Oatmeal Taste Test

I love oatmeal but it has to be fixed correctly and have a good texture.  My family was recently provided a taste test kit from Better Oats.  I was absolutely delighted with the kit and the information provided.  Check out what came in my mail!

oatmeal pack 199x300 Oatmeal Taste Test

As you can imagine we were rather excited to try this great package of oatmeal and get down to the testing.  Jesse and I prepared both the Better Oats Apple & Cinnamon Oatmeal and the Quaker Apple & Cinnamon Oatmeal for our breakfast.  The first thing we noticed was how easy it was to make the Better Oats since the package was also a measuring bag for the water.  How easy to fill the package with water to a line after emptying the oatmeal into the bowl. 

And we were off to microwave both packets of oatmeal.  They both smelled terrific but the visual was drastically different.  Quaker’s oatmeal was a thinner than the Better Oats.  The taste of the Quaker was also blander.  I have to say I think I have fallen in love with Better Oats and am thrilled that they also include flax in their ingredient list which has so many health benefits.  Honestly you don’t even notice the flax in the oatmeal.

oatmeal compared 300x199 Oatmeal Taste Test

Stop by Better Oats and see all the great flavors they have today!

Better Oats provided a taste test kit for this review.  No other compensation was provided and the opinions are 100% mine.

How-To Tuesday Help

I am going to open up my How-To Tuesday to some guest posting.  If you have a great how-to article and you would like to be featured here on My Red Apron please email me at myredapron@gmail.com.  I welcome any ideas you might have and hope to share some traffic with you.

Fabulous Friday Linky Love

I am glad you are here today and I hope you take some time to try and win my Green Giant giveaway!  Happy contesting!

Get Green For Earth Day

Tomorrow is the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day.  I am so thrilled to partner with Green Giant and bring you the news of how they are helping saving a little of the Earth this year. 

Some of Green Giant’s changes include

  • Reducing the amount of land and water needed to grow vegetables.
  • Packing vegetables in smaller, lighter cans, so it takes less fuel to deliver them to supermarket shelves.
  • Utilizing traditional seed breeding methods over the last 35 years to double the amount of sweet corn grown on an acre of land.
  • Teaming up with growers to install a more efficient irrigation system that can reduce water use by more than a million gallons a year.
  • Switching to more earth-friendly paperboard to package frozen vegetables, saving approximately 54,000 trees annually in the process.

Green Giant will also be giving $200,000 to The Nature Conservancy to help a project that will teach farmers how to become greener farmers.  To learn more about the project visit http://www.GreenGiant.com/sustainability during the month of April.

I bet you would love to try out some Green Giant yourself.  I know you want a chance to win the prize package pictured below.  It includes a wooden utensil pack, green shopping bag, 3 pack plant your own herb garden and a coupon for Green Giant veggies!

green giant Get Green For Earth Day

How can you win it?

  1. Leave a comment with your favorite green tip.
  2. Follow on GFC
  3. Follow on RSS
  4. Follow on Twitter
  5. Daily tweet (1 entry daily) please include @Heatherann76
  6. Blog about the giveaway (3 entries)

Contest ends 4/30 and is open to US residents only.

Thanks to My Blog Spark and Green Giant for providing the giveaway and gift package.

Forget Me Not

forget me not Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not: A Novel (Crossroads Crisis Center) Forget Me Not

Summary:

Crossroads Crisis Center owner Benjamin Brandt was a content man—in his faith, his work, and his family.  Then in a flash, everything he loved was snatched away.  His wife and son were murdered, and grief-stricken Ben lost faith.  Determination to find their killers keeps him going, but after three years of dead ends and torment, his hope is dying too.  Why had he survived?  He’d failed to protect his family. 
 
Now, a mysterious woman appears at Crossroads seeking answers and help—a victim who eerily resembles Ben’s deceased wife, Susan.  A woman robbed of her identity, her life, of everything except her faith—and Susan’s necklace. 
 
The connections between the two women mount, exceeding coincidence, and to keep the truth hidden, someone is willing to kill.  Finding out who and why turns Ben and the mystery woman’s situation from dangerous to deadly.  Their only hope for survival is to work together, trust each other, and face whatever they discover head on, no matter how painful. But will that be enough to save their lives and heal their tattered hearts?

About the Author:

Vicki Hinze is an award-winning author of twenty-three novels, three nonfiction books, and hundreds of articles. Selected for Who’s Who in Americain 2004 as a writer and educator, Hinze is active in Romance Writers of America and serves as a Vice President on the International Thriller Writers Board of Directors. Vicki lives in Florida with her artist husband, a retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel. Visit www.vickihinze.com to learn more about Vicki’s books, blogs, and writing programs.

My Thoughts:

This was my first experience with a book by Vicki Hinze.  I have to say I found another author whom I will likely put on my watchlist for new releases.  She has a wonderful writing style and her story kept twisting and turning.  I even fell asleep with the book one evening not out of boredom but out of exhaustion and not wanting to put the book down.

The characters in this book feel like real people and while the plot is one most of us won’t even come close to in real life a lot of the details are easy to relate to.  You come to want to know the characters and help out solving this mystery of who is the blonde gal at Crossroads Crisis Center.  Why is she here and how is she tied to the community and Ben Brandt. 

I highly recommend you purchase Forget Me Not: A Novel (Crossroads Crisis Center) Forget Me Not and find some of your own time to relax.

This was book was provided for review by WaterBrook Multnomah.