Blue Corn and Pistachio Chicken Tenders

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm a chicken tender wizard. I have literally perfected my recipe for creating amazing, crispy nuggets and tenders to a science. While I could eat plain nuggets and sauces for the rest of my days and die happy, I decided to fool around with some of the ingredients Target sent over as part of our giveaway (details here) and review.
Although we don't have a television at home, I love turning on the TV at the gym or at my dorm to watch Chopped. It's my equivalent of Sunday night football or watching a particularly rousing game of Wheel of Fortune. Once I see a contestant fumbling around with a Buddha's hand or staring blankly at a langoustine, my triggers are set off and I'm screaming at the television- "Are you freaking nuts?! Use the cumin! How effing hard is it to make a hibiscus foam? Jesus!" So I thought it would be fun to see how many components from the Target selection I could use in my nuggets.
Granted, it wasn't too difficult- let's be honest, I wasn't working with whole branzino or gummy bears, but I still had a ton of fun with it. Taking a leaf from the pages of Dude Foods, who also received a similar selection of products and made cheese ball chicken tenders with it, I also went for a funky approach and ground up the blue corn and flax seed tortilla chips along with some pistachio nuts as a crust. I marinated the chicken in a mixture of the salsa as well as some orange zest and harissa for a little zing.
The verdict? Freaking awesome. Served with some of the orange harissa salsa, they made a great and easy meal. Using nuts in chicken feels like an underrated technique that I'll definitely try again. It's a healthy and unique twist on traditional football food and gave the tenders a tremendous burst of protein. Thanks again to Archer Farms and Target for providing the goods, and don't forget to enter our contest so you can make these, too!
Blue Corn and Pistachio Chicken Tenders
Ingredients (makes twelve tenders)
2 large chicken breasts, pounded to roughly 3/4 inches thick
Orange zest
1/2 teaspoon of Moroccan harissa
1/4 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup salsa
1/4 cup pistachios
1 cups blue corn chips
Oil or cooking spray
1. Preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Cut your chicken breasts up into twelve strips, roughly the same size. Toss with salsa, orange zest, orange juice, and harissa and marinate for fifteen minutes.
2. Grind your tortilla chips and pistachios (shelled, of course) in a food processor until finely ground. Pour into a bowl and coat chicken strips in the crumbs.
3. Bake in the oven for ten minutes on 425 degrees, and then turn up the oven and let them crisp at 475 degrees for five more minutes. Let cool briefly and eat with salsa or dip of your choice!
Superbowl Sunday has never been so...fab!

Target and Archer Farms Super/Puppy Bowl Giveaway!

The Puppy Bowl is this weekend. What's that, forlorn jersey-wearer? You say there's something else, too? What, did I miss your birthday? I celebrate no other event this week, unless said event includes chew-toy interceptions and fluffy wummy paw-paw tackles.
Because of the Puppy Bowl (okay, really in commemoration for the Super Bowl!) Target and Archer Farms have provided me with a bevy of awesome goodies to send to one lucky reader. That's right, two simultaneous giveaways. Just how you like it. Comment on this post and tell me what your favorite Puppy Bowl contestant is. If yours matches mine, you win! I won't post the winner until Sunday evening, so multiple people will have the chance to win...if you all guess correctly. Even through they snubbed Corgi dogs again.
(image courtesy of That Cheap Chick)

The prize pack includes:
Archer Farms Blue Flax Corn Tortilla Chips
Archer Farms Corn, Black Bean, and Roasted Pepper Salsa
Archer Farms Buffalo Style Blue Cheese Dip Mix

Trust that I will be creating a Chopped-style recipe with these components later on in the week. Comment now! Puppies! Puppies!

Chuao Sweetheart Box and a Giveaway!

