Chicken, Broccoli, and Cheese Skillet Meal

Since I've successfully made pasta salads using the THRIVE Seasoned Chicken Strips, I wanted to try them in a different way!  I decided to try them in a stove-top skillet meal -- one of our family's favorites!

Once again, I found the chicken strips to be a convenient way to add the chicken to a delicious meal!  And they blended in really well with the dish!  These chicken strips are definitely already among my favorite THRIVE foods!  They save me time and effort in so many ways.

So, without further ado, I'll post the recipe :).

1 to 1 1/2 cups THRIVE Seasoned Chicken Strips
2 cups broccoli florets
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni
1 can cream of chicken soup + 2 cans full of water
black pepper to taste
1 large garlic clove, pressed or minced
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Pour cream of chicken soup and water into a large skillet.  Warm over medium-high heat.  Throw in the chicken strips.  Add all other ingredients, except cheese.  Stir together.  Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer 20 minutes or until pasta is tender.  (Checking to make sure there is enough water at about 15 minutes.)  Stir in cheese until melted and combine.  Allow to heat 2 more minutes.  Serve.

August Virtual Party Mystery Host!

So I have decided to try something new!  Between today and August 20th, I will collect orders.  I will not place the orders until the 21st of August.  On the 21st, I will randomly select one order, and the purchaser will be the designated host for my August Virtual Party!  That means anyone who places an order between today and August 20th could get all the host benefits, just by placing an order!!

I am including links to the August specials and the Fall price list!  The specials for August are amazing -- all in celebration of 5 Years of Home Parties!!  If you love the pineapple, now is the time to stock up!  It is one of the Q-pon items for the month! 

Don't forget to send me your email address so I can keep you informed of the awesome THRIVE specials as soon as I know them!

Contact me at THRIVEingNilla@gmail.com to get these deals on building your home store!

Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad

When it's hot outside, I don't like to use the oven and heat up my house.  I live in Washington, and since it only gets uncomfortably hot about 1 month (total) out of the year, air conditioning isn't standard.  So no sense in making the house less comfortable by using the oven, right?


So I turn to stove-top dishes for my meals!  And one of my favorite things to make in the summer is pasta salad.  Of all sorts of varieties.

I happened upon this recipe for Buffalo Chicken Pasta Salad via Pinterest.  It sounded yummy, easy, and I had all the ingredients.  And then it got even better.  Because I had recently received a can of THRIVE Seasoned Chicken Strips!  I knew I wanted to try them out -- and what better chance than this pasta salad!?!

I was very pleased with the results.  And not just for the fact that it tasted great.  Here's why I'm loving the THRIVE Seasoned Chicken Strips:

1. I didn't have to mess with raw chicken and worry about the salmonella germies all over my hands and counter (because I am a bit OCD when it comes to cleaning my chicken and getting rid of all the fat!).
2. I didn't have to spend time cleaning the chicken (see note in #1...). This saved me about 5 minutes.
3. I didn't have to do my extra-special counter clean-up (which I do anytime I have raw meat out on the counter unpackaged).
4. I didn't have to wait for the chicken to thaw to cook or to cool for shredding or cutting -- this saved me at least 15 minutes (would have saved me more time, but I still had to cook macaroni, so I did still have some of the cook time). (Of course, the thawing takes a long time, but since I would have been boiling the chicken, I probably could have put it in the pot frozen...)
5.  No canned-chicken taste from using canned chicken.

So here's the recipe, with my substitution of THRIVE Seasoned Chicken Strips:

BUFFALO CHICKEN PASTA SALAD
1 1/2 cups elbow macaroni, cooked, drained, and cooled
3 stalks celery, chopped
2 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
1 cup THRIVE Seasoned Chicken Slices, rehydrated (requires 1/3 cup warm water)
1/4 to 1/2 onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup ranch dressing
2 tablespoons Frank's hot sauce (can use more to your taste)

Mix the first 5 ingredients together. Then mix in the next two. Chill at least one hour before serving. It's delicious! (I didn't give any of the finished product to the munchkin, because it did have a kick... She did get the components of it, though, just without the sauce. Bummer for her, because the sauce is what makes it!)

Happy THRIVEing!

Beginning to THRIVE

I suspect some people may be interested in knowing how they can begin to THRIVE.  So I will lay out a few easy steps to get you started.

1.  Send me your email address!  You can leave it in the comments here (because I moderate, and nobody but me will see the comment unless I want them to) or email me at THRIVEingNilla@gmail.com.  Why is this a good first step?  Because it will enable me to make sure you know about all the specials as soon as I know about them!  If you would also like to be given a temporary password by THRIVE Life, which will allow you to log-in when you visit my website, let me know, and I'll get that set up for you!

2. Create a shopping "wish list."  This can help you prioritize your purchases.  You may want to consider items you know you usually have to throw away, because they spoil before you are able to use them.  For example, I know my mushrooms tend to go slimy and gross before the end of the pay period.  So one of my first THRIVE purchases was the freeze dried mushrooms.  I have been using them in soups and on my home-made pizzas!  And I don't have to worry about not using them fast enough and having to throw them out :).

3.  Start building your home store.  There are many ways to accomplish this.  You can use the Q (a super-convenient way to set a budget to spend each month on helping you build your home store), or you can contact me and place orders when it is most convenient for you.  Remember, the goal is never to go into debt to build your home store.  You want to reallocate some of your grocery budget to building your home store with THRIVE.  You can always obtain a log-in and password from THRIVE Life and log-in and order (not on the Q).  However, the prices will not be as deeply discounted as they are when you purchase through me.  The Q offers the benefit of placing the order yourself and getting the Q price (or most discounted price).

