(Everybody!)

We finally had our big Florida Foodies gathering this weekend in Orlando and as expected it was awesome! It was part of Foodbuzz‘s Dine On Us Program that is available to all of their featured publishers.

(Jenn and Ryan)

We were fortunate enough to have Ryan fly all the way from Foodbuzz headquarters in San Francisco to join us. She was just as delightful in person as I would have thought from all the communication we have had in the past several months.

(Christey, Peter, Jenn and Roberto – photo courtesy of Judy – No Fear Entertaining)

It was wonderful to get a chance to put faces to the people behind the blogs and getting to know everyone. We had so much fun! Everybody was so nice and I had a great time chatting throughout the night.

(Ingar, Jenn, Judy, Ryan and Erin)

It felt like getting together with old friends, which in reality it was! It is amazing how in the world of blogging you get to know so many people without ever really meeting face to face. I was glad to be able to meet a few of you in person. This should certainly be a yearly event. It was a joy to be able to spend the evening with such great people who love food as much as I do and to be able to talk about it all night! If you want to read more about our night, please visit these other blogs, who I am sure will do posts of their own soon (if not already!):

Lys from Cooking in Stilettos
Christey and Peter from Foto Cuisine
Rachel from My Little Marshmallow
Judy from No Fear Entertaining
Chris from Pickles and Cake
Susan from Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy
Ingar from Taste Memory
Erin and Chris from The Olive Notes
Bryan from The Tattooed Gourmet

I had never been to The Blue Zoo before, and I honestly did not know what to expect, but it surpassed all expectations! The restaurant is located in the Swan & Dolphin Hotel and it is gorgeous. The interior colors were all in blues and metallics and it made for a very striking and unique ambiance.

I was really bummed because when we arrived, I was in a bit of an allergy induced Benadryl fog having had a major allergic reaction to something earlier in the day. I never had benadryl before and I don’t think I will ever be taking it again! Mixed with a Zooberry cocktail (which I do totally recommend) and much debauchery and colorfulness can ensue! LOL!

The service at the Blue Zoo was some of the best I have ever had – the staff were very attentive and knowledgeable. Before each course was served, they explained it – the food is what I would call modern classics – deconstructed this and that, so there was a lot of explanation needed. It was definitely one of the most fun meals I have ever enjoyed. They even brought out the chef at the end of the night, which was great! He certainly got a lot of accolades from this group of Foodies!

We started off with Amuse of a Fresh Littleneck Clam with Bacon Ragout, served in a small glass filled with sea salt. The presentation was lovely.

First Course and my personal favorite - Shrimp Cocktail Steamrollers – it was served layered in a big tube. You sucked on the tube to get it out. It was a delicious taste explosion and really fun to eat.

Second Course – Beet salad with candied walnuts and goat cheese fondue. Yum. Again the presentation was beautiful.

Third Course – Spice Route Char – it was the first time I had ever had char and it was delicious. It was nice and crispy on the outside and it was served with beautiful beluga lentils. This was another of my favorite courses and it was plated so nicely.

Fourth Course – Sous Vide Amish Chicken. This was my least favorite course. The chicken was a little dry and although it was good, seen in the light of the past courses, it didn’t quite measure up! However, the polenta and picholine olive sauce it was served with was awesome!

Dessert - Warm Chocolate Cake, Maracaibo Cream Pudding and Peanut Ice Cream. This dish was hard to describe. It was cakey, pudding and liquidy all at the same time. A nice sweet ending to a fabulous dinner.

I would highly recommend the Blue Zoo to anyone going to the Orlando area. It is well worth it. The food is excellent and everything about our experience there was top notch. My thanks again to Ryan and everyone at Foodbuzz for making it all possible, Judy for helping me with the legwork for getting this event happening and to Ingar for bringing us all wonderful goodie bags!

Thanks everyone for coming and making it such a memorable night!

Well The NEW foodie blogroll and NEW widget are continuing to be a huge success. All I can say, is the more the merrier! We are still working out the tweaks and I am sure we will take another week or two to have everything up and running with all the loose ends tied up! Thank you everyone for all your words of support and encouragement and we are so happy that everyone is liking the new look and feel!

Don’t forget, if you have not gone to the new foodieblogroll.com to pick up the new widget (even if it looks like the new widget magically appeared on your site, you still need to go and pick up the new one), you are not eligible for all the prizes, giveaways and contests.

This is a crazy day! We are on our way to Orlando in a few hours. Tomorrow is the Foodbuzz hosted Florida Foodies Gathering at Todd English’s Blue Zoo Restaurant! This dinner is part of the Dine on Us program that Foodbuzz started a few months ago as a way for local foodies to get together with each other! Please check out the Foodbuzz website for more info on that!

