food challenge

It’s finally, fully, spring!  What a great way to start out April then, by celebrating a spring veggie ?  Even better, Fix Me a Little Lunch was kindly nominated by Binky at Binky’s Culinary Carnival to host this month’s Recipe Show Down.  Thank you Binky!

I was thrilled to learn that my Turmeric Tropical Smoothie was the chosen recipe from last month’s Recipe Show Down.  As a food blogger, I’m usually so focused on coming up with my next new recipe that I don’t often immediately go back and make a recipe I just posted.  My Turmeric Tropical Smoothie is an exception – I’m making another batch of these for the upcoming week because, yes, they were that good.

For this month, in turn, I’m happy to be hosting the Recipe Show Down, a game which traces its origin back to Yugoslavia.  The participants, in addition to food bloggers, can be anyone interested to play and who has the ability to make their work published on the internet (photo gallery, forums, Facebook, etc.).

So this month, the key ingredient is asparagus.  Asparagus is my all-time favorite vegetable and so versatile in so many kinds of recipes.  I’m excited to see what everyone comes up with for recipes.  While we are at it, here are five of my favorite facts about asparagus:

• It’s perennial – plant it once and have asparagus forever
• Unharvested asparagus stalks “fern” out – turning into a lovely, very tall, ferny plant
• It’s good for you – it’s a great source for various vitamins, including B3 and Vitamin C
• Use and cultivation of asparagus can be dated back to 3000 BC in Egypt
• White asparagus is very popular in Europe – it occurs through “blanching” the asparagus as it grows by covering it with dirt and preventing it from getting light.

This photo is from Liz West (found on Flickr). No changes were made to the photo. You can find the license for this photo here.

Rules of the game “Recipe Showdown”

The host site (me!) sets the key ingredient/food product that participants must use. The ingredient is given on the 1st of the month.  The month, the ingredient is asparagus.

Any time during that month, participants make a dish with the given ingredient and publish the recipe on the internet with a link to the homepage of the game, and a link to the post in which ingredient is given (host site).
The participant who has already published a recipe with a given ingredient, regardless of the date, can use it to share, following the same rules (link to the host site and the game homepage).

Participants have to e-mail the host page (fixmealittlelunch@gmail.com) the following information:

– Name
– URL of the page where the recipe was published
– Photo of the finished dish

The host site will publish all submissions with links in a post at the end of that month and select a winner/new host site for the next month. The host site can, if they wish, send a small gift to the winner.

The host site will share the post on their social media.

Re-entering the same recipe and repeating the host site is allowed after 2 years (subject to change).

Here’s the deal:

The game homepage will keep a running list of all host sites and ingredients, hence the rule to link there (so we can keep track).

Let’s have fun and cook something up!

Share your creations on social media using hashtags #RecipeShowdown & #allthatsjas & #fixmealittlelunch