This post has been sponsored by True Made Foods in conjunction with NC Blogger Network. I received compensation in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

Since July, I've accepted very few campaigns or really have not done much writing in general on the HinesSightBlog. The why is simple. My husband told me that my priority was to get us moved to our new house, and get our other house ready to sale. 

We are living in our new house and I wish I could say that my home is picture perfect now, but that would be the biggest lie ever. I'm writing this post surrounded by boxes in my office, and at night, I watch TV on lawn chairs because we decided to purchase brand new living room furniture that may not even arrive til after the new year. We are in transition, to say the least. 

I am cooking, though, and I have a new recipe that incorporates some sauces with North Carolina ties. I still have lots to do around this house, but I accepted this campaign because the company believes in providing healthier choices for consumers. The day that my True Made Foods sauces arrived to try, it was cold enough here to enjoy chili. True Made Foods, a new D.C. start-up company, is making American food healthy, turning empty calorie foods into nutrient dense foods filled with fresh veggies. 




Let me tell you now that their sauces are finger-licking good. I loved each one and then I used all three when I cleaned out my pantry to make a BBQ chicken chili.  This company is reproducing America's favorite sauces - Ketchup, BBQ Sauce and Hot Sauce - but what is unique and appealing to people like me who want less sugar and artificial, is they are adding spinach, carrots and butternut squash to naturally sweeten these sauces which cut the added sugar in half. The carrots and butternut squash are from an Eastern North Carolina farm. 

The Ketchup tastes like the ketchup you expect but has half the sugar of top leading brands.. and tons of nutrition from the vegetables. True Made's Veracha is a 100% vegetable Sriracha - made from tomatoes, carrots, butternut squash, jalapenos, spinach and cayenne, it has all the flavor and no sugar. This stuff is fantastic. I've put it on everything lately. I'm addicted. I love these sauces and I love that I'm getting these vegetables even more. 

I don't even think I was supposed to review the BBQ sauce, but I love BBQ sauce and it's so hard to find a sauce without high fructose corn syrup on the market. True Made BBQ is delicious. It was the basis for my chili, but I look forward to baking BBQ chicken in the oven with it, too. 

These new healthier sauces can be found at Lowes Foods, Super Target and Whole Foods.




I had never made a BBQ chicken chili before, and I found many recipes. I adapted several to fit what I had in the pantry so this is a Hines original without the Heinz ketchup that you know. Instead, this chili is certainly high fructose corn syrup free. 

With Thanksgiving approaching, you could use leftover turkey in place of chicken. I used chicken breasts that I had frozen in the freezer. You can use any beans you want. I chose white kidney beans and pinto beans because it was already in the pantry in addition to a green pepper, diced tomatoes, and an onion. If you are using leftover turkey or already cooked chicken, then you can reduce cooking time. I did my chili in the crock pot for eight hours on low. 

Enjoy. The secret to the goodness in this recipe is definitely the sauce. I highly recommend adding them to your pantry. 




BBQ Chicken (Turkey ) Chili 

3 chicken breasts
28 ounces of diced tomatoes with juices
2 cups of chicken stock
1 can of pinto beans, drained and rinsed (black beans would have been even better)
1 can of white kidney beans, drain and rinsed
1 chopped onion
1 chopped green pepper
1/2 cup of True Made Foods BBQ sauce 
1/4 cup of True Made Foods Ketchup
1/4 cup of True Made Foods Veracha sauce (add more if you like spicier)
1 tsp of chili powder
some fresh chopped garlic
Himalayan Pink Sea Salt and Black Pepper to season

Cook on low for 8 hours. 

Serve with sour cream and cheddar cheese on top. I like to add a little True Mades Veracha sauce when serving. You could even add avocado. I now eat the Veracha sauce on plain avocados. So good. These new sauces have spiced up my house for the better. 

Say Cheese!

The Cheese Shop in Williamsburg via @Hinessightblog Instagram

The Cheese Shop is an adorable and delectable eatery in the Merchant's Square area of Colonial Williamsburg. This locally-owned restaurant is outside the main entrance to the historic area, which requires an admission ticket. Unlike some of the Williamsburg taverns, you can dine here without an admission ticket. The Cheese Shop has been a staple in Colonial Williamsburg for over 40 years. 

