Celebrate Mardi Gras

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

You don’t have to go to the French Quarter of New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras. Have your own celebration enjoying  creole or cajun cuisine and other food traditions of Mardi Gras. We have King Cakes and Paczkis on Monday and Fat Tuesday and some festive cupcakes to celebrate the event.

One staple in our family cupboard has always been Zatarain’s Dirty Rice mix, all you have to do is add water and browned ground beef, a one pot meal to have any time of year.

Po’ boys are another Louisiana food that we enjoy. Po’boys are a sandwich that consists of meat or seafood (usually fried) served on a baguette. One of our favorite po’ boy recipes is made with ground pork from a recipe I found years ago in Food and Wine magazine Spicy Pork Po’Boys is included in our Menu this week.

How about trying Jambalaya with Shrimp and Andouille Sausage? “New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.” – Mark Twain

On Wednesday we bring back our delicious fresh fried Cod sandwich in our Deli, stop in and pick some up for your dinner on Wednesday.

Our Festival Express grocery delivery service is a wonderful service that I hope you will try. Our family has really enjoyed the convenience of groceries delivered right to our kitchen!

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Cancel those reservations!

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and it is one of our favorite holidays at Festival Foods. The moment you step in our stores you will be amazed at the creativity and energy of our staff to make sure you have a special Valentine’s Day for your loved ones.

Start the day off right with a breakfast of French Toast made special by using our Taste of Scandinavia Chunky Cinnamon Bread. Surprise your Valentine with a side of heart shaped bacon, easy to make just cut and shape the bacon and bake it in the oven. Serve some Kemps Strawberry Milk and place a Chocolate Dipped Long Stemmed Strawberry on the plate for that extra “touch”. We are offering some spectacular Main Cooked Lobster Claws that we believe are perfect for the occasion.  You may serve them hot or cold with a Seafood Mustard Sauce as an appetizer, they are conveniently scored (cut) to make removal of the shell easier.

Now for your main course, we have so many suggestions, I’m not sure where to start but here goes… We have Premium USDA Choice Black Angus Boneless Rib Eye Sweetheart Steaks, hand cut, butterflied and trimmed by our butchers to appear heart shaped, one of our customer favorites!  You can prepare this steak by your preferred method or this delicious recipe from our Chef Melanie for French Rib Eyes.

If you want to serve surf and turf to your Valentine(s) we have wild, cold water 4 oz. Lobster Tails at only $5.99 each or near and dear to our hearts are our own ready to cook Lump Crab Cakes. Our customers rave that our crab cakes are better than they have been served in restaurants! Serve them with our recipe for Spicy Mustard Sauce
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We are pleased to offer our Premium USDA Choice Black Angus Boneless Whole Tenderloin for only $12.99 per lb., cut to order. Even better – we have a video to show you how to prepare Flaming Filet Mignon with Chive Butter. Prepare this dish in the comfort of your own home with no fuss and save so much money not going to a crowded restaurant for inferior food.

Now you know we wouldn’t forget about dessert, Taste of Scandinavia has created mini Sweetheart Chocolate Cakes topped with your choice of gold dusted chocolate roses, raspberries, or our New Salted Caramel!

Our crack teams of florists have a wide selection of premium quality flowers to choose from as well as many gifts that are sure to please your Valentine.

As a warm up to Valentine’s Day how about family movie night this weekend? We have a coupon for a free one night rental from Redbox and we suggest you serve our heart shaped pizza made fresh in our Deli along with our Orville Redenbacher’s Movie-Theater Popcorn and a selection of classic theater box candy from our candy department.

Happy Valentine’s Day from our entire team!

PS Be sure to try our Festival Express Grocery Delivery Service! Here is our menu for the week, let us know your favorite recipes.

 

 

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Food is Fun

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

Our tag line Food is Fun represents how we feel about our culture at Festival Foods. Our associates are passionate about food and work to make your shopping experience comfortable and delightful. Many of our associates are providing recipes that we include in our weekly menu and we would love to hear from you on your favorite recipes if you are willing to share them. Our menu for this week has a fun new recipe to create the Royal Red Robin Burger at home!

Our new grocery delivery service that we call Festival Express is an extension of the friendly culture in our stores. We understand how busy life can be and many of us enjoy the delivery service when we can’t find the time to get out and pick up groceries.

Have you explored Pinterest? Honestly it is somewhat addictive but also a fun site to explore, please follow us on Pinterest.

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Crowd-Pleasers

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

Whether you watch the Super Bowl for the love of football or like me to watch the creativity of the commercials and the half-time show, it’s a great excuse to put out a spread of food and invite a crowd. Tune into our Youtube channel and watch our Super Bowl video for some hints on great party food!

