Dining with the Bloggers - January 19th

Too Many Chefs used to run a weekly feature called Posts of the Week which I really looked forward to. Of course part of the enjoyment was checking to see if my favorites were among their choices (or maybe, just perhaps, one of my own...), but the best part was being introduced to blogs I knew little if anything about. In this ever expanding world of food blogs, you need all the help you can get keeping up!

I thought I’d try my hand at a weekly feature that will highlight recipes that I’ve tried and liked from other blogs. These will not necessarily be posts from the current week – not only because I like to explore the archives of blogs that are new to me, but because I’m often a little pokey in getting around to preparing the recipes I print out. So, without further ado, the first edition of Dining with the Bloggers…

First up is a wonderful Carrot Habanero Soup that Alice of My Adventures in the Breadbox found in the current issue of Cooking Light. I can always count on Alice for great bean recipes, but here’s one with no beans. I’ve been a little timid about cooking with habanero peppers because of their reputation for being so hot. This soup uses a single habanero pepper which is pierced and thrown in whole. It is then removed before serving, giving the soup the perfect amount of heat. It’s also loaded with all sorts of vegetables – carrots, sweet potatoes, leeks, and onions – so you can’t help but feel virtuous when you eat it! Best of all, it really is a great-tasting soup.

People often comment on incidents of synchronicity among food bloggers, where two or more bloggers turn there attention to the same topic at nearly the same time. It happened again when both Linda of At Our Table and Debbie of Words to Eat By posted about a delicious and healthy snack – roasted chickpeas. I happened on Linda’s post first, which included a recipe for Baked Chickpeas with Herbs. I was curious but had some doubts when I first saw the recipe. After I tried them, though, I was hooked. They are nicely crunchy, but you won't break a tooth on them. The seasoning in Linda's recipe is really wonderful - garlic powder, cayenne, oregano and salt. I kept telling a coworker about them and promised repeatedly to bring some in for her to try. I um, never did bring her any… Maybe when I get around to trying Debbie’s recipe for Curry Roasted Chickpeas I’ll bring her some. Maybe.