New Savory Club Launched and Winner!

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As you all may now know, about a month ago I wrote a post about wanting to start a savory cooking club.  I wanted to find a way to cook more savory dishes and in order to do so, I needed a bit of a incentive.  So I wrote a post explaining all about it and calling all cooks to come and join me.

Along the way found a co-host - Jenn from Knitty Baker, and soon 5 more join the flock.

At that time I had not decided on an official name for it so I also asked name suggestions. And boy did we get great ones, well over 30 names!  Great names, weird names, funny names all with the spirit of what all of us were seeking, a fun way to collaborate together and share our experiences from our own kitchens all over the world.  (and know that all of us were going to be doing dishes together, at least once a week.)

And as everything in life goes, out of 30, only ONE could become the winner, which at the end was submitted by Stephanie from Strech.

So say hello to our new Savory Cooking Club: The Gutsy Cooks Club.  We got 6 members (7 including me), from all over the US which are all very excited to GET.THIS.PARTY COOKING.STARTED from our chosen book, The Kitchen Bible.  In fact we already have menus up for the rest of the year - what can I say, I got a dedicated group here!

So now that we got ourself a name and a cool badge. Now we need to pick the winner of our first giveaway. And to do this I decided to let it all out and put it all in video, to validate that this was all on the up and up and because I truly enjoy putting my dorky-ness out there for the whole Internet to see and laugh about it.  So with out any more delays, enjoy my full on dork:

The Gutsy Cooks Club Winner from Monica C on Vimeo.

So there you have it, we have a winner! Congratulations Shandy from Pastry Heaven.  Come on down!  Your $30 Amazon.com gift card it’s on it’s way - enjoy.

It still not to late to join us, you can click on The Gutsy Cook Club in my navigation bar where you will find out club rules, forum (only for the Gutsy Cooks members), Menu Schedule and our roll-call, where you can meet our Gutsy Cooks and link to their blogs.

So to all the new members, WELCOME!  And to our first winner, Shandy CONGRATULATIONS once more.

So, yeah… LETS GET THIS COOKING STARTED! 

HCB: Chocolate Layer Cake with Caramel Ganache

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It felt good to bake this weekend.  While I did cook up a storm in Vermont, it was mostly savory stuff, I did bake once and since the cabin kitchen lacked a lot of the basic equipment, I choose to do the most simply baking possible by picking this recipe.

So, when I got back, I was ready to tackle something difficult, something that would force me to use all of my bowls, KA, baking pans, and gazillion spoons and spatulas.  

Internet, I washed so many dishes over the weekend, I lost count.

But, I was happy to be back in my fully stocked kitchen.

Unfortunately, I was not very happy with this week’s Heavenly Cake choice.  Which I’m still trying to come to terms with.  I mean, come on! Chocolate and caramel? What in heaven’s name can go wrong with those two?

Around my house, apparently something.

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TWD: Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

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I just cannot seem to get away from baking with fruit this month.  After baking chocolate all weekend long, I’m back into fruit land once more, compliments of Natalie from Oven Love who gave us the Oatmeal Breakfast Bread as our Tuesday with Dorie week’s choice.

Oatmeal is not fruit, you may say… well yeah, but don’t let the name fool you.  It has oats and a combination of spices and any dried fruit of your choice. And technically, I’m on the fence if calling it “Bread” would be appropriate, since it did not involve using yeast or kneading or even a rolling pin!

But at the end it did not matter, Tom was once more in high heaven, because not only did it have fruit, but OATS!

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