5 Tips for Keeping Your Children on Schedule Throughout the Week! #GetGoing #MC

I participated in an Influencer Activation Program on behalf of Influence-Central for Jif To Go Dippers. I received a sample to facilitate my review and a thank you item for participating.  All opinions expressed are my own.

One of the things that has become obvious to me over the past year or so is that our family of five is only going to get busier and busier as our children grow older.  Every grade they advance means more homework.  Every year they mature means they want to be more social and may want to try new extracurricular activities.

At the moment, all three of our children study Taekwondo.  If you can somehow manage to have all your children take part in the same activity, I highly recommend it.  I do not miss the days of dragging all three children to soccer practice and dance class when only one of them was participating.  Still, life is hectic because there's 3 of them and only 2 of us.  They outnumber us!  Let me share a few tips I've come to find very useful over the past few years . . .

5 Tips for Keeping Your Children on Schedule:

1.  Try to always be at least 15 minutes early. If you always try to be early, that means you might only be late about 50% of the time despite having children who try to leave the house without remembering to put on their shoes or need to use the bathroom as you're pulling out of the driveway even though they swore they didn't need to just 10 minutes before.

2.  Take homework with you.  I know it can be a little stressful to help multiple children with homework while you're out of the house, but it really is a smart way to use your time.  While our twins are in Taekwondo class, their big brother does his homework.  Then while he is taking his class, the twins do their homework.  It works out very well and it may free up an extra half an hour for down time later on, something my children hardly get any of on most weeknights.

3.  Complete homework in advance.  It may not always be feasible, but if your child gets a week's worth of assignments at once, then it could help if he or she completed an extra assignment or two on a night when there are no activities outside of the house.  This makes it much less stressful on the school nights when you do have to leave the house.

4.  Keep any gear you need by the door or in the car.  No, you probably won't see a big duffel bag full of gear by the front door at Martha Stewart's house, but . . . I'm not Martha Stewart.  We keep a rolling duffel full of sparring gear for Taekwondo either inside the back door of our house or in the trunk of our car.  By doing this, it's very rare that we show up for class unprepared.  My sanity is more important that someone thinking less of me because my house looks lived in.

5.  Keep portable snacks on-hand.  Something we always kept on-hand were little single serve pouches of fruit snacks.   This is something that we could just grab on our way out the door when we're running late for Taekwondo class.  However, since our children had voiced how tired they were of having the same snack all the time, I started to look for other options for portable snacks.  We recently tried Jif To Go® Dippers and will be adding them to our very short list of on-the-go snacks.

As a parent, I found both the contents and the packaging of Jif To Go Dippers to be very well-thought out.  This product was made with children in mind.  Sometimes we just have enough time to get the children off the school bus, have them change into their Taekwondo uniforms, get their backpacks, grab water bottles and a to-go snack, and head out the door.  When unwrapped, you get a container of 10 to 12 pretzels with a separate container of dip.  The container of pretzels is perfect for putting in one of the cup holders in the car, which works out great because our children usually finish their Jif To Go Dippers in the car before we go into class.  That way, we don't need to worry about being rude by eating in front of others when we don't have enough for everyone and we don't have to worry about other students having peanut allergies. Did I also mention that my children can eat Jif To Go Dippers without making a mess on their white uniforms?

Now, what did our children think?  Not only were they thrilled about having something different to eat for snack, they made sure we put Jif To Go Dippers on the list for our next trip to the grocery store.  Although they enjoyed both the Creamy Peanut Butter and the Chocolate Silk Peanut Butter, they all seemed to liked the Chocolate Silk the best.

Do your children need something new for a to-go snack?  Look for Jif To Go Dippers in grocery stores nationwide.

The Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven Makes Delicious Home Cooked Meals in Less Time Than a Standard Full-Size Oven

Thank you to KitchenTek for providing a complimentary sample Wolfgang Puck Oven for us to base this pressure oven review upon. All opinions expressed are my own.

We lead a very busy life. Actually, that's quite an understatement.  We actually lead a crazy, hectic, and non-stop busy life. I don’t ever remember being this busy when I was younger and my mother always seemed to have time to prepare a proper dinner for us. As a parent myself today, I simply do not know how she did it.  Any tools, tips, or tricks that can help my wife and I prepare a quality dinner are welcome in our home. It is not uncommon to reach 6pm and we are still figuring out what we are going to do for dinner! Well, recently we were introduced to a tool that could potentially help us prepare a home cooked meal for my family in a shorter amount of time. I was instantly interested.

We were sent the Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven to try for ourselves. As excited as I was to try such a nice oven, I was equally skeptical of the oven's key feature: Pressurization. That's right, the Wolfgang Puck oven seals and cooks with pressure. I was intrigued and cynical at the same time.

