Archive: Blogcentric

We’ve almost reached the end of the second week of Whip It Up, and the suggested theme inspired participants to grace us with delicious, cheesy recipes. All told, there were 31 recipes tested during this week, which brings us to a grand total of 90 dishes tried by 52 participants!

But before the recipe-palooza, we have a couple of housekeeping items:

• The theme for the week of July 20 is old favorites. Which comfort food have you always wanted to make? Does Mom still have that macaroni and cheese recipe? What about Grandma’s chocolate chip cookies? (For you plan-ahead-ers, the theme for the following week is vegetarian.)
• Next Friday, Nic will host the wrap-up, but you have until Saturday for your recipe to count for the week.

In addition to those recipes from Week 1 posted after the wrap-up, here are the tested dishes from this week, organized by category and then alphabetized by recipe:

Bread and Breakfast

• Meghan hit a home run with Red Lobster Cheese Biscuits.
• Emily is still looking for a good cornbread recipe after disappointment with Rosemary Corn Bread.
• Nancy Pearl Wannabe fixed up the Pioneer Woman’s Yogurt Cream and Berries with no guilt whatsoever.

Sandwiches

• Proactive Bridesmaid took advantage of a new cookbook by making a Big Tomato Sandwich with Cheese.

Beef

• Constantly Arriving “beheld the power of cheese” with Better-than-Ever Beef Enchiladas.

Pork

• Kim’s experimental Yowza Pork Chops turned out pretty well, if she says so herself.

Poultry

• Alane loved her Brown and Wild Rice Chicken Salad, even if her choosy family members begged to differ.
• Janelle’s family loved her Easy Chicken Piccata.
• Erin was pleasantly surprised that Low-Fat Fried Chicken Strips were tasty and easy.

Seafood

• Erin took her first foray into grilling with Bacon-Wrapped Shrimp and Jalapeño.
• Julie has approved Creamy Crab Stuffed Mushrooms for future family get-togethers!
• Jess tweaked Garlic Cream Shrimp to the point where “only copious amounts of shredded Parmesan and ground pepper salvaged this meal.”
• Heather added the figure-friendly Kung Pao Shrimp to her regular rotation.

Pasta

• Jemima enlisted her husband to man the pasta machine for their Artichoke Ravioli with Tomatoes.
• Ross put together Arugula-Basil-Walnut Pesto to go over a first attempt at homemade pasta.
• Erin made a successful venture into “real food” territory with Bowties with Pesto, Feta, and Cherry Tomatoes.
• Nic noted that Capellini with Fresh Ricotta, Roasted Garlic, Corn, and Herbs was “not complicated, but it’s a lot of prep work for a fairly simple dish.”
• Jaime poached a chicken for the first time for Chicken Spaghetti.
• Daisy Yellow tossed together a tangy East-West Pasta Primavera.
• Merrick dusted off a cookbook from her husband and made Fusilli with Sausage.
• I brought my husband closer to the pro-lemon side with Lemon Fusilli.
• Stephanie was pleased that the Linguine with Asparagus, Parmesan, and Bacon was relatively light.
• Anna’s pantry-staple-fueled Marinara Sauce was a hit at her house.
• Kelly added Not-sagna Pasta Toss to her dinner repertoire.
• Jesse and Heather had good luck with Pasta with Broccoli, Edamame, and Walnuts.
• Megan channeled Giada de Laurentiis with her Penne with Spinach Sauce.
• Janet whipped up spicy Roasted Poblano and Chicken Penne.
• Jaime was won over by the tofu noodles in Shrimptastic Fettuccine Hungry Girlfredo.
• Audrey enjoyed the very cheesy Southwest Macaroni and Cheese with Adobo Meatballs.

Vegetarian

• Zandria declared the taste of Barley and White Bean Salad muy bueno!
• Which Box called Creamy Gorgonzola Polenta with Summer Squash Sauté a “swing and a miss.”
• Sherry loved her first try with Red Lentil Curry.
• Emily made an easy Zucchini Pie, but she’d jazz it up next time with a few additional ingredients.

