We have a very unique and exciting giveaway opportunity to announce at The Foodie Blogroll. For the next two Mondays – Monday January 26, 2009 and Monday February 2, 2008 we will be giving away a free month membership to Sensei’s weight loss program.

Now, I know we have all probably over-indulged during the holiday season, and I know there has been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about needing to lose some weight or lighten things up a bit. So this opportunity couldn’t have come at a better time! Most of us, just need a little time to get back on track, and so free month might be the perfect amount!

Also, for those of you who are looking for a nutrition program for a little longer, Sensei’s monthly food and program costs are as low as $194 (for its Budget-Friendly meal plan), nearly $300 less than NutriSystems, Inc., which recently was reported as being the lowest priced weight loss program on the market. Not only is Sensei one of the most affordable weight loss programs on the market, it is one of the most nutritious. Sensei’s Healthy Eating Index (the measure of diet quality that assesses conformance to Federal dietary guidelines) score is an astounding 90 out of possible 100, compared to the American median score of 49 and the 69 for the top 10% of American diets.

So what is Sensei, you may ask? Their company is a pioneer in mobile and web-based solutions that engage and empower consumers to lead healthier and happier lives. Their programs are focused on promoting learning and lifestyle change through automated interactive dialogue that integrates seamlessly into consumers daily routines. Basically, they give you all the tips and tools you need for your weight loss program through your mobile phone or computer. Perfect for us bloggers who are always online!!!

From their webpage:

Sensei is like having your own nutritionist and health coach at your fingertips, delivering customized meal plans, weekly shopping lists, goal tracking and motivational support to a user’s mobile phone display or personal Web page – prompting consumers at point-of-decision moments to make healthier choices. The experience begins online, where users enter their desired weight, food preferences, eating habits, meal times, exercise routines and other personal information. Sensei’s expert system then works with the user to generate a realistic, customized nutrition and fitness plan. Throughout the day, Sensei for Weight LossTM delivers interactive messages to the user’s mobile phone with specific recommendations, reminders and motivational tips. The program also records the user’s eating choices and fitness activities, and automatically tracks progress toward defined goals.
Sensei For Weight Loss also includes the new budget-friendly feature, which automates the creation of healthy, personalized and cost-effective meals. Also new is the “Favorites” function and “My Coupons” tab, featuring users’ local grocer sales conveniently available on the site, and affords them to select and repeat favorite foods and meals for their meals to further leverage savings.

All you have to do to be eligible for the free one-month trial, is to have an active Foodie Blogroll Membership (be a US Resident*) and go check out the Sensei website and blog about what you think about it. Then post on the Leftover Queen Forum here, that you blogged about it, and the link to your post. We will chose a random winner on January 26th and February 2nd to win the one month free trial!!!!

Also, Sensei is giving away a 7 day trial on their website that you may want to check out, and add to your blog post about your experience! Click this link to sign up or go to Sensei.com and click on the orange arrow. This will take you through sign-ups, but will not ask for a credit card.

* I know that a lot of our giveaways have been US based. But I am currently working on something for our European friends. So stay tuned for that!

This is another recipe inspired by my new favorite cookbook,
Dishing Up Vermont.

This particular tagine recipe is perfect for the winter bounty of vegetables that we are experiencing right now. I would not call this a “tagine”, technically, but more of a stew, as that is the way it is prepared, as opposed to the traditional slow roasting method in clay that tagine in known for. However, the flavors are very much reflective of this well known Moroccan dish.

I did not have all of the ingredients in the original recipe, so I filled in the gaps with things that I had on hand, and I must say it was delicious and certainly very easy to make. I would encourage anyone to try this dish with whatever seasonal veggies you have on hand, while keeping the spices the same, and you are in for a real hearty treat. Topped with a nice dollop of strained Greek yogurt and you have a wonderful healthy meal, perfect for staving off the colder weather. It is definitely a dish that I will be making again.
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Finest Foodies Friday! As always here is what the FFF is all about. 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 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 to share ideas about all things food related.
This week we reached 3000 active members!!!!

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.

Ordinary Recipes Made Gourmet
If you are like me, you are always looking for a way to spruce up those tried and true recipes and put a gourmet twist on them. If you enjoy that kind of challenge, this is a blog you must check out! Kim found her love of cooking early, like many of us, and cooked her first meal at the age of 12. After that successful meal, her mom wanted to know the next night “What’s for dinner?”. I love quote on her about page:
“I really try to create a painting every time I serve a dish. To me, it is not just food on a plate but a road trip. I think about the places that I haven’t seen as I eat the meal and think about the seasonings in it.”

i found happy
I just love Jeni’s blog. Every time I pop over there I am confronted with an urge to eat whatever she is featuring that day. Everything always looks so colorful and appetizing, and best of all they are not complicated recipes to make. Like I have said before, there are just so many food blogs out there now that I don’t get a chance to visit them all anymore, and I miss that. But, that said, I have enjoyed all the times I have chatted with Jeni, we share a lot in common, both married in 2008 and relocated to the South. So please drop by, I am sure you will her blog!

