Tinfoil Chef

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Popcorn Cook is one of those food blogs that can catch you off guard if you’re only going by the name when you decide what it’s about. There’s a lot more to be had there than mere popcorn. A recent Traditional New Year: Hoppin’ John recipe is just one of a growing list of examples of some real finds to be had there.

Another one from there that I consider a long time favorite is the Turkey Day Scalloped Potatoes recipe. There’s a load of taste packed into this slow cooker variation on the traditional idea of scallped potatoes that most people are familiar with. One of the things I like about stuff done in a slow cooker is that the ingredients get a really good opportunity to blend and create a taste all their own. One that can only be achieved by cooking slowly for hours.

Speaking of slow cookers, this Layered Ham, Potato, Cheese recipe is one that my wife came up with a bunch of years ago and has been a hit with our family ever since.

slow cooker recipes, crockpot recipes, cooking blog, review, blogs i like

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After spending some time reading through a host of goodies of all kinds I’d have to say that not only does The Pioneer Woman Cook, but she’s also got a way with words that’s really refreshingly “just folks” and often funny to boot.

She also uses a lot of pictures to illustrate every step of a recipe, something I’d like to do but up until recently haven’t had access to a camera with enough system memory to take a decent number of sufficiently high resolution pics that still look good when you crop out everything but the star of the food show.

A great example is a recipe my wife found there for Biscuits and Gravy. This down home favorite is one that has eluded many an otherwise good cook for a long time in spite of the fact that it’s actually pretty simple (sometimes simple isn’t enough is it?).

She takes the whole thing step by step with a picture or two for each one. I honestly believe that most, if not all, of the people who have difficulty with making a basic white gravy would do a lot better after reading that recipe. It’s definitely a site I’ll be revisiting as there’s a bunch of great looking dishes that my wife and I would like to try.

Btw- The only changes I’d make with the Biscuits and Gravy would be to crumble the sausage into the gravy and use good old fashioned homemade cat-head biscuits to host generous ladles of the sausage gravy.

Technorati Tags: biscuits, biscuits and gravy, cooking blogs, easy directions, recipes, gravy, pictures

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In short, Sarah’s Cucina Bella is, in her own words, about “Recipes that the whole family will eat . . . and the stories that go along with them”. To make a short story a bit longer, it’s more than just that. The stories are good family fun, such as a recipe featured last April called Parmesan Rosemary Sweet Potato Fries.

Apparently her husband is one of those who’re pretty much set in their ways with no interest in changing. Part of that included a dislike (or at least strong disinterest) for most things vegetable. Reading that story I get the idea that he’d have sooner been willing to take horse supplements than to sit down to something that’s primarily vegetable in nature… especially if said vegetables weren’t the “open a can” variety.

Then came the Sweet Potato Fries. She apparently decided to take a different tack and simply not offer them to him. He surprised her by actuall asking to try them which goes to prove that we men are willing to try new things once in a while, it just that pushing us to do so only increases the resistance. By not offering them she took the pressure off.

Anyway, Those fries looked so good that sometime soon we’re going to have to make them here. I for one can’t wait to see how they’d taste with a bit of curry powder cooked onto them along with the rosemary & olive oil.

They’re made by peeling about a pound and a half of sweet potatoes and then cutting them into 1/4 inch wide french fry shaped strips while the oven preheats to 400 degrees.

Next you add 1/4 cup of olive oil, 2 tablespoons of fresh chopped rosemary and some sea salt and about half a cup of grated Parmesan cheese and stir or toss the mixture to make sure that all of the potato strips are coated.

Spread ‘em out in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Sprinkle some more Parmesan cheese on top.

Cook them for about 20 to 25 minutes, making sure to turn them about halfway through. When they are browned around the edges they’re done. Move ‘em to a paper towel lined plate, salt to taste and serve warm.

Technorati Tags: sweet potato fries, cooking blog, fries, sweet potato, homemade fries, recipe

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Lisa Cooking .com is loaded with tempting recipes and a wealth of useful little tidbits in the form of a “Tip Of The Day”

The blog itself is a no nonsense layout that’s easy on the eyes. It puts the main content on the left side of the page and the sidebars with navigation links and advertising are on the right side.

I really like the Tip Of The Day entries because they’re useful bits of information about a variety of cooking and food related things.

The recipes however, are where Lisa Cooking really shines. They’re simple, easy to make and almost always made with common ingredients that pretty much anyone can get hold of without too much trouble and / or expense.

A couple of good examples of this are the Chicken Enchilada Casserole and the Pizza Breadstick Casserole

Both are made up of common ingredients and are easy to prepare and cook up in less than an hour and they’re both easily adaptable to individual tastes. They could also be used as the starting point for entirely new inventions.

