Enter to Win a $100 Best Buy Gift Card from Samsung & BlogHer

This giveaway has now ended. Thanks for entering!

When we started posting recipes on our blog last summer we really wanted a spot to keep our favorite recipes where I know I’d never lose them. And S wanted to be able to actually find the recipe when I said, “hey can you grab the recipe for the lemon blueberry pancakes?” ya know, without digging through a book full of little scraps of paper. As a bonus we got to share our favorite recipes with you guys and it got us to get a bit more creative with dinner a few nights a week.

I usually set my computer up on the kitchen, which is probably a little like playing with fire. You know one of these days I’m going to get a hunk of blue cheese stuck in between “G” and “H” and that’s going to be inconvenient and stinky. So when I saw a promo for the new Samsung 4-Door LCD Refrigerator with Apps that has an 8” LCD display with built-in wifi I started thinking about just how convenient it would be to able to browse though all the recipes on the Epicurious app to find all sorts of fabulous inspiration for dinner. S and I could stand there in the kitchen at 6:30 when we’re absolutely starving and flip through dozens of recipes, each one even more drool worthy than the last. How much easier would it be to answer, “what do you feel like for dinner?” when you have a screen full of fabulous recipes right there in the kitchen where all the magic happens? Seems like the perfect way to avoid one of those low blood-sugar arguments to me!

Apart from having access to apps full of recipes, with the Samsung fridge we’d also be able to leave each other notes right on the fridge. Maybe then I’d get S to tell me we’re out of peanut butter before I have five minutes to get out the door and Feeney needs cookies and peanut butter in his treat cone so he doesn’t eat a tummy full of magazines while I’m out. Or even better, we’d be able to keep a running tally of what’s in the fridge so those mangoes hidden in the back of the bottom drawer don’t turn to expensive piles of mush before we eat them. Or we could just list those things we wish were in the fridge…like dozens of lobsters just ready to be made into delicious lobster rolls….

I’m sure my little fridge fantasy is just the tip of the iceberg (or iceberg lettuce in the special veggie drawer) so here’s the fun part: we’ve teamed up with Samsung and BlogHer to give away a $100 Best Buy gift card. All you need to do enter to win is comment below and tell us what your dream appliance to solve some vexing problem in your life would be. Magic laundry folder? Self cleaning carpet? Fridge with a cool LCD screen and wifi built right in?

RULES

No duplicate comments.
Contest is open from 7/25-8/15

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:
a) Leave a comment below and tell us what your dream appliance would be
b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.

This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

Visit the Official Rules Page
Visit BlogHer's Prizes & Promotions section for more chances to win!

Enter to Win a $100 Visa Gift Card by Telling us How You Make an Ordinary Night Special

This is a sponsored review from BlogHer and Stouffer's.

This giveaway has ended, thanks for entering!

When Stouffer's offered to send us a sample of their new Sautes for Two, we were kind of excited. Obviously we love to cook, but sometimes when we've got a half dozen projects going on at once, dinner time can get just a wee bit stressful. What? You want me to put down the paint brush and cook dinner?

The most stressful day of the week for us is always Friday. It's my busiest work day; I usually have to be at my desk extra early just to be able to finish work at a reasonable hour. When S gets home for work he's ready to take the weekend by storm, but I'm usually not done with work, we're both starving and it just makes getting excited for the weekend's projects a drag. So a couple of weeks ago we decided to make Friday night special (and a whole lot less stressful) by treating ourselves to Stouffer's Grilled Chicken & Asiago Tortelloni Sautes for Two.

The meal was tasty and definitely better than the cheese and crackers I usually resort to when I'm starving and just don't have the time to cook. To make things a little healthier we used about a third of the sauce, which was packaged in a separate pouch making adjusting the "sauciness" level a cinch. I topped it with a little fresh parmesan and paired it with a green salad. Delicious.

I wish I could say that we ate at the dining room table while admiring the new paint on our walls and trim, but we didn't. We sat in front of S's laptop and researched windows and basement contractors.

Some people save for years for a great vacation, we save for home improvements, so sharing a meal while checking out windows was our version of a special night.

Now it's your turn; leave us a comment telling us how you make an ordinary night extraordinary for a chance to win a $100 Visa gift card from BlogHer. I promise we won't judge you if you don't use it for home improvements!
Visit the Official Rules

How To Enter

No duplicate comments. You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment telling us how you make an ordinary night extraordinary
b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post
c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post
d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry.


Make sure to leave your email address in your comment or have an email address associated with your profile so we can contact you! Giveaway ends April 11.


This giveaway is open to US Residents age 18 or older.
Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail.
You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
The Official Rules are available here.

Visit the Official site
Visit the Official Rules

Visit BlogHer’s Promotions & Prizes page for more chances to win: Promotions & Prizes section

Organize your Chaos with a Giveaway!

This contest has ended. Congratulations, Natalie! Thanks to everyone for entering! 

The "A" shaped bookshelf has always been a bit of an issue for us in this house. In our old house it fit perfectly in the room above our garage that was my office. Here we don't seem to have many walls that are large enough to accommodate it without blocking a window. When we bought new living room furniture last year and found ourselves with a bit more open space, the shelf found its perfect home in the living room. I jumped at the chance to have a better home for our cookbooks on the bottom shelf instead of having them stacked in the impossible-to-reach cabinet above the fridge.

The new layout left us with two problems: the lamps that used to be plugged into the only outlet controlled by the switch at the bottom of the stairs were moved; and the cookbooks looked totally chaotic on the bottom shelf. We lived with both issues until S finally begged me to buy a new, smaller lamp for the shelf so he'd have light before he tripped off the bottom step in the morning. S rarely asks me to shop.

So I hit the 'net looking for lighting for S and searched the house for more baskets to better organize (hide) the cookbooks. And this weekend we went from messy looking to less messy looking:

Less messy is a good thing since the whole side of the room is now lighted up like the 4th of July thanks to a super bright bulb in the new lamp. There's no way S will miss that last step anymore.

Now instead of looking over at the bookshelf from the chair in the corner and wishing I had the time to cover every single book in a pretty fabric or paper 5th grade style, I see uniform baskets containing the chaos of the mismatched cookbooks. Baskets are my miracle workers.

Want to shop for a new light or maybe a couple baskets to organize the chaos in your house? CSN has offered to give one of our lucky readers a $50 gift card to use at any of their 200+ online stores.

To enter, leave a comment below telling us if you have a messy spot in your house that drives you nuts. A junk drawer? A messy shelf? A corner of the kitchen counter where the mail lives for weeks?

For two (2) additional entries:
1. follow us or subscribe in a RSS feed
2. blog, tweet or facebook about this giveaway and post the link in your comment
***Leave a separate comment for each entry - up to three comments/entries per person*** and please make sure your profile links to your email address, or leave your email address in your comment.

Giveaway ends March 23, 2011 at 6pm EST. Winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be selected. CSN only ships to the US and Canada; there may be international shipping taxes to Canada that the gift code cannot cover.