Ina's Garden - New Cooking and Baking Group

It is with great joy that we invite you into Ina's Garden, a brand new, exciting group.  We love Ina and her recipes and the positive vibes, we get from her. Tomorrow, our new blog hop is going into effect with our first recipe, Orange Pound Cake.  I made mine, quite a while ago, because the holiday of Passover was heading our way and I knew, I would not have time to bake regular cakes.  As a result, I don't remember the details of this baking.  I know it went together easily and I made up my own glaze.  Any details have flown far away with all the business of planning for the holiday.

I have copied the following from April since she says it so well and because I have no time to do it.  April has been the force behind this group, in the last month, and I and all the other gals appreciate her time and her clarity.  Thanks April.

It will work like this:

On the first Thursday of every month we will all make the same recipe together. You don’t have to participate every month, just join in when you can. Recipes will be announced in advance and on the day, you will be able to join with the co-hosts and link up your posts about them. All you have to do is copy your permalink (please link to your actual post, and not just to your blog homepage). Then click on where it says “Add your link” in the linky below this post. You will then be able to add a link to your own post and even choose a picture for the thumbnail. By linking to any one of the host sites, your post will be visible on all five of our sites, so as well as having fun and making new blogging friends, your posts will get maximum exposure too.

We do ask that as a courtesy, you link back in your post to whichever host site you have linked to. It’s good blog hop etiquette and it allows others to find one of the main Ina’s Garden posts and join in the fun. A simple, ‘Shared with Ina’s Garden at (insert the name of whichever blog you have linked to, along with a link to their Ina’s Garden post here)’ is absolutely fine.

On the third Thursday of every month you can choose any recipe from Ina’s collection from within a theme chosen by one of the co-hosts.  Again the theme will be announced in advance and you can join in whenever you like. There is no obligation to participate every time. Once again, you will then be able join with the co-hosts and link up your posts about whatever recipe you have chosen in the same way, and your post will be visible on all six of our sites, whichever host site you link to.

Allow me to introduce my fellow co-hosts:

April of The 21^s Century Housewife and The 21^st Century Housewife’s Kitchen

Louanne of Louanne’s Kitchen

Mia of Bright Morning Star

Peggy of Pantry Revisited

Yummy Chunklet

Chaya of Comfy Cook's Kosher Kitchen and Bizzy B Bakes

For this, our introductory first post, my co-hosts and I have all baked Ina Garten’s Orange Poundcake, and we will be linking up our posts about the recipe below. We’d love for you to click on the link to the recipe, bake it and join in with our linky, which will be open until May 3rd . But if this is too short notice, or you are too busy to make the Orange Poundcake right now, just this once we’d like you to feel free to link up any of your Ina posts, whether is is a recipe, book review or other post about the Barefoot Contessa.

The next time we all meet up will be on May 5th and the recipe we are making for that day is Ina’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Squares. So please try to make this recipe in time to link up with us on May 5th, but again the link will be open for several days to allow you time to do so.  

 And just to give you a heads up, the theme for our third meeting, on May 19th is Pasta with Pizzaz. So start dust off your Ina Garten cookbooks and choose your favourite pasta recipe from them. We can’t wait to see what you cook up!

I do want to say, I am happy about this new group.  Many of us use her recipes throughout the year and now we can share them with each other.  If you have an Ina recipe on your blog already or want to make one, link it here and be one of our first members.  

A very special thanks to Faith of An Edible Mosaic who designed the badge for this group and gave us some wonderful ideas.  Faith has an incredible blog with the best photos and the best recipes. 

To find Ina's recipes, she has many books, I am sure, many of you have.  She also posts on the Internet and you can find her recipes here:

Food Network

Barefoot Contessa  

Famous Chefs

Ina Garten Recipes

This is a fantastic cake.  Each of us loved it.  I know, I want to make it again.  For the glaze, I cooked some orange marmalade with a little water until it cooked down and then I spread it, on top of the loaf.  It added something special to the delicious cake.

Barefoot Contessa's Orange Pound Cake  adapted from Food.com

You can find this recipe at Food.com (above) and at Mia's of Bright Morning Star.

Please link up any Ina recipe below and start sharing with us at Ina's Garden.

Linked to Melt in Your Mouth Monday