Frito Lay Tailgating!

Posted on 05. Oct, 2009 by Trish in Giveaways & Reviews

*Winner is comment #37 Janet Carpenter*

As the weather gets colder, it always reminds me of football games. Why? Maybe because I always froze at football games in high school since I was in the colorguard and had to perform at halftime. Our costumes were never warm. Then college came, and I started working at the football stadium. We did have huge puffy orange coats that were nice and warm, but you still never stay completely warm when you are outside for about 8 hours before, during and after the game.

Now I can sit safely inside, nice and warm if we decide to watch football. I would have to say that I am a bigger fan of it than my husband is. I think this comes from growing up always watching the games with my Dad. Especially college games. Those are the ones I really care about.

Since I always worked the football games in college, I have never been to a tailgating party. I’ve seen them going on in the parking lots as I stood at the gates. In fact, in college, one of the football player’s families would always hang out all day in the parking lot cooking and eating and having fun. They were Polynesian and would have good food and even dancers. I was a supervisor so I was there extremely early, and they were always trying to feed all of us workers. I couldn’t leave to go out there, but a lot of times the custodian staff would go out and bring me back a few treats, or his mom would bring me something. They knew how to party!

Since I have never really been to a tailgating party, I was interested when I was contacted by Frito-Lay asking if I wanted to try out a tailgating kit. I could throw my own. Inside. Out of the cold.

Basically, when I think of tailgating, I think of food. Lots and lots of food. Sometimes it’s not the most healthy food either. But there are ways you can make your favorites a little more healthy. That is what Frito-Lay is trying to promote. They are all about trying to teach people to make better-for-you choices. Some better-for-you ingredients or suggestions are:

Tomatoes
Avocados
Olives
Fresh Salsa
Reduced Fat Shredded Cheese
Reduced Fat Sour Cream
Substitute Beef with Lean Turkey

Another thing you can do is make your own re-fried beans. I just learned how to do this, and never realized how easy it is. All you do is buy a bag of dry pinto beans (they’re usually super cheap too!). Soak them in water the night before. Then you rinse them off in the morning, put them in the crockpot, and add a little bit of water to cover the beans. Cook it on low all day, and then when they are done, you can add your own seasonings, like some garlic or onions, and mash it up. Voila! That’s it. Then you don’t deal with all the extra salt and stuff that is in the canned ones.

A trick I learned on Rachel Ray is to buy the sharp cheddar cheese. This way you use a lot less to get the same amount of taste. No more huge handfuls, when just a small sprinkle will work just as well.

Frito-Lay just sent me my own tailgating kit (retail value $50) complete with 3 different kinds of chips, a fun serving bowl, and a gift card to buy the other ingredients for my tailgating party. They also want to give one kit away to one of my readers as well.

So, how to win?

Basically they want to hear your recipe that you plan to use at your next party using better-for-you ingredients as well as Frito-Lay products. Some ways you can incorporate Frito-Lay products are:

· In the recipes themselves, such as Frito-pies

· Tostitos-base in taco salads dishes/dip

· Tostitos scoops or various other Lays chips used for “dipping” the recipes

My recipe would have to be my mom’s layered dip recipe. We love this stuff, and we make it every year at Christmas.

Ingredients:

1 diced avocado
4-5 chopped green onions
1 diced tomato
cheese
reduced fat sour cream
mild salsa

All you do is layer each ingredient in a square dish in the order listed. So the avocado goes first, and the salsa goes on the top. Then you use either Fritos or Tostitos to eat the dip. I know some people like to add re-fried beans to this, and just put it down as a bottom layer. You could easily add sliced olives too. Mmm. Now I’m hungry for some layered dip!

Now that I’ve shared my recipe with you, I want to hear your recipe that is made with some better for you ingredients AND contains some Frito-Lay product.

One winner will be chosen and receive a Frito-Lay tailgating kit of their own!

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Contest will end Oct 12th at 11:59 pm MT. Open to US residents only. Winner will have 48 hours to contact me, or I will have to choose a new winner. You must leave each entry in a separate comment for it to count.