Be sure to get involved in September’s Key Ingredient Cook’s Kitchen (KICK) recipe contest. The KICK recipe contest is open to anyone who loves to cook! All participants are asked to come up with their own apple and/or peach recipe*. This is your time to be creative! The recipe can be sweet or savory, baked or fried, so long as it’s goooood and an original :)!

Bloggers may feature the recipe on their blogs as soon as they’ve completed the contest. Those who do not have a blog can email us their recipe and recipe picture; we will then post them on The Back Burner. After completing the contest, all participants are asked to upload their recipes to Key Ingredient by the last day of the contest, September 30, 2008.

To upload your recipe to Key Ingredient, please take the following steps:
1. Click on the following link to join KeyIngredient.com: https://keyingredient.com/signup/?next=/recipes/new/

2. Click on the link in the email you receive immediately after sign-up to confirm your account

3. Add your first recipe by clicking on the following link:
http://keyingredient.com/recipes/new/

Be sure to email Sophie, Key Ingredient’s blogger, at sophiekiblogger@gmail.com with the link to your recipe after you’ve uploaded it. All participating bloggers will be placed on The Back Burner’s blogroll. We can’t wait to see what tasty recipes you’ll come up with!

*If you are unable to use apples or peaches (due to not having any in your area, allergies, or financial reasons) please let us know! You can still be involved in this month’s recipe contest! Send all notifications to sophiekiblogger@gmail.com, thanks!

Key Ingredient’s first recipe contest has come to a close and the results are in! Your recipes challenged us, but we baked ‘em, ate ‘em, and ranked ‘em. They were all “berry” delicious, and sadly we could only choose three. So, without further ado, here are the winners of the first Key Ingredient Cook’s Kitchen contest:

First Prize: Shannon from Writing as I Eat
Shannon has won a cookbook that will include 48 of her recipes and a free Scan My Recipes recipe scan of those recipes!

Second Prize: Jennifer from A Pinch of Sugar
Jennifer has won a free Scan My Recipes recipe scan of 48 recipes!

Third Prize: Nazarina from Giddy Gastronome
Nazarina has won the coveted Key Ingredient apron!

We want to to thank everyone for their delicious entries, and encourage you all to participate in September’s apple and peach recipe contest! CLICK HERE to check it out! We look forward to tasting all of your creative entries :)!

These festive cupcakes may seem like their prime celebratory time has passed, but I would beg to differ. Although Independence Day is long gone we can still wave a bit of the red, white and blue. Whether it’s for the coming Labor Day holiday, the ending of the Democratic National Convention, the beginning of the Republican National Convention, or if you just like strawberries and blueberries there is reason to celebrate.

Keith from Making Banana Pancakes has blended up his love for berries with a patriotic spirit and the result was pure delight. These light and fruity cupcakes topped with REAL whipped cream frosting are the perfect treat for a holiday weekend spent with friends and family. So, fire up the grill one last time, lounge by the pool, and enjoy your time with friends, family and cupcakes!

A meal consisting of a bowl of tomato soup is incomplete without a grilled cheese sandwich, in my humble opinion. But what if you put the tomatoes in the grilled cheese sandwich…and what if they were sun dried tomatoes? Then you know you’re on to something good, which is why I just had to blog about Kait’s Proscuitto, Pesto, and Sun-dried Tomato Grilled Cheese Sandwich!

Kait found a yummy recipe for a grilled cheese sandwich then ‘amped up the Italian flavour’ — or that’s what she says :)! And if you’re thinking this looks like a basic ham and cheese sandwich, think again. In fact, take a look at the ingredients. Prosciutto is what adds meatiness to the sandwich, so it’ll keep you full a little longer than a cheese sandwich will. Of course, Kait’s sandwich can be prepared in about the same amount of time as the average grilled cheese…but hers is far from average. And guess what else adds to the Italian essence of this late afternoon snack that doubles as a quick lunch? The pesto and mozzarella cheese!

So if you want a sandwich that you can probably find on Kait’s Plate, definitely consider sinking your teeth into her variation of a Proscuitto, Pesto, and Sun-dried Tomato Grilled Cheese!

Hummus has quickly become one of my favorite dips and spreads. I eat it with pita, corn chips, veggies, and spread it on wraps and sandwiches. I like to think that I am pretty creative in the kitchen, but I am beginning to lose motivation when it comes to hummus dishes. One of the reasons the blogging community is so great is because with every click you find inspiration and encouragement to get back into the kitchen and create. Jenifer’s recipe for Spicy Beef on Hummus with Grilled Veggies does just that.

Jenifer sought out this recipe after dining at a local Lebanese restaurant. The service there may have left a fowl taste in her mouth, but their spicy beef and hummus dish was the redeeming factor. Afterwards, Jenifer was determined to find the recipe and was successful in no time. The ingredients were simple enough, and for a little extra spice this “Little Foodie” added sriracha sauce (aka rooster sauce).

So, if you are like me and in need of a little motivation, try out Jennifer’s dish to spice things up a bit in your kitchen!

