Zucchini, Potato and Scallion Pancakes. Photo: Rec(ession)ipes.

As we transition from summer to fall, it's the perfect time to pair prime vegetables from each season.

And these zucchini, potato and scallion pancakes from Rec(ession)ipes beautifully capture the colors of autumn, while sneaking in the last tastes of summer. Pan-fried and topped with a dollop of chive sour cream, a glimpse at these almost makes up for the fact that we'll be seeing a lot less of the sun for a while. Almost.

[Via Rec(ession)ipies]

This weekend I got it into my head that I really wanted to try some bread from my Georgian cookbook. Up til now I've pretty much stuck to vegetables and sweets, but it was high time that I made one of the delicious looking bread options. I chose the Lobiani, which is a simple bread with a kidney bean filling, because I had most of the ingredients. I only had to get sour cream.

The Lobiani was very simple to make, you'll just need plenty of space to roll the dough out (which can be a problem in my tiny kitchen). I have an extra large cutting board that I use for rolling out bread doughs. The dough is made from sour cream, eggs, butter and flour, and it's leavened by working baking soda into the dough after it's mixed. The filling is made with lots of onions and kidney beans, plus seasoning and coriander.

Let me just tell you, I will make Lobiani again! It is so good, with the mild kidney beans mixing quite nicely with the sweet onion flavor and coriander. I took a loaf over to share with my Georgian friend and he told me more than once how delicious the Lobiani was.

I did change a few things. First off, the recipe said not to leave the dough out for more than 8 hours or it'll turn sour. Of course I did (just FYI, don't fall asleep on the couch at about the time you're supposed to be starting a baking project), but I just threw the dough in the fridge overnight and let it warm up the next morning and everything was fine. I actually liked the sour taste. Also, I used canned white kidney beans because I had them. Other than that, I did everything the recipe told me to do, and everything was great. The recipe after the jump.

No, I don't need to give you yet another recipe for guacamole.

Not only are there plenty of them out there, but a recipe for guacamole is like a "recipe" for a bowl of cereal or pasta salad, i.e. it doesn't really require one. It's enough to say that the basics are avocados, garlic, onion, scallions, cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper, and sometimes, chopped tomatoes. You mash them together and adjust everything to your taste. I usually leave cilantro out because that vile stuff tastes like dirty soap to me.

Though it tastes and feels like it would be naughty because it's so creamy, guacamole can be considered a "healthy" snack. Guacamole is made of all vegetables, and though people seem to focus on the "fat" part of avocado, the truth is, the fat may be fattening (like any fat), but it's still a "good" fat.

However, I have this thing I do to guacamole that pretty much yanks guacamole off the "healthy" table and hurls it down into the deep fat fryer with things like Buffalo wings with Blue Cheese Dressing and French Onion Dip.

I add a giant -- no, make that enormous -- dollop of sour cream to my guacamole. Not that good, ripe avocados need it, but the full fat sour cream makes guacamole even creamier, and adds a different tang in addition to the lime juice.

If you have a "secret" or interesting addition to guacamole, let us know in the comments!

I believe the reason I thought of these is because over the weekend I bought Lays Loaded Potato Chips, the ones that haven't everything you could possible put on top of a baked potato in a chip. They're OK, I guess, though I think that there's a limit to how much flavor should be put in a potato chip.

These Baked Potato Bites come from Rachael Ray's magazine, and they look quite tasty. They're red potatoes sliced into rounds and topped with sour cream/cream cheese mixture, bacon, and chopped chives. Who says you have to have just potato chips on Super Bowl Sunday?

Once in a while you come across the type of recipe that you never would have thought of before. That's how I feel about this recipe for Brandied Grapes, from one of my favorite food blogs, Noshtalgia.

I'm not a big fan of brandy as a drink, but the marinating of grapes overnight in brandy (and also cinnamon and nutmeg) certainly intrigues me. Oh, and did I mention you serve it with sour cream on the side? I can't even begin to image what this tastes like. Full recipe after the jump.

It's the holiday season, and that means lots of mashed potatoes are going to made across the land. I love them. Give me a giant bowl of mashed potatoes with butter and salt and pepper and I'd be happy. I don't eat as much potatoes as I used to, along with white rice, pasta, and white bread. But the holidays are a different story.

