Coconut Oil Giveaway on my 1,000th post!

Can you believe that I have written 1,000 posts on this blog? I guess I do like to talk a lot!

  Anyway, I knew that this 1,000th post was coming up and I thought it would be nice to do something fun to celebrate that mile stone. A giveaway is always fun and today I have a really neat one (at least I think so!) thanks to Tropical Traditions. They sent me a jar of Gold Label Virgin Coconut Oil to review and they said I could hold a giveaway for one too.

  I was very excited when I found out that Tropical Traditions was going to send me oil to review (just ask my family if you don't believe me). I had heard about Coconut oil and even tried some cheap stuff from Walmart but after I had read the reviews on other blogs about Tropical Traditions' oil I really wanted to try it.

  So after I got it I went to work on testing it out. Coconut is an interesting oil because it isn't liquid unless it gets warm. The cooler it gets the harder it gets which we found out when I took it with us on our biking trip. At normal room temperature it is rather like lard in consistency. So it works well for making cookies or you can heat it up to liquid and use it in about anything.

 

 First I made Chocolate Chip Cookies after I looked through the many, many recipes that Tropical Traditions has on their recipe site. I really was impressed when I looked at their recipes, they are just my style using healthy ingredients without a lot of sugar. They also have a lot of gluten free recipes for those that need that. The cookies turned out very yummy!

Next we tried Coconut oil on popcorn. This is really good too. Either pop your corn in the oil on the stove or melt the oil to pour over air popped corn.

  Coconut oil smells like coconut and has a slight coconut flavor. It is good but never overwhelming at least as far as I have found.

Tonight I decided to try some other things with coconut oil. I wanted to do something different than baked goods.

I decided to make potato and carrot seasoned fries to go with our roast for supper. To make them I scrubbed potatoes and carrots and sliced them into strips (like carrot sticks). I also melted a couple tablespoons of coconut oil in a bowl and then I mixed some herbs and salt into it. Then I put the potatoes and carrots in the bowl and stirred it up so they were all coated with oil.

Next I spread them out on a cookie sheet and put them in a 360 degree oven to cook for around 45 minutes.

They turned out quite good! I am not sure if I will make carrot fries that often but the coconut oil was a very good addition.

 

 I also decided to try and make a healthy, simple and yummy dessert. I had a bunch of ripe bananas and so I decided to cook them with some pecans in a bit of coconut oil. I sprinkled them with cinnamon and nutmeg. My younger two kids were pretty sceptical of this recipe but it ended up being a big hit with everybody.  

The cool thing about coconut oil is that not only does it taste very yummy and is very easy to use it also is a natural healthy oil. This coconut oil is made by families over in the Philippines using an old cold pressed method. Coconut oil has neat properties to it that allows it to remain healthy even when heated which is not true with all oils. I am quite impressed with it!

Tropical Traditions started with Coconut oil but that is not all they have to offer you. When I go to their site I end up practically drooling. They have so many neat items for sale. They have many coconut products, meat, cleaning and skin care products and much, much more.

If you should decide to make a purchase from Tropical Traditions I would appreciate if you would use my referral code number { 6527139 } and you will receive a free book about Coconut oil which talks about the health benefits and includes a bunch of recipes too.

If you would like to try to win a free jar of coconut oil (it is 32 ozs) than you can do the following:

1. (Mandatory first entry) Subscribe to Tropical Traditions e-mail newsletter. Just to let you know, I have been subscribed to this for a while and it only comes once a week or less and it just alerts you to the sales they have going on.

Additional entries (you can do one or all in any order)

1. Visit their site and leave a comment telling my something you have learned.

2. Become a follower of my blog.

3.Tell me what recipe you would like to use if you would win.

Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product.

This giveaway will close on November13, 2010. It is open to US and Canadian citizens however Tropical Traditions is not responsible for any customs or duties that Canada may charge if it is shipped there.

Please leave an e-mail address or blog link so that I can get in touch with you if you should win. Thanks!