Summer Celebrations with Kraft Foods: A Beautiful ... - Busy-at-Home

Father?s Day is just around the corner; and there will be summer birthdays, neighborhood barbecues, 4th of July and eventually, even Labor Day will be upon us.? Warm weather brings with it an opportunity for fun gatherings with friends and family; and it doesn?t take long before the calendar is full.? Whether you are hosting celebrations at home, or taking food to celebrations happening elsewhere, I have discovered some great new products you need to know about, from Kraft Foods.? These delicious offerings will have your guests RAVING over your cuisine, while making it easy for you to spend your time with company, instead of being stuck in the kitchen, during all the festivities.? How does it get better than cutting your prep time, serving fabulously tasty food and enjoying a summer of fun with the people you love most?? I know!? Right?

On Memorial Day, I prepared a delicious feast!? The time I invested cooking was kept to a minimum, so I was able to enjoy the day AND the fruits of my labor, along with everyone else.? It was simple with these new products from Kraft!? I can?t wait to show you how I used them!

These are the products that were the backbone of my Memorial Day menu; and included in my fun gift basket from Kraft Foods. AND, they are the same ones that one lucky Busy-at-Home reader will win for their own kitchen! We got to try the new Country Time Half and Half Tea (We call that an Arnold Palmer, around here. It's half tea and half lemonade!), the soft, easy-to-melt and delicious new Velveeta Queso Blanco cheese slices, Honey Maid Lil' Squares, a Kraft Sizzling Salads Southwest Dinner Kit (sooooo good!) and two-perfect-for-summer new flavors from Kool-Aid -- Strawberry Kiwi and Peach Mango. Plus, the gift set also included some really cool serveware for the party - a beautiful serving tray, Rubbermaid Carafe and a salad bowl. Be sure you enter this extraordinary giveaway, once you check out my menu and recipes!

?The first thing I did was get three pounds of chicken tenders sauteing in my cast iron skillet.? I didn?t bread them or coat them in anything ? just salt and pepper and sauteed in a couple Tablespoons of canola oil.? I wanted them to be golden brown on both sides and cooked through; so once they were in the pan and browning on the first side, I moved to my next task ? husking some fresh sweet corn!? Once that was done, the chicken was ready to turn.? I turned down the heat and covered the skillet to let the second side brown and the meat finish cooking.? That left plenty of time to make a salad.

I browned the chicken on both sides and then put a lid on the skillet, lowered the heat and allowed it to cook through. While it was cooking, I had time to husk some sweet corn AND throw together a tasty salad that would make good use of the Barbecue Ranch Salad Dressing included in the Sizzlin' Salads Southwest Chicken Dinner kit from Kraft Foods.

This salad really doesn?t have a specific recipe, because it?s just a green salad with some of our favorite veggies (green onions, bell pepper, cucumber, celery, tomatoes, carrots), with 2 cups of black beans and 1 cup of grated cheddar cheese.? Use your family?s favorites, or what you have on hand in the fridge, and add it to prewashed, bagged salad mix for a fast and easy side dish.? Not only will it be a colorful addition to the menu, it will be healthy and taste great, too!? The salad bowl from the gift set is not only bright and pretty on a summertime table, it has the serving utensils snapped into the lid AND a removable ice block that you can insert into the bottom to keep your salads chilled throughout the party.? What a wonderful kitchen tool!

Easy salad, ready to serve with our southwest chicken dinner.

?

The serving spoon and fork, for this salad set, snap right into the lid for easy storage. Awesome!

?

One of the biggest concerns with summer entertaining is keeping cold foods chilled to the proper temperature. This nice salad bowl has a freezable ice disc that can be inserted into the base, to keep your salads cold! Pop it out and back into the freezer for next time, when the party's over.

?Once the salad was tossed together, I snapped the lid on the bowl and put it in the fridge until serving time.? Then I was able to throw the fresh sweet corn (on the cob) in my big kettle with about 2 inches of water and a teaspoon of salt.? I brought the water to a full boil, put a lid on the kettle and then shut the heat off.? The steam cooked the corn to perfection, and there was no need for me to babysit it.

I also heated one 12 oz package of the Kraft Queso Blanco cheese slices with about 1/4 ? 1/3 cup of whole milk, a small, fresh chili pepper, that I had minced very fine, and a teaspoon of cumin.? The result was a delicious appetizer/snack dip that I served with tortilla chips.? You could keep this warm and melted in a small crockpot if it was going to be out for a couple of hours, but ours didn?t last that long.? It was gobbled up in minutes and the bowl was licked completely clean!

