Free Samples ... and cookies!

I love to receive mail -- especially FREE samples of products!



Curves Honey Crunch Cereal

Zip N Steam bags for Sam's Club Members

Appetizer from Longhorn Steakhouse

Honey Bunches of Oat Cereal (bottom right-hand corner is the link)

I have a recipe for soft baked chocolate chip cookies that my family loves, but I saw this recipe and have to give it a try. I need to bake cookies soon for the carriers at my husband's PO -- so I may try this one instead. They say this is the last chocolate chip cookie recipe you will ever need! We all love cookies in our family. Yum!

*Wendy Gaynor’s ‘Perfect’ Chocolate Chunk Cookies
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

4 cups semisweet chunks (preferably imported). (they say to reduce this)

1. Place the butter in a large bowl and cream at high speed untilfluffy. Add the sugars and beat until light and fluffy, about 4minutes, scraping down sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in eggs, oneat a time, until completely mixed.
2. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt and baking soda. Add to thebutter mixture at low speed until just combined and add vanillaextract. Beat on medium speed, scraping bowl down, until blended. Donot overmix.
3. Add chocolate chunks and mix till thoroughly combined. Refrigeratebatter until cold, preferably overnight.
4. Preheat a conventional oven to 350 degrees or a convection oven to300 degrees, and line several baking sheets with parchment paper. Dropheaping spoonfuls of batter 2 inches apart on the lined baking sheetsand bake, turning tray once, until golden brown around edges and soft(but not bubbly), about 9 minutes in a convection oven or 12 in aconventional one. Cool on a wire rack.
Yield: 36 to 72 cookies, depending on size.
*This recipe appeared in The New York Times on October 27, 2002

TGIF and Free Cookbook!

I didn't get to post yesterday -- it has just been one of those weeks! Ya know? It made me sad not to post my Thankful list -- to be honest, I think it would have helped my attitude!

Please say a prayer for our family -- it would be greatly appreciated!

Here's a free cookbook offer from Ragu. To be honest, I have not ever cared for the taste of their pasta sauce -- I prefer to make homemade -- but I didn't know that they supposedly don't have any preservatives or additives? For me, that is a good thing. In any case they are giving away a free cookbook -- so go sign up!

You have to answer 5 questions. Easy. (plus you can always substitute your own sauce!)

Mother's Day Giveaway Contest

Lots of great contests going around the blog world right now. I am going to share a few that I found today --

Mother's Day Giveway by The Partea Planner Blog

Deadline: 30 April -- so hurry for this one! Her blog is filled with wonderful ideas and she showed photos of a swap she was just in. I wish I was the recipient of it, all the items are gorgeous!

Go take a peek. You do have to have a blog to join this one.

Good incentive to get one going!! If you need help, you know how to contact me.

Friday Finds -- March 30th

I already have this recipe booklet -- but since I posted my tweaked a bit Really Good Low Fat Raisin Oatmeal Cookies, I found that they are still offering the recipe booklet.

And the best part, of course is that it is totally free. Click Raisins to order.

If you wander around their site -- they had 2 other free booklets they offered for a while.

Friday Find -- Popcorn Bowl and Recipe Book Templates

I thought every Friday I would post about something I have found over the past week -- that is either free or minimal charge. I've found a few things this past week!

I hope to have a button created this weekend to make it prettier.

First is a Free Popcorn Bowl Courtesy of Orville Redenbacher. You do not even have to pay for shipping, but you do have to send in 2 UPCs from the purchase of any two packages of their gourmet microwave popcorn.

Here is a link to the downloadable form: Free Popcorn Bowl
Offer expires 30 June 2007.

If anyone knows if this is on sale somewhere, or an online coupon link, please leave a comment and I'll add it to the post! Also Kroger has this on sale thru Tuesday 2 for $4.00

And second, on the blog of A So Called Perfect Life - there is:

Family Cookbooks! A How To Guide With Templates

Created and copyrighed by My So Called Perfect Life!

She gets the credits for this. I am just posting the link, you will need to visit here to obtain the template. Just click on the link above and it will take you straight to it.


I currently have my recipes saved individually in word documents and then have them in folders. But one recipe doesn't always take up an entire page. Check out the above link. She shares this great template -- I'm hoping I can copy and paste a lot of the recipes that I know I will make again. I really just need to delete those I've tried and probably won't make again.

Side note: One thing that I have done for my daughter, is to compile a recipe scrapbook with recipes that have been handed down through the years and ones we really like as a family.

It's a work in progress and good thing I only have 1 daughter!

But I thought that once I complete the recipes into the above format, I could print them, make a cool cover, bind and share with my 2 future daughter-n-laws! I personally would love a gift like that, what do you think?