The Royal Foodie Joust is an awesome and fun monthly peer voted competition that is hosted on The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! It gets better each and every month as the competition gets stiffer and more creative, as Jousters try to outdo each other! It is also one of the friendliest competitions I have ever seen. So please don’t be intimidated to come and join us this month in another round!

We don’t bite, unless of course there is real food in our faces

The only rules for the competition is that each Jouster create only one dish and each entry must feature three 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 Best Overall Entry winner. The Best Overall 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 Royal Foodie Joust Apron! There are also prizes for the winners of the other two categories: Best Photo and Most Unique Interpretation

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

If you would like to participate in this month’s Joust, be sure to submit your entry by 12 NOON, Eastern Standard USA time on the First of the following Month (Sept. 1, 2009)!

If you have an idea you would like to share about how to make the Joust a better community event, please join us in discussing it here.

Now onto the winners of this month’s event. The ingredients for this month were chosen by last month’s Best Overall winner, Betherann from Kitchen Courage who has been a regular Jouster for quite some time, and is currently training for her first trialthalon! The ingredients she chose were Banana, Honey and Tumeric. These ingredients were a little on the exotic side for some Jousters, but isn’t that what the Joust is all about, getting creative? What better way to get creative then by working with some new ingredients and combinations?! As a result, we had a lot of very interesting entries! But there can only be one winner in each category, and each month making that call gets harder! Onto those winning entries now!

The winner in the Best Overall Category is Raquel from Cafe Nilson with her Spicy Banana Zucchini Balls.

I am happy to admit that she got my vote! I thought that her creative use of ingredients, to make something that would be really delicious and original was spot on. Congratulations Raquel! I hope you enjoy your apron!

The next category was for The Best Photo! As we all know food photography is a major skill for food bloggers, and so in this category your photo has to be good enough to eat. In this case, it was decided that the entry that most fit that category is Sweet Banana Curry Shrimp by LK from Healthy.Delicious.

Her multi-layered dish really looked good! Perfect for fresh summer eating!

The final Joust category to be voted on is Most Unique Interpretation of the ingredients. This is where people can really get in touch with wild creativity and try something new. Rob aka gfron1 from The Curious Blogquat won this category with a Pacific Martini.

If you have never visited The Curious Blogquat, I will tell you that it features a lot of interesting food ideas and techniques, inspired by molecular gastronomy. So you can guess that this recipe was rather intricate, indeed, and a wonderful summer cocktail!

Thanks again to all the participants for another great Joust!

If you would like to see all the entries please check them out here!

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Now for this month’s ingredients. Racquel has chosen another set of really interesting ingredients:

Papaya (ripe or green)
Tarragon
Cheese

I know these ingredients may be a challenge for some of you, put I do suggest to take this as an opportunity to really take your cooking skills to another level  and just have FUN! So please join us here !

I want to start off this post with a HUGE thank you to all of our Foodie Blogroll Members!!!!

This week the Foodie Blogroll was honored by being featured in the the #1 spot of Mashable’s 15 More Fantastic Social Media Resources for Foodies on Mashable: The Social Media Guide.This is what they had to say about us:

“The Foodie BlogRoll is a directory of over 4700 foodie blogs, making it perhaps the most comprehensive food blogger directory on the web. The site also operates a blogroll widget that is embedded on a large number of food blogs across the web and has already seen over 87 million views this year.”

None of this would have been possible without our awesome Foodie Blogroll Members! Our thanks goes out to each and every one of you for making The Foodie Blogroll such a great networking tool for foodies the world over!

Now for FFF.

As always here is what the FFF is all about. Finest Foodies Friday 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. With a membership of over 4,700 food blogs, I am sure you can find much inspiration and new friends!

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.

Brown Eyed Baker

Sometimes you visit a food blog, and as your scroll through the first page, the photos of the food just jump out at you. Maybe it is the photography, or maybe it is just the food itself. I am not sure, but I know that is what happened to me when I visited this blog. It made me hungry. Although Michelle’s blog focuses on baking, there is also quite a nice cross section of other recipes – like soups, ice cream, salads and breakfast. But the one that really caught my eye was Eggplant Lasagna Tart with Pamesan Basil Crust – not all baked good have to be sweet!

Annie’s Eats

Annie is a resident physician and mom to a beautiful son – so she doesn’t have much free time. But when she does, she loves to cook! What I love about her blog is that she states in her “about” section that although she has learned a lot about photography along her way, she keeps her “beginners” photos up to show that “everyone starts somewhere and has the potential to improve”! Nicely said Annie! Her most recent post Chicken with 40 Cloves of Garlic looks so good!

