Kitchen Closeup by Deidre Hall - Contest and Book Review

I had the opportunity to attend a cooking class at Green Valley Spa last Friday night featuring Deidre Hall (Days of Our Lives) and her friend, Lynne Bowman. My friend, Trish, had asked me the day before if I wanted to go with her. I quickly went to Deidre's website (just googled and found it), and after reading there that she mentioned Dr. Oz, Jamie Oliver, etc., I decided that this would certainly be worth the class fee.

I have to say, that initially, I wasn't sure what to expect. After all, what exactly would I learn that I didn't already know? What do most people know about nutrition anyway? I was pleasantly surprised with almost everything about the class. With Lynne talking about the food aspect of things, and Deidre cutting/chopping vegetables in preparation for the recipes (and playfully being the helpful side-kick), it felt like being in the home of a dear friends. It was lovely. No preaching, or lecturing; just the sharing of recipes and philosophies of eating good, nutritious food.

The focus was on a plant based diet. Three fantastic recipes were prepared and we were allowed to sample them all. I will prepare each of the recipes again, but I totally fell in love with the Red Pepper Soup. Fantastic! The recipe is so simple to prepare, you can hardly believe that it can be so delicious. If you are a follower of my blog, you know how I love organic, fresh vegetables. I'm a big fan of Swiss Chard, spinach and kale. But I have never seen a recipe for soup like this before. Just getting this recipe was well worth attending the class for!

We were given a copy of the cookbook for attending. It is a delightful, easy read. I sat down one morning after tending to the dogs, green smoothie in hand, and read the entire book in about an hour. I will get a few extra copies and give them as gifts to some of my BFF's. It's that kind of book. The recipes I've tried so far are dynamite.

Part way through the class, I realized just how wonderful the recipes were, and asked if I could get a book to give away on my blog. Not only did I get the book, but it is signed for the winner by both Lynne and Deidre! You'll love it, I promise! I also asked if I could share a recipe. Again, the answer was yes. I'll post the Red Pepper Soup in a separate post.

For the contest, you need to go to Deidre's website here. Click on the Amazon.com link in the lower right hand corner. This will bring you to the book on Amazon, where you can click on the "Click to LOOK INSIDE" link on the top of the picture of the book. Look through the book, and tell me what looks interesting to you, and why you'd like to win a copy. Simple as that!

• 
  One entry for doing the above and posting a comment.
• You can have another entry for posting the link to this post on your blog, and linking back in another comment on this post.
• A 3rd entry if you share the link on twitter with the name of the contest and share that with me in a 3rd comment. Or post it on your facebook page and comment.

Contest will go until Monday February 7, 2011 at 6 pm.