Update: Giveaway is over but please check out the app!  Thanks!

Truett is finally getting to the age where he can help in the kitchen more and with the help of an iPad food app and some kid friendly recipes, we are sure to create some memories!

Celebrity Chef Marcus Samuelsson has added to the already large selection of recipes by creating exclusive recipe content for the fantastic iPad app, Big Fork Little Fork. It’s an Apple iPad app that provides tools for kids to get them excited about food and help create family meals. I personally love every single thing about this app. They did a great job with it and not only does it capture my eye, my son loves the photos and game. He likes to pick different recipes and just look at them and he loves the game.

I created a video to give you a quick look at it but some of the things that I love are:

• Big photos
• Clear, bold steps and ingredient list
• Fun games to engage the kiddo and learn about food
• Shopping List
• Search
• Extremely user friendly
• Cool menu with photo icons
• EASY recipes with nutritional information
• Very cool videos (love the peeling vegetables one!!)

WIN AN IPAD!

To celebrate his efforts in creating these fabulous recipes, I’m giving away an iPad!  Thanks to Kraft Foods, I get to give you the chance to own one of the coolest gadgets around!  One winner will receive an Apple iPad 16GB, Wifi.

One lucky winner will win this fabulous iPad. I love mine and have no doubt that you will too!

TO ENTER:

Main Entry - Leave a comment below telling me what your ideal recipe/food app would be like?

Additional, optional entries, leaving each one in separate comment to count:

• What is your favorite thing about this Big Fork Little Fork food/recipe iPad app?  Leave a comment telling me below.
• Share on a social network like Twitter or Facebook and leave a comment telling me where, preferably with the link to it.  **DAILY ENTRY**
• Follow and/or “Like” Kraft Foods on Twitter and Kraft Foods on Facebook. come back here and tell me which one you did. If you did both, leave each one in a separate comment. (if you’re up to it, feel free to follow me on twitter and like My Wooden Spoon on Facebook)
• finally, go check out my recipe I submitted and if you like it, click “Like” it!  Thanks!  DAILY ENTRY

Giveaways ends on December 14th at about 10pm CST.   Good luck!

I recently downloaded the Kraft iFood Assistant app because 1) I’m a foodie and 2) one of my biggest goals for 2010 is to be more organized.   I actually don’t have hardly any food apps on my iPhone so I was excited to try this out.

From the main menu, you can access a number of features immediately; recipe of the day, cooking videos, recipe box, shopping list, and recipe ideas for dinner or that are even budget friendly, although I found almost all the recipes to be pretty budget friendly.

(my iPhone screen is dirty…sorry ’bout that!)

There are gazillions of recipes to choose from but my favorite part, and the part that will help in my organization goal, is the nifty shopping list it creates from the recipes that I want to use. Not only that, it categorizes your ingredients by aisle or recipe and when you get the item, you can check the box to mark it off.   In my recipe box at this moment is Crisp and Creamy Baked Chicken.  I can see a beautiful, vibrant photo of the recipe dish with tabs to view ingredients, directions, and ideas.  There is also two spots to click on if you choose to that will add to your recipe box and/or your shopping list.  It tells you everything you need to know, including prep time and total cooking time.  You can even sync your recipe box to your recipe box on KraftFoods.com. THAT is very cool!

Another feature I loved was the “What’s on Hand” section. You can search for recipes with up to three ingredients that you currently have in your pantry.  It offers a store locator complete with map, reminders, and even comments and ratings of each recipe.

Overall, I LOVE this app and give it two thumbs up all around.  I found it useful while in the store and by searching recipes under the budget friendly section, I was able to add a couple of more meals for less than I thought while at the store.

I didn’t find any problems with the app, nor did I find anything that I didn’t like.  I’m a huge fan of Kraft already so I’m happy to see them step into the “now” with this application.

The Kraft iFood Assistant app is available for download on iTunes for $.99 cents.  You can read more about all the features at the official iFood Assistant website but if you’re a foodie who loves recipes and lists, you’ll love this!

Oh, and that Crisp and Creamy Baked Chicken…….Keep your eyes peeled out for that recipe coming soon here at My Wooden Spoon!

SOMETHING FOR YOU

Up for grabs today for one lucky winner is a $50 American Express gift card to hopefully buy you some tasty ingredients for some Kraft recipes and a $25 iTunes gift card which is more than enough to buy this fun foodie app!

TO ENTER

Check out the Kraft iFood Assistant app website and tell me what feature appeals to you most or what feature you’d like to see added to it that it doesn’t currently offer.  Leave your comment on this post please.

Additional ways to enter, leaving each one in a separate comment, include:

• Sign up for my monthly newsletter.
• Share this giveaway on a social networking site like twitter, facebook or forum.
• Browse my recipes and find one that uses Kraft ingredients, come back to THIS post and tell me the name of the recipe.

Giveaway ends on Jan 3rd, 2010 and general giveaway rules can be found here.

Compensation for this post has been provided by Kraft Foods for ingredients to make recipes from the app, downloading the app, and conducting this giveaway. As always, opinions are of my own and always will be. Read my disclosure for my blogging ethics;)

Menu planning is essential for keeping your pantry stocked and budget in check. I don’t know about you guys but with the kids out for Summer, they are eating EVERYTHING in sight which means I’m spending more on food. I’m terrible at menu planning and prefer to fly by the seat of my pants when grocery shopping or have a menu plan made for me.

This is where Kraft & Sam’s Club come into play. Both companies have partnered together to bring you a 2-Week Meal Planner. Their goal is to get you to the store  once and have meals to last 2 whole weeks, saving you money on frivolous grocery spending and gas to go back and forth! As an added bonus for Sam’s Club members, you can create a personalized cookbook!  If you’re not a member, you should be.  You can find a location near you with your zip code.  We love shopping at ours and it’s very handy for us to buy in bulk since we live out in the boonies so to speak.

Back to the meal planner.  I have downloaded it and already begun to make the recipes included in it.  They are very easy and have been very good!  I love that I have the meals all planned out for me but most of all, I love that they are easy to make.

Our first night of cooking with the meal planner was actually quite surprising. We chose to make the Di Giorno Pizza with BLT Topping.  We never buy just a cheese pizza, we always buy one with tons of toppings but this recipe called for the Rising Crust-Four Cheese.  It never occurred to us to add fresh toppings like the recipe called for which was a great way to add a little coolness during the hot day, not to mention the addition of veges.  My husband insisted that we start making our pizzas this way instead of buying one that’s loaded with other toppings. WHOA!  I think he must have fell in love with the bacon and ranch, don’t you?

Di Giorno Pizza with BLT Topping

INGREDIENTS

• 1 Di Giorno Rising Crust Pizza-Four Cheese
• 1⁄2 cup shredded lettuce
• 1⁄4 cup chopped tomatoes
• 4 slices Oscar May er Bacon, cooked, crumbled
• 2 Tbsp. ranch dressing

DIRECTIONS

Heat oven to 400°F.  Bake pizza as directed on package.  Serve topped with remaining ingredients.

I’ll be sharing more of the recipes over the next couple of weeks but I hope that you’ll go and download the 2-week meal planner yourself so we can try them together!!  How fun would that be. Then when I talk about one of the recipes, you can tell me if you’ve tried it and how you liked it!

OVER TO YOU

Are you a meal planner?  If not, do you think having a meal plan at your fingertips would make a difference, cooking & budgeting wise?  I love that it gives me new creative meal ideas for the future because I’m always running out of ideas on what to cook.  I’d love to hear your thoughts!