Celebrating the Holidays Latino Style

We joined bloggers and journalists for a holiday fiesta at Sur La Table in Los Angeles last week. We indulged in Latin-inspired dishes created by our Chef Cynthia Perez and delectable desserts, all paired with our exclusive wines to toast the upcoming holidays and new year.



Everyone helped Chef Cynthia cook and eat the great tasting food including Maple Ham & Brie Crostini, Sweet Corn Tamales with Roasted Garlic & Rosemary, Homemade Roasted Poblano Guacamole with Grilled Shrimp, and Mini Black Bean & Goat Cheese Quesadillas.


(For full recipes click here)

Chef Cynthia also shared simple tips on how to take the stress out of the kitchen and turning staple Latin items, like chorizo, into unique concepts – Mini Chorizo Salad, yum!



Getting to know our neighbors was the best part of the night. We’re grateful for our new friends and had a great time celebrating this holiday season with them!


A special thanks to our friends who joined us:

Soy Fashionista
Thought of a Mommy
8 Years old and Babies
Day Tripping Mom
Spanglish Baby
My Fat Big Cuban Family
Rockin Mama
Greenery in Mommyhood
Nuestra Vida Con Adrian

We’re thankful for good friends and good food

In an early celebration of the season of connecting with friends and family, last week the Fresh & Easy team traveled to Phoenix and Las Vegas to reconnect with some of our blogging friends, make some new ones and of course enjoy some great fresh&easy holiday food.



With Chef Cindy’s expert guidance, we all pitched in to help prepare a complete Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings, including some different takes on the classics – such as an easy, healthy and very tasty sweet-potato-spinach-salad.



(For the full recipe check out Noshtopia’s post)

Chef Cindy also wowed us with her simple tips to make fresh&easy readymade meals unique, such as the mashed potatoes, by adding your own spin to them. She incorporated garlic and parmesan cheese into her recipe and someone mentioned even adding bacon or chives to the potatoes. Not only is it simple and time saving, but because our fresh&easy prepared meals only use ingredients you can pronounce, the potatoes tasted just like homemade.



The no fuss fresh&easy dip trays and vegetable platters make a delicious and simple starter that will keep your dinner guests at bay and out of the kitchen until the turkey is done. And you won’t have to deal with prep or cleanup. As for the desserts and wines, well all I can say is they were a hit!



We had a great time with all of our lovely friends in Phoenix and Las Vegas. By the end there were full stomachs, empty glasses and lots of laughter.


For more pics of the event check out our Flickr page.

Very special thanks to our friends who joined us :
Loosing It in AZ
Noshtopia
Mom Memos
The Crepes of Wrath
Vivian Nelson Melle
Tim Swearingen
The Traveling Rose
Megan
Concoctions of a Wanna be Chef
Fresh & Easy Wine Review Blog
Chef Mona
Steve, Sam, Steve and Andy from UKLV.org
Carlo and Alex from Recession Recipes
Sparkle Power
The Deal Fanatic
Coupon Chic

From our team, to you – we wish you a happy Thanksgiving full of great food and great friends!

Cheers!
~SallieB

Wining & Dining with Chef Mike

Last Thursday night we had a great time cooking, eating, drinking and laughing (a lot) with a few blogger friends. Our own Chef Mike cooked for us and even taught us a thing or two about making great food.



LA bloggers gathered to taste our exclusive wines and try out the delicious, fast and easy meals that Chef Mike put together using all fresh&easy ingredients which never contain artificial colors, flavors or added trans fats and only use preservatives when absolutely necessary. The group even donned aprons to make homemade margarita pizzas and prepped the ingredients for apricot chicken tenders, salmon with peanut sauce and veggies, and beef fajitas.

Here are some pictures and a video of the event, the food and the fun. (Special thanks to Oakley for the permission to use some of her pictures.)


These easy Beef Fajitas were a hit and serve four for less than $5 each


Ana, Melissa and Silvia roll out dough for the pizzas


Cynthia, Amy, and Lee tweet and share some laughs


Handmade margarita pizzas made with love by Lupe, Annette, Bernadette and Marsha


Ready to cook in less than 10 minutes and serves 4 for less than $8



And who could forget dessert? A delectable sampling of fresh&easy banana cream pie, tiramisu cake, and gourmet chocolate cupcakes was definitely a hit!

For more pictures of the event, visit our Flickr page and the Flickr pages of bloggers Annette and Oakley. We hope everyone had as much fun as we did!

Sampling at our fresh&easy kitchen table

The Kitchen Table is the heart of our stores and offers customers the opportunity to sample different products and taste our signature dishes.
Scott, a fresh&easy team member, gives a quick overview of what's sampling this week at our Kitchen Table in this short video.



Next time you're in, stop by the Kitchen Table and sample some products. And then of course, be sure to review them at www.freshandeasy.com/KitchenTable. Your review may even be featured on our homepage!

Happy sampling!
Gary

Good Food in Frugal Times

Just because we are in a recession doesn't mean that we should have to compromise the quality and taste of our groceries. Staying at home and cooking is a simple way to save money, but it can be overwhelming to plan meals in advance and around deals. We pulled together some helpful links that have tips to help save in these tough economic times.

Here are some of our favorite blogs that battle the recession blues with good food:

• Recession Recipes - Take two inspired cooks and mix with seasonal ingredients, recent deals from many stores and add a splash of creativity and you have recipes that are not only recession proof, but downright beautiful.
• LA Cheapskate - Cindy scouts for deals and plans a whole weekly meal plan around what she finds. Have leftover ham? She's got you covered on ways to get more meals for your buck.
• CookThink - Plug in the ingredients you already have at home and it will come up with a gourmet recipe you. Its perfect for those nights when you can't think of anything to do with that pineapple, those pork chops from the freezer, and the can of diced tomatoes from the back of the pantry.

Some more excellent blogs to visit when looking for frugal tips:

• Green Stew
• Frugal Mommy
• Self Reliant Sisters
Frugal Girls

• Be CentsAble
The Cheapos

• The Frugal Diva

Some Fresh & Easy insider tips:

• Each Wednesday we launch new extra low price specials across our stores. They are updated on our website where you can view all the deals by downloading your weekly flyer for your area.
• In different aisles throughout our stores you will find our newest promotion “Buy more & save."
• Each day we have special mark downs in our clearance section at the end of our refrigerated aisle.
• If you haven’t already, sign up for our Friends of Fresh & Easy emails and we’ll send you our latest news and exclusive offers.

What are your special tips for saving money and sources for good tips and deals? We are always listening, so please share your thoughts!

~Sallie

More ways to share your fresh&easy favorites

One of the striking things about talking with our customers and our people is that everybody has favorite fresh&easy products.

A few months ago, I asked you to tell us your favorite fresh&easy products, and was amazed by the number of responses! Your enthusiasm inspired our in-store fresh&easy favorites poster, where customers can post their favorite products for others to see. Check out the poster in this video we took recently asking a few employees and customers for their fresh&easy favorites…



Given the amount of product comments and all the different favorites we hear about each day, we thought we'd introduce a way to vote for your fresh&easy favorite!

Here’s how it works… Periodically through our Friends of fresh&easy emails, we’ll feature a category of products and then ask you to pick your favorite. Since we just introduced 6 new family-size prepared meals, this month we’re asking which family-sized entrée you enjoy the most. Here are the results for this month’s fresh&easy favorites.

Once voting's finished, we'll then highlight your favorite in-store and use the results to help us develop even better products.

As I've said many times, customer feedback (good or bad) is the lifeblood of our business, it helps us continually improve our shopping trip, so please let us know what you think!