Go watch the video »

Think of this as the first of many Holiday-themed recipe roundups. We’re just getting warmed up!

Layered Apple Pies

Gorgeous layers filled with cinnamon scented cream, they’re made with wonton wrappers, which the pastry-challenged will appreciate. And your house will smell amazing.

Povitica

There’s just something about special, sweet brioche that spell Christmas to us. This one’s made with poppy seed honey filling.

Eggs in Anchovy Breakfast

For breakfast, how about something hearty and savory, like these delicious looking eggs in anchovy butter?

Pumpkin Soup

Rich hot satisfying pumpkin soup. All we can say is: of course.

Niloufer Ichaporia King’s Parsi Tomato Chutney

And finally, because it’s never too early to start working on your Christmas gift list, we recommend making up several jars of this Tomato Chutney.

Starting with this, a roundup of some of the best Easter recipes from our favorite food bloggers.

Easter Desserts

Let’s begin with desserts. After all, not only are they usually made ahead, many of us like to eat them ahead as well.

Caramel Chocolate Cake

What is it about cakes and “retro” that go together so well? The Cake Mistress’ Caramel Chocolate Cake is a wonderful alternative to a regular chocolate cake. That it originates from a rare 1973 cookbook (the Nyamutin Farm Cookbook) is an added plus.

Maple Cake with Maple Syrup Frosting

If you love maple (and who doesn’t?), Two Yolks’ cake will blow your mind- it’s got 2 cups of the stuff (only the real stuff, please) in the cake, and is topped with a maple-syrup flavored cream cheese frosting. Wethinks having a slice of this for breakfast with some crispy bacon might be a good idea.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Dulce de Leche Buttercream

Finally, no Easter dessert spread would be complete without some carrot cake. These, from the lovely Joy the Baker, are in cupcake form and slathered with dulce de leche buttercream instead of the classic cream cheese frosting- and we mightily approve.

Easter Hams

When we ran an informal (read: our friends and family) poll of what everyone’s serving as their Easter Main Dish, the results were surprising. The expected Easter Ham was nowhere to be found, replaced by other favorites such as Roast Turkey or Roast Beef- or more exotic fare such as Duck a l’Orange or Indian Curry. If you’ve got an eye to the traditional, however, you’ll be pleased with our roundup of Ham recipes for Sunday:

Easter Ham with Mango Ginger Glaze

Because we could eat Asian food every day for the rest of our lives, this was the first ham recipe we were drawn to- made with mango nectar or juice, mango jam, and lots of tangy fresh ginger. From food blogger extraordinaire Steamy Kitchen, this one uses just 6 ingredients.

8 Easy Glaze Recipes

One of the best things about choosing a ham for Easter is that you can just buy a good ham and glaze it. Party Bluprints has not one, not two, but eight glaze recipes to choose from: Honey & Brown Sugar, Orange, Maple, Brown Sugar, Marmalade, Pineapple, Hoisin and Ginger. They all sound good to us.

Coca-Cola Ham

A classic, and not just for soda lovers. This one’s my personal favorite, and I’ve made it with Cherry Coke and Vanilla Coke- both with great success. Nothing beats just regular Coke, though.

Easter Sides

Pesto Deviled Eggs

The addition of pesto really kicks things up a notch, you’ll be surprised.

Oeufs Mayonaisse

I have a soft spot for this classic French dish, as it’s one of the first things I ever learned to cook.

Eggs in Purgatory

Found on a lovely food blog we’ve just discovered (and will write more about later!), this wittily named dish combines artichoke hearts, kalamata olives and spicy Arrabiata sauce.

A Happy Easter to everyone!

Place your unappetizing food in a good looking container set on a beautiful mat with gorgeous flatware against a beautiful background. Suddenly your unappetizing food turns into a beautiful photograph. In other words, take a picture of a scene with the food in it rather than the food against a scene. Make the beauty of your scenery stand out to carry the food into a more pleasing atmosphere, making it more appetizing.

