Monthly Archives: March 2019

Spring Salads with Melissa’s Produce!

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Spring Salads with Melissa’s Produce!

By Erin

Spring is here! Which means time for lots of fun, delicious colorful salads using Melissa’s Produce! Check out these tasty salads that are so easy to make! Melissa’s Produce provided all of these beautiful fruits and veggies to help us celebrate the start of spring! Happy Spring!

This one is a fun spring treat! A fruity rainbow complete with marshmallow clouds. Yum!

A Rainbow of Fruit

*You can use as much or as little fruit as you want, depending on how large a rainbow/how many people you want to be able to feed with it*

What you need:

RED–1 carton strawberries–chopped up
ORANGE–5 Ojai Pixie Tangerines–peeled and separated
YELLOW–1 pineapple cut up
GREEN–green grapes–however many needed to fill in for your green part of the rainbow
BLUE— 6oz carton blueberries–however many you need to fill in the blue portion of your rainbow
PURPLE–red grapes–however many needed for the purple portion of the rainbow
CLOUDS–Marshmallows–make your clouds as fluffy as you like.

Arrange fruit in a rainbow shape in the above order and ENJOY!

Rainbow Chicken Salad 

What you need:

*baby arugula

*strawberries cut up

*raspberries

*grilled chicken, cut up (about a pound for 4 people)

*1 yellow bell pepper, chopped

*1 avocado, chopped

* fresh blue berries

*purple cabbage, cored and finely chopped

*your favorite salad dressing

*Layer the ingredients in order on your serving plate as listed above. Starting with the baby arugula cover the plate with the arugula then layer the strawberries and raspberries together for the red, then add the chicken, the yellow bell pepper,  avocado, blue berries, and cabbage. Top with your favorite salad dressing and enjoy!

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St. Patrick’s Day at Pickled Monk in Downtown Fullerton!

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St. Patrick’s Day at Pickled Monk in Downtown Fullerton!

By Erin

*I was invited as media to come in and check out the special menu for St. Patrick’s Day. All thoughts and opinions remain my own!*

Pickled Monk is one of my favorite places to go for some craft cocktails and delicious eats. Located in Downtown Fullerton, it is only about a 15-20 minute drive from Disneyland too, depending on traffic of course. 😉 Pickled Monk has “A serious passion for all things crafted: food, beer & experience,” and you can pour yourself a unique craft beer experience as their is a wide selection of craft beers and wine for you to choose from the tap that you can pour yourself by using a special card that you can get to do this with.

Executive Chef David Fune has created a special menu for the St. Patrick’s Day weekend! They are serving up some amazing cocktails and eats for St. Patricks Day weekend right now too that you won’t want to miss out on!

St. Patrick’s Day Menu

Special Cocktails include the Irish I Didn’t Do That, A Lucky Charms Drink, and you can ask for a Green Mimosa.

Irish French Toast-– House made Irish Soda, Whiskey Maple Syrup, Brittle Butter & Cherries.

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The Mustang & Return to Freedom

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The Mustang & Return to Freedom

By Erin

*I attended a screening and visited Return to Freedom as media for purposes of this post. All thoughts and opinions remain my own*

Last week thanks to Focus Features, I had the opportunity to see The Mustang and learn first-hand how Return to Freedom is helping to save and protect wild horses and mustangs. The young female filmmaker, Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre first unleashed The Mustang at Sundance 2019. Now audiences across the nation can see what all the fuss is about. You may have seen other films about the bond between humans and horses, but none like this one. It will tug at your heartstrings and have you feeling all the emotions right along with Roman and Marcus.

About the Film:

Roman (Matthias Schoenaerts), a violent convict in a rural Nevada prison who struggles to escape his violent past, is required to participate in an “outdoor maintenance” program as part of his state-mandated social rehabilitation. Spotted by a no-nonsense veteran trainer (Bruce Dern) and helped by an outgoing fellow inmate and trick rider (Jason Mitchell), Roman is accepted into the selective wild horse training section of the program, where he finds his own humanity in gentling an especially unbreakable mustang.

Matthias Schoenaerts (left) as Roman Coleman & Jason Mitchell (right) as Henry in Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre’s The Mustang, a Focus Features release. Credit : Focus Features

Director:  Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre

Writers: Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, Mona Fastvold (“The Sleepwalker”), and Brock Norman Brock (“Bronson”)

Producers: Alain Goldman

Executive Producer: Robert Redford

Cast:  Matthias Schoenaerts, Connie Britton, Bruce Dern, Jason Mitchell, Gideon Adlon and Josh Stewart

Return To Freedom

We also had the amazing opportunity to meet the folks behind Return to Freedom and the mustangs who live here. Return to Freedom provides a safe haven to about 400 wild horses and 29 burros. With ongoing federal roundups, the sanctuary fills a very important need to meet the immediate needs of rescue and sanctuary for wild horses and burros. It is also a very important venue to educate the public about America’s wild horses and burros along with solutions to protect them in viable free ranging herds for future generations.

Return to Freedom is dedicated to preserving the freedom, diversity, and habitat of America’s wild horses through advocacy, sanctuary, education, and conservation, while enriching the human spirit through direct experience with the natural world.

KoLa ( formerly known as Viggo). Born at RTF’s wild horse sanctuary in the Hart Mountain Herd. You can see him in The Mustang!

They are pioneering the way with innovative alternatives to standard wild horse management that can be applied on the range and advocates for viable solutions to prevent the removal of wild horses from their natural rangelands.

Located on 1500 acres on the Central Coast of California, as natural an environment as possible is provided for the herds to maintain the natural behaviors and social structures they knew in the wild.

Spirit who was used as inspiration & a model for DreamWorks Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron also lives at Return to Freedom.

I love that their first priority is to keep wild horses in their original family bands or naturally selected social groups, to provide for their emotional well being as well as their physical care. Wild horses are herd animals and within this herd structure, bonds are formed and education is taking place all the time. In the wild, the herd ensures survival.

If you ever get the opportunity to visit Return to Freedom, do it! Be sure to check out their website to see how you can go visit the mustangs or go on one of the safaris to see these amazing creatures running free in their natural environment! It is an amazing experience you will NEVER forget!

Meeting Isadora-Cruce a special Spanish Mustang who was also a Breyer Model Horse in 2010!

Learn more about the Mustang & Return to Freedom here!

The Mustang

Return to Freedom

Go out and see the film now and learn more about these amazing mustangs!