The Cheese Shop made an impression on me, and I will return. Next time, I want to spend more time in the wine area. 

The Cheese Shop is wine, beer, cheese, deli, gourmet foodie store, all in one. When it's busy, and it certainly was on the day we visited, it can be a little confusing on what to do because people are waiting everywhere for their food and space is limited. 




Since it resembles a market, you order sandwiches at the counter. You grab chips from the chip aisle and you grab a drink down the drink aisle, and you don't pay until you leave the store. 

Bread is made fresh daily. Cheeses and meats are of the highest qualities, and truthfully, the prices are extremely reasonable.  It's casual.   It's fresh.  It's good.  Depending on how busy it is, your wait may be long.  It took us about 25 minutes to get our sandwiches, and thank goodness, we arrived before 100 Boy Scouts walked in the door.  Your lunch is bagged, and then you head outside to a table on Duke of Gloucester Street. Seating is at a premium. 




The Cheese Shop is known for its homemade house dressing.  When in Williamsburg, give this local restaurant a try. 




Want to Go:
The Cheese Shop
410 W Duke of Gloucester Street
Williamsburg,  Va






While in Colonial Williamsburg, my family stayed at the Williamsburg Lodge, and it is an official HinesSight Blog recommended property.  You may read about the hotel in my "Pack Your Bags" feature. 

Raleigh, N.C is a great place to live and visit. 

Some people think the increased use of essential oils in the home by Americans is just a trend. Some people think that it will be eventually poured out with the bath water once something better comes along. Even my own husband thinks it is a fad. I disagree. I think there is power in essential oils and they help a person with many things, but people need to be educated on them.

Before my second child was born, I had things together pretty well. Dinners were on the table by 6:30 p.m. Jack was in bed at 7:30 p.m, at the latest. I was in bed by 10 p.m. Yeah, there were a few years that he woke up with nightmares every night straight for a year, but other than that small fact, it was pretty much easy street. I didn't think that though.

Of course, if someone told me this was the easy street  phase back in the year 2007, I'm pretty sure my response would be something like "You don't know the "bleepity bleep" what you are talking about. This is hard."

Source Pinterest. Credit: http://curiano.com/post/83399381423/live-life-quote

After Liza was born, things got a little more tricky as Jack entered elementary school. Dinner crept a little later. Bedtimes also got a little later. It wasn't perfect, but it wasn't bad.  I think I would call it mediocre street now.

However, if someone told me it was mediocre street in 2012, I would have shot daggers from my eyes.  Going from preschool years to having Cub Scouts one night a week was hard at the time because it was new.

In 2016, there is no doubt in my mind that we are in a "bleepity bleep" family crisis. Both kids are in elementary school now. They get home at 4:30 p.m. Neither one wants to touch a homework assignment as soon as they walk in the door. They want to eat every snack I have in the pantry and veg in front of You Tube. I so miss "Jessie" and "Witches of Waverly Place".  Shows that I complained at the time were too old for them. Now, I just get some English guy with a gazillion You Tube followers who plays video games for a living and children watch what he does in awe. I don't get. I just don't get it. It's a slow sign that I'm aging and turning into my mother. She never got why people wore thong underwear. I don't get YouTube.

As my children have aged, extra-curricular opportunities have surfaced. I am finding myself leaving our home at 5:30 people for karate twice a week and dance twice a week. One night we have Scouts at 7 p.m.

These activities are not things I force on my children, but I do think it's better than sitting at home watching a grown up on You Tube playing games. We now have martial arts twice a week at 5:45 p.m.  My son is thriving. He loves it. It's awesome to see a child who really just wanted to play Minecraft and computer coding now doing push ups, sit ups, kicks and doing it all with a smile on his face. He never complains to go and is always ready to go.  Liza loves dance class, too.  She wanted to learn to do a cartwheel so we added ACRO for a short time period which added an extra day of dance and craziness to the mix.

Source: Pinterest

You get the idea here. With all of these extra things, dinner gets later. Bedtime gets later. I get grumpier. Homework gets later once they finally reveal that they do, in fact, have homework.

