Mixing It Up This Thanksgiving!

We're getting ready to head up to my parents' house for Thanksgiving this week. We all pitch in and help with the meal, but my mom is a force to be reckoned with in the kitchen! Her pies are legendary and I can't wait to over-indulge on Thursday (shhh - don't tell my doctor).  My favorite part of Thanksgiving though, even more than the eating, is actually the cooking and preparing part. Especially when there are a million people crammed in the kitchen and we're all joking and telling stories about Thanksgivings past. The best. :)

You can always count on the good ol' carbelicious, high-calorie standbys to be on our menu - turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, sweet potato casserole and homemade rolls - but we like to try different foods for the side dishes and veggies each year.

NatureBox, my favorite monthly snack subscription service, invited me to use some of their healthy and delicious snacks to make a few of our sides dishes. I made a kale salad with their Baked Sweet Potato fries and a roasted asparagus side dish with their Cheddar and Onion Sunflower Kernels. Both were super delicious and passed the Thanksgiving menu test! :)

I tweaked this recipe for the salad and this recipe for the asparagus. The NatureBox snacks added a little extra crunch to both! Those sweet potato fries were already on my NatureBox favorites list though, so I knew they'd be great in the salad. I seriously could have eaten this whole giant bowl-full myself. YUM.

Something that I really love about NatureBox is they have more than 100 snacks, so every month I can pick a few tried-and-true favorites and a couple new ones too. Having healthy snacks in new flavors at the ready has practically saved my life this pregnancy. For six months, just the idea of a hot meal made me queasy. I've been keeping a few bags in my car's center console, which has been a game-changer for both me and my kids. No more hangry Komendas!

Something new and exciting: If you are a US-based first time subscriber, NatureBox will send you a FREE trial box of their most popular snacks by signing up here!

ALSO, NatureBox is giving away TWO six-month subscriptions today! You can enter to win by clicking here, browsing the NatureBox snack list, and then commenting on this post with the snacks you'd love to try. 

Open to US readers only. Contest ends Monday, Dec 1. Good luck! And thank you to NatureBox for sponsoring this post and LGN!  :)