Cookbook Lalapalooza Winners!

Thank you to all my readers who participated in my month-long Cookbook Lalapalooza. And thank you to Andrews McMeel for supplying the wonderful cookbooks.

And the results for the last week of the Cookbook Lalapalooza:

Amy wins Spice Dreams.

Helen wins The Spice Kitchen.

And Sherrie wins Mary Mac’s Tea Room.

I’ll be in touch with each of you for mailing details. Happy cooking and cookbook reading!

Last Week's Cookbook Lalapalooza Results And Even More Cookbooks To Give Away

The results of Week 3 of the Cookbook Lalapalooza are in!

Sarah wins Eating Local. Chaya wins Tips Cooks Love. (Multiple entries are definitely the way to go!) And Pam wins Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly.

Congratulations and thanks to everyone for entering. I’ll be in touch with the winners for mailing info.

This is the last week of my Cookbook Lalapalooza with Andrews McMeel Publishing. A big thank you to them for their wonderful cookbooks and thanks so much to everyone who has entered so far. This week’s cookbooks should inspire any cook. Check out the rules for entering at the end of this post.

Mary Mac’s Tea Room, 65 Years of Recipes from Atlanta’s Favorite Dining Room by John Ferrell is a fantastic collection of Southern recipes served in a well-known Atlanta tea room. They may call themselves a tearoom, but these are big-flavored recipes for dishes that go way beyond teas and scones. Chicken and Yankee Dumplings and Country Fried Steak and Gravy are just two hearty recipes to bring the South into your own kitchen.

Georgia Peach Cobbler (serves 8 to 10)

from Mary Mac’s Tea Room by John Ferrell

Posted with permission

2 pounds fresh fruit or 1 (16-ounce) can sliced peaches in heavy syrup, undrained
1 cup plus 3/4 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons cornstarch
8 tablespoons (1 stick) salted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup shortening
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup ice water (with crushed ice)
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Peel and slice the fresh fruit. (If using canned fruit, taste before adding the sugar.) Place the fruit in a bowl and add 1 cup of the sugar, lemon juice, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, and cornstarch. Toss together gently. Pour the sweetened fruit into a 13 by 9-inch baking dish and dot with the butter pieces.

In the work bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, on medium speed, beat the shortening, salt, and the remaining 3/4 teaspoon sugar. Gradually add 1/2 cup of the flour to the shortening mixture and mix together lightly. When the mixture becomes stiff, add 1 tablespoon of the ice water. Repeat the process until all the flour and water is used. The mixture should be soft, but not wet. Cover and let chill for 30 to 40 minutes. Roll out on a floured surface to a 13 by 9 1/2-inch rectangle.

Cover the fruit with the pastry, crimping the edges. Make 3 or 4 slits in the pastry with a sharp knife for steam to escape. Brush the crust with the 2 tablespoons of melted butter. If using fresh fruit, cook for 1 hour. If using canned fruit, cook for 25 to 30 minutes at 400˚F. The cobbler is done when the pastry is golden. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

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The next two books are by Sara Engram and Katie Luber, the founders of The Seasoned Palate Inc., an organic spice company. In The Spice Kitchen: Everyday Cooking with Organic Spices, they’ve put together a great collection of recipes that use their different spices in wonderful ways.

I love the sound of the Blackberry Vinaigrette with white balsamic vinegar and dried orange zest. Their Spicy Middle Eastern Chicken Skewers, fragrant with, cinnamon, cumin, coriander, ancho chile pepper AND turmeric, would make be wonderful wrapped in a warm pita. Chile, Orange, and Coriander-Rubbed Pork is also deliciously appealing.

Chicken Salad on Croissant

from The Spice Kitchen by Katie Luber and Sara Engram

Posted with permission

This salad also works well with turkey. In fact, it’s the perfect day-after-Thanksgiving sandwich.

½ cup mayonnaise, plus additional for spreading
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon dried orange zest
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 cups diced cooked chicken
½ cup Cardamom Candied Walnuts (page 112), chopped
½ cup sweetened dried cranberries
¼ cup finely diced yellow bell pepper
¼ cup finely diced celery
¼ cup finely diced red onion
2 tablespoons shelled sunflower or pumpkin seeds, preferably roasted and salted
4 croissants, halved horizontally

Whisk together the mayonnaise, coriander, orange zest, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl. Stir in the chicken, walnuts, cranberries, bell pepper, celery, onion, and seeds and gently toss the salad until evenly coated. Spread additional mayonnaise on the croissant halves if desired. Evenly divide the chicken salad between the four croissants and serve. Makes 4 sandwiches.

