Food Blogs

There are so many amazing food and recipe blogs out there, it's quite difficult to keep up! Everytime I think about all the stuff that I'm missing out on and could never catch up on I feel overwhelmed, but only in the most delicious, drooling, artery-clogging, diabetic coma-inducing, and loving way possible! So here are some blogs that I want to keep track of. I will do my best to remind myself to check on each one of these at least once a week, but, sadly, I can make no promises as I'm easily distracted! I'll also be editing and updating the list as I go along. Hopefully this post will serve not only as a way to keep track and keep up, but also a way to keep in touch with all the delicious rumblings and lustful food thoughts running rampant through my body and soul. I see this post scurrying down a horribly irresistible and seriously brain-plumping rabbit hole of dark and deeply delicious fabulousness. But I must be brave and face the ravishing beast head-on! Thus, let the feasting begin!


Taste Spotting: A collection of deliciousness from throughout the interwebs! Their tagline? "A community-driven visual potluck." Oh man, the deliciousness that is collected on this website is too much to handle! I could seriously spend hours here, clicking, drooling, and repeating (to steal the tagline from FoodPornDaily.com). They even post their own creations! Such as these incredible looking Turkey Meatballs that have, among other ingredients, pine nuts, golden raisins, and cumin.



Food Porn Daily: Speaking of FoodPornDaily.com! Tagline: Click, Drool, Repeat. 100% accurate. Explore their website and you will be both inspired and descouraged. Food never looked so good ... or so sexy! But sexy in a "classy" way .. *wink*



The Winter Guest: Tagline: Food seen from my kitchen in Spain. Yes, you can see, feel, touch, hear, and sense the overwhelming jealousy that is oozing from every pore and hazy floating orb in my existence. A recent delicious find is this Vegan Butternut Squash and Tomato Soup. Be still my beating, gurgling, gluttinous stomach!



Food Gawker: Another heinously incredible collection of deliciousness, a la Taste Spotting. I want to cry when I look at the amazingness staring me down. I drooled first, therefore it won. But I couldn't be happier in my defeat! But are all the recipes coming exclusively from The Winter Guest? I can't tell, but this one sure is amazing! My Grandmother's Migas will definitely be given a try! Take one for the team ... I mean, it's the least I can do!

The Family Kitchen: Family friendly, indeed. Or at least that's what I'm assuming, as their host site is "Babble: for a new generation of parents." Quite tasty things can be found here! Such as this gorgeous Chocolate Avocado Cupcakes. Though personally I'd rather just go at the avocado sliced on a plate, sprinkled with lime and salt. But hey, I'll try anything chocolatey and delicious at least once!

Bittersweet Baker: Now this site makes me want to cry with the sugary deliciousness that oozes through the pixels in my screen. Raspberry Curd? Why not! Homemade Marscapone Cheese? Bring on the Giada recipes! (Granted this recipe came from another site that I'll have to mention later ... twist my arm!) Chocolate Crinkle Cookies? Don't mind if I do! This is an incredible find, indeed.

Baking Obsession: As promised, here is where I found the Homemade Marscapone Cheese recipe mentioned earlier! Chocolate Banana Cardamom Jam? Who'd have thought?! Well, it turns out Baking Obsession done thought-ed, created, and succeeded! Sigh. So much to try, so little time!

Poires au Chocolat: Contrary to the name, this isn't all about chocolate, but it is all about deliciousness. Tagline: "Don't tickle your tastebuds, seduce them." But my tastebuds are not the only seduced parts of me blindly groping the Fresh Mint Ice Cream laced with Dark Chocolate, its Black Cherry and Marscapone Tart with a Gingernut Crust, its Rose-Poached Pears, and its Homemade Nutella!

The Baking Bird: What a great name! Kylie, the creator, combines all her favorite things in this blog: "baking, cooking, food, photography, ayurveda, interior design, art, and last but not least, birds!" (Imagine sung to Julie Andrews' "My Favorite Things".) She also generously provides links to other delicious sites, such as Joy the Baker and her recipe for Curried Sweet Potato Soup with Goat Cheese Biscuits! Yumz.

Joy the Baker: What delicious fun things! It's a great site to roam around! Heres a goody: Pumpkin Pie Pop Tarts with Maple Glaze. And the pictures are fabulous, of course! Lavender Vanilla Sugar? Who'd have thought! What a fabulous idea! Christmas gifts? I think so!

