I know I say this every single time I do a Cookbook Giveaway, but this time I mean it more than ever: It was so hard to pick a winner this time.

I had entries from folks who had just quit smoking, were on fixed incomes and could not afford the book, wanted to lose weight for retirement, wanted to help their loved ones cook healthier meals for themselves and hoped the book would help them teach their children about a healthier lifestyle. I wanted to give the book to every single person who entered.

Fortunately, I was assisted just a little bit by a surprise phone call that I received this week. The public relations person for the Podleski sisters are sending me…. drum roll, please… an autographed copy of the book! So now I have TWO copies and I will give them out to my top TWO winners.

The winner of the autographed copy is Amanda, who said: I just started graduate school and am currently living at home with my 2 dogs while my husband is away doing military training. It’s so hard to eat healthy when it’s just myself! I’ve been married a little over 2 years and my husband is in the Army. He’s been gone for a little over 3 months. Right now he is doing training for his position. He will be be home in October and deployed next year. This will be a great way to get myself in shape -not only for him but for myself. I’ve started going to the gym, but need help with the nutritional aspect. I have around 40 pounds to go!

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On the very same day I chose to blog about campfire cooking, this informative article, “Playing with Fire,” was published in The Oregonian.
Author Leslie Cole writes that with a little planning, you can take your campfire cooking to a whole new level beyond hot dogs and burgers.
Her report includes some great-looking recipes for dishes like rum-baked bananas and chicken ‘n’ dumplings.
Check it out!

It’s time to give away another free cookbook, boys and girls!

We’ve given away collections of recipes for bar food, delicious chocolate creations and more. Now, it’s time to give those vegetarian and vegan readers a little love.

A few weeks ago, I received THREE copies of “Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook” by Isa Chandra Moskowitz and Terry Hope Romero. THREE copies! They really wanted me to see this book.

Moskowitz and Romero are described as “America’s best-selling vegan chefs.” They are the authors of two other vegan cookbooks called “Vegan with a Vengeance” and “Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World.”

I love the title of that last one, don’t you? I am just thinking of some cheesy B-Movie where giant, pink-iced cupcakes come crashing through the skyscrapers of New York City. Okay, so I digress.

“Veganomicon” is packed with almost 300 pages of recipes for appetizers, brunch items, salads, salad dressings, side dishes, bean dishes, tofu dishes, soups and stews and more. Although I’m not a vegan myself (I spent a few teenage years as a vegetarian), I believe I could totally survive off the recipes in this book.

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My mom used to make green chili on occasion. As a young child, I appreciated it about as much as I appreciated her split pea soup, which is to say not at all.
It took a little growing up before I started to enjoy the way the pork just fell apart into strings and the green chiles in the broth added a little tangy zip. I remember my mom cooking her green chili all day, and hers was on the thin side. That is to say, it wasn’t chunky. The pork sort of became part of the broth.
Now, I see chile verde on Mexican menus all over town. I ordered it once and it was pretty tasty, but it was more like a pile of pork chunks with green sauce. Maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be made.
Here’s a recipe for chile verde that I received yesterday from the Simply Recipes listserv I joined a while back. It looks a little thicker than Mom’s, but more like a stew than what I’ve been served at restaurants in town. It also calls for roasting a bunch of tomatillos, which just sounds delicious to me.
I think I’ll give it a try. It’s a nice way to use some of those different chile peppers I wrote about in a story last month.

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