RecipeMuncher

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First Thursday challenge at Thursday Night Smackdown: Use a fruit or vegetable that we’ve never worked with before.

Hmm, I guess this means that the said fruit or vegetable must be “exotic”. So, our very, very, ultra-very exotic vegetable is… [drumroll]… RADISH!

Well, technically, we’ve worked with radish, but of the Asian daikon variety. We’ve never even thought of buying the cutesy red ones before; we would think, “What can we use those for?”

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When we were installing our garden bed last year, the man who helped us (i.e., the man who installed the garden bed) told us that we can now grow our own radishes. Radish, supposedly, is very easy to grow and he himself grew up on radishes.

I was left baffled, because our only usual use for daikon was in <a href=”http://www.eatingclubvancouver….

We’ve been nominated to win a prize in the “Protein Rich” contest being held on The Art of Cooking Indian Food! Our recipe for Tri-Tip Roast on the WSM is one of fifteen being voted on by readers for the prize of a gift card. Out of all the many non-meat entries and chicken entries, I believe ours is the only beef entry. (Which is not surprising, considering the contest is being held on an Indian food blog )

I am asking you, my loyal readers, to head over to http://letusallcook.blogspot.com/ and vote for the Tri-Tip Roast on WSM entry in the reader poll, by August 10. We might not have as good a chance as “Jamaican Jerk Seasoned Tempeh Sandwich” or “Grits and Daal Adai” but let’s see if the cow can represen…

Oh my goodness people. I can’t even wait to the food part of this post. I have to tell you right now. I had the worse flan ever on my last night in St. Maarten! I hate to even put this out there, but I was in such shock. When I saw espresso flan on the dessert menu, I got excited: someone thought my idea was good enough to make and I could boast to the other writers how good it was!

WRONG. VERY WRONG. VERY VERY WRONG.

It was unattractive, had whip cream on top, was very porous and super bland. Flan is an art form. Timing is of the essence and the mixture of flavor is important. I won’t say the restaurant’s name but I was most displeased. I was insulted!

At least the oven-roasted cognac pear was divine.

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