Picky Cook
Tagline: i don’t make vegetarian food – i make real food vegetarian
I love the concept of this blog. I know in the US, people eat way too much meat. Now even though I was a vegetarian for 10 years, I am a meat eater, and I enjoy all kinds of meats. But there are many days that I don’t eat a single morsel. Not because I don’t like it, but because I really do love my veggies and really love making vegetarian and even vegan versions of some of my favorites, because it tastes good. So this blog is a great resource for making some of your favorite meals vegetarian! Plus she and her fiance garden creatively (they live in a small place, like us) and they have a cute little dog (just like us!).

Meet Me in The Kitchen
This is another great blog full of drool worthy pictures and recipes. Again very colorful and flavorful foods featured. These are really the kinds of blogs I enjoy the most, the ones that I can go to and see a yummy dish, and be inspired to make it right then and there because I have the ingredients on hand, I don’t need any special tools, equipment or ingredients, and the recipe comes out great.

The Budding Cook
I think there is a trend today, with the featured blog. All of them feature delicious, easy to prepare recipes that are accompanied by gorgeous photos that are mouthwatering and make you want to cook! The Buddding Cook is no exception. There is a menagerie of great recipes that span the globe, from American favorites like brownies and banana bread to the spiced Indian dishes that I love so much.

That’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed this week’s FFF. 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!

Do you ever have one of those twilight zone moments where the word “coincidence” just doesn’t quite cut it? Well it is no secret that I love my friend Judy’s blog No Fear Entertaining (I also love Judy, of course) and we do keep in touch on a daily basis. So when I went to her blog a few weeks and saw this recipe, I was scared, but pretty much in a good way. See, this was the exact same soup recipe (except I added carrots, and garlic, and slightly different spices) I am posting here that I had made around the same time! Judy and I are just thinking too much alike these days! So why am I posting it, if she already did, and this is a back-logged post? Well because it was just that good, and so simple and satisfying, and if you missed it on her blog, then you can check it out here!

I bought some dried split peas at the grocery while back. I am a huge fan of lentils, and although split peas don’t qualify, I do usually classify them as a sort of culinary cousin. Both are fast to cook up with no soaking and both go great in soups and stews. I wanted to make split pea soup, but didn’t have any stock of any kind, or pork products to flavor it with. So I decided to challenge myself by making a vegan version. I looked up several recipes on line and then picked the best parts of all of them and put them together. This soup was incredibly tasty and I found that after a few hours, I needed to add more water as it was so thick and quickly turning into dip right before my very eyes! This was an extremely satisfying meal with fresh baked bread. The smoked paprika adds all the smoky flavor you need, you won’t even miss the pork! The next day we added some VT cheddar on top and that was even better (yet, not vegan anymore). Try it either way, I promise you will love it!
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Here is another fun pasta recipe! This is a dish I made in the not too distant past. Beets are in season right now and although I love nothing better than a delicious roasted beet salad, I was beginning to get really tired of the plethora of beet vinaigrette salads I have been making. So I decided it would be fun to incorporate roasted beets into a pasta dish, not only for a change of pace, but also to stretch the beets and give us a few extra meals. It was really simple but the effect was outstanding! When I tossed there beet vinaigrette with the pasta – look what happened! Red Pasta! Isn’t it just beautiful!?
Read the rest of this entry »

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 and 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 over 2500 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.

Living in the Kitchen with Puppies
Natashya has a great blog full of delicious comfort foods and baked goods. If you are looking for a good cookbook, or a good cooking magazine, check out her blog as she blogs about different cookbook recipes as well as magazines. She is also an active member on The Foodie Blogroll forum and a regular participant in the Royal Foodie Joust, and as her title suggests, an animal lover.

Pastry Methods and Techniques
All across the blogosphere I come across phenomenol cooks who are totally duped by the prospect of baking. I know for myself, I used to feel the same way before I joined the fabulous Daring Bakers. However, if you feel like you want to get your toes wet in the realm of baking, this is the blog for you! i It is written bu Jenni, a pastry chef. Her focus can be on ingredients and functions in baking, or great recipes. Her intent is that it be both educational and entertaining in equal parts.

Cranky Cakes
As most everyone that reads my blog knows, I am a huge fan of the state of Vermont. Having lived there I still feel a sort of allegiance to the state, and I always have a soft spot for Vermonters. I would love to start spending more time there again. But until that is possible, I can visit this blog. Written by a mom, food lover, Director of Community Relations for Vermont Children’s Aid Society and a Vermont Woman columnist. Between all of that she finds time to explore her favorite cuisines: Mediterranean, Thai, Chinese, Indian, and authentic Mexican, good fusion cuisine, organic and local everything, good & thrifty foods, wildcrafting, canning and preserving, roasting, braising, baking.  Wow!

