Join the Urban Bliss Life in the kitchen for our monthly cooking & baking challenge of 2024! Readers are encouraged to make a recipe based on a different theme each month.
To help celebrate our 20th year of blogging, we are SO excited to introduce the 2024 Urban Bliss Life Cooking & Baking Challenge!
We have loved seeing all of the recipes that you've made from our website over the years. Nothing brings us greater joy than when you leave comments on the blog or social media that you've tried one of our recipes and it's now part of your regular dinner rotation.
It's such a gift when you make one of our recipes, and we can't thank you enough for your support over these past 20 years. So we'd like to expand that community spirit with these cooking and baking challenges -- with an Amazon gift card prize each month!
Challenge recipes
At the beginning of each month, we'll share one featured Cooking Recipe and one Baking Recipe.
For January, our cooking challenge recipe is our reader fave Pork and Peanut Noodles. Our baking challenge recipe is another reader fave: our Chewy Chocolate Fudge Cookies.
We invite you to join us in the kitchen and make one of these recipes. Or make both, if you like!
To enter our monthly Amazon gift card drawing:
- Make one or both of the featured recipes.
- Leave a comment and star rating on the recipe's blog post.
Optional Bonus Points: snap a quick phone pic of the finished dish and share it on Instagram and/or Facebook. Be sure to tag @UrbanBlissLife and use the hashtag #UrbanBlissLife. And please remember that your posts must be public in order for us to see them!
Each valid entry will be entered to win a $100 Amazon gift card!
Pork & peanut noodles
This month's cooking challenge recipe is one of our personal favorites. It's also one that we've received some of the best feedback on from readers like you!
Pork and Peanut Dragon Noodles are great for busy weeknights. Here are some tips when cooking this recipe:
- Ground pork works best in this recipe, but you can substitute ground beef or ground turkey.
- Adjust the heat level by using more or less chili garlic sauce. If you want it very mild, you can omit the chili garlic sauce completely.
- Feel free to bump up the nutrition value by adding your fave veggies, like chopped broccoli florets, shredded carrots, or thinly sliced red bell peppers.
Baking challenge: chewy chocolate fudge cookies
This month's baking challenge recipe is our Chewy Chocolate Fudge Cookies recipe.
Baking tips for this cookie recipe:
- Make sure your eggs and butter are at room temperature before mixing. This will ensure a smooth and well-mixed batter, which results in smooth chewy cookies.
- The batter will be wet and gooey. The consistency is more like brownie batter rather than thick regular cookie batter.
- To get more of the crackled look on top of the cookies, bang the pan on your countertop after removing them from the oven.
- Make sure you let the baked cookies rest for about 15-20 minutes after taking them out of the oven so they have time to set.
How to enter
- Make one of the featured recipes of the month.
- Leave a comment and star rating on the featured recipe's blog post.
- Snap a quick cell phone pic of the finished dish and share it on Instagram or Facebook in a public post, tagging @UrbanBlissLife and using hashtag #UrbanBlissLife.
The prize: one participant will be chosen at random each month to win a $100 USD Amazon Gift Card, which will be sent via email.
Cooking Challenge FAQs
Absolutely! We would LOVE that! You'll need to submit each recipe photo separately, but each separate recipe you make with a finished dish photo within the monthly theme will count as a separate entry.
Yes! We have many readers in Canada and would love for you all to enter our monthly cooking challenges! If the winner selected at random lives in Canada, we'll send an Amazon.ca gift card in the equivalency of $100 USD, based on the exchange rate on the date the card is purchased.
While we would love to have you cook and bake with us for these challenges, your entry is not eligible for the prize. Currently, we are only able to give an Amazon gift card in USD. You are most certainly invited to make the recipes and let us know how it goes! You just can't be entered to win the prize. Sorry, foodie friends outside of the US/Canada!
Full challenge rules
- This month's challenge ends at 10:00 pm PST on January 31, 2024.
- Entrants must be 18+ and provide a valid e-mail address in the blog comment that is checked regularly.
- Winner is chosen at random and will be notified via email. The first winner must respond within 48 hours from the timestamp on the sent email from Urban Bliss Life, or else they forfeit the prize and a second winner will be selected.
- The prize is a $100 USD Amazon Gift Card which will be sent to the winner's email address.
- This giveaway is in no way associate with or endorsed by Instagram or Facebook.
Kitchen tools to make this month's recipes
For the Pork and Peanut Noodles
- GENUINE TASTE: Bring authentic Asian flavor to your kitchen or outdoor cooking with the YOSUKATA...
- Made of solid beech wood
- Safe for non-stick cookware
- Natural oil finish
- Handwash only
- Set includes: Wooden Large Spoon, Wooden Medium Spoon and Wooden Small Spoon
For the Chewy Chocolate Fudge Cookies
- Soft, comfortable, spring-loaded handle absorbs pressure for a simple squeeze
- Naturals bakeware is made of pure aluminum for superior heat conductivity and produces consistently evenly browned baked goods every time.
More questions?
Feel free to send us an email with any questions not answered here. You can also DM me on Instagram.
Happy cooking and baking!
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