*This contest has ended. Thank you to everyone who entered — please stay and explore the blog.
Winner Announcement
Congratulations to Becky Nichols! I hope you enjoy many pleasant afternoons cooking from this cookbook.
It’s hard to believe a full year has gone by. Reaching over 100,000 views on the blog and more than 10,000 followers on Facebook were three milestones that happened at once, and I am genuinely grateful to each of you for your support.
To celebrate this first blogiversary, I held my first giveaway. Although the giveaway has ended, I want to share the details here for anyone interested in what was offered and how it worked.
Giveaway Rules (for reference)
1. Like the Facebook page linked on the blog.
2. Subscribe to the blog by email.
3. Post a comment on the giveaway post explaining why you’d like to win or simply say hello.
The giveaway ran from Thursday, May 1 at 8:00 AM EST through Thursday, May 8 at noon EST. A winner was chosen by random drawing and announced on Friday, May 9 at noon EST. Subscriber email addresses were used only for the purpose of notifying the winner and have been kept private.
I appreciate that my blog is small and independent. This giveaway was a personal gift I purchased to share something I thought many readers would enjoy. The giveaway item was a hardcover copy of:
~ Taste of Home: Healthy Cooking 2014 Annual Recipes (hardcover)
This 272-page cookbook includes more than 400 recipes, 60 lighter dessert options, and 50 recipes published for the first time in this edition. Taste of Home also provides nutritional information, diabetic exchanges, and icons that highlight low-sodium, low-carb, low-fat, and meatless dishes to help you find what you need quickly.
To give readers a sense of the book, I shared a few categories and emphasized that every recipe is photographed. For fun, I tried a recipe from the book on a whim and was pleased with the result. The recipe I tested was the low-fat, diabetic-friendly Ranch Chicken Salad Sandwich found on page 47, and it turned out to be both simple and delicious.
Below are five of the most popular posts from the past year on the blog. I’m sharing these again because many readers continue to find them helpful and they represent a variety of flavors and techniques.
Grilled Stuffed Pineapple with Sausage, Peppers, Red Onion, & Sweet ‘n Sour Poppy Seed Sauce
Restaurant-Style Prime Rib
Summertime Beer-Battered Fried Zucchini with Honey-Mustard Ranch Dipping Sauce
Walkin’ Wings!™
Best Old-Fashioned Nooks ‘n Crannies Apple Cake with Pecans & 5-Minute Homemade Caramel Sauce
After one year I’ve published 227 recipes. It’s been a lot of work but an incredibly rewarding journey. I’m already planning improvements to the site, including a better, more user-friendly recipe print option so you can save and print recipes more easily.
Thank you to everyone who has read, commented, tried recipes, and shared feedback. Your encouragement is the reason I keep going. My goal for the next year is to continue improving the blog and sharing reliable, tasty recipes that help at least one person in the kitchen—because small, helpful moments make this all worthwhile. With gratitude, Kelly