Technorati Tags: chicken, food blog, recipe, blog review, breadstick, pizza, enchilada, cooking blog, casserole

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Ramblings of a Frantic Home Cook is one of those where you can tell that Francie really enjoys what she’s doing and has plenty of fun with it. If there were any doubts, they would be dispelled when reading You say it’s your birthday! It’s my birthday too, yeah!

This is the first year I’ve baked MYSELF a cake. I think I broke some unwritten Mama law in that I made a cake that ISN’T anyone else’s favorite. It’s mine. And you see all that frosting, 800 calories per spoonful and worth every stinkin’ bit of it! It’s only once a year.

I have to agree. After a year of making everybody else’s favorite, it’s time to make YOUR favorite just once and no apologies either!

In addition to her own stuff, She’s got some other great stuff. Like the video of the making of a dog shaped cake in Martha Stewart, I double dog dare you. A four day project is sped up into a four minute video and the results are amazing. The only question I have is who would eat it? it looks too real.

Technorati Tags: review, blogs, recipe, german chocolate, food blog, cake, cooking blogs

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How to Cook Like Your Grandmother is one of those blogs that does something that I really appreciate seeing because of how seldom it’s there to be seen. It goes out of it’s way to return to the older recipes and methods and literally do things the way it was done before the corporate world with it’s mass produced, homogenized, mochachino land turned most food into something that isn’t fit to eat.

The best description of How to Cook Like Your Grandmother is on the top of the sidebar of the blog:

Cooking used to be all about making food that tasted good. But somewhere along the way, we seem to have decided the diet-of-the-week was more important. How to Cook Like Your Grandmother is a return to recipes and techniques that are based on what tastes good, not on junk science and fad diets. You won’t find the words lite, low, lean, free or skim anywhere. This is all real food, cooked the way Grandma would have done it.

Of course, any mention of a good food blog wouldn’t be complete without a look at one of the recipes on it. How To Make Chili Sauce For Chili Dogs is a perfect seasonal recipe that looks good enough to make me think about making it with ground turkey. (I’d consider beef but the way beef prices have gone lately it’s not likely i’ll be around for the opening of any Johnston and Murphy wallets to shell out a small fortune for ground beef when turkey can be had for a LOT less.

Another thing I have to mention about this blog is that there’s a LOT of good pictures to make very clear what they’re talking about and showing you how things look at every step. I’m bookmarking this one and I’ll be back… soon.

Technorati Tags: blog, cooking+blog, old+style+cooking, recipe, review

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It’s called Bakers Banter according to the heading at the top of the page and this blog from the folks at King Arthur flour is positively chock-full of every sort of baked goodies you can imagine.

I leaned of it when my wife sent me this Puff the Magic Pancake recipe on StumbleUpon. Frankly, I defy anyone to read that all the way through, check out the great pictures of the whole process of making it and still not at least WANT to run right out and make up a batch of ‘em!

I’ve never actually heard of King Arthur Flour before but I can say that I’ll be back to visit this blog again, anticipating more baked wonders.

Technorati Tags: baking, baking+blog, cooking+blog, food+blog, blog+review, breakfast, dessert, treat, recipe

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I’ve never considered myself all that much of a vegetarian. I like and frequently prefer dishes that include or are pretty much based on meat. However that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any good vegetarian recipes out there. One good source of examples of this is a blog that was recommended in a recent comment. “My Recipes” is a blog that is specializing in vegetarian recipes that the author has tried, some of which are traditional favorites such as a Beans curry that not only looks interesting, but is apparently used as a means to get kids to eat veggies.

Most of the recipes do use some ingredients such as “Urad dhall” and “Toor dhall” that aren’t exactly common to American cooks but after looking them up it turns out that they’re a sort of bean that’s at least similar to lentils.

I think it’s a good idea to reach out of one’s native food culture once in a while. You learn how much variety of tastes and cooking styles there are and just plain run into some really good food that way. Yeah, it’s true that there’s always things you’ll find that don’t agree with you but the good stuff is worth all of the others.

Technorati Tags: bean+curry, Cooking+Blogs, curry, indian+cooking, indian+recipes, recipes, review, vegetarian, vegetarian+recipes

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A scientist in the kitchen is a variation on a cooking blog that’s really interesting. It’s written by a molecular biology major with a love of good food.

It’s loaded with interesting recipes like this Pork and red curry stir fry with Thai basil that sounds like a truly tasty dish. In addition to the recipe there is also some educational tidbits about one of the ingredients.

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Simple Daily Recipes is one of those food blogs that I’m going to be going back to. It’s loaded with a wide variety of recipes from desserts to main courses and just about anything in between. There’s another feature that I want to start using here as opportunity permits and that’s some really good pictures of the finished product.

My first introduction to the site was “Creamy Lemon Oat Bars“, The first thing I saw was the picture that made me want to run to the kitchen and make up a batch of them.

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