Announcing the Monthly Blog Patrol for July 08: Less is More!

Many months ago, Coffee started a popular food blog event called the Monthly Blog Patrol (MBP). The event revolves around browsing through our favorite blogs and choosing recipes to cook in our own kitchens. I am thrilled to be taking over the baton from Sia (you still have a few days to get your Street Food entries to her) and guest hosting MBP for the month of July right here on One Hot Stove.

The theme for July is Less is More! This means that you have to browse through your favorite blogs and your bookmarked recipes and choose those that have FIVE ingredients or FEWER to make for this event.



What is the idea behind this theme?
1. To explore minimalism in cooking.
2. To appreciate the pure taste of ingredients and flavors as themselves.
3. To understand the role of each ingredient in any recipe.
I will always love to both cook and eat elaborate creations, but sometimes it is magical to see how a handful of ingredients can come together into a great dish with the right recipe.

Less is More "rules":
1. The recipe (which should be from another blog) should have five or fewer ingredients.

2. In addition to your other ingredients, you are free to use the following three ingredients because they are so widely used in cooking. Salt, water (or stock) and fats (such as oil or butter or oil spray) will not be counted in the 5-or-less list, for the sake of this challenge.

3. If you want to count the basic "tempering" (tadka/phodni/popu) or seasoning used in Indian dishes (mustard seeds, cumin seeds, etc.) as one ingredient rather than list each component of the tempering separately, that is fine by me.

Once I decided on this theme, I began to see few-ingredient recipes everywhere! Look through your favorite blogs, and you will be sure to come upon some gems. If you get stumped, write to me and I'll be happy to help you out with some ideas.

The rules of the game:
1. Based on the theme of Less is More, you have to cook something from the posted recipe of a fellow blogger. This is the very premise of this event, to cook from the blogs, so the recipe has to be from another blog and not from some other cooking website or other source.
2. Post a pic of the final recipe on your blog linking it to the blogger (whose recipe you made), to this event announcement and to Coffee. Whether to make it a separate post or not is entirely your choice. You can just put a final pic or put step by step pics or if you have made any variations you might want to highlight that or post the whole recipe. It is entirely upto you. But one final pic and links to the blogger and this event is a must.
3. Email your
Your name,
Your permalink and
a permalink of the blogger from whom you made this dish
to my Email address (listed below my profile on the right sidebar). I will not need your pictures for this round-up.
Please use MBP July 2008 as your subject line.
4. The deadline is 25 July 2008. I like posting round-ups promptly so no late entries will be accepted.
5. Feel free to use the logo:

But wait- there's more! We have two giveaways for this event, just to make things even more fun.

1. I will pick two names randomly from the list of participants in MBP: Less is More and send you a couple of hand-knitted goodies. I can ship them anywhere in the world.

2. Anjali Damerla of Supreme Spice is kindly giving away one spice extract (Ginger/Cardamom/Tea Masala) to each of three randomly chosen participants. Shipping of this prize will be restricted to the US.

So, there's a small incentive for participating :)

I hope you enjoy this slightly off-beat theme for MBP. As for me, the whole month of July will feature only recipes with five or fewer ingredients here on One Hot Stove. Stay tuned!