The Cook’s Garden Gift Certificate Giveaway
March 5, 2010 by Andrea
Filed under Garden Products
This year’s unusually cold winter and several feet of snow kept the ground frozen and prevented us from doing our typical winter prep, though we can see grass now on most of the yard and in some of the garden, a hopeful sign of a warm spring to come. And of course that turns our thoughts to what we want to plant this year.
If you are like me, you’ve been pouring over seed catalogs since they hit mailboxes in January. We have several places we like to order form, and The Cook’s Garden is one of our favorites. They carry a wonderful variety of vegetable and herb seeds and plants as well as cottage flowers and some garden supplies. We’ve especially enjoyed their year-round lettuce collection, which contains a variety of lettuce seeds to plant throughout the year.
To celebrate the coming of spring and to help you prepare your garden, I’m giving away one $50 gift certificate to The Cook’s Garden, which should help you purchase all the seeds you need and maybe some tools as well. And if you are growing your own food (or farming, hunting, foraging), we hope you will join us for Grow Your Own this year!
Rules
- The Cook’s Garden only ships to the 48 contiguous United States and Canada. Apologies to my readers in Hawaii, Alaska, as well as other countries.
- To enter the giveaway, please leave a comment below telling us about what you want to plant in your garden this year. Any kind of garden is fine, whether indoor, outdoor, containers, hydroponic, etc.
- You must leave a correct email address in the email field so I can contact you if you win. Please don’t put your email address in the comment field unless you want a bunch of spammers to find you.
- You can earn extra entries by mentioning this contest on your blog or Twitter. Please come back and add additional comments with links to your blog post and/or Twitter status. So that’s three possible entries per person. Three entries = three comments. I will check out the links to verify.
- The giveaway ends at 8 p.m. EST on Friday March 26, 2010. Random.org will select the winner and I will post an announcement soon after.
Thanks for reading and have fun planning your gardens!
[DISCLOSURE: This giveaway is not sponsored by The Cook’s Garden or affiliated with The Cook’s Garden in any way. I just happen to like them.]
The Art of Eating In Book Giveaway
Cathy Erway gave up eating out in New York and started cooking for herself, a two-year experiment she chronicled on her blog, Not Eating Out in New York. Restaurants, take out, and street carts were out, cooking for herself, foraging, and freeganism was in. Cathy’s story is interesting for anyone trying to live frugally by cooking at home more and eating out less, and she shares it in more detail in her book The Art of Eating In: How I Learned to Stop Spending and Love the Stove, scheduled for release on February 18.
You can win my review copy of The Art of Eating In, just leave a comment in this post about how you have changed or plan to change your/your family’s eating out habits. Please make sure your email address is correct in the email field so I can contact you if you are the lucky winner. (Please don’t put your email address in the comment field unless you want a bunch of spammers to find you.) You can get an extra entry if you mention the contest on Twitter, just leave an additional comment with a link to your Twitter status.
Apologies to my international readers, but the prize can only be shipped within the continental U.S. The contest closes at 9 P.M. EST on Thursday February 18, and Random.org will select the winner. Look for the announcement of the winner in this post soon after.
Update February 19, 2010: Congratulations to Carol, comment #10, for winning the book!
Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day
To say that the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day method changed the way I bake bread for my family is an understatement, because suddenly we had buckets of dough hanging out in refrigerator rather than containers of sourdough starter. My starters always seemed temperamental, or more likely I didn’t do such a good job tending to them. A few were downright neglected and showed it when I opened the containers. This method felt so much easier because the flavorful doughs were ready to go, with no long waits to grow a starter or dealing with preferments; I just cut off a hunk of dough, shape, rise, and bake.
I experimented with whole grains using Zoe and Jeff’s original formula because we prefer whole grains in our breads, and fortunately for their readers they put in a lot of work and came up with some fantastic ideas for whole grain breads using the same minimal mixing/no kneading method, and the result is the newly released Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Read more
Three Cookbooks That Focus on Easy, Healthy Meals
Cooking weeknight meals can be challenging for busy families trying to balance work, school, and family, and believe me when I say our family is not immune to those challenges. Some days are so busy that it’s difficult to get us all together at the dinner table or even find time to cook. If you frequently find yourself in that situation and want ideas for quick, easy, and healthy meals at home, I have a few cookbooks to recommend.
One of my favorites is The Essential EatingWell Cookbook from EatingWell magazine. The book was published in 2004 and received a James Beard Foundation nomination in the Focus on Health category in 2005. The author, Patsy Jamieson, is a contributing editor to Eating Well and a graduate of La Varenne Ecole de Cuisine in Paris. I turn to the book when I feel fresh out of ideas for meals and have always been pleased with recipe results, many of which inspire further meal ideas. Each recipe includes prep time, start to finish time, make ahead tips, ease of preparation rank, and nutrition information. I’m also looking forward to the release of their next book, EatingWell 500-Calorie Dinners, which comes out in January. Read more
Cyber Monday 2009 Shopping Deals
November 30, 2009 by Andrea
Filed under Shopping Tips
You may already have a good start on your holiday shopping with some great Black Friday deals, but just in case you haven’t seen them already, here are a few more great deals for Cyber Monday.
Culinary Media Network’s Gilded Fork Gourmet Boutique has specials on Edge Brownie Pans and Tondo balsamic vinegar by the case. Ends Monday November 30.
Cooking.com has the KitchenAid Pro Line of appliances on sale for up to 40% off through December 2.
Chef’s Catalog has a smorgasbord of kitchen gear on sale, including bakeware, cookware, cutlery, electrics, tools, outdoor cooking, and tabletop. I even spotted KitchenAid mixer bowls, a great help for bakers. Also has a free shipping deal with purchases over $99.
King Arthur Flour currently has 56 items with free shipping.
Sur La Table has a 5 Day sale ending on Monday November 30 with deals on Wusthof, Shun, Breville, Cuisinart, and others. They also have many items with free shipping.
Amazon.com has 159 Cyber Monday deals in Home & Garden as well as Holiday Bonuses, Markdowns, and Buy More Save More deals on a wide variety of kitchen gear.
Williams-Sonoma has 40 Special Values items on sale.
[I have affiliate relationships with Gilded Fork Gourmet Boutique, Cooking.com, and Amazon.com.]