I understood the concept of cooking with pressure and knew that it works, but in an oven? Once I opened the oven up and placed it on the counter I knew right away this was no gimmick. The Wolfgang Puck Oven is a serious and solidly built machine. The all stainless steel construction has a handsome and professional look.

This pressure oven is more than just a pressurized oven.  It is also a rotisserie and can be used to replace your toaster. You can use the oven as a regular un-pressurized oven as well. The oven comes with all the drip pans, racks, crumb trays, and meat skewers needed to use all the features of the oven, although it would have been a wonderful bonus for a mini cookie sheet to be included. The unit even comes with removable handles to use in removing the racks and trays from inside the hot oven.

The operation of the oven is simple and intuitive. Although you could probably figure out how to use the oven without reading the manual, I highly advise reading it, even for experienced cooks. When dealing with high heat and pressurization, you can never be too careful. I certainly learned some important safety items in the manual that I may not have figured out on my own. For instance, the oven needs to be run through a 30 minute cooking cycle before the first use in order to burn off any coatings or oils applied during manufacturing. The oven also gets very hot on the outside and needs to be at least 3 inches from everything all around, even in the back. I made sure my children stayed far clear of the oven when it was in use.  The oven has a pressure release valve on the top that lets out extra gasses to control the pressure and to release it all when the cooking cycle is done.

Now for the big question: Does it work? Did the Wolfgang Puck Oven cook our food well and save us time? The short answer is yes, cooking with pressure saved a great deal of time and the food was delicious.

We chose to try a roast and some sliced baby red potatoes to test the oven. I decided to cook the potatoes earlier in the day as they can take quite a bit of time to cook (and honestly I had no idea what to expect). Although the oven comes with a recipe and cooking instruction book, I did not have instructions for potatoes so I had to wing it. I decided to set the temperature at 350 and the timer at 60 minutes. As it turns out, I was lucky and nailed it with those settings, the potatoes were cooked to perfection. Nice and roasted on the outside and soft on the inside. One hour roasted potatoes? Win.

We bought a 4 pound rump roast to rotisserie. I prepared the meat simply by drying it off and rubbing salt and pepper into it. I really wanted to see if the oven could make the meat taste better than a non-pressurized oven so I didn't want to complicate the taste with lots of other flavorings. The instructions called for 1.2 hours at 450 degrees for a 5-6 pound roast. I decided to leave the temperature at 450 but cut the time to 60 minutes for my smaller roast.

I should mention at this time that I have no idea how I could have fit a 6 pound roast in the oven as my 4-pounder was as wide as it could have been while still fitting (it was shaped like a giant meatball). I guess a thinner and longer roast would work at that weight. I should also mention that I had never used a rotisserie to cook anything before either!

How did I do? It came out nearly perfect. I was stunned that I could cook a roast in an hour. In my regular oven it would have taken 2.5 -3 hours depending on how I wanted it to come out. My roast was unusually round so the middle was a bit more rare than my family likes it, but still nicely cooked if you like your beef rare. The outer edges were ever so slightly overcooked.  If I were to do a roast again today, I would choose a longer and thinner, but heavier roast and used the same settings because the exterior of the roast would not be as close to the heating elements. So, now I know and my next roast in the pressure oven is going to be the best I have ever had.

The Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven is not tiny, but it is not that big either. You will NOT be preparing a turkey in this oven. But the Pressure Oven is a nice size to supplement your existing oven or to be used as a specialty oven for roasts or what have you. You can bake with it, but you would only be able to bake 6 cookies at a time. I can see the oven used for loaves of various kinds.  The oven can also be used as a 6 slice toaster oven, so you can get rid of your current toaster oven, saving some counter space (a precious commodity in my home).

Overall the Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven works. I am excited that I can prepare perfectly cooked meat in the same time it takes to order takeout. If you want to roast a chicken you don’t need to plan it a day in advance, you can cook it 3 times faster in this oven. Side dishes like veggies or potatoes cook 30% faster and turn out delicious.

If you are as busy as we are, then I know you would appreciate the Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven's fast cooking times and quality results. The construction is solid, the operation is simple, and it looks great. At $299.95 the Wolfgang Puck Oven is an investment, but if you appreciate properly cooked food in a short amount of time you will think it is worth it. Rotisserie is now on my families menu!

This oven would make the perfect Holiday gift for someone with a busy lifestyle or someone who needs multiple ovens to prepare more than one food item at once.  You can learn more about the Wolfgang Puck Oven at www.puckoven.com, where you can watch the oven in action in their video library and order a pressure oven of your very own.  You can also find ideas and tips for using the Wolfgang Puck Pressure Oven on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, and YouTube.