Another Friday, another Finest Foodies Friday! FFF is a weekly Friday post featuring favorites from The Foodie Blogroll! We do this so we can share in the rich diversity of what The Foodie Blogroll has to offer by featuring some of our favorites yours! What is the Foodie Blogroll? It is the first and fastest growing blogroll for food bloggers and has become a wonderful community (over 1700 strong) to share ideas about all things food related.

The only requirement to be featured here on FFF is to be a member of The Foodie Blogroll and be displaying The Foodie Blogroll widget on your blog. If you are not yet a member, but you have a food blog and would like to join us, please click here!

If you have a favorite foodblog on The Foodie Blogroll, that you would like to be featured here on FFF, please join us over on The Leftover Queen/Foodie Blogroll Forum, and post your favorite Foodie Blogroll foodblogs here.

Now for today’s picks:

Lately there have just been so many great new additions to The Foodie Blogroll, that as I approve new ones, I add several to the list of blogs to be featured on FFF. So here are a few from the past 2-3 weeks that I feel are of special mention and some folks that have been around for a little while longer that deserve the spotlight.

Susan‘s blog, She’s Becoming Doughmesstic
is such a fun blog to read. Susan’s personality and sense of humor really comes out in all her posts. Her blog, as can be gleaned from the title is about her journey into domesticity by way of the kitchen. Susan and her husband have lead an adventurous and interesting life and have traveled quite a bit in their past. Today they continue to escape from the norm raising their son and keeping things interesting in their quest to have it all: a happy family, a clean house, and a kitchen full of things worth eating.

Kait‘s blog, Kait’s Place
She is a university student who has taken a year off to do an internship with IBM. One of her passions is cooking (and eating!). The food on her blog always looks so good. Her blog is almost a few months old, but she is really taking charge and getting out there to experience all that food blogging has to offer. Not only is she a member of The Foodie Blogroll, but also of the illustrious Darking Bakers and she has also joined that fabulous group Tuesday’s with Dorie. So I am sure if you don’t know Kait yet, you will soon enough!

Then there is Feed The People, Jessica‘s Blog.
She describes herself as : “A young chef with a passion for food – not just the cooking or eating – but also the writing.” – all ingredients that make up a great food blogger. I love her posts that focus on a particular food item, like squash or carrots and then tells you about said food item and gives ideas for how to prepare it. She also does a lot of canning and preserving. Something I have wanted to get into for a while. Great place to get those creative juices flowing and getting you thinking about food.

Speaking of such things, another blog I have been wanting to feature for a while is Kat and Matthew‘s blog, A Good Appetite
I am pretty sure a lot of you are already familiar with this blog, but I feel it really deserves mention. It is because of these guys that I was introduced to my new favorite book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. Reading their blog and seeing all the wonderful breads really inspired me to go check the book out, and the rest is history. This blog is full of delicious, fresh and simply amazing food ideas that makes you think, “I should get in the kitchen right now!”

Next is Amy of We Are Never Full
Whenever I visit, I always feel inspired to get outside my comfort zone. There are certain blogs that you go to and think to yourself, that you could never think of making the kind of food they do in your kitchen. Not because you don’t like the looks of it, quite the contrary – it just looks like it takes a lot of counter space, extra mixing bowls, a nice liquor cabinet with all the right stuff inside. This is one of those blogs. You will go away with your mouth watering every time and wishing you were their neighbor.

Don’t forget to go and visit these great blogs and let them know that heard about them through Finest Foodies Friday!

Man, there is a lot of squash out in the blogosphere these days! I love squash fritters, to me, it is the absolute best way to cook this “filler” vegetable. There is something about pan frying shredded bits squash with onions and other veggies that really bring out the squash’s hidden sweetness. Zucchini is another great food for making fritters or pancakes. One of my all-time favorite personal creations was Zucchini Fritters with Chipotle Harissa Yogurt . So with that dish in mind, I decided to use the cousin of the zucchini, the humble yellow squash.

I got these cute yellow squash that became affectionately know as “Spaceship Squashes” at the Farmers Market. Have you seen these guys yet? Anyway, it was the last time this particular produce stand was going to take part in the weekly market this season. We love this stand because their local produce is always so BIG – remember that gigantic head of cabbage for a dollar ? – well this is that vendor. So I decided to grab as much as we could for the freezer over the next few months, including another large cabbage and a basket of these cute squashes.

