Birds Eye Recipe Ready vegetables complete any meal

Pot roast using Birds Eye Recipe Ready Stew Blend and Onion & Garlic

No more cleaning, pealing, chopping and dicing. You can have the taste and benefits of your favorite fresh vegetables without all the work by simply opening a package of Birds Eye® Recipe Ready vegetables.

You can cut down on the time you spend preparing your favorite meals because the work is done for you. Birds Eye has already chopped, sliced and diced your vegetables so you don't have to. Using a quick-freeze process called flash-freezing, invented and developed by Clarence Birdseye, enables you to have out-of-the-garden freshness right out of your freezer. You'll have meals on the family table in less time that everyone will enjoy.

The varieties are endless and can accommodate any of your favorite meals. From sandwiches and stir-fry to casserole or pot roast, Birds Eye® is your ticket to “Recipe Ready” meals.

The long list of products include vegetable blends such as Tri Color Pepper & Onion Blend; Chopped Onion & Garlic; Broccoli Stir-Fry; Pizza Supreme Blend; Southwest Blend and Stew Blend. It wasn't an easy choice, I finally decided on the Chopped Onion & Garlic and the Stew Blend and made a homemade pot roast dinner.

The Stew Blend is all you really need for this pot roast, but I love a lot of onion cooked with my roast, and who doesn’t appreciate a little garlic!

Birdseye.com has a great recipe for a Country Pot Roast. I decided to go with that and made a couple slight variations to it.

Country Pot Roast

Stew Blend and Onion & Garlic Recipe Ready vegetables

2-3 lb. boneless beef pot roast (rump, chuck or round)

1 Tbsp. olive oil

1 1/2 cups water or beef broth, or more as needed

1 can (14.5 oz.) diced tomatoes

1 bay leaf (Optional)

1 bag (14 oz.) Birds Eye Recipe Ready Stew Blend
1 bag (14 oz.) Birds Eye Recipe Ready Chopped Onion & Garlic Blend

2 Tbsp. all-purpose flour

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

Season pot roast with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in Dutch oven or 6-quart saucepot and brown roast.  Add tomatoes, ½ cup water (I used 1 cup) and no bay leaf. Reduce heat to low and simmer covered 1 hour 45 minutes.

Add Recipe Ready Stew Blend and Recipe Ready Chopped Onion & Garlic Blend and cook 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Remove roast and vegetables to a platter; cover to rest.

Blend flour with remaining water or broth and add to liquid in Dutch oven. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and cook, stirring constantly, 5 minutes or until thickened. Season, if desired, with salt and ground black pepper.

Note: I used a package of McCormick’s Brown Gravy mix and increased the water to 2 cups and eliminated the beef broth. The gravy turned out excellent.

You can find this recipe along with more recipe creations using Birds Eye® Recipe Ready vegetables at Birdseye.com.  Prices starting at just $1.99 and available at most local grocery stores.

You can reach me at Vicki.Arsenault@oakpress.com or 248-745-4621. Follow me at Twitter @OCKidsKorner and see my videos at www.Tout.com/VickiArsenault

NoOodle Soup: For a quick, easy guilt-free meal

NoOodle Chicken Noodle Soup.Photo by Vicki Arsenault

How would you like a soup that is all natural and gluten-free, with an ingredient that offers no calories, no net carbs, no soy and no preservatives?
Self-taught Chef Terri Rogers, founder of the NoOodle ™ Company has created a variety of recipes centered on this ingredient.
I recently had the opportunity to try a couple soups made with the NoOodle noodle. I have to say, I was excited to give them a try. After reading what the key ingredient in NoOodle soups has to offer - including health benefits - I was curious about the taste.
I tried two different soups from the NoOodle™ Company, Chicken Noodle and Tomato Risotto. They each came packaged in 16.9 oz. boxes. A full list of the all-natural ingredients includes the key ingredient, the Yam Noodle. The yam-based noodle is what Chef Terri Rogers and her company is all about. Consumed in Japan for centuries, where Rogers first discovered it and brought it to America, led to the creation of her company.

NoOodle Chicken Noodle Soup.Photo by Vicki Arsenault

The NoOodle consists of a dietary fiber called glucomannan. Glucomannan is a water-soluble dietary fiber derived from the root of an Asian yam plant. It is designed to slow digestion and trap cholesterol and fat from being absorbed by the body.
First I tried the Chicken Noodle. Even though the soup can be heated in the microwave, I decided to heat it on the stove top so that I could see the ingredients and smell the aroma as it heated.
Following the directions - I went from the box to the bowl in less than 5 minutes and sit down to a delightful bowl of Chicken Noodle Soup.
The noodles were not at all like I thought. After reading about the NoOodle, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get past the texture. I had an image of a slick, mushy noodle, which couldn't have been further from it. The texture of the noodle was firm and gentle and not at all mushy. The soup is not shy on noodles, it's packed with plenty of noodles in a very flavorful chicken broth, diced carrots, celery and generous chunks of chicken. It was very enjoyable.

NoOodle Tomato & Risotto Soup

The Tomato Risotto Soup was equally flavorful. The noodle was a lot lighter than that in the chicken noodle soup. It didn't have a lot of texture to it but went great with the tomato based broth. The soup also has diced tomatoes, pieces of spinach and basil that give it a very flamboyant flavor.
Whether your diabetic, on a gluten-free diet, watching your calories and carbs or just prefer to eat healthy - you'll enjoy the NoOodles Soup.


The NoOodle line of soup retails for $5.99 each and can be purchased online at www.NoOodle.com along with their entire line of products.

You can reach me at Vicki.Arsenault@oakpress.com or 248-745-4621. Follow me on Twitter: @OCKidsKorner. Find more reviews, recipes on the Web: www.theoaklandpress.com