Banana Bread Green Monster Smoothie for Smoothie Week {and an Amazon Giveaway}!

Giveaway Closed

I hate to point out the obvious, but summer totally came early. It’s completely acceptable to wear a bathing suit under your dress and it’s totally acceptable to avoid your black kitty on these crazy hot days. My evil feline has become even more of a cuddle bug when the weather is hot out…yeah, she has a sense of humour.

So naturally, I’ve been making a lot of smoothies and thought I’d share a bunch of wicked awesome blended (and healthy) treats with you this week. This is big for me. Since I started this blog I have never (ever ever) posted for five days straight – but baby, I’m all yours from today until Friday! And I’m giving away a gift card. Awesome.

To make this smoothie combine the ingredients in your blender, with the light stuff on bottom (spinach, oats, cinnamon, walnuts). Then add your frozen banana and pour the milk over the top.

Blend until everything is nice and smooth.

Enjoy!

Banana Bread Green Monster Smoothie
Serves one (or two small servings)
Recipe lightly adapted from Full Measure of Happiness
7 Weight Watchers Points plus per recipe

Ingredients:
1 ripe banana, frozen
1 cup milk (I used vanilla almond milk)
2 handfuls fresh spinach leaves
1/8 C walnuts
1/4 C oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions:
Combine the ingredients in your blender, with the light stuff on bottom (spinach, oats, cinnamon, walnuts). Then add your banana (and ice, if your banana isn’t frozen), and pour the milk over the top.

Blend until everything is nice and smooth.

Amazon Giveaway Details:
Now that we’ve made this delicious treat, I thought I would ask YOU! Yes, you, to tell me your favorite smoothie recipe! That’s all you have to do to be entered to win a $50 Amazon gift card!

For three EXTRA entries:

Just let me know you did the following (and if you follow me on Facebook and Pinterest already, let me know!)

1. Twitter Follow Warm Vanilla Sugar and then tweet the following:
“I entered to win a $50 Amazon Gift Card from @katrinadingle! Check it! http://bit.ly/NF2Nvb #smoothietime”

2. Like Warm Vanilla Sugar on Facebook

3. Follow Warm Vanilla Sugar on Pinterest

NOTES:
-Contest ends Saturday, June 23, 2012 and winner will be chosen randomly.
-Open to everyone world wide!

Ozeri Pro Digital Kitchen Food Scale Giveaway Winner!

A BIG thanks to everyone who entered this giveaway! I’m so happy you could, and hope you all keep entering giveaways when I have them. I really appreciate your comments!

And the winner of the kitchen scale is….

Valerie for her comment: “I had the recent task of making recipes from the UK/Ireland and realized the importance of having a good kitchen scale! I could definitely use one as conversions are not my strong point.”

Congrats Valerie!

Also, thanks slimkicker.com for providing me with this giveaway. You guys are awesome!

{Giveaway} Ozeri Pro Digital Kitchen Food Scale

Giveaway Closed

If I could describe my time living in Switzerland in five words I would say: running, hiking, mountains, friends, and chocolate.

I had a blast, and I have many posts from there in my archives (summer months of 2010 and 2011) that I often check back on to reminisce. Even though it was the perfect place to live, be physically active, and eat, it made things a bit difficult when it came to baking. There weren’t your standard measuring cups or spoons and most baking ingredients needed to be weighed out. I knew this before moving there so I made sure to pack my own measuring cups along with my hiking boots and clothes for the year. It was a life saver!

But of course, the Swiss don’t need to bake with measuring spoons. They produce some of the most delectable sweets I have ever tasted and all they need is a weigh scale (for the most part). So, setting aside my measuring spoons I tried baking this way a few times and all of these recipes turned out great! It makes sense really, if you weigh something out then it will be consistent every time. One cup of flour may not be the exact amount as another cup of flour. I highly recommend baking this way, and with that I have something for you.

A digital kitchen scale! This giveaway is provided by slimkicker.com as a way to promote living a healthy lifestyle. Check out their website! They have nutritionists that provide meal plans and advice for you, and they help you stay motivated and excited about your fitness goals.

Not only is this scale great for baking, but it is also great so that you can portion out your snacks. It’s an awesome way to make sure you are staying on track and not eating too many calories.

For the Giveaway:

If you’d like to enter to win the digital kitchen scale just comment below by telling me:

1. Do you use a food scale? What do you usually use it for?

OR

What do you do to stay physically active?

2. For a second entry, Twitter Follow Warm Vanilla Sugar and then tweet the following:

“I entered to win a Free Digital Kitchen Scale in the @katrinadingle @SlimKicker Giveaway http://bit.ly/z29dKC ”

3. For three extra entries (leave a separate comment for each):

Like Warm Vanilla Sugar on Facebook

Follow SlimKicker on Twitter

Follow Warm Vanilla Sugar on Pinterest

NOTES:
-Contest ends Tuesday, March 19, 2012 and winner will be chosen randomly.
-Open to Continental U.S. Residents only.

Good luck!

Curried Corn Chowder and A Cookbook GIVEAWAY

I know I’m not alone when I say Fall is my favorite season. I love the the way the trees look, I love putting on my pea coat and cute boots, but most importantly I love the feeling of coming home after being in the crisp air and eating something wholesome. There are so many great fall recipes out there on the internet, but I recently came across this cookbook and love the variety of recipes in it.

