by Carrie on October 20, 2009
This pan is the perfect alternative for those of us who live in apartments or townhouses and don’t have room for a barbecue or for the rest of you who live in houses with yards but want to eat grilled food when the weather isn’t appropriate for outdoor grilling.
I’ve got it in Cobalt which meshes beautifully with the Cobalt Fiestaware I also have going on in my kitchen.
My favorite things that I’ve cooked in my Le Creuset Grill Pan so far have been turkey burgers and lamb burgers (both recipes from Everyday Food: Great Food Fast).
This pan is a bit pricey (currently listed at $164.04 on ShopNBC and $184.95 on Amazon) but I believe that it’s worth paying for quality that will last a lifetime or more. There are cast iron skillets from my great grandparents still going strong around here although they’re footed and were not compatible with my parents’ flat top electric stove. This Le Creuset pan is footless and it is indicated as being safe to use on glass and ceramic top stoves which I dream will someday replace my 1970s electric coil stove.
Take care of the things you own, especially the quality items that you want to be sure last a long time. Cast iron shouldn’t go in the dishwasher so I wash this by hand with hot soapy water and I use my vegetable brush to get down between the grill lines.
Check out home shopping sites to comparison shop Le Creuset products online.
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post on behalf of ShopNBC although I actually purchased this pan on my own accord from Amazon almost a year ago (and ShopNBC’s price is currently $20 better than Amazon’s).
by Carrie on October 13, 2009
MyBlogSpark sent me a Yoplait Delights Delight Your Day gift pack so that I could try out the new Yoplait Delights.
Yoplait has always been my favorite brand of yogurt though I usually get the original variety or the whips. The delights are different because they layer two different flavors of yogurt and not in a way that makes you think you’re supposed to stir them together.
My store only had the Chocolate Raspberry and Triple Berry Creme flavors for me to pick from. I was very unimpressed with the chocolate flavored Yoplait Whips that I had tried out years ago so I went with the Triple Berry Creme rather than the Chocolate Raspberry. Something about chocolate yogurt just doesn’t work for me.
The Triple Berry Creme flavor has a big portion of strawberry/raspberry/blueberry yogurt topped with a smaller portion of vanilla yogurt. It was delicious.
They also make Creme Caramel and Lemon Torte flavors which look delicious and I might have to look around for another store that has those flavors in stock.
One thing that really surprised me about the Yoplait Delights compared to the regular Yoplait yogurts is that I couldn’t taste the artificial sweetener. With the regular Yoplait yogurt I always get the full fat variety because I can taste the artificial sweetener in the low fat yogurts (despite that fact that I drink several servings of Diet Coke a day, the artificial sweetener in yogurt somehow really stands out to my taste buds).
Another thing I really liked about the Delights is that they seem more fancy and dessert like to me than regular yogurts which is nice and might help me cut back on my servings of ice cream. The Delights make a very nice ice cream alternative and I’m actually wondering now if they might be good frozen.
MyBlogSpark has given me one Delight Your Day gift pack that includes a spa mask, wrap robe and slippers to give away to an It’s Frugal Being Green reader.
Here’s how to enter (leave a separate comment for each entry):
- Required entry (must do this before you can do any of the other optional entries): Leave a comment telling us what your favorite reasonably healthy dessert is.
- Optional entry: Leave a comment to let me know that you subscribe to It’s Frugal Being Green via RSS or email
- Optional entry: Follow me on Twitter and leave your Twitter username in your comment
Entries will close October 20, 2009 at 11:59pm Pacific time. Winner will be notified via email and must respond with their shipping address within 48 hours. Winner must be able to provide a US shipping address to receive their prize.
by Carrie on September 30, 2009
Nature Valley recently came out with new Granola Nut Clusters. The Granola Nut Clusters are available in Roasted Cashew, Nut Lovers, Roasted Almond, and Honey Roasted Peanut varieties.
Nut Lovers is my favorite flavor because it has pecans and cashews in it which are my two favorite nuts. Roasted Cashew and Roasted Almond are also awesome though. The only flavor I don’t think I’d buy in the store is the Honey Roasted Peanut flavor because I’m just not a big fan of peanuts.
These nut clusters are the perfect on the go snack for me because I can fit each cluster in my mouth in one bite to avoid crumbs and the clusters are not as messy as individual pieces like a trail mix. I’m thinking these would make a very neat to eat snack for long car trips.
The only thing I don’t like about these is that they’re both high calorie and delicious. A recommended serving is 7 nut clusters and each bag is listed as containing 4.5 servings. I’d have no trouble eating a whole bag in one sitting. Maybe if they came in a bigger bag that was obviously unreasonable to eat in one sitting or small individual packages (though I hate the need for extra packaging) it’d be easier to manage serving sizes.
MyBlogSpark has given me one Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters Snack Pack to give away to an It’s Frugal Being Green reader. The Snack Pack prize pack includes full size packages of all four (4) varieties of the Granola Nut Clusters along with a sling backpack, stainless steel water bottle, hand powered flashlight and binoculars!
(Let me just mention here that I love having a stash of these freebie water bottles around for friends who may want to take some water with them if we’re headed out from my house together because I don’t buy bottled water. With freebie water bottles it’s fine if I don’t get the water bottle back and I hope I can convert them away from buying bottled water.)
