Giveaway: $100 Whole Foods Gift Card from the Spinning Cook!

This is obviously not a food blog, unless you include Dots candies or maple donuts with strips of bacon on them. However, preparing healthy and home cooked meals is an absolute priority for me, and I’m proud to say that 90% of what we eat is cooked from scratch by yours truly. If I was really cool I would have a running blog and a blog about cooking quick and healthy meals for your family (Shut Up + Cook Crap), but who has the stinking time?

That said, even though I work from home, it is still a challenge to be creative with meal planning, to get the damn grocery store and to cook. I’ll take any help and shortcuts I can get.

That’s why I was stoked (hahaha! have not used that word in ages, if ever, but I just was feeling it) that I was contacted by Ryan of the Spinning Cook to try out his new app – Spinning Meals. I am not an App person, hell I don't even have a smart phone (that’s how smart I am). I do, however, have an iPad that is supposed to be mine but it has been taken over by the family and I hardly ever see it between their games of Angry Birds.

Anyway, after downloading the App (it costs $2.99), and asking Ken exactly what an App was (like how I admit how stupid and uninformed I can be? You try it! It’s fun to be vulnerable), I got down to the business of learning what Spinning Meals had to offer.

This thing is slick! I was stoked! Here’s how it works:

• You enter in recipes that you can import from your favorite places on the web (CookingLight.com, Allrecipes.com and Epicurious.com are a few of mine).
• If you don’t want to import, you can enter recipes manually.
• The app automatically adds the ingredients into a shopping list. You can edit the list as needed.
• You can set up your meals for the week, indicating which meals you want on your menu, or letting the app “spin” (think Candyland) for you and randomly select your meals. It’s just that easy.
• You can choose which meals you want to include (for example, I would only do dinners Monday through Friday, but you could add in lunch, breakfast, whatever).
• You can also give preferences for which types of ingredients you want to see more often (BACON) and you can group recipes by seasons so that in the summertime it will only select meals from your summer recipes.

I experimented by importing two of my favorite recipes: Broiled Parmesan Tilapia and Fiesta Chicken Salad. The recipe loaded quickly into the app format and the ingredients were put into my customized shopping list. Voila!! Easy as pie.

But, don’t take my word for it, check out this short trailer :

You can also find information on the Spinning Cook about the app.

And, just for taking the time to get informed about the app, the Spinning Cook would like to give away two gift cards – a $100 Whole Foods gift card and a $20 itunes gift card (there will be two winners, each getting one of the cards).

To enter simply (one comment for each):

• Blog, twat or FB about this giveaway +1
• “Like” Spinning Cook on FB +1
• Follow Spinning Cook on Twitter +1
• Go HERE to learn more about this app and tell me one thing you like about it +1

Giveaway ends April 13 and the two winners will be chosen randomly. You MUST leave a way for me to contact you in case you win, especially if you do not have a blog of your own where I can leave you a comment. Do not leave “anonymous” or “Sue”, I can’t find you that way. If that info is not there, I won’t consider you as a winner if you are chosen.

SUAR

PS: The winner of the Champion giveaway is #256 - Todd. Good thing he can give the bras to his girlfriend, Vanessa, and doesn’t have to wear them on his head or as a jock. Email me at beth@shutupandrun.net to claim your bras!

Fine print: Spinning Cook provided the items for the giveaway, and gave me a promo so that I could download the Spinning Meals App for free.