March 28, 2010

Cooking Light way to cook

The cookbook giveaway officially ended at midnight last night so this morning I have the pleasure of announcing the winner! The winner was chosen by Random.org and out of the 35 comments, the lucky winner is Kelly who left comment #14.

The Winner is No. 14!

Kelly, be sure to email me your contact information so I can get this beautiful book in the mail to you as soon as possible. Congratulations to Kelly and thanks to everyone who entered! 🙂

~LilSis

March 27, 2010

It’s tempting to buy a cute little chick, duckling or bunny at Easter.  They grow up though, and then how do you care for them?  Little chickies are adorable, but a full-grown feisty chicken is another story!

How about sponsoring a farm animal instead of buying one that you aren’t prepared to care for long-term?  Farm Sanctuary has a great farm animal adoption program that could be a perfect solution.  Do you have children who have outgrown Easter egg hunts?  Maybe you have a grandchild out of state?  Or perhaps you have a niece or nephew who loves animals?  Maybe you’ve decided this is the year you’ll be more creative at Easter, and you just don’t want to bring a bunch of candy into the house.  What a great idea to sponsor a farm animal in the name of someone special!

All you need to do is go to Farm Sanctuary’s adoption page and choose a duck, bunny or chicken to sponsor for $10-$15 per month, based on a one-year sponsorship.

I’m especially partial to Buttercup!

and Howard!

You or your gift recipient will receive an adoption certificate with a color photograph of the adopted friend, an adoption card, an invitation to schedule a VIP tour to meet the adopted friend, and other great benefits depending on the animal. If a year is more than you want to commit to, you can also make a one-time gift that will be greatly appreciated.

So if you’re looking for something different to do at Easter this year, here’s a way to do that and help a great cause at the same time!

~BigSis

March 25, 2010

How many of us remember precious homemade Easter Bunny Cakes from our childhoods?  SisMama has made Bunny Cakes over the years, and they’re always seriously adorable and a big hit with everyone…not just the kids!

This is the one SisMama makes.  It’s the Kraft Easter Bunny Cake.

Kraft's Easter Bunny Cake

If you want to make the super simple version, you just need cake mix, Cool Whip and coconut.  Oh, and decorations like gumdrops, licorice and jelly beans.  But if you have a little more time on your hands and want to fancy it up a bit, use a homemade cake with good homemade frosting.

Betty Crocker also has an Easter Bunny Cake that’s way cute!  Again, use a cake mix if you want to.  Betty recommends a carrot cake mix with her canned frosting.

Betty Crocker's Easter Bunny Cake

I am so in love with this last cake that I can’t stand it!  It does require the purchase of a Wilton Bunny Pan, but take a look at this Easter cuteness!  Wilton calls it their Landing Feet First! Cake.

Wilton's Feet First Easter Bunny

So pick your favorite, and surprise your family and friends with a cute Easter Bunny Cake this year.  I bet they’ll remember it for years to come!

~BigSis

March 22, 2010

Spring is in full bloom here in sunny Southern California and ya know what? That makes me really, really happy! 🙂

I know BigSis just shared some photos of the crazy snow that hit Dallas on the first full day of Spring, but things couldn’t be more different here. Not only am I happy, but all the rain that we got here in January and February produced some very happy flowers in my yard.

So, what does the weather have to do with a cookbook giveaway?

The sun’s shining, the flowers are blooming, and I’m in a good mood so I thought this would be as good a time as any to give away a copy of one of my favorite cookbooks, “Cooking Light way to cook”.

This hardcover, almost 500 page cookbook has over 850 photos that show you how to prepare more than 200 recipes. I’m a “visual learner” so this cookbook is “right up my alley”. Cooking Light describes this cookbook as a highly visual book and that’s no exaggeration.

Here’s just a little peek inside this book. There’s a ton of “How To” step-by-step instructions in this book; from the simple “Way to Steam Veggies” and “How to Boil an Egg” to “How to Grill Fish” and “How to Braise Meat.”

There’s also a whole section devoted to “How To” baking instructions that I will definitely be reading when I decide that it’s time for me to work on my baking skills. If you’re like me and love cookbooks loaded with beautiful photos, I really think you’ll love this book!

