Culinary Favorites From A to Z, The Blog

In its new version, Culinary Favorites from A to Z hopes to continue highlighting the best food pages on Squidoo. However, it has a fresh, new focus on food and recipe pages that are devoted to specific ingredients.

You will find pages dedicated to ingredients like KimGiancaterino’s Limoncello di Capri, awelldressedbullet’s I Love Avocados, Susan52’s Delicious Dump Cake, RMS’ Best Panini Sandwich Recipes  and stargazer00’s Cheese Salsa Crustless Quiche.  

There is still a bit of work to be done to make sure the group is in tip-top shape but the goal is to provide  a page with a fantastic focus on specific ingredients and yes, there is a TON of great content on the page already!

Pie bakers everywhere need a pie bird! 

Turns out pie birds are popular, more popular than I thought. Popular enough to receive a purple star on Squidoo!

My page, A Pie Bird Is An Unusual Gift and Collector’s Item, was immediately successful, making it to the top 2,000 on the second day. I believe that the pie birds stole the show. Have you seen a pie bird? Who couldn’t help but love traditional blackbird pie birds or even the non-traditional ones like a dragon pie bird or an elephant pie bird!

Click here to buy this
Pfaltzgraff Sedona Pie Dish & Pie Bird
from Amazon.

Do you know what the heck a pie bird is? Do you have one? Do you have more than one? Do you use yours or is it a windowsill decoration?  Visit A Pie Bird Is An Unusual Gift and Collector’s Item and see what everyone is saying about their pie birds! (And make sure you participate in the discussion, too!)

Pies, it seems, have not gone out of style and I, a pie lover, am thrilled.  Brenda

P.S. In case you are wondering how I found pie birds, it was while I was creating The Best-Ever Homemade Chicken Pot Pie for my new A Fall Dinner Plan With Make-Ahead Recipes. The pie birds I found were just too cute to ignore!

Looking for some great international recipes? Ready to travel the world at home? Well, this week I am travelling to Germany, Sweden, Mexico and China from the comfort of my kitchen and I’d like to invite you to join me!

Irenemaria introduces us to Knäckebröd and shares her recipe at Knäckebröd – The Recipe for Swedish Crisp Bread. Maria says that Knäckebröd is easy to make and you will l find the recipe on her page.

Draik introduces us to Bake Rice & Peanut Soup. The recipe is intriguing and, as always, her how-to photos are wonderful.

Roamingrosie introduces us to her Easy Jaeger Schnitzel Recipe and shares with us how some of her memories of Germany are interwoven with food.

Janiece shares her Corn, Bean, and Avocado Salsa…& Vegan Nachos recipes with us. They look delicious, fresh and nutritious!

Click here to buy
In Nirmala’s Kitchen: Everyday World Cuisine
a book full of international recipes
from Amazon.

The pages mentioned here today are just a few of the internationally themed recipes you will find at Culinary Favorites From A to Z! I’m looking forward to trying some of them. How about you?

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
Culinary Favorites From A to Z
My Best-Ever Recipes Collection

Follow these links to the recipes:

Knäckebröd – The Recipe for Swedish Crisp Bread
Bake Rice & Peanut Soup
Easy Jaeger Schnitzel Recipe
Corn, Bean, and Avocado Salsa…& Vegan Nachos

Ready for some new breakfast and brunch recipes? These pages were submitted recently to Culinary Favorites From A to Z and they look delicious!

On My Favorite Brunch Menu, Mary Beth shares some of her family’s favorite recipes with us and two complete menu ideas. Her Eggs Fantastic recipe sounds absolutely amazing with mushrooms, onions, chili sauce and three types of cheese!

In The Best Waffles Ever, Janice shares an experience that evolved from her travels in Belgium and the effort her husband put into trying to perfect a waffle recipe so that they could eat waffles exactly the way they had in Belgium!  Find the recipe they eventually settled on and share it with your family.

Small Blenders & Single Serving Smoothie Recipes is enslavedbyfaeries’ review of the Hamilton Single-Serve Blender that she purchased in an attempt to encourage her teenagers to eat breakfast. (Can you relate to that issue?)   Of course, you’ll find a number of yummy recipes for blender drinks including strawberry, banana and chocolate smoothies.

Whether you want to put strawberries in your smoothies or just on your brunch table, there is nothing better than a juicy, red, ripe strawberry.  In Strawberry Picking, Shannon shares with you how to pick a perfect strawberry. 

Once you’ve picked your strawberries (or purchased them at the market), try one of these great strawberry hullers.  A huller is an excellent, inexpensive tool for with one simple movement you cleanly hull the berry. It is quick and efficient and, best of all, there is no chance of cutting yourself with a knive!