We have been brainstorming ideas and developing recipes and products to bring you simple yet delicious options to serve your guests and family. Our pot roast sliders are the perfect comfort food to serve to your guests, just a few ingredients and made in the crock pot so no fuss for you. Our store teams have been busy crafting displays because we believe Food is Fun! Here is quick peak at some of our Big Game Feast ideas!

One of our associates brought this dip to a meeting at our office and it was a hit.  Such an easy, flavorful dip, it has a little “kick” to it.

Spicy Southwest Dip
Ingredients
• 2 (8 oz) packages cream cheese
• 1 package Hidden Valley Ranch dip mix
• 1 can Mexicorn (Green Giant) (don’t drain unless you buy the brand with a lot of liquid)
• 1 small can chopped black olives – drained
• 1 small can diced jalapenos – drained
Directions
Soften cream cheese; then mix in packet of Hidden Valley Ranch dip Mix. Mix in rest of ingredients and chill.
Serve on your favorite cracker.

We have pulled together a shopping list for your Super Bowl party and have a few suggestions here. Fresh veggies and hummus are always a great combination for a snack and we have recently added the Sabra brand of hummus to our Produce departments.

Watch for our ad on Wednesday that is PACKED with ideas and as always,  wonderful values.

Our menu this week includes some of our favorite recipes, enjoy!

Have a ball and send us your Super Bowl party food pics.

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Dinner Makes a Difference

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

When I was constructing the Menu plan for this week and testing some recipes I realized I needed some ingredients for the menu.  What a wonderful option to be able to go on line and place an order for groceries delivered on the same day. Our Festival Express Grocery Delivery service has received wonderful reviews give it a try!

This week’s menu includes a Chicken Enchilada recipe from Rick at our White Bear store.  I love chicken enchiladas and best of all it is another recipe that you can use our rotisserie chicken if you don’t have time to cook the fresh chicken.

One of our family’s favorite meals is on the menu this week,  it is Pork Medallions with Mustard-Chive Sauce. We like to serve this with baked potatoes at our house. The pork cooks quickly so this is a quick meal to put together.

Have yourself a lazy Saturday morning and gather the family for these delicious pancakes Lemon Blueberry Pancakes | Tasty Kitchen: A Happy Recipe Community! Here is a link to The Pioneer Woman blog find photos and prep tips about this recipe as well as many other wonderful recipes on the site. All families struggle with busy schedules but taking the time to eat together as a family is important and worth the effort. This is a video of a session at TEDxManhatten – Dinner Makes a Difference that I hope you enjoy.

 

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If you cook…

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

Something I have noticed since I began making up a weekly menu plan at home is that we are not having any food go to waste!  Since we know what we’re going to cook the next night, we are immediately freezing leftovers and not letting them sit in the frig until they must be tossed because we have no plan for them, instead freezing and using leftovers for lunches or as part of our meal plan.

Our menu for this week is here, I hope you enjoy. One of our menu items this week is frozen pizza, not just any frozen pizza though. We now carry Heggies Pizza in our frozen foods department. For years we have enjoyed this delicious pizza in small bars around town, now you can stock up your freezer for busy nights with family activities and no time to cook.

Speaking of family activities; how about a movie and popcorn in the comfort of your own home? We have Redbox movies for you to conveniently pick up with this fun product to enjoy, best of all easy on the budget!Our crock pot recipe this week is Southwest Chicken Chili, a recipe that goes together quickly and perfect for a winter dinner. One of my favorite products to make clean-up after a crock pot/slow cooker meal really easy -slow cooker liners.  Cooking doesn’t have to be time consuming!

 

 

One of my personal favorite community/blogs for cooking is Food52. Always wonderful recipes to explore but most important is that I really relate to their philosophy or their “cooking manifesto” as they call it: “memorable cooking doesn’t have to be complicated or precious”. I love their points on if you cook:

  • If you cook, your family will eat dinner together.
  • If you cook, you will naturally have a more sustainable household.
  • If you cook, you’ll set a lifelong example for your children.
  • If you cook, you’ll understand what goes into food and will eat more healthily.
  • If you cook, you’ll make your home an important place in your life.
  • If you cook, you’ll make others happy.
  • If you cook, people will remember you.

They have recently released a cookbook and it is on my list for the next trip to the bookstore, go check them out for some wonderful ideas.

