My daughters and I love picnics! We also love picnic baskets. We love all of them from the old style woven baskets to the more contemporary Picnic Backpacks. I think we love all the little gadgets that come with the baskets as much as we love the food that get packed in them. And although the weather is starting to turn cool and some people may be thinking that picnic season is on it's way out, not us! We still love bringing a basket full of goodies whenever we go exploring. No matter what the weather is. Well, except in a freezing downpour kind of weather, that is. But so long as it's still comfortable out, you'll find us out there, always with a bag full of snacks.

I should have known that nowadays there is a website for practically everything. I didn't assume though that there would be a website dedicated to all things picnic baskets. It turns out there is such a thing! If you want to know everything there is to know about Picnic Baskets and the different types and styles of baskets, you've got to check out the 1001 Picnic Baskets website. We love these type of baskets because they are ready to go. All the accessories you need like forks, plates, napkins and glasses are all packed neatly and ready to go. All you have to do is add your food and drinks. Best of all, they are made for this purpose so you can get them insulated or not; they are made to be carried around whether you're roughing it or having a fancy picnic.

By the way, with the holidays coming up, I think these picnic baskets would make great presents. Don't you? I certainly would love receiving one of these baskets for Christmas.

My daughters are teenagers now, 16 and 17 years old. They think they're grown and they think they're old enough to drink coffee. For a while, they had a love affair going with the mermaid's coffee shop until I told them they will have to start paying for their own. That's when they decided, "hey! there's other coffee out there that's just as good and doesn't cost my whole week's allowance!"

And since we're big coffee drinkers at home, they've also taken to drinking OUR home brewed coffee. Yeah, they think they're grown...

Now they have a new obsession. Ever since we were sent samples of these POM iced coffees to try out, they have been getting a supply of them every time we go to the grocery store. At first, they thought it was pomegranate juice. When they saw it was iced coffee, their first reaction was, "Ewe, coffee and POMegranate juice?" Luckily, there's no juice in this POM, just coffee and other good-for-you stuff like milk and POMx an extract derived from pomegranates which contains caffeine and polyphenol antioxidants.

They liked these iced coffees so much that they've taken to carrying them for their lunch. The great thing about these is that they don't have to be refrigerated so they can just keep them in their lunch bag along with the usual ice block they take to cool stuff down. No refrigeration required.

POM iced coffees come in three flavors, cafe' au lait, chocolate and vanilla. My girls liked all of them and now get a variety each time we go to the market. They can be found in the same area as the POM juices, btw.




Visit our other blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

This is the last day to enter the Virgin Coconut Oil Giveaway on my review blog, Found Not Lost. I cooked up a couple of original recipes using the oil that you may enjoy. So make sure you check it out!

Years ago when I first started blogging, I blogged mostly about the kids and food. While searching online for Filipino recipes, I ran across an interesting blog about coconuts. I was there mostly for the recipes which I printed out and have referred to since, when making Filipino rice cakes. I riffled through the other pages of that site and found out that they have a small farm in the Philippines and that they produce coconut products with an emphasis on what they termed ‘virgin coconut oil’.

Coconut oil was not so foreign to me. I grew up in the Philippines with a grandmother who swore by the benefits of coconut oil and even made her own. She used it for everything from cooking to personal hygiene. It’s a great moisturizer, she used it as body oil and hair oil.

Continue reading my review...



Visit our other blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

I've been seeing ads for Chipotle Mexican Grill for a long time but hadn't had a chance to try it out. For one, there wasn't one close enough. Well we finally got to try it, and I have to say that the quality of the food didn't stand up well to the hype. It's been advertised to be gourmet burritos and tacos. Well, if gourmet means bland and generic, then I guess I'm wrong. Like my husband says, I just like eating at dives. LOL!

Well, the burritos we had just were not the kind that I'm used to getting by going into restaurants where I have to point at what I want because the servers don't understand what I'm saying. Chipotle burritos were filled with mostly rice, white rice at that, not the red spicy Spanish rice we're familiar with. The meats were dry, and we tried just about every meat they had, the chicken, steak, carnitas and barbacoa. I preferred the barbacoa best, it had the most flavor, in my opinion. The rest, the family agrees that they are just so-so. Good enough for something fast, but really it's just a well dressed sister of Taco Bell.



Visit our new blogs:
Amoores.com
Cooked from the Heart - our new food blog
Our New Backyard - garden & photo blog
Found Not Lost - about all the things we 'find' worth talking about

Read all about this delicious bowl of menudo.