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The second book by Sara Engram and Katie Luber, Spice Dreams: Flavored Ice Creams And Other Frozen Treats, features spiced-up, rich and tasty ice creams like Cardomom Snickerdoodle Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches; Three Spice Chocolate Ice Cream and other frozen sorbets and desserts.

Mango Sorbet with Cumin and Cinnamon (makes about 3 cups)

from Spice Dreams by Sara Engram and Katie Luber

Posted with permission

This recipe for mango sorbet is a winner even without the spices. But cinnamon and cumin lend an appealingly adventurous streak to mangoes, so it’s a shame not to let the spices shine. We like the full teaspoon of each spice, but it’s fine to start with ½ teaspoon.

1 cup sugar
1 cup water
¹⁄8 teaspoon salt
½ to 1 teaspoon ground cumin
½ to 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 mangoes, peeled, pitted, and cubed
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Combine the sugar, water, and salt in a medium, heavy saucepan. Heat the mixture over medium heat, stirring gently, until the sugar has completely dissolved and the syrup is clear, about 5 minutes.

Whisk in the cumin and cinnamon, and continue to cook, whisking continually, for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and place in a bowl of ice water to quickly cool the syrup. Let it cool, stirring often, for 5 minutes.

While the syrup is cooling, place the mangoes and the lemon juice in a food processor and puree until smooth. Strain the mango puree through a mesh sieve into a medium bowl. Add the syrup to the puree and whisk until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until completely chilled, at least 4 hours or overnight. The sorbet mixture may be stored in the refrigerator for 1 day.

Freeze the chilled sorbet mixture in an ice-cream maker according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Transfer the sorbet to an airtight container and freeze in the freezer for 2 to 4 hours before serving.

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Rules for Cookbook Lalapalooza

To win Mary Mac’s Tea Room, The Spice Kitchen or Spice Dreams, all you have to do is tell me which one you want - one of three ways:

1) Send a comment to this post. (Include your email address, if your name doesn’t link to it.)

2) Send me an email with Cookbook Lalapalooza in the subject line at FNMusings@gmail.com.

3) Tweet me at http://twitter.com/SueonFood

Enter as many times as you wish. ONE ENTRY per comment, email or tweet please. Contest open to US residents 18 years old and above.

This week's giveaway ends on Saturday, July 31st at 11:59 pm eastern time, when winners will be chosen randomly.

Get Your Bacon Muffin Recipe Here!

Where can you find recipes for Blueberry Marmalade, Bacon Muffins or a Kentucky Bourbon Cake? In Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly by Joan E. Aller. You have until 11:59 pm tonight to enter my latest Cookbook Lalapalooza to win this wonderful collection of Southern Appalachian recipes. And Cider Beans…is just one of the books I’m giving away.

To enter ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS TELL ME WHICH BOOK YOU WANT:

Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly,

Tip Cooks Love

or Eating Local

Tell me in one of three ways:

1) Send a comment to this post or the original Cookbook Lalapalooza post. (Include your email address, if your name doesn’t link to it.)

2) Send me an email with Cookbook Lalapalooza in the subject line at FNMusings@gmail.com.

3) Tweet me at http://twitter.com/SueonFood

Enter as many times as you wish. ONE ENTRY per comment, email or tweet please. Contest open to US residents 18 years old and above.

This week's giveaway ends on Saturday, July 24th at 11:59 pm eastern time, when winners will be chosen randomly.

Lalapalooza Winners And New Cookbooks To Win!

Here are the winners of last week’s Cookbook Lalapalooza!

Chaya is the winner of the Poor Girl Gourmet and Karen is the winner of How to Drink. Congratulations! You’ll love the books, I know. I’ll be in touch for mailing info. Happily for me (because I’ll be keeping it), not one entry came in for The Cocktail Primer, but that’s okay because I’m mixing a pitcher of martinis as I speak. Slurp!

And this week’s books are:

The first one is Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly by Joan E. Aller. This book is a riot of great Southern cooking from Southern Appalachia featuring recipes from Tennessee, Mississippi and all over the Smoky Mountains.

Every page has something that would be utterly delicious at your next barbecue, family gathering or just when folks are coming over for supper. Plus Imperial Crab Balls or Mushrooms Stuffed With Rice And Greens would be fancy enough for your most elite gathering.

Apple Fritters, Indian Pudding, lots of pies…I would make them all. And there are plenty of bread and muffin recipes too. Khachapuri (Georgian Cheese Bread), from immigrants to the South from the Russian region of Caucasus, is really special.

Here’s an easily made, delicious addition to any summer barbecue.