So, here’s how the giveaway is going to work.

• If you’d like to enter to win this cookbook, just leave us a comment here on this post.

• If you follow LilSis on Twitter, let us know by leaving another comment on this post.

• If you follow BigSis on Twitter, let us know by leaving another comment on this post.

• If you’re already a Fan of BigSisLilSis on Facebook or you Become a Fan, you can let us know by leaving another comment here. (Notice our new badge in the right sidebar!)

• Stumble this post then come back here and leave another comment to let us know that it’s stumbled. (We’ll be getting a new stumble button soon, but, for now, the “stumble this” link is next to “Share” under the post.)

So, that’s five chances to win this cookbook.

Wait.

Let’s add one more chance to win to make it a nice even number.

• Tweet about this giveaway and come back to this post to let us know you tweeted and you can leave one more comment.

That’s six chances you have to win this cookbook!

Since there are six chances to win, I decided to give everyone six days to enter. The contest will officially end at midnight March 28th.  The winner will be randomly chosen and will be announced on Monday, March 29th.

Ready. Set. GO!

Good luck!

(I’ll let ya in on a little secret. If you follow me on Twitter or are a Fan of BigSisLilSis on Facebook, I’ll be giving you some bonus chances to win during these six days.)

~LilSis

March 21, 2010

What a crazy weird winter it has been for us in Texas!  Snow on Christmas Eve, record-setting snow in February and now snow on the first full day of Spring!  Here in Dallas, I woke up this morning to at least 3 inches of snow!  It’s so beautiful and so rare for us that I had to share some photos with you…

~BigSis

March 20, 2010

We all like saving money, right?  I check the Sunday newspaper every week for coupons, but it seems like most of the offers are for things I never ever buy; otherwise they’re too puny to even mess with!  10 cents off 12 rolls of toilet paper?  Fugedaboutit!

There are lots of coupon sites out there, but I heard about a coupon database the other day that I think is pretty cool, and it seems to have lots of coupons I would actually use.  It’s on MyDallasMommy.com, which features all kinds of freebies, deals, giveaways and other fun goodies to help you stretch your dollar a bit farther.

Some of the coupons are printable, others will refer you to another site like CoolSavings or Upromise, or to a Walgreens coupon book.  I think this database is really a portal that organizes all of the stuff out there for you in one place.  One great feature is that expiration dates are shown with the search results so you don’t waste your time clicking all over cyberspace, only to find a bunch of expired offers.

On my first visit to the database, I found a $1 coupon for my favorite Sensodyne toothpaste.  I was referred to the manufacturer’s web site and I did have to sign up before printing, but for a decent savings on an item I use and rebuy all the time, it’s worth a few seconds of time for me.

So, that takes care of coupons for your usual “in-person” shopping.  What about saving money on the things you order online?  You need promo codes, of course!  Do you know about RetailMeNot.com?  I’ve been using it for years, and love it.  You just go to the site, type in your store’s url, and poof!  You get a list of coupon codes.  Voila!

These codes are reported to the site by other users, so it can be a bit hit or miss, but you can easily see the success rate for a particular code.  For example, today you can use “KCOOK34” to get $5 off at DSW Shoes, and it has an 89% success rate.  If it doesn’t work for you, just go back to the site and report the failure.  When I pulled up Amazon.com offers, they were all labeled as unreliable, with very low success rates, so I wouldn’t even bother trying to use them.

I order supplements from Vitacost.com a lot, and always check RetailMeNot for a promo code first.  Right now, you can get 5% off your order at Vitacost.com using the promo code “pc13wb”.  The site tells you this code has a 94% success rate and that the average reported user savings are $6.03.

I also saw some great deals today for 25% off at Coldwater Creek, 15% off at Kohls and FootLocker, and free shipping at tons of sites.  Why wouldn’t you use this site, I ask?  🙂

Now get out there and save some money!  And enjoy your weekend!

~BigSis

March 18, 2010

Since we just celebrated St. Patrick’s Day, I figured this would be a good time to talk about how much I love the color green. If you’ve ever been to my house, then you already know that. Between my family room, kitchen, master bedroom and master bath, I’ve got seven different shades of green on the walls. It sounds weird, but it works. It’s not offensive baby poop green, just more outdoorsy “plant like shades” of green.