Anyway, it is bound to be a great time! I am looking forward to seeing all you Florida Foodies at The Blue Zoo tomorrow night!!! Look for reviews about the gathering popping up all over the blogosphere next week!

But until then, I give you this weeks, Finest Foodies Friday picks!

As always here is what the FFF is all about. 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 free membership blogroll for food bloggers and has become a wonderful community (just under 2000 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.

Today’s picks are some of my favorites of the new sign ups we have had to The Foodie Blogroll and some that I just love!

Lemon Tart‘s blog Tarts and Calories
Her blog heading starts off with this quote from James Beard: “A gourmet who thinks of calories is like a tart who looks at her watch”. So that gives you just a taste of Lemon Tart’s outlook on food. She has always loved reading, writing and anything involving food from cooking to eating and watching Food Network marathons – her blog is her way of deliciously combining all three passions!

Next is Natasha of Healthy and Gourmet
I must admit I have a natural love for these kinds of blogs because my food outlook is healthy and gourmet, so I usually find a lot of great ideas on blogs that have a similar outlook. Especially when those blogs do as great of a job as Natasha’s by showing how healthy does not mean tasteless! Here’s a quote: “Food should make us happy and healthy, energized and euphoric. Not guilty, tired or self-loathing”. You said it!

Esi‘s blog, Dishing up Delights
is a delightful read! She is very much a proponent of eating locally, shopping at the farmer’s markets and trying to live a greener lifestyle and every one of her posts reflects that shift in some way. These kinds of blogs are an inspiration to me too, since I am trying to become greener and greener. But the thing that makes Esi’s blog so great is all the creative and delicious foods she makes – lost of comfort food with a healthy and surprise twist!

Okay, if you have had enough of the health food, then come over and join me at Small Small Baker
This blog is full of delicious treats for the sweeter side of life, muffins, cupcakes, ice cream, puddings and pastries! You might have known her before as “the lousy baker” but I guess with all these delightful treats, she had to change the blog’s name! What amazes me is how light and fluffy everything looks. So please go and check it out to get some great ideas for satisfying that sweet tooth!

I have never felt like going to Cincinnati until I started browsing Julie‘s blog Wine me, Dine me (in Cincinnati)
She decided to write a blog about her and her boyfriend’s eating adventures in Cincinnati, because there wasn’t really anyone else filling that need. Come to find out, there are a lot of really good eats in Cincinnati So if you find yourself going there, or just want to read about some delicious food, go check it out!!!

Remember, if you would like to see a blog featured here, who is part of the FBR please visit the forum and nominate them. I NEED NOMINATIONS!!!!!!

Also we all love to know how people came to find our blogs, so please visit all of our featured bloggers today and don’t forget to tell them that you found them via Finest Foodies Friday!

Have a great weekend everyone!

So as many of you know, in the Leftover Queen household there is an unending quest for good pizza.

I have written about it on my travel blog here, here, here and here , as well as attempting it at home, on the grill last summer when we were at my mom’s.

We have tried other, not so successful pizza making attempts at home that certainly weren’t worth blogging about. But still on this bread revolution kick, I decided to use my new favorite cookbook, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day to try my hand at a new recipe for pizza dough.

I decided to go with the Olive Oil Dough, but I modified it a little to get some whole wheat flour in there. I have heard the low down on all WW pizza dough from my good friend Helen’s blog, Food Stories, and so I didn’t want to make the same mistake (thanks Helen for being the guinea pig!).

This dough was amazing! It was easy to work with, lifted right off the cookie sheet with no trouble and a perfect golden brown. We topped our pizza with Ciliengini (small fresh mozzarella balls), sun dried tomatoes, artichoke hearts and anchovies with capers. It was the perfect combination of flavors and they texture of the crust was perfect – thin, crunchy on the outside, with a soft give inside. The flavor of the olive oil in the dough really gave it a whole level of deliciousness. The fruitier the olive oil, the better!

We enjoyed this pizza while watching The Spiderwick Chronicles when my mom was visiting. Now Roberto is insisting we have this pizza at least once a week!
Read the rest of this entry »

Gosh, it feels like forever since I actually posted a recipe on this blog! The scary thing is that I have A LOT of them to post! With the New Foodie Blogroll launch over, I have accumulated a lot of recipes and photos of dishes I have been preparing this summer, that I haven’t had time to post (and scarily enough, posts I had written right before the wedding, that I still have to post Bad, bad, blogger!).

