Have you ever been to The Kitchn? If you haven’t we highly recommend a visit. It is a cheery, inspiring and thoughtfully put together network under Apartment Therapy. The Kitchn is hosting The Homies, a competition for best home and food blogs. MyFudo is honored to have been nominated in the following category: Best Recipe Blog. It is exhilarating to be included among so many distinguished blogs. We would love if you could take the time to vote for us.

Here’s how to vote:

1. Register at The Kitchn: This is fast and easy. We would not ask you to do anything that took too much of your time and we do think The Kitchn is such a wonderful blog that you will be glad you registered. You, too, will be inspired.

2. You might have to log in again to vote.

3. Vote for myFudo in the Best Recipe category by clicking here. The blogs are listed by number of votes, not alphabetically.

4. The nominations are open to voting until this Friday at which point they will announce the top six in each category. From March 2nd to March 9th voting continues for the top nominees and the winners will be announced Friday March 9th.

We would like to thank Christy at Confessions of a Culinary Diva for nominating us. We are just thrilled by this nomination and are so grateful to Christy for thinking of us. Please visit her blog. You will find it a wonderfully pleasing place with fabulous posts and recipes to enjoy.

Of course we have a recipe for you, too! We wouldn’t just ask you to vote without offering you a recipe. Truthfully, we’d love to share some hot cross buns with you over a nice hot cup of coffee, but we are sure you will do the same with your family and friends. They are too good to not share!

Traditionally these buns are served on Good Friday. But, there are a lot of people who shy away from yeasted breads. So we thought we’d offer you this recipe early so that you might practice. Frankly, we make these all year long as they are just a fantastic breakfast treat.

Hot Cross Buns adapted from (Emeril Lagasse)
Ingredients

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk, divided
1 (1/4-ounce) package active dry yeast
1/2 teaspoon granulated sugar
3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated orange zest
3 large eggs, divided
1/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup raisins
2 teaspoons vegetable oil, for greasing a large bowl
1/2 cup powdered sugar

Directions

1. Heat 3/4 cup milk until lukewarm.

2. Stir the yeast and the granulated sugar into the warm milk. Allow the mixture to stand 10 minutes until the yeast becomes foamy.

3. Combine the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon, cloves, and allspice, nutmeg, salt and orange zest in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on low to combine.

4. Pour the milk and yeast mixture into the flour mixture, and beat on low to combine. With the mixer running, add 2 eggs, 1 at a time, mixing just until the yolks disappear. Add the softened butter and raisins and mix until the dough is smooth and elastic, about 4 minutes.

5. Place the dough in a lightly greased large bowl, turning the dough once to coat it with the oil from the bowl. Cover with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel and place in a warm place to rise for 1 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.

6. Position an oven rack in the center of the oven, and preheat to 400 degrees F.

7. When the dough has risen, punch it down once and turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide the dough into 12 equal pieces and form each piece into a round ball. Place each dough ball evenly spaced onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.

8. Whisk together the remaining egg and 1 tablespoon milk in a small bowl. Using a pastry brush, paint the tops of each roll with the egg mixture, reserving the remaining egg wash.

9. Place a clean kitchen towel over the tops of the rolls and put in a warm place to rise, about 30 minutes.

10. Remove the kitchen towel and brush the tops of the rolls again with the reserved egg wash mixture. Bake until golden brown, 10 to 15 minutes.

11. Remove the baking sheet from the oven. Allow rolls to cool completely.

12. Combine the powdered sugar and remaining tablespoon of milk. Place the sugar glaze in a pastry bag with a small tip.

13. When the rolls have cooled, pipe a cross over the tops of each roll using the sugar glaze.

My Fudo News Flash: We are sorry to inform that the Oscar Weekend Contest has been cancelled due to lack of interest. In lieu of the contest we would like you participate in a giveaway. We understand that many of you have very hectic schedules. It is quick and easy to enter the giveaway:

In order to enter the giveaway:

1. Please add us to your blogroll (we’d love it) (let us know you did)
2. Please “like” us on Facebook and add us as a friend.
3. Tweet and Post about it on Both Twitter and Facebook

The winner will enjoy a copy of Essential Pepin, Jacque Pepin’s latest cookbook.
To entice you we would like you to enjoy the following recipe from the prolific Jacque Pepin

Photography Tips:

1. Rippled Cardboard Paper (Corrugated Paper) You can get this under four bucks!
2. Any featured chocolate desserts, break off a few pieces of brick chocolate (Bakers Chocolate)
3. The mint leaf is a creative element, but you can nibble on it if you like.

