Kitchen Gadget Girl Cooks

Last month, while galavanting in the islands on vacation, I received email from Cynthia inviting me to participate in a blogger meet-up, sponsored by Zespri Kiwifruit. Since I was out of town, I had to miss the festive event (bummer, since Biggie from Lunch in A Box was there, and Charlie Ayers of Calafia Cafe in Palo Alto was cooking), but Cynthia did send me a packet of Spifes for me to test.

What is a Spife you ask? Well, it is kinda a cross between a plastic knife and a little spoon perfectly designed to eat a kiwi, especially if you are a kid or you want to enjoy a kiwi on a picnic. And you could win some of your own!

Cynthia sent the Spifes to promote the Zespri Kiwifruit Lunch 2.0 Bloggers’ Recipe Contest. This contest seeks to encourage the use of Zespri Kiwifruits (which I find at my local Trader Joe’s) and create a kid-friendly lunch item. For the occasion, my daughter whipped up her very own entry and first recipe ever. Not bad for a 7 year old!

Kiwi, Strawberry and Honey Salad

• 2 Kiwifruits, chopped
• 10 strawberries, chopped
• 2 Tablespoons honey (from our bee hives in the garden)

Gently mix all together and serve with a sprig of mint.

To win your own Spife, leave a comment on this post with your favorite Kiwi Recipe from the Zespri Kiwifruit Site. I will choose 5 random winners and Cynthia will send you your own handful of Spifes!

And, if you have a great, original recipe in mind for the Kiwi for Lunch program, be sure to enter. Six semi-finalists will receive a copy of Food 2.0 and be advanced to the finals for a chance to win the $2,500 Grand Prize!

Don’t forget to read to the bottom for the cute kitchen apron giveaway!

Last week was brutal – a cold took me out on Tuesday, and without my menu plan of last week, we would have surely been eating out every night! The Orange Glazed Chicken from Everyday Food was excellent, and very easy. I used whole chicken legs, as I like to have drumsticks and thighs, and the marmalade made it very easy to put together. I also just threw the whole carrots onto the roasting pan about 1/2 way through, rather than cooking them on the stovetop. And I served with the Bulgur Pilaf from How to Cook Everything (this is the book I plan to send my kids off to college with!). 

This week we have a couple busy nights, so I am hoping I can come up with more quick and easy menus. Our Two Small Farms box this week contained Romaine Lettuce, Carrots, Shallots, Strawberries (these were ginormous, and consumed within the hour), Fava Beans, and Summer Squash. Here is my menu plan for the week:

Sunday: Fava bean appetizer, (I ended up running out of time, so served this with baby romaine lettuce and carrots, as a deconstructed salad. The dip was great!) Carrot risotto, Salad, Rhubarb Anise Upside-down cake

Monday: Stuffed Squash with Bulgur and Feta, Roasted Salmon, Salad

Tuesday: Squash-rice Casserole

Wednesday: Dinner out

Thursday: Pasta with Fava Beans and Sausage, Salad

Friday: TGIF Mini-block party (hope we aren’t rained out this week!)

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Now to the giveaway! Last week, while I was home sick, in between coughing up a lung and sleeping, I managed to finish two cute kitchen aprons that would be the perfect Mother’s Day gift, one red, one yellow. So, I am having a contest! On Sunday, May 10th (Mother’s Day) I will select two winners, who will each receive one of these cute aprons below. They can keep the aprons or give them as gifts.

In the comment section below, in haiku format*, tell me why you want one of these aprons. Be clever, be cute, make me laugh, that is all I ask. 

*Ok, you don’t really have to use a haiku. Anything is fine. But, if you tweet about the contest, or post it on your Facebook page, then come back and comment about that, it will give you another chance to win. For example, Comment #1 might be “I really need a new apron because I don’t have anything as cute as that in my kitchen!”, Comment #2 might be “Tweeted about it, www.twitter.com/kitchengirl”, and Comment #3 might be “On my Facebook page”. See, easy peasy, 3 entries to win!

Thank you to all who entered to win the EatSmart Precision Pro Kitchen Scale. After careful selection (my independent judge, ie, husband, pushed the buttons on Random.org) I am pleased to announce the winner is:

Curtis Jackson

Congratulations, and thank you to all who entered the contest. Read the original review of the EatSmart Precision Pro Kitchen scale here. And if you have recommendations for other kitchen tools to test, please let me know. Always happy to test a new tool in my kitchen!

Thank you again to Witmer’s for generously sending two of their fabulous peanut butter mixers for the first-ever Kitchen Gadget Girl Gadget Giveaway. And after a week of anxious nail biting, I am thrilled to announce the two winners*:

Buttonwillow Six

and

Jen Maiser, of Life Begins at 30

Congratulations to both of you! And thank you to all who participated.

* Winners were chosen by an objective third-party using the random sequence number generator on Random.org.

See my original reviews of the Witmer Peanut Butter Mixer here and here.

I am thrilled to announce the first-ever Kitchen Gadget Girl Gadget Giveaway! After posting last week about my Top 10 under $10 recommendations for the holidays, my new friend Bob at Witmer’s sent me two Peanut Butter Mixers, model #100, for me to give away to two (2) lucky winners. Need more details? Here you go:

What: The Kitchen Gadget Girl Gadget Giveaway

When: December 1 – December 5. Winners announced December 7, 2008.

How: Make a comment below, telling me your favorite way to enjoy peanut butter AND your favorite kitchen gadget (note, only complete comments will be eligible to win). Also, be sure to leave a way to contact you!

Yeah, that is all you have to do. But, you say, you want to do more? Well, then, for each of the following, you will get an extra entry:

• Tweet about the contest, mentioning The Kitchen Gadget Girl Giveaway
• Blog about the contest on your own blog
• Kirtsy, Digg, Stumble, or use any other announcement method you like

For all of these, you can either comment again, or shoot me email at kitchengadgetgirls at gmail dot com.

Remember, I have two of these lovely Peanut Butter Mixers, so the chances of winning are definitely greater (I am pretty sure I got my math right there!). Enter early, enter often.