Occasionally I do reviews because:

1.  I feel like it; or
2.  I am so in love with something, I just have to write about it; or
3.  I am so aggravated with something, I just have to write about it; or
4.  I am asked to do so by a manufacturer or company.

I will always disclose reviews that are sponsored, but I also tell the company requesting the review that I can’t guarantee a positive reiew, either.  This means that no matter what, you’re going to get my opinion regardless of whether or not I’m being paid to blog about it. 

If you are interested in having me review one of your products, please .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) 

This is a compensated review by BlogHer and Electrolux.

The matriarchs of my family have been making their version of Red Velvet Cake for at least the past 50 years.  My grandmother made it - passing the recipe (and addiction to the flavor) to my mother, who then made the mistake of making it for my birthday and therefore committing herself to a lifetime of cake-baking for me.  Now my kids have tasted the heaven that is our family’s Red Velvet cake, and they want it too.  Not just for birthdays anymore, it’s been requested for breakfast, snack time, or in place of green beans.  (I’ve never given in on that front, just FYI)

I don’t know where the recipe came from originally - I’ve heard rumors that it came from the Waldorf Astoria?  I checked online and the recipe is different, so our family may have bastardized it throughout the years with what I can say are delicious results. 

I have intense, mouth-watering memories of standing in my mother’s kitchen while she complained her hand was going to fall off (the frosting needs to be beaten for 15 minutes).  The final product was always delicious, if not beautiful (we could never get the layers to line up just so, and the frosting is delicious but not easy to shape like a fondant). 

The Red Velvet cake has been used for birthdays, funerals, housewarmings, comfort foods for girlfriends suffering breakups or divorces, celebrations of new babies, and face-stuffing on cold winter nights.  It has a taste that reminds me of many past birthdays, family gatherings and familiarity.  The bowl of frosting remnants is worth every single lick-to-pound-gained proportion. 

When BlogHer approached me about sharing a family recipe or cake memory, I was excited.  I was even more excited when I found out about Kelly’s Cakery.  Kelly Ripa is a self-proclaimed baking enthusiast.  She has teamed up with Electrolux on a virtual campaign to help Americans make a difference in Ovarian cancer research.  Kelly has created a way to raise money for a cause close to her heart:  the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF).

Ovarian cancer research is also a cause close to my heart.  A close friend’s mother was diagnosed with Ovarian cancer a few years back.  Thankfully it was caught early - quite randomly, during another surgery - and she is a healthy vibrant person today, able to enjoy her new grandson.  I remember my reaction when my friend told me about it.  It was an embarrassing one:  I burst into tears in the middle of a busy restaurant.  For me, a diagnosis of Ovarian cancer was a death sentence.  All of those I’d known before her mother with that diagnosis were casualties of the diagnosis.  Thankfully her mother beat the odds and early detection, accidentally or not, saved her life.  It truly is a silent killer and any money that I can help raise or send in the direction of the OCRF is literally just the icing on the cake. 

If you’re ready to start virtually baking (best of all, no beating the icing for 15 minutes!), visit Kelly’s Cakery at http://www.Kelly-Confidential.com to decorate and send a special virtual cake to a friend, family member or loved one.  To sweeten the deal, Electrolux is donating $100 to OCRF for every new range sold this month.  For every virtual cake baked, Electrolux will also donate $1 to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.  If the donation is not enough to tempt you, you will also be entered to win a Induction Range from Electrolux. I had no idea what an “induction” range was - I used to feel special just knowing what a convection oven was.  A little bit of research and here I am, educated about induction ranges.  Induction is perfect for melting chocolate and cooking delicate foods and sauces.  It’s also more responsive than gas and eco-friendly too. You might be lucky and win one!

Ready to send a virtual cake to your friends and loved ones?  Start your ovens here: Kelly’s Cakery website

Want to see what else is cookin’ on the review and giveaways page at BlogHer.com?  Interested in reading other blogger’s cake memories?  Check out the other sponsored cake stories.  BlogHer.com special offers page” title=“All you have to do is click . . .”>All you have to do is click . . .

