Click here for official contest rules.

Looking for cinematic inspiration? Check out these video webisodes. A truly odd couple exchanges quirky dialogue and will inspire you to submit your own video for a chance to win!

Stay sensible, cereal shoppers: buy a bag of the great tasting Malt-O-Meal® cereal. They taste great; are kind to the budget, are offered with 75% less packaging* than boxed cereal brands, not to mention fun!

Watch this quirky duo make sense out of cereal packaging!

*75% less packaging based on the net weight of empty consumer packaging per pound of cereal delivered. Even when their box size is smaller, the net weight of their box and empty inner bag is still greater than the net weight of the larger Malt-O-Meal® bag when empty.

Alberta, age 83, is legendary at the fair for her winning recipes and collection of blue ribbons.  Alberta featured Malt-O-Meal Honey Graham Squares® in her creation as the crust, then added five different varieties of dried fruits in her filling, plus nuts, chocolate and sweetened condensed milk.

“Alberta’s creation was a great combination of fruits and honey flavor from the cereal,” said a judge. “Marvelous!”

The runner-up was Michelle (“Shelly”) Vicari, who is fairly new to competing. Her entry was described as “the perfect appetizer” by one judge. Shelly’s savory dish answered the question, “Does Malt-O-Meal Golden Puffs® and garlic go together?” Yes they do, with her “Golden Croquettes!”

Coming in third place was Linda Greeson with her delicious creation, “Pineapple Spooners Bars” which features Malt-O-Meal top-seller, Frosted Mini Spooners®.

Check out the winning recipes below and let us know what you think!

San Diego Winning Recipes:

Alberta Dunbar, San Diego, CA, 2010 First Place Winner

“Honey Grahams Fruit Medley Squares”

Ingredients:

½ cup plus 2 tablespoons butter
2 cups Malt-O-Meal Honey Grahams, dry cereal crumbs
2 cups packed coconut
1/2 cup each pineapple, mango, strawberries (dried and chopped small)
1/2 cup dried blueberries, whole
1/2 cup dried Craisins®, whole
1 cup white chocolate chips
1-1/2 cups unsalted diced macadamia nuts
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13-inch pan with foil overlapping ends and sides. Place butter in pan and melt. Spread Malt-O-Meal Honey Graham crumbs over butter evenly to form crust. Scatter coconut evenly over crumbs and pat down. Combine all fruit and white chips in medium bowl, mix well with a spoon. Scatter evenly over coconut. Sprinkle diced nuts over fruit. Drizzle condensed milk evenly over all. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes. Cool in pan on rack. Remove from pan with foil overlaps. Cut into squares. Yields: 24 to 36 squares

Michelle Vicari, San Diego, CA, 2010 2nd Place Winner

“Shelly’s Golden Croquettes”

Ingredients:

6 cups Malt-O-Meal Golden Puffs cereal
1 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 (16oz) package frozen broccoli
1 yellow onion, diced
3 eggs
8 oz. colby jack cheese, shredded
12 oz ham, diced
1/4 tsp black pepper
dash of salt
4 cups oil for frying

Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce:
3 oz Greek yogurt (or sour cream)
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp honey mustard

Directions:

Process Malt-O Meal Golden Puffs cereal, garlic, and oregano in a food processor until fine. Set aside. Steam broccoli, process in food processor until finely chopped.  Sauté onion until golden. Add broccoli, mix until combined. Cool. Mix all ingredients together (hold 4 cups of cereal back). Refrigerate for 1 hour. Heat 4 cups of oil in a fryer or deep pan to 350 F. Set up a shallow pan with cereal mixture. Scoop meatball size portions of mixture and roll in cereal mixture coating it well. Place in fry basket. Fry for 4 minutes or until golden brown. Remove and place on paper towel lined plate to absorb any excess oil.

Makes about 30 croquettes.

Serve Hot with Honey Mustard Dipping Sauce.

Linda Greeson, San Diego, CA, 2010 3rd Place Winner

“Pineapple Spooners Bars”

Ingredients:

6 cups Malt-O-Meal Frosted Mini Spooners, crushed
1 1/2 cups butter, melted
1 1/2 cup dark brown sugar, melted
2 cups crushed pineapple, drained well
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup flaked coconut

Directions:

Thoroughly mix crushed cereal, 3/4 cup butter, and 1/2 cup dark brown sugar together in a 13” x 9” baking dish. Press into dish for bottom crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven.

Thoroughly mix crushed pineapple, 1 cup dark brown sugar, 3/4 cup butter, and 1/2 tsp salt together in a bowl. Spread evenly over crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. Remove from oven.