Notes From the Table
This is a blog that focuses on economical, yet healthy meals that are not based on processed food. I love the initiative that many food bloggers are taking these days to find healthy ways to feed their families. I think we are all doing this in degrees and it is a process for many of us, but a good one, and one that I very much encourage. This blog is a great resource for inspiration.

Zaayeka
Navita has a great blog that really spans the globe with the foods she cooks up in her kitchen. She really started her love for cooking after she got married, but realized that it quickly became a passion that she wants to share with the world. She is a fabulous baker and also makes delicious savory dishes as well. So please go over and say hi!

That’s it for this week! I hope you enjoyed this week’s FFF. 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!

Hi Everyone. I have some really exciting news to report! We are getting ready to launch a new month of fabulous Foodie Blogroll random giveaways in February, sponsored by Cedar’s Mediterranean Foods, Inc. It will be called “Mediterranean Monday’s Foodie Box Giveaway”.
Inside will be packed with samples of their newest products and a Cedar’s T-shirt!

If you don’t know about Cedar’s, here is some info to get your mouth watering and your stomach rejoicing. Cedar’s is one of the nationally leading manufacturers of Mediterranean Foods, and some of their products recently won 2008 American Masters of Taste Gold Medals for the best tasting in America. These foods include hommus, tzatziki, and pita chips. The people at Cedar’s believe strongly in the Mediterranean Diet and are working with other companies, like The Mediterranean Food Alliance and Oldways to try to teach consumers about the health benefits of eating a diet filled with fruits, vegetables and healthy fats. All things we love here at The Leftover Queen. I was very honored and excited to find out that The Leftover Queen blog was mentioned in an interview of Nicki Heverling, the Program Manager at MFA as a source to find information on eating the Mediterranean way.

Speaking of good fortune, yesterday I was the lucky recipient of one of these Mediterranean food boxes – because you know, I want to sample this great food too – and I can tell you right now that you do not want to miss your chance to be eligible for this giveaway. Inside my Mediterranean box of goodies was pita chips, 2 varieties of hummus, 2 varieties of tzatziki, spinach dip and a very cool t-shirt. Yum yum yum. So you all can guess what we had for dinner, right?…I thought so – a lovely meze/antipasti of all this great stuff. Everything was delicious. Roberto’s favorite was the pita chips and spinach dip and I loved the tzatziki the best – especially the roasted red pepper flavor, which I have never seen before. The baked pita chips are super crisp and the dips all had great flavor.

Also on this plate of food is some delicious chorizo (back left corner of picture) that I received as a gift from my good friend Nuria who blogs Spanish Recipes all the way from Spain! She was kind enough to award me and a few other with this tasty treat by way of saying thanks for bringing extra traffic to her blog this past year. I would have thought just a thank you email would have been enough. But if you know Nuria, you know she goes out of her way to be thoughtful and generous. So thank you Nuria! It was delicious and tender. We loved every bite and we can’t wait to enjoy the rest.

Well, we wanted to involve the whole family in this treat, so we let Pepino lick the plastic seal over the Cedar’s hummus. I am not sure which he preferred, as he was too busy licking to tell me

So, if you are not an active member of The Foodie Blogroll(meaning you are not displaying a new personalized Foodie Blogroll widget), please go sign up today !

We will be featuring 4 giveaways like this – one per week during the month of February and you really don’t want to miss out!

Well everyone, this post is going to bring a lot of warmth to you today, I know a lot of my blogging buddies who are experiencing winter temps need that, right now!!!

This month we did a very special Royal Foodie Joust! My good friend Cynthia, from Tastes Like Home
has written a cookbook called My Caribbean Cookbook, Tastes Like Home.

She has been kind enough to offer a free copy to the winner of a RFJ Contest. So we decided to do a Joust based Caribbean ingredients.

The Ingredients for this special edition Joust were: Coconut (or Coconut Milk), Rice and Bananas

Here are some comments from Cynthia regarding the ingredients:
Bananas can be used in their green state – starchy or in their ripe stage, as a fruit. We’d prefer everyone to use the banana itself – green or ripe but if you want to use any variations of the banana component you can do so (yes, the leaf is acceptable). Whatever you make, it must be clear that the banana flavour is present.

The winner of the Joust this month was Elle, from Elle’s New England Kitchen with her second Joust win!
her entry was Bananas Foster Cupcakes .

To see the recipe, please check her blog – and I promise, if you haven’t been there before, you will want to check out some of her other recipes.

We are ready to announce the ingredients for this month’s Joust. These ingredients come to us from Billy from a table for two, who won the Joust in December.

He figured after the holiday season, people really wouldn’t be up for “fancy cooking” so he decided to focus his ingredients around simple fare.
So the ingredients for this month’s Joust are: mushroom, cauliflower, noodle. To participate, please post your entries here. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Also I would like to mention a great giveaway that my friend Bren over at FLANboyant Eats is doing an awesome giveaway of some of her favorite things to celebrate her 1 year blogoversary! – so please go check it out!