A final note:  if you are interested in baking my family’s Red Velvet recipe, here’s the recipe.  My opinion is that the frosting is the best part of the recipe and quite possibly the best frosting ever, so if you’re planning to shortcut and use premade frosting, know that I will be silently shaking a virtual finger at you and frowning. 

Red Velvet Cake with Vanilla Frosting

1 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 tbsp cocoa
2 1/2 cups sifted flour (I use Swan’s Down cake flour)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cups baking soda
2 (1 oz each) red food coloring bottles
1 cup buttermilk

Cream shortening, sugar and eggs until fluffy.  Make a paste of coloring and cocoa and blend with creamed mixture.  Sift flour with salt.  Add to mixture alternately with buttermilk.  Blend in vanilla.  Mix vinegar and soda in a cup; add to batter but don’t beat too briskly.  Turn into two 9” greased and floured cake pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  When finished baking, turn cakes out onto cooling rack and allow to cool completely before frosting. 

Vanilla Frosting:

5 tbsp flour
1 cup milk (at least 2%)
1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Blend flour with milk and cook over low heat until smooth and thick.  Set aside to cool.  Cream butter, sugar and vanilla until fluffy (15 minutes) with mixer.  Add cooled mixture a little bit at a time.  Continue beating until it is the consistency of whipped cream. 

I was recently contacted by Healthy Curb.  They wanted to send me some samples of their product to try, and will keep sending them to me as long as I’m trying them and writing about them. 

As any readers of the blog know, I talk about food, weight, and eating disorders ad nauseum (pun intended).  Healthy Curb says it gives “appetite reduction without stimulants, herbs or drugs of any kinds”.  Apparently it is made of sunshine and unicorns, but if it reduces my appetite without making me feel like I’m tripping on acid or hopped up on caffeine, I’m all about it.  It has not been evaluated by the FDA, however. 

From the material sent to me: 

Healthy Curb is a food based supplement that actually builds your cell walls, providing you with more energy while curbing your appetite for bad food. By combining two proprietary technologies, NT Factor® and Healthy Curb we’ve created a product that curbs your appetite naturally without stimulants, chemicals or herbs! It helps to give you back the desire to exercise and eat healthier by breaking those addictions to high sugar, high carbohydrate foods.

By the way, I’m a carbo-whore.  I love carbs.  They are my downfall, but also provides endless hours (and endless pounds) of joy. 

Because Healthy Curb is a new way to lose weight, typical users will first experience looser clothing, reduced appetite and increased energy.  That’s because Healthy Curb works by rebuilding key body cells, unlike any other product on the market.  Healthy cells are the key to revitalizing the metabolism and controling hunger hormones that affect the way you eat.  Healthy Curb has also created a way for your carbohydrate calories to be cut in half, with an FDA reviewed product (soy bean appetite suppressants blended with herbal energy stimulants) for weight loss.  No other product on the market has addressed weight loss by combining cellular rebuilding, metabolic function change and caloric reduction. This is the first product of its kind!

I’ll be doing the Healthy Curb challenge for 30 days; you can follow along with me here on the review blog and I’ll be providing an exclusive discount code for any of you who want to try it along with me. 

And I’m a big fan of anything that helps me on my weight loss journey, as it’s a hard one, full of bumps and whipped cream and the occasional dives into a pan of brownies. 

Jessie C!  Jessie tweeted about the contest, and she was lucky number 52!  Congratulations, Jessie.  More reviews to come . . .

Disclaimer:  This is a compensated review from BlogHer and Ragu.

Dinnertime in the Del Bueno household is kind of a nightmare.  Okay, I’ll just be honest. It’s a total nightmare.  Lily is mostly plant-like and survives on water and air and occasional sunlight.  Arden has a slightly better appetite, but her preferences change by the moment. One day she might eat ham, the next you’d think I’d put a plate of live cockroaches in front of her (when it’s really just more ham). 

