Hosting Weekend Herb Blogging this week. Kalyn dreamed up this event a couple years ago over at Kalyn's Kitchen. Now if you have an inkling to participate this week, by making a post about any herb, plant, vegetable or flower - just remember to follow the rules, as I've been sent a reminder from Kalyn that this is part of my hosting duty. The rules are simple, yet keeps the event what it is!


But I want to inject some extra fun into it this week and see if we can break a record! If you would like a chance at winning a food-related book, do participate this week, and let's see if we can break a record for the number of participants! So once I've checked an entry for the 'rules', I'll put your e-mail address into a hat, and after the round up is made on Sunday, a winner will be drawn and I'll send an e-mail to notify and post the winner's name on my blog. What book? Well that will be a little mystery, but knowing me, it may be a little off-beat.


I've had a lot of fun with Weekend Herb Blogging, my first post for the event was on the yamaimo, back on September 24, 2006 (the first food photo above). And since then I've participated in the event with a Dill Havarti Sandwich, Dill Cream En Croute, Lamb and Herb Soup featuring dill again, and a German Cucumber and Potato Soup, with yes, dill again. I had to put dill in some Dilled Corn and Potato Salad for WHB before finally moving on to another herb. Yes, I really like dill! I featured celery in a Celery Cous Cous which makes a superb side dish, then got adventurous with a Chard Skillet Saute. I then went natively exotic with Sunchokes Gratin, followed by Sesame Salsify. I then went on a soy binge for Weekend Herb Blogging, showing how to make soy milk and tofu from scratch, and featuring a Hiyashi Tofu recipe. I had to do something with all that soy bran, so the next time I entered Tropical Okara Granola into Weekend Herb Blogging. That was followed by a Herbed Cheese Log which featured parsley, then Boursin Stuffed Peppadews featuring peppadews of course, next up was Spicy Spinach Salad with chocolate dressing discussing serrano peppers, and then my fun Cucumber Cups (pictured above) got a lot of attention when a Finish food publisher asked to reprint, suggesting replacing the cucumber juice with vodka.. go figure.


I continued to enjoy this event, and went on to post about broccoli in Broccoli & Boconccini Salad, next blogging about Ginger-scented Orange Roughy featuring ginger, only to find that I should be sparing the poor overfished orange roughy! I then went on to make a New World Raclette, featuring Swiss chard. Then I went a little wild featuring basil in Basil Kelp Salad (pictured above). I repeated the basil theme with a pesto from basil growing on my deck in my '0' Mile Meal post. I then featured green onions in an egg muffin recipe that was a variation of one of Kalyn's favorites. Sprouts were featured next in Moyashi, then on to a fall stir fry featuring orange bell peppers.


For the second anniversary of Weekend Herb Blogging, I blogged about a whole meal featuring a salad with ginger poached chicken (pictured above) and two herbs, mint and arugula. Kabocha was the featured centerpiece of a stuffed kabocha dish. Then a gift of porcini from a friend inspired me to post about porcini sauteed in butter and garlic over toast. I then went off the deep end and ordered four shitake mushroom growing kits for the kitchen (what was I thinking!), and blogged about the experience. I found an interesting green at the Farmer's Market, tatsoi and made Tatsoi sauteed with mushrooms and garlic over homemade zaru tofu for my last post of 2007. I then blogged about bitter melon in a post featuring that truly bitter vegetable in a stir fry. And for some reason my post last week didn't make it into the round up, but it was about making a meal from the local Farmer's Market.

Obviously, I've had a lot of fun with this event over the past couple years, and invite you to have fun with me this week!