The Little Teochew: "Food. Family. Fotography." There is a distinct emphasis on Asia (yes, this includes South Asia), but there are also some really wonderful recipes that don't necessarily have or need a cultural, culinary home. Some of my favorite mouthwatering recipes of Glazed Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes, Yogurt Cake with Blueberry Sauce, beautiful Chinese Dumplings, a Roasted Pumpkin Quiche, and Watercress Soup. There's also a great recipe of what they claim as Easy Lemon Curd! Be advised, Alton Brown, you have competition.

All Day I Dream About Food: A blog that perfectly describes my obsession. "I Dream About Food." It's true. I do. And if I could have my way, I would Live Food. The tagline? "Adventures in cooking, baking, and eating the results." Jealousy, you are my perpetual foody friend. Anyway, this blog is calming on the eyes, but gets my stomach gurgling and my foody brain whirring in anticipation! They have 27 fun recipes that are gluten free, and 38 that are purported to be low carb. Mother, you might even approve! Please pass a couple of thick slices of the Rosemary Olive Oil Quick Bread (Low Carb) to go along with the Spicy Green Tomato Soup with Crispy Pancetta. And for dessert, how about we have some Chocolate Creme Tarts with Hazelnut Crust (Low Carb and Gluten Free) with a healthy scoop of Basil Ice Cream (Low Carb). Oh, Fall, how I adore your food combinations!

Three Many Cooks: A blog about the delicious things that go on in this family's kitchen. Well, the kitchen seems to belong exclussively to Mom and her two daughters, but there's more than enough love in their kitchen to make up for any people they banish from their counters, stovetops, and kitchen floors! The most recent offering are Salvadoran Papusas with Curtido and Salsa Roja. How fabulous! And a recipe that I am ridiculously eager to try? Grand Marnier Souffles. I'm very much looking forward to doing some more exploring on this site!

The Wholesome Home: Tagline: "Fitness from Scratch." Now, normally I shy away (to be honest, run screaming from), any stie that blusters on about health and advice on how to live longer while eating distressingly unappetizing food while exercising until you no longer feel like a human being, but this site has some wonderful recipes. Granted, I'll probably stay far away from their "Health" and "Life" sections, but the "Gardening," "Housekeeping," and "Recipes" departments might find themselves the subjects of a good read. So here is a fabulous little recipe that is both healthy (ick ... even the word gives me the heebee-jeebees) and tastebud seducing (ah, there we go) recipe: Hazelnut Macaroons with Homemade Nutella. Though not a huge fan of macaroons, anything paired with nutella is bound to get my attention, especially if that anything is something that can use up all the eggs that I buy but can never seem to get rid of. Plus, hazelnuts are quite tasty!

The Food Librarian: Interestingly enough, this blog actually is by a librarian! A librarian from Los Angeles, nonetheless! This blog chronicles her "attempt to learn to bake from scratch" in addition to "other musings about food and life" that, to be honest, may never get a "click" from this easily spooked reader. The recipe that has caught my eye is her individual-sized Lavender-Lemon Bundts. Not only are they adorable, but they look absolutely delicious. I am a lemon fiend, and love ideas that pair it with strange yet oddly-sensical things such as lavender. I guess this means I'm going to have to make a run to Michael's to get some mini bundt tins. (Michael's is such a dangerous place for me, but I shall be brave and not emerge with hundreds of thousands of things that I do not really need but that I want desperately.) Anyway, onwards!

Amanda's Cooking: I must admit, I'm intrigued. Savory Chicken with Onion and Thyme Sauce. Billy might enjoy this one! While Mother would probably prefer lighter Grilled Garlic Lemon Chicken Breasts that I would probably accompany with Homemade Pull Apart Dinner Rolls and some Garlic Mashed Potatoes or Julia Childs' Style Green Beans. (I'm actually a huge fan of the original pairing of the Pork in Lemon Juice & Herb Maranade in combination with the Garlic Mashed Potatoes.) What about some Buttermilk Rolls paired with Corn and Red Pepper Chowder? Who is this "Amanda", anyway? I quite like her!

