Country Crock Vegetable Shopping Adventure { plus giveaway}

My kids can be pretty picky when it comes to vegetables, and truth be told, I'm just as picky (if not pickier!)  We do what we can to encourage our children to eat their veggies, reminding them that their bodies need the nutrients and minerals found in them to help them stay healthy.  Now that they're both in school (yay!) I do most of the shopping solo, so when Country Crock offered me an opportunity to take the kids veggie shopping, it took a bit of planning to be able to take them both with me.  However, I think they thoroughly enjoyed the fun of the aisle assignments and also feeling like they had input into food choices they would ultimately see served at the dinner table.  I do usually buy frozen veggies for convenience sake, but I needed this gentle reminder that fresh is always best! 

Please take a moment to view my ThisMoment slide show (it's short, I promise!  Only about a dozen slides). 

Click image to see slide show.

My kids really enjoyed the aisle assignments.  The slide show is only of a few of the ten that I received as part of my blogger package to prepare for this shopping experience.  They actually fought over the cards in Walmart, which might be why I forgot to wander back to the dairy aisle to grab the Country Crock I needed for the Rice Pilaf with Broccoli dish featured in the slide show.  Sigh!  Country Crock goes great with vegetables and I was a little surprised to see vitamins in the Original Spread that I chose to purchase.  I like sneaking extra vitamins into meals!

But they definitely got into searching through the whole produce department for vegetables, checking out the different varieties of onions, and selecting a vegetable they'd never had, which was a zucchini.  I thought it would be a great learning experience for my daughter to teach her that veggies can be made into desserts aside from the normal adorning of your dinner plate.  She followed a recipe and my husband said her zucchini bread was excellent!  She was so proud.  But you should have seen the look on her face when I told her that she was putting the zucchini into a bread like the banana bread I'd made last week.  Trust me, it was priceless.  She was a little hesitant to try it, but said it tasted good.

Now on to the giveaway!  One lucky reader will win a Country Crock prize pack consisting of the following items (all of which I received from Country Crock as well):

·         A reusable veggie shopping list
·         Aisle assignments to make shopping educational
·         Two shopping totes
·         Reusable produce bags
·         $25 gift card for groceries
·         Coupon for a tub of Country Crock
·         Veggie scrubber
·         Veggie peeler

This giveaway will run through October 26, 2011 at 11:59 PM Eastern time with the winner being drawn on or about October 27, 2011 via Random.org.  Winner shall have 48 hours to respond to an email asking for information necessary to facilitate shipping of the prize, which will be shipped by sponsor.  If winner does not respond within that time frame, a different winner will be selected.  This giveaway is open to US residents only who are 18 or older.  Mandatory entry is required and there are additional extra entry options, which are only valid if the mandatory entry is performed.  Please take advantage of all the extra entries that you can to increase your chances of winning.


Mandatory entry:  Visit Country Crock's website and then come back and leave a comment telling me the name of a recipe featured there that is made with Country Crock.


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Thanks for entering and good luck!

Disclosure:  Country Crock provided me with information, as well as the items listed above as the giveaway prize.  Other than the items listed above, which were used to facilitate this blog post, no other compensation was made to me.  The opinions are solely my own.