You Are What You Eat: April 8 through April 20
Streak of not eating inside a restaurant - 770 days and counting (+13)
My new Recipes for the Year: 53 (+8)
M's new Recipes for the Year 9 (+1)
The newest and final issue of Eating Well arrived. The magazine is being killed and going digital only, which doesn't interest me much, but at least the last issue has lots of interesting recipes. Throw in M's new recipe (only one this week due to timing) plus some other recipes sources, and we had 9 total new recipes this time around, one more than last time. Sadly, I only liked 1 of my 8, but hopefully things will go better next time around. Here we go:
- Let's lead with M's recipe, which was the Slow Cooker Orange Chicken from a blog called Averie Cooks. It uses most of a jar of orange marmalade, and the resulting dinner is very sweet and tastes pretty much like take out orange chicken. This was the first chicken we fed our daughter; she approved.
- My new slow cooker recipe for the week wasn't as successful. The Slow-Cooker Spicy Red Pepper Chicken was from the April 2022 Eating Well. The recipe implied that should not to try to eat the cooking sauce after the chicken was done, and they were right. The sauce was SUPER hot. The chicken, once removed from the sauce, had a pleasant tang and tasted good with some white rice to absorb the flavor. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to make it again, but I liked it once.
- Continuing on the in the April 2022 Eating Well, I made Sweet Potato, Broccoli & Wild Rice Hash. It was just ok. The broccoli/wild rice/sweet potato combo was just too bland. I've got better sweet potato hash recipes, and I'll keep using them.
- The day before Passover started I tried out the Creamy Chicken, Mushroom & Ricotta Pasta, again from the April 2022 Eating Well. M likes a good cream sauce, but once again the final results were just ok. It did let us carb load before Passover started, so it had that going for it, but not much else about it made me want to make it again.
- The recipe doesn't appear to be on the website, but I assure you that the Za'atar Egg Salad Pita was also from the April 2022 Eating Well. Hard boiled eggs in general are a Passover staple, so I made this and we had it over matzo. M loves a good egg salad, and this one fit the bill. It features feta, Greek yogurt and Aleppo pepper for a pleasant tangy egg salad. It's also stupid easy, so I'm sure we'll make it again.
- The last of the April 2022 recipes thus far was the Roasted Mushroom Salad with Sherry Dressing. I love mushrooms, I love roasted mushrooms and onions, and the whole thing took barely any time or effort. Unfortunately, M and I agreed that it was firmly in the "good but not great" range. Despite being somewhat substantial, it was missing something. Maybe some kind of hard ingredient like a nut? Not sure, but it wasn't close enough to good to experiment further.
- Going back to the March 2022 Eating Well, I tried another recipe from the chicken soup section. Unfortunately, like the Chicken Chorba, the Gondi (Iranian Jewish Chicken Meatball Soup) was enjoyable but not good enough to make again. I did enjoy making a giant chickpea and ground chicken meatball, but the soup itself wasn't that great beyond the meatball.
- Another pasta misfire from the March 2022 was the Garlic-Anchovy Pasta with Broccolini. I made two batches, one with anchovies for me and one for M without because she inexplicably doesn't care for anchovies. Like the Creamy Chicken, Mushroom & Ricotta Pasta dish described above, it was just ok.
- My final recipe for this summary was from the Moosewood Favorites. I made a Coconut-Lime Cashew Crusted Fish. It seems like I had made this before, but it didn't have a post-it note in the book, and M didn't recall it, so I went with it. Unfortunately, I have a very poorly calibrated coconut threshold, beyond which I tend not to enjoy the meal. Apparently the combination of marinading the fish in coconut milk AND encrusting it in a coconut-cashew crust was enough to exceed the threshold. M liked it though, so I happily ceded her my share of the leftovers, and put a clear post-it note in the cookbook it to warn me off next time.
My new Recipes for the Year: 53 (+8)
M's new Recipes for the Year 9 (+1)
The newest and final issue of Eating Well arrived. The magazine is being killed and going digital only, which doesn't interest me much, but at least the last issue has lots of interesting recipes. Throw in M's new recipe (only one this week due to timing) plus some other recipes sources, and we had 9 total new recipes this time around, one more than last time. Sadly, I only liked 1 of my 8, but hopefully things will go better next time around. Here we go:
- Let's lead with M's recipe, which was the Slow Cooker Orange Chicken from a blog called Averie Cooks. It uses most of a jar of orange marmalade, and the resulting dinner is very sweet and tastes pretty much like take out orange chicken. This was the first chicken we fed our daughter; she approved.
- My new slow cooker recipe for the week wasn't as successful. The Slow-Cooker Spicy Red Pepper Chicken was from the April 2022 Eating Well. The recipe implied that should not to try to eat the cooking sauce after the chicken was done, and they were right. The sauce was SUPER hot. The chicken, once removed from the sauce, had a pleasant tang and tasted good with some white rice to absorb the flavor. I don't know that I'd go out of my way to make it again, but I liked it once.
- Continuing on the in the April 2022 Eating Well, I made Sweet Potato, Broccoli & Wild Rice Hash. It was just ok. The broccoli/wild rice/sweet potato combo was just too bland. I've got better sweet potato hash recipes, and I'll keep using them.
- The day before Passover started I tried out the Creamy Chicken, Mushroom & Ricotta Pasta, again from the April 2022 Eating Well. M likes a good cream sauce, but once again the final results were just ok. It did let us carb load before Passover started, so it had that going for it, but not much else about it made me want to make it again.
- The recipe doesn't appear to be on the website, but I assure you that the Za'atar Egg Salad Pita was also from the April 2022 Eating Well. Hard boiled eggs in general are a Passover staple, so I made this and we had it over matzo. M loves a good egg salad, and this one fit the bill. It features feta, Greek yogurt and Aleppo pepper for a pleasant tangy egg salad. It's also stupid easy, so I'm sure we'll make it again.
- The last of the April 2022 recipes thus far was the Roasted Mushroom Salad with Sherry Dressing. I love mushrooms, I love roasted mushrooms and onions, and the whole thing took barely any time or effort. Unfortunately, M and I agreed that it was firmly in the "good but not great" range. Despite being somewhat substantial, it was missing something. Maybe some kind of hard ingredient like a nut? Not sure, but it wasn't close enough to good to experiment further.
- Going back to the March 2022 Eating Well, I tried another recipe from the chicken soup section. Unfortunately, like the Chicken Chorba, the Gondi (Iranian Jewish Chicken Meatball Soup) was enjoyable but not good enough to make again. I did enjoy making a giant chickpea and ground chicken meatball, but the soup itself wasn't that great beyond the meatball.
- Another pasta misfire from the March 2022 was the Garlic-Anchovy Pasta with Broccolini. I made two batches, one with anchovies for me and one for M without because she inexplicably doesn't care for anchovies. Like the Creamy Chicken, Mushroom & Ricotta Pasta dish described above, it was just ok.
- My final recipe for this summary was from the Moosewood Favorites. I made a Coconut-Lime Cashew Crusted Fish. It seems like I had made this before, but it didn't have a post-it note in the book, and M didn't recall it, so I went with it. Unfortunately, I have a very poorly calibrated coconut threshold, beyond which I tend not to enjoy the meal. Apparently the combination of marinading the fish in coconut milk AND encrusting it in a coconut-cashew crust was enough to exceed the threshold. M liked it though, so I happily ceded her my share of the leftovers, and put a clear post-it note in the cookbook it to warn me off next time.