I never thought anything could beat the combination of garlic, butter, and shrimp in scampi. But really, that's more because garlic and butter make most things taste great, rather than the trio being the perfect flavor combination. When my tongue got a taste of ginger shrimp, however, I discovered a true pairing. The crisp, spicy-yet-light ginger flavor is just meant to go with shrimp, and together, they're unstoppable. Put it in a stir-fry, pasta, pizza, or a wrap like above.

Seeing that I still have some homemade mayonnaise, I decided to whip together a quick shrimp salad. Some frozen shrimp was quickly sauteed with ginger, cooled, and then mixed with mayo, onions, orange peppers, and a little salt and pepper. Spooned into a wrap with some diced Swedish vodka currant cheddar, and you've got a great twist on the usual seafood salad.

For another twist -- add the ginger shrimp to some egg salad.

I made a pot of butternut squash and carrot soup recently, but I didn't manage to take any photogenic pictures of it before I ate it all up. Luckily, I ran across this very food porn-y shot of the Ginger, Parsnip and Carrot soup that Flickr user Sonicwalker made, and my need to post a picture of orange soup has at last been quenched. If you want to make this particular soup, you can find the recipe here.

If you've made a pot of bright orange soup lately (and let's face it, who doesn't need vibrantly colored food this time of year?) head over the Slashfood Flickr group and add your pictures.

It is dark, overcast and foggy here in Philly today and so it's no wonder that this image of bright, fresh, dewy kumquats caught my eye. Taken by Lelonopo, if you head over to her blog, Lelo in Nopo, you can see a fun little gif she put together of how her face looks as she eats said kumquat. She's also posted a recipe for a Kumquat Ginger Caipirinha. Yum!

If you have food pictures you'd like to see featured here (especially bright photos that help me chase away the reality of February weather), come on down and join us at the Slashfood Flickr group.

Do you love using fresh ginger in your cooking, but feel like at times it becomes more trouble than it's worth? When a recipe called for minced ginger, do you often find yourself turning to the ancient jar of pre-minced ginger in your fridge? If you've answered yes to either of these questions, then you need to head over to Jaden's Steamy Kitchen and read through her tips for storing, processing and using ginger.

The tip I found the most helpful was to grate up a bunch of ginger and then put the ginger out in a long strip on a sheet of plastic wrap. Roll it up in a tube, tie the ends and store in the freezer. You can either snap off a bit or re-grate it into your dish. I grew up with frozen ginger, but in my family we always just through the entire root in, which made it really difficult to peel and chop it for cooking. I do believe that this particular suggestion will inspire me to keep more ginger around (frozen in a tube) and use it in my cooking more. Thanks Jaden!

Late last week, I happened to drop mention of the Ginger Squash we often have for Thanksgiving around my family table. I got several requests for the recipe and so I'm now going to do my best to create one for you, despite the fact that this is not a dish I've ever tried to write down and I don't think I've ever made it exactly the same way twice.

My cousin Jeremy is the one who first innovated this dish, using freshly ground ginger (although dried works) and a lots of cream. One year he wasn't able to come and so I did my best to create something akin to his regular offering. Depending on how many people are going to be at dinner, I buy either two slabs of Hubbard Squash or two Butternut Squashes (Acorn Squashes also work well). I steam them until they are fork tender on the stove top because the oven is occupied with the turkey.

When the are completely cooked, I scrape all the flesh off the skin and put it into a large bowl. I mash it together with butter (2-3 tablespoons), a little whole milk, fresh ginger grated on a microplane (between 1/2 a teaspoon and a teaspoon, depending on how pungent it is and how much squash you are working with), salt and pepper. When everything is combined, I pull out the trusty old immersion blender and give it a few whirs with that to ensure a smooth texture. I tend to think that the squash is plenty sweet just the way it is, but if you like it a bit sweeter, feel free to add a little brown sugar.

I use my microplane to zest, grind and grate nearly every day (it would appear that I cook a lot). I started out with the basic one that came with no handle, just a flat strip of razer sharp teeth that take a nutmeg and turn it into aromatic pile of shavings. Then I moved up to the flexible set which I love because you can swap out different levels of grater blades quickly and easily (if you're tempted by that prospect, you need to act fast as this set has been discontinued).

