Hey Babe Hey!

Happy Labor Day! Tonight the hubs & I are bringing you a quick and easy recipe tonight featuring our favorite meat products:

Mighty Spark Food Co.

#BiteBackHunger #SparkAMovement #WinWin

This post is sponsored by Mighty Spark Food Co., but all content and opinions are 100% our own! Thank you SO much, Mighty Spark!

Thomas & I had so much fun making this meal together, especially since it took TEN MINUTES, not to mention: the final dish resulted in EIGHT meals for us to eat on this week! We had two for dinner tonight and have already made a major dent in our meal prep for the rest of the week! I’m all about leftovers, but I reeeeally can’t wait to eat this meal again and again.

Now, ya’ll already know we love Mighty Spark – we featured a fun recipe with the same meat we’ll be using tonight: be sure to try our Tasty Mini Thai Tacos Recipe HERE!

If you stay tuned to my Instagram Stories, AKA where I share sneak peeks, behind-the-scenes, and TONS of #RealLife then you already know:
we un-boxed the lovely cooler of small batch meats Mighty Spark sent with you, then took it to a vote to let YOU CHOOSE which meat you wanted us to create a new Mighty Spark recipe with! No surprise that Mighty Spark’s Sweet Thai-Style Seasoned Ground Chicken was the crowd favorite again!

I actually loooove that we’ll have 2 recipes on Blush & Bourbon with the same key meat ingredient! I love when a fashion staple can be worn multiple ways, and Mighty Spark is definitely a constant staple in our fridge….. why not style the Thai Chicken multiple ways, too?! 😉

Plus, the Thai Chicken double-feature will allow me & the hubs to create even more recipe content for you! If you’re like us and always looking for affordable, ethical pre-seasoned meats you can snag at your local grocer or farmer’s market, then keep reading for more about the Mighty Spark brand + our 10-minute recipe!

Before I dive into the recipe breakdown, I have to mention the Mighty Spark customer service and product delivery is always incredible. I talk a lot on the blog about how important it is for our little fambam to spend our hard-earned money on healthy, local products with a cause, and Mighty Spark makes that so easy to do, because……

Mighty Spark is both.

Mighty Spark launched a #BiteBackHunger Initiative in April 2014, a program that donates one meal to a hungry child for every Mighty Spark item purchased. Can we just take a second to let that sink in……?

How amazing is that?!

You’re going to buy meat at the grocery store every week, regardless. And if you live in the Southeastern United States like we do, you probably live close to a Publix (we’re surrounded by them, actually). Why not make life easier by buying pre-seasoned, top quality meat that gives back by feeding a child in need?

Through its network of charity partners, Mighty Spark hosts meal-packing events in neighborhoods nationwide, sparking a movement that has resulted in millions of meals donated to date. In 2017 alone, Mighty Spark donated a whopping 1,170,200 meals to hungry children; more on that HERE.

Let’s dive in to our super-easy 10-minute Thai pasta recipe. I’m telling ya, the fact that Mighty Spark’s Thai Chicken comes ground and small batch pre-seasoned makes life SO much easier….. and SOOOO much tastier!

By the way, if you’re dying to know more about our cooler un-boxing, head to my Instagram page @misses.blush and check out the Recipes Highlight! I’ve saved a look inside the cooler delivery, dry ice to keep it fresh all day included.

To make our 10-Minute Thai Chicken Pasta, you’ll need all the items pictured here, which I’ll list below:

1 pckg Small Batch Sweet Thai-Style Chicken
1 pckg Linguine or Spaghetti
1 bag Shredded Green & Red Cabbage
1 bag Matchstick Carrots
4 tablespoons Soy Sauce
1 tablespoon Honey
1 teaspoon Peanut Butter
Fresh Garlic & Ginger (to taste)

10-Minute Thai Chicken Pasta Recipe:

Bring water to a boil in pot while sprinkling in sea salt
Add spaghetti or linguine noodles + let boil 6 min. (or 1 min. less than whatever the packaging says)
Grease pan with olive oil and add Mighty Spark Sweet Thai-Style Chicken
Brown meat while noodles soften; strain noodles and use pan to cook veggies
Stir veggies while adding in soy sauce, honey, peanut butter, garlic, & ginger
Once veggies are wilted but still have most of their color, add noodles back into the pot and stir together
Add Mighty Spark Sweet Thai-Style Chicken in and stir until ingredients are blended together
Serve and ENJOY!

Cook Time: 10 Minutes / Serves: 8

Be sure to head over to @MightySparkFood on Instagram to see what they’re up to and give them a follow!

If you’ve tried Mighty Spark products, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! I’d also love to know what meat you’d like to see us cook up a recipe with next! Be sure to check out my Instagram stories and sound off in the comments so we can give ya whatcha want!

Hope you and yours had a lovely Labor Day, babe. Thanks for stopping by Blush & Bourbon, and until next time…..

Cheers!

xoxo,
Elle

Are we best friends yet?!

Hello, Beautiful!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful, long Labor Day Weekend! Leave me a comment about your fun, relaxing, or adventurous plans! I’d love to learn about what sets your soul on fire. Thomas and I spent a pretty perfect day date together on Saturday that had us feeling so romantic and completely lost in the moment. Our day date included us trying a surprisingly delicious new food together . . . and I’ll have a new post for you soon all about our new favorite lunch spot in Charlotte we fell in love with on Saturday!

On Sunday, we met our sweet friends, Michael and Sophie – who are recently engaged (eek!) and were in town for a friend’s wedding all the way from Florida – at an incredible brunch place (also coming to the blog in the near future, yay!). We spent the day with them exploring the Charlotte Regional Farmer’s Market, sampling local muscadine wines, fruits, and ciders. Sophie even found and purchased her wedding dress that day, and let me tell you . . . it. looks. AMAZING! Michael asked Thomas to be a groomsman, and we are so excited for their special day in 2018.

Later that evening, we saw Ed Sheeran in concert at the new Spectrum Center in Uptown Charlotte, and let me tell you . . . I could dedicate about a million blog posts to how incredible that boy was, and I still would never be able to do him justice. No exaggeration, Ed Sheeran was up there all alone on stage with a microphone, a guitar, and a loop kit, and HE. SLAYED. Just slayed my life away. Looped all his own bass by tapping on the guitar with his hands, looped all his own guitar parts, all his own harmonies . . . just freaking ran circles around himself in the most energetic, incredible, genius way.

Our wedding song was “Thinking Out Loud” by Ed Sheeran, so I don’t even think I have words for what it felt like to stand there in Row M on the Floor Level – literally 13 rows back from this sweet, conversational, talented guy that really knew how to make our entire crowd feel like a part of the evening – swaying in my husband’s arms as we danced to our wedding song LIVE.

It’s honestly a little bittersweet just because I know there are not many other concert experiences that will ever possibly compare. Probably one of the top two concerts of my life, you guys. (I’m pretty obsessed with / loyal to Fall Out Boy, sorry not sorry.) If you want to be proud of the money you spent to see a show and want to walk out those venue doors feeling like it was worth every penny, do yourself a favor and go see Ed Sheeran in concert.

Anyway, before the concert last night I wanted to cook dinner for our friends Michael, Chase, and Sophie, especially since we’d gone out for brunch a few hours ago, plus I knew Michael and Sophie had probably been pretty driving in from Florida and attending their friends’ wedding the day before. I wanted to make a dinner that was lightweight yet filling, because – let’s be honest – brunch involved a LOT of champagne and only the heaviest of carbs.