..make others happy

 

 

 

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Baby It’s Cold Outside

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

While we are having a mild winter, it is still plenty chilly outside to make us hungry for something warm and tasty. If you are looking for something warm yet “lighter” try our fresh stir fry packages that we call Samurai Stir Fry.  Use the veggies on their own or pair them with chicken, beef, or pork for a delicious & quick one-pot meal.

This week in our menu we share one of our favorite recipes for Fajita Steak Salad, here is a link to our video on YouTube for the recipe as well, we hope you enjoy the videos. We welcome you to post photos of the recipes you prepare on our Facebook page, be sure to “like” us to find out about new products and promotions.  We are always on the watch for new products and work diligently to have them on our shelves as soon as possible. If you thought Mid America’s Top the Tater couldn’t get any better, you have to check out their two new flavors!

Stay warm and healthy!

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Easy Does It

Posted on January 2, 2012 by Lauri Youngquist

This week’s menu includes a slow cooker recipe and we will do our best to bring you more of these one pot meals in the future, perfect for busy households. To bring a wider variety to our menu plan we are including links and recipes to other recipe sites as well as our own recipe pages. We will try whenever possible to offer some prepared sauces and components to make the recipe preparation even faster.

The recipe for Nacho Burgers by Bobby Flay suggests you grill the burgers.A time-saver and warmer option in these cold months at our house is a grill pan for the stove top, most of our grilling is done on a grill pan. Always remember to cook ground beef to an internal temperature of 160 degrees, never assume that if a ground beef is brown in the middle, it is done, the only safe way to know if meat, poultry, and egg dishes are “done” is to use a food thermometer.

Our meat service departments have many main course options such as seasoned salmon, asparagus stuffed chicken breasts, etc. ready for you to cook and eat with no fuss as well as many entrees in the deli for carry-out  when you don’t feel like cooking such as our own Pasta Sauce with Italian Sausage on Wednesdays. Our delis also have delicious heat and eat entrees such as our Lasagna Roll-ups.

We would love to hear your suggestions and recipes for our menu plans.

 

 

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What’s on the menu?

Posted on December 28, 2011 by Lauri Youngquist

A weekly menu plan can take the guesswork out of already busy week for time-starved families.You don’t want to be staring at an empty refrigerator at 5 o’clock wondering what you will have for dinner, I have been there too many times myself.

After receiving several requests for a weekly suggested menu, we gave it a try.We will include some of our carry-out favorites such as our Chicken Pot Pie sold hot on Mondays after 4 pm, while they last.We went one step further trying to help you, we made a grocery list for each of the recipes.  We will post these menus on our Facebook page.

In addition to menu planning to save time, you might also consider what your staple items should be in the freezer for quick meals when your schedule goes awry.We always try to have a couple of  Festival’s  Mom’s Meatloaf in the freezer as well as a couple Alexia brand frozen Yukon Gold mashed potatoes, this makes for a delicious comfort food kind of meal.We also purchase cooked Rotisserie chicken from the Festival deli and keep one in the freezer, we re-heat in the oven (always re-heat leftovers to 160 degrees).Rotisserie chicken and a bag salad is an easy and frequently on our home menu, we also use Rotisserie chicken in many of favorite dishes Grilled Chicken Quesadillas is a favorite!

Other benefits of a weekly menu are less food waste and  budget friendly, take our ad on Wednesday and plan  your week of meals, saving time and money.

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“Simply” Fabulous

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Lauri Youngquist

If your family is like ours, Christmas Eve is an “open house” with people coming and going from afternoon until late in the evening.  Since we want to enjoy the holiday with our family and friends we don’t want to spend the day cooking and fussing over the food yet we want great tasting food for the occasion.  With a little help from the Festival Foods culinary team here is what our Christmas buffet will consist of.

 

Large Fresh Vegetable Tray & Dip

4 lbs Creamy Bacon Chive Dip served warm with

Sliced Baguettes

4 lbs Buffalo Chicken Dip * served warm with Tortilla chips

Boneless Chicken Wings (Aluminum Pan)

Cheese platter * serve with crackers

Antipasto Platter

Hye Roller Platter

Shrimp platter with seafood sauce

Creamy Pasta Salad with Chicken, Cherries & Almonds  (1 gallon)

Cookie Platter

Lefse

Buche de Noel

 

Perhaps best of all about these platters, dips, baguettes & dessert is you can sit in the comfort of your home, perhaps with a glass of wine and place an order on line, all you have to do is come and pick up your order at our Deli.

If you’re a guest and bringing something to a potluck, any of these items would be a welcome addition to a holiday spread.

Now that my order is done I better get started wrapping those presents!

Merry Christmas!

 

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