Side Dishes

• Jane had success with a batch of Oven Fries!
• Janelle cleaned out a bit of her pantry with Savory Couscous.
• Suburban Lush satisfied her love of spuds with Twice Baked Potatoes.

Desserts

• Laurel celebrated her boyfriend’s birthday with Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes!
• I tried out Cream Cheese Marbled Brownies that were delicious, but not particularly cream-cheese-y.
• Meghan found a recipe for Easy Cream Cheese Brownies, but she was not a fan of the brownie mix she used as the base.
• Emily loved her Arnold-Palmer-esque Lemonade Iced Tea Sorbet.
• Janet made a game-time decision to go for peaches in her Peach (Originally Raspberry) Summer Sensation, but she was disappointed in its lackluster appearance, despite a high tastiness factor.
• Jennie made an impressive Peanut Butter Cup Cheesecake, but she notes that the directions leave room for interpretation.
• Susan thought her Tiramisu Cookies were delicious, but warns that they take “a hundred hours” to make.

Friends, I did it again.

For the past several days, I have been away from the daily grind, spending time with JG’s family at the annual trip to Ocean City, New Jersey. We’re coming back tonight, but I’m off from work for the rest of the week, so when I return to my desk on Monday, nine days will have passed since I was last there. Ah, yes.

Even though WordPress has a post-to-the-future option, I was reluctant to use it because I knew that at least one of my posts would involve pictures, and God forbid I make them public on Flickr before the post goes live! At the beach, I have spotty internet access, and that’s only if someone brings a laptop to use, so I didn’t feel all that comfortable diving into my accounts in light of the secretive nature of this here site. Thankfully, the lovely Nancy Pearl Wannabe agreed to post my content for me, because she is a doll like that. In return, I have promised an Ocean City postcard, or if I have my druthers, an obnoxious souvenir. I aim to send NPW a fabulously tacky snowglobe or ash tray.

Anyway, I put together posts in advance with pictures all set to be made public, but the true insanity of what I was doing did not come to light until I saw the e-mail of instructions I had set up for NPW. I included my log-on information, my general itinerary for each post, and then specific instructions for each day. I realized that I have roughly 27 steps to undertake for each post, and not because I am thorough. I think I just like to complicate matters. When I took a step back, it looked as though I was having an all-out council of war with myself, but with bullet points instead of maps laid out on a table. Clearly, I had gone over the edge. The detailed planning that I funneled into my wedding and my friend’s wedding reared its head again in a new and frightening form: the blogzilla.

And then I sent the e-mail! I sent it because I couldn’t think of a way to cut it back! My instruction-writing training in college does me no favors in that I completely overthink how The User is going to react to my bulleted sequence of events. It’s not that I don’t trust NPW; I feel that I owe her explicit directions so that there is no confusion from any assumptions I have made. Once I am home, though, the crazy can stay in my own little head, rather than looming around, waiting for another project to organize into a bulleted list.

At the beginning of the month, I received a lovely e-mail from Nic. I’m not sure if it was my heartrending tale of lemon cookies, my overall history of kitchen adventures this year, or the brilliant flash of inspiration (or maybe a combination?), but she had the beginnings of an idea for a widespread new recipe challenge, sort of a “M:PT in the Kitchen.” After lots of Gchatting and Google docs-sharing, we are pleased to introduce Whip It Up, a summer challenge to try new recipes!

The basic idea is that Nic and I will try and post about one new recipe each week for eight weeks, and we’d love for you to join us! Just think: assuming twelve people jump in and try completely independent recipes, we will have collectively tested and shared 96 recipes in two months! I don’t know about you, but the mere prospect of my recipe binder brimming with new possibilities is enough to make my heart aflutter.

- - - - -

What’s Involved

The challenge will run for eight weeks, from July 6-August 29. Every Friday, Nic or I will post a weekly wrap-up to cull the recipes people have tried.

