Copyright exfordy

Just a few updates:

WOW!!  It’s been nearly a year since I got this site started! Thank you if you’re reading this post!

First, no, this site is not dead.  I know it APPEARS dead because there has been no new content since, uhhh….last summer.  The original intent of the site was to get me in the kitchen and cooking well for me and my daughter.  And to that extent, the site has been a success.  I’ve also had a lot of fun with it, but it is indeed a bit of work to produce the videos as timely as I’d like.  I bought new equipment this summer that helped and filmed two shows on site in Oregon and Utah.  I WILL get those edited because they were a lot of fun with some simple, tasty recipes (and it’ll be summer again before we know it!).  I think my kitchen time is very cyclical as I’ve been at it again recently, trying two new recipes just this week that came out great; Chicken Fricassee and Chicken Paprikash.  My daughter liked them both and so did guests, so I’m doing something right. Now to video tape them!

Second, we’d taking the show to Africa!  Well, maybe not the whole show.  I don’t have any distinct plans to do some in home cooking but I’d like to.  My daughter and I and a friend will be heading to Africa for a month and stopping in Spain (the OTHER Africa) Morocco, Kenya and Tanzania.  We’ll be visiting the souks of Morocco with all their tasty variety as well as taking a classic week long camping safari through the Serengeti and other highlights.  It should be a real fun time.  While I don’t plan on doing a lot of cooking, I do plan on capturing some of the food offerings in these countries and report back here.  I’m not a super foodie like some of my friends, but I love learning about different things, so I’ll naturally be curious about what’s going in my belly.

If you want to find out more about the Africa trip and how you can gain some amazing artwork, check out the People, Places and Patterns Project (http://pppproject.com).

Thanks for continuing to view this site and I hope to kick some life back into it soon!!

Hello!  It’s been a bit since I’ve posted, I know.  I haven’t given up though!!  I’m just adjusting to life a little bit.  I’m still filming episodes of Help Peter Cook.com but as I’ve been traveling a lot this summer, I’ve had to go with the flow.  The good news is there will be a lot of shows after the summer from different locations, often with guest helpers.  I’ve already filmed with friends in Oregon and Utah and hope to squeeze in Chicago and Australia before the summer is out.

So please hang on!  I will have more recipes and videos in a month or two!

First off I want to once again thank all of those who have helped so far make Help Peter Cook.Com what I consider a success.  Does this site get thousand of hits each day and will soon be featured on Oprah?  Nope.  Has it won awards all across the globe for its culinary expertise and presentation?  Nada.  Have I received help in keeping myself cooking, putting together healthy meals for my daughter and guests and in general making myself more adept in the kitchen? Absolutely!!  And for that I send out a big THANK YOU! to all those who have helped.

From the latest suggestion by Kitchen Gadget Girl for some scrumptious salmon to the first big help I got from Kayotic Kitchen when she kindly pointed out, after suggesting a tantalizing recipe for the halibut I had on hand, that I really need to learn to cut onions better (and who’s food photography I totally adore!).   My Sister-In-Law Jess, Mike Rupp from Seattle Coffee Roast, my ex-coworker Gypsy,  my friends Jill, and Liz and Jesse who hosted me in San Francisco (and who’s awesome video will be out tomorrow, hopefully!).  I want to once again say THANK YOU for the help!  And also to my first grade teacher, who still takes the time each week to grade my efforts.

While I fine tune this site and let it morph as it will from my initial intent of making use of items in my kitchen to being…..I don’t know what, thanks for coming along on the ride! 

Oh!  And the small change.  I am going to start sending out the challenges on Tuesday with a deadline for submission by Thursday at 10am.  It seems to work best to give a two day limit especially with subscribers from all over the planet checking in.

This week I’ll be on the road, heading to San Francisco so I’m changing up this week’s challenge a bit.  I’ll be staying with friends and have asked them to pick the four ingredients and, since I’ll be cooking for them, to also pick the recipe.  The time frame got kinda crunched with time on the road.

I’ll still have a video and recipe to post from this week, fear not!  And the kitchen will look all different!  But next week it’ll be back to my white, white kitchen and with my daughter hopefully handling the camera again (I’ll get her to be a bit more stable this time ).

Now I realize there are probably two different kinds of readers to my blog; those who have mad kitchen skills looking to help little old me out, and those who are in the same boat, that is, looking for help.

If you’re the latter and looking for help, I’d like to suggest Bruce Tretter’s excellent site "Gotta Eat".  Bruce has spent a lot of time putting together a ton of videos and posts for those of us that are amateurs in the kitchen.  It’s a great reference to bookmark and check back often.  You can also catch him Facebook, MySpace and all the others with these handy links!

As mentioned in the last video the weekly challenge is moving to Wednesday!  This will help on the weeks I have produce delivered and with scheduling.  Hope that doesn’t mess people up too much.  If desired, and if you let me know, I can easily post the items on Monday and then close the contest on Thursday at 10am as planned.  If that would work better for you, let me know!

I was contacted yesterday by the fine folks at The Mushroom Channel about this week’s recipe challenge, which includes Portobella Mushrooms.  If the recipe goes well they will be featuring it as next week’s Recipe Of The Week!

On top of that, they informed me on Twitter today of a contest from Taste Of Home with a chance to win $2000!  I will enter your mushroom recipe for you if you like and you keep all the cash.  After all, it’s your recipe.

If you’re ready for mushroom fame and fortune, here is this week’s challenge, but you better hurry, you have until 5PM PDT today (March 10th,2009) to enter!

Due to some scheduling changes and a request to bump things back, the deadline for this week’s challenge is moved back to 5pm, Pacific Time!

Also, I will be making a new page soon with other ingredients that are free to be used, much like the Spices and Herbs page.  It’s only fair to mention all the basics I have, like olive oil, flour and wine.  It’ll be in place before the next challenge to help level the playing field, I promise!

I’ve got some good news and some bad news.  The good news is Kay’s recipe was wonderful!  The bad news is, I can’t find my cable for my video camera.   I will find it and get the video posted, in the mean time enjoy the still shot of Kay’s great recipe.

Kay, Kay, Who’s this Kay person?   She was the lone and winning entry for this week’s challenge.   It’s a great recipe and while I didn’t have any butter (I’m new) it has a wonderful, creamy butteriness I’ve never had with halibut.  Kay added in milk and flour to the onions and mushrooms to create a yummy sauce that I managed not to botch up, in spite of nearly burning myself with the boiling hot olive oil.  You’ll have to wait for the video, I’m sorry.  I don’t scream, but come close to it. 

Kay runs a fabulous website with tons of cooking tips called kayotickitchen.com.  She also has some wonderful non food photography over at Kayotic.com.   Give her a moment and check them both out!

So look for the video to be posted soon and tune in Monday for another exciting recipe challenge!

First off, thank you to all who responded to the first two calls for suggestions (The Kitchen and Spices&Herbs)!  The comments, Twitter answers and email responses have me pretty well set for Monday’s first challenge.  And the number of people who have subscribed to this blog has been impressive this first week!  If you have a friend who is into cooking, send them to this link where they can sign up by feed reader or for email delivery of updates.

Now then, the hint!  As explained in the How It Works section, I’ll have a post up here on the site before 10am Pacific Time (UTC-8).  It’ll be both video and good old fashioned words explaining how the first challenge will work and what the ingredients are.  As it is the first challenge, it’ll be fairly easy for you to be creative with the two ingredients you may choose to add (or not).  And just to build anticipation, one of the ingredients will be………..halibut.

Check back on Monday for the other three ingredients and then you will have 24 hours to post a recipe.  And feel free to link back to your own site in the comment section when you post your idea!