My Digital Magazine Subscription

On the weekend I got this email from Ebates saying I should make a purchase soon to claim my Walmart $10 gift card.   I decided to go looking at the stores from which they offer rebates and decided to purchase a subscription to the Canadian Chatelaine magazine to which I have previously subscribed in the past.  (I will get a $2.99 cash rebate from the purchase!)  It seems I will get a free wristwatch with the subscription and it also entitled me to a free digital subscription on the Ipad.  We have an Ipad in the house, so I decided to download the Chatelaine app (with my son's help) so I could receive the online subscription.  It is no extra cost with a paper subscription.  I just had to ask K not to tap so fast through all the options to ensure I didn't end up paying twice for the subscription and so I could see what he was doing.

 I've been wanting to do something like this for awhile so it was fun browsing the magazine on the Ipad.  There was an advertisement for a new Disney Oz movie and wouldn't you know, I was able to play the trailer from the digital magazine ad!  Then I got to the recipe section and it was showing me before and after photos of the food as I rested on the page!  So I'd be looking at a raw steak, then it would show me the cooked steak!  I could press a certain spot on the screen to toggle between the images.  At the end of the day, I am still more comfortable with a paper magazine, and my copy should arrive in some weeks.  But of course, I was able to browse the online magazine the day I bought the subscription.  It was fun.

Here is some chicken pot pie I bought from Costco the other day.  It's a winner.  It's the Costco Kirkland brand I think, it came unfrozen, about 10 inches wide and you bake it for about 40 minutes. It had lots of large pieces of chicken breast inside.

My son K has been playing with the Instagram social photo network.  He took a photo of the beautiful Transformer actress Megan Fox and posted it.  He tagged her in it (via a hashtag similar to Twitter) and she (or her staff) actually 'liked' the photo!  So did her magazine.  He was thrilled.   These days you can be in touch with the whole world from your computer, as with blogging of course.

Ebates and some new recipes

I decided to  join the Ebates community after reading about it in  Moneysense magazine to which I subscribe. According to Moneysense, it works as it says it does, you shop online at stores on their site and every quarter they mail you a cheque, a certain percentage of what you bought.  They have just launched in Canada after being in the US for 13 years.

Having said that, I'm not a big online shopper, but I've noticed the young people do a lot of that these days. I read in the newspaper that online shopping is on the rise in Canada, it may be a trend, something that is being embraced for the convenience of it! At any rate, I'm a member of Ebates now. This is their US website. 

I tried some simple recipes on the weekend that I found on Pinterest and quite enjoyed them.  The first is an egg drop soup .  Here is my interpretation of the recipe:

1 inch of fresh ginger, sliced
1 stalk of green onion thinly sliced
1 tsp corn starch
2 eggs
4 cups of low sodium chicken broth

In a small bowl combine cornstarch with 1/4 cup of broth.
In a large saucepan bring remaining broth, ginger to a boil.
Slowly drizzle 2 whisked eggs into the broth. It will cook instantly. Whisk cornstarch into the mixture.  Now depending on how 'low sodium' your brand of broth is, you may have to add salt to taste.

Makes about 4 servings


I also tried potatoes roasted in chicken broth and garlic from Kayotic Kitchen. The potatoes have a soft, yet roasted taste.  I marinated the peeled, whole medium potatoes in olive oil, garlic salt, thyme, onion powder and a squirt of lime juice.  Then I put them in a small baking dish, covered with an inch of low sodium chicken broth and baked uncovered at 350F for 45 minutes.

I might add that it's dangerous to go looking through the food section on Pinterest, you end up making and eating too much!

Ebates

L made these lovely cupcakes the other night, don't they look scrumptious?

I recently read about Ebates online cashback shopping in the newspaper. It seems to make sense if you do a lot of online shopping (which I don't really). Still, it's nice to know what's out there these days. It's free to join up. You get cash back whenever you purchase an item online from them. There seems to be a wide range of products to choose from.