It's a party!!

So I had my first party Thursday night. I know a little slow getting started, I'm not a great salesman and not pushy at all! So This is my first party, and overall I would say it went well. My hostess cooked the host pack of Garlic Lemon Chicken, Taco Soup Dip, and Mini Pecan Pie Muffins. I didn't taste anything, but I heard rave reviews. I try and not taste something unless I know we have more than enough to go around I would rather the guest get to taste it than me. Plus I am fairly confident a guest won't ask if I have had something if it was on the menu that night! I can always refer to the hostess for questions on cooking those items too.
Are you familiar with a Homemade gourmet home show? If not let me do a run down! (If you are skip this paragraph!) The host is in charge of making the food for the party. This gives the host a chance to sample cooking the products and know how easy it is to do! This also saves me from being the only one who has cooked anything HG. The show itself can or does have 2 components if you so choose i can do 4 meals in 4 minutes for the hostess. I provide a shopping list and then at the party I do the prep for 4 meals in about 4 minutes. Since I am talking through this it might be a little longer, but you get the idea of how quick and easy these meals are to make! The other part of the party is typical of most home parties where someone is trying to sell you something, we talk and talk and talk about the product, my job and how you can learn more and get more! Then we end. My order form is super simple so anyone can fill it out! You list your product (by name please) and then how many and the price then add it all up add 10% for shipping and you are done! NO TAX!! No odd numbers to add up, I love it!!
So my first party hostess earned 2 meals (it was a January special) the leftovers from her party (which I don't believe she had any because she had a large group), 10% of her sales which at this time is a little over $40. A chance to purchase our host special dishes, and a chance to get 35% off this month's HG Preferred dinner meals, and since her sales are over $400 another item at 35% off! I would say she did a great job for one night and all she had to do was cook a couple things and clean her house! I even lent her my steam mop! (She wanted to try it out).
Are you interested in hosting a show if so let me know I live just south of Houston but will go anywhere in about a one hour radius!

Tacos!

Tacos are a staple in our house. Over the years I have done various things to season them. I have used different packets, my mom just uses Chili Powder. Mostly I bought the individual packets or when I find it a large container of the seasoning. Last night I was at a loss on what to cook, so I decided tacos, it had been awhile, and although it was 30 minutes from dinner and no meat was defrosted I decided I could do this. I have a packet of seasoning, but since I was looking through my recipe cards I decided to try the Taco Soup Seasoned Meat for our tacos. Once my meat thawed I cooked the meet with the seasoning, unlike packets where you drown the meat in water and seasoning at the end. The taste is not that bold taco flavor, so personally it was just okay. My husband also liked it as a good change of pace. My daughter (super picky eater who it takes much encouragement to eat a taco) ate her taco in a quarter of her usual time. She didn't even freak out when the shell broke (that usually ads 5 minutes to the taco eating time!) So another win for Homemade Gourmet! Bonus if you order now Taco Soup Seasoning is on sale!!

Soup's On!

This month the soups are 15% off so I decided that we would try a few. I asked my husband to pick some out and he picked the Chicken and Rice Creme Soup, Bonnie's Blue Ribbon Chili, and I picked the Taco Soup Staple (it was actually cheaper since the staple was on sale to get the refill and buy the container and the recipe cards separate).
Dinner tonight I decided I would try out the Chicken and Rice Creme Soup. I didn't have any meat thawed or precooked, so around 3:30 I put 4-5 frozen chicken breast along with a can of Chicken Broth in a pot on the stove. I let these cook for about an hour and then used the Pampered Chef Mix n Chop to cut up the chicken. I then poured it into a strainer saving the broth for my soup. The recipe calls for 6 cups of water, but like I have said before when you can substitute broth for water go ahead it usually turns out in your favor. The recipe for the Chicken and Rice Creme soup is the mix, 6 cups of water and 12oz canned chicken or 1 cup chicken. I ended up with 2 cups of the broth so I did 2 cups of broth with the mix and 1 cup of chicken. I put all the ingredients back in the same pot I had just cooked the chicken in (I took the other 2 cups of chicken and put them in the fridge for my next recipe). Then whisked as stated on the directions to combine, and then brought to a boil and simmered 20 minutes.
The verdict: I liked it, although it was a bit salty, probably from the broth, might go ahead with a lower sodium broth next time. Hubby liked it and got a second helping. My daughter did not want soup and so she opted for an Easy Mac. I did make her try one bite, she was already convinced she would not like it, so she did not like it (or so she says, she did not spit it out!).
In all I would say it was a total success! Dinner in 20 minutes if I had the chicken pre-prepared, which I do for next time. We also have 2 servings left for another day.