I was lucky enough to experiment with using Ragu to feed my family . . . fully expecting my kids to complain and tell me all the reasons they hated the food.  I got my big box of Ragu, opened it up and went to work picking a recipe that could work for all four of us.

I’m sort of a pasta sauce snob.  I’m married to an Italian with very specific ideas about how sauce should taste and what should be in it.  Ragu isn’t something we normally buy, but the recipes looked pretty tasty and very easy.  I’ve been doing Weight Watchers since March, so my intial complaint was that the majority of the recipes were not WW-friendly - even if I tried to adapt them.  Of course, that could have been mostly because the recipes I chose were geared toward food the kids would eat.

Recipe 1:  Upside-Down Deep Dish Pizza

Super-easy to make and really quite tasty.  Totally not diet friendly, but Arden and Lily both loved dunking the pizza crust into the sauce.  It only took me about 40 minutes from start to finish. It certainly wasn’t the prettiest thing once you cut into it, but as Arden shouted, “This is deeeeee-licious!” 

Del Bueno Family votes:

Mike:  2 thumbs up
Arden: 1 thumb up (covered in tomato sauce)
Cristina:  1 thumb up, diet thumb down
Lily: It’s not air and water, therefore I don’t like it.

For my second recipe, Mike requested Chicken Parmesan Alfredo.  He loves alfredo, so I figured I’d give it a shot. 

Much as the girls complain, they do love it when it appears I have cooked a meal from scratch (shhh, don’t tell them).  By “love it”, I mean they always complain and tell me that McDonald’s tastes better.  Sigh.  However, this recipe was a hit with 3 out of 4 (guess who the fourth was?) and that’s about the best stats I can expect on a regular evening.

Mike:  2 thumbs up, grunt with mouth full of food.
Arden:  Why is it white?  Yummy.
Lily:  It’s not air or water, so I’m not eating it.
Cristina:  If I work out for 3 hours tomorrow, I should be able to burn off all the fat and calories.  Maybe. 

Recipe 3:  Easy Homemade Pizza

Finally, a recipe I could get Lily to eat!  She likes pizza - without sauce.  Clever me. I rolled out the dough and left a big section of it naked and sauceless, then covered it with mozzarella.  I snuck in some low-fat mozzarella because, well, because I could.  No one seemed to notice:

I batted 4 for 4 on this one. 

Mike:  Muffled moans and chewing.
Arden:  Mommy! Look, I made finger paints from the sauce!
Lily:  I like mine without sauce.  I will eat this.
Cristina:  Thank god everyone is eating.  (Grabs slice and runs from kitchen)

All of the recipes I tried (not accidental, I might add) took less than 45 minutes each to make and usually were made from ingredients I had in the house.  While I am still not a fan of Ragu on plain pasta, it’s pretty tasty when mixed with other ingredients.  Using refrigerated pizza dough is a quick and easy way to make a warm meal that most of my family will eat.  As for that sticky 4th person, well, maybe I’ll have to start adding Miracle-Gro to her diet.

Now onto the good stuff: one commenter will be chosen at random to win a $100 Visa gift card.  To enter, leave me a comment below and tell me how you feed your kids well (and if you have a secret formula for feeding a plant girl, tell me that too) - or you may leave a link to your post on your own blog in the comments below.  The contest will begin at 10/1/2009 and will end 11/11/2009.  Make sure that the e-mail address you leave is correct or I’ll be kinda cranky.
Rules:
• No duplicate comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by linking on twitter and leaving a link in the comments.
• You may receive an additional entry by blogging about this contest and leaving a link in the comments.
• This giveaway is open to US residents, aged 18 and older.
• Winners will be selected via random draw, and will notified by e-mail.
• You have 48 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

I use the Random Number Generator. 

Check out the rest of the BlogHer Reviewers’ Ragu meals - you have 10 chance to win a $100 Visa gift card.

For kid-friendly recipes, healthy tips and more, be sure to visit Ragu.com.