100 Recipes - #90-98
#90 Honey-Walnut Frozen Yogurt Sometime in late August, I decided to try freezing some of the yogurt I've been making. Since we often sweeten the yogurt with honey, I decided to start with this recipe and steve suggested walnuts, so I threw in half a cup of chopped ones during the last five minutes. I think next time I'd use less finely chopped walnuts, maybe some higher quality honey and I would try less of it--this batch seemed very sweet to me, but Jason didn't think it was a problem.
For Gilly's party, I made five flavors of tropical sorbet. It feels like cheating to count them, but they were new recipes and I did make them, so here they are:
#91 Mango Sorbet I used this recipe. Four mangos was too many, but the leftover pulp was yummy mixed with yogurt or just eaten on its own.
#92 Papaya Sorbet I followed this recipe pretty closely and it was very yummy.
#93 Pineapple Sorbet I was afraid that this recipe would be too sweet, but it worked out well.
#94 Banana Sorbet I was a little dubious about the concept, but this recipe produced a very creamy, lovely sorbet.
#95 Coconut-Almond Sorbet I liked the idea of this recipe, but I couldn't find sweetened coconut milk and I wanted it to be vegan, but creamy, so I used unsweetened almond milk instead of water and poured in a cup of simple syrup. It came out very nicely--the almond flavor threatened to overwhelm the coconut milk, but the toasted coconut balanced it back out.
On the day of the party I became concerned that there wouldn't be enough food that wasn't duck or dessert (those of you in attendance will know how foolish this concern was) so I made up three different pasta salads. Oddly enough, I'm not sure that I've ever made a pasta salad before.
#96 Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad I wanted to be sure there was enough for the vegetarians and vegans, so I looked at a lot of different recipes and ended up roasting asparagus, red/green/yellow peppers, broccoli, red onion, garlic, and grape tomatoes, addding all of that to a pound of rotini with olive oil, chopped basil, balsamic vinegar, salt and cracked black pepper. It was extremely yummy!
#97 Smoked Salmon Pasta Salad I found several recipes online to work from, but ended up using 8 oz. of smoked salmon, 1/4 cup of capers, half a red onion (later judged to be "too much onion"), and about a cup of roasted asparagus, mixed into a pound of farfalle with half a cup of garlic aioli. Very tasty and different.
#98 Pasta Salad with Tuna I wanted something more traditional, so again I looked at a lot of recipes and taking what went with the idea in my head. So I used a pound of rotini, some mayo, two cans of tuna, about a cup of fresh peas, a shredded carrot, and about a cup of diced baby celery from the farm share. Yum!
I'm getting very close to the end of this project, about two months early. I've really enjoyed the impetus to try new and different things and discover some really excellent recipes. I'm trying to decide what I'll do once I've reached one hundred. Options include:
• keep going until the one-year mark and see how far I get
• do another hundred, under the same guidelines
• do a different challenge (25 New Vegetable Recipes? 25 New Cookie Recipes? 100 New Desserts?)
• go back and re-cook the ones I especially liked, with improvements and more photos
• take on a non-cooking challenge
If anyone has suggestions--things you'd enjoy reading, things you think I'd enjoy doing, things you think I need to focus on--I'd love to hear them.
For Gilly's party, I made five flavors of tropical sorbet. It feels like cheating to count them, but they were new recipes and I did make them, so here they are:
#91 Mango Sorbet I used this recipe. Four mangos was too many, but the leftover pulp was yummy mixed with yogurt or just eaten on its own.
#92 Papaya Sorbet I followed this recipe pretty closely and it was very yummy.
#93 Pineapple Sorbet I was afraid that this recipe would be too sweet, but it worked out well.
#94 Banana Sorbet I was a little dubious about the concept, but this recipe produced a very creamy, lovely sorbet.
#95 Coconut-Almond Sorbet I liked the idea of this recipe, but I couldn't find sweetened coconut milk and I wanted it to be vegan, but creamy, so I used unsweetened almond milk instead of water and poured in a cup of simple syrup. It came out very nicely--the almond flavor threatened to overwhelm the coconut milk, but the toasted coconut balanced it back out.
On the day of the party I became concerned that there wouldn't be enough food that wasn't duck or dessert (those of you in attendance will know how foolish this concern was) so I made up three different pasta salads. Oddly enough, I'm not sure that I've ever made a pasta salad before.
#96 Roasted Vegetable Pasta Salad I wanted to be sure there was enough for the vegetarians and vegans, so I looked at a lot of different recipes and ended up roasting asparagus, red/green/yellow peppers, broccoli, red onion, garlic, and grape tomatoes, addding all of that to a pound of rotini with olive oil, chopped basil, balsamic vinegar, salt and cracked black pepper. It was extremely yummy!
#97 Smoked Salmon Pasta Salad I found several recipes online to work from, but ended up using 8 oz. of smoked salmon, 1/4 cup of capers, half a red onion (later judged to be "too much onion"), and about a cup of roasted asparagus, mixed into a pound of farfalle with half a cup of garlic aioli. Very tasty and different.
#98 Pasta Salad with Tuna I wanted something more traditional, so again I looked at a lot of recipes and taking what went with the idea in my head. So I used a pound of rotini, some mayo, two cans of tuna, about a cup of fresh peas, a shredded carrot, and about a cup of diced baby celery from the farm share. Yum!
I'm getting very close to the end of this project, about two months early. I've really enjoyed the impetus to try new and different things and discover some really excellent recipes. I'm trying to decide what I'll do once I've reached one hundred. Options include:
• keep going until the one-year mark and see how far I get
• do another hundred, under the same guidelines
• do a different challenge (25 New Vegetable Recipes? 25 New Cookie Recipes? 100 New Desserts?)
• go back and re-cook the ones I especially liked, with improvements and more photos
• take on a non-cooking challenge
If anyone has suggestions--things you'd enjoy reading, things you think I'd enjoy doing, things you think I need to focus on--I'd love to hear them.