My bedtime gets later. Later bedtimes means no one wants to get moving the next day. We are slow. Sloths could beat us to school. We try to accomplish way too much in a short amount of time in the morning, and honestly, I'm just one stoplight away from road rage as I rush to beat the carpool line closing.

This is the new norm and I don't think it's just me. If I talk to other moms they can fill in the blank that they have  piano, soccer, baseball, church, or gymnastics on any given night for their kids.

No parenting doesn't get easier. It gets more challenging and busier.

New parents tell themselves that things will get easier when they get through the clingy days and sleepless nights. Folks, it does not get less hard as children age.  It just gets harder in a different way. Yes, I can pee alone now most days, but I have no time to get dinner on the table due to my new job as chauffeur. It may get easier when they are out of college, but I can promise you that you will still worry about them even if they have a family of their own. Life may slow down for you, but there will also be new worries and challenges.

It's now my goal to tackle this frenzy lifestyle and do it much better this upcoming school year. I'm next year's PTA president. I can't have the Principal and staff always seeing my station wagon with fighting kids fly over speed bumps to get to the carpool doors before they close them to late parents. On a daily basis, I'm just this close to running over the "Stop, Get Out the Car. You are TARDY" sign as we finish the last 20 days of the school year.

Source: Pinterest

I know I'm not alone. In the past semester, as I've been in this stage, I've stopped in Moe's, Jersey Mike's, Chic-Fil-A...for dinner because I haven't planned meals after these classes. I know I'm not alone.  Tables are filled with American families with children over the age of six. Eating out several times a week is just not smart. It's tough on the pocketbook. It's also  not good for the waistline. Mine.

I think I have a solution. In the winter, I tried HelloFresh.com with a free trial for one week.  I really liked it. I liked it a lot, actually. Jack loved it and begged me to sign up. He loved every meal and raved about the service.  But,in Jaunary, we were busy just one night a week after school, NOT FOUR.  I thought HelloFresh was maybe too much of a luxury for us and I questioned the $100 weekly expense.  I wondered, "Do we really need this?" Do we need it now? Yes, I think we do. I'm signing up today.

Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver develops many of of the recipes for the boxes. Each box comes with portions and ingredients measured out. There is ZERO waste. Some times, you get leftovers off a meal to eat again. I tried three recipes, and it's been so long now and I'm so frazzled that I have forgotten them by their official names,  but I am pretty certain that Chicken Milanese was one of the meals after going through the archives today.

Courtesy:  HelloFresh

I also remember this entree. Tuscan Sausage Linguine. It was so good that I told myself that I should recreate it one day. I tell myself I should do a lot of things, but yet I never do them. Sadly, I've not recreated this meal either, even though it was one of my favorites.

Courtesy: HelloFresh

The third meal was a chili. Of course, Will thinks no chili on this earth is better than his. I am going to give him some bragging rights, but this chili was good. I enjoyed it.

Courtesy: HelloFresh

Liza was hit and miss on some of the meals, but it scored a home run with Jack. He liked every one. And if we must be truthful, Jack doesn't like a lot of things I cook so for him to love this then that is really good.

I think if I supplement the week with these meals and then plan on my Papa Spud's produce delivery to serve with chicken or fish one night then I will be in a better place, at least in the kitchen. I may need to serve dinner earlier like at 5 pm a few night a week.  Sounds crazy, but it may be a good option. HelloFresh prides itself on working with farmers for the best ingredients.

The HelloFresh box comes in the mail with lots of ice packs. There is a little bit of waste there or extra garbage, but if it helps us get our sanity back, it will be worth it.  I'm going to sign up for the family box. It is three meals a week for $105 with free shipping. I think it is my family crisis solution.

If you are in family crisis mode like me, HelloFresh created a code just for my readers to get $35 dollars off your first box. Use Hines35 at checkout. They'll know I sent you.

Disclosure: I tried HelloFresh in January  for a one week delivery with three meals for free. I've thought about the site now for three months and have decided that I'm going to become a customer. No other compensation, partnership or incentive influenced my decision. I'll keep you posted.