Red Chillies

This blog is written by Supriya and the inspiration for her blog’s title comes from the food of her native city, Bangalore, India, where chilies, coconut and tamarind are featured in their everyday cooking. This is a blog of vegetarian recipes, but I promise you, everyone can find something beautiful to eat here. Just look at those photos and tell me they don’t make you hungry!

Powerfulpierre’s Weblog

The first expat book I ever read was A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle. It was given to me by my French teacher when I graduated from high school. I caught the travel bug in high school, because growing up in the DC area, you go to school with a lot of kids of foreign diplomats. So I relished this book, never having traveled abroad by that point in my life. Since then I have always enjoyed reading books (and now blogs) authored by expats. Although I enjoy reading about other countries from the perspective of natives, I find that expats have a very unique way at looking at their adoptive country. Powerfulpierre and his wife moved to France to get away from the rat race of the UK, to live a quieter, simpler life and to a large extent they believe they have achieved that goal. His latest post about two parties and a funeral really give a look into what it is like to live in France.

Kara Cooks

Losing nearly 100 lbs can really change the way you look at food. For this blogger, who did just that about a year ago, it also changed the way she cooks, significantly. She says it has made her “aware of not just what I was eating but where it comes from and how buying it, fixing it, and eating it impacts the world around me”. She shares her journey into whole and local foods with all of us on her blog. Her photos are also mouthwatering. So be sure to check it out!

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!!!!!! I know we all have our favorite blogs that we read everyday, and I would love to know about them. We have a very diverse food community, and I would love to see more of the blogs you love featured. We also have a lot of humanitarians out in the Foodie Blogosphere. If you think there is a food blogger out there that deserves a little recognition for their culinary skills, or what they are doing to help the world through the lens of food, please tell us about them!!! Please post your favorite Foodie Blogroll foodblogs here. (Thank you Helen for letting me know this link was not working last week!)

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! They would love to have your feedback.

If you are like me, you know the joys of reading cookbooks cover to cover like a novel. Looking at the photos, skimming the recipes, planning future meals and letting the creativity flow is one of my favorite pastimes. I have an entire bookshelf full of cookbooks in my kitchen. I have made at least one or two recipes out of all of them, but I like to keep things interesting, and generally I use cookbooks as inspiration for my cooking, rather than a step-by-step guide. Now with all the wonderful food blogs I have at my fingertips, I find myself using them as creative fodder more often, so in the spirit of conservation I have really tried to limit my cookbook purchases.

However, sometimes, a cookbook will really speak to me and when I purchase it, it will get a place of honor on my counter-top cookbook stand. Generally that spot is reserved for Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day but now it has a roommate Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon. Several people over a short time period told me that I should check this book out. I remember several patients we had at the holistic healthcare office I used to work at talking about Weston Price and fermented and cultured foods, but I never really explored it back then. However, based on all these recommendations, I decided to buy the book. I spent several days reading the introduction which discusses at length the similarities of food preparation (not necessarily ingredients) from traditional cultures all over the world. It also discusses at length the major food groups and gives a lot of information to think about. Now I know some people might read this and be converted right away. I am a skeptical animal by nature, and so a firm believer in moderation as opposed to dogma of any kind. But I have found a lot of useful information in this book, as well as confirmation of a lot of clues and messages I have gotten from my own body when I choose various foods to eat. So for me, much of this book rings true. Then there are the recipes – all of which I want to eat! Well maybe not the organ meat section, I have had quite enough of that to last me a lifetime. But the emphasis here is on real, whole, traditional foods – not new fangled, or processed foods -and some of the foods that fall into that category might be surprising to people – yet it does ring true. It really explores some of the information we, as consumers accept as reality, but may not be the truth of the matter.

For the past 2 months I have been exploring a gluten free diet. But I am not convinced yet that gluten is my culprit. I think my culprit is grains in general and Nourishing Traditions gives lots of information for why that theory may be true. It also gives a lot of suggestions for fermenting grains (and legumes) or soaking them in vinegar, buttermilk, yogurt or kefir as our ancestors did. There are examples from all over the world in this book to support this claim. The soaking allows enzymes and other friendly organisms to break down the phytic acid, an organic acid found in all grains (and legumes) that may make the digestion of grains (and legumes) harder for some people. This sounded like an experiment I wanted to try – not only because I wanted to find a way to digest grains better, but because I really like kefir, yogurt, vinegar and buttermilk, and thought the flavor might actually enhance the grain dishes. I have to say I had a lot of success in the past few weeks with bulgur, lentils and even oatmeal – something I have been trying to learn to like for years. After learning to soak lentils in warm water and apple cider vinegar, they have become so much easier to digest and are becoming a mainstay of our diet. This book has given Roberto and I the opportunity to actually enjoy foods that were previously not on the tummy friendly list. So just for that I am loving this book.