They sat in the fridge for about a week, until I realized that I needed to use them up soon. So I decided to make fritters for another Movie Night. We ate this while watching a DVD of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer Episodes – Season 5. Yes, I love Buffy. The show has gotten a mention twice this week. What can I say, it is quite enjoyable. I promise though, this is as geeky as I get…besides my Lord of the Rings problem, but that is a whole other story. But I am thinking we should have been watching something with aliens for this particular meal. Perhaps, more suited would have been Firefly. *insert geeky music*

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It is time once again to announce the winners of this month’s Royal Foodie Joust – a foodie event hosted on
The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! Where each month features recipes using 3 ingredients in common. These ingredients are chosen by the previous month’s winner. This event is sponsored by Ben from What’s Cooking?. This means you have a chance to win Tupperware products from Ben as well as a personalized apron for the first place winner from yours truly!!!

This month’s ingredients were chosen by Erin of The Skinny Gourmet, they were Apricots, Ginger and Butter. We had a wide variety of entries from sweet to savory with flavor influences spanning the globe! But there can be only one (each month)!!!!

And this month, we passed the apron to my dear friend and Greek cooking officianado : Peter of Kalofagas with his totally rockin’ entry of
Apricot and Pistachio Cake:

Don’t you just want to bite right into that slice??? I know I do!

It was a tough competition this month. Coming in at an exciting and close second is Marija from Palachinka with her crunchy bundles of joy, called
Crispy Honey Glazed Rolls:

Taking us over to the savory side of things is lovely Annie (I like to call her Anniepooh!) from Cooking with Anne with her fantastic entry of
Gingered Pork Wontons with Apricot Plum Sauce:

All of the entries this month were wonderful, and perfect for the season with apricots being easy to find. To see all the delectable offerings, please check the rest of the wonderful dishes out here.

Thanks so much for all the entries and participation! It was really the best Joust yet!

So now the time has come to announce Peter’s choice of Ingredients! They are as follows:

Cilantro (coriander), Seafood and Sesame (seeds, oil, etc.)

Please join us here with your creations using these ingredients!

Independence Day in the US is all about BBQs and fireworks. I guess it is a fitting way to celebrate a birthday. I mean, we all usually celebrate our personal birthdays with great food,cake and fanfare .
I think next year, on my birthday, I should ask for the fireworks, too.

But really there is no better way to celebrate a holiday or event than with delicious food. We all know that well. This weekend we were celebrating with my family. My mom and my aunt and uncle came up to Saint Augustine to celebrate the birth of the USA in the oldest town in the USA. We spent Friday afternoon sightseeing and so I decided on a simple menu, that I could do ahead of time, so that I could not only enjoy my guests, but so that we could have a delicious, but quick meal in between all of the festivities.

You know what they say though about the best intentions…

Menu:

Pork Kebabs with my special Middle Eastern inspired meat rub with cippolini, orange bell pepper and cherry tomatoes with Tzatziki

Since I don’t have a grill, and can’t grill where I live (2nd story condo in a downtown area) I did my kebabs under the broiler!

Tangy Potato Salad: loosely based on Nana’s Potato Salad but with lots of sweet Hungarian paprika and some cider vinegar thrown in

Green Beans Vinaigrette: Just green beans tossed with garlic, cilantro, sherry vinegar and extra virgin olive oil
(sorry no pics)

To Drink? White Sangria with strawberries and stone fruit (bottle of Riesling, bottle of bubbly and chopped fruits)

For Dessert? Cardamom and Pistachio Brownies from Mallika’s blog with homemade Pomegranate Sorbet (recipe to follow)

So I gave myself Thursday afternoon and evening to boil the potatoes and blanch the green beans, prep the meat with the rub, make the tzatziki, the brownies and the sorbet. No big, do it all the time. I prepped the veggies and the meat in no time, with no difficulty. Then I made the brownies. It was a bit of a challenge because I have never made brownies from scratch (oh the horrors!) before (we are not big brownie people, so that is why), plus the recipe I was following on Mallika’s blog were in metric. So I sat down to quickly do the calculations and it just wasn’t making sense – so honestly I scrapped the directions and just winged it. They turned out a little on the cake-y side, as opposed to squidgy, but we actually prefer them this way, so they were fine.

