Did I Say Diet? -3/20/09

Last night I wrote a post about a meal of healthy Moroccan food. Tonight, I think every recipe I made from this month's Gourmet was trying to find a way to make something healthy less so. I added heavy cream to broccoli, cooked carrots in over a cup of olive oil, and smothered bananas in pudding and cake. Yikes! The article "Easy Does It" that these recipes came from didn't really have a theme aside from homey dishes. Sadly, homey usually meant lots of extra fat.
My favorite dish of this menu, Glazed Chicken with Porcini and Crisp Potatoes, was a earthy roast chicken with a mushroom "stuffing" that was mixed after roasting with skillet potatoes. This is the second roast chicken recipe in this issue and I like this recipe best. The chicken itself tasted much the same but in this recipe, the skin was crispy and flavorful because of the last minute glazing. The potatoes weren't as crispy as I would have liked. I think leaving them uncovered for the entire cook time would have created a little more "skin" on the outside.
The next three dishes I thought were quite forgettable. The Creamed Broccoli with Parmesan tasted fine but was just too much with the heavy cream and Parmesan. I didn't really taste the broccoli because of all the creaminess. I like my vegetables to taste primarily like well... vegetables. The Fennel and Carrot Confit was just oily. Again, I tasted so much oil that I didn't get a strong carrot or fennel flavor and I didn't notice the cayenne or lemon at all. The Red Leaf, Radish, and Pine Nut Salad was those ingredients in a very citrusy dressing. Again, I didn't feel the flavors worked well together. The tang of the radishes and the tang of the citrus dressing didn't work together, they almost fought in the mouth.
The dessert, the Bourbon Banana Pudding with Glazed Pecans, was a yummy idea but again, I felt the flavors did not compliment each other well. Bananas are a mild flavored fruit and were easily overpowered by the bourbon pudding and the bourbon soaked cake. I made the glazed pecans as recommended but they tasted a bit bitter, I may have baked them a little long, so I used some other brown sugar pecans I had on hand. If you have read any of the previous posts in this blog, you will know that I am not adverse to some fat but in tonight's meal, there was a bit too much.

Glazed Chicken with Porcini and Crisp Potatoes- B+
Cost-$21.37
Calories per serving-900
(seems high)

Creamed Broccoli with Parmesan- C
Cost-$5.27
Calories per serving-272

Fennel and Carrot Confit -D
Cost-$4.70
Calories per serving-120 (subtracted drained olive oil)

Red Leaf, Radish, and Pine Nut Salad- D
Cost-$7.93
Calories per serving- 193

Bourbon Banana Pudding with Glazed Pecans- C
Cost-$13.64
Calories per serving-990 (Yikes!)

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