Whitney in Chicago: Tagline: "Cooking, eating, and living in the Windy City." If the Windy City is made of nothing but deliciousness, count me in! Not to mention her "market" is the Green City Market that touts "fresh local delicious" food stuffs! I'm dying to try her recipe for Ginger Peach Muffins, as well as her Vegan Apple Crisp! Another reason to love this blog is the sidebar of TONS of links to other delicious blogs such as "Orangette," "Joy the Baker" (mentioned earlier), "Smitten Kitchen," "The Kitchen Sink,""Cucina Nicolina" ("life in & out of the kitchen" with such happy recipes as Potato-Leek Soup with Bay Leaves, Garlic-toasted Quinoa, and Pear-almond Upsided-down Cake), Happy Jack Eats ("eating. living. taking photos of it all." Including a ravishing Beans, sausage, squash, greens. And fall. recipe that seems too good to be true!), and of course for the fruit lovers out there the Fruitslinger (this site definitely deserves from serious perusing!).

Baked Bree: Now this is a great site. You find Lemon Ginger Steamed Pudding, Butternut Squash Soup with Gruyere Croutons, and Tandoori Chicken Burgers. I just love the step-by-step photos of the proces of making such mouth-watering foods. Plus there are links to fun yumminess like Oreo Cheesecake Balls (from another site that may get perused Three Sides of Crazy) and Accidental Pumpkin Blondies.

Fat Free Vegan: Recently inspired by a good family friend, I've been exploring fun, delicious, and surprisingly vegan-friendly recipes online. One of my recent obsessions is Susan V.'s FatFree Vegan blog, where I've found numerous kid and non-vegan friendly recipes! Granted, anytime I see the "fat free" notice (warning!), I cringe and have to fight the urge to slink away while grumbling "fat free isn't the only thing that matters." But this stie actually is quite fun! I love them because they are, as noted earlier, non-vegan friendly! Who would have guessed that Baked Spinach Kofta with Cucumber-Yogurt Sauce would be both vegan-friendly and tasty, or that I could do a Savory Swiss Chard Pie for the family friend at Thanksgiving and Christmas get-togethers, or that I could replace the traditional pumpkin pie with a possibly even more delicious Applie-Pumpkin Delight or a ripping Impossible Pumpkin Pie??? Or what about a Calamondin (or Lemon) Pie with Oatmeal Cookie Crust??? I think that's one of the things that I love about this woman's recipes: they don't look or sound or feel vegan! Such a fan! Family friend, you are in for quite a treat this holiday!

Cooking Frenzy!

Tonight I've had another stupendous attack of The Cooking Frenzy. Total time: 3 hours of straight cooking and cleaning up!

It all started this morning when a co-worker friend Katie and I enjoyed a fabulous adventure at the Dekalb County Farmer's Market. Fortunately, I found incredible amounts of deliciousness, but unfortunately, I walked out $75 poorer. Worth it? Well, I think so.

So tonight the following was made, cooked, consumed:

• Pan Rustica with knock-off manchego (actually tastes more like queso blanco than manchego, haha)
• Lasagna a Different Way: a sautee mixture of spinach-creamed-corn cooked earlier in the week, mushrooms, onions, garlic, spinach, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper combined with a cheesy mixture of ricotta, sour cream, plain yogurt, oregano, salt, pepper, paprika, 2 eggs, cumin (will leave cumin out next time), lemon juice, and "sprinkled" with shredded poached chicken, all rolled up in really wide, long green lasagna noodles, each big log cut into three smaller logs, and then set up-right in a pan that has been pammed and olive oiled, and cooked at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes covered and 7 - 10 minutes uncovered. They look like delicious lasagna cinnamon rolls! Yummy ...
• Mushroom and Wine Sauce: sliced mushrooms leftover from the lasagna sauteed with diced onions, and garlic, add red wine and lemon juice, include the leftover chicken from the lasagna. Can't wait to have it on pasta! Actually, may even be tasty on its own!
• Chicken Stock ... Kinda: Salted water that the chicken was poached in, add sliced onions, two cloves smashed garlic, mushroom stems, simmer until the onions are translucent and the garlic cloves are falling apart.
• Focaccia with Olive Oil and Salt: Focaccia, grilled on the George Foreman, drizzled with olive oil, and sprinkled with coarse sea salt.

Can't wait to actually taste the completed lasagna and chicken stock! Hopefully I'll get some photos up at some point! While cooking I also listened to some fabulous Splendid Table, wooed into a food stupor by Lynne Rosetta Casper. She's a goddess. Truly.

Yummy!

So this is what happens when you read ...

Currently Reading: 1421: The Year China Discovered America

Current Page: 202

Total Pages not includeing multiple appendices, footnotes, indexes, and other scholarly crap: 491 (Reaction: AACK.)