So what does that have to do with Egg White Salad? Not much, but in addition to loving the color green on my walls, I have a little obsession with green vegetables. I have to eat at least one green veggie for lunch and dinner every day or I feel like I haven’t eaten a well balanced meal. My favorite green veggies would have to be asparagus, broccoli, spinach, edamame, brussells sprouts, green beans, and green peas; and we include one of these with dinner almost every night. Luckily, my guys love the green veggies too!

A couple of weeks ago I bought an Egg White Salad with Spinach, Feta Cheese, and Parmesan from Trader Joe’s. The spinach in the salad is what initially got my attention. It was good but I was a little disappointed that it had green onion in it. Green onion happens to be one green veggie that I’m not in love with.

I didn’t save the container to make note of all the exact ingredients so I just made this up as I went along in an attempt to duplicate the salad, minus the onion. Luckily, this is not the kind of recipe where you have to worry about the quantity of each ingredient. I probably could have used one less egg white or a little more spinach, but for my first try, I thought it turned out really good.

This would have been great on top of some romaine or butter lettuce and sandwiched in-between an Oroweat Multi-Grain Sandwich Thin, but I had it for lunch on a few Reduced Fat Triscuits.

Egg White Salad with Spinach, Feta Cheese, and Parmesan

4 boiled eggs, yolks removed and whites chopped
1/4 c. cooked and drained frozen spinach
2 T. Feta cheese
1 T. Parmesan
1 T. Light Sour Cream
Salt and pepper to taste

No need for any fancy directions. Just mix all ingredients in a bowl and season to taste. Serve on toasted bread or crackers.

~LilSis

March 16, 2010

Happy St Patrick’s Day!  LilSis and I are only 1/4 Irish at the most, so we can’t really claim this holiday as our own, but it’s a pretty fun little holiday anyway!  There are no responsibilities or expectations; it’s just about the wearing o’ the green, eating food you probably wouldn’t eat every day like corned beef and cabbage (I’ll pass), and having fun.  Oh, and green beer works its way into the celebration more often than not!  And do you remember when McDonald’s used to have green vanilla milkshakes on St Patrick’s Day?

I’m determined to find a delicious way to bake without using eggs and dairy, and I’m encouraged by my success so far with my favorite Pumpkin Bread and the Banana-Wheat Germ Muffins I made recently.  Getting braver, I decided it was time to be a big vegan girl and try something a little trickier…cake!  With St Patrick’s Day coming up, I had the perfect excuse to bake!

I found this recipe for vanilla cupcakes on VegNews.com and was intrigued!  The amount of lemon juice and apple cider vinegar sounded very acidic, and I wasn’t sure about 100% whole wheat pastry flour in cake.  My rule for a brand new recipe is always to follow it precisely the first go-round though, so that’s what I did.

How’d the cupcakes come out?  My first thought was that they could benefit from a bit less sugar, and perhaps 25% to 50% all purpose flour in place of some of the whole wheat pastry flour.  They were pretty coarse in texture, and maybe a bit more like dense muffins than cake.

I took these to my test subjects at the office, and got a variety of reactions:

• A laugh and a shake of the head followed by a brisk/frantic walk away from the untouched cupcakes.

• Silence after eating one.  Dead silence.  Still silent.

• “It’s really good, but I like things that taste like they’re healthy”.

• ” That cake will take some getting used to but I like the frosting”.

• “Well, they look good.”

I’m convinced that there is a tasty vegan cake recipe out there; actually, I’m sure there are several.  Is this cupcake one of them?  Mmmm, nah.  But it’s not bad.  And when you’re vegan, maybe “not bad cake” is better than no cake at all?

~BigSis

March 16, 2010

Need an idea for a quick and easy, green and glowing cocktail for St. Patty’s Day? If so, I think you’ll like this one. It’s super quick and easy and looks really festive served up in a nice martini glass. This cocktail is a little on the sweet side for me but it’s always the hit of the party.

I’ve got just a teeny, tiny bit of Irish in the blood so maybe that’s part of the reason why I enjoy putting on a fun-filled St. Patty’s Day Party every year. SirHoney got the Irish genes from both his dad and mom so he’s a little more fond of corned beef, cabbage and potatoes than I am, but I’ll pacify him on this one day. I actually get to take a break from hosting the party this year.