DISCLAIMER: So be forewarned that some of the upcoming posts aren’t going to be seasonal for most of my lovely readers. I see that there are Autumnal posts all over the blogosphere, and although the weather is a little less humid here, we are still very much in the throes of summertime, here in Florida! (OH HOW I MISS THE FALL!!!)

We are going to be heading to New England for our annual trip in October and my goal is to post all my backlog before then. So that when I come back, I have all fresh material!

So before this gets too out of date, here are the lovely ice cream recipes for you that I promised over a week ago! *blush*

Here are the next two installments of the Ice Cream Diaries…

Lemon-Ricotta Ice Cream

I had some leftover ricotta cheese in the fridge and I had seen Laurie from Dalla Mia Cucina make a Ricotta and Rum Gelato and I thought – there you go! That’s what I want to do with my leftover ricotta! I had about a cup left, so I decided to fill in the rest with whole milk and Greek yogurt.

A while back I had made some lemon-ricotta muffins that I found on Rosa’s Yum Yums that were awesome so I decided that I wanted to make lemon-ricotta ice cream. Also I have been trying to find a solution to the super hard ice cream texture that most of our ice cream has (to the point that we have to take it out of the freezer 40 minutes before we want to eat it!!!), and since I know vodka doesn’t freeze, I put a nice shot of vanilla vodka into the mix. Just for texture purposes! It worked really well! So now I know the trick to making softer ice cream!

Click through for recipe and for the Mango-Organe Sorbetto….AND the MEME!
Read the rest of this entry »

The Royal Foodie Joust is a monthly competition that is hosted on
The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! Each entry features 3 ingredients in common. This competition has been referred to many times as the Iron Chef of the Food Blogosphere. Each month’s ingredients are chosen by the previous month’s winner! The winner of each Joust not only wins the Queen’s favor, bragging rights and a cool icon to put on their blog, but is also awarded with a super awesome personalized apron! Second and Third place winners also receive prizes!

So what are you waiting for? Come over and join us this month!

As always it was a fierce, yet fun and creative RFJ this month! Last month’s winner, Kittie from
Kittens in the Kitchen won the apron with her awesome entry of Seafood Sesame and Cilantro, A Trilogy.

Her choice for this month’s ingredients were:
Whole Grains, Ginger and Citrus.

As always the innovation and ideas that contestants come up with for the Joust are just mind-boggling! This month was no exception. So without further ado, here are the winners!

FIRST PLACE: My friend, Peter aka Protos from Souvlaki for the Soul won the Joust this month, with his beautiful, elegant and tasty Halvas.

I am a big fan of Peter’s blog which features predominantly Greek cuisine. But his photography is always mouth watering as well! I am so pleased to announce him as the winner this month!!! Great job, Peter!!!

SECOND PLACE: Kat, from A Good Appetite, gave Peter a run for his money throughout the competition. Her mouthwatering recipe for Sweet and Spicy Cherry Glazed Game Hens Over Wild Rice looks scrumptious and is a perfect meal for the cooler days ahead!

THIRD PLACE: Maybelle’s Mom from Feeding Maybelle just keeps bringing us great entries every month! This month her whimsical Orange Ginger Caramel Popcorn Balls

shows you the crowd she is cooking for (…and yes, that includes the kid in all of you!) ! I am sure these were taste tested by Maybelle first!

Thanks again to everyone who participated in this month’s Joust! As always it was wonderful, inspiring and just plain ‘ol tasty! To check out all of the entries and recipes for this month’s RFJ, please click here

If you would like to join us this month, please post your entries here

Peter’s pick for ingredients are:

Fennel (whole, ground, seeds)
Dairy (in any form, or dairy substitute for vegans or dairy allergies)
Parsley

Let the games begin!!!!

Just a quick announcement! The new Foodie Blogroll Widget is up and running! If you have not gotten the email about how to get the new widget, and you are an existing member, there is a link on your old widget that you can click to get the new one.

Remember, even if you are an existing member, you need to switch over to the new widget in order to eligible for all the great promotions, prizes, giveaways and contests – the new widget is the only way we have of tracking your blog, putting it in the random pools and tracking its stats as well!

So please remember to pick up your new widget – it only takes a minute!

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As always here is what the FFF is all about. 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 free membership blogroll for food bloggers and has become a wonderful community (just under 2000 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.

Janet from Gourmet Traveller

Janet certainly is a world traveler, born in Hong Kong but having lived in the UK and Switzerland, her blog posts span the globe with all her delicious recipes. She also does quite a bit of traveling for pleasure (and eating) as well, and creates many recipes inspired by her travels. She would love to turn her love and passion for food into a career one day , and through that teach more people about Cantonese cooking.

