Dinner is Served
Dinner 1:
1. Chicken and Dumplings
2. Salad with Benihana Dressing
3. Boiled Sweet Potatoes
We initially struggled with the chicken and dumplings. I think it was because we used a regular pan instead of a dutch oven. All of the broth evaporated more quickly than expected which resulted in an interesting (read: unpleasent) clean up. The next part of the recipe called for chicken fat from the broth. I was at a loss for what to do. Anh-Thu recommended using butter instead which worked excellently. The dumplings made me a little nervous--I wasn't sure how to expect the batter to cook. I feared it wouldn't harden, but everything turned out fine. As a result of the ingredient substitution, both the chicken and the dumplings tasted like butter, but that certainly is not a bad thing.
Everything else we ate was fairly simple. Benihana salad dressing was just throwing lots of things in a blender. The bagged salad we got was surprisingly good. The potatoes didn't cook very well because I didn't realize that a rather lopsidedly shaped potato would not cook evenly or quickly. I eventually got too hungry and tired to wait for it to finish.
Anyway, for my first real dinner with me leading (but definitly with a lot of support and help from Anh-Thu), I was extremely pleased.