Now there's a new microplane that I've got my eye on, and it's a cutie. Designed for spices, it catches the shavings in its little case, which makes it deadly easy to accurately measure your amounts (instead of eyeballing it or trying to scrape it off the cutting board and into a measuring spoon). Best of all is that if you buy it from the Spice House, they'll throw in a whole nutmeg, cinnamon stick, ginger and turmeric root. Go forth and grate!

Thanks K.F.!

For my last birthday, a (very generous) friend got me the ice cream maker that fits onto a Kitchen Aid mixer. I was thrilled to receive it, but then tucked it at the top of my kitchen cabinet and left it to languish for more than a month. My excuses were many, included the fact that life got busy, I didn't have room in my freezer to chill the bowl and I just didn't have any good recipes for ice cream.

However, in my travels through the many food blogs out there, I kept hearing about a book that contained fantastic and tasty recipes. The pictures and tales people posted tempted me out of my ice cream apathy, I ordered the book (David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop) and started my own experimentation with the wonders of homemade ice cream. My most recent batch was the Fresh Ginger Ice Cream (on page 43), and let me tell you, it was fantastic. I took it to dinner with friends, and at the end of the night I ran my finger around the bottom of the container in a vain attempt to grab the last few drops. The recipe is after the jump.

Tanqueray Rangpur Gin is 41.3 abv. / 82.6 proof and different from many other gins out there. It starts out the same with a slew of botanicals like juniper and coriander steeped and distilled into the gin. But then it goes through an additional step of adding botanicals, steeping, and re-distillation with rangpur, bay leaf, and ginger. It isn't a classic London Dry gin because it has a little sweetness to help balance out the heavy handed addition of extra citrus, herbs, and spices in the botanical blend.

I am sure you are asking, "Rangpur? What's a Rangpur?" Sometimes called rangpur limes, many people assume that rangpur are in fact limes. They have a very strong lime taste to them but they are actually a lemon x mandarin orange hybrid that probably originated in India. They are one of three similar fruits from the family Citrus × limonia Osbeck, commonly but incorrectly called mandarin limes. Other names for rangpur are: rungpur, marmalade lime, lemandari,; Canton lemon in southern China, hime lemon in Japan, Japanche citroen in Indonesia, sylhet lime, surkh nimboo, shabati in India, and limao cravo in Brazil. Rangpurs are orange skinned and are the size, shape, and look like tangerines, but with a very sour, acidic juice that is used like a lime and has a very pronounced lime like flavor and aroma. The other two similar fruits are Kusiae or kusiae lime which is a form of the rangpur with an even more lime aroma, and Otaheite orange or Otaheite Rangpur, which is thought to be a non-acid form of the Rangpur.

Fresh ginger is notoriously difficult to grate. The root plant can be quite tough and is very fibrous, so it easily gets caught up in blades. Finely dicing ginger by hand works well in terms of getting around those fibers, but takes a very sharp knife and a steady hand. The best option is usually a microplane, the same kitchen tool used for tasks such as shredding parmesan cheese and zesting citrus, as its small and ultra-sharp grates cut the ginger down into fine fragments. If you find yourself grating a lot of ginger at home, however, a better gadget might be the triangular Horseradish and Ginger Grater. This specially designed grater has alternating teeth that prevent the ginger's fibers from getting stuck, ensuring a smoother and easier grate. The gadget also works for horseradish (as the name suggests), wasabi and can be used with other root vegetables that you want very finely grated. The triangular graters run about $20. If you want a budget model, you can find ones wit less design flare at Surfas for $2.60.

Seafood is usually a fairly photogenic genre of meat as far as food porn goes. Sushi can be absolutely beautiful and cooked fish, with the possible exception of the bland-looking poached fish, can look tempting, as well. Shrimp, on the other hand, are not usually the most appetizing of sea creatures, which is what makes this photo of Ginger Chili Shrimp from Hooked on Heat all the more amazing. These tasty fried shrimp are first marinated in a mixture of turmeric, chili powder and lime juice before hitting the oil for a quick fry. The remaining oil is then used as a base for a spicy sauce made with ginger, onions, chili flakes, tomato paste and soy sauce, which is tossed with the shrimps to give them the nicely browned look that you see above. This dish could easily be served as an appetizer with margaritas at a cocktail party or enjoyed as part of a light dinner when you're in the mood for some spice and seafood.