Next is another Janet, from Livin’ La Vida Vegan

She is another adventurer! She has always dreamed of a faraway land with beautiful turquoise water. So a year ago, she moved to the Caribbean for a year to fulfill that dream. Now, she is a new mother who is livin’ la vida vegan in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Her recipes are inspired by her life in the Caribbean, and she is also an amazing baker! Be sure to visit her blog for some inspired ideas!

If you haven’t visited Teresa‘s blog Mexican-American Border Cooking,

You should get on over there. Teresa is relatively new to blogging, but not to cooking. She has been cooking Mexican-American foods for over 20 years and is a native of El Paso, TX. For the past eight years she has compiled her favorite family recipes focusing on Mexican Chocolate, to create a very delectable ebook, Mi Chita’s Mexican Chocolate Dessert Cookbook. She also has another blog dedicated entirely to the use of Mexican Chocolate for all you chocolate lovers out there.

Meryl of Inspired Bites

The first time I had ever read Meryl’s blog she was just coming back from a little excursion to my old stomping grounds of Amherst, MA. I read on her profile that she lives in MA, which inspired me to read more (I have a thing for New England, if you hadn’t noticed), and I am so glad that I did. She has such delicious recipes on her blog, from sweet to savory, snacks to comfort food and everything in between. When I get homesick for New England and all the delicious food of that region, I am glad that I have Meryl’s blog to get inspiration from!

Dhita (aka:Barefootster) from Cooking Etcetera

is originally for Indonesia, but currently lives in inner Mongolia with her husband, an ex-chef. Although these days, she is the one spending time in the kitchen enjoying the creativity of cooking and blogging. Her photos are beautiful and her blog is filled with delicious baked goods and her specialties of the house!

Remember, if you would like to see a blog featured here, who is part of the FBR please visit the forum and nominate them. I NEED NOMINATIONS!!!!!!

Also we all love to know how people came to find our blogs, so please visit all of our featured bloggers today and don’t forget to tell them that you found them via Finest Foodies Friday!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Hello Everyone!

We are finally here!!!

We are very pleased to announce that the new Foodie Blogroll Website is up and running!

This has been a 6 month process to get here! I know it must have felt like a long time coming, because it certainly did for us as well! But it is worth all the blood, sweat and tears, I promise.

This site grew out of the demands of the food blogging community to have a place to come together and get help and support from each other. I know how frustrating it can be sometimes to be a food blogger, but I honestly believe that each food blogger has a unique and important voice and I have learned so much from all of you, that I would hate for a single one of you to decide not to blog anymore for any reason. This is why we decided to change up The Foodie Blogroll, from being just a list of blogs to a more interactive community with motivational tools, ways to connect with other bloggers and keep doing what we all love best – cooking, baking, food styling, food photography, food pairing, etc, and blogging about it!!!

Here are some of the highlights:

1) A brand new, sleek Foodie Blogroll Widget that is customizable – size and color scheme!
2) Monthly Prizes and Giveaways!
3) A Brand New Home and Server for The Foodie Blogroll!
Come check us out at: www.foodieblogroll.com
4) Partnership with Foodbuzz as the official sponsor of The Foodie Blogroll!

The whole intention of The Foodie Blogroll is to help keep food bloggers motivated and inspired to keep blogging. We believe that food and people that blog about food are keys to cultural consciousness and human understanding. Food has a power – the power to unite people. Everybody eats. So we feel that the more people who share their food and cultures of food with each other, the more we can, in our small way, help bridge cultural gaps and spread awareness. The foodie community online spans the globe many times over and we have all seen a big sense of belonging and sharing through blogging about food.

In order to keep these services free to all of our members, which is vital to us, while at the same time moving The Foodie Blogroll community to the next level, by giving back to the food community and helping fellow bloggers reach their goals in the way we want, we need to have the financial means to do so. This is where Foodbuzz comes in. They are helping us fund this mission and continue the outreach to food bloggers by sponsoring The Foodie Blogroll.

If you want to find out more information about The New Foodie Blogroll, please click here!

PLEASE NOTE:

*** If you are an existing member and have yahoo email, you may not have gotten the big email with all the instructions and outline of new features. We are working on fixing the problem, but in the meantime, please click here to get that information.

***If your blog is hosted on wordpress.com, we are working on a new widget just for you, that will work on your blogs. This is our next priority because we want to make sure that you can participate in all the great things happening!

On a personal note: I am sorry that I have not been visiting or commenting lately, but I have my hands full with The Foodie Blogroll right now. I hope to be back to my regular rounds soon! I miss all of you and your blogs, but I am so appreciative of your comments! I read and enjoy each and every one of them!