How is your garden doing?

Today I was looking thru my email at the food blogs I had recently received with new ideas and recipes. This caught my eye as I had just purchased an eggplant yesterday with two different ideas for what to make.
The first was to make a batter-fried eggplant patti to serve as a side dish along with whatever broiled meat I plan to serve. This is a rather simple recipe that I will explain as follows:
My next idea came, as I mentioned above, as I was reading my newsletter from Moms Menu which I read faithfully from beginning to end. Cindy Sanchez is Editor in Chief of this site which has many great ideas in each newsletter and it is well worth your while to sign up for it. Anyway this is where I found the recipe for Eggplant Parmesan which is shown in the picture above. One suggestion I have is you can buy a jar of your favorite spaghetti sauce and use this as the tomato sauce in the recipe and it will serve the same purpose. The parmesan cheese makes the dish, of course. The more the better.

Just happened to look over at my neighbor's garden and noticed it was looking rather puney with rather high weeds amongst the rows of vegetables. I feel as tho something happened this year and what came up did not produce. He usually has the best looking tomatoes as well as beans, okra, squash and green onions. Anyway I was looking at Chef John's site and he put on his video for "fried green tomatoes". This uses the tomatoes that are really green before ripening to ruby red and can be rather tart. Once you batter and fry them and eat along with fried chicken and biscuits, you have a lucious meal. You don't have to be a southerner to like this dish but I feel not too many of you Yankees have had the chance to eat it.

Nothing Cooking today

The big reason for no cooking today is because it is my birthday. I never cook on MY BIG DAY every year because I need a day off now and then. My family is good about it and manage to come up with a surprise each year which makes me feel great. Even the family decided to go to a restaurant instead. They asked me where I would like to go and I decided on the Beau Rivage Buffet. It is so terrific with not only the great variety but the desserts are something else. So besides a beautiful steak(medium), baked potato and nice green salad, I chose a chocolate, chocolate dessert with a chocolate base, chocolate filling and shaved chocolate top. The picture is not what I had but it does look very appetizing. Yep, I do love chocolate.

Make It Fast, Cook It Slow!

I just happened upon this slow cooking cookbook via looking at President Obama's food likes and dislikes while perusing MSN.com. Now that is a long way around to find a cookbook.
Let's start with MSN.com web site where they have one-liners for topics to click on to read more. One that caught my eye was about President Obama's food likes and dislikes. The click thru took me to a discussion of his family recipe for making chili. It seems Good Morning America ran the recipe according to Huffingtonpost on 03-04-2008. I clicked thru to a few different sites to see what the recipe entailed and there I was at crockpot365--the site of President Obama's chili recipe. Each site had its own take on his recipe but this was made using a slow cooker. I proceeded to look thru the site being it had lots of recipe ideas to do with slow cooking.
Let's end with the slow cooking cookbook authored by Stephanie O'Dea namely "Make It Fast, Cook It Slow: The Big Book of Everyday Slow Cooking." This cookbook, available October, 2009, has a wide variety of recipes which has piqued my curosity. There are many, many slow cooking cookbooks available but I believe I will try to get this one.
So if you like to have slow cooking meals, give this a looksee. Right now my slow cooker is in the process of humming away for tonight's dinner.

Pioneer Brand Gift Basket Giveaway

Here is a great site to get some really good, down-home cooking. Christy Jordan is the owner of http://www.southernplate.com/2009/07/pioneer-brand-gift-basket-giveaway.html-- The Southern Plate site. I have been treading over there for over a year now and the recipes are fantastic. She also talks of other things to do with cooking and does have her own cookbook. All of this is available to you once you enter her site.
Here is the good news today to get in on the Pioneer Brand Gift Basket Giveaway. Look at the picture and that tells it all. Once you post a comment your email will make her list.
Today, Monday, she has two great recipes for ground beef which are just so easy for a quickie for the family. I love having this kind of recipe available when company drops by or I just don't know what to have for dinner.
Anyway, drop by Southern Plate and check it out.

Here is the latest on the contest by All You Magazine. You know, the one that has all the great coupons to clip as well as other great articles on food and family.

First off click on the following and go to the http://www.commonsensewithmoney.com/2009/06/all-you-magazine-grocery-challenge-and-subscription-giveaway/ Common Sense site and get in on the offer to receive a subscription to All You Magazine. See the details there.

While you are there also find the link to the site for the contest by All You. You can do all this right there. Get in on the fun.

The Skinny Chef

Just found a great site if you are trying to get some weight off and eat well. The owner is Jennifer Iserloh and the site is named The Skinny Chef where I found lots of great recipes with great ideas. When you go there look for Buttermilk Chicken and Chocolate-Zucchini Brownies. Course there are lots more recipes but these two just hit me enough to try. Chicken and brownies are two of my favorite foods where I am always looking for new ideas.