My favorite grain on the planet is buckwheat also known as kasha (which is not actually a wheat – but a grass). So I started the soaking experiment with buckwheat and lentils for dinner one night – serving them together as a pilaf. I served it with a modified version of Nourishing Traditions’ Moroccan Style Chicken (see my recipe after the cut) and roasted sweet potatoes. It was such a delicious meal – so filling and satisfying…and well, a breeze in the digestion department! I was feeling so inspired that night I starting soaking some Irish oats for breakfast the next day, and it was my best experience with oatmeal ever. I am not a convert yet, but I can see myself eating it more often. With all these successes, and so many other delicious recipes to try, I will most likely be featuring more and more of the recipes and ideas from this book.

Yesterday I ordered a bunch of cultures and cheese making supplies from New England Cheesemaking Supply Company so that I can begin making my own kefir, yogurt, buttermilk as well as some soft cheeses. Also, for more Nourishing Food ideas, I have found a great blog – The Nourished Kitchen authored by Jenny who is really a wealth of knowledge on this way of eating. I came across her blog a few months ago when she was doing a giveaway for a Kimchi and Sauerkraut (some of my favorite foods) Maker! I never wanted to win something so bad. I didn’t win, but that maker is certainly on my wish list, along with the CIA version of the Vitamix! In fact, I think I may to buy that maker today…it is under $30 and the only pickles I can find at the store now without corn syrup and dyes are $8 a jar – and I eat A LOT of pickles! Anyway, as you can see I am really excited about all these new discoveries. So likely this will be a topic of discussion in the future.

As I told Hank Cardello, author of Stuffed Nation during a very enjoyable phone conversation yesterday, I am still on the road of discovery about what “healthy eating” means to me. I don’t have all the answers yet, but the learning process sure has been fun, tasty and eye opening so far, and I am already about 8 years into the discovery process with so much more to learn. Speaking of Mr. Cardello and Stuffed Nation, keep your eye out for an intriguing giveaway we will be doing together in September to help spread the message about food policy and the fight against obesity in the US.

*Update: I am really happy to see the responses and comments on this article. If definitely answers my question as to whether these kinds of posts are valuable/interesting to my readers! Your comments always help me to decide which kinds of articles to write, and although I get great responses to my recipes, it seems that I always get very thought provoking comments on these posts I do on food quality. So I am moved to do more of these in the future. For more articles on this topic, check out my “Health and Wellness” category (categories can be found on the left hand side bar). Thank you all for comments!

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This month I am excited to announce two brand new Foodie Blogroll giveaways, provided by two Foodie Blogroll Members!

The first is Aprovecho: A Mexican American Border Cookbook by Teresa Cordero-Cordell who blogs from Mexican-American Border Cooking and Mexican Chocolate Lore and More . Aprovecho is a book that is full of the heart and soul of Mexican American Border cooking. It is a compilation of family recipes that Teresa collected from her mother and grandmother over the years. Teresa says that it was their unorthodox way of teaching her to cook – without recipes and measurements that taught her that creating meals doesn’t necessarily come from a book or from someone’s idea of what a dish should look like. “It comes from the heart. It stems from what you want to offer the family table at a time when all are gathered around to share their most precious gift, the gift of time and love”. The recipe collection started as a website, but is now available to anyone in this mouthwatering cookbook that makes Mexican American border cooking available to anyone. Aprovecho can also be purchased through Amazon.com

The second book is by Catherine Pond who blogs from…In The Pantry, a blog celebrating domestic life. Her book entitled The Pantry: Its History and Modern Uses is a beautiful coffee table type book that any foodie would enjoy having. It is colorfully illustrated book packed with the historical evolution of the pantry, past and present. This book contains both ideas and design inspiration for those interested in domestic history and the evolution of the American Kitchen. Catherine is an architectural historian, writer and former house museum manager. For more information about the book and how to purchase a copy please visit CatherinePond.com

We will be giving away one copy of each book on each Friday of the month of August 2009, starting this Friday the 7^th. All you have to do to be eligible is to be a member of The Foodie Blogroll, and be displaying your personalized widget! Good luck to all members and remember we are also giving away The Foodie Blogroll Totebag!

Also, Kristin Davis, of The Diva Dishes, is throwing in her kitchen towel over there, but moving over to Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen where she is partnering up with more talented food bloggers. Their blog has just been approved today for The Foodie Blogroll! To celebrate their launch they are offering a $25 gift certificate to Williams-Sonoma to one person who leaves a comment each week for six weeks. So get on over there and welcome them!