Sprinkle with 1/2 cup flaked coconut. Return to oven for 8-10 minutes until coconut begins to brown. Remove from oven. Cool 20 minutes and carefully cut into bars.  Remove from pan to serving dish.

Makes 20-24 bars.

Gappa chronicles not only his experience, but also the critical work of American Refugee Committee and the undying hope that lives on in Haiti in an Op/Ed article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. To read more, click here.

John Gappa surveys a landscape of temporary refugee housing in Haiti.

_________________________________________________

My mother is a heavyweight mother. By this I mean she’s always been there – one eye on us, one eye on the pot bubbling on the cooker. She was a stay-at-home mum for most of my childhood, with a brief spell as a working mother when I was a ‘tween’. She cooked 98% of meals in our home and did most of the household chores, though as soon as my brother and I were old enough, she roped us into this task. She was the ‘bad’ cop, the one who shouted, who doled out the punishments, and the one who chased us round the dining-room table to tickle us and cuddle us.

My mother and my son.

I’m sure by today’s standards her methods of discipline would be severely frowned on, and in some places, no doubt, she would have been locked up for child cruelty. But this was back in the 80s and 90s, in Hong Kong – a place where people still smack their children’s bottom in public without people batting an eyelid.

First, a word about my background so readers can understand the context of what I talk about. I am the product of a bi-cultural marriage – East (Hong Kong Chinese) meets West (British : English, Irish and Scottish). This was in the 70s, when Hong Kong was very much a British colony and the British ruled it with the desperate fervor of the last (almost) abandoned outpost. There were football (soccer) clubs and cricket clubs in place of country clubs, and few Chinese were admitted as members. My childhood was a heady mix of hanging out by the club pool or going on company junks (the company boat used for senior employees to impress clients ) with my parents, or going to the wet market with my mother, or visiting my Chinese relations in the most densely packed part of the world – Mong Kok. My father’s job meant I had a privileged upbringing – going to a private school and living in a large, airy 4 bedroom flat in the expensive part of Hong Kong. This sat oddly when I visited my grandmother and uncle’s family, who were squeezed into a tiny 2-bedroom flat above a market, just big enough to allow people standing room when we came over. And yet, nothing was said about, and just taken as a part of life. Chinese people are immensely pragmatic, and perhaps it was just felt that my mother had done well for herself and ‘good for her’.

Hong Kong Skyline

For us it was second nature, and we assumed most kids grew up the way we did. But I guess my mother had more foresight than most, and saw how other kids of a similar background were being raised by the amah (the domestic helper) while parents worked or played all day long. She made us go to the wet market with her, a place we hated, at the time, for its smells and grime and rawness. We saw how chickens were chosen while alive, and then taken round back and dispatched, cleaned and plucked. The same with fish. It always grossed us out, but we grew up with a far stronger connection to our food than most kids. Food fussiness was not tolerated well under my mum’s roof. My brother was once served the exact same dish for breakfast, that he had turned his nose up the previous dinner. It was the last time he messed around with his food. As soon as we were old enough, we had to do chores, even for the brief time that we had an amah to help us, because my mother thought there was no excuse in not knowing how to clean up after yourselves (and everyone else). My favorite was always helping her prepare dinner. I graduated from washing vegetables and rice to chopping, dicing, slicing and mincing before most kids knew how to dress themselves. My brother and I took great pride in making our parents tea for breakfast in bed at the age of 6.

Chinese Banquet Dinner, Hong Kong

Words meant little in our household. “I love you” was rarely said but often shown. Food was our strongest conduit. I could tell when we had displeased our mother if she regularly served fish (which I hated) or one of her ‘medicinal’ soups that looked and tasted like brackish water. When we were in her good books, it was:

• Stir-fried garlic snake beans,
• Green carrot soup,
• Pork and mushroom stew… all the dishes we loved.

I still remember coming home from school at lunch when I was five. There was always a plate of sandwiches, a cup of milk and a little chocolate Club bar waiting for me, under a napkin so it wouldn’t dry out, which my mother would insist I eat as soon as I came in the door, while telling her about my day.

She was harsh with her criticism, letting us know straight away if we were doing things wrong. When I was 14, I smart-mouthed her in front of the relations at a big Chinese banquet reunion. She picked up a chopstick and hurled it across the table at me, smacking me right in the forehead. No one blinked. Even today I can see her trying to bite her tongue, as she watches me cook or parent my two-year-old, knowing that she’s itching to tell me how to do it. Sometimes it slips out before she can stop herself – ‘Ai Ya! Is this how I raised you? What kind of Chinese cook are you? This is not Chinese cooking! What will your husband say? Ai Ya!”.