Click here to buy this cute little
strawberry huller from Amazon.

These tasty pages will definitely give you some good ideas for your next breakfast or brunch.  I’m off to MY breakfast now with visions of Eggs Fantastic dancing in my head but I promise to return with some more wonderful recipes from the pages of Culinary Favorites!

Follow these links to the:

* the fantastic brunch recipes.
* the delicious waffle recipe.
* the yummy smoothie recipes.
* the amazing guide to picking strawberries.

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda
Culinary Favorites From A to Z
My Best-Ever Recipes Collection

The first class of Rocket Moms is preparing to graduate in the next couple of weeks. They have been busy cooking up a storm…how is that for a segue into this week’s great recipe and food finds from the group Culinary Favorites From A to Z?

Well, I have to be fair and say that a recipe lens was only one of six assignments that the Rocket Moms have been working on.  However, it is one that has created a host of wonderful new recipe submissions to the Culinary Favorites group.  Today I’m going to share five of the many great Rocket Moms recipes that have joined the group (plus one of my own Rocket Mom recipes.)  I hope you will enjoy them as much as I did.

Jen, who writes on Squidoo as Wysiwigs, shared her recipe for 7 Layer Bars. She claims that the recipe for this square is ‘easy as pie’ and her excellent step-by-step pictures just might prove that true!  That’s one thing that some of the members of this first crop of Rocket Moms is doing extremely well  – using lots of their own pictures.

Achiote-Roasted Pork Tacos with Pickled Red Onions by NanLT is a delicious Mexican recipe that can be eaten with a fork!  Perfect for when you are having company, like Nan’s inlaws and my sister who really do prefer not to eat ‘messy’ food.

Bundt Cake Recipes, by Alison who writes as EverythingMouse, is a nicely focused lens with a number of recipes for your bundt pan.  Alison says these “really popular cakes are easy to make with just a little time.” I’m going to have to rescue my Grandmother’s bundt cake pan from obscurity in the basement.

Paula, who writes as lakeerieartists, crafted Mexican Avocado Soup and a Side of Corn Bread which is a chilled avocado soup that sounds perfect for a summer meal although I have to admit I’ve never tried a cold soup. She’s even managed to find the a perfect avocado-shaped bowl to serve it in!

The EASY Way To Make Iced Tea is Shelby’s secret way to make iced tea.  It is a ‘cheat’ of sorts that allows you to save the time required to make traditional iced tea.  Her lens is really a great product review of Lipton Cold Brew. If you like iced tea and love the idea of saving a bit of time, check out this page. Shelby writes as TwinsMama.

One of my own Rocket Moms recipe pages is my humorous The Best-Ever Hawaiian Punch Recipe. It wasn’t meant to be funny but, in the end it was and no, I wasn’t drinking any rum-based drinks while I was writing it.

There is a complete list of Rocket Mom recipe lens at Showing off the RocketMoms “Recipe” Lenses if you are interested in seeing the entire collection. The recipe pages from this class are top notch and deserve an A+ from the teacher!

Enjoy!!! 
Brenda
(aka Treasures By Brenda)
Culinary Favorites From A to Z

Lensmaster KimGiancaterino created Culinary Favorites From A to Z in March, 2008, to showcase new recipes and food pages and grew it carefully into a group with more than 880 food themed pages, visiting and commenting on every single one.  I’ll be attempting to continue that tradition.

Because it is a large group, however, it is difficult to feature every single lens that is submitted. Therefore, in an effort to give everyone a chance to have their lens mentioned on the page, I have added a link list but I thought it would also be nice to feature some of the great food lenses I find here on Squidtop. 

When I first had this idea, I thought I’d pick the best lenses but picking has proven impossible. Tonight, for instance, I read ten pages and I enjoyed EVERY SINGLE ONE of them…so I’ve picked five randomly to feature here.

Monarch13’s Kitchen Decorating with Chili Peppers ~ Muy Caliente
is a feast for the eyes AND tells you how to roast peppers if you’ve ever wanted to try doing so.

Ramkitten’s Huevos Rancheros: Breakfast (Or Dinner) At Our House is a lens PACKED with personal writing and homemade photos. I’ve invited myself over for eggs!

A fan of before and after photos? Well then you’ll want to check out Stargazer’s Greek Roasted Chicken! The photos definitely sold me on this recipe!

Squidoo newcomer LauraFincannon’s Beignet – French Doughnuts  is a yummy look at French doughnuts.

ArtSiren tells you how to make your own curry powder! If you are a fan of curries, making your own powder makes sense.

I’ll say goodnight now and leave you with these tasty Squidoo lenses to think about and promise to be back with more!

Brenda
Treasures By Brenda