4.  Remember that THRIVE Life can also help you prepare with emergency essentials such as water purifiers, first aid kits, and a variety of other items that may be useful in an emergency situation.

5.  Consider hosting a party.  Parties can be live or virtual, so pretty much anyone -- anywhere -- can be a host and reap the awesome host benefits!  If you want a way to jump-start your home store, hosting is it.  Your potential for earning a lot of free and heavily discounted product is phenomenal.  That's just something for you to think about.  Feel free to contact me with questions or if you're interested in being a host!

6.  Consider consulting!  As I mentioned before, the perks for being a consultant are quite amazing.  You get free Q Club membership for life.  You can help your family's income on your schedule and at your chosen pace.  You can build your home store quickly.  And you can get out and and meet people and help them prepare for the future!  If you think you might be interested in consulting, contact me!  You can also sign up via my THRIVE Life website here.

Why I THRIVE

Any time I undertake a new endeavor, I generally like to explain the reasoning behind it.  I'm not exactly sure why this is, but it is.  So I embrace it.

I can honestly say that being (and becoming) prepared has been important to me since I was in my mid-twenties (which may feel like it was eons ago, but, really, was only a decade ago).  I always had the ideal of having a store of food for my family in the event of an emergency situation of some sort.  I believe we have been counseled by Prophets of the Lord to do this, which is why it has always been a goal for me.  But in recent years, I've learned that the Red Cross and FEMA are also encouraging people to do this.  And in light of some of the events of the last decade, I can totally see why:  hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, overwhelming job loss.  The reasons for being prepared are many.  And I don't think we've seen the end of these things.

So having a long-term supply of food has long been important to me.  And I would start putting forth efforts to accomplish the goal.  And then I'd get bogged down.  I was at a loss as to how to figure out what I needed:  what kinds of food?  how much of those items?  And so it would fall to the bottom of my priority list.

Then I got married.  And my husband had come from a home where having food storage was done.  And he was very good at rotating through the food -- using the food storage in everyday cooking and eating.  That way none of it went to waste.  And so he started teaching me.

Together we started working on obtaining the staples:  wheat, flour, sugar, macaroni, powdered milk.  And we started labeling things with the date so as to know how much we would need for a year or two.  This has given me so much peace of mind.  We feel confident that our family can survive for a time in an emergency situation (whatever that situation may look like for us).  We aren't exactly where we want to be...  But we are somewhere.  And that's a good thing.

Over time, though, I started thinking about our long-term food supply.  And I thought about some of the things that we use all the time, but which are not as easy to store long-term.  Eggs.  Butter.  And, truthfully, the eggs were the first thing that drew me to THRIVE.  I wanted eggs in my long-term food storage -- eggs that would keep for longer than 3 months and wouldn't require a refrigerator.  I attended a THRIVE party, I bought eggs, and I learned about all the other awesome stuff THRIVE has.  It was fun and exciting.

But I didn't decide to become a consultant.  And I didn't order more stuff.

I was at a different point in my life then.  Newly-wed.  Working full-time.  Preparing to start a family.  Food storage was still of great importance to us, though.  And so were our 72-hour kits.  So we worked on those things.  And honestly, I could kick myself now for not joining THRIVE sooner as a consultant!  The perks are amazing.  But, like I said, I was at a different place in life.

But life changes.  We change.  And a little seed had been planted at that first THRIVE party where I ordered whole egg powder.  A little seed that started to sprout about 3 1/2 months after my daughter was born and I was feeling a need to contribute financially to our family income (I'd quit my job to be a stay-at-home mommy).  Still, life was in upheaval then, and the timing still wasn't right.  But the little seed sprout was still there.  And almost a year later, I attended another THRIVE party, and that seed just started growing and growing and growing -- right then and there!  I knew this was something I wanted to do.  I wanted to bring in some income while being home with my daughter.  But at the same time I wanted to have an opportunity for me to get out and do something fun for me.  I wanted flexibility to do a job on my schedule.  THRIVE offers me that.

If someone had asked me a decade ago if I'd ever consider being a consultant for a company -- going into people's homes to introduce them to a product and earning a commission...  I'd have said heck no!  I didn't feel like that was something I'd ever be comfortable doing.  I don't ever want people to feel like I am pressuring them.  I don't ever want people to feel like I have an expectation that they will purchase something through me.  But like I said, life changes.  We change.  And while my feelings about not wanting people to feel pressured are still there and still true, I feel like I can represent something -- share something -- without offending or pressuring others.  But only if it's something I believe in.

I was introduced to THRIVE, and I liked it.  A lot.  Enough to choose to represent it and introduce it to others. I love that these foods have a long shelf-life so I can create a home store full of variety.  I love that these foods are healthier because they are freeze-dried to make them last longer, and there are no added preservatives to make them that way!  I love that the foods come "user-friendly" -- ready to use!  It saves me so much time when I don't have to rinse and chop veggies!  And I love that so many of the items are helping me to reduce waste because they won't go bad before I can use them!  (I'm notorious for not using my cilantro, green onions, and mushrooms before they start going slimy and ick on me...  Then I just have to throw them away :(...)

So I knew I loved the products...  And the more I thought about building my home store with THRIVE, I knew becoming a consultant was just a smart decision for our family.  I love the perks of being a consultant, and I am excited about the opportunity of helping others learn how to prepare through this new adventure.

So that is why I THRIVE.  It's easy to THRIVE!  And it's fun, too!