If you’re from the Boston area you’ve probably heard of Joanne Chang-Myer’s Flour. If not, you’re in for a treat.

Flour is a local bakery with 4 cafes in the Boston area. They have all sorts of desserts, pastries, sandwiches, entrees and salads. I went one with a friend who’s also gluten-free and we split one of the most delicious meringues I’ve ever had with huge chunks of dark chocolate inside. Just thinking about it makes me want to go back and get another.

Stonyfield offered to send some of their Clean Plate Club members a signed copy of Joanne’s second book, “Flour, Too”, and an extra copy to give away. Flipping through the cookbook I loved the photos, kitchen tips and tricks, and variety. For a cookbook with “flour” in the title, there are plenty of naturally gluten-free recipes from desserts to salads and entrees. It was hard to pick the first recipe to try but I settled on the Vegan Vanilla-Mixed Berry Muffins because the photo was so enticing and it seemed simple enough for a weekday afternoon.

Gluten-free all purpose flour is a great tool for people new to the gluten-free baking scene. Most allow for a 1:1 substitution for all purpose flour in just about any recipe so you can still make all your favorite recipes. I’ve been using the Bob’s Red Mill brand for 3 years now.

I wanted to stick as closely to Joanne’s recipe as possible so I only swapped the regular flour out for gluten-free all purpose flour and soy milk out for fat-free milk(what I had on hand). The muffins came out flavorful and fantastic. Next time I make them, however, I’d probably swap out half of the oil in the recipe(almost 1 cup) for Stonyfield yogurt to lighten them up. 

Giveaway:

Stonyfield has a second copy of Joanne’s book “Flour, Too” to give to a lucky US reader along with some Stonyfield coupons to get cooking. There are several different ways to enter. Please leave a comment for each entry.

1. Leave a comment with your favorite kitchen swap. Yogurt for oil? Gluten-free flour for regular? Something else?
2. Like Stonyfield Farm on Facebook
3. Like The Wannabe Chef on Facebook
4. Like Flour Bakery + Cafe on Facebook
5. Tweet “I want to win a copy of Flour, Too from @Stonyfield and @WannabeChefEvan http://wp.me/p18mer-20y”

I’ll leave the contest open for a week and pick a winner on August 8th.

A couple months ago I was lucky to be included in a project the National Peanut Board was making with various food bloggers. Just this month the 24/7 Energy Recipe Resource project has been printed and released and I got a few copies to flip through. The book is filled with peanut facts, ways to snack and recipes that incorporate peanut butter into every meal. Come to think of it I’m sure there have been days when I’ve had peanuts at every meal but never with such a range of flavors and unique ideas for using them.

My recipe contribution was peanut butter granola. I love that and need to make it again sometime, but before that I wanted to try some of the other recipes in the book. One of the simplest and most appealing I could find was for a peanut butter banana quesadilla. The recipe calls for whole wheat tortillas but I swapped those out for corn tortillas to easily make it gluten-free.

It was delicious. I never would have thought to put cinnamon with peanut butters and bananas but the flavors totally worked. I would probably add a drizzle of honey next time because the peanut butter I used had no sugars added to it. Otherwise this was a great snack and there are plenty of soup, sauce, and dessert recipes to try to fill the other 23 hours of the day.

The National Peanut Board gave me plenty of prizes to share the love of peanuts around. I have a duplicate prize pack of one that I received featuring a recipe booklet, apron, cocktail shaker, notepad, peanut spreader and (of course) peanuts as well as 2 extra recipe booklets to give away, so I’ll randomly pick 3 winners from the comments.

To enter leave a comment with the name of your favorite peanut recipe.

For extra entries

• Like National Peanut Board on Facebook and leave a comment
• Like The Wannabe Chef on Facebook and leave a comment
• Follow @WannabeChefEvan on Twitter and leave a comment
• Follow National Peanut Board on Pinterest and leave a comment

I’ll pick 3 comments at random next Wednesday night, April 24th, and email the winners. Good luck!

This is by far my favorite opportunity of 2013 so far.

