January 2nd Round-Up!

Hope everyone had a wonderful and Happy New Year.  (I know we all ate well!) Can you believe it's 2009 already?!  Where does the time go?   It looks like we have some delicious Tyler Florence recipes in our round up today so let's get started!

Let's get warmed up with a great breakfast provided by Natashya from Living In the Kitchen With Puppies and Tyler's Cherry-Poppyseed Muffins. Natashya and her husband tumbled out of bed New Year's Day to enjoy these moist, flavorful muffins with their morning coffee and then tumbled right back to bed for a nap.  Sounds like a pretty great way to spend the day to me!

Now for some pupus to whet our appetites.  Pam from Sidewalk Shoes has us covered here with some incredible, finger-licken, Ultimate Chicken Wings with Curry Lime Butter. These look so good I may not be able to move beyond them.  Pam thought the wings were good but made lots of notes on ways she would improve them (check that out on her site) and when she located the recipe online at Food & Wine, low and behold Tyler had made all the same modifications. Great minds must think alike!

Adding to the delicious appetizers is Andrea from Nummy Kitchen.  We missed her the past couple of weeks but she is back with bells on and a delicious, warm Feta Cheese Fondue with Walnuts and Parsley.  Andrea made this for New Year's Eve, doubling the recipe to fit her Rival Electric Fondue Pot (I really want to go through all her cupboards and gaze at all her gadgets don't you?!).  She also added some extra Feta and plans on using the leftovers as a pasta sauce--yum!

Heading us into dinner with seafood and pasta is Reeni from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice with Tyler's scrumptious Shrimp Scampi with Linguine. Reeni found it a perfectly delicious way to use up lots of leftover shrimp and the ultimate comfort meal.  That makes two great reviews on this dish so I am definitely going to try this one--I think I am as big of a garlic and olive oil fan as Reeni is.

Next up we are happy to have Nancy from The Dogs Eat the Crumbs back at TFF.  She made some luscious looking Pork Tenderloin with Chimichurri. Her daughter made a special request for pork tenderloin and seeing the rave reviews this recipe received, Nancy decided to try it with excellent results. Her daughter A.L.E. made the chimichurri marinade with some still bravely growing oregano from the garden.  This is a keeper recipe for Nancy and her family.

Megan from My Baking Adventures was hard at work on her post-holiday fridge and freezer clean out when she discovered a pound of ground beef and found the perfect Tyler recipe to use it up; Ultimate Sloppy Joes.  Her husband David joined the fun and chopped all her onions with his new Christmas toy, a multi chopper (check out the cute picture of him in action on her post!) Both he and the kids really loved this recipe.  Mmm...I am craving sloppy joes now!

This week, I went for a really light and delicate recipe...NOT!  My choice, to use up some unusually inexpensive lamb shanks I bought was Tyler's Lamb Shank Stew with Russet Potato Top. The flavor was great, I loved the barley and how tender the shanks were but not so much the potato topping, which turned out a bit dry despite the basting with an incredible garlic-parsley butter.  A good recipe but not my all time favorite so far.  If I make it again, I'll make some modifications to the topping or omit it and have the potatoes (with that lovely compound butter of course) on the side. 

Another great collection of Tyler's recipes!  A little something for everyone there I think.  If you want to join in with a fun and flexible group and choose your own Tyler Florence recipes to make, come join us.  It's really easy to participate, you just need to send an email to tylerflorencefridays@hotmail.com  (Make sure you put TFF in the subject line and that you leave your name and your blog URL so we can get back to you and add you to the blogroll).

Announcements!

Don't forget, we are still looking for a fun avatar for everyone to post on their blogs so if you have some talent (or know someone who does!), submit your design and if it's picked, you could win one of Tyler's Cookbooks! (Don't forget to put TFF and "avatar" in the subject line of your email)

Also, beginning in January, we are announcing an optional group recipe challenge, selected by our lovely, co-hostess for TFF, Megan of My Baking Adventures.  We will be announcing her pick and the details of the challenge in the next couple of days.

Here's to a happy, healthy and delicious 2009 to everyone!