Appalachian Cider Beans (serves 8)

from Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly by Joan E. Aller

Posted with permission

3 cups dried pinto beans

3 cups fresh apple cider

8 ounces salt pork, thickly sliced

2 small yellow onions

6 tablespoons sorghum molasses

1 tablespoon dry mustard

2 teaspoons salt

Pick over the beans and discard any stones and wrinkled beans. Rinse well and place in a large bowl. Add cold water to cover by inches, cover and let soak for 12 hours.

Drain the beans and transfer them to a heavy saucepan. Add the cider and bring the beans slowly to a boil over medium heat. Boil gently, uncovered for about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat and drain the beans, reserving the cooking liquid.

Preheat the oven to 300˚F.

Layer half of the salt pork slices on the bottom of a 2 quart ceramic bean pot or other deep baking dish. Spoon the beans into the bean pot, and then bury the onions in the beans.

In a small saucepan, combine the sorghum molasses, dry mustard, and salt and place over medium heat to dissolve the mustard and salt. Pour the hot mixture evenly over the beans, and top with the remaining salt pork sliced. Pour in the reserved cooking liquid and add hot water as needed to cover the beans. Cover the bean pot.

Bake for 4 hours, and then uncover the pot and add more water if the beans seem too dry. Re-cover and continue to bake for 1 to 2 hours, until the beans are tender. Serve hot directly from the pot.

The next two books are from Andrews McMeel’s series of Sur La Table books, which bodes well for them being eminently usable in the kitchen.

The first one is Tips Cooks Love by Rick Rodgers. It is chock full of tips and techniques about anything you could ever want to know “to make you a better cook”.

Any good tips on ginger? Yup. For a stir fry, “grate it on the medium-size holed of a box grater.” Smart. Plus “use the tip of a dessertspoon to scrape away the peel from fresh ginger. This does a good job of getting into the nooks and crannies that a vegetable peeler might miss.”

Info for eggs? Lots, including one of my favorite tips. Vinegar, added to the poaching water, sets the white immediately. (I also do that when I hard boil eggs. If there’s a crack in the egg, the white will set up quickly.)

There are tips for great grilling and deep-frying, plus some fabulous recipes, including Fleur de Sel Caramels and Salmon With A Sesame Panko Crust.

Eating Local by Janet Fletcher, with a forward by Alice Waters is a stunning book that will help make the most of your farmer’s market purchases. Packed with glorious vegetable recipes – Braised Peas and Fennel with Pecorino, Grilled Pattypan Squash with Chorizo and Cotija Cheese (YUM!), this book will encourage lots of imaginative hours spent with your fresh produce. There are also some wonderful fruit dishes and a handful of recipes for Poultry, Meat and Eggs. I love the profiles of different CSA’s too.

Carrot Zucchini Bread with Candied Ginger

(makes two 8-inch loaves)

from Eating Local by Janet Fletcher

Posted with permission

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1⁄2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1⁄2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
1⁄2 cup minced candied ginger
3 large eggs
1 cup canola oil
1 3⁄4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup coarsely grated carrots
1 cup coarsely grated zucchini

1 Preheat the oven to 325˚F. Coat two 8-inch loaf pans with nonstick cooking spray.

2 In a large bowl, sift together the flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, and baking powder. Stir in the salt and candied ginger.

3 In a separate large bowl, whisk the eggs until light and foamy. Add the oil, sugar, and vanilla, whisking vigorously until the sugar dissolves. Whisk in the carrots and zucchini.

4 Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture all at once and stir with a wooden spoon until blended. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared loaf pans.

5 Bake until the bread is well risen and firm to the touch, about 1 hour. Cool the bread in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert and finish cooling right side up on a cooling rack.

Rules for Cookbook Lalapalooza

To win Cider Beans, Wild Greens, and Dandelion Jelly, Tip Cooks Love or Eating Local, all you have to do is tell me which one you want - one of three ways:

1) Send a comment to this post. (Include your email address, if your name doesn’t link to it.)

2) Send me an email with Cookbook Lalapalooza in the subject line at FNMusings@gmail.com.

3) Tweet me at http://twitter.com/SueonFood

Enter as many times as you wish. ONE ENTRY per comment, email or tweet please. Contest open to US residents 18 years old and above.

This week's giveaway ends on Saturday, July 24th at 11:59 pm eastern time, when winners will be chosen randomly.

Cookbook Lalapalooza Winners And 3 New Books To Giveway

The results are in! The winners of the first round of July’s Cookbook Lalapalooza, in conjunction with Andrews McMeel Publishing, are:

• Ginny from Java Joggers - Steak With Friends
• Jon from Buy Or Sell Tickets Here - America’s Best BBQ
• Dona Rae 3 from Twitter - Cooking The Cowboy Way

Congratulation to all three. I will be contacting each of you for mailing info and thank you to everyone who entered by posting a comment, emailing or tweeting.