She also had her own “secret, Chinese mother ways” of not letting us eat bad things like Coke, or hamburgers, or sweets, or making us eat food that was good (like fish). The biggest whopper was pointing out a man on the street who had a neck brace on (presumably for whiplash) and saying ‘You see?! This is what happens if you don’t eat fish! Your throat swells up BIG and then you can’t eat! Better eat fish now…”. Or another time, “Don’t drink any Coke, it excites your glands. Make you lu-lu (crazy)”.

3rd Birthday Party!

With hindsight, I see how hard it must have been for my mother, juggling East and West, entertaining Dad’s colleagues on their junk trips, or cooking Chinese banquets, being a kind of trophy wife then running back to Mong Kok to spend time with her brother and mother in their tiny flat with 5 people crammed in. All this while simultaneously raising two kids in two cultures, helping them find their feet and their independence. When my Por-por (grandma) passed away a few years ago, my mother had spent three or four years by her side watching her decline into dementia and finally slip away, frail and fragile as a feather. At the time, my parents were going through a difficult divorce after being married for 30 years. She wobbled badly, but never crumbled. I can only conclude that she has a will of iron and a diamond-hard core.

Being back under her roof now, with my son is both a blessing and a curse. She is exactly the same with him as she was with us… Uncompromising, determined, loving, raucous. He now knows where to put his dirty clothes, loves to sweep the floor, helps his Por Por to load and unload the washing machine and hang up clothes, and is generally a little messenger boy between rooms. They adore each other. She is his absolute best friend. And yet, with me it’s still the eagle eye, and the odd “Why are you doing it that way? My way is better!”

So I listen, watch, observe quietly and remember how she kept us in line, how she showed us love. I too have mastered her thousand yard stare – better known as the Eye of Death, for its laser beam intensity. I practiced it to perfection as a teacher, and now only have to release a fraction of it, to scare my kid into picking up his toys. If I turn out half as good and tough as my mother, I will be happy in the knowledge that my son has been raised well.

______________________________________________________

When I was asked to guest blog for M-O-M, I was absolutely gobsmacked and almost fell off my chair. Who’d have thought that my little blog would garner any attention? I feel very much a minnow in the blog world, compared to the big-hitters of Skip to My Lou, Smitten Kitchen, Bakerella, Steamy Kitchen, The Pioneer Woman, to name just a few. How to stand out amongst the crowd of giants? Because, to be honest, there really isn’t anything special about me or my blog. I’m just an average Joanne, struggling to make things work – food, love, life and motherhood. But after reading M-O-M’s blog, I realize that I’m in great company – the women featured are all average Joannes making sense of their world. The things they blog about are universal – food, love, life and motherhood. That’s what makes it so relevant to me, keeps me hooked. How many times I’ve read something and laughed out loud, thinking ‘Hey, me too!’ or ‘Wait a minute! I thought I was the only one!’. My guest blog is hopefully one that resonates with all of you too. Enjoy!

Warm Regards,

Shal
Jasmine & Ginger Blog
www.jasmineandginger.blogspot.com

Ingredients

• ½ C peanut butter
• ½ C Malt-O-Meal Cocoa Dino Bites
• ¼ C powdered sugar
• 12 strawberries (8 sliced)
• 4 snack pack chocolate pudding
• 1 C yellow cake, crumbled

Instructions

1. In a bowl, mix the powdered sugar, cereal and peanut butter then divide into fourths.
2. In a parfait glass, put ½ of one part of the divided peanut butter mixture.
3. Then top with the crumbled cake.
4. Next add ½ of one of the pudding cups.
5. Layer sliced strawberries on top.
6. Repeat steps 2 through 4
7. Place a whole strawberry on top each parfait.

Makes 4 parfaits

Ingredients

• 10 oz frozen mixed berries
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons cornstarch

Crisp topping:

• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1-1/2 cup Malt-O-Meal Honey & Oat Blenders with Almonds cereal, crushed
• 5 tablespoons butter, cubed and chilled

Instructions

1.     Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.     Mix frozen berries, sugar and cornstarch in a bowl.

