Quick BBQ Salad

Yep, it's Summer time! Diet time! And Salad time! My twin daughters are home from college and this mama is happy. We all want to loose some weight, exercise more frequently and eat healthy!

I am finally going through my mounds of recipes I've cut out from varies places and sorting, filing, pinning and picking out a slew of summer recipes.

This is one of my favorite parts of having my daughters home, they love my cooking and love when I create new things! As for my boys, they would be happy if I made Hamburger Helper every night.

I went "real food" shopping first, there are hardly ever coupons for "real food" deals, so I made a special trip and filled my basket with the good stuff. My basket looked pretty healthy, if I do say so myself! 

This week we picked out a few salad recipes and packaged them up for our work-day lunch time meals. 

This first recipe believe it or not is from an article I cut out of Good Houskeeping - October 2009. Yep, this has been hanging around my file bins since then. This recipe actually isn't too fancy and I've probably made it a few times before without even following a recipe. 

We made them all up at the beginning of the week in ziploc containers or throw away containers and even my daughter who works at a local burger joint took this salad to eat on her break at work and all her co-workers were like "we want that"!  Sometimes healthy just IS better!

BBQ Chopped Salad

(Recipe will depend on how many salads you wish to make up for the week or if you are serving just for one meal so here is just a general idea)

Can of corn with peppers (or Mexican Corn)

Left over Shredded Chicken

BBQ Sauce

Limes

Ranch Dressing

Favorite Lettuce Mixture

Fresh Cilantro

Tomatoes (we used grape tomatoes)

Shredded Cheese

Crushed Tortilla Chips

Portion, Mix and Serve. We put the dressing on the side in small containers for a good lunch-to-go option. 

Effortless Meals from Walmart

Summer is all about quick and easy dinners, relaxing by the pool and having movie nights with friends (even when you have a broken foot)!

Walmart and Coca-Cola have made it easy for you to pick up an easy meal when you are in a hurry or just don't feel like hassling a big meal. They have a variety of easy meals take-n-bake pizzas; premade sandwiches; and market side rotisserie chicken.

It's Friday night; school is out for all these college girls what better way to bring in the summer then with a fun get together.

We threw the pizza and bread sticks in the oven and 12 minutes later, dinner was complete. That is a fast, quick and easy dinner.

I would say the pizza was a HIT! But my favorite part was the garlic cheese bread, this bread was so delicious and something I normally would have never bought, but I am so glad I saw the big EFFORTLESS MEAL sign by the pizzas and bread.

Dinner wouldn't be complete with out a little dessert so along with the Effortless meal we picked up some ice cream and made homemade chocolate chip cookies, and created individual pazookies for everyone. Once we figured out it was one of the girls half-birthday, no better reason then to add in a candle, sing Happy (HALF) Birthday and celebrate. Yes, we celebrate HALF birthdays. Why not?!?!?!

Homemade Family Pizzas

I am super thrilled about the Blogger iPhone app (I know I am behind the times)! I am sure it's been out way longer then I care to admit but I am just thrilled that I have it now and believe me this will increase my blog posts tremendously.

I take all my photos on my iPhone and I do use iCloud but sitting down on a computer and getting all that stuff from one place to the next is just too much work (okay, not really) but it seems like it just never gets done.

Here we go with my first iPhone post. 

Tonight we made family pizzas, we haven't done this in a long time. There really isn't a recipe, only a few tips. 

We had Spaghetti last night, which is why homemade pizzas were on the menu for tonight. We like to use left-over spaghetti sauce for pizza sauce. It's great because it already has some ground-up hamburger meat in the sauce (I gotta get in the protein whenever I can, my son thinks he is eating cheese pizza, but I know he is getting a little something extra), we just add in a small can of tomato paste into the left-over spaghetti sauce to thicken it up, use that as the pizza sauce and presto instant pizza sauce. 

One of my daughters and my niece created their pizza masterpieces first.  My son and husband wanted nothing to do with making them, so I made theirs for them, but they sure enjoyed eating them.  Everyone agreed they were delicious.

Coppertone Clearly Sheer Sunscreen

I love trying new products and this one is WONDERFUL! Got my bzzzzzzzz going on and am just loving all these cool things to try-out. Our family goes through about 10 bottles of sunscreen on a one-weeks family vacation. So, we know a thing of two about a GOOD sunscreen.

I am a bzz agent and received sample products and coupons for this product, COPPERTONE^® CLEARLYSheer^™

The Counter - Custom Built Burgers

I was given an awesome opportunity to experience The Counter. #thenewgoods When it comes to eating a delicious burger that is my forte'. I love love a good Cheeseburger, I was raised on fast-food burgers and have come to appreciate a good burger.

 You can read all about The Counter and check out their web site here to see if there is one near you!

The new menu also boasts five (5) new Expert Builds with unique flavor combinations showcasing the numerous protein options available (beef, turkey, bison, tuna and chicken):

• Red Eye: hormone and antibiotic free beef topped with melted tillamook cheddar, applewood smoked bacon, ripened red tomato, a sunny side up egg on an English muffin with a side of sweet sriracha
• Un-Brie-lievable: 100% natural ground turkey on a bed of organic mixed greens topped with soft-ripened brie, ripened red tomato, dried cranberries on a multigrain bun with a side of apricot sauce
• Bison with Bite: organic bison topped with tillamook cheddar, spicy pickles, sliced red onion on a brioche style bun with a side of house mustard and spicy worcestershire
• Southeast Asian Ahi: ahi tuna topped with pickled carrot and daikon slaw, ripened red tomato on a brioche style bun with a side of nori-soy sauce and sweet sriracha
• Anaheim Jack: 100% natural chicken breast topped with jalapeno jack, Anaheim peppers, red onions on a ciabatta bun with a side of roasted garlic aioli 

All three burgers unique in their own way!

a little BRIE on my hamburger YES, PLEASE! YUMMY!

They have some AMAZING burger choices and endless possibilities of creating your own, which of course was the way I decided to go (I am a picking eater, so this place is perfect), it's so easy with the clip boards they hand you to order your burger just EXACTLY the way you like it.

It was my husband's birthday so what better way to celebrate then going out to eat, The Counter was a perfect choice.

My husband, my son and myself all enjoyed the excellent food options and our burgers were all made exactly how we liked them. We had the pleasure of actually having a very friendly and helpful waiter at the Irvine location, good and friendly waiters are hard to come by these days, so this made our dinner more enjoyable. Our favorite thing were the Parmesan Fries, one order was enough for our whole table and yep, they were all eaten, every last bite.

And it wouldn't be complete without a Birthday Cake Shake for the birthday boy, brought by our waiter compliments of The Counter, how sweet is that ?!?!?! You can check out The Counter on Twitter @CounterBurger , Facebook https://www.facebook.com/TheCounter or #thenewgoods .

The Counter provided me with a complimentary gift card to try out the

restaurant but the review and opinions in this post are entirely mine.