If possible you can add greens like leaves or herbs, reds like tomato or red pepper slices, bacon strips, yellows like grated cheese or corn kernels and other colors from other condiments to add color to your food.

For further enhancements in your favorite photo editor, adding brilliance or enhancing the color saturation will always improve the photograph, but not too much though. If your photograph doesn’t have deep blacks and is lacking in whites, increase the contrast and you will see an improvement. Most of us who have used a computer would know this, but we often forget and when we read about it we say, “that’s right, I could have done that” or “hey, I can do that”.

Here are some links to what others have said about unappetizing food:
How to Take Pictures of Ugly Food – NYTimes.com
Passionate Eater: The Food Blogger’s Dilemma: Ugly Spaghetti
The food, the bad and the ugly! – Uglyfood.com

Tasty Kitchen is the Twitter account of one of my personal favorite cooking communities. Tip: they regularly give out some very awesome prizes (e.g. Kitchenaid Mixers!)

Food Porn offers up just that: links to crazy-delicious looking food from around the web. Guaranteed to get you hungry.

Foodimentary is a must-follow, if only for their daily “Did You Know?” tweets. (e.g. “Did you know? August 26 is National Honey Day!”)

Joy the Baker makes and posts about some of the most mouthwatering baked goods on the planet.

and finally, Food Trucking goes “in search of the best foods across the US served from a truck”. How can you not love that?

We hope you enjoyed our very first Five to Follow! If you have any food-related Tweeters to recommend (including yourself!), please post a comment and let us know about them!

P.S. Of course, we hope you follow us at @FoodBloggersNet as well.

Follow us at FoodBloggers.Tumblr.com!

Photo by Pablo de Loy

Croquetas de Pollo

Spanish croquetas are something I used to be afraid to make- until I actually made them, and realized that it’s simply a matter of making an extra-thick bechamel, mixing it with cheese or the meat of your choice, rolling it in breadcrumbs, and frying. This version is made with cooked chicken, and would be perfect with a side dish of aioli (garlic mayonnaise).

Spanish Paella for a Crowd

Je Mange La Ville’s paella recipe includes awesome step-by-step photos, and makes a dish worth celebrating all on its own.

Garbanzos con Espinaca

Literally, Garbanzos with Spinach. I’ve had this dish before, and was surprised by the “wow” factor brought about by such simple ingredients. We make ours with Asian spinach kang-kong, which is quite abundant (and VERY affordable) here.

Fresh Corn and Manchego Cheese Empanadas with Chimichuri

Finally, if you have a bit more time in the kitchen, why not make your own empanadas? These are filled with fresh corn and Manchego cheese- which is, imho, one of the greatest culinary contributions of Spain. The chimichuri sauce is made with parsley and cilantro.

Are you celebrating with Spanish food this week?

Leftover: Grilled Hotdogs & Buns

This Corn Dog Bread from Foodie with Family is made with 8 cooked hotdogs and cornbread, which means it’s probably perfect comfort food.

For leftover buns, Real Simple, one of my favorite magazines, has a lovely article on 7 Ways to Use Leftover Buns. Included are recipes for croutons, pineapple upside-down cake, and salami panini. Very awesome.

Leftover: Mashed Potatoes or Potato Salad

Lunch in a Box has a delicious-looking recipe for Faux Latkes made with canned tuna and leftover potato salad, and a lovely Bento as well. We love Bentos.

Cheap Eats’ Potato Salad Sandwich might not be the first thing you think of, but made with warm french bread? Looks delicious.

Leftover: Sheet Cake

Leftover cake is usually not a problem in our house (top it with ice cream? Or just… eat it?), but for something a little more jazzed up, why not try an English Trifle.

What do you do with your Fourth of July leftovers?

a. A food blogger, or
b. Someone who wants to start a food blog

In either case, we hope we have something for you here.

Learn more about us (including some of what we have planned), or just start browsing through posts. There isn’t much here right now, but we’ve got lots in store for you.