When American Express contacted me about joining them to celebrate the launch of their American Express Blue Cash Preferred and Everyday Cards I couldn’t quite fathom why. That was, until I learned about their interest in conveying to consumers the potential of using money to make simple, delicious meals with six ingredients are less. I love sending the message that meals do not have to be complicated to be delicious so I jumped on board.
For this program I’ll be posting every Monday for the next three weeks and sharing some of my favorite recipes for summer vegetable side dishes made with six ingredients or less. In return, I’d like you to share your favorite summer vegetable side dishes that are made with six ingredients or less for your chance to win a $600 gift card from American Express! (Yes, that is right, six hundred bucks for your grocery shopping! woo-hoo!)
To kick things off I am sharing my fun riff on caprese salad, a classic summer vegetable side dish. In my version I like to infuse the olive oil with fresh pepper and use small balls of mozzarella and grape tomatoes in lieu of big tomato slices. I prefer the smaller sized tomatoes and cheese and find them much, much easier to eat. I also love that this whole salad takes minutes to throw together. Sometimes I make it during naptime and keep it in the fridge, but it is just as easy to make it in a snap dinner time! I usually served it alongside grilled fish or chicken to round out our meal.
So, here is what is going to happen now. My delicious Peppery Caprese Salad recipe is below. Next week, on July 18th, I am going to return with another FABULOUS summer vegetable recipes using six ingredients or less and issue a last call for recipe submissions. The winner will be announced on Monday July 25th, along with a final recipe from me!
Here are the guidelines for entering to win your very own $600 American Express Giftcard:
1. Leave a comment sharing your favorite summer vegetable side dish recipe that contains 6 ingredients or less. It does not have to be a formal recipe format, just tell me casually how the recipe works and what is in it.
2. Sign up for The Naptime Chef newsletter (upper left hand corner of this screen)
4. Read the below information about the new American Express Blue Cash Cards
About the New Blue Cash Preferred and Everyday Cards
With the costs of food, gas and clothing rising rapidly, the new Blue Cash® Cards provide a simple way for shoppers to put cash back in their pockets as they shop for every day necessities. With these new Blue Cash Cards, there are no spend minimums, cash back caps, ongoing enrollments or rotating categories of cash back benefits. The benefits don’t change, as they do with some other cards.
Both Cards immediately offer cash back in categories in which prices are particularly under pressure: gas, supermarket purchases and department stores.
Whether when shopping online or in-store, offers an easy-to-understand rewards structure:
For Blue Cash Preferred, it’s as simple as 6%-3%-1% (6% cash back at supermarkets, up to 3% at department stores and gas stations, and 1% on all other eligible purchases). At 6% cash back, Blue Cash Preferred offers consumers the most cash back at the supermarket available in the market today. (Blue Cash Preferred carries a $75 annual fee)
For Blue Cash Everyday, it’s a simple as 3%-2%-1% (3% cash back at supermarkets, 2% cash back at department stores and gas stations, and 1% on all other eligible purchases) with no annual fee.To learn more about the Blue Cash Preferred and Blue Cash Everyday cards, visit www.americanexpress.com/bluecashcards
For more chances to win please visit these other blogs with this promotion:
1. In a small bowl mix the olive oil, pepper and salt.
2. Arrange the basil, tomatoes, and mozzarella on a plate and drizzle the olive oil dressing over the top. Serve!
Naptime Notes
Naptime Recipe Serving ideas
As with all the posts on this ad-free Products Review page, I was compensated to participate in this program and provide the above information to all of you. The opinions and recipe expressed in this article, however, are completely my own. As is the food photography.
I love a good holiday weekend away, but the chaos of packing that preceeds it can be enough to make me stay put. The two days leading up to our Fourth of July trip to Martha’s Vineyard was full of library returns/dry cleaning pick-up/last-minute drugstore runs — you name it, we did it! I am not complaining, merely observing how having a million little things to do all at once can become a massive time suck. The payoff, however, of a worry-free vacation was totally worth it. During our pre-vacay rush I was focused on making dinner as simple as possible. No complicated sauces, no involved dishes, merely light summery meals that could be pulled together in a snap.
The only problem with grilling I really face is that my husband comes home so late from work I have to have everything ready the second he pulls in order to get dinner on the table as quickly as possible. My daughter’s bedtime usually immediately follows dinner and I pay the price the next day if she is up too late! I would just grill our meal ahead of time, but I think cold grilled meat isn’t as good as when it is fresh off the heat. To make it easy for me, and to make the meat as flavorful as possible, I often make the grilling sauce during naptime and let the meat marinate all afternoon. In this case, last week I had some slightly overripe mangos so I decided to whip up a new-to-use sauce with what was on hand.
It is officially grilling season. Some would argue it started last month, but the weather in the northeast doesn’t really perk-up until July which is when summer really begins in my world. To get you started with your grilling this season here are some of my basic grilling tips along with some awesome grilling recipes. You might remember a few of these recipes from my grillmaster brother, Uncle Will, I can guarantee he’ll be back this summer with some more grilling greats for us!
Naptime Chef Essential Grilling Tips: You don’t have to be a pitmaster to grill some basic good food. Trust me, I should know. Until last summer I was a city dweller and only grilled on the occasion I was visiting my parents. Now that we live in the ‘burbs my husband and I grill almost every night! I don’t rely on him to do all of the grilling, instead I asked him to teach me a few important tips so that I could grill for both of us. Even if all I do is get the grill pre-heated before he gets home it is a huge time-saver for him when it comes to cooking time.
Before the holiday weekend gets underway I am stopping in with a few naptime chef ideas for your Fourth of July drink spread, along with a fun new cocktail recipe. It is essential that you have a few great frosty drink recipes on hand if you are entertaining this coming weekend!
I made my first attempt at homemade strawberry vodka last week after our strawberry picking expedition. Rarely, if ever, do I buy flavored vodkas because I think they taste artificial and overly sweet. With the hope of finding a way to make an enjoyable, natural fruity liquor, I wanted to try making my own at home. I’d read that people have had great success with it and the whole process seemed completely simple and naptime chef-friendly. I’ll get into a post about the details of making fruit vodkas later in July (hint, hint, I made more flavors than just strawberry…), but suffice it to say, it worked out well. The vodka was infused with the delicious berry flavor and had just the right amount of sweetness from the sugar. If you don’t have the time or interest to make homemade strawberry vodka the store-bought version will work for with this recipe!
Naptime Goals: Make ice-cream base to all the herbs to steep!
This kid is killing me with the 5:30am wake-ups. I swear, I am this close to lining her windows with black electrical tape and turning her bedroom into a cave. The reason she keeps waking me up, she says, is because the sun is already up. (I don’t miss winter weather one bit, but I do miss the 7:15am sunrises!) One of our favorite early summer activities in strawberry picking. Being this tired means that it feels like 1pm, not 10am, when we go to the fields. Naptime feels like dinner hour, and I usually loose track of time completely by late afternoon. Since it felt like dinnertime when I was working on the strawberries last week it should come as no surprise that I was craving ice cream. My body was sure I’d already eaten dinner (it was, in fact, lunch) and was in the mood for something cool and sweet.
One of the best parts about Belgian beer is that is can be sipped, stirred and baked. In the virtual picnic Wendy and I dreamt up while we were discussing Belgian Beer Week we decided on a beer marinated pork roast as the main course. This easy dish can be served hot or cold and even taken on picnics or boat rides. Marinating it in beer tenderizes the meat and adds all sorts of spicy flavors. I like it, of course, because preparing is so incredibly naptime chef-friendly.