Impressions of book thus far: INCREDIBLE! I absolutely love this book! So interesting, so great! Thank goodness there are multiple illustrations, maps, and chunks of pages of glossy fun color photos/pictures scrattered throughout. I get lost reading this book, and I can't imagine these people actually going out and doing all of this! The only thing that bothers me so far is the author's repeated requests that readers go to his "website" for more information. Dude - your book is almost 500 pages long. Just go ahead and add whatever it is we're supposed to find on your damn website. Put in another couple appendices.

I'm totally shocked that all of these incredible achievments have been essentially wiped off the history books, even in China! All these cool facts about: Asiatic chickens in the Americas centuries before the Europeans limped their way over; rose-pink beads from Central America and gold rings with enormous emeralds found on atolls in the Pacific Ocean; the most beautiful, delicate, and incredible porcelein that magically depicted nature and other scenes when water was poured in from the Aztecs that surpassed by leaps and bounds the porcelein skills of the Chinese and was centuries ahead of the Europeans (who couldn't even accomplish the simplest porcelein production until the 18th century); mylodon's from Patagonia (souther Argentina) hanging out in Australia; the backwardness, barbarous, primitive, dirty, ignorant, and uncivilized Europeans; the incredible precautions the Chinese took to ensure their seamen were well fed with nutritious food and were relatively well cared for (ex. grew bean sprouts on food ships to prevent vitamin deficiencies, had trained otters in "aquariums" in the holds that would go out and round up fish into the nets, dogs kepts on ships both to keep down the vermin as well as to consume); and of course the fact that the vast majority of the land masses, waterways, and place names of the world are from European tongues, rarely the original people's tongues, and absolutely none of the Chinese tongues. Incredible. Europe is so damn selfish. And the Chinese madarins were so desperate to erase any and all memories of the extravagance of Emperor Zhu Di, the Song of Heaven that they destroyed everything they could get their hands on. What else hsa been destroyed over time that could have completely changed the course of knowledge, history, and the world? What are we destroying now that may prove crucial in the studies of some academian or simply curious student hundreds of years down the line? *Sigh*

Anyway, here are just some of the fun creatures and things that I've learned from the book so far:

Mylodon: 151: incredible ground sloth from Patagonia (southern Argentina) that stood at least 3 meters (approdimcately 8 - 9 feet) on its hind legs, lived in caves, absolutely incredible looking, I would certainly like to meet one if they weren't extinct





Warrah: 169: fabulous little creature that appeared to be a cross between a fox and a feral dog (probably left behind by one of the Chinese vessels), noted by Charles Darwin, but extinct by the 1860s
- More Info: http://www.messybeast.com/extinct/warrah.htm



Kerguelen Cabbage: 185: saved the Chinese seamen when their beansprouts rations were almost nil at the southern end of South America (found on the Kerguelen Island in the Shetland Islands in the Atlantic)




As a parting note, I'm not surprised that the Chinese highly prize (and love) this fabulous edible: the trepang (a.k.a. the sea cucumber). Enjoy these photos of the delictible little creature. Don't they make you want to rush out, buy one, and take a big bite?! Yum ... ?

Anyway, more to come later as I gleefully wander around this fabulous book!

Today: Lemon Curd!

Today is a lemon curd type of day. (Whatever that means ... it sounded better in my head haha) Heavy rain off and on, strange bursts of sunlight, and for some reason there's a concrete chisel being used somewhere just far enough not to be seen but certainly near enough to be perplexing and annoying. Strange neighborhood.

Julie Wolf, dear family friends from YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS ago, makes us lemon curd every year for the holidays, but only this year did I attempt to make it. And damn it was good! So simple, but it does take some work and some time. Yay for biceps and triceps from stirring constantly!

In any case, I have elected to use Alton Brown's delicious lemon curd recipe. The only thing I would add would be a pinch of salt, but if you choose to leave that out because of the entire stick of butter that goes into it, who am I to judge. (But seriously ... after an entire stick of butter, what's one little pinch of salt?)

Here's the link!
Lemon Curd: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/lemon-curd-recipe/index.html

Some suggested uses for lemon curd are:
- Diabetic coma
- Clogged arteries

But once you get past those little negative-nancies of the culinary world, there are the following seductive uses of lemon curd:
- On toasted toast (sourdough, wheat/multigrain, french baguette), English muffins, croissants, weird healthy muffins, zucchini or banana or whatever-else you-make breads
- On sugar cookies, oatmeal cookies, bran cookies, pretty much any type of simple cookie (either on top or made into little sandwich cookies)
- In tarts
- In trifles
- On ice cream
... to name a few ...