Inspired by a sisterhood of good family cooks, In My Mother’s Kitchen is a collection of great home cooking remembered, preserved and renewed, but from a contemporary, busy working-mom’s perspective. The first recipe I tried was this curried corn chowder and I love it! I even made extra the next day to freeze for later when I need a quick fix. Since I love this book so much I thought I would share it with you and have a GIVEAWAY! I’m excited for this.

Giveaway Details:
{Main Entry-Required}
Just tell me what cookbooks you’re liking these days? Any suggestions for the fall season?

Want extra entries?
Each item you do will get you ONE chance to win (for a total of 5 chances), if you ALREADY do any of these things, they DO count! So make sure to comment for each item! You MUST leave each entry as a separate comment or only one comment will count!

1. Like Warm Vanilla Sugar on Facebook
2. Follow @katrinadingle on Twitter and tweet the following statement, then come back to this post and tell me you tweeted.

I just entered to win the In My Mother’s Kitchen cookbook with @Katrinadingle. Enter here: http://bit.ly/pDlIqG

3. Like @warmvanillasugar on Instagram
4. Follow Warm Vanilla Sugar on Pinterest
5. Subscribe to Warm Vanilla Sugar’s email updates. Once you subscribe to the email updates, you will get an emailing confirming your subscription.

Important Details:
-This giveaway is open to USA and Canadian residents only and will run until Wednesday, October 12th at 11:59 pm EST.
-Winners will be generated via a random number generator software program.
-Winners will be notified via the contact email provided on the comment contact form.
-Winners will have until October 19th 2011 to claim their prize.

Disclosure:
This giveaway is provided to you by Warm Vanilla Sugar. The views and opinions expressed on Warm Vanilla Sugar are purely my own and based upon my personal taste buds. I was not monetarily compensated for a positive review or giveaway.

In the meantime, try this recipe out!

Elena’s Curried Corn Chowder
SERVES 6

Ingredients:
1 tbsp (15 mL) butter
1 tbsp (15 mL) olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tsp (5 mL) curry powder
8 baby new potatoes, quartered (or 2 medium Yukon Golds, peeled and cut into chunks)
Salt and pepper to taste
4 cups (1 L) fresh or thawed frozen corn kernels
1 sweet red pepper, diced
1/2 jalapeño or red chili pepper, finely diced
1/2 cup (125 mL) white wine
1 can (10 oz/284 mL) creamed corn
3 1/2 cups (875 mL) chicken stock
6 small tomatoes, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup (125 mL) 35% cream
Chives, for garnish

Directions:
In a large heavy soup pot, melt butter with oil over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté until soft, about 3 minutes. Add curry powder and sauté another minute. Stir in potatoes, salt and pepper; sauté another minute. Stir in corn kernels and cook until corn is lightly brown, about 5 minutes.

Stir in red pepper and jalapeño; sauté for another 2 minutes. Stir in wine and let evaporate. Add creamed corn and chicken stock, reduce heat to low and simmer 20 minutes.

Remove from heat. Remove two-thirds of the mixture and set aside. Using a hand blender, purée remaining soup in the pot. Return reserved soup to the pot.

Return to medium-high heat and add tomatoes and cream. Cook until heated through, about 5 minutes. Serve garnished with chives.

A Swiss Chocolatey Giveaway!

I feel like I’ve been a bit selfish lately.

I eat Swiss chocolate every day and then I don’t share. I talk about it, I rave about it, and then I leave it at that and eat it all. But with all this chocolate talk, many of you guys have no idea what real Swiss chocolate actually tastes like! It’s impossible to explain how it lingers in your mouth after every. single. bite. It really is. Uh…drool!

So, I thought I’d share. I’ve never had a giveaway on Warm Vanilla Sugar before, and have always wanted to be able to give something to someone that I thought was really special. So I, un-selfishly (?), have tried over 30 (not kidding) chocolate bars and have narrowed down my favorites so that you could have the best. I have decided to go with the Frey brand. They have the most delicious milk chocolate that I’ve ever tasted and have a huge selection of other yummy flavours like chocolate almond, chocolate hazelnut, honey chocolate, chocolate orange, and chocolate pistachio to name a few. I’m in love.

How do you win?
{Main Entry-Required}
Go check out the Chocolatefrey website. They offer a huge variety of chocolate tablets, all of which are available where I live in Switzerland. Browse their incredible selection of products and find three items that you simply must have! If you’re really not sure and want me to pick, just leave a comment telling me so.

Want extra entries?
Each item you do will get you ONE chance to win (for a total of 3 chances), if you ALREADY do any of these things, they DO count! So make sure to comment for each item! You MUST leave each entry as a separate comment or only one comment will count!
1. Like Warm Vanilla Sugar on Facebook.
2. Follow @Katrinadingle on Twitter and tweet the following statement then come back to this post and tell me you tweeted.

I just entered to win Swiss chocolate with @Katrinadingle. Enter here: http://bit.ly/iGFGIl

3. Subscribe to Warm Vanilla Sugar’s email updates. Once you subscribe to the email updates, you will get an emailing confirming your subscription.

Important Details:
-This giveaway is open to USA, Canadian, and EU residents only and will run until June 30th at 11:59 pm EST.
-Winners will be generated via a random number generator software program.
-Winners will be notified via the contact email provided on the comment contact form.
-Winners will have until July 10th 2011 to claim their chocolate prize.
-There will be THREE winners chosen! So you have good chances :)

Disclosure:
This giveaway is provided to you by Warm Vanilla Sugar. The views and opinions expressed on Warm Vanilla Sugar are purely my own and based upon my personal taste buds. I was not monetarily compensated for a positive review or giveaway.