Chocolate Fun Giveaway

The Giveaway is now closed, but continue reading to learn about Chocolate-opoly the game.

Not long ago, CSN.com connected me to do another review or giveaway.  Your Chocolate Priestess thought they might now since the last product I reviewed didn't get much praise.  However it turns out that they are an honorable company and they want fully honest reviews.  That means something to me in this period rabid lying and political or religious dogma masquerading as the truth or objectivity.  We here in The Chocolate Cult, and this includes everyone I've entrusted to be an Acolyte, take our pledge to be as objective as possible and do our research before writing anything for you, Sisters and Brothers. Thus when CSN.com contacted me wanting to highlight their barstools and adding a giveaway as well, I just had to do it.

First I received the same gift code that one of you will receive of $45 to use in any of their 200+ stores -- more details later on how to enter.  I used it to buy a chocolate game and a child's chocolate treat kit to review.   I was pleased that recently they must have changed policies because this code was automatically applied to the shipping and handling costs as well so just use it wisely if you win it.

 I use my gift code to buy a version of the "monopoly" type of game called "Chocolate-opoly". 

The game is laid out very much like the original as you can see on the board. Instead of railroads you win degrees of sweetness -- Unsweetened, Bittersweet, Semi-Sweet, and Sweet.  Instead of Utilities you can get monopolies on Cocoa Beans and Sugar.

The properties are color coded with 2-3 squares per color.  Their rent value goes up as you move clockwise around the board.  The front of the card gives the property and it's rent per additional chocolate you buy for the place.  The back has a fact related to the name of the property that we had fun reading outloud to everyone playing.

You can choose from 6 pewter token pieces: Chocolate Dipped Strawberry, Chocolate Chip Cookie (bite missing), Piece of Cake, Chocolate Chip, Cocoa Beans, and Hot Fudge Sundae.

Then there are the "Temptation" and the "Satisfaction" cards you may have to draw.  This is where the disappointment appeared in this otherwise fun game.  There are just too few of these cards considering that some of them ask questions you must answer as you risk your money.  If the game we played had lasted even a half hour longer, we would have gone through all the cards I'm sure and then we'd know the answers, at least those who played would.

The second item I got with my coupon code was the Sassafras Flower Pot Pudding kit that is for children age 5 and above.  But I thought my husband and I could figure out how much fun it was together so we tried it during one of his days off recently.

The kit comes with several things: two flower pots, two fake wooden flowers, a chocolate pudding mix that has enough product to make three of the pots easily, cookie crumb "dirt," and a recipe booklet that has a rhyming version and a regular version to follow.

The most complicated part of the process was mixing together mix (we used skim) and the pudding.  That wasn't very complicated at all and took maybe three minutes total.  Using skim milk didn't honestly make a difference in the texture of the pudding but did keep it fat free and lower in cholesterol.

Putting the "dirt" on top was a bit tricky because we had a ton of pudding and I filled it to the edge.  I used a little spoon and tried to spread the "dirt" easily around. 

Finally we put the fake flowers in and then even though the instructions didn't say to do this, we put then in the refrigerator for a few hours until we had dinner and then had these for a treat.  Aren't they cute?  The flower pots were easily washed and could be reused but since the flowers are on wooden skewers basically we aren't too use about reusing those.

Now for your chance to win and maybe try these products out for yourself.

To enter the $45 Gift Code Giveaway you need to be living in either the continental USA or Canada -- just company policy for CSN.com.  Then do the following:

1.  To enter you must be a public Follower of The Chocolate Cult either through blogspot, Facebook, or Networked Blogs.  I do check this each time so if you joined for the last contest then left us you must rejoin -- honestly why would you leave your Sisters and Brothers in Cocoa behind?  You can join in either of those three ways linked to on the left hand side of this blog.  Make certain that your listing as a follower includes a way for me to contact you directly by private email. If you win and I can't contact you, I'll move on to the next person in line.

2. Click on the company link above (barstools) or at their general site (CSN.com) and look for anything that might fit in a chocolate lover's house then let us all know what you found in a comment.

3.  You must leave a comment below by Midnight, Friday November 5, 2010.  Make sure I can email directly so I can contact winner. If can't email you, I'll redo the drawing until I get someone I can directly email. 

The order of your comments will determine your number for the random drawing so the first person to comment will be #1, the fourth person will be #4 and so forth.  The winner will be chosen using this random number generator.