Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter Squares and a Giveaway!

Back before Christmas, I had the opportunity to review Tropical Traditions Coconut Oil. After learning about the company and sampling their product, I was very impressed. So I jumped at the chance to review another one of their products.

This time I got to sample their organic coconut peanut butter. I was intrigued because I had never thought of that combination before. I had to try a spoonful right away. It was yummy! I am not a huge coconut fan - but it is mainly because I don't like the texture. Tropical Tradition's Coconut Peanut Butter is smooth and creamy with just the right ratio of peanut butter to coconut. The coconut flavor is there but it doesn't overwhelm the peanut butter. There is no added sugar, so you can feel good about offering this to your kids on a sandwich. My kids liked it spread on bread with bananas!

I do advise you pay attention to the packaging and store the jar at room temperature. The package containing the coconut peanut butter had been sitting on my porch for awhile out in the nasty winter weather before I got home. I had to let it warm up a bit before I could try it. So don't store it in the fridge. It will be too hard to spread. Tropical Traditions advises that you store the jar in a cool dark place.

Now for a recipe: I love making homemade Reese Cups. I thought it would be good to try my recipe using the coconut peanut butter in place of regular peanut butter. I was right. It made a wonderful treat!

Chocolate Coconut Peanut Butter Squares
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup Tropical Traditions Coconut Peanut Butter
1 1/2 cup Graham Cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup milk


In a medium-sized saucepan, melt the butter. Remove from heat. Stir in coconut peanut butter until smooth. Mix in graham cracker crumbs and sugar. Press into an 8x8 inch baking dish. In a small saucepan over low heat, warm milk and chocolate chips, stirring until chocolate is melted and smooth. Pour over prepared graham cracker mixture. Refrigerate 2 hours or until set. Cut into 16 squares. You can also make individual servings by dividing into a muffin tin with cupcake liners.

A note about ingredients: I always strive to make healthy substitutions whenever I can. I used whole grain graham cracker that are lower in sugar. For the sugar, I used maple sugar. You could also use Rapidura. Stevia might work as well. For the chocolate chips, I used a grain-sweetened variety. To make this recipe vegetarian, use Earth Balance for the butter, soy milk in place of regular milk, and grain-sweetened non-dairy chocolate chips.

You also might want to check out some other recipes using Tropical Traditions Coconut Peanut Butter while you are at it. They are located towards the bottom of the page.

You can purchase Tropical Tradition's Organic Coconut Peanut Butter directly from the company by clicking on the Buy It button.

Tropical Traditions also has a Referral Program, so if you place an order with them as a first-time customer, please select “Referred by a friend” and in the box that says “How did you hear of us?” enter my sponsor ID number… 5699782. By telling Tropical Traditions that I referred you, you will receive with your first order a complimentary copy of the book Virgin Coconut Oil: How it has changed people’s lives and how it can change yours!" by Brian and Marianita Shilhavy. This book is filled with testimonies and research showing how healthy coconut oil is, and it also includes over 85 recipes showing how one can incorporate coconut into their diet. If you have any questions about how the referral program works, you can visit Tropical Tradition's customer service page.

One lucky Miss Organic's Kitchen reader will win a 16 oz jar of Tropical Tradition's Organic Coconut Peanut Butter. A huge thank you to Tropical Traditions for this opportunity!

Mandatory Entry
You MUST follow my blog (see sidebar) AND visit Tropical Traditions. Leave a comment telling me one of their other products you would love to try. (1 entry)

(The mandatory entry must be completed before any of the extra entries. If the mandatory entry is not completed, the extra entries will not count.)

Extra Entries

• Sign up for Tropical Traditions email newsletter. Leave a comment that you did. (2 entries)
• Follow Tropical Traditions on twitter. Leave a comment with your twitter username (1 entry)
• Subscribe to Miss Organic's Kitchen email updates or subscribe to our feed. (Form is on the sidebar.) You must confirm your subscription for the entry to count. Comment to let me know you did. (2 entries)
• Follow Great Blog Giveaways on twitter. Leave a comment with your twitter username. (1 entry)
• Tweet about this giveaway. Be sure to use @greatgiveaways in your tweet and leave the url for this giveaway. Leave a comment with your tweet link. (1 entry daily)
  You can click on the birdy below to send a tweet if you like.
  
  
  
• Add Miss Organic's Kitchen to your blog roll. Leave a comment with your url so I can find it. (1 entry)
• Blog about this giveaway including a link back to both Tropical Traditions and this post on Miss Organic's Kitchen. Leave a comment with the url to your post. (2 entries)
• Enter any of our other giveaways (located at the top of the right sidebar). Leave a comment letting me know which you entered (1 entry per giveaway)
  
• Promote this giveaway in other ways (Digg, Stumble Upon, Technorati...). Leave a comment letting me know what you did, and if possible provide a name or URL. (1 entry)
• Post a relevant comment on a non-giveaway post. Leave a comment letting me know where you posted. (1 entry)
• Sign up for Opinion Outpost which rewards you for taking surveys.  It's free to join!  (5 entries)

Rules
• This giveaway is open to US and Canada only, age 18+.
• Mandatory entry must be completed before you can earn any of the extra entries.
• Please leave a separate comment for each entry. For example if you get 2 entries for a particular activity, leave 2 separate comments.
• Entries that can not be verified or do not follow the instructions are subject to deletion.
• This giveaway will end February 12, 2010 at 11:59 pm EST.
• Winner will be chosen using random.org's number generator.
• Winner will be posted here and emailed. They have 48 hours to respond with their mailing address or a new winner will be chosen.
• Please either leave your email address with each comment or make sure your email address is available publicly on your profile. If I have no way to contact you, I will have to choose an alternate winner.


Disclaimer: Tropical Traditions provided me with a free sample of this product to review, and I was under no obligation to review it if I so chose. Nor was I under any obligation to write a positive review or sponsor a product giveaway in return for the free product. The opinions expressed in this review are my own.