Another Opportunity...

I have a friend who sells Creative Memories, and since I LOVE to scrapbook and Creative Memories is my preferred product I try and go to her events. I have been to one scrapbooking day with her and remember their being some snacks there, which is great while scrapbooking. She had another event coming up this past Saturday so I asked her if she and the other CM consultants would be interested in my providing the snacks. It could save them time and money. It was agreed that I could provide for them. So I decided on some BLT dip (my favorite and I have a pantry staple!), Mock Spinach (it sounded good and I wanted to try it), Jalapeno Bacon Cheddar (a friend had bought it and decided it was too spicy so traded for something of equal value something you can do with any HG product you don't like, burn or whatever) and Roasted tomato Salsa (I had a few on hand so I knew I could make one and possibly sell the others). For dessert I had a Cinnamon Sopapilla dessert and Apple Crisp.
The prep was super easy as always. The dips were all mix and chill. The Salsa was a can of Rotel and a can of tomatoes and the mix put in blender and blend for a little bit then chill and serve. I decided to go ahead and make the cinnamon sopaillas ahead and serve chilled. The apple crisp I did that morning and actually melted a part of my new rolling cooler (oops!).
In all I think it went well. The CM consultants were glad not to have to think of that portion of the prep and doings for the day, and I was glad to get my products out there!
If you don't already know the soups are on sale this month! I bought for myself the Chicken and Rice Creme, Taco Soup mix and Blue Ribbon Chili! I can't wait for it to come in later this week! I will let you know how those turn out!!

Enchilada Soup on a not so cold day

I live in Texas and if you listen to the complainers on facebook, it's a million degrees too hot outside. Personally I am enjoying it. I got to wear a polo today and didn't need my jacket, perfect weather. It's not really soup weather, but ever since I saw the Enchilada Soup Mix I have wanted to try it. I LOVE enchiladas and any way to get that flavor in my mouth makes me a happy girl. I also thought this would be a soup my hubby would like. He was not a fan of the Taco Soup made for the open house, because it had beans and corn in it. The enchilada soup has tomatoes, but he will get over it. So the recipe was 7tbsp of the mix, some milk, water, a can of tomatoes and some pre-cooked chicken, simple like everything else! I threw it together in the pot gave it a couple stirs and left it to heat up then simmer 20 minutes. I love it!! My husband approved of it, and my daughter didn't try it. The tomatoes I used I think took away from the actual soup texture and flavor. I think I will try some rotel next time! I think this soup really captured the enchilada flavor without being too much of anything. I also think I would have liked some cheese on top of it, because every enchilada needs cheese! In all I was a happy camper and will gladly have more for lunch tomorrow even if it is 80 outside!

