on perks, good food, and a giveaway

First of all let me just say that I love you guys.  Thank you for reading or just stopping by to look at lousy pictures.  I'd blog even if no one read what I wrote, but it sure does make it more fun that people do occasionally come by and read my ramblings.

One of the perks of being a blogger is that you get asked to review or even just post about a lot of stuff.  Sometimes companies send you free products, sometimes they send you product coupons, sometimes they send you free products plus extras for giveaways, and sometimes they invite you to visit and send you home with arms full of free products plus extras for giveaways AND full bellies!

Last night I got to visit our local Chick-fil-A for a tasting party for their new #FreshMade salad line.  My friends and family were treated like royalty and were invited into the CFA kitchen to tour the facility and see how everything is made in their restaurant.

Then we were invited to dine at a gorgeous table.

the decorations were pretty (oh how I love hydrangeas)

and Josh was thoroughly entertained by the pedometer place-card holders

we were served three full salads each (even boxed up later for us to take home)

the Grilled Market Salad (grilled chicken, romaine lettuce and baby greens, red cabbage, carrots, apples, blueberries, strawberries, granola, nut blend, blue cheese)

the New Cobb Salad (sliced chicken nuggets, baby greens and romaine, red cabbage and carrots, roasted corn kernels, charred tomatoes and crispy red peppers, bacon, hard-boiled egg, Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese, grape tomatoes)

the New Asian Salad (sliced chicken nuggets, baby greens and romaine, red cabbage, carrots, mandarin oranges, honey Thai almonds, Chinese garlic and ginger wontons)

While we tasted we learned about how each item is prepared fresh multiple times daily.  The extra toppings were incredible.  I especially loved the granola and the crispy tomato red pepper strips.

this little lady helped serve, which she was excited about

I ate all of my salads without the dressing because they were just that good plain, but I did have a taste of each of Jonathan's dressings and I enjoyed them all.  The Avocado Lime Ranch Dressing was my favorite but the Honey Sesame was a close second for me.

how the Asian salad looks without the sliced hot nuggets

It was hard to pick a favorite but I think I'd say that the Cobb was my top choice.  I also really liked the Asian Salad  and when I found out I could ask them to leave the blue cheese off of my Market Salad I knew that I would definitely get it again too.

Julianna said she liked them all too.

Each one of these salads has two full servings of vegetables and CFA no longer has any iceberg lettuce in their salads. It's all romaine and baby greens in them.  I loved that the chicken was served hot on the Asian and Cobb but you could request any of their types of chicken on any of the salads to get it just how you like.  They said they'd substitute any of the delicious chicken products that they offer as no additional charge.  It made me think a lot about Burger King's "Have it your way" slogan.

The prices vary at different locations, but at our Chick-fil-A the salads cost $6.79 which I thought was very reasonable since they contained so much protein.

We were given goodies to take home including gardening gloves and seeds to plant a garden of our own.  The kids were given cow toys and then we were offered dessert (can you say peach milkshake? cookie sundae? mmmmmm).  My dad and I both got to hold my cousin's 8 week old baby for the first time and at that moment life was just good.

I cannot rave enough about the service that we received last night during our visit and the food was spectacular.  I liked parts of the salads that I didn't think I would care for and I will definitely be eating them all summer.


The good news for you is that I have several goodies to giveaway.  I have FIVE Chick-fil-A cards good for a few free salads.  I also have ONE garden themed goody basket and ONE large pepper mill to giveaway to a lucky reader.  

Fill out the form below before midnight on June 11th for a chance to win one of these prizes.  Extra entries if you blog/tweet/share/pin about this blog post giveaway on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest using the tag #FreshMade.  Winners will be chosen by Random.org.