Then it was time for the sorbet, my pièce de résistance. So I made the simple syrup in this tiny saucepan I have with a broken handle (meaning all that was there was the screw and a little piece of the handle). After it was all set, I went to pour it in a small pyrex bowl, to cool. But as I was pouring, the handle finally broke all the way off, and as this happened the pot fell onto the pyrex bowl, knocking it to the floor, shattering the bowl and spraying my freshly cleaned kitchen and newly bought kitchen carpet with super sticky gooey simple syrup. The first thing that came to my mind after, “thank goodness I miraculously avoided being burned” was: “oh crap, Roberto is going to kill me!” (he has been trying to get me to throw this pan away for ages), followed by “Damn it! I am out of sugarrrrrrrrrrrr!” also dammit, my pyrex bowl is broken and dammit I no longer have a small saucepan. Followed by “I can’t believe I have to go back to the store!”

From there it was just a downward spiral. My kitchen was covered in gooey glass, and I needed to go get more sugar. So I zipped out to the store, while Roberto kindly volunteered to do cleanup duty (thank the Universe for good and helpful husbands!).
As I was driving to the store, the light for gas came on, so I had to stop and pay a gazillion dollars for a tank of gas. Then when I finally got the the store, I stepped out of the car and dropped my cell phone onto the pavement, which then promptly fell apart. I had had it, and expletives were flying from my mouth when I look up and see a mother with her little daughter walking towards me. As I mouthed “so sorry” to her, I picked up my cell phone pieces, put it back together and braced myself for the insanity that is the day before a holiday shopping frenzy at the grocery! Luckily I made it out alive and without any problems, and back home with no other detours. I managed to finish making the sorbet before completely crashing. We ate some leftovers, drank a mojito to dull the pain and torture of earlier events, and watched a few episodes of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer on DVD. Normalcy returned and all ended well.

The next day our guests arrived and we all enjoyed a nice and relaxing weekend. I hope you all in the US enjoyed your long weekend too!
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Happy Independence Day Everyone in the US!

Another Friday, another Finest Foodies Friday! FFF is a weekly Friday post featuring favorites from The Foodie Blogroll! We do this so we can share in the rich diversity of what The Foodie Blogroll has to offer by featuring some of our favorites and some of yours! What is the Foodie Blogroll? It is the fastest growing blogroll for food bloggers and has become a wonderful community to share ideas about all things food related.

The only requirement to be featured here on FFF is to be a member of The Foodie Blogroll and be displaying The Foodie Blogroll code on your blog.
If you are not yet a member, but you have a food blog and would like to join us, please click here.

If you have a favorite foodblog on The Foodie Blogroll, that you would like to be featured here on FFF, please join us over on The Leftover Queen/Foodie Blogroll Forum, and post your favorite Foodie Blogroll foodblogs here.

In celebration of Independence day here in the US, I am dedicating this FFF to everyone’s favorite way to celebrate this holiday – the BBQ. Millions of Americans both in the States and residing in other parts of the world will mark this holiday with grilling up some fine foods, and raising a glass or a sparkler to the anniversary of the birth of this country. Followed by fireworks and some sinful treats. So right in form, we will do the same here on FFF…except of course for the fireworks!

First up is Larry from The BBQ Grail
His blog is dedicated to learning more about BBQ, the low and slow way. He is one of our newest members on the Foodie Blogroll. I could not think of a better time for him to join – right at the height of summer where everyone is looking for ways to utilize their grills that have been lying dormant over the winter season. You can find recipes from burgers, to steaks to chickens on this blog! Enjoy!

Next is Bill from Barbecue Tricks
Here you’ll find a daily trick of the trade handed down from first class Barbecue Champs. You’ll also find helpful links to supplies you’ll need to cook low and slow so that your BBQ become the best in the neighborhood. On the homepage you can sign up for a free newsletter, check out How-to videos and even join a forum dedicated to BBQ.

Another great blog to check out is Barbecue-Smoker-Recipes.com
This blog is where you’ll find all the latest from “The Barbecue-Smoker-Recipe Man”. All the latest barbecue smoker recipes, reviews and opinions on everything to do with barbecue grills, fire pits and meat smokers. There are even posts dedicated to vegetarian and healthier options, as well as salads and sides to go along with your BBQ. Even tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint!

Next we have Jason from Jason’s BBQ Adventures
Jason’s goal with creating a blog is to share his BBQing recipes and techniques. BBQing has been a passion of his for several years and so he is using his blog to document each and every grill he does. He shares the recipe he used, instructions, and a detailed log of cooking times. YUM-my!

Finally, Jared‘s Blog, Crockpot BBQ
gives us an alternative to grilling outside. Some of us, like yours truly, have no way to BBQ this 4th. Some of us live in apartments or condos that do not allow grills out on our small verandas (I know, can you believe it????)
So we need an alternative way to fulfill our cravings we sometimes get for BBQ. A way to enjoy it without having to dine out. Check out Jared’s blog to get some tips in that area.

