Diet, Dessert and Dogs

SOS Kitchen Challenge

Following a special diet–whether because of allergies or other conditions–can sometimes feel like an insurmountable challenge. As two people who’ve both been there (and are still there!), Kim of Affairs of Living and I understand how important it is to find delicious, appealing recipes to keep you motivated and committed when you’ve cut out certain ingredients from your diet.

That’s why we’ve teamed up to offer the SOS (Sweet or Savory) Kitchen Challenge blog event!

The new SOS Kitchen Challenge invites you to create delicious dishes based on one key ingredient each time (note: you don’t have to cook up an original recipe–any recipe that uses the ingredient is just fine, even if you found it somewhere else!).

You can choose either sweet or savory dishes (or both) for the event.  At the end of the month, Kim and I will gather all the submissions and post them in a roundup on both our blogs—so your recipe will get double the exposure! The resulting roundup will offer a single stop where health-conscious readers can find a collection of yummy dishes to try.

Help us showcase how tantalizing and delectable healthy foods can be! 

What Are We Cooking with this Month?

August, 2010: This month, we cook up goodies with MINT! For more mint info and the roundup of recipes, see this post.

June, 2010:  June’s ingredient is RHUBARB! For more information, see this month’s SOS post.

May, 2010: May’s ingredient is SPINACH! For more spinach info the roundup of recipes, see the May Roundup.

April, 2010:  This month’s ingredient is BEETS! For more beet info and the roundup of recipes, check the April Roundup. 

How Can You Participate?

Simply cook up a recipe–whether yours or someone else’s with credit to them–using the challenge ingredient (see above for a link to each challenge ingredient, listed by month, with a link to the corresponding blog post). Your recipe must be made for this event, within the month of the challenge–sorry, no old posts are accepted).  

Then, post the recipe to your blog (if you don’t have a blog, see instructions below). Be sure to mention the event on your post and link to that month’s SOS page. Feel free to use the SOS logo in your post to help promote the event (though this is not required). 

General Guidelines for all the Challenges:

• In general, please use only whole foods ingredients (minimally processed with no artificial flavors, colors, prepackaged sauces, etc.)
• Use whole grains and whole grain flours only; no refined white flours or sugar (but either glutenous OR gluten-free flours are fine)
• Please ensure that recipes are vegan or include a vegan alternative (no animal products such as meat, fish, chicken, milk, yogurt, eggs, honey)
• Include only natural sweeteners (no white sugar, nothing that requires a laboratory to create–such as splenda, aspartame, xylitol, etc.). Rather, use maple syrup, agave nectar, brown rice syrup, coconut sugar, dates, yacon syrup, Sucanat, stevia, etc.
• Feel free to use the event logo on your blog to help promote the event
• Be sure to include a link to the SOS post
• Include recipes that have been made and posted within the month of the challenge–previously posted recipes are not accepted.
• Have fun and let your creativity shine!

You may enter as many times as you like, but please submit a separate entry for each recipe.

How to Enter:

Simply post your submission on the SOS page for that month (there’s a linky at the end of the post, where you can link up directly by clicking on a link and filling out a form). 

If you have any questions about the challenge, feedback, suggestions, or anything else you’d like to tell us, feel free to email us at soskitchenchallenge@gmail.com.

Note: If you don’t have a blog, you can still participate!  Simply email your recipe, or recipe and a photo, to soskitchenchallenge@gmail.com. We’ll post it for you. 

The deadline for submission is the last day of each month in which the challenge takes place. 

We look forward to sharing yummy, healthy recipes with you!