Fresh Produce of the Month #6 - Roundup and announcement!

Happy New Year to everybody! I wish you all a year filled with joy and enriching experiences, and peace to the world!
I'll start 2008 by posting the roundup of the 'Fresh Produce of the Month' event, since I'm really late.. I hope the readers and the participants will forgive me for this delay. We have many really nice entries for this past month, all centered on apples. I'm really happy to summarize them here, more or less in the same order that I received them.

VegeYum at 'A life (time) of cooking' prepared some wonderful-looking and really intriguing 'Star Anise Baked Apples'. Such a great combination of flavors, and check out her great pictures!





Elif at 'Elifleaf' presents 'Apples and Spinach on Crispy Toast', which combines the sweetness of Fiji Apples with the strong flavor of goat cheese and a delicate note from spinach in a delicious looking toast. A great idea for parties or as an appetizer at a nice dinner!




Jai and Bee at 'Jugalbandi' suggest to mix apples, ginger and cranberries to make Cranberry-Apple-Ginger relish! I'm sure that the beautiful color matches the delicious taste of this dish!






Dhivya at 'Culinary Bazaar' shows something that would be a perfect start for every day: 'Oat porridge with dried fruits and apple' Healthy and rich in minerals and vitamins to give us energy right from the start!





Vanamala at 'My Kitchen World' adds a delicious and traditional dessert to our collection: Apple Custard! Simple and healthy, what else could one ask for?







Namratha at 'Finger Licking Food' presents another dessert: 'Apple Cake Tatin', a variation on the traditional French upside-down tart, where apples and caramel end up on top of a moist and delicious cake! Wouldn't you like to grab this slice from the screen? :)





I prepared two apple-centered desserts, 'Apples cooked in wine and cinnamon with honey roasted walnuts' and 'Apple and pomegranate cake'. Here you can see the picture of the first dessert, follow the other link if you want to see how I made my no-butter and almost no-flour apple and pomegranate cake!





Ferdzy at 'Seasonal Ontario Food' uses apples to make an unusual and tempting 'Ginger-Apple Salad'. It looks refreshing, and the dressing is just amazing: fresh grated ginger, honey and tangerine juice.. I really want to try this!







Another great breakfast entry comes from Laurie at 'Mediterranean cooking in Alaska': Apple Pancakes, baked in the oven with a touch of cinnamon in the batter. Lovely for a Sunday morning!





I really want to thank everybody for contributing with such great entries! I hope this is as inspiring to you as it has been for me to read! A really nice collection, with which one could imagine a whole apple-centered meal!

It's now the moment of announcing the next 'Fresh Produce of the Month' theme. After a long thinking, I decided that it's going to be.... squash!
I've read that squash are actually year-round grown and harvested, but there are a few species that are particularly good in this time of the year, beginning of winter, such as butternut squash, or carnival squash. What's nice about squash, though, is that there are also other types that are particularly good in summer time, such as zucchini, for example. So the idea is to choose the type of squash that's in season in the part of the world where you live, and cook something gorgeous with it! This way, I won't exclude my Southern-Hemisphere friends!
In any case, I must say, the Berkeley Bowl is now exploding with the 'winter-squashes', as you can see in the logo of the event!

I hope many food bloggers will be inspired by this choice! The rules to participate to the event are simple:
1) Put a post on your blog with a recipe involving squash, any type that's in season where you live. Add a link to this post on my blog and mention that it's an entry for the 'Fresh produce of the month' event. If you like it, feel free to place the logo of the event on your post.
2) Send me an email with a link to your post, your blog homepage and your name. My email address is chemcookitATgmailDOTcom. Specify 'Fresh produce of the month' as subject.
3) If you don't have a blog just send me an email with your recipe and if you have a picture of the food you made, that's even better. I will add it to the round-up as well.
The deadline for this event will be February 1st, and hopefully I'll post the roundup on that weekend.