Yes, Valentine's Day is coming. And yes, I'm plenty aware that some of you hate it and that some of you love it. Whether you're single or attached, bubbly or bitter, nothing beats the fact that chocolate is everywhere. Before you flip the bird at the Russell Stover samplers or kick the display of bloated teddy bears onto the ground, the Chuao Sweetheart selection should cheer you up. And there's also the possibility of a trip to San Diego and a $50 gift card to Chuao's store. So buck up and play along, and you could be stuffing your face with popping chocolate and potato chip chocolate bars in no time. How do you win? The San Diego deets are on Chuao's Facebook page. If you click through on my link to the right from now 'till February 14th and check out the information, you'll automatically be entered in the running to win the contest. If we get enough clicks through the banner, Chuao will give me a $50 gift card to giveaway to one lucky reader. How's that for awesome? It's blogger-driven, so only bloggers whose readers participate will be entered to win!
To give you a little taste of the goodies to come, Chuao sent over two truffles exclusive to their newly debuted Sweetheart Box, filled to the brim with aphrodisiac-inspired truffles to delight your sweetheart on Valentine's Day. The first truffle, the Love Child bonbon, was squat and petite, filled with a port-drenched dried strawberry hunk in a chocolate ganache. It had an incredibly creamy, milky texture, with a sour tang almost like balsamic vinegar infusing the strawberry. The port influences seemed to come more from the ganache, a delicate, fluffy core with a silkiness similar to cheesecake, and the entire thing was perfectly poppable and not too sweet.
The next truffle, the Firecracker bonbon, was easily one of the tastiest chocolates I've sampled from Chuao. Incorporating all of their funkier elements, like chipotle caramel and popping candy in a ganache with a touch of sea salt, the only thing that could have made this more orgasmic would have been the inclusion of potato chips. Oh, and maybe about fifty more of these. With a crispy texture like a brittle piece of feuillitine and an intense smokiness, its delicate exterior completely belied its inner contents. The caramel was luxurious, the sea salt tangy. I'm honestly inclined to order a box of these and these alone for myself.
If you're too impatient to wait for the contest to end, you can order your own Sweetheart Box here. In the meantime, I'll keep you updated with Twitter- keep those votes coming!

GIVEAWAY: $50 Gift Card to a Mohegan Sun Restaurant

Next weekend is the Mohegan Sun Wine Festival. We're totally going and will report back on all the awesome details, but we (with a little help from the cool people at Mohegan Sun) want you to have some fun, too. Who's up for a $50 gift card to any of Mohegan's best restaurants? This includes top chef favorites like Bobby Flay's Bar Americain, which we may soon be writing up, or Todd English's Tuscany, and new kid on the block Ballo, which we've previously covered here. Or maybe you'd rather spend it on one of Mohegan's buffets or get $50 worth of awesome pizza at Frank Pepe Pizzeria.
Regardless of what you choose, the first person to correctly identify this food and email me the answer at foodette.reviews@gmail.com will win the gift card. Mohegan Sun is in Uncasville, Connecticut, so this is perfect if you're a regular or are planning a trip to the casino. And check out the wine festival details while you're at it! If you're interested in going it's not too late! The festival starts Friday, January 27th and runs until Sunday, January 29th. Tickets range from $70-135 for the main event with seminars running $50-65 a pop.
For more information, follow @sunwinefest on Twitter or check out the event's website. Hope to see you there! Check back tonight to see the winner of the slow cooker giveaway! THE CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED! CONGRATULATIONS TO DANIEL, OUR WINNER FOR CORRECTLY GUESSING THE DISH! It was Khao Niaow Ma Muang, Thai sticky rice and custard! Also, props to JunkFoodGuy for guessing it first...next time I'm in DC we'll get grasshopper tacos together!

Slow Cooker Winner!

Dear readers,

The entries for the slow cooker contest ranged from breakfast to dinner, with snacks and sweets in between, and featured recipes from grandmas, blogs, favorite websites, and special cookbooks. There were many recipe entries, all ones I'd love to try, and I couldn't pick just one- I wanted to give you all slow cookers and force you into an awkward dinner party, so I left the task up to Keepitcoming Love.

The winner of the West Bend Versatility cooker is...Gwen! Gwen's recipe was for slow cooker mussels in white wine. We both liked the fact that it had a minimal ingredient list with easy preparation and no additional steps outside of turning on the cooker. We'll be featuring the recipe soon on the site. For the rest of you, don't despair! We'll be cooking your recipes and enjoying them all winter. Expect more fun giveaways in the future!