One of my good friends is hosting the “shindig” at her house and she always throws a great party so I’ll have to make a conscious effort to “behave” since it falls on a work night this year. I don’t want to wake up Thursday morning with the “Glowing Gecko Cocktail” flu! (That could get ugly!)

I mentioned this cocktail last year when I talked about St. Patty’s Day Party ideas and I’ve served the original Glowing Gecko recipe at a couple of my parties but I decided to adapt the recipe a bit this year. I’ll be taking all the ‘fixins’ to my neighbor’s house so we can make this new version tomorrow night.

I’m not a big fan of rum and most of our friends aren’t rum drinkers either, so I eliminated the rum. And since we all know that Sweet & Sour mix is loaded with calories, I eliminated that also. Here’s my adapted concoction.

Glowing Gecko
(adapted from RecipeZaar)

2 oz. vodka
2 oz. Midori melon liqueur
1/2 oz. fresh squeezed lime juice or Rose’s lime juice
1 oz. club soda

Combine first three ingredients with ice in a shaker. Shake and strain. Serve either straight up or over ice in a martini glass. Pour in club soda and garnish with lime.

Have a safe and happy St. Patrick’s Day!

~LilSis

March 14, 2010

This humble muffin is a muffin with a secret.  He’s not very flashy; lots of other muffins are turbo-size, or chock full of fruit and even chocolate chips.  He’s not real pretty either; just a modest little tan guy with a few glimpses of nut here and there.  And he’s not a sweet-fluffy-puffy-light-as-air muffin.  He’s a substantial guy, moist and dense.  But his secret is what makes him more special than the flashy or pretty muffins.  This muffin is healthy AND tasty.

This guy’s given name is Banana-Wheat Germ Muffins, and he was born in the cookbook called Veganomicon by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero.  Yep, you guessed it!  This muffin’s middle name is Vegan!

I made these muffins a couple of times when Bry was here, and we polished the dozen off between us in only a couple of days.  It is true that Bry is my nephew, and a sweet one at that, so even if these muffins were craptastic, he would probably still gobble them up and declare them delicious.  I’ve had my share of baking disasters though, and I don’t count these muffins among them.

This recipe was my first foray into vegan baking, and I was nervous to say the least.  How could I make a delicious baked good with no eggs and no dairy?  The first thing I needed to do was find a reliable and creative vegan cookbook, and Veganomicon fits the bill.

These muffins use baking powder for leavening, with a bit of canola oil added to the mashed banana for tenderness and moisture.  I made just a couple of changes to the original recipe.  I added about a cup of toasted, roughly chopped walnuts, and used my homemade almond milk instead of soy milk.  I also added a dash of good nutmeg, along with the cinnamon.  You can find the recipe for Banana-Wheat Germ Muffins on RecipeZaar.

There’s a lot to love about these muffins.  They are:

• Low in sugar: only 1/3 cup for the whole dozen.

• Full of whole grains from the whole wheat pastry flour and wheat germ.

• Low in fat: only 1/3 cup canola oil.  No butter, no eggs, no sour cream, nothing to clog your arteries!

• Easy to customize by adding your favorite nuts, seeds or spices.

• Filling and do a great job of keeping you satisfied til lunchtime.

• Great on their own, or with a dab of Earth Balance.  I think they’d also be awesome with some of my homemade crockpot apple butter!

One note:  I think these are better the second day.  The first day, they have a very slight bitter aftertaste that I suspect may come from the wheat germ, but it mellows and dissipates by the second day.

Hey, LilSis! Don’t give up on baking, even if you weren’t happy with your Low Fat Fruity Breakfast Muffins.  Any time you try a modification, you run the risk of a boo-boo, but keep trying!  I wonder if maybe you weren’t totally pleased with these muffins because there was a pretty high ratio of goodies to batter?  And don’t be intimidated by the fact that SisMama and I like to bake; we both have our failures and we both always use a recipe!  Don’t quit!  For the love of HayHay and SirHoney’s sweet tooth, don’t quit! 🙂

~BigSis