Char Crust dry rubs and seasonings are an easy to use dry rub to add to any  meat, fish, or even vegetable.  These dry rub seasonings were created in 1957 at their family’s legendary Chicago Steakhouse.  The way they make the seasonings hasn’t changed.  The family makes it themselves in small batches using only the best ingredients.  It is one of the few kosher certified rubs available.

Char Crust dry rub seasonings create a crust full of flavor on your meats, fish, and veggies that seals in the juices.  You can use these seasonings anyway you like.  Coat your food in the product or just sprinkle a little on whatever you like to add flavor.

My family and I had the opportunity to try out these Char Crust dry rubs.  My oldest son, the little chef, wanted to help.

We received Char Crust in the following flavors: Ginger Teriyaki, All American Barbecue, Amazin’ Cajun, and Garlic Peppercorn.  With all the mouth watering flavors we opted for the All American Barbecue to try first.  We decided to try it on pork chops coated in the All American Barbecue flavor.  We just poured some of it into a bowl.  My son started coating them right away.  No dipping in egg, no mixing anything, it’s ready to use.

As you can see it was pretty easy to use and coated the meat well.  The scent of the herbs and spices was evident.  You could smell it just standing there in the kitchen.  We decided to broil our chops.  This is how the crust turned out

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The school that my children attend is trying to find ways to meet their budget.  I’m going to be very open and honest in saying that I have never attended a school board meeting.  The school has felt the need to make many school budget cuts.  I realize that the school my children attend is not the only school in the country that is needing to make cuts. The purpose of this post is to ask you, if you’re school has gone through a similar situation.  If so, what did your school do to save money and meet budget?

Our school has eliminated many positions including teacher’s aides, special classes teachers (gym, art, etc), and laid off a few teachers.  They pushed 10 teachers to take early retirement and also to cut substitute teachers.  They also no longer have the field trips they used to have for the kids.  Each grade would go on one field trip a year.  Most of them small like a local farm, a circus, etc.  My oldest son however was supposed to go to Washington DC this year.  4th and 10th grade go on a day trip to Washington DC.  It’s not an overnight trip.  My son looked forward to the year he would get to go and now he doesn’t get to go.  I realize that fieldtrips are not the most important thing in the world but it was always something for the kids to look forward to . Still I know the school needs to make cuts but from my understanding a lot of the things like special classes will be pushed onto the already overloaded teachers.  I have to wonder how this will effect my kids’ education.

Many people in our school district are having mixed emotions.  Between anger, sadness, disbelief, and plain old helplessness.  I have to wonder if cuts could have been made other places before cutting jobs in our already depressed area.  I found a youtube video from a passionate parent in the school district.  I think he raises some good points.

I think it’s done tastefully which is why I posted this.  This is not an attack on my kids school or board.  As I stated I think it would be fantastic to hear what ideas you all have.  Things maybe that have worked for your school to save money.  I’d love to offer idea up to the school that would be workable or reasonable.

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***I did not receive any compensation for this post.  I wrote this post as a part of the Recyclebank Insiders program.***

I was so excited to have the chance to try Purex new laundry detergent scent. Yes you read the title right, cookie scented Purex.  I really didn’t know what I would think about this product at first. I mean would I really want my clothes to smell like cookies?  There’s a lot worse scents I suppose.