Skillet Chicken and Rice

I received my package from the Christmas Open House to find that one of the products had spilled. Now I can't give that to a customer so I did a damage report to get a new one. It had not spilled so bad that I would deem it unusable though so I had to sacrifice myself and my family to try it out. This was a good idea, except that it's a Skillet chicken and rice and my husband recently discovered that my skillet's coating was coming off, so it's not going to be used again (don't worry my sister bought me a new one at her job for a great discount!). So luckily right on the Homemade Gourmet package they had an alternative recipe for casserole Chicken and rice! Awesome, even better I had all the ingredients on hand! It called for a cream of soup (I had chicken it asks for mushroom) and some water and some chicken. I mixed the water and the soup and the rice together put them in the 9x13 pyrex, then placed some frozen chicken on top. Now the recipe just said chicken and I am lazy so I tried the frozen, can't hurt right? I do believe it would be better to go ahead and take the 5-10 min while the oven preheats to thaw the chicken, so lesson learned. I put this all in the oven for the required 40 minutes (I am doing this from memory so forgive me if I am wrong!) When I checked it at the time it said the chicken was almost done, but the rice was still fairly raw, so I threw it back in for 20 minutes. That did the trick.
The opinions of my family on this new meal: My daughter liked it with some hesitation, so not real sure if she really liked it or was just wanting us to be happy she was eating it. My husband thought the rice was over cooked. I can blame this on my extra 20 minutes (maybe should have been less) or the loss of some rice in the original spillage. I loved it, and have had most of the leftovers myself! I did like the flavor of the rice more than the chicken, but since the chicken just laid on top it didn't really get much flavor. We both agree we will try it again, but attempt the skillet version with my new skillet when it gets to me! All in all it was a success! Go ahead try some yourself!

Christmas Open House

I have a friend who sells Scentsy and she decided to do an Open House at her home for Christmas and invited myself, Jillybeans Treats, Avon and Pampered Chef to come set up a table and sell our stuff. So I got to try a couple more recipes!
I decided my menu on Friday for the Saturday Open House. I decided to go with things I had the stuff for and would not be opening new containers more inventory in hopes of selling that instead of taste testing it all! So the menu for my table became the Garlic Lemon Chicken and Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake Ball. The menu for stuff to go on the food table with everyone else's stuff was Garlic Basil Dip and BLT Dip.
Friday night I put together the 2 dips and mixed the cheesecake ball. Now I know from experience you can cheat with cream cheese and "soften" it in the mixer. I learned you can't cheat with butter this same way, but if you mix and find it doesn't work just leave it on the counter to soften the long way and mix again and all is well. This was thankfully my only snag in making my foods for the open house. The cheesecake ball was super simple cream cheese, butter (softened) and the mix. If you really soften the butter and cream cheese first it would take only the time it takes your mixer to mix these 3 things. If you try and cheat like I did it takes about an hour cause you have to let the butter soften. The two dips were equally as simple, and since I have the pantry staples for both it was measure mix and done!
The hardest part was that the open house started at 9am. First I had to decide if I should even bother with something like chicken or if it would be wiser to just do the dips. I went with the chicken hoping it would inspire more in sales. I did get one comment from Jillybeans treats about the smell of garlic at 8am (while we were setting up), and not everyone tasted the chicken, but that was a risk I took, not sure if I would have done better with different choices or if it was a mute point. Anyway the chicken I chose was the Garlic Lemon chicken. I partly chose this because it was my only pantry staple I had not yet used, and in case I didn't like it I could give it away to my host or one of the other ladies there. I was worried about my liking this one because I don't like lemon as a primary flavor. Thankfully it's not an overpowering lemon flavor. If you like lemon the 4 meals in 4 minutes recipe you can use margarita mix which I am sure will accent the lemon flavor. Back to what I actually did. I used 2tablespoons of butter a quarter cup of water some of the seasoning and then 3lbs of chicken. I went ahead Friday night and put the butter, water and seasoning in the crockpot, then set my alarm for 5am to wake up dump the frozen chicken in the pot and go back to bed. That is exactly what I did, and I think it turned out well. If I were doing it again I would have put water, butter and seasoning in on top of the chicken so it would maybe get more of the seasoning flavor, but when I am thinking about doing something in the middle of the night the less I have to do the better!
In all the open house went well, I got a few orders and possibly a few new customers that may or may not become regulars. I also decided I would "trade parties" with the Scentsy consultant to possibly help both of us out, and I want some Scentsy, but can't think about spending money on it right now.