Foodette

GIVEAWAY: West Bend Versatility Cooker

Have you seen my Facebook page? No? You should. It's pretty awesome. It's the mecca of all the behind the scenes fun that I don't post on the site. I can't write about everything that comes to mind, believe it or not, and often have to be pretty selective. Oh, and I'm also giving away a slow-cooker on it.
West Bend sent me an awesome slow cooker for the winter and is also providing one for a very lucky reader. Details for the giveaway are at the bottom, but here's my scoop on all things slow. Like I said, the Facebook page exists solely for me to show off my leftovers and creepy creations to the general public without being the recipient of a restraining order. One of my favorite recent posts was the onslaught of tacos I made back in November- simple, easy homemade masa tortillas with shredded chicken and the best salsa in the world. I can easily eat six at a time, for I am the great taco destroyer.
With the Versatility Cooker featuring a slow cooking function and a griddle, making these was a no-brainer. They're easy and deeply spicy, with a heat that threatens to vanquish even the most clogged nose or sorest throat. Chicken soup v2.0, if you will. Setting up the cooker was pretty easy, and the parts came apart for simple assembly and later storage. There are a few neat customizable settings on the cooker- low heat, high heat, keep warm, and griddle, as well as a timer so you can set your own time should you so choose.
I found that my recipe, which made roughly three servings of shredded chicken, definitely didn't require the five hours allotted for the high heat setting or the nine hours for the low heat. The preprogrammed cooking times are definitely formatted for larger quantities of food. Not necessarily a bad thing, but also a little much for a smaller recipe. I chose not to fiddle with the customized timing and just set my tacos on high, checking periodically and stopping about two hours in when I felt it was finished. There's a reason why "set it and forget it" is so appealing- a few hours later, dinner was ready. The cooker is perfect for multi-taskers with limited space. While the chicken cooled, I cooked the tortillas on the griddle.
Everyone loved them.
Yes, everyone.
Clean-up is a little unwieldy as the griddle cannot be removed from its base, so you're limited to the space around you to clean it in. Scratching is also a hazard. It includes a stainless steel roasting rack, another feature that slightly worries me with the metal-on-nonstick friction, never a good sign. While the pot can be cleaned in the dishwasher, I'm leery of trying it out as I'd hate for the non-stick finish to get warped or scratched in any way. That, and the somewhat harsh beeping the cooker makes when it is turned on or any setting is changed, are the only two features I wasn't keen on. It's a fantastic appliance for anyone with limited space or time and is incredibly easy to use.How do I win this awesome device? Easy. If you're already a fan of my Facebook page, you're ahead. Simply email me at foodette.reviews@gmail.com detailing the next recipe or idea you think I should use with my cooker and you'll be entered into the running. I'll pick the best recipe on Sunday, January 15th, and follow up with a feature post!
Chicken Tacos Verde
Ingredients (serves 3)
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 boneless chicken thighs
2 cans or 6 whole roasted jalapeno peppers
3/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of pepper
1/4 teaspoon of cumin
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder, or one garlic clove
1/8th cup of Cognac
1/4 cup of freshly squeezed orange juice
1/4 teaspoon of orange zest
2 cups of water
Salsa verde and tortillas to assemble
1. Put all ingredients (with the exception of the salsa and tortillas) in a slow cooker or pot on the stove, allowing the mixture to slowly simmer for four hours.
2. Remove chicken and shred with two forks.
3. Serve with tortillas and salsa and enjoy!

Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme Santa

This candy has long been a favorite of mine, and I know I'm not alone. I think the Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme Bar is one of the only ones to incorporate a little salinity into their chocolate, which makes it my automatic preference when it comes to picking out movie candy or a treat. It's one of the only commercially popular white-chocolate based bars out there as well as one of the few cookie-centric treats that has survived the 90's. Guys, remember the Reese's Crunchy Cookie Cup? A moment of silence. I've seen assortments of dark and milk chocolate bars along with the white ones in miniature bars, but I haven't tried them yet.
Everything about this bar is pretty much perfect, from the salty, crispy cookies that actually taste like chocolate wafers to the sweet white chocolate. It's a little too sweet, but those cookies make it just dreamy. This Christmas-themed Cookies 'n' Cream bar is shaped like Santa Claus's head. It's nicely molded and cheerful, until you remember that you're slowly dismembering an already decapitated public figure. Can't win 'em all. That being said, this was great to eat- thicker than the bar and packed with a denser layer of cookie pieces, and gone in about four bites.
Sorry, big guy.

Hershey's sent this over along with a few other goodies that you'll see pop up in a neat recipe this week. Wanna win a Hershey's holiday gift pack? It has one of these beautiful babies along with some other classic favorites repackaged for the holidays- a Hershey's Kiss Santa hat, creamy Hershey's milk chocolate holiday bells, Rolo candies, and more!
To win, just comment on this post with something holiday-related. Tell me what you're going to eat. Tell me about the worst gift you've ever received. Extra entries will be given if you retweet or post on your Facebook with a link to this post including the phrase, "Meet me under the mistletoe, Foodette!" or any other slightly creepy-sounding holiday-oriented phrase and let me know where you put it. The link, that is. Options include, but are not limited to, "Let me see your latkes," and "Honey, where's the Ramadan?" Failing that, "My daughter has her own website and all I got was a half-eaten box of artisanal truffles." I'll post the winner on the 18th, and you'll be eating bells by Christmas!

