You Are What You Eat: May 23 through June 4
Streak of not eating in a restaurant - 449 days and counting.
New Recipes for the Year: 61 (+6)
I made six new recipes this time around. That's nowhere near a record, but three of them were desserts, which is certainly a percentage record. I also cut up several months worth of Eating Wells, and in the process found several recipes that I had meant to try but never got around to, so hopefully I'll remember to check my red folder occasionally as we go forward. In any event, here we go:
- Now that we have an air fryer, we sometimes have tater tots in the freezer because M enjoys potatoes of all kinds, but particularly tater tots. This led to the Tater Tot Casserole with Beef, Corn & Zucchini. It came out of the June 2021 Eating well, and of course I substituted ground turkey for the beef. This fell solidly into the "that's interesting and fine" category. It was easy to make and even looked more or less like the picture in the magazine. We ate it without complaint, but it was ultimately missing some oomph, and we don't need to make it again.
- Also from the June 2021 Eating Well was the Chicken & Broccoli Stir-Fry with Ginger & Basil. The sauce combo on this stir fry was pleasant to my taste buds, and mixing in a whole bunch of ginger at the end certainly didn't hurt. This will likely join the stir fry rotation.
- M enjoys spiced nuts once in a while, so I made the Rosemary-Garlic Pecans for her. She enjoyed the first batch, but I ended up finishing off the leftovers, so it's unclear to me if she liked them enough to make again. I guess I'd better find out! It's from the January / February 2021 Eating Well.
- The desserts kicked off with a Pistachio Ice Cream from the cookbook that came with the ice cream maker. Those with keen memories will recall that I made this ice cream with pecans substituted late last year and it came out well. With pistachios, it was also fine, but I think I liked the pecans better.
- The June 2021 Eating Well provided both of the final two desserts that I made. First up was the Strawberry Cornmeal Layer Cake. Somehow, my end result was almost as pretty as the pictures in the magazine, which never happens. Somehow I managed to get a cornbread cake in half without sending crumbs everywhere. More importantly, it was delicious. In fact, as time went on it got more delicious as the juice from the strawberries and cream topping soaked into the cornbread. This was a big winner.
- The last dessert was the Earl Grey Icebox Pie. This was basically a graham cracker crust with a custard filling. The only difference was that the custard had fifteen teabags worth of tea in it, and tasted more or less like ice tea custard. M didn't much care for it, but I thought it tasted fantastic. I quite happily ate of it over the course of a week, one small slice at a time. I'll make it again for me some time.
New Recipes for the Year: 61 (+6)
I made six new recipes this time around. That's nowhere near a record, but three of them were desserts, which is certainly a percentage record. I also cut up several months worth of Eating Wells, and in the process found several recipes that I had meant to try but never got around to, so hopefully I'll remember to check my red folder occasionally as we go forward. In any event, here we go:
- Now that we have an air fryer, we sometimes have tater tots in the freezer because M enjoys potatoes of all kinds, but particularly tater tots. This led to the Tater Tot Casserole with Beef, Corn & Zucchini. It came out of the June 2021 Eating well, and of course I substituted ground turkey for the beef. This fell solidly into the "that's interesting and fine" category. It was easy to make and even looked more or less like the picture in the magazine. We ate it without complaint, but it was ultimately missing some oomph, and we don't need to make it again.
- Also from the June 2021 Eating Well was the Chicken & Broccoli Stir-Fry with Ginger & Basil. The sauce combo on this stir fry was pleasant to my taste buds, and mixing in a whole bunch of ginger at the end certainly didn't hurt. This will likely join the stir fry rotation.
- M enjoys spiced nuts once in a while, so I made the Rosemary-Garlic Pecans for her. She enjoyed the first batch, but I ended up finishing off the leftovers, so it's unclear to me if she liked them enough to make again. I guess I'd better find out! It's from the January / February 2021 Eating Well.
- The desserts kicked off with a Pistachio Ice Cream from the cookbook that came with the ice cream maker. Those with keen memories will recall that I made this ice cream with pecans substituted late last year and it came out well. With pistachios, it was also fine, but I think I liked the pecans better.
- The June 2021 Eating Well provided both of the final two desserts that I made. First up was the Strawberry Cornmeal Layer Cake. Somehow, my end result was almost as pretty as the pictures in the magazine, which never happens. Somehow I managed to get a cornbread cake in half without sending crumbs everywhere. More importantly, it was delicious. In fact, as time went on it got more delicious as the juice from the strawberries and cream topping soaked into the cornbread. This was a big winner.
- The last dessert was the Earl Grey Icebox Pie. This was basically a graham cracker crust with a custard filling. The only difference was that the custard had fifteen teabags worth of tea in it, and tasted more or less like ice tea custard. M didn't much care for it, but I thought it tasted fantastic. I quite happily ate of it over the course of a week, one small slice at a time. I'll make it again for me some time.