Free Museum Admission (Zoos Too) with Bank of America Card

This is a nice deal, if you live near a participating museum -- Bank of America has a program called Museums on Us, where you get free admission into museums or zoos or botantical gardens, etc. -- lots of cool places.

Catch?  It's only good on the first full weekend of the month.  You've got to be an active Bank of America customer, with a card to show at the door.  And, you've got to have participating zoos, etc. in your area that are part of the Museums on Us package. 

For example, four cities in Texas have participants: Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and La Porte.  Live outside driving distance to these communities, and it's not a bargain for you (yet). 

It's a good idea, let's hope it grows. 

Reba's Recipe Pico De Gallo (Fresh Tex Mex Salsa) & 5 Ways to Use It

Here in San Antonio, you can get lots of great salsas - reds, greens, even some browns that are tasty.  Having one's own original salsa recipe is almost as traditional as having one's own barbeque sauce recipe here in this part of Texas.  And, sure, you can buy Pace Picante Sauce all around the country now -- but all of this stuff is pureed, blended, even cooked.  With pico de gallo, you get something different: chopped, fresh, amazing stuff.

Pico De Gallo - Reba's Version

4-6 fresh tomatoes, chopped  (use a couple more if you use Romas and make sure you drain them since they carry lotsa water) (you cannot used canned here - gotta go with fresh)

1 medium sweet onion, chopped (I use either Vadalia or Texas 1015)

1 large jalapeno or serrano chili pepper (seed them if you don't like it hot, hot; choose jalapeno over serrano for less heat, as well - a serrano can be full of fire)(oh, and use green ones - if they've gone red, they're scary hot)

1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped fine (leaves, no stems)

Squeeze of fresh lime juice -- if you've got it.  No worries. 

Once you've chopped all these things up - and I think by hand is best, so you can insure that the pieces are all about the same size, then you've got something I'm sure they serve in Heaven.  What can you do with pico de gallo?  Oh, my.

5 Ways to Use Pico De Gallo

1.  Serve it as a dip with tortilla chips.  Go crazy if you want, and get a couple of packs of corn tortillas, cut them all in fourths, brush some veg oil (or canola) on them, lay them out separately on a baking sheet, toss some salt, and bake your own.  Or just buy a bag.  Just make sure the chips are hardy enough to handle the weight of the Pico as you pull it up from the bowl on the chip.

2.  Mash up 3-4 ripe avocados and combine with the Pico.  Voila, very wonderful guacamole.

3.  Scramble with some eggs, together with some Pico, and you've got Eggs a la Mexicana.  If you put some oil in the skillet and fry up crumbled pieces of tortillas chips, then add your eggs and Pico to cook, along with some shredded cheddar cheese and you've got another dish: a version of Chilaquiles.

4. Grill a couple of chicken breasts.  Throw a bunch of the Pico de Gallo over the top, serve with some rice and a nice salad.  Amazingly good.

5. Take a flour tortilla, a couple of big tablespoons of Pico de Gallo, and go wild with leftovers.  Here, we'd call them tacos, but if wrap works for you, fine.  Wrap it is.  Cut up leftover pork chops, throw that into the pico tortilla.  (Avocado slice here, fabulous.)  Stir together leftover beans and rice, maybe some cheese, and layer that into your Pico Tortilla.  Heck, throw in some salad blend from one of those boxes, add a little ranch dressing, and go to town with a Veggie taco, ... er, wrap.  (Ranch does go well with Pico. Try it, see what you think.)

Okay, now I've gone and made myself hungry.  I'm off to buy a taco.  At Taco Cabana.  With a side order of fresh Pico (yepper, here you can even get it at the drive thru.  I love San Antonio!!!).

Freebies - Site to Track Down Free Samples Online: Not for Everyone

You can get lots of free stuff off the web, if you know where to surf.  And, there is a website that does a lot of that work for you, Freeflys.com, as recommended by the CouponMom in her email today.

So, I decided to give it a looksie. Here's what I found.

1.  First, this site makes you join its membership (at no charge), so you may want to read its privacy statement before giving out your info.  The site is upfront that members will be receiving mailings from "Freeflys and its partners" - at least they're letting you know in advance, in bold print, right?

2. I joined.  It asks for my home address, etc., which I was hesitant to give.  Then I realized that they would need my mailing address to send all the free stuff, right?  So I caved.

3. Then I spent a long, long time going through all these windows with "join this survey" stuff.  Window after window.  Where are the freebies?

4. Finally, after saying No, No, No to all this survey stuff, I get to a page that has a list of the types of samples they offer.  They've got the option of an RSS feed for freebies, but it doesn't allow feeds into MyYahoo, Google, etc. (opens to my bookmark menu), so I'm not interested.   

5. Then, I go thru the lists.  What they're doing is linking you to the manufacturers' sites that also want you to do stuff (like join their Facebook site as a fan, etc.) before you get any free sample.  You don't get to just check off which free samples you want.

6.  And, after all this time and effort, not that much is being offered.  Five samples on the Food items list.  I'm not interested in anything here, except for maybe the Green Tea offer.  Except I've got a HUGE box of green tea that I already bought in a great deal (I drink a lot of this stuff), so I'm not swooning over a couple of free bags here.

Bottom line:  I was disappointed.  Maybe you won't be, if you like all this survey stuff and any free sample is fun for you.