Free Freschetta By the Slice Event

Frozen pizza lovers, this is your wheelhouse, baby. On August 4th, Freschetta Fresh Connection is having a fairly massive giveaway consisting of 5,000 coupons for a free By the Slice product (MSRP $2.39) every half hour for the day, starting at 11 AM when the giveaway's website, www.FreeFreschetta.com, launches. That gives you the potential to snag one of over 50,000 slices of free frozen pizza. If one slice isn't enough, Freschetta is also holding contests throughout the day with more coupons for prizes. It's like a food festival for neckbeards. Not a bad giveaway, if you ask me.

While the coupon is mailed rather than sent electronically, you can satisfy your frozen pizza cravings by seeing what I thought of the pizza here. It wasn't necessarily the Cadillac of pizza, but I'll probably grab a few coupons for those late nights studying.

Domino's Pizza voted "Pizza Chain of the Year" by Pizza Today Magazine

Pizza Today Magazine has given them this award three times, and to celebrate, I'm giving away two (2) Domino's Pizza gift cards, courtesy of Domino's!

Each card is worth $10 and can get you two carryout lunches, a pasta, a sandwich, a small pizza...anything! You could even try their new boneless or bone-in chicken wings that we recently reviewed. Just let me know what your favorite thing to order at Domino's is and leave your email address! I'll pick the winners sometime this week.

Foodette

Healthy Month Contest Winner!

The winner is comment #9, Anne! Please shoot me your address at foodette.reviews@gmail.com and I'll get your prize pack out to you!

Thanks for playing and helping me out with healthy month, everyone!

Foodette

Healthy Month Contest: Win $50 Worth of Free Food from Foodette!

Happy Healthy Month, one and all. By now you've probably discovered that this is NOT a post about massive burgers. Happy April Fool's Day! Consider this my personal Lent, combined with, of course, quintessential Jewish guilt. To celebrate, we here at Foodette Reviews are offering you the one and only chance to win $50 worth of free, relatively healthy food gift cards and coupons, as well as a starter set of eco-friendly glass straws! (Prop twenties not included!)The prize includes:
A $10 gift card from Wendy's
A $10 gift card to Stop and Shop (or your grocery equivalent)
5 Healthy Choice Coupons, each good for one meal of your choosing
2 Lean Cuisine Coupons, each good for one meal of your choosing
2 General Mills Gluten Free Chex coupons
One package of Glass Dharma glass straws- a $50 value, ABSOLUTELY FREE!It's a food extravaganza! It will feed you for a week or possibly a day if you're in college! It's delicious and nutritious! And KEEPITCOMING POSED FOR EVERYTHING! (She understands and wishes to continue.) All you need to do from now, April 1st, 2011, to April 29th, 2011, at 11:59 2011, is post a comment telling me one of your favorite healthy treats and one of your favorite guilty ones and you'll be automatically entered to win. Leave your email address and let the games begin!

Happy Healthy Month, guys!

Trident Layers Contest Reminder

This is just a quick reminder that my Trident Layers Cool Mint & Melon Fresco gum giveaway ends Wendesday, January 12 at 9:00 PM. Thanks to everyone who has entered so far!

Click here to enter!

For those who have already entered, if you have your Blogger profile set to private or don't have a profile set up, I can't get to your email address. Please send it to me (ebidebby@gmail.com) if you haven't. I think this only applies to 1 person, actually.

Here's a modern conversation heart to get everyone in the mood for Valentine's Day candy.

End of the Year Trident Layers Giveaway

This giveaway is now closed! Winners are being notified.

Where I work, everyone gets a gift certificate for a fancy ham at the end of the year. It's just a nice little bonus that makes a holiday meal a little easier. For my readers, here's a little end of the year bonus giveaway - but it's not a ham - this bonus is paid in gum!


You guessed it, it's Trident Layers! Thanks to a kind PR representative, I've got 4 sealed boxes, each filled with 12 packs of Trident Layers Cool Mint + Melon Fresco gum to give away to 4 lucky readers! It was definitely one of my favorite gum flavors of 2010.

Entering the contest is simple: just comment on this post about the best candy you had this year. Also, be sure you leave an email address for me to contact you if you're not a Blogger/Google member. I apologize, I know Blogger's comment system isn't the best for this. If you would rather not leave an email address publicly, you can send it to me at ebidebby@gmail.com and let me know which comment goes with it.

From the comments, 4 winners will be selected at random to each receive a sealed box of 12 packs of Trident Layers Gum! The contest is open to all readers (as allowed by your state or country’s laws).

The deadline for entries is 9:00 PM EST on Wednesday, January 12, 2011, at which point the winners will be randomly selected and notified. I will make periodic reminder posts up to the deadline, and post again when all winners have responded.

Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year!

CONTEST: Pimp My Twat.

It's not what you think! Unless it is what you're thinking, and then you're right.

As you all know, yes, all three of you (that goes for my mother also) I've just entered the 21st century and made myself a Twitter account so I can bore you all with even more details of my fascinating life. However exciting that may be, I'm such a dinosaur that I don't even have a logo for my tweet feed, or whatever.

That being said, I will send ONE LUCKY READER a prize pack of some of my favorite reviewables if they can design me a pithy, brilliant logo. It's a $29.99 value, ABSOLUTELY FREE! Actually, it may or may not be a $29.99 value. I have to make the box first. But it is absolutely free. The best logo wins. Bonus points for tits.

The official rules of the contest...
1. The contest starts now and ends October 1st, 11:59 EST.
2. Please, no actual boobs in the logo. Or objectionable whatever.
3. Entries must be submitted by email to foodette.reviews@gmail.com and can be no larger than 700k in JPG, PNG, or GIF form.
4. Bonus points for including awesome shit.
5. Winner will be announced prior to the contest and submits their entry with the knowledge that it will be used and exploited on my Twatter.

Good luck! (Special thanks to @Davincivirus for asking the question that sparked this contest.)

Foodette

VitaMuffin Chocolate Mint VitaTop AND CONTEST!

I want groupies.

I mean, there must be some chicks, or even a few gorgeous guys out there, who are willing to pull off their VitaTops for me and show me that they've tattooed or written "Foodette Reviews" on their chests. Or arms.

Here's the deal: send your photos, with Foodette Reviews written anywhere on your body, and I'll pick the best ones for a special prize. It will be something delightful and delicious from my coffers. Extra points for curly, twirly script and drawings that look like old sailor's tattoos.

You have until 11:59 PM EST, SATURDAY, MAY 8TH to email all your submissions to foodette.reviews@gmail.com and then, the winners will be posted on the site. I'm not responsible for ink poisoning or sudden crushes from the same or opposite sex flocking towards your sick tat.

On another note, I'm reviewing a different kind of VitaTops today, the kind that's rarely featured on Girls Gone Wild. This is a natural and delicious snack from VitaMuffins, who makes all sorts of delicious and healthy treats perfectly portioned at just 100 calories apiece. In Paris Hilton math, that's half a muffin top a day!

Today's VitaTop is a chocolate mint. Having a well-known affinity for all things Girl Scout, I gravitated towards this and the peanut butter chip VitaTop and geared up for a fantastic snack. This is a pretty big snack, too, roughly the diameter of one of the dining common's dessert plates or Gollum's eyes, clocking in at around three inches. As I opened it, I immediately smelled a fresh, minty aroma, and knew that this would be sumptuous.The cake part is fluffy and moist, just like a real muffin. I know that with some lower calories muffins, texture is compromised, but not here. It's cakey and substantial and there's a multitude of chocolate chunks spotting the entire surface of the muffin.

The flavor is identical to a Thin Mint. Seriously. But it's like the one Girl Scout of the bunch who could beat everyone up, Scout Mum included. It's packed with a ton of vitamins, including 4 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, and 50% of your daily serving of iron. In a muffin top! After eating this for a snack, I was full for a good hour and felt like I could stay full for a little while more. It's very chocolatey and minty, and neither flavor dominates over the other. The mint makes it refreshing and just adds to the overall wonder of this snack. I could feel just fine eating two or three of these for breakfast and enjoying it.My only real criticism of this is that because they're all natural and lack preservatives, they have to be frozen at all times, but that's easily rectified with a quick thaw or 30 seconds in the microwave. These feel really versatile and I think they'd make great desserts just as they do breakfasts and snacks. VitaMuffins also has a wide range of other products and recipes for an endless array of variety. I'm keeping this snack in the books.

Giveaway: 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars!

Dear readers,

I have a giveaway for you! Spring has finally sprung in Western Massachusetts, and I am so freaking excited that I am giving away something awesome. Mars has sent me an entire case of 3 Musketeers Truffle Crisp Bars, 24 of them, and I am giving away 12 gift packages of them, with two bars in each, to 12 lucky readers.I have something very exciting coming down the pike with 3 Musketeers and I'm working with their team for another giveaway, so this is just a small taste (literally, ha ha) of what's coming in the near future!
Here are the rules!

All I want YOU to do is comment and tell me what your favorite candy as a child was (or is, if you're a kid now) I want stories, people!

One entry per person.

No entries after Monday, March 1st, 12:00 AM.

Winners will be randomly selected and announced the Tuesday after!

Happy contesting!

Foodette