Book Review and Giveaway: In the Kitchen with David

In the Kitchen with David: QVC's Resident Foodie Presents Comfort Foods That Take You Home 

This post is brought to you by Bookmark Communications. I received product and payment for this post. All opinions expressed are 100% mine.

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I was recently asked to review a copy of In the Kitchen with David and of course I said yes - I mean, who doesn't love comfort food?

And did I mention that I love cookbooks? As someone who owns....let's just say a lot...of cookbooks, take it from me that this is a nice cookbook. It's organized, sturdy, has beautiful photography and the layout of the book itself is very "crafty" - almost like a scrapbook. It's cute and unique and I really like that.

Things I love about this cookbook:

• Cute, scrapbook style layout
• Includes not just recipes but lots of great cooking tips and tricks
• Beautiful photography
• It is sturdy - you can tell that the binding, paper and cover are high quality
• Contains 150 recipes in 12 categories - that's a lot!

A couple things that cookbook connoisseurs may be interested in:
Not every recipe has a photo. Which, when you have 150 recipes is understandable and the recipes that are photographed look amazing.

I do also want to mention that not all recipes are from-scratch recipes. How you feel about that will depend on who you are (or how much of a hurry you're in). My rough, unofficial estimate is that about 25% of the recipes call for some kind of prepared food item (example include: packaged onion soup mix, canned pizza dough, velveeta cheese, bottled ranch dressing). Many of these items could be substituted - it's easy to make my own pizza dough, for example - so don't let that stop you from considering this book for yourself or as a gift.

My Conclusion:
This cookbook is beautiful and would make a great addition to any collection.

Can't get enough of this review?

I'm experimenting with video reviews. If you want to watch me talk about this book, check out my video below. This is my first-ever video review so I'd love any feedback you have about it!

Giveaway Time!

The publisher has generously provided a copy of the book to be given away to a Carissa's Creativity Space reader. Enter using the Rafflecopter below to enter and good luck! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sweet New Website

When I was home for Christmas my sister raved about this great new websiste she found called PaperBackSwap.com.

What you do is you post a listing of books you have lying around your house that you don't need or want anymore. When someone says they want your book, you mail it to them (yes, you pay the $1.50 or so to send it to them via media mail). But once you send a book, you get a "credit" good for any book you want. So now it is your turn to request a book you want and get the owner to mail it to you at their expense.

So essentially for the cost of postage, you get brand new books in exchange for books you might as well have thrown away anyway since you weren't reading them anymore. How freaking cool is that?!?!? It's not just limited to paperbacks, either. You can do hardcover books, audio books, knitting books or even Cookbooks. Free knitting and cookbooks in exchange for old paperbacks I have lying around? Yes please!

Oh! The other cool thing I wanted to mention is that once you list 9 of your books, you automatially get 3 credits. This is pretty sweet because it means you don't need to wait around for people to choose your books (although the first book I listed was requested within 12 hours) so that you can get credits.

I'm really jazzed about this website, so wanted to let other people know about it. If you want to sign up, too please click here to link to the site. I figure that if if you're reading my blog you might be at least somewhat interested in creative things like knitting and cooking....so you might list some sweet knitting and or/cookbooks that I might want (See. We all win). Also, when they ask you who referred you, please use my user name which is "carissamarie" because I think I may get a free book credit out of the deal (though I'm not sure). Enjoy!!

It's not too late!

If anyone is still interested in the Pampered Chef sale where you can get free cookbooks (see last post, below), it's not too late! You need to submit your order by 6:30pm Eastern Standard time, however.

You can, of course order after 6:30pm today...you just won't be able to get your free cookbooks.

web address: http://www.pamperedchef.biz/carissascorner

See instructions for ordering in post below.

Happy Christmas shopping!!!