Getting Behind and Catching Up- 4/16/09

I have to admit something. It's not April 16th today. If you are reading this blog regularly, you may notice that my postings aren't matching the dates. With all the hosting last week, I got behind. Most nights I'd at least start the post, but I wasn't finishing them and then the next day would be a whole new batch of recipes and I just couldn't keep up. In fact, the cost and calorie breakdowns for the last week are still not up and may take awhile to do. I guess that's the problem with trying to cram a month's worth of recipes into 2 weeks. And it looks to be for naught. Richard's business trip got postponed so we won't leave until at least the last week of April. Oh, well... I'm still having fun and it was great to have guests to share this month's recipes with so I don't mind at all.
Tonight I made three more recipes from April's Gourmet magazine, leaving me with only two recipes left to make. I made the Grilled Mediterranean Lamb Steaks on page 62 and paired them with the Black-Eyed Pea and Ham Salad on page 114. I put the Caper-Tarragon Vinaigrette from page 12 on our salad. The lamb steaks were good. I bought a leg of lamb designed for Easter. I don't usually see lamb in the Kroger so I think it was a special holiday item. I sliced it for steaks and they worked out great. I recently bought a cast-iron stove top grill pan to replace the indoor grill I set on fire. This grill got much hotter than an electric grill and made beautiful sear marks on the steaks. The cooked time called for left the steaks still very rare but both Richard and I liked them. I just get a little nervous about Eyrleigh and rare meat so I gave her the more well-done edge pieces.
The Black-Eyed Pea and Ham Salad was a quick, easy salad with a lot of flavor. As I mentioned in earlier posts, I've been using cubed ham from the store since we had very little left over from Easter dinner but I think it worked just as well. The dressing was just vinegar but it absorbed the flavor of the meat and black-eyed peas well and was not too strong.
The Caper-Tarragon Vinaigrette was pretty similar to a number of dressings I've had before but it blended well and covered the salad without separating so we could enjoy the flavor.
I do need to add one more recipe that I made over the weekend but forgot to write about. Easter morning, I made the Cheddar Dill Biscuits on page 59. Obviously, they weren't very memorable. They were cheesy but quite dry. The dill flavor went virtually unnoticed as the cheese was the dominant flavor. Sometimes it's a more honest opinion when I've had a few days to think or in this case, forget. Maybe getting behind isn't so bad!
Grilled Mediterranean Lamb Steaks-B+
Cost-$26.71
Calories per serving-715
Black-Eyed Pea and Ham Salad-B
Cost-
Calories per serving-343
Caper-Tarragon Vinaigrette-C
Cost-
Calories per serving-740 for whole recipe
Cheddar Dill Biscuits-D
Cost-
Calories per serving-244 a biscuit

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