Saturday, September 30, 2006

Week of Sept. 30 - Oct. 6

Saturday: ✓
  • Country Vegetable Cassoulet, Veg Meat & Potatoes, p. 179
      • Ben: This turned out very nicely, though we took the precaution, based on prior experience with recipes from Robin Robertson's cookbooks (of which we have three), of adding some ingredients that would provide a bit of zing: in this case, a dollop of mustard and a tablespoon or so of capers.
  • Garlic cheese biscuits, Allrecipes.com and FoodNetwork-Tyler Florence
      • Ben: Carrie made these from scratch, and improvised a bit to combine elements of different recipes. The results, though "vertically challenged", were very tasty.
      • Carrie: Now that I know how easy these biscuits are to make, I think we should have them more often!
Sunday: ✓
  • Goat Cheese Enchiladas w/Corn and Red Molé, Everyone, p. 292
  • Black Beans w/Chipotle and Tomatoes, Everyone, p. 317
  • Pickled Red Onions, Veg Suppers p. 169
      • Ben: A very good combination: the enchiladas were flavorful without being too hot (though Nathan resented the inclusion of raisins); the molé was not as thick as I'd expected, but made a nice spice contribution; the black beans were a big payoff for minimal effort; and the onions added a kick.
      • Carrie: Wonderful! The flavor of the enchiladas was great, and not too heavy. There was more filling mix than we needed, so I would cut back the goat cheese to just 1-1/2 cups instead of 2. The tortillas were very briefly fried (4 seconds/side) to make sure they held up to the stuffing without over-crisping them -- that worked well.
Monday: ✓
  • Re-baked potatoes, Enchanted Broccoli Forest, p. 227
  • Kale with olives, Everyone, p. 381
      • Carrie: This was fantastic -- I wanted more!
      • Ben: For future reference, we made this with two bunches of kale "lacinata" -- aka "Dinosaur kale" -- which I find much easier to work with than the normal frilly variety.
Tuesday: ✓
  • Noodle stir fry, see Sass p. 168 for basic reference
  • Hot Thai-style Broccoli, Sass p.244
Wednesday: Event — Nathan's Birthday Celebration ✓

Thursday: ✓
  • Vegetarian Stroganoff, Recipe Zaar
      • Carrie: Not quite as good as the stroganoff of my childhood, but still yummy!
  • Wide egg noodles
  • Salad

Friday: Event — John Hodgman at the Fitzgeral Theatre, 8 p.m.
  • Quick Chick Pea Curry, Sass p. 180
  • Basmati rice

Ideas & Possibilites:
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Saturday, September 23, 2006

Our Cookbooks

Our current cookbook library. Current titles are linked to descriptions on Amazon.com and those crossed out are titles we've gotten rid of. Each title has been given a short-hand title, in brackets, for use in our posts.

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Week of Sept. 23 - Sept. 29

Here's our experiment: design a menu for each week to try new things and eat more healthfully. This is our first week, trying out what works and what doesn't.

Saturday: ✓
  • Roasted Sweet Garlic & Thyme Risotto with Toasted Almonds and Breadcrumbs
    (Food Network print-out, recipe by Jamie Oliver)
  • Brussels Sprouts with Walnut-Lemon Vinaigrette from EatingWell.com
    • Suggestion: omit the lemon zest
    • Pick up walnut oil from Breadsmith
      • Ben: This was excellent -- the best Brussels Sprouts dish I've ever had (admittedly a small sample set, but this really blew away the competition)
Sunday: ✓
  • Crustless Chard and Cheese Quiche from Allrecipes.com
      • Carrie: Excellent! This "quiche" didn't have a dough crust, but used sliced potato instead. The potato made it substantial without being too heavy -- making it good comfort food. The chard turned out well -- not too stringy, not too mushy. But it was the tangy, flavorful goat cheese that really brought this dish together. We made it in a glass pie plate and that worked well, and it was surprisingly easy to cut and serve -- just enough eggy custard to hold it all together. A winner!
  • Celery Root and Apple Salad w/Mustard Vinaigrette, Deborah's Everyone, p. 156
      • Carrie: This was really good! It was a great accompaniment to the "quiche", with a lovely crispness to the celery root and the apple and a great vinegar tang. Yummy!
  • Dense and Delicious Chocolate Cake, Vegetarian Times, Sept 06, p. 32
      • Carrie: Too tired to fix this, moved to tomorrow.
Monday: ✓
  • Whole Wheat Penne with broccoli, green olive, and pine nuts; Veg Suppers, p. 56
      • Ben: Good, but didn't have nearly as much zing as the ingredient list led me to believe.
  • Salad
  • Dense and Delicious Chocolate Cake, Vegetarian Times, Sept 06, p. 32
Tuesday: ✓
  • Perfect Hominy White Bean Chili, Veg. Slow Cooker, p. 69
      • Ben: Nicely flavored, but lacking something: with the addition of some chunky vegetables, it would have worked better as a chili; adding some brown sugar would make it a good baked bean dish.
      • Carrie: Agreed!
  • Cornbread muffins - packaged mix (like Bob's)
Wednesday: ✓
  • Indian!
Thursday: ✓
  • Masa Crêpes, Vegetarian Suppers, p. 76
      • Carrie: Yum! The crepes were a bit hard to make -- kept sticking to the pan. But the overall flavor was excellent.
  • Spicy Black Beans, FoodNetwork.com recipe - amended
    • The recipe is for fajitas, but contains a sub-recipe for black beans.
    • Ingredients are separated, but instructions are not; cooking instructions start with "Add another teaspoon of oil..." in the middle of the 4th paragraph.
      • Carrie: Good flavor and great accompanyment to the masa crepes.
Friday: ✓
  • Roasted Pear-Butternut Soup with Crumbled Stilton, Allrecipes.com private recipe
    • Suggestion: to make tough squashes easier to peel, try putting them in a microwave for 1 to 2 minutes to soften the rind.
      • Carrie: The strange thing about the soup is that it had a very mild flavor, almost to the point of no flavor at all. But, of course, this was just the thing for the stilton! The soup served as a base for the stilton crumbled on top. Together, they were great.
  • Crusty bread from Breadsmith
  • Salad

Ideas & Possibilities:

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