You Are What You Eat: September 3 through September 16
Streak of not eating in a restaurant - 553 days and counting.
New Recipes for the Year: 107 (+12)
I made a staggering eleven new recipes this time around, plus I realized I forgot one in an earlier update. All of this was despite us getting takeout twice, once from Cravings for the second time this year, and again when gieves and darlox brought over Dewey's Pizza when they hung out in our yard one evening. In short, it's been busy. Let's get to it.
- When my mother came up in August, she brought me several bags of frozen blueberries from my Aunt Joanne's garden. I decided to take the opportunity to make my mother's Blueberry Cobbler, which I have no recollection of having made previously. It came out great, and Birdie agrees. I'm not sure it's a better use of the blueberries than my mother's blueberry muffin recipe, but it's pretty darn good, and totally should have been in the August 7 through August 20 increment.
- My mother also gave me a copy of her Blueberry Coffee Cake recipe, by which I mean she sent me a picture of the recipe in the cookbook she uses. I can't identify the cookbook from the picture, but the picture does say that it's called the "Favorite Coffee Cake" with the "Blueberry Buckle" variant. We fed some to M's friend Valerie when she hung out in our yard. It came out well, albeit not as pretty as my mother's, but it suffers in comparison to blueberry muffins, which are faster and tastier.
- When we spent the last day of 2019 with Eli and Gaela, M really liked the Pickled Cucamelons that Gaela made. Gaela remembered that, and so it came to pass that a few Fridays back she surprised us with a bag of fresh cucamelons from Farmer Bob. Gaela also offered up a recipe for pickling, although since Gaela is a professional chef it was light on precise details. I ended up using a mix of Gaela's instructions and this recipe for Pickled Cucamelons to do some quick pickling. One week later, M declared that they were delicious and ate them all in a few short days.
On a side note, when my mother was here she noted my pile of empty mason jars from both herself and Aunt Joanne and took them all back with her. Naturally, a week later I was pickling things with the one jar I had left!
- With Rosh Hashanah starting on the evening of Labor Day, I really had no excuse not to make a challah. I considered going with the Date Challah my sister has mastered, but instead I went with the Smitten Kitchen Fig, Olive Oil and Sea Salt Challah that my sister made for one of my Supper Clubs. I handle everything except the braiding, which is permanently delegated to M. The challah came out fantastic, and I consider it an act of remarkable will power on both our parts that it lasted all the way until Wednesday morning. That will definitely happen again.
- While I was referencing the Smitten Kitchen cookbook for the challah recipe, I noted that there was also a recipe for Cheddar Swirl Buns. This was almost as delicious as the challah. It requires slightly too much rising time to make it in the morning for breakfast, but if I were to get up early enough I could do it for a brunch. They also tasted great the next morning. Naturally, this recipe doesn't appear to be on the Smitten Kitchen website, but I did find it here.
- I somehow got all the way to the sixth recipe of the fortnight before I tapped Eating Well, but fear not, I made five recipes from the pages of that magazine. First up was the Chicken Francese with Corn & Green Bean Salad. This came out very well indeed. The recipe requires a fair number of steps, but the end result of "breaded chicken on top of blanched vegetables with mustard dressing" was good enough that M asked me to make it again while we were still having dinner.
- The same crock pot section from the September 2021 issue that gave us the Berbere-Spiced Lentil & Turnip Soup last time around gave us two more soups this time, both of which were very, very good. My sister actually beat me to the Slow-Cooker Peanut-Achiote Chicken & Vegetables, but it was already on my list before she reported back her great results with it. This is the first recipe I can recall using that included jarred sofrito (I've made sofrito once or twice), and I substituted boneless thighs in to make it easier. The end result was very tasty and quite easy because there's not much easier than "dump everything in the crock pot and go." We will make this again.
- The other crock pot contribution from that issue was the Lemon Chicken-and-Egg Soup. This recipe was only slightly more challenging (I had to fish out the ginger coins at the end) but it was much richer and more savory than my more traditional Egg Drop Soup, and may well supplant that one entirely.
- A friend of mine says that if you don't like a particular food you should try it again every five years or so to see if your palate has changed. This seems like wise advice, and given that when I wrote about my mother's eggplant parmesan I was already questioning my stated stance, the Ratatouille-Stuffed Peppers with Arugula-Farro Salad seems liked a good chance to try it out. And... it was fine. M thought the stuffed peppers were a little bland and we both agreed it wasn't interesting enough to make again, but the eggplant texture caused me no problems at all. I may have to experiment some more.
- Over Labor Day weekend I cut up my oldest Eating Well's, and one recipe that I hadn't tried that I saved was the Mushroom Ragout with Herbed Ricotta & Pappardelle from the May 2021 Eating Well. It turned out it was perfectly average and not worth saving. Even as I was making it, I was like "why did I want to make this?" It was basically "improvised tomato sauce over pasta", which was tasted fine.
- Back in April my parents emailed us a recipe for Salmon with Tomato, Onions, and Capers which came from Simply Recipes that they had made and enjoyed. Since that title list is basically bagels and lox without the bagel, I finally remembered to cue it up. I enjoyed it well enough, but M wasn't terribly impressed. We'll stick with the bagel option!
- Lastly, I made Cantaloupe Sorbet straight out of the ice cream maker cookbook for when John & Danita came over on Sunday and saved some for gieves and darlox on Tuesday. M tells me the texture is like the slushy ices that were sold on the streets in paper cups when she lived in New York City. I personally thought the texture and flavor were great, and I'm sure we'll make this again.
