Weekend Cooking: Current and Future Thoughts

Okay so tell me how it can be May already??? This year has been both incredibly draggy (let me out of the house!) and also moving along so quickly. I swear it was January just the other day. Am I right?

Today's Weekend Cooking is shaping up to be a rambling list of food-related things that I feel like talking about. I have some news, some things for you to check out, some thoughts on cookbooks, and some sneak peeks on what's coming up later this month and into the summer. Let's get started!

1. Joy Bauer's Super Food! If you missed last week's cookbook review, I encourage you to go back and read my thoughts about my new favorite cookbook. I can't stop cooking and baking from Super Food. This past week I made Moroccan chicken and a farro-broccoli risotto, and last weekend I made Mexican meatballs and baked rosemary-olive bread. Here's what I love: Bauer's recipes are full of flavor and the ingredients are easy to find, even during the current COVID-19 shortages. I have so, so many recipes left to try.

2. Magnolia Table, Vol. 2 by Joanna Gaines (William Morrow, April 7). This is a cookbook I'll be exploring more thoroughly over the summer and plan to give you a full review. Currently, I have a number of baked goods marked for this month, including cinnamon swirl bread and bacon-infused biscuits. Other dishes are going to have to wait until the groceries are stocked again and the farmer's markets are given the go-ahead to reopen. Some recipes, however, I can tweak right now, like the French Lentil Soup, which I made this past week, without the ham and subbing dried thyme for the fresh. I love the full-page photos of each dish, the balance of spices, and the general ease of most of the recipes. I want to make the bulgur salad  (with chickpeas and cucumber) for our lunches next week; I'll let you know how it turned out. More on this cookbook in the coming weeks.

3. Dinner at Home from Bluprint I encourage you all to take advantage of the free cooking videos currently available from a collaboration among Bluprint, NBCUniversal, and OpenTable. Dinner at Home is a series of short videos in which a number of well-respected and award-winning restaurant chefs provide step-by-step tutorials for how you can make their signature dishes in your own kitchens, even during quarantine. The videos are available free only through May 10, so don't hesitate. Meanwhile, you'll also "learn what you can do to help support the local restaurants you love; by buying a gift card, ordering takeout or delivery, or making a donation to a restaurant relief fund such as the James Beard Foundation Food and Beverage Relief Fund." Check out the trailer and be sure to watch some of the free videos:

4. Upcoming Posts Despite the shelter in place orders, I do have a few good foodie posts in the works. Here's a hint at what I have planned. I just received a fruit-based cookbook for review (I love fruit desserts) and am anticipating several more Abrams cookbooks this season (just as soon as the warehouse opens up for shipping). I can't wait to share them all with you. I put a food-related PBS show on my list, which I'll write about once it airs, and I've finally started watching Chef's Table (I'll share my thoughts down the road). I'm thinking of incorporating some of my family's recipes into future Weekend Cooking posts as well. And, of course, I have plenty of other ideas too.

5. Future of Weekend Cooking If my stats are correct, this is the 541st Weekend Cooking post I've written since I started this link-up more than 10 years ago. I can't tell you how much I have loved hosting this party over the years and how many friends I've made. Although I still plan on sharing my recipes and cookbook reviews on a regular basis (as I said, I still have ideas!), I think it's time to pass the torch of hosting on to someone else. I won't stop the link-up cold turkey, though, and I hope one of you will be willing to take over as host. Please let me know via email (BFish[dot]Reads[at]gmail.com) if you would like to be the next Weekend Cooking queen or king. I absolutely plan on participating and reading all your posts, but I need to let someone else be responsible on a weekly basis, so I can take a Saturday off once in a while.

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Weekend Cooking is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book reviews (novel, nonfiction), cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs, restaurant reviews, travel information, or fun food facts. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page.

NOTE: Mr. Linky sometimes is mean and will give you an error message. He's usually wrong and your link went through just fine the first time. Grrrr.
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