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#CookClub: Join us Mondays for our new Lunchtime Chats

 
Published Aug. 3, 2015

We're shaking things up again with our online food chats. Instead of nightly Twitter talks on Thursdays, we're moving to a lunchtime chat experience that will be held directly on the Tampa Bay Times' website, tampabay.com.

And we're moving the chats to Mondays (when our weekly recipe publishes online) to better help with meal planning and recipe ideas for the week ahead.

So every Monday from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. starting Aug. 10, head to tampabay.com (or find it on our #CookClub site, tampabay.com/cookclub) and look for the live Lunchtime Chats. Feel free to join at the beginning or at any point throughout the hour; there's no penalty for being late. Conversations will range from cooking tricks and favorite recipes to restaurants and what we're making this week, and we welcome and seek your comments and questions.

The real goal is to open up the chats to more people. Because the chats will be held directly on our site, you won't need a Twitter or Facebook log-in to participate — though you can still log in that way, too. We want to make it as easy as possible for you to join the conversation.

Hope to see you there.

We'll continue to push out weekly #CookClub recipes like the one below in print and online, and we encourage you to try them throughout the week.

This week's recipe is one of my all-time favorites. And with a cover story on all the things you can do with summer squash, it seemed like a good time to introduce it to you.

The idea of zucchini in muffins might seem odd to some people. But the truth is, once grated and folded into a batter, the zucchini sort of melts into the muffin, providing a lot of moisture but not a lot of vegetable flavor. In fact, the most distinct taste in these muffins may come from the olive oil, which acts as the primary fat here.

These muffins are sweetened naturally, with honey and maple syrup instead of sugar, which means they're more of a breakfast item than a dessert item. Actually, they're more like mini loaves of bread, ideal for slathering with some jam or peanut butter.

Contact Michelle Stark at mstark@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8829. Follow @mstark17 on Twitter.