TCHO winner!

Thank you again to everyone who has been reading/commenting/drooling over this blog for the past year! I plan on continuing with all the tasty posting and look forward to trying new recipes and meeting new people! If anyone has a recipe they would like to health up send it my way and I'll see what I can do!

OK back to the TCHO tasting package!!! This Tasting Pack includes 1 each of TCHO's “Citrus”, “Nutty”, “Fruity”, and “Chocolatey”. The perfect way to Discover Your Chocolate!
And the winner is... *drum roll please*


Comment number 10 by the Diva on a Diet!!


Congratulations!!! Send me an email with your address and I'll ship off this delicious package! Let me know when you post about how you like it or what you made with it :)

I also mentioned something about bunnies yesterday... well my friend Clara of I heart Food 4 Thought AND I heart cuppycakes (yes that's right she has two blogs!! what can I say she's an overachiever ;) ) lol you know I adore you Clara!!


Anyway, Clara has these two adorable bunnies... and I made a little fun gift for her and her bunnies... go check them out here!

Giveaway for a Blogoversary!

Happy Friday the 13th!! AND happy blogoversary to me!!

Woohooo! This is it! One year of cooking/baking/and blogging my little heart out. Making friends, trying new recipes (jam, gnocchi, so many more...), taking part in cookies exchanges, sending cookies across seas to support our troops!, cupcake competitions, tastes like home events, hosted dinner outing events... You guys have been there (and supportive) for it all, including me chopping my hair off for locks for love, yikes that was fun and scary all at the same time! So much good has come out in this past year! I am so grateful to all of you who are avid readers and followers. Seriously every time I get an email saying I have a comment I get a little high on life and am smiling like mad! And even if you don't comment, I love checking my google analytics and seeing how many people stop by to read everyday!! And seeing all the different coutries readers are from (92 countries and counting!) That makes me so excited, you have no clue, it's amazing!

look at all those countries who have visited!

I love being able to share my cooking triumphs and failures, and see what everyone else is up to out there. It's amazing how many talented, wonderful, caring people come out of the woodwork. You guys are amazing!! And I hope you continue along with me on my journey of chowing, and I look forward to continuing following along on yours! I really can't say thank you enough!!! THANK YOU!!!! As a bonus thank you TCHO has agreed to sync up with me and provide a tasting package of their fantastic chocolates to one lucky reader!

image from TCHO's website

TCHO currently has four flavor profiles which are included in the tasting package. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have, and I hope you come up with some great recipes to try them in! I am a huge advocate of TCHO and even if you don't win I hope you give them a try!

You can enter to win two ways

How to enter:
(1) Enter by leaving a comment about which TCHO flavor you think you would like best. (one comment per person please)
(2) Blog about this contest and leave a comment with the blog link on this post.

Rules:
(1) Unfortunately we can only ship to inside the US... so if you live outside the US you'll have to sit this one out :( Sorry all of my international readers (all 92 countries of you!! you ROCK!!!)
(2) Please enter your valid email address so I can contact you if you win.

Deadline: Monday, February 16th at 11:59pm EST

Winner will be chosen by Random.org

Thank you again everyone!

2 days till my blogaversary and a giveaway!

I can't believe that this blog will be a year old on friday!!! I started this thing to participate in cupcake hero, I had sat watching all these great cupcake ideas and decided I wanted to join in on the fun! I would have never guessed how much fun I would be having with this blog. Man has this come far since then! My photo skills have gone up, I've tried so many new recipes, and met SO MANY amazingly wonderful people!! Seriously I feel like I have gained so many new and wonderful friends. It's amazing the generosity of people out there.

Ok ok what about this giveaway right? The wonderful people at TCHO are shipping me a tasting package of their 4 flavors of chocolate for me to giveaway this Friday! TCHO is an amazing company who roasts and produces their own chocolate and achieve amazingly distinct flavors by using different types of beans. (my favorite is nutty!) And not only is their chocolate amazing, their packaging is fabulous! Their designer did a wonderful job, gotta love it!

Please go check out TCHO and make sure to come back on Friday the 13th (see it's not a scary day, it's a fun giveaway day) to see how you can enter to win!

TCHO chocolate drenched

Before all the Thanksgiving craziness started I very excitedly received a package from TCHO!!!! As always I was very excited and ripped the package open to discover 4 packages of goodies!

Dark chocolate drenched macadamia nut treats
Dark chocolate drenched roasted nib treats
Dark chocolate drenched mango treats treats
Dark chocolate drenched honey roasted cashew treats

Can we say YUM! As you may know I've tested out straight up chocolate from TCHO before. I've always been satisfied with their quality, texture, and flavors. It's amazing the different tones they bring out by roasting the nobs differently. Their chocolate is also not bitter like most dark chocolates I've had, however these treats had more of a bitter bite to them then their straight up chocolate did.