New Recipes for the Year: 107 (+12)
I made a staggering eleven new recipes this time around, plus I realized I forgot one in an earlier update. All of this was despite us getting takeout twice, once from Cravings for the second time this year, and again when gieves and darlox brought over Dewey's Pizza when they hung out in our yard one evening. In short, it's been busy. Let's get to it.
- When my mother came up in August, she brought me several bags of frozen blueberries from my Aunt Joanne's garden. I decided to take the opportunity to make my mother's Blueberry Cobbler, which I have no recollection of having made previously. It came out great, and Birdie agrees. I'm not sure it's a better use of the blueberries than my mother's blueberry muffin recipe, but it's pretty darn good, and totally should have been in the August 7 through August 20 increment.
- My mother also gave me a copy of her Blueberry Coffee Cake recipe, by which I mean she sent me a picture of the recipe in the cookbook she uses. I can't identify the cookbook from the picture, but the picture does say that it's called the "Favorite Coffee Cake" with the "Blueberry Buckle" variant. We fed some to M's friend Valerie when she hung out in our yard. It came out well, albeit not as pretty as my mother's, but it suffers in comparison to blueberry muffins, which are faster and tastier.
- When we spent the last day of 2019 with Eli and Gaela, M really liked the Pickled Cucamelons that Gaela made. Gaela remembered that, and so it came to pass that a few Fridays back she surprised us with a bag of fresh cucamelons from Farmer Bob. Gaela also offered up a recipe for pickling, although since Gaela is a professional chef it was light on precise details. I ended up using a mix of Gaela's instructions and this recipe for Pickled Cucamelons to do some quick pickling. One week later, M declared that they were delicious and ate them all in a few short days.
On a side note, when my mother was here she noted my pile of empty mason jars from both herself and Aunt Joanne and took them all back with her. Naturally, a week later I was pickling things with the one jar I had left!
- With Rosh Hashanah starting on the evening of Labor Day, I really had no excuse not to make a challah. I considered going with the Date Challah my sister has mastered, but instead I went with the Smitten Kitchen Fig, Olive Oil and Sea Salt Challah that my sister made for one of my Supper Clubs. I handle everything except the braiding, which is permanently delegated to M. The challah came out fantastic, and I consider it an act of remarkable will power on both our parts that it lasted all the way until Wednesday morning. That will definitely happen again.
- While I was referencing the Smitten Kitchen cookbook for the challah recipe, I noted that there was also a recipe for Cheddar Swirl Buns. This was almost as delicious as the challah. It requires slightly too much rising time to make it in the morning for breakfast, but if I were to get up early enough I could do it for a brunch. They also tasted great the next morning. Naturally, this recipe doesn't appear to be on the Smitten Kitchen website, but I did find it here.
- I somehow got all the way to the sixth recipe of the fortnight before I tapped Eating Well, but fear not, I made five recipes from the pages of that magazine. First up was the Chicken Francese with Corn & Green Bean Salad. This came out very well indeed. The recipe requires a fair number of steps, but the end result of "breaded chicken on top of blanched vegetables with mustard dressing" was good enough that M asked me to make it again while we were still having dinner.
- The same crock pot section from the September 2021 issue that gave us the Berbere-Spiced Lentil & Turnip Soup last time around gave us two more soups this time, both of which were very, very good. My sister actually beat me to the Slow-Cooker Peanut-Achiote Chicken & Vegetables, but it was already on my list before she reported back her great results with it. This is the first recipe I can recall using that included jarred sofrito (I've made sofrito once or twice), and I substituted boneless thighs in to make it easier. The end result was very tasty and quite easy because there's not much easier than "dump everything in the crock pot and go." We will make this again.
- The other crock pot contribution from that issue was the Lemon Chicken-and-Egg Soup. This recipe was only slightly more challenging (I had to fish out the ginger coins at the end) but it was much richer and more savory than my more traditional Egg Drop Soup, and may well supplant that one entirely.
- A friend of mine says that if you don't like a particular food you should try it again every five years or so to see if your palate has changed. This seems like wise advice, and given that when I wrote about my mother's eggplant parmesan I was already questioning my stated stance, the Ratatouille-Stuffed Peppers with Arugula-Farro Salad seems liked a good chance to try it out. And... it was fine. M thought the stuffed peppers were a little bland and we both agreed it wasn't interesting enough to make again, but the eggplant texture caused me no problems at all. I may have to experiment some more.
- Over Labor Day weekend I cut up my oldest Eating Well's, and one recipe that I hadn't tried that I saved was the Mushroom Ragout with Herbed Ricotta & Pappardelle from the May 2021 Eating Well. It turned out it was perfectly average and not worth saving. Even as I was making it, I was like "why did I want to make this?" It was basically "improvised tomato sauce over pasta", which was tasted fine.
- Back in April my parents emailed us a recipe for Salmon with Tomato, Onions, and Capers which came from Simply Recipes that they had made and enjoyed. Since that title list is basically bagels and lox without the bagel, I finally remembered to cue it up. I enjoyed it well enough, but M wasn't terribly impressed. We'll stick with the bagel option!
- Lastly, I made Cantaloupe Sorbet straight out of the ice cream maker cookbook for when John & Danita came over on Sunday and saved some for gieves and darlox on Tuesday. M tells me the texture is like the slushy ices that were sold on the streets in paper cups when she lived in New York City. I personally thought the texture and flavor were great, and I'm sure we'll make this again.