Chocolate Mousse (Jacques Pépin’s Essential Pépin)

Ingredients

1/3 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
10 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons cognac (or another liqueur like Grand Marnier)

1. Reserve 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and combine the rest of the sugar with the egg yolks in a stainless steel bowl. Place the bowl in a skillet of hot tap water (or use a double boiler), and whisk the mixture for 3 minutes, or until it is fluffy, smooth, and at least doubled in volume.

2. Beat the reserved sugar with the cream in a large chilled bowl for a few minutes, or until soft peaks form; do not over whip. Transfer about 3/4 cup of the whipped cream to another bowl to use as a decoration, and refrigerate.

3. Using a rubber spatula, combine the melted chocolate with the yolk mixture and the cognac. If the mixture starts to seize or break down, immediately stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of the whipped cream to smooth out the mixture. Gently fold in the remaining whipped cream until incorporated. Transfer the mousse to a decorative bowl, cover, and refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours.

4. At serving time whip the reserved ¾ cup whipped cream until stiff peaks form. Spoon the cream into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and decorate the top of the mousse with the cream or spoon dollops of the cream onto the top of the mousse. Serve.

Photography Data:
Guest: Liv Friis-larsen
ApertureFNumber: f/3.2
Make: Canon
Model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
ExposureTime: 1/125
FNumber: 32/10
ExposureProgram: 1
ISOSpeedRatings: 100
MaxApertureValue: 3/1
MeteringMode: 6
Flash: 16
FocalLength: 100/1

Have you heard of the term “Facebook fatigue”? If not, then you are probably a smart cookie for not being too intimately involved with Facebook. We have not only heard of this term, but are currently experiencing it. We have Facebook fatigue. We just got arrested by Facebook, and are contained for Seven days.

Facebook for most bloggers and online businesses is a must. It is, in our opinion, a necessary evil. Don’t get us wrong, we love the idea of social networking. Staying connected with friends and family is difficult when you live hundreds or thousands of miles away from them so we are very much aware of the benefits of social networking. But, it is difficult to keep up with the amount of changes taking place on Facebook. Unless you live and breathe Facebook, which some people do and we call them addicts, then it is quite difficult to keep up to date with this social network that changes its rules as fast as we can point and click.

We could talk about the plethora of changes, the privacy issues and all the general annoyances of Facebook, but those issues in and of themselves could serve as a month’s worth of articles. What has us particularly peeved at this time is that we were blocked from adding friends for seven days. We were put in jail for seven days for allegedly sending out too many friend requests.

We understand Facebook’s policy which reads:

“Sending repeated friend requests to people you don’t know personally is considered harassment, and it is against Facebook’s Community Standards.

Facebook also has limits in place to prevent behavior that others may find annoying or abusive. These limits restrict the rate at which you can use certain features on the site. If you received a warning for going too fast when adding friends, you will need to temporarily stop this activity to avoid hitting a block on your account.”

Let us repeat this one sentence again:

“sending repeated friend requests to people you don’t know personally is considered harassment…”

We are currently trying to combine our personal Facebook pages into one page so that we can eliminate our personal pages. We feel that on the personal level Facebook is not for us, but for myFudo it is a necessity. We have been inviting our friends to join us on our new Facebook page. Naturally, knowing that we cannot flood the system, we have been doing this in small increments.

However, Facebook sent us a message: “We received feedback that you were sending friend requests to people you didn’t know.” But we do know of them, they are in our industry, we have from 30-100 mutual friends suggested to us by Facebook. We have been using a feature that our social networking guru, Mark Zuckerberg, has implemented, a side bar suggesting mutual friends. We thought Facebook was a social networking site. The fact that we were banned for seven days completely defeats the purpose of social networking.