When it comes to comfort food, mashed potatoes will have to fight their way to the dinner table! It’s time to make room for Cate’s Texas Home Fries. The fact that they’re delicious and easy makes them even more appealing. It’s no secret that these fries, in particular, are extra special; take a look at their name. This recipe begins with the word Texas! Now you know the fries have to be big on flavor. Everything is big in Texas, after all!

Take a look at that recipe. The onion and bell pepper give it a real southwestern flair…and let’s not forget about the butter. A potato is incomplete without at least a few tablespoons of it! Thankfully, Cate has it covered. Plus, she even uses a cast-iron skillet to cook up the potatoes, it doesn’t get any more traditional than that!

If those burgers next to the stale chips are looking pretty lonesome on your paper plate, you know what you’ve gotta do! First, be sure to check out the other savory foods Cate has in her blog Sweetnicks, then get out that old iron skillet and put it to good use with Cate’s recipe for Texas Home Fries :)!

Five months ago Sangeeth launched her first food blog. As she began exploring this new foodie world she noticed that a great majority of food blogs are dedicated to baking. Embedded with the notion that baking is a difficult skill acquired through classes and years of practice Sangeeth was a bit shy to reach her hand into the cookie jar. But, with the help of a few new foodie friends she found herself whipping up her very first batch of cookies!

Being a huge fan of vanilla, Sangeeth thought it appropriate to make her first cookies vanilla. She claims that this is one of the most simple and delicious cookies, and is perfectly suitable for newbie bakers. Although she may be new to the baking world Sangeeth is a pro in the Art of Cooking Indian Food. Check out her blog for great cooking tips, Indian recipes, healthy eating advice, and I know at least one great cookie recipe!

If you eat meat, then you probably have some form of chicken in your freezer or refrigerator. Maybe it’s even defrosting in your kitchen sink as you read this entry, anxiously trying to find some inspiration for tonight’s dinner. You might’ve had chicken pot pie last weekend, possibly a chicken sandwich for lunch, and maybe even chicken fajitas for dinner a few days ago. So now you’re ‘chickened’ out. You know you’re definitely not a chicken in the kitchen (try saying that 5 times, really quickly); you like to try out new recipes with loads of flavor, to give your taste buds a nice break from the monotony!

In her blog Me and My Kitchen, Sri features a variety of recipes, each one guaranteed to make your mouth water. The spices she uses really liven up the magical meals she creates. Take Sri’s Chicken 555 recipe, for instance. It’s not your ordinary fried chicken! It’s seasoned with turmeric and ginger, among other savory spices. Also, instead of using plain old all-purpose flour to coat the chicken pieces, she uses a combination of rice and corn flour, which also play a part in adding to the overall yumminess of her chicken dish.

If your chicken tender recipe is in need of a make-over, take a look at what Sri uses to add flavor to her recipe. It’ll bring spice back into your life via the dinner table! :)

Pesto is one of those recipes that is incredibly easy to make as well as customize, and the serving possibilities are endless. Scott from Knees and Bees has provided a delicious basic pesto recipe. The key to great pesto is first finding the best base recipe, and I think Scott has provided us with just that!

Once you’ve discovered your perfect base the number of pesto dishes you can create are infinite! Here is a short list of dishes that you can add Scott’s delicious homemade pesto to:
Minestrone with Pesto
Red Risotto with Pesto
Feta and Pesto Bread
Cheese-Stuffed Pesto Burgers
Grilled Pizzas With Pesto And Roasted Garlic
Winter Vegetable And Bean Soup With Pesto
Rosemary-Pesto Lamb Rack
Turkey And Pasta With Cilantro Pesto
Grilled Swordfish Kabobs With Fresh Herb Pesto Sauce
Spaghetti Squash With Pesto And Smoked Provolone

Key Ingredient boasts over 200 possible pesto dishes! Thanks to Scott we can make them all, so get to cooking!

If you like the combination of sweet and savory in your side dishes, then you’d probably appreciate having a friend like Courtney’s, who has a knack for coming up with comfort-food side dishes the are warm and flavorful. Plus, she shares these recipes with her pals, what could better?

In Cooking up a Family, Courtney gives credit to a friend of hers for putting together a Hondo Corn Casserole that fools tastebuds. Sure, her pal (whose nickname just so happens to be ‘Martha Stewart’) might create casseroles that taste as if they take all day to prepare, but they’re really the kind of recipes that are perfect for anyone.

Whether you’re a stay at home dad or a working mom, you’ll find yourself coming back for seconds after making this Hondo Corn Casserole. It’s cheesy, savory from the onion, perfectly salted and buttery (from the Ritz crackers). Plus, everything comes together in one big bowl, and bakes up in a good-sized casserole dish, so you know there will be enough to go around for the whole family…that is, if you don’t gobble it up before it hits the dinner table :).

Courtney calls this a ’simple dish’; it’s a far from intimidating casserole that works for holiday parties, family gatherings, and even Sunday night dinners. It’s so good, you might forget that you’re getting a good amount of calcium (from the dairy) and even veggies in every creamy spoonful!