04 June 2010

May 2010 Food Blog Round Up

• Blog,
• cooking,
• Food,
• foodie,
• foodie news,
• Indian cooking,
• Indian food,
• recipe,
• Recipes,
• spice,
• spices,
• Steenbergs spices

This month definitely has a seasonal theme of Spring to it.  Everyone has recipes for rhubarb, all of which are so much more inspiring than the classic Rhubarb Crumble that I blogged about this month and the rhubarb compote that we have been living on.  The Rhubarb Raspberry Betty from The Wednesday Chef will probably even get an outing in the next few days.

CookSister is a fusion blog from a South African living in London, so this month has seen her start series on restaurants and other things in South Africa to celebrate the upcoming South African FIFA World Cup 2010; something we're all very excited about here in our household with every type of Panini card and sticker book being collected (yes Panini is not just a type of bread).  What caught my eye, though, was a recipe for Rhubarb, Strawberry and Ginger Tarts.  I love rhubarb and, being English, don't see that it would be a fruit/vegetable devised by Terry Pratchett etc etc but will live with being laughed at.

David Liebovitz has two delicious looking recipes - one for tomatoes and the other an Ottlolenghi recipe.  I was drawn most to the colours and earthy tastes that I anticipate from the French Tomato Tart, which would be a great summer sun or picnic food, or round a long table at a family gathering and cool glasses of white wine.  The Ottolenghi recipe is Fried Beans With Sorrel and Sumac which is a great sounding recipe and uses delicious sumac; for those who might be struggling to find sumac or zaatar, Steenbergs sells both and the zaatar was rehashed recently with help from Yotam Ottolenghi.

Mahanandi is a beautiful blog full of Indian recipes that make your mouth water and inspire you to make delicious Indian cuisine, as well as some amazingly gorgeous garden and flower inspiration.  There is a fantastic set of photos of gardenias from Mahanandi's American garden that are so pure and beautifully formed.  I love their recipe for Zucchini Zunka and will definitely trying to do this myself - I am always struggling to inspire the rest of the family to enjoy zucchini / courgettes here, and this will just be perfect.  I think I will, also, combine it with the healthy green colours of her Green Bean and Green Peas masala.

At Smitten Kitchen, I once again found a rhubarb recipe and this time loved the Rustic Rhubarb Tarts, which I will definitely file away in my mind as something to try this year/next year.  However, it's the Carrot Salad With Harissa that I am going to do first; I love carrots as a vegetable and in carrot cake, but have always struggled with it sitting insipidly, shredded in a salad.  This recipe, with its bite and kick from harissa, might just lift the chore of eating a healthy salad to something acceptable.  And to round it all off, I am a sucker for cakes and baking so the Pecan Cornmeal Butter Cake will soon get an outing.

In New York, The Wednesday Chef has the exotic sounding recipe for a biscuit that's made like bread with the long Greek name, Paximathakia Portokaliou, but I don't think I will ever get around to making these.  And then it's got to be her Rhubarb Raspberry Betty recipe that I think I'll make this week when my parents come down from Northumberland; my father loves a good pudding and adores rhubarb.