07-Year of the Ironstef

This was my year, ya'll. 133 posts on this mo-fo this year. And with that many posts, there's bound to be a few good ones...At least ten, right? Nupur from One Hot Stove invited fellow food bloggers to indulge themselves and pick their favorite 10 posts they made in 2007. Seriously, I am pretty happy with this year in Ironstef...not to toot my own horn...but it was a little tough to pick only ten. Here goes...no specific order...

1. The meatloaf cupcakes. How much fun were these? I was pretty tickled with them. Then they ended up on emeril.com's blog, and, of course, the meatcake gallery. But it's not the attention these got that made them a favorite of mine...it's that they are just so darn cute and fun...and really yummy! And talk about cute, how about when I made miniature versions?

2. Memorial day in the country. This one makes my favorites list because of the wonderful memories. A weekend in the country with my family and my sweetheart. Fresh fish, fresh garden produce, beer, sunshine, swimming, fried stuff, kite-flying, puppies, hammocks...it's life at it's best and it means a lot to me.

3. Summer reading list for Foodies. I got in a lot of reading this summer...mostly food related. It's one of my favorite "activities." Learning, relaxing, enjoying. There are some really really great books out there...tons...too many for me to go through...all about food. My well read well fed tag chronicles what I've gotten to so far.

4. Zucchini Baby. A runaway hit! I was flattered to make it to one of my favorite all-time blogs- boing boing with this photo.

5. Visiting some St. Louis classics was a really fun part of my summer. Carl's and Crown Candy Kitchen opened my eyes to some of the food history and just plain history of the city I have lived in all my life. I'm really bad about exploring St. Louis. I tend to stick to the counties (I'm not knocking the counties...there's some awesome places out here, and I'm not too keen on city traffic/parking), but i recognize that every city has these hidden gems and I should seek them out like a tourist.

6. Beet Gnocchi. Not only was this the first gnocchi I'd ever made from scratch, it was one of the prettiest and brightest things I've ever made. Bright pink! I loved it. Serious Eats must've, too, as it was one of their photo of the day's!

7. Learning to make a proper omelet. Jack taught me to make omelets, and it was wonderful. Wonderful to spend a night with him learning and cooking and having fun. Wonderful to learn a classic technique. Wonderful to eat!

8. Bentos! Thanks to a gift from a friend, I jumped on the Bento Box bandwagon. I used the heck out of that bento box this year, and plan on using it for years to come to make healthy, pretty, delicious lunches for myself.

9. Oh. Em. Gee. I got to meet Ruhlman. He came to town promoting his book The Elements of Cooking, and I went to see him do a cooking demo at the local Viking store. What a pleasure! I learned a lot, was inspired to learn proper techniques, and...I mean geez...he's one of my favorite writers. What a thrill!

10. BAAAACOOOON! I made bacon! Like, made it...from a raw pork belly! And it was easy! And I'm hooked. I've made two batches so far and plan to make more. This is one of the things that reading Ruhlman's books inspired me to go for. Not only is it rewarding to know you've made your own bacon, it's fun to figure out new ways to use it.

Well, there we have it. The end of a year. I hope you all enjoyed reading my silly lil blog this year, and I hope you'll come back. Have a very very happy new year!!!

Here is Nupur's post of all the bloggers who participated in this best of 07 roundup. Check them out!