If you like tart you'll love the mango treats, if you don't like bitter stay away from the nibs these bad boys have some serious bitter kick to them. I couldn't really tell the cashews were honey roasted the chocolate definitely overpowered the honey flavor. The macadamia nuts paired perfectly with the chocolate and I think came out on top for me in comparison to the rest of the treats. Chocolate is always a great gift and I say order some up from TCHO for all those "hard to buy for" people in your life!!

OOO and they have Tshirts now!!! How fun is that??? Ok I think it's fun :) What flavor would you be?

Come back tomorrow for some more Thanksgiving day chow recipes :)!

TCHO Citrus

Ahh TCHO my good friend, you know it's a wonderful day when you get home from work to find a happy little package full of chocolate waiting for you. YUM!!

So far I've had the pleasure of testing three of their flavors; chocolatey, nutty, and fruity. Of those three, nutty was my favorite by far... but it's having a run for its money now that citrus is here! TCHO doesn't add flavoring to their chocolate, it's all in the way they roast the beans to bring out the flavor tones they want. This latest citrus batch from Madagascar is delicious, I truely think I could just sit and eat it all day long and not get sick of it.

It's amazing how you can really taste the citrus untones in this chocolate, for being dark chocolate it is not at all bitter and has a smooth finish. So go and order some citrus, and get some nutty while you're there as well :)

chow!

Oh and I almost forgot TCHO gave me some nibs to try too!!! Along with some recipes, one is for a cacao nib and pecan cookie... oh yeah I'm totally going to have to make that!! So check back to see what I think :)

TCHO choclate new flavor "Nutty"

Hey guys the people at TCHO sent me another wonderful package of their newest flavor of chocolate! So tasty!! Check out their description...


So far I've had the privilege of trying "chocolatley" "fruity" and now "nutty". I really enjoyed chocolatey and fruity was good but needed some time to grow on me... Nutty is by far the most complex and in my mind best flavor so far!! You can absolutly taste the coffee undertones which meld perfectly with the chocolate taste. TCHO has done it again and I think Nutty has won my heart out of the three so far! Even though it is 70% cacoa a person who isn't a true dark chocolate fan will love it, no bitterness, just pure smooth, bold flavor. A great way to get some antioxidants into your diet. Good job TCHO!

If you want to buy some to try it yourself click here!

TCHO choclate new flavors!

The people at TCHO rock! Awhile back a bunch of bloggers helped with feedback on their beta chocolatey flavor... now they have sent us the final formula along with the beta for "fruity"!!! ANNNND I just got an email saying the beta for "nutty" is on it's way!!! Bring on the chocolate!!

there was a ton more then this in the package obviously... but I had to limit myself!!

The package came with ice packs to ensure the chocolate did not melt in transit, I must say when I got the package and saw it was 3 lbs I got all excited there was 3 lbs of chocolate inside... hehe psych out! It was 2 bars of chocolate plus FOUR ice packs. WOH. Now onto the sampling... The people at TCHO have done it again, their final chocolatey formula was delicious. Not bitter at all, super smooth, a little sweet, and reminiscent of milk chocolate with some slight coffee undertones. DELICIOUS!

Now onto the beta for fruity. Having it right after the chocolatey maybe wasn't the best idea... in comparison it seemed a bit smokey and a little bitter... so I went and drank a ton of water to cleanse my palate and sat back down. A much better idea. This time I could really taste the spectrum of the chocolate opening up and develop into fruity undertones. Letting the chocolate melt on your tongue really lets you taste the depth and range of flavors... but man is it hard to not just munch right in! The more I had of the "fruity" the more I seemed to like it. However in a taste to taste comparison I'd say chocolatey wins.

Either way TCHO is doing great things and I CAN'T WAIT!!!! to try beta "nutty" YUM!!!

Chow!

TCHO chocolate = best chocolate EVER!

ok all I have to say is wow, WOW, WOW!!!

This chocolate is AMAZING!!! I thought I'd be baking something with it but after cracking open the package tonight it somehow disappeared into oblivion. The first bite of chocolate went down so smooth it had to be followed by another.. and yet another. I then put it to the ultimate test and had my house mate give it a try. (side note: my house mate doesn't like dark chocolate, she's strictly a milk chocolate kinda girl) she took one bite and her eyes opened real wide and she said "WOW, that's the best dark chocolate I've ever had, it's really good, not bitter at all!" We then proceeded to devour the remainder of the package.

Seriously go RIGHT NOW and order some. It's amazing!!!

mmmmmm chocolate coma...