Butternut Squash Barley Risotto

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arugula, barley, butternut squash, cooking, fall, parmesan, recipes, risotto, rosemary, sage, vegetarian

In grad school, my main source for recipes was AllRecipes.com.  I wouldn’t find out about food blogs until a few years later, and probably would have laughed if someone told me that years later I’d be writing for fun about baking and cooking.  (I might have stopped laughing if you then told me that I would still be freelancing at this point.)

One thing that drove me nuts about All Recipes is that so many of the comments would go something like this:

This dish sucked!  I subbed peanut butter for the broccoli, nixed the flour and doubled the tomato sauce, and it was TERRIBLE! (1 out of 5 stars)

I mean, really?  That’s totally not the recipe, so how can you rate it?

This was back when I would follow every single recipe to a T for fear of messing it up.

Now I’ve really let myself go and mess with most cooking and baking recipes, even if they’re for something I’ve never made.

Like risotto.

Daring Cooks’ Challenge: Potato Salad!

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balsamic vinegar, basil, caramelized onions, cooking, Daring Cooks, feta, gluten-free, healthy, kalamata olives, Mediterranean, olive oil, potato salad, recipes, red potatoes, roasted peppers, rosemary, summer, sun-dried tomatoes, vegan, vegetarian

Jami Sorrento was our June Daring Cooks hostess and she chose to challenge us to celebrate the humble spud by making a delicious and healthy potato salad.  The Daring Cooks Potato Salad Challenge was sponsored by the nice people at the United States Potato Board, who awarded prizes to the top 3 most creative and healthy potato salads.  A medium-size (5.3 ounce) potato has 110 calories, no fat, no cholesterol, no sodium and includes nearly half your daily value of vitamin C and has more potassium than a banana!

Isn’t this kind of like when they announce something like, I don’t know, potatoes as the secret ingredient for Iron Chef?  That was my reaction, anyway.  At the same time though, it’s kind of fun to be given free reign for these challenges (I’m looking at you, April).