We are conscientious and respect others. Within the framework of a social network we would not call 20 open friend requests high activity. Facebook has a system in place that is, perhaps, flawed. All our friend requests were accepted. However, when the person accepts a friend request they must also answer the question: “Do you actually know this person?” If, despite accepting the request, the response is “no”, we believe a red flag goes up. Then, (we must say this again, despite the person having accepted our request) we get a message stating that “someone complained”. Perhaps someone answered incorrectly by accident. There is no way to retract the answer.

If a person accepted our request logic would dictate that, even if they didn’t know us, which they do, they are able to make their own decisions. We are not spamming people. We are moving our friends and mutual friends to our new page and we are using the Facebook tool to find other mutual friends.

In essence, we are networking in a very professional and controlled manner. And, yet, we were barred from adding friends for seven days. Zuckerberg has manipulated the site in a way that has users scrambling to keep up with numerous changes. Facebook, more importantly, has collected an unprecedented amount of data to include an unrivaled photo identification network. How is it, then, that Zuckerberg’s policies restrict us from doing exactly what Facebook is designed?

We are not thrilled with Facebook which is why we are trying to shut down our personal pages and simply use it for business. Apparently, we aren’t the only ones who find Facebook a bit trying. Reports went out in June 2011 that Facebook lost over 6 million users. An article dated June 20, 2011 on CNN Tech states: “there are also some recent signs of “Facebook fatigue.” There is only so much you can do to socialize online, especially after you’ve exhausted your friend list. Some people also complain they’re spending so much time on Facebook that they’re short-changing the rest of their lives.

Evidence suggests a small but increasing number of users — at least in North America, where Facebook use is especially saturated — may be shunning the site. The site lost more than 7 million active users in the United States and Canada last month, according to data from the blog Inside Facebook, although Facebook disputes those figures.”

Facebook may have lost users this past summer, but overall, the company actually saw a net gain in users due to countries like Brazil, Mexico, India and Argentina. Facebook’s statistics are still impressive:

More than 800 million active users
More than 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
Average user has 130 friends
Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events
On average, more than 250 million photos are uploaded per day
On average, people on Facebook install apps more than 20 million times every day
More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their mobile devices

Why then, with these statistics, were we denied the ability to network by a social networking website? We are frustrated, yet, here we are in the same predicament as many running online businesses. We are slaves to social networking which means we need Facebook.

We will have to serve out our seven day sentence with no possibility for time off for good behavior. Then, we are back to networking. And, when we send a friend request to our husbands we can only hope that Facebook does not send us a message that says, “You are sending friend requests to people you do not know.”

Please join us Facebook jailbirds for a delicious meal of Salisbury steak, served with a little more panache than what we would find on the average prison tray. We’ve included a delicious macaroni and cheese recipe instead of the average mash potatoes.

Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Sauce (Michael Chiarello)

Ingredients

4 boneless steaks (about 4 ounces each)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Flour, for dredging
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
4 cups beef stock
8 ounces white button mushrooms, quartered
8 ounces shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, caps quartered
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 onion, minced
1 carrot, diced
4 sprigs fresh thyme
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup balsamic vinegar

Directions

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F. Use a jaccard steak tenderizing tool, or tenderize the steak yourself with a fork. Lay the meat out in front of you, pushing it flat with your hands or a meat mallet, and pull it gently apart with tines of the fork until the meat is slightly pulled apart and tender. Season with salt and pepper and dredge in flour. In a large oven-safe skillet over medium-high heat, add olive oil and brown steaks, in batches if necessary, on both sides, about 2 minutes per side. Set aside, keep warm.

Meanwhile, in a saucepan, reduce stock by half. Season mushrooms with salt and pepper, to taste. Sauté quartered mushrooms in the same pan as the meat, in the leftover olive oil, until very brown, about 5 minutes. Add butter, minced onion, carrot, thyme, and garlic. Cook until vegetables are caramelized, about 5 minutes, add balsamic vinegar and reduce for 1 to 2 minutes. Add broth, slide meat back into sauce, cover and bake until tender, about 1 hour.

Click here for our kick-ass Macaroni and Cheese recipe.