2nd Place Winner in Twitter Recipe Contest

“The Oregonian” newspaper recently had a contest on Twitter that involved tweeting (yes, that is now a verb) a recipe in 140 characters or less.  Now, I love cooking for my family and I love talking but I’m not really crazy about tweeting – so short, so cryptic, and so much punctuation left out!  I tweeted our favorite beet salad recipe and my recipe placed 2nd!  Here’s the tweet:

Bake 4largebeets@350,covered1hour.Cool.Peel.Dice. Add 1/2Csourcream,1Tonion,1Tlemonjuice, 1Thorseradish.S&P to taste.

If you can’t tell, I’m very excited.  Here’s why…

I’m not a chef.  My style is home cooking that is super healthy. Made from scratch, simple food that tastes good and is good for you.  Certainly no training, other than on the job, in our little kitchen.  During our early married years, I made plenty of not so great meals, which we ate.  My husband will be sainted for eating those dinners and so many other reasons.

My blog (yes, I’m embracing that term even though I think it sounds very messy) is new and this really gave me a boost – both in visitors and credibility.  My recipes will eventually find their way onto my blog.  I have to write them down first!  I’m more of a wing-it-with-what-we’ve-got type of home cook.  My prize from the contest was “The America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook” so I’ll let you know if it measures up to my standard of healthy cooking.

Image credit: Ross William Hamilton from The Oregonian. Smaller photos provided by entrants.

The final benefit of the recipe contest? I made a new friend – Lindsay from the food blog Rosemarried. She was the first prize winner of the contest and we’re practically neighbors. We actually met for coffee, in person, which is always better than just meeting via the internet. She’s interested in chicken sitting our chickens, too. She has super healthy recipes and is part of a regular recipe swap. Check out her site.

Go Gingham related links

The long version of my beet salad recipe with more notes and tips
Read about why 140 characters is hard for me
Follow Go Gingham on Twitter
Egg salad sandwiches – you’ll wish you had chickens
Spicy, homemade hummus that you make from dried beans
Shrimp and quinoa salad – a summer favorite
How to roast red peppers or food you’re supposed to burn

More helpful links

Read about The Twitter recipe contest here – The Oregonian
Read about all of the winning recipes here – The Oregonian
Bon Appetit’s original version of this recipe – their recipe was my inspiration