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Giveaway Winners and a Pulled Lamb Sandwich

Well, it’s Friday and that means a winner has been chosen. Are you excited yet? On the edge of your seat?? I AM! Who wouldn’t want these books???!

Before I let the proverbial cat out of the bag, I just wanted to say that all your heartfelt messages really made my week. What a wonderful surprise every morning as I looked at new comments that told me how I was positively influencing peoples lives in their kitchens. I feel like I’m there with you, giving you that nudge to the next level and praising your every achievement. Thank you so much for the warm wishes as well, I love all my readers! You guys are great!

So here is how I chose the winner. I took all the comments I got and weeded out the least thoughtful ones (sorry, nothing personal). I then assigned a number based on the order the comment came in, then I plugged the numbers (1 through 57) into Random.org’s Random Number Generator and came up with…….duh duh duh….Number 9!

The winning comment was:

Alena

Why do I deserve to win?

Well lets see, I in my own right, am a good cook (at least in mine and my husbands eyes :P ). However, I have this amazing sister who has exceeded all my expectations for her, and has become an amazing chef, mother and entrepreneur. She continues to inspire me to try new recipes and to experiment with my own flavours, and for this I will be eternally grateful. Winning these books would just help me continue what she started.

Thank you!

So there you have it Alena! I hope these books bring your family many nights of wonderful meals and brings your baking to that next level of sweetness! Congratulations! I will e-mail you all the details immediately.

On a completely different note, I’ve brought you a recipe today based on a trip my husband just came back from. He went to a conference in Philadelphia and I made sure he went out every night and searched near his hotel for amazing food. This sandwich (or at least something similar) was the first thing he ate when he got there. A wonderfully juicy pulled lamb sandwich, doused in flavourful chimichurri sauce and smothered in rich cheese.

And in the next few days you can look forward to my version of a Philadelphia Cheesesteak! Don’t miss it!

Pulled Lamb Sandwich with Chimichurri

Yield: Two large sandwiches
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 8 hours

For the lamb:

1 lb Lamb shoulder chops (bone-in)
1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil1 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp oregano
1 clove garlic, grated or minced
juice of half a lemon
1/8 cup water
salt to taste
fresh cracked pepper

1. Combine the oil, vinegar, oregano, garlic, lemon juice and salt and pepper in a small bowl. Add the chops and marinate for at least 2 hours, but overnight is fine as well.
2. Add everything (liquid and lamb) plus 1/8 of a cup of water to the bowl of a slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours.

For assembling your sandwich:

Loaf style bread, such as ciabatta, French, etc.
cheese (provolone, swiss, gruyère, havarti, etc.)
lettuce
tomato
Chimichurri sauce ( recipe here)

1. Slice your bread horizontally down the middle, and toast open faced in a 400°F oven until golden and crispy on the top.
2. Brush bread with melted butter if desired.
3. Remove lamb from slow cooker and pull apart with two forks, flaking and pulling the meat into strands.
4. Layer the bottom side of the bread with the pulled lamb and top with cheese. Bake in your preheated oven for 5-10 minutes or until cheese is golden and bubbly.
5. Spread chimichurri on the top side of the loaf and serve with lettuce and tomatoes for topping.

Fish Tacos Redux

I’m NAK.

Not familiar with this simple abbreviation? You must not be 1. a new mother, 2. an internet geek, or 3. obsessed with your kids.

NAK stands for Nursing At Keyboard and it’s how my life is working these days. I sit, nursing pillow strapped to my body like an overly stiff, micro fiber tutu, babe laying comfortably across and chest exposed. Perfect time to write my articles, no? I do live in the middle of nowhere, so I could conceivably walk around like this all the time, though I choose to try to squeeze myself into my still a little too tight prepregnancy clothing.


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Finally, a Giveaway!!

Pssst…..

He wants to share something with you….

And he’s really happy about it.

I know, I know! It’s been almost a year since I held a giveaway and I felt like this time, it should be something fantastic. I’m actually going to give away two books I am DYING to have myself, but have yet to purchase. You can have all the glory, just let me know how you like them! I love to give and it’s high time I started doing it on my blog, giving back to my loyal audience.

I am not going to make you do ridiculous things for this prize. I will not make you tweet, e-mail, blog, digg it, journal, etch into a tree, carve into stone or spray paint on buildings. I will not make you tell 1,459 of your friends about this giveaway so that you have one more chance at winning, and I won’t even make you beg, plead and cry.

I simply ask that you leave a wonderful comment at the bottom of this page telling me why you deserve to win these prizes and don’t forget to leave me your e-mail address so I can inform you of your prize! I may pick a winner randomly (using random.org) if there are an overwhelming number of deserving responses or I will pick the winner myself based on the amount of humour/sympathy/tears/etc. that come through in your comments.

So what am I going to giveaway you ask?

These fine specimens:

Now I am only holding this giveaway to tide you over until I can squeak out a decent recipe in the 3.5 minutes I have to make dinner every night…so hold on tight!

Contest Rules:

1. Leave a comment telling me why you deserve to win this prize. Spelling and grammar count…;)

2. Contest open to residents of Canada and the United States. Sorry other countries, I’m not made of money!

3. Contest closes July 29th at 12 a.m. Pacific Time.

4. Winner will be chosen at random by me.

5. Once winner is chosen, prizes will be shipped directly from Amazon.ca or.com, depending on winning country.

6. Good luck!

PS. I just realized I have been blogging for one year…..so I guess this is kind of a one year anniversary party as well. Whoo hoo!!!

Key Lime & Vanilla Bean Buttermilk Ice Cream

Ice cream. Ever the temperamental beast.

In the recent past, I’ve made ice cream without a machine and somewhat regretted the results. Although a mighty tasty concoction I could make, the consistency was never quite….well, right. After searching for months to find a suitable (read: affordable) machine, I was dissapointed to not have found anything of even “okay” quality. Almost everything I could buy locally was $100 or more. Too much for something I may use three times a year (especially now with all these kids in the house!).

But recently, I had the good fortune of befriending Marisa of OrganicFair, a local farm that sells various gourmet spices and essential oil blends as well as über goumet ice creams, vanilla beans and fresh, farm raised free range eggs. Marisa gave me an old Deni ice cream machine that she no longer needed, having commercial machines at her disposal at any time day or night. She also gave me priceless advice on the chemistry involved in ice cream making. It’s not the easiest thing making up a recipe for what is essentially a science experiment.


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