I used it for a fabulous chip dip, but it's equally good melted on burgers, in perfectly gooey grilled cheese and on your favorite sandwiches. Be sure to try the new Velveeta Queso Blanco slices.

DELISH! I used the new Velveeta Queso Blanco cheese slices to make it.

?

The only other prep work was finishing up the chicken with some Zesty Fajita sauce, mixing up the drinks, Kool-Aid and Country Time Half and Half Tea;

Strawberry Kiwi Kool-Aid and Peach Mango Kool-Aid. We loved them both, but my absolute favorite was the Peach Mango. If you love the taste of fresh peaches, in the summer, this drink will definitely satisfy! Don't you love that Rubbermaid Carafe? That's part of the giveaway set, too!

plus making the quickest, most ooey, gooey, fabulously delicious chocolatey no-bake S?more Bars EVER!? They?re so much less messy to eat than regular S?mores without losing any of the delectable properties that make them ? well ? S?mores.? My family has asked me to make these over and over, again, since our holiday fun, and honestly, they are so easy to make, it?s hard to say no.? (Plus, I just NEED them once in awhile, now, too. )

I added the Zesty Fajita Sauce from the Kraft Southwest Chicken Dinner Kit to my beautifully sauteed chicken, squeezing a little onto each piece and spreading it with a pastry brush.? Then I covered the skillet, once more, and let the sauce heat through ? just one or two minutes.

The Zesty Fajita Sauce from the Kraft Southwest Chicken Dinner Kit.

?

This was a fast and simple way to create bold, delicious flavors. I brushed each piece with a coating of the Kraft Zesty Fajita Sauce and then let it heat through.

?

Zesty Fajita Chicken served in our Memorial Day buffet. We served it as a meat entree, but leftovers were FABULOUS for lunch the next day, served in warm tortillas, with veggies, cheese and sour cream plus a little more of the fajita sauce! It's also out of this world, diced and served in a southwest salad.

?

Our delicious Memorial Day feast, made simple with some fabulous new products from Kraft Foods!

Zesty Fajita Quicken and a quick Southwest Salad served with BBQ Ranch Dressing from the Southwest Chicken Dinner Kit. Some fresh sweet corn and juicy, red strawberries rounded out the colorful and flavor-packed plate. A gorgeous, summer-time menu, made easy with Kraft.

?You can add all these great Kraft products to your summertime menus, too.? You?ll love how easy it is to be ?the hostess with the most-ess?, cooking up delicious dishes and still having time to celebrate and enjoy your guests!? Watch for these excellent products at your local grocers.

The generous giveaway prize from Kraft Foods! One lucky Busy-at-Home reader will win it for their own kitchen!

KRAFT FOODS SUMMER CELEBRATION GIFT SET GIVEAWAY !!!? If you?d love to test out all these delicious new offerings from Kraft Foods and add those three great pieces of serveware to your summer tablescapes, you definitely want to enter this giveaway!? You must be 18 or over and a resident of the U.S. to enter.? Winner will be selected in a random drawing, using random.org.? Mandatory entry must be completed before any optional entries will be counted.

Mandatory Entry:? Leave a comment on this post and tell me what summertime event you will be cooking for and which of the Kraft Foods products I tested, you would most like to try. (KOOL-AID Unsweetened Peach Mango and Unsweetened Strawberry Kiwi Drink Mixes, COUNTRY TIME Half & Half Lemonade Drink Mix, VELVEETA Slices Queso Blanco, KRAFT SIZZLING SALADS Southwest Chicken Dinner Kit, or the HONEY MAID Lil? Squares Honey Grahams).? When your comment is complete, click the DO IT button in the Rafflecopter form below, then click Enter and that?s it ? super simple.? You?ll unlock additional optional entries which you can submit to increase your odds in the drawing, if you choose.? Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I have received the Kraft Foods products and serveware, pictured above, in order to test them in my own kitchen and collect data for this review.? No monetary compensation was received and a positive review was not required.? As with all Busy-at-Home reviews, the views and opinions expressed are wholly my own and based on my personal experience with the product.? While Busy-at-Home administers the giveaway and randomly selects the winner, the prize is provided by Kraft Foods.

?

?

st. nicholas heisman finalists heisman finalists kepler 22 b kepler 22 b st nicholas st nicholas