Tag Archives: cooking

The Learning Tower, Art Easel, and Toy Tower Review

Age 3-5, Age 5-7, Education, New posts, , , , , , ,

Is your child so clingy that she pulls up a chair up to stand next to you while you’re cooking or fixing your hair?

Then you will love The Learning Tower.

The Learning Tower is a safe, sturdy, and fun platform inside a tower that your child can stand on safely.  When standing on the platform my daughter can help me cook, wash fruits and veggies, and if you have older kids, I’ve learned it’s a great place for a child to stand while playing hair stylist.  My daughter loves brushing my hair and playing hair stylist and she’s fallen off of the chair more than a handful of times.  We keep The Learning Tower in our kitchen now and the kids can move it from one area to another pretty easily.

The Learning Tower and Art Easel review

Before your child gets in The Learning Tower, adjust the platform to one of the four positions that your think is best for your child.  Pull The Learning Tower up to the location where you want it and your child can climb in using the foot holes on either side or crawl in through the open space on the sides. No matter which of the four heights the platform is on, your child is unlikely to fall out because there is at least a four-inch ledge around the entire platform.

The Learning Tower - Art Easel dry erase and chalk board
Dry erase and chalk board

The Art Easel

Little Partners also sells an Art Easel that hooks over the top of The Learning Tower.  The Art Easel is great for playing school or listing chores or recipe ingredients.  A white board on one side and a chalkboard on the other, there is plenty of room for a child to create a fantastic work of art or just doodle.

Here’s a helpful dry erase marker tip: If your child accidentally uses a regular marker on the dry erase board, just go over it again with a dry erase marker and wipe it clean.  It may not come 100% clean but it should help considerably.

The Art Easel is available in nine colors and is $59.99.

 

The Learning Tower Toy Tower
The Learning Tower - Toy Tower

The Toy Tower

Little girls love playing with dolls but that toy high chair you have might not be the easiest thing to carry to Grandma’s house.  That’s where the Toy Tower comes in handy.  It’s small and light weight and just the right size for any doll.  The platform is adjustable just like on The Learning Tower so your child’s doll can sit as high or low as needed.  Last night we took Mickey Mouse and The Toy Tower with us to my mom’s house for dinner and he enjoyed dinner with us.  On a normal day any number of baby dolls and Lalaloopsy dolls will sit in the Toy Tower wherever my daughter is.

The Toy Tower is $49.99 and is available in three colors.

Assembling the Art Easel
My daughter helps assemble the Art Easel

Assembling The Learning Tower and Art Easel

Assembling The Learning Tower takes about 30 minutes while the Art Easel takes just about 15 minutes to assemble.
If you have a little helper like my husband did then assembly time might be less.. or more.

Both require minimal tools for assembly.

 

 

Colors and Cost

The Learning Tower comes in nine colors and is $199.99.   It can be purchased online at www.littlepartners.com.

 

I was sent The Learning Tower, an Art Easel, and Toy Tower to facilitate this review.  All opinions are 100% my own.

Progresso Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs review + coupons and a giveaway!

Contests, Food and Drink, New posts, , , ,

You’re a mom, therefor, you are a cook.. and a house cleaner, and an errand manager, and a pediatrician, and a tutor.. ok, I’ll stop now.
Back to being a cook.. I know you spend a lot of time in the kitchen both baking and cleaning.. why not switch things up a little and make the kid’s next batch of chicken nuggets with Progresso’s Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs? You will love them and so will your kids.. mine do!

What is Panko?

Why, it is yummy deliciousness! That’s what Panko is. Don’t quote me though because I’m not sure that’s the exact definition of Panko.
Panko is Japan’s secret ingredient for crunch. A flaky bread crumb with a coarse texture and jagged edges, panko imparts a delicate crispiness perfect for frying or baking. For nearly a decade, panko has been popping up on the plates of fine dining restaurants, but for the home chef, panko has been difficult to find. Not anymore. Progresso Foods introduces its newest gourmet bread crumb, panko, in two flavors, plain and Italian.

Panko breadcrumbs are great to use for baked chicken nuggets, fish, and as a crispy breading for meats and vegetables. 
No, I didn’t make the delicious looking Parmesan Herb-Crusted Turkey Scaloppine (recipe here) featured to the left here.  The food that I concoct bake doesn’t come anywhere close to looking that nice when I’m done with it but this is a great example of one dish you can prepare using Progresso’s Panko breadcrumbs and my readers deserve to see only the most beautifully prepared food on this site! 🙂

Visit the Progresso website to get more information about their Panko Crispy Bread Crumbs, great recipes complete with with pairings, and learn about their other products including Progresso broths which are 100% natural and use high quality ingredients to achieve a great homemade taste. They are fat free, gluten free, contain no preservatives, no added MSG and no artificial flavors. Progresso broth is available in chicken and reduced sodium chicken and beef flavors.

Progresso coupons

Available on ProgressoFoods.com is a coupon for $1.00*off any two Progresso products. At ProgressoBroth.com you´ll find a coupon for $.50 off a package of broth.

GIVEAWAY!

Enter to win a box of Progresso Panko Bread Crumbs, a carton of Progresso Broth, a measuring cup, slotted spoon, soup ladle and a sheet pan for baking!

Win a Progresso panko set

To enter simply tell me in the comments below what your are planning for a holiday meal.. any meal, whether you’re making it or not. Tweet this post and leave a second comment with your Twitter ID for 2 extra entries!
Entries accepted through December 24th. Contents of the prize package the winner receives may not be exactly what is seen in this photograph.
Thanks to Progresso and MyBlogSparkTM who provided TheMommyInsider.com with the products and prize pack!

