Adopting A Blogger Who Really Knows How to Cook

Hey, this woman can cook! I'm talking about Jill, the mighty force behind Hey, That Tastes Good!. She's my culinary-adventurer-in-the-kitchen hero and the person I most wanted to adopt for the past several rounds of the The Book of Yum's Adopt a Gluten-Free Blogger Event (someone kept adopting her ahead of me, but I was quick on the draw for this last round).

I always have a few of Jill's recipes bookmarked and had the good fortune to meet her in person last Fall at the Gluten-Free Blogger Summit at the General Mills headquarters. She was just as sardonically funny in person as she is writing on her blog and it was a pleasure to be her baking buddy in the Betty Crocker Test Kitchen when we were musing about how we'd like to doctor up our assigned recipe, Mexican Brownies, with a generous blast of chipotle powder.

Not only is Jill terribly photogenic, but she's an enthusiastic and confident cook. She's always sharing her kitchen experiments with new foods and cuisines and she comes up with great recipes time and time again. I have made her fried calamari a couple of times now and it is as good as any we've ordered in a restaurant. For our Thanksgiving meal, I tried Jill's Green Bean Casserole, and let me tell you, those crunchy fried onions were hard to hang on to when I was multitasking in my holiday kitchen. I had to keep swatting people away from "tasting" them while I was trying to whip up the rest of the side dishes. The seasoned cornstarch coating really gives the onions a wonderful crunch.



After Jill posted a recipe for a gluten-free Tres Leches Cake, I had to duplicate that in my own kitchen. I had heard about this milk and cream infused cake that is very popular in Latin America, and so when Jill put out a GF version, I was on it! Tres Leches means "three milks" in Spanish, and the sponge cake base of this cake is stabbed and poked to create holes for the combination of condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream that is slowly poured over it all. Top it with some whipped cream as I did, and now you're talking Cuatro Leches and one decadent dessert! And some extra time at the gym.


Now I know that bloggers don't often post their kitchen failures, but it seems like Jill just comes up with one scrumptious and interesting recipe after another. So far, everything I've cooked up from her blog has made me look good in the kitchen, so I'm going to keep on bookmarking them, because I know, hey, that will taste good!

Then there's her mad photography skills and the cute family photos back on the blog. Plus, that awesome new recipe she just posted for Spinach Filled Spring Rolls....What a GF Temptress!

You can check out all the other Adopt a Gluten Free Blogger roundups back at the Book of Yum after the Feb. 5th deadline.