As you can see, the possibilities go on and on! So whip yourself up a batch and see what you come up with!

Enjoy!

Nashville Flooding - Pets

When people are forced to leave their homes, they leave more than their family photos, their unfinished laundry, their entertainment systems, and the uneaten food in the freezer, they also leave their hearts: their pets. Due to a lack of space, temporary shelters not allowing animals for health and safety concerns, and not being able to locate a roaming cat, these invaluable members of the family are left behind. There is not way to convey to the unquestioning love in their eyes that you will be back as soon as you can, that you really do not want to leave them, and that you truly love them with all or your heart. And that inability to communicate is almost as devastating as leaving them behind in the first place.

In the recent Nashville, TN flooding, I am as concerned about the displaced animals as I am about their owners. Humans can fend for themselves, and so can their pets, but while humans have decades of life in which to find one another again, their animals may not even make it another year. Also, shelters and rescue centers have also be terribly affected by not only the rising waters but also the loss of power, the loss of potable water, the loss of staff members to care for them, and the loss of potential human families to come and adopt them.

Thankfully, there are many organizations stepping up, willing to help furry ones in need. Animal control is offering food and other supplies to pet owners. The Dyersburg ASPCA has sent workers to rescue domesticated and nondomesticated animals from the floods and devastation. Online news sources, blogs, and television news stations are also generously giving paper, internet, and air time to these furry hearts of many families.

More to come. But please, please, please keep the animals and their families in your thoughts and prayers.

Nashville, TN

Please keep Nashville, TN, her people, and her pets in your thoughts and prayers.

Here are some photos of some of the devastation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/03/tennessee-flooding-photos_n_561436.html#s88270

No Strings Attached - Joel Thompson

On of my good friends, Joel Thompson, is a member of No Strings Attached, the all-male A Capella group here at Emory University. He is an incredible musician, as he sings, plays piano, composes, arranges, and promotes music. It's fair to say that music is his life, and I can't imagine him without it.

This past weekend No Strings Attached had their end of the semester, Spring 2010 concert, and it was phenomenal. Hilarious with great music - what more could you ask for?! Many of the songs in their repertoire for the night were arrangements by Joel, my favorite of which was Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me," sung by another member of the group (to be verified later when I can track him down!). It made my heart melt and my soul yearn for even a minute chance to have even a fraction of a hundredth of a percentage of the experience and emotion conveyed in the song. It's a wonderful song, it was a great arrangement, and it was phenomenal soloist.


So without further ado, here is his big solo, the only solo he has agreed to in his years with NSA. He is singing Stevie Wonder's "You and I."

Enjoy!

Capoeira Day

Today, anyway, I'd like to present some Capoeira!

Capoeira is a Brazilian martial arts form that is inextricably linked to the history and culture of Brazil. Even with over 400 years of history, only recently has it truly has become a worldwide sensation. Mental and physical flexibility are required; though those two sound simple, when combined they present a formidable challenge. For more history and information, check out some of the links below!

Find of the day is ...

The Fabulous Group: D1 Autre Monde (D'Un Autre Monde)
Incredible Capoeira Video: http://mapage.noos.fr/d1autremonde/demo.html

They are truly out of this world. I greatly admire not only thier physical skills but also their passion for Capoeira and their unreal improvisation skills. As they twist and spin and truly take advantage of their bodies, they remind me so much of the grace, athleticism, and bonelessness of cats!

Here are some fun links:

Capoeira Science: http://capoeirascience.com/

Capoeirista: http://www.capoeirista.com/

Planet Capoeira Magazine: http://www.planetcapoeira.com/

I hope you enjoy these!

Sarah Duncan is a Music Video Star!

I LOVE this music video by Hot Water to the song Laduma. It is absolutely brilliant! The music is amazing and the lyrics and video are just wonderful and inspiring! ("Laduma" is what they call when they make a goal in soccer, and the man who's excitedly yelling in front of the television for his kid is commenting on the game.)

"Laduma" - Hot Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4V9s9xQwTw


PLUS:

My wonderful friend Sarah Duncan is featured in it! She's laughing hysterically with her sister, her sister's boyfriend, and her family friend at 3:17! Please watch the whole thing, not just the part she's in!

I hope you become as addicted to this music video as I have!

Currently obssessed with ...

Shemar Moore and Hot & Spicy Barbecue Chips ... is there any way to combine the two in real life?