Newman's Own Thin & Crispy Pizza

This is a sponsored review by BlogHer and Newman's Own.

I live about five miles from the Newman's Own headquarters in Westport CT and am thinking I ought to stop by to give someone a big hug for inventing this pizza. I know that sounds a bit extreme, but until Newman's Own Thin & Crispy came along I had given up on frozen pizza altogether. 

When I picked up the pizza last week I decided to pop it in the oven for a quick mother/daughter lunch. Like nearly everyone in the under-3 set, my daughter is a huge fan of pizza and does not yet possess the social skill known as lying to be polite. If this pizza was bad I would hear about it, no holds barred, from her little mouth. 

I baked the pizza according to instructions - directly on the middle rack at 425ºF - and it crisped up perfectly. The only struggle I had, however, was prying it off the rack. I found a large pancake spatula and oven mitt did the trick. Then I let it cool down a touch so I could cut it, and my daughter and I went to town.

As my daughter chewed silently - a sure sign of approval - I contemplated my own piece. True to the box, the pizza was thin and crisp, heaped with cheese and sauce. The crust was practically an afterthought, merely functioning as a base for the toppings. The sauce had a true tomato taste and the cheese melted and stretched nicely with each bite. Signs that the pie baked very well.

With the baking process and taste already getting a huge thumbs up I turned to quality. What I love about the Newman's Own Brand in general is that it truly cares of the health of the consumer. Every product is developed with careful care and study. This particular pizza contains no modified food starch, sodium nitrates, modified corn starch or transfats. All of the ingredients are hand-picked to be all natural and pack great taste. Did I also mention it fits my budget nicely? 

As far as frozen pizzas go this is the only one I plan on buying for as long as it's available. Newman's Own is generously giving away to prize packs valued at $75 each, contents of each prize may vary. For your chance to enter see the rules below. Now go buy some pizza! And, remember, all profits go to charity. Newman’s Own Foundation continues Paul Newman’s commitment to donate all profits to charity. Over $300 million has been given to thousands of charities since 1982.”

1. Contest runs from 9/1/2010 - 9/30/2010

2. To Enter: Leave a comment here telling me your most favorite pizza topping! Be sure to include you email address.

3. Winners will be announced on 10/2/2010. Winners will be picked using the Random Number Generator.

3. See Official Rules here.

77 Kids Do Good Day!

Last week I had the pleasure of participating in Do Good Day for American Eagle's new 77Kids store openings. Me and several other awesome Connecticut and New York bloggers, Alison of Being Alison and Casey of A Couch with a View and Mary the Mommyologist, traveled to Danbury CT to do some good in the community.

The spirit of the event was to reach out the community and enable them to do good for others. To that end, American Eagle thoughtfully provided some fantastic kits for us including prizes, stickers, coupons and 77 $1 bills to hand out. With our dollar bills we clipped 7 ideas for ways people could do good with their money.

We also had a blast providing free prizes, games and toys to everyone we ran in to. After all, families can always use an extra set of markers or pencils with the school year approaching. It was a really fun day doing good for others. I can't wait for their new 77Kids stores to open so I can hit them up for my daughter's new school clothes!

V8 V-Fusion Review and Sweepstakes!

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and V8.

I started mixing juices in ninth grade. Each day at lunch I would slide my tray down to the beverage station, place my cup under the juice machine and fill it with equal parts orange, cranberry and pineapple juices. The result? A fruit concoction that was so sickly sweet it made me teeth ache. Despite this, however, I drank it each day. Reasoning that it tasted better than any one drink on it’s own, and figuring it the best way to get my daily dose of Vitamin C in one fell swoop.

When I received my package of V8 V-Fusion drinks in the mail last week visions of high school came flooding back to me.  As I poured glasses of Strawberry Banana, Pomegranate Blueberry and Cranberry Blackberry my mouth anticipated the familiar sugary assault and I swear I felt a twinge in my fillings. Luckily, however, my fears of being forced to consume syrupy artificial fruit beverages were unfounded. True to their claims, these juices are heavy on natural flavor but not sugar or artificial sweeteners. In fact, my glass of Cranberry Blackberry Fusion was so mildly sweet that it was the first glass of fruit juice I’ve drank in its entirety in a long time. Usually I end up cutting juices with sparkling water to lighten the flavor, but in this case there was no need.

Confident that I had a great drink on my hand the next taste taster in line was my two year-old. Despite being a great eater, she has never proven to be a big juice drinker. Usually she prefers water or milk, finding juices too sweet for her palate. In this case, however, she was eager to sample all of the flavors and happily took large swigs of each. As I suspected, she found the flavor slightly too aggressive and wouldn’t drink any more until I diluted it with cold water. Then, once each cup was equal parts water and juice, she happily polished it all off. Like me, I think she was pleasantly surprised by the more natural fruit flavor.

I usually don’t substitute fruit juice for real fruit since, unless a juice is freshly squeezed, there is rarely any real fruit in the glass. However, in this case I think V8 has come up with a winning formula. Will I buy this instead of real strawberries and bananas? No. Will I keep this in our refrigerator for anyone in our house or toss it in the diaper bag to have on hand for snack-time? Yes. Given the lower sugar content and full serving of fruits and vegetables in each glass, V8 V-Fusion is definitely the smartest thing to keep around. In fact, I really wish they’d invented this when I was in high school.

Please join the fun with V8 V-Fusion and enter to win and enter the Sweepstakes with 9 ways to win a $100 Visa Gift card. Entry details are below!

BlogHer.com special offers page!

Check out V8's official page for further information on their fabulous products and a $1-Off coupon!

To enter the sweepstakes, leave me a comment below and tell me What is your, or your kids, favorite variety of V8 V-Fusion? If you haven't tried it yet, which one are you most excited to try? Or, you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below.  The contest will begin at 1/12/10 and will end 2/9/10.  Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct.  

 

Rules:

• No duplicate comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
• This giveaway is open to US-Residents aged 18 and older
• Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
• You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
• Please see the official rules here: Official rules
• The Random Number Generator will be used to select winners