Several Triangle restaurants are among the finalists named in the annual Best Dish in North Carolina contest.

The contest, sponsored by the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Our State magazine, recognizes the use of North Carolina products at casual and fine dining restaurants. Judges choose first, second and third place winners in two categories, fine dining and casual dining, in two regions across the state, east and west.

The restaurants serve a special dish or series of courses highlighting North Carolina ingredients for a month this summer. Anonymous judges travel the state tasting the dishes. Winners will be announced in November.

In the East region, which covers Chatham County to the coast, the finalists include:
In the casual dining contest, Rhett's Restaurant in Southern Pines, Market Restaurant in Raleigh, Sitti in Raleigh, Angelina's Kitchen in Pittsboro, Bull Street Gourmet & Market in Durham and Gravy in Raleigh.

In the fine dining contest, Catch in Wilmington, Bald Head Island Club in Bald Head Island and Tonali in Durham.

For more information about the contest, go to www.bestdishnc.com.

Do you think you have the best barbecue sauce in the Carolinas? Well, prove it!

Enter our barbecue sauce recipe contest. You win $100 and bragging rights.

Go HERE for details on how to enter.

You've only got a few hours left to enter my Blue Bell ice cream giveaway.

I've got coupons for five free half-gallons of Blue Bell to give away to five blog readers in honor of its March 19 debut in the Triangle.

Tell me your favorite flavor of ice cream and you'll be entered to win. If you've ever tasted Blue Bell, I'd love to hear about that, too.

Do NOT leave your comment on this post. Leave it on the original post here.

I'll pick the winners at random Friday morning and announce them on the blog.

And if you don't happen to win one of my free half-gallons, don't despair. My colleague Andea Weigl, who writes our food blog Mouthful, will be giving away five more half-gallons in the coming weeks.

Thanks to everyone for entering my $25 CVS gift card giveaway.

I appreciate all your comments and questions. Look for an upcoming Q and A post addressing those questions.

The winner, chosen at random, is:

I've got two gift card giveaways going on the blog right now so be sure to enter both of them.

You have until noon Friday to enter to win a $25 gift card to CVS. Leave a comment on the original post to enter.

And you have until noon Tuesday to enter to win a $10 gift card to Food Lion. Leave a comment on the original post to enter.

Good luck, everyone!

Thanksgiving is still three weeks away, but the folks at Harris Teeter want you to think ahead to the leftovers.

They want your best turkey leftovers recipes and they're willing to pay for them.

The Triangle Land Conservancy was recently named one of 500 finalists in Toyota's 100 Cars for Good Contest, which will award 100 vehicles over the course of 100 days to 100 deserving nonprofit organizations based on votes from the public.

Durham County has kicked off an incentive program where residential recycling customers can win simply by recycling properly.

Are you part of a group that did something pretty great for the environment in the past year, such as creating a litter prevention, recycling or community greening program? Then you have a chance to win $500.

We want to do our part to help you get fit, so we're giving away fitness DVDs every day of our Frontiers of Fat series (which starts Saturday).

All you have to do is share your weight-loss story by 11:30 each night as a comment below.

We'll conduct random drawings each day to determine the winners.