now the kiddos can wrap the left overs in the soft tacos for lunch and have a hot lunch this week!
                                                                                                                                                                            

I want to mention that this recipe came from my sister in law!  So glad that she shared it!

Thank you Sheila!