Fotocuisine

Our last post was an entry for The Royal Foodie Joust hosted by Jenn, the Leftover Queen.

For Memorial Day weekend here in the States, there were wonderful sales on steak, so my reboot of this month’s entry is a filet stuffed with rice, roasted tomatoes, herbs, and bacon, with a similar tomato basil aurore sauce (since it was so good from the last post). Oh, and feta. Can’t forget the feta.

Memorial Day Jousting…

Last month, we won the Royal Foodie Joust, hosted by Jenn, The Leftover Queen. As part of the prize (along with the coveted Joust apron), we got to choose the three ingredients for this month’s Joust.

I can’t help but play along, even though we’re out of the voting this month. I made a spicy tuna roll (red tuna, white rice, green nori), with a spicy sriracha wasabi sauce (red sriracha, green wasabi, white(ish) garlic/ginger).

Roll on in…

It is once again time for the Royal Foodie Joust, hosted by Jenn, The Leftover Queen!

Last month, Eating Club Vancouver got the win (though FotoCuisine came in 2nd!) Since the Vancouver sisters won, they got to choose the ingredients for this month, in a competition which is becoming known as the Iron Chef of the foodie blogosphere! It’s really fun and friendly, with no pressure other than to do one’s best. So check it out!

This month’s ingredients are:
*Coffee
*Black Pepper
*Honey

I changed my mind about three times on this, from pork ribs, to barbecue, but when my local seafood place had diver scallops for a good price, I decided on a honey-espresso glazed diver scallop meal. For a kick, I added some flash-fried prosciutto parma, because nothing goes better with scallops than some fried pork.

Under the sea….

Once again, it is time for The Royal Foodie Joust hosted by Jenn, the Leftover Queen!

Last month, Susan at Sticky Gooey Creamy Chewy won the Joust, which entitled her to pick this month’s three ingredients. Susan picked:
* Acorn Squash
* Oranges
* Sage
Some nice autumn ingredients, even though it’s still mostly in the 80s here in coastal Florida.

I scratched my head on this a bit, since I’m not much of a squash person, but once I researched acorn squash and found that the seeds can be roasted like pumpkin seeds, I knew what I was going to do. Christey suggested risotto (I was leaning toward something side-dishy, I think).

So, I present pan-fried grouper crusted in sage, orange rind, and roasted acorn squash seeds, over a squash, orange, and sage risotto:

Fall in to autumn

Once again, it is Joust time! Jenn, the Leftover Queen has a monthly Royal Foodie Joust where foodies from all over the world compete using three ingredients. Last month’s winner was Peter from Souvlaki For the Soul who picked these ingredients for this month’s joust:
* Fennel (any part)
* Dairy (in any form)
* Parsley

Definitely a tough one. But, the winners of two out of the last three Jousts were named Peter, so maybe the trend will continue!

For my entry, I seared buffalo cubes with fennel bulb, shiitake mushrooms, and shallots, and covered with a béarnaise made from fennel and parsley instead of the traditional tarragon and chervil. I placed the food on a savory crêpe made with fennel and parsley.

Mosey on in…

This is my entry for this month’s Royal Foodie Joust from Jenn, the Leftover Queen.

Kittie won last month (congratulations Kittie) and her choices for this month’s joust were:
*Whole Grain
*Ginger
*Citrus

I made a crystallized ginger and lemon rind wheat bread with bulgar (whole wheat), and a hot and sour soup with ginger, lemon juice, garnished with popcorn (another whole grain). I formed the bread into a bowl and used it to hold the soup.

Soup soup soup!

This is July’s entry for The Royal Foodie Joust, from Jenn, The Leftover Queen.

Last month, Peter over at Kalofagas won the joust and selected the ingredients: Seafood, Cilantro, and Sesame in any form.

I could think of a few Latin seafood/cilantro recipes, or Asian seafood/sesame recipes, but the cilantro and sesame together made me scratch my head a bit. I definitely wanted to skip sesame as a garnish and wanted to use the taste, but sesame oil and cilantro can both be strong, assertive ingredients. I needed an assertive seafood to make a triad, I thought, or use a very little sauce.

Oysters popped into mind for both reasons. This will be a love-it-or-hate-it recipe, because in my experience, oysters on the half-shell have strong proponents and opponents. In fact, I only converted into the pro-oyster camp about a year and a half ago, now I can’t get enough of them.

A traditional garnish/sauce for oysters is the mignonette, a mix of wine vinegar, shallots, and cracked black pepper. I made a faux-mignonette using lime-juice as the acid, with sesame oil, shallots, salt, pepper, and cilantro. Just a drizzle of sauce, and yum:

open wide

Jenn, The Leftover Queen, has a monthly Royal Foodie Joust. This month, the ingredients are: apricots, ginger, butter.

I made a pan seared duck breast, served it over stewed apricot slices, and made a ginger and apricot sauce with shallots and chives. When the duck breast had finished cooking, I fried long potato crisps in the duck fat to serve as a garnish.

Let the jousting commence…