CHUsday: What’s Your Favorite Food Blog?

I don’t know about you, but in addition to a LOT of cookbooks, I also have a LOT of links to cooking blogs and recipe sites.  This month, in hopes that you do, too, if you make a new recipe from an online site, you can comment here or on any Cookbook Hoarders United blog from the past, tell us what you made, where you found it (the link would be great) and how you liked it.  Then you’ll be entered in this month’s CHU giveaway.

As usual you can also use a recipe from a cookbook you haven’t opened in ages, or a new one you haven’t opened at all.  And don’t forget Mr. Potato Peeler is this month’s silly kitchen utensil for the giveaway.

Tonight for dinner, I plan to try a brand new dish.  Last week I happened by the Thai section at my grocery store and found Thai Kitchen’s “Stir Fry Rice Noodles.”  I’m a sucker for rice noodles.  They went right into my cart.  At home I looked up the company online and found lots of good recipes for them. including one for Thai Sesame Noodles.   We love sesame and this looked yummy.  When asparagus jumped into my cart the next time I shopped, I knew I was in business.  I can’t imagine this won’t be delicious.

Company websites are treasure troves of recipes.  If you like to bake, King Arthur Flour has wonderful recipes and so does Bob’s Red Mill.  Boboli Pizza has innovative ways to use their pizza shells that also work well if you make your own dough.  Hershey’s will feed your sweet tooth.

Recipe collection sites are great, as well.  Allrecipes features recipes from ordinary cooks, and the reviews will tell you if the ones you’re interested in really work.  I love to read who did what, why and how they did it.  You can save your choices in your very own recipe box.  Mine is so full that if everyone reading this made one of those recipes a week, in a decade we’d be finished–and on Weight Watchers together.

Epicurious is similar, except that the professional recipes have been previously published in magazines like Bon Appetit, Gourmet, and Self.  Again you have your own personal recipe box and lots of reviews to read.

My very favorites, though, are recipe blogs.  I love the stories that go with the food.  There are so many that I hesitate to play favorites.  But just to get you started, here are a few I particularly enjoy.

The Perfect Pantry features recipes using 250 ingredients of everyday cooking.  Lydia Walshin writes about and photographs recipes made from her own pantry, and sometimes she’ll give us a tour of other people’s pantries, too.  Lydia, honey, stay out of mine!  Unfortunately it resembles my desk, disorganized and badly in need of  sorting.

Simply Recipes publishes recipes that the founder Elise Bauer, tests with the help of family and friends.  I like this one because of the casual, friendly style, and the uncomplicated recipes.  Like The Perfect Pantry, Elise’s recipes are user-friendly with ingredients you probably already have.

Once Upon A Chef is another “simple recipe” blog.  Although new recipes are added slowly, they always sound promising.  Plus there are often giveaways.  In late September Jennifer, a former professional chef, gave away muffin tins, a cooling rack, and lots more goodies to go along with a recipe for doughnut muffins.  What’s not to like about that?

Baked Perfection was brand new to me until I went looking for a recipe for “Wanda’s Wonderful” Elvis Surprise pie, which is featured in Fortunate Harbor.  I thought I’d find something I could tweak, but when I found this one, I knew it was the real thing.  Risa (who turns out to live not too far from me) was happy to let me use the recipe on my new Facebook Welcome Page as a bonus for anyone who “likes” me.  (I feel so Sally Field every time I say that.)  The Elvis Surprise–known on her site as Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Pie–is a great treat for anyone brave enough to make it.  And wow, all those other fabulous desserts to try.

What are some of your favorite food sites?  Aren’t  you in the mood to try a new recipe this month?  Fall’s in the air and the eating’s good.  Start your ovens.

 

3 Comments

  1. Liz on October 18, 2011 at 7:06 am

    Mystery Lovers’ Kitchen combines food and books. Who could ask for more.
    http://www.mysteryloverskitchen.com/

  2. Kelly Grace on October 21, 2011 at 3:34 pm

    I have a VERY picky husband. He does not eat bread and hasn’t since he was 3 years old. So when he quit eating meatloaf (some smart person in my family told him there was bread crumbs in it) I figured we’d never eat it again. Until I found an Atkin’s recipe! http://www.tastymeatloafrecipes.com/Low-Carb-Meatloaf.htm

    I only had ground beef, and no paprika so I used red pepper flakes instead. 1/2 medium onion was a little too much, but it was pretty good. And my husband ate it too!

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