Here’s how to enter:
- Required entry (must do this before you can do any of the other optional entries): Leave a comment telling us what situation you’d be in where Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters would be your perfect snack. (my example was a long car trip)
- Optional entry: Leave a comment to let me know that you subscribe to It’s Frugal Being Green via RSS or email
- Optional entry: Follow me on Twitter and leave your Twitter username in your comment
Entries will close October 6, 2009 at 11:59pm Pacific time. Winner will be notified via email and must respond with their shipping address within 48 hours. Winner must be able to provide a US shipping address to receive their prize.
by Carrie on September 29, 2009
I’ve been approached by several companies lately asking me to provide links to their credit card rate comparison sites. I’ve turned every single one of them down because I pay off my bills every month in full so rates are not important to me when I’m looking for a credit card. Those companies have, however, inspired me to share with you what I think is important: no annual fees, rewards I can actually use for things I’d be buying anyway, and great customer service.
I have two credit cards and use them both on a regular basis. I put as many of my purchases on my credit cards as possible so that I can get the rewards for them and so that my transactions are easily trackable over at mint.com. Here’s what I use and why:
First up is my Amazon Visa. It provides 3% back on Amazon purchases, 2% at gas stations, drugstores, and restaurants, and 1% back everywhere else in the form of Amazon gift cards (when you have enough for a $25 gift card it’s automatically mailed to you). I love Amazon, especially Kindle books lately, so I can never have enough Amazon gift cards and the rewards always get used in a heartbeat.
Next up I have an American Express Clear card. Clear is the only American Express card that doesn’t carry an annual fee (if you would have a Costco membership anyway you may consider that the American Express Costco card has no fee but I wouldn’t have a membership anyway so that’d be an extra $50 a year for me). Clear offers 1% back on all purchases in the form of $25 American Express gift cards that can be used anywhere American Express is accepted and those are also mailed out automatically. It’s easier for me to use the American Express gift cards on my day to day purchases so I tend to use my Amex for everything except what I can get more than 1% back on with my Amazon Visa.
The Amazon Visa would suit almost all my needs but I decided to get the Amex in addition to it for a couple big reasons.
- Sometimes I do shop at Costco with my mom or I borrow her membership card and go to the gas station there and Costco does not accept Visa.
- I got my iPhone the day they first came out, my dad got his a few days later with his Amex card. A few weeks later Apple dropped the price by $200. Apple gave customers who had bought their iPhones before the price drop a $100 credit. Amex demonstrated the most amazing customer service I have ever witnessed when they refunded their customers the other $100. I didn’t get that other $100 back since I had bought mine with a Visa but my Dad did get his $100 back.
It’s important to keep in mind that if you’re not paying off your credit card bills in full every month then a rewards card is probably not worth it since they usually do have higher rates. Odds are you’d be paying more in interest than the rewards are worth.
What are your favorite credit cards and why? Do you shop by rate or other factors?
Disclosure: Some links in this post are affiliate links.
by Carrie on September 17, 2009
Meet Honey. In the fall of 2003 she was a feral kitten living in my parents’ backyard and unlikely to make it through the winter on her own. I was a college student living alone in an apartment at the time. My younger sister who was still living at home was doing her best to catch the feral cats in the neighborhood (there were a lot of them and unfortunately they were all unlikely to live through the winter with such competition with each other for food; she successfully caught at least 6 – she kept one, I kept Honey, and the rest were picked up by the animal shelter). One day my sister asked me if I wanted a cat. I told her about how Honey would curl up in the sun on the patio furniture and I thought she was just the cutest ever and that Honey was the only cat I wanted. A couple weeks later she was mine and now we are best friends.
Honey is fortunate that I don’t need 2.5 bathrooms all to myself so one bathroom is exclusively used for her litter box. Maybe because I’m not in that room every day or maybe because it’s on the inside of the house and has no windows for ventilation, sometimes it gets a little smelly at which point I notice it wafting into the upstairs hall or the stairwell.
I had just put fresh litter in the litter box last night, so as soon as I got Clean+Green Litter Box Odor Eliminator and Cleaner home I followed the instructions for deodorizing and sprayed it about 12 inches over the litter box. I’m pleased that the product is totally fragrance free because both Honey and I are extremely sensitive to fragrances (the two of us also only use unscented kitty litter). I also felt that the product was safe enough to spray it in the air and sniff vigorously in attempt to detect any fragrance. Since I had just cleaned everything last night there were no major smells to cover up but I can say with 100% confidence that there are currently no smells wafting into other areas of the house.
Earlier this week, I went to put on a pair of jeans that had been sitting on my closet floor and discovered that they had been peed on. I got them straight in the laundry but Honey has still been a little too interested in smelling that area of the closet. Obviously there was still something to smell so I followed the directions on the Litter Box Odor Eliminator and Cleaner bottle and sprayed the effected area and then wiped in clean. She’s not sniffing around there anymore so I’m satisfied that the smell is gone.
SeaYu’s full line of Clean+Green pet cleaning products is available at Petco and Petsmart.
In the interest of full disclosure: 1) I was provided with this product for free in order to do this review. 2) As I’ve told you before, I work at a printing company. The printing company I work at happens to have printed the very label you see on this product. Since I worked on the label, I was already familiar with the product and wanting to try it out at the point this review opportunity was offered to me.