I'd rather devote my holiday prep time to decorating cookies and wrapping gifts, but I still have a deep appreciation of the incredible amount of work that goes into making a prize-winning gingerbread house. Even if that house won a ribbon at the local school holiday bake sale and not at a national competition. The above gingerbread house, found via the lollypix blog, won the grand prize at the national gingerbread house competition in Florida (you can peek inside here) this year.

I'll stick with cookies, but read on for a few more houses.

Instead of limiting yourself to semisweet, dark and white chocolate chips the next time you set out to make a batch of cookies, consider getting some more unusually flavored chips. Vosges Chocolate has a line of three flavors of Exotic Chocolate Chips. Black Pearl Exotic Chocolate Chips are dark chocolate flavored with ginger, wasabi and black sesame seeds. Naga Exotic Chocolate Chips have a milk chocolate base that is spiked with sweet Indian curry powder and coconut flakes. Finally, the chocolatier also makes Red Fire Exotic Chocolate Chips, dark chocolate with Mexican ancho and chipotle chili peppers and Ceylon cinnamon. Each 4-oz. bag of chips sells for $8.50.

Vosges doesn't leave you on your own to come up with recipes that the chocolate chips can be included in, either. With each of the three types of chocolate chips, they list several recipes that will work perfectly with them. For example the Red Fire Martini and Love Goddess Cake work well with the Red Fire Chips and the Black Pearl Chips are the star in Full Moon Brownies.

Gingersnaps are snappy in both name and flavor, even though they are not always as crispy as the name seems to promise that they will be. To honor both types of cookies in our ongoing Christmas Cookie of the Week feature, I have two recipes for gingersnaps: one crisp and one soft.

The crisp cookie is from a recipe that has been circulating around the blogs for about 2 years now and it comes from Chez Panisse, though it was originally posted by Renee of feeding dexygus seconds. The cookies are very thin and each piece of dough is sliced off a frozen brick, so the cookies turn out in an unusual rectangular shape. They are buttery, flavorful and, due to the fact that they are extremely light, they are very addictive.

The second recipe is for chewy, soft gingersnap cookies. I spotted this recipe and was immediately attracted to its simplicity and the fact that it uses part whole wheat flour, since it never hurts to get a couple extra nutrients in during the holidays. The cookies are moist and surprisingly satisfying. I used pearl sugar to finish them off, but you can use any coarse sugar to create a nice, crisp top.

Here's a Christmas twist on a classic snack, caramel corn.

I got it from a the Busy Cooks section of About.com, where they have a bunch of recipes for food you can serve at your tree trimming party. Does anyone have tree trimming parties anymore? That sounds like a great thing to do, though I haven't had a bunch of people help me set up a tree in years. I'm not quite sure (except for the Gingerbread Caramel Corn) what makes these recipes - including Beer Cheese Soup, Asparagus Tarts, and Crockpot Artichoke Spinach Dip - tree trimming-ish, but they sound good nonetheless.

There's a great candy out there and it is packed with ones of my favorite flavors, tangy ginger. Chimes ginger chews are full of all the healthy benefits of ginger.They can be used to help with a cold, upset stomach and heartburn, motion sickness, lower cholesterol, and to boost your immune system.

The chews are a taffy like candy inspired by a three generation old Indonesian recipe, and made from all natural ingredients.The ginger is harvested from volcanic soil in the shadow of Mt. Bromo in East Java which gives it a unique gingery flavor, and stone ground for the best texture and taste. They come in three flavors: Original Ginger, Peppermint Ginger, and Peanut Butter Ginger.

You know how ginger and peppermint put you in the holiday mood, so kick back and nibble on a few for a zesty and tasty treat. They come in large packages or an attractive metal tin that would make a great stocking stuffer for everyone who likes to hang their stocking with care by your fireplace.