Every week, there are three simple steps:

1. Cook! The only parameter for the challenge is to try and post about one new recipe each week. The type of dish, cooking method, and quantity are all up to you, and effort is what counts here, not culinary mastery.
2. Post! Write up your experience on your site, including photos if you can. You can be as in-depth as you’d like, but posts should answer the following questions, in addition to providing the recipe itself:
   • Was the recipe easy to follow?
   • Did the dish taste good?
   • Would you make it again?
3. Tell us! E-mail us the post’s permalink, and it will be included in the Friday wrap-up.

But wait, there’s a prize! Every participant who fulfills the challenge will qualify for a raffle to win a choice of three fabulous cookbooks:

• Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, by Marcella Hazan (Nic’s favorite)
• The America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook (my favorite)
• Barefoot Contessa at Home, by Ina Garten (because we both love her)

- - - - -

Excuses, Allayed

“I’m a terrible cook!”
We are serious when we say success doesn’t matter here. Just stick your neck out and try something new, and who knows? You might surprise yourself! Or win a cookbook!

“I don’t think I can keep up that pace!”
Even if you’re not sure that you can try one new recipe each week, sign up and try anyway! The cookbook prize is just an incentive, but we applaud all kitchen adventures, no matter how often they transpire. Heck, one of my new year’s resolutions was to try two recipes per month, so one recipe every week will be a challenge for me, too. Don’t worry, there is no danger of getting voted off the island if you miss a week, so give it a shot!

“I don’t know what to make!”
Nic and I have compiled a list of resources, so browse away! If you have a specific dish in mind, let us know and we can try to help you find a good recipe. We are also providing optional jumping-off points, just in case you are really stumped. For example, instead of trying to whittle down the entire food universe, we might nudge you onto the smaller planet of Salads, but going along with that suggestion is completely voluntary.

“I’m going on vacation!”
In the case of a week away for whatever reason, you can double up on a recipe for the following week. That is, you can “cash in” a maximum of 2 recipes per week. That guideline is to prevent someone from cooking three brand-new, three-course meals, knocking out the 8-recipe minimum, and completely missing the point here. Besides, I think I would go crazy trying to cook nine new recipes in one week, so really, we are saving you the sanity.

- - - - -

Sign up! E-mail us with your name and website address, and we will add you to the roster. We’re taking names for two weeks, so get out your recipe clippings and e-mail us by Friday, June 27. Grab yourself a badge and join the WIU photo pool, and you are good to go!

Allez cuisine!

When I hit Publish last Friday, I had a tiny fear that, upon reading about my fledgling fashion strategy and seeing what I thought to be the pinnacle of my outfit-assembly, the Internet would lash out and mock my well-intentioned plan and/or raise a critical eyebrow at my ensemble. But, no! Any Philistines kept their mouths shut, and all of you nice folks made your happy thoughts known! It warmed the cockles of my heart.

I got to thinking. When that happens when I am online, I usually IM someone to do a sanity check, and since this type of thinking involved clothes, I IMed Jen. She, who persuaded me to go for the chunky red necklace (”That’s what gift cards are for!”) and always has time to check out a link from an online retailer. So after all of this thinking and IMing, the two of us concluded that the Put Together Phenomenon should not be limited to one post and one picture — no! Allow us to introduce the Mission: Put Together Photo Pool!

[Cue spy theme music]

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to photograph your most put-together looks, both professional and casual. During the whole month of May, add those pictures to the pool and check out others’ ensembles for new ideas.

First off, let’s get it straight about what this pool is NOT:

• A forum to criticize others
• A source of pressure to appear to be 100% on the ball 100% of the time
• A motivator to go out and spend a lot of money

However, we do want the pool to be:

• A way to share and gather fashion tips
• A motivator to be thoughtful and creative with everyday looks
• Fun!

Starting tomorrow, your photos are welcome into the pool! If you don’t have a Flickr account, feel free to e-mail me or Jen with your pictures and any accompanying descriptions, and we will be sure to add them for you.

Personally, I am using this pool as a challenge to produce a couple of outfits each week that might be considered put-together, but without the purchase of any new items. I may need to adopt Laurel’s weekly planning system! On another note, I am terrible at taking self portraits, so I hope to brush up my skills there, too.

Can we accomplish this mission? I believe we can. Show us what you’ve got!