AOL Food has a list of 11 different ways to make mashed potatoes. You can make them with sour cream, coconut milk, with cheese and corn (cowboy style), even mashed potato tacos! I also like them with garlic, though watch how much garlic you add. I've had mashed potatoes with way too much garlic and the result isn't tasty.

Julie over at A Finger In Every Pie has a recipe for what her brother and sister-in-law call "the best cupcakes ever." And they do look good, don't they? They're Lightly Lemon Cupcakes. And they have blueberry and lemon in them, and they have the word "Light" in the title so you can eat 5 of them and still rationalize that you're eating healthy.

The full recipe for the cupcakes is after the jump. For the icing recipe, click on the link above.

We all know what the evil foods are. Stuff like candy, salty snacks, mayo, sour cream, soda. But there are some so-called "unhealthy" foods that just might be good for you.

According to Men's Health mag, foods like sour cream, chocolate, and booze can actually be good for you. We know that chocolate contains a lot of stuff that can be healthy (especially dark chocolate, the more cocoa the better) and we know that red wine has important antioxidants. But what about stuff like pork rinds and sour cream? Well, pork rinds have zero carbs, tons of protein, and while they have around 9 grams of fat per serving, that's still less than potato chips. And sour cream? While the percentage of fat per serving is high, the total isn't, and most have less fat than you'll get drinking an 8 ounce glass of 2% milk.

Of course, no one's saying to base your eating habits and all your meals around pork rinds and sour cream, but it's probably best not to eliminate so-called "bad" foods from your diet and to keep an open mind about your diet and how to eat things in moderation.

An ever-growing number of restaurants are putting it on their menus and it is more frequently called for in recipes than it was even a year or two ago, but crème fraîche is still not an easy-to-find ingredient, nor is it one that everyone is familiar with. Crème fraîche is a thickened cream, with a slight tang and a texture that is somewhere between sour cream and whipped butter. In France, the cream is made with unpasteurized cream and is allowed to thicken naturally with bacteria already present in the milk. In the US, the cream must be pasteurized (heated to kill bacteria), so crème fraîche is made by adding a small amount of buttermilk or sour cream to get the thickening process started, then it is pasteurized again to kill the bacteria before sale.

Sour cream makes a good substitute for crème fraîche in most recipes, but unlike crème fraîche, sour cream can break or curdle when exposed to high heat. Fortunately, it is easy to make a version of crème fraîche at home. Simply add 2 tbsp buttermilk to 1 cup of heavy cream and let the mixture stand at room temperature for 8-24 hours, until thickened, before refrigerating.

DC blogger El Guapo recently pointed out an ad for McDonald's Australia's new El Maco, a Big Mac variation with taco sauce and sour cream. Salsa on a burger, no big deal, right? Well, it's all about the ad, which features a mustachioed man in mariachi garb emerging Ridley-Scott-style out of the torso of some office drone. The mariachi then hightails it over to McD's and scores an El Maco. A voice-over then encourages you to "feed your inner Mexican." To see the ad, go to the broadband section of the Australian site, go to "What's NEW" and then to "LATEST TV ADS." There's a similar ad for feeding your inner child where a little girl emerges from door in her mother's stomach, but it's tame compared to the El Maco ad.

Caviar is synonymous with class and elegance, even though it is such a small thing. While it sounds exotic, I have recently noticed that it is becoming more and more common. I'm not referring to banned beluga or other imported caviars, but to domestic ones. I recently saw caviar offered for sale in the refrigerator case at my local Trader Joe's and the caviar in the photo above is a domestic from the Seattle Caviar Company, which deals with both imported options and with domestics. Luxist offers us a wealth of caviar options at a variety of prices, including a vegetarian option. To impress with caviar without breaking the bank, try looking at the domestics. A high quality domestic will be less expensive and just a delicious as an imported caviar.

Perhaps not surprisingly, caviar tastes fishy, so  it's best to serve it to guests who like fish. One of the great benefits of serving it is that there is no cooking required - except for the use of a toaster. I like to make toast soldiers, which are strips of toasted whole wheat bread, and dab the end with sour cream, creme fraiche or mascarpone cheese. Top the cheese with a bit of caviar, or let the guests do it themselves. Be sure to leave one end of the toast uncovered, so they're easy to handle.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]