Many thanks to all of you who participated in the CHUsday giveaways here at Southern Exposure.  We learned about your new recipes (and mine) and some of you won silly kitchen gadgets and autographed books.  Now the final winner has been chosen from the forty-two entries that came in beginning in August.  I faithfully recorded each one and my old buddy Mr. Random Dot Org chose number twenty-four.  The winner, Tina Huneycutt, has been notified and actually won once before.  I think she has the lucky gene. Congratulations to Tina.

Speaking of brand new recipes?  For my New Year’s dinner, I made gnocchi from scratch, and what fun it was.  I gave myself and a daughter-in-law gnocchi boards for Christmas, but a fork works, too.  If you’re interested, click on the blog and watch the King Arthur Flour chef make them.  There’s even a video, which helped me roll them the correct direction.  I used MUCH less flour in mine (1 and 3/8th cups as compared to the 2 it called for) and they were light and delicious.  The recipe made enough to freeze some for another time.  I used my own frozen basil pesto, with shrimp to go along with it instead of the parsley pesto from the website.  But doesn’t that one sound good, too?  I feel another new dish coming on.

I hope everyone’s been prodded into trying new recipes, clearing out useless cookbooks and opening forgotten ones filled with wonderful new possibilities.  Cookbook Hoarders United isn’t going to disband.  I’ll post occasional CHU blogs in the coming months as I try new recipes.  I hope you’ll continue to let us know what you’ve tried, too, and how you liked it.  There can’t be enough good recipes in the world, so why not find more?

Tune in tomorrow for a special treat.  I’ll be interviewing Casey Daniels about her latest Pepper Martin novel, out today.  Who knows what she’ll say?