My new Frigidaire range.. yes it really helps save me time, especially when my 9 year old does the cooking!

Food and Drink, Frigidaire, New posts, , , , , ,

Frigidaire RangeSo I’ve been using my new Frigidaire appliances for about a month now and am LOVING all of them. Each of them has saved me time in one way or another and I am excited to tell you that my Frigidaire range has saved me more time than I imagined.. partly because of my 9 year old! The Frigidaire Range has passed the More Me-Time Gauranteed test.

Sebastian absolutely loves using our new Frigidaire range.

  • Did he cook before we got our new range? Uh, no.
  • Did he prepare food before we got our new range? Uh, no.
  • What gives?  Let’s see.. maybe it’s the Quick Boil feature?  The shiny stovetop surface? The 5 racks in the oven? The huge capacity? The 5 stovetop burners? I don’t know!?

So far, Sebastian has made pancakes (2 days in a row!), the kids all time favorite.. macaroni and cheese, and roasted potatoes.  Yes, Sebastian has used all of these features of our new Frigidaire Range.. as have I.  He doesn’t do all of the cooking after all.

Frigidaire appliances - Range

As I’m sure you are aware, timing dinner can be difficult. That’s when the Keep Warm setting comes in really handy.  OK, so maybe it’s not dinner timing so much as it is MY TIMING.  I can be pretty unorganized (I blame it on ADD) when it comes to preparing meals and will have one part of a meal done before another, so the Keep Warm setting is one of my favorites.  I can keep the food that I ‘accidentally’ finished first, warm while preparing and cooking the rest of the food.  My husband especially appreciates the Keep Warm setting as he won’t eat food that isn’t HOT!

A couple of other features Frigidaire Range features that moms will appreciate are:

· Fits-More™ Oven: A unique rack configuration creates more cooking space, so I can do more.
· Largest Range Capacity with Second Oven: Cook a large meal effortlessly with the double oven range. Offering the largest cooking capacity available so you can cook two meals, at different temperatures, at once.

I can even put magnets on my new Frigidaire ‘REAL Stainless Steel’ Range! I’m not sure when you’d want to do that, but I think that’s pretty cool.

icon-star Check out the entire line of NEW Frigidaire Gallery Appliances on the Frigidaire website here.

P.S. Follow me on Twitter to be kept up to date on me and my new Frigidaire appliances!  Exciting, huh?

More Frigidaire links to check out and how you can win Frigidaire appliances:

  • Frigidaire More Me-Time Guarantee
  • The Frigidaire DAILYDARE
  • Tell Frigidaire what 5 things you would do with an extra hour and you’re automatically entered for a chance to win a suite of NEW Frigidaire appliances!
  • Frigidaire on Facebook

Alicia Hagan, Editor

A summer party with Playtex and a giveaway!

Cleaning & Cleaners, Holiday, New posts, Past Giveaways, , , , ,

I recently had a great summer party at my house despite the fact that the thought of organizing and having a party makes my brain hurt.  That’s the ADHD. I can’t process the thoughts required to put together a party which includes decorating, food preparation, and then clean up.. just thinking about it makes my brain hurt.

My summer party actually turned out really good. I didn’t get stressed before or during the party which was exciting in itself.  I made a few appetizers including Sweet Potato Chips that were pretty delicious once I finally got the timing right.

Playtex sent me a few pairs of gloves to try out before, during, and after my party and I’m telling you, they were pretty awesome. First, I used the GreatLengths™ Gloves to clean my glass patio table and chairs one of which had bird poop on it (see photos below.. not of the bird poop!).  Before having the gloves I would have just used a few paper towels to clean it off and would have been totally grossed out but the gloves took out the gross factor which was really nice.  I also used these gloves when cutting flowers from the garden.  I was lazy and didn’t want to go to the shed to get my regular gloves out but these worked really well.

GreatLengths™ Gloves

  • Test them out when prepping your grill and/or wiping down your patio furniture for the party; these gloves are ideal for the extra messy clean-up jobs (like getting bird poop off of patio chairs)

CleanCuisine™ Gloves

  • Use them while preparing spicy recipes like salsa or try them out when preparing meat or fish for the grill so you are sure to keep clean and germ-free
  • Try using them while chopping garlic or onions which often stings hands and/or leave a lingering odor

Living® Gloves

  • A twist on the classic Playtex® Living® gloves, this new version is ideal for clean-up tasks like washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen
Here are a couple of super-easy, quick appetizers (great for moms!) to try out at your next party:

Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob – courtesy of FoodNetwork.com
Ingredients:
4 ears fresh corn
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place corn husks directly on the oven rack and roast for 30 minutes or until corn is soft. Peel down the husks and use as a handle when eating.  My whoops.. Out of habit, I took the corn husks off before roasting the corn the first time with not such tasty results.

Sweet Potato Chips
Ingredients: 2 sweet potatoes
Directions: Slice two sweet potatoes very thin.  Lay as many slices as will fit without overlapping directly on your clean microwave turn table then spray the slices lightly with olive oil cooking spray (salt optional).  Microwave them in increments of a few minutes checking for desired crispness.

Playtex Gloves

Learn more about Playtex Gloves at the Playtex website here and buy Playtex gloves at your local grocery store or drugstore.

GIVEAWAY!
Playtex is giving 1 lucky reader 3 Glove samples AND a $50 gift certificate to the grocery store of their choice to buy food/drinks for their own Patio Party.
This is the perfect time of year for a nice patio party!  Leave a comment below telling me why you want to win and if you have something fun or funny to tell me about a previous party you held, you’ll get two entries!
Entries accepted until August 18th.