As a recipe developer for the Clean Plate Club, I had the opportunity to try Stonyfield’s newest yogurt Blends as well as a Blendtec to play around in the kitchen with. Since I’ve got it I’ve been bookmarking smoothie, juices, and soup recipes left and right. The best part is that I have an identical pack to giveaway to a reader–more on that at the end of the post!

The first thing I blended up was fruity peanut butter yogurt dip made with french vanilla Stonyfield Blends. After almost 2 years that recipe needed a facelift. With the vanilla yogurt, it tasted more like a peanut butter frosting than a dip and was deliciously smooth.

I’ve found I like the Blends better than the regular variety of Stonyfield yogurt. The texture seems a little creamier even though the flavors I received were non-fat, and I’ve never been a fan of having the fruit on the bottom of the yogurt anyway. And because it’s Stonyfield they’re all entirely organic. I would say the Blends are a win-win.

My favorite thing about the Blendtec so far has been how easy it is to use. I’ve been working with a Black & Decker food processor for years now and the Blendtec is lighter, sturdier, has less pieces to it, can handle heavier loads, and is much easier to clean. It’s blown my old processor away in just about every aspect. It can be hard to clean under the blade after processing something sticky like peanut butter; that’s been my only trouble so far.

Giveaway

Here’s my favorite part: I get to giveaway an identical prize pack to one of you, which includes a Blendtec and package of the new Stonyfield Blends. There are 7 ways to win!

Mandatory entry: What would your favorite flavor of blended yogurt be? It can be one of the new ones or one you just made up!

Other entries:

• Like Stonyfield on Facebook
• Like Blendtec on Facebook
• Follow Stonyfield on Twitter
• Follow Blendtec on Twitter
• Sign up for the Blendtec Recipe of the Week
• Tweet “I want to win a Blendtec and #StonyfieldBlends http://tinyurl.com/bclecev #giveaway”

I’ll leave this contest going for 2 weeks, ending on February 1st. Good luck!

Edit: This giveaway has closed and the winner has been contacted.

You probably haven’t heard of Lollihop; I know I hadn’t until recently when they contacted me. That’s because it’s a brand new company dedicated to introduce their customers to new healthy foods. In there own words,

Lollihop is a brand new subscription service where, every month, you’ll receive a box of the tastiest, most organic and nutritious snacks on the market (and some not even on the market yet)! 

Each treat is carefully selected by a team of nutritionists, so you can rest assured that you’re being sent only the best snacks. Also, we’ll tell you why the snacks are good for you, and share exclusive Lollihop content on how to live your life better, healthier, and happier.

Subscriptions are $19-$23 a month depending on how long you subscribe for. As you can see, you get a good variety of snacks that would probably cost around that amount if you were out and bought a snack from a convenience store. Lollihop also does a good job at introducing snacks that you might not have otherwise heard of or have the opportunity to try.

Each box is customized and varied month to month with different snacks for different areas of well-being. The note inside explaining their product choices made it feel very personalized.

I loved that all of the snacks were carefully selected from natural brands, some familiar and others unfamiliar. I also loved that most of the selected items were free from food allergens like gluten; 7 of the 9 samples I could actually eat, way more than I expected. It’s unclear from their website if you can adjust your box to suit different diets but it sounds as though they plan to arrange that if they haven’t already. You can read more on their How We Select page.  

Would I subscribe to Lollihop for myself? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t recommend it. Since I have to deal with a gluten allergy and am just otherwise a pretty picky eater, a program like this just doesn’t suit me as well as buying all my own food. For people who want to discover new brands, who are open to trying just about anything, who like surprises and convenient groceries dropped off right at their door—for them I would recommend Lollihop. If it’s not for you, a subscription would also make a great holiday gift for any adventurous foodie.

Giveaway

Lollihop is giving away a one-month subscription to one lucky reader. You’ll get a box like I received, but since the products change month to month it will be a completely different variety. There are three ways to enter; please leave a separate comment for each entry. I’ll pick a winner Tuesday night, October 4th, and notify them by Wednesday.

• Visit the Lollihop website and tell me one company you see affiliated with them that you like.
• Like Lollihop on Facebook
• Tweet “I want to win a @Lollihop subscription”

Good luck!