So please go visit today’s picks! When you do, be sure to leave them a nice comment and if it is your first time there, let them know that you heard about them via The Foodie Blogroll Finest Foodies Friday!

Have a happy and safe holiday everyone! I am off to cook up some grub myself!

Well it has been a while since I have been fired up enough to post a rant, but this rant has been a long time coming. I don’t believe in complaining about something if you don’t have a solution or an idea to make it better. So I have been doing research and working out a solution, so here I am with a bread revolution! I am here, in Valkyrie fashion, with a wooden spoon in hand ready to stick it to The Man, right in the ribs, into the heart of things. Which man?, you might ask. The Man of crappy, awful bread. I have had it with bread. I am sick and tired of going to the grocery store and spending over 20 minutes in the bread aisle looking for a single loaf that doesn’t contain CORN SYRUP and then being charged $5 a loaf for my time. I am even more tired of going back 2 weeks later, picking up that same bread and now seeing CORN SYRUP in there. I am tired of all the “Whole Wheat”, “Hearty Grain” and otherwise “healthy” breads containing not only corn syrup but also enriched flours and a huge list of ingredients, half of which I have no clue what they are. What I hate the most are ingredients like “sugar and/or high fructose corn syrup”.

I mean who are they trying to kid and why are either of these things in a freaking whole wheat pita to begin with???

What is happening to the food manufacturers? Do they think I am so gullible and stupid that I will buy bread with a list of ingredients as long as a 5 year old’s Christmas list to Santa? Well they better think again.

I know that there are only 4 ingredients in bread: Flour, Water, Yeast and Salt.

If you want to get fancy, you can add warm milk, maybe olive oil, honey or perhaps some seeds and nuts. That is it. I mean why is there niacin, iron and vitamin B in my store bought bread? Oh, it is because food manufacturers have stripped the flour of all its natural proteins and nutrients so they have to add them back in the flour as an after thought, to try to make it better and healthier. Well you better try a little harder, because I am FAR from convinced.

And please explain to me why there are dinosaurs in my bread, things like, Stearoyl Lactylates and what about Guar Gum?

I thought gum was what you glue things together with, or stick under your chair in school. Why are you turning humble, beautiful, simple bread into a science project? It is unforgivable. Bread which is one of the cornerstone foods of human life is getting an ugly makeover.

I for one REFUSE to buy another loaf.

I will not buy into the crap, I will not support this destruction of bread. Next time you are at the store, I ask you to take a closer look at the bread aisle and really take note of all the crap they are trying to feed us and pass off as food. I implore you to take a stand and say no to crappy bread, full of dinosaurs, bubbalicious and all sorts of other ingredients that do not belong in bread!

Okay, okay, I know we are all busy and already spend a lot of time in the kitchen feeding our families and making fabulous meals.

I mean who in the world has time to make homemade bread all the time? WE ALL DO.

It is simple, it takes no time (literally 5 minutes at the most) and it is healthy. Something you can feel good about eating. Let’s take back the bread! Here is how.

First, I know I am not the only person out there who has started making their own bread, but I have found that there is a way for us, the people who hate kneading, to make fabulous, artisan breads in just minutes.

The first recipe I came across was the famous no knead bread recipe from the New York Times. It is a wonderful recipe, very easy to make and yields a wonderful rustic loaf with a crunchy crust and a soft inside. I made this bread several times before coming across this book:

Artisan Bread in 5- Minutes a Day. I went to the bookstore, sat down with this baby and a whole new world opened for me. I first made a modified version of the Light Whole Wheat (making it a bit heavier in the wheat department) and it was so nice and spongy on the inside while retaining a crunchy outer crust. From there I moved on to the 100% Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread. The beauty of this book is there are a group of main bread recipes – like European Peasant, White Boule, Pumpernickel and Rye, and from them you can make a whole host of things like pizza, baguette, flatbreads, pita, foccacia, naan, lavash, rolls, etc. But there is also recipes for making pretzels, bagels, brioche and a whole host of other goodies! All simple and easy, and readily available.

The key is that you make enough dough to make about 4-5 loaves of bread (small loaves, but loaves) and then the dough keeps in your fridge for a week, sometimes 2 , depending on the recipe. You just pull off what you need and bake. It is really a revolution in bread making for the home cook. I suggest you try it today!

Here are the two I mentioned to get you started:
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