3.     Divide mixture evenly between 4 – 8 oz. ramekins.

4.     Mix flour, sugar and cereal; work in butter with hands until crumbly.

5.     Divide crisp topping evenly among the 4 ramekins.

6.     Place ramekins on cookie sheet and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.

Ingredients

• 4 pieces chicken breast, bone in with skin on
• 6 cups Malt-O-Meal Colossal Crunch cereal, lightly crushed
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 small onion, diced
• 1 stalk celery, diced
• 3 links chicken sausage, apple/maple flavored
• 1/2 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes
• 1/2 large apple, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 cup fresh bread cubes or pieces
• 1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
• 1 teaspoon sage
• 1 cup chicken stock
• 2 tablespoons maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash chicken breasts and pat dry. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Set aside.
2. Sauté onion and celery in oil in a skillet until tender and clear.
3. Remove casings from sausage and crumble into skillet. Sauté until lightly browned. Stir in pepper flakes.
4. Place crushed Malt-O-Meal colossal crunch cereal in bowl and toss with sausage mixture, chopped apple, bread cubes, poultry seasoning and sage.
5. Sprinkle stock over stuffing mixture and toss.
6. Make a pocket underneath the chicken skin and stuff with stuffing mixture. Repeat for each chicken breast.
7. Place remaining stuffing in bottom of baking dish. Place chicken on top. Combine syrup and melted butter and brush top of chicken. Season with additional salt and pepper.
8. Bake for 30 minutes covered. Remove cover and bake chicken until golden and internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.

Make it with Malt-O-Meal Recipe Contest Winner Danielle Gordanier of St. Paul entered this 1^st Place WINNER in the 2009 Minnesota State Fair!

Ingredients

• 1 cup chopped dates
• 2/3 cup honey
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup chunky almond butter
• 1/4 cup orange juice
• 1 cup dried cherries
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1 cup mixed fruit bits
• 1/2 cup pepitas
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 7 cups Malt-O-Meal Honey & Oat Blenders with Almonds

Instructions

Combine dates, honey, brown sugar, almond butter, and orange juice. Add cherries, raisins, dried fruit bits, pepitas, and cinnamon. Stir to combine. Fold in cereal. Press into a lightly oiled 9×13” pan. Sprinkle with flaxseed. Cut into squares. Wrap in foil and save for your next nature hike or trail run. Can be frozen for up to a month.

Ingredients

• Cooking-spray or butter, to grease 10-inch tart pan
• 1/2 a fresh pineapple
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1-1/2 tablespoon butter, melted
• 1-1/2 cup marshmallows
• 3 cups Malt-O-Meal Honey & Oat Blenders Cereal
• 1 – 8 oz. package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 – 8 oz. tub extra creamy cool whip, thawed
• 3 to 4 kiwi fruit
• 1 small jar maraschino cherries

Instructions

Spray 10-inch tart pan with butter flavored non-fat cooking spray or spread with butter. Slice pineapple into 14-inch rings. Place in small bowl and add 1 tablespoon sugar. Turn to coat and let sit for roughly 5 minutes. Grill pineapple on grill pan, or sauté in medium-hot pan just until brown strips appear. Set in refrigerator to cool. This can be done ahead of time.

For the crust, combine melted butter and marshmallows and melt together either in a heavy saucepan on a stove-top over medium heat or in a microwave on high in 15 second intervals and stirring in between. Add Malt-O-Meal Honey & Oat Blenders cereal to melted marshmallow mixture. Press cereal mixture into tart pan bottom and up sides to make a crust. If too sticky, butter a small rounded-bottom glass bowl and press in with the glass.

For the filling, combine the softened cream cheese, ginger and powdered sugar. Beat on medium with hand or stand mixer for 2 minutes. Mix in thawed cool whip just until blended together. Spread over the crust.

For topping, peel and slice kiwi and remove the stems from the cherries. Place grilled pineapple, kiwi slices and cherries in a pattern of your choice over the filling. Chill until firm. No baking required.

Parfaits:

• 2 cups Malt-O-Meal Cinnamon Toasters
• 1 package Jello-O cheese cake cook & serve pudding
• 4 – 4 oz. cans peaches, diced
• Maple syrup

Munch Mix:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 4 cups Malt-O-Meal Frosted Mini Spooners
• 1 cup cocktail peanuts
• 1 cup dried cherries

For the partfaits:

Crush Malt-O-Meal cinnamon toasters cereal fine and set aside. Prepare pudding. Stir pudding mix into 2 cups milk in medium saucepan. Bring to full boil on medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and let pudding cool. Spoon 3/4 cup chopped drained diced peaches into each of the 4 parfait glasses. Top each with 4 tablespoons of Malt-O-Meal cinnamon toasters cereal, 4 tablespoons cheese cake pudding and 1 teaspoon maple syrup. Repeat the layering. Makes 4 servings.

For the munch mix:

preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter and sugar in large microwavable bowl. Microwave on High for 1 to 2 minutes or until butter is completely melted with stirred. Add ginger; mix well. Add Malt-O-Meal frosted mini spooners cereal; toss lightly. Spread in a single layer in greased 15x10x1-inch baking pan. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove pan from oven and stir in peanuts. Return to oven and continue baking for 10 minutes. Cool completely. Add dried cherries and toss lightly. Makes 18 servings, 1/3 cup each.

Total prep time: 25 minutes