These are this week’s books from Andrews McMeel Publishing.

To win any of them, all you have to do is to TELL ME WHICH ONE YOU WANT!

That’s it. YOU choose.

You may:

1. Leave a comment at this post.
2. Send me an email at FNMusings@gmail.com.
3. Or tweet me at http://twitter.com/SueonFood.

Enter as many times as you wish. Each time you do it’s a separate entry and increases your chances of winning. You may give me your second and third choices too, in case your first choice is already taken when your name is picked.

Full rules at end of post.

About this week's books:

Blogger Amy McCoy of Poor Girl Gourmet has put together a cookbook of the same name. A lot of the recipes are quickly put together, but there is also some real cooking that goes on here. Amy explains her Untraditional Bolognese Sauce is not the authentic item because it includes tomatoes, but it looks wonderful with its soffritto and the addition of anchovies and fire roasted tomatoes. (I don’t think it’s ever wrong to add anchovies.)

There are loads of vegetable recipes too. How easy and delicious are rounds of baked zucchini with pecorino on top? And, of course, every recipe is put together with a budget in mind. But I would like the recipes anyway; the fact that they’re not extravagant is an added bonus.

Lime Corn Cream Dressing (makes 2 cups)

from Poor Girl Gourmet by Amy McCoy

Posted with permission

1 cup fresh (2 medium ears) or frozen corn kernels

1 cup sour cream

The zest and juice of 1 lime

1/8 teaspoon kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1. If you are using corn kernels fresh off the cob, it’s quite easy to shave them. Simply shuck the ears of their husks and silks, leaving the stem intact. That’s your handle to hold the ear of corn steady while you cut. Place the ear of corn tip-downward in a large bowl, using the stem to hold it steady. Using a serrated knife, start at the top and cut downward, keeping the knife as close as possible to the cob. You may have some random bits of silk in the mix; pick them out if they bother you. Work around the ear until all off the kernels have been shaved off, and away we go. Cook the kernels in a large pot of boiling, salted water, 1 to 2 minutes until golden. Drain in a colander, rinse them with cold water, and cool for 5 minutes. Or, you may store them away for use within a day or two in an airtight container within the confines of your refrigerator.

2. Puree the corn, sour cream, lime zest, lime juice and salt in a blender or food processor until smooth. Add pepper to taste.

How to Drink by Victoria Moore covers beverages of all types. She has wonderful advice on how to make everything from the perfect cup of tea or coffee to breakfast smoothies to cocktails of all types. There are also wonderful food suggestions to complement the drinks. For example a lovely trifle recipe to go along with a cream sherry. Yum.

Here’s a sprightly cocktail that would be great on a hot summer day (or night).

Sea Breeze

from How to Drink by Victoria Moore

Posted with permission

For awhile, back in the 1990’s, this glowing pink concoction was everywhere, though it was usually made with one ingredient (the grapefruit juice) missing, essentially reducing it to a simple vodka-cranberry and taking away its kick.

1 part vodka

1 part grapefruit juice

2 parts cranberry juice

1 slice of lime

Mix the ingredients together, pour over ice, and drop 2 half slices of lime into each glass.

The Cocktail Primer, by Eben Klemm is subtitled All You Need To Know To Make The Perfect Drink. And he does cover it all - how to set up the perfect home bar, the proper way to shake, stir and serve cocktails, as well as how to make flavored syrups and many different cocktails.

Ruby Foo

from The Cocktail Primer by Eben Klemm

Posted with permission

1 ounce vodka

1 ounce plum sake

12 ounce cranberry juice cocktail

½ ounce pineapple juice

1 lemon round, for garnish

Pour the vodka, sake, cramberry juice and pinapple juice into a cocktail shaker. Fill the shaker with ice. Cover and shake vigorously 20 times.

Strain the cocktail into a martini glass and serve, garnished with the lemon round.

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Rules for Cookbook Lalapalooza

Each week in July, I’ll highlight 3 cookbooks from Andrews McMeel.

To win one of them, all you have to do is tell me which one you want - one of three ways:

1) Send a comment to this post. (Include your email address, if your name doesn’t link to it.)

2) Send me an email at FNMusings@gmail.com.

3) Tweet me at http://twitter.com/SueonFood

Enter as many times as you wish. ONE ENTRY per comment, email or tweet please. Contest open to US residents 18 years old and above.

I will be picking winners randomly at the end of each week. You may give me a second and third choice too, so that if your name is chosen and I’ve already given away your first choice book, you won’t be disappointed.

This week's giveaway ends on Saturday, July 17th at 11:59 pm eastern time.