links: pretty pictures and tempting recipes

Carrot-Pecan Bread at Cookie Madness. It's from Southern Living! Man, I remember Southern Living. What a sweet magazine. Did they write about anything but food? I don't really think so. The moral of the story is, in the South, Life = Food. Not a bad deal.

Jamie Oliver's Fish And Chips, at Almond Corner. Not pretty... but certainly tempting. I wanna make it and wrap it in newspaper and take it to the river, and pretend that it is cold here. That would be amazing.

Chocolate Muffins, at Almond Corner. Almond Corner makes me wish I had a scale, or the will to do conversions. The recipes are so pretty! So interesting! So metric!

Bollywood Cooking: Aachari Alu - Potatoes in Mango Chutney Sauce, at What's For Lunch Honey. This is a very different kind of Indian food than I usually eat... and it looks amazing!

Berry my heart in a galette, at What geeks eat.... I don't believe I have ever had a galette, although I've seen them mentioned several times since I started lurking around the food blogosphere. Flogosphere? Sounds violent. Anyway. Now I want a galette.

Tuesday Techniques: French Apple Tart, at The Amateur Gourmet. I like tarts!

peanut sesame noodles, at smittenkitchen.com. I adore Smitten Kitchen. Look how pretty her pictures are! Look how pretty her food is! And she's funny, too. Are you jealous? 'Cuz I'm jealous.

brownie roll-out cookies, at smittenkitchen.com. Did I mention that I adore Smitten Kitchen? Read this post, all the way down to the bottom where she offhandedly mentions making ice cream sandwiches with these lovely brownie/cookies. YES, PLEASE.

Lemon Tart, at Simply Recipes Food and Cooking Blog. I have been craving lemonade lately. Maybe that has something to do with why this looks so dang delicious.

Cranberry Orange Almond Oatmeal, at JoyTheBaker. I eat a lot of oatmeal. My oatmeal suddenly feels very drab and dull, and it is hiding in a corner. Come out, little oatmeal bowl! Come over to where I can reach you with my dried cranberries!

Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce,at JoyTheBaker. What? You want more than that? It's Joy. I trust her. This will blow my mind when I make it, I am sure.

Black Raspberry Muffins, at JoyTheBaker. So I maybe have a girlcrush on Joy the Baker. So sue me! Those muffins look darned delicious enough to justify a world of crushing.

Sweet Potato Fries - recipe, at For the Love of Food. I think Steph told me to make these. I think I will!

The ephemeral party - Gâteau fondant au chocolat, at foodbeam. This is a baked chocolate mousse. Go look at the pictures. Then come back and tell me how very very very badly you want one. And if you don't like chocolate, then go away for a little while. The rest of us are bonding.

Peanut Butter, Banana and Honey Crepes, at Closet Cooking. What a great idea! Why haven't I had that idea yet??

Orange Kiss-Me Cake, at Baking Bites. California-flavored cake for breakfast; does life get much better? I submit that it does not!

Chocolate&Espresso Crêpes, at Almond Corner. More crepes! What can I say? I have a weakness for coffee. And chocolate. And crepes. Together? I'm helpless!


Double Chocolate Cherry Cookies -- Anna of Cookie Madness made these wine-infused cookies, and they sound scrumptious... if the cherries were left out, that is. Anybody want to buy me a decent dry red wine? Anybody? I'll share the cookies with you!

Sigrid's Carrot Cake at The Pioneer Woman Cooks
Carrot Bundt Cake at Baking Bites

I think we need to hold a carrot cake-off (bake-off? cakebake-off?) and compare the two. On the one hand, I pretty much adore The Pioneer Woman. Do you read her blog? You should. Every now and again I sigh and say, "William, wouldn't it be fun to move out into the middle of nowhere and have a working cattle ranch and spend our days wearing wranglers and cowboy boots and raising a swarm of children and doing great things like slicing the testicles off of calves?" and he look at me with terror and worry in his eyes, and I say, "but The Pioneer Woman has so much fun!"

On the other hand, Nicole says a great strength of her cake recipe is that it is lighter and fluffier than most carrot cakes, and that is pretty much the only thing I have against carrot cake -- sometimes it's just too darn dense. And there comes a point where if it's oily and thick enough, you can't pretend that it's healthy any more -- and that just takes all the fun out of it!

I don't know. I think I'll have to make them both. Anybody else have a favorite carrot cake recipe? Want to toss your hat into the ring? Send me a carrot cake recipe!