My Peanut Butter and Jelly-9/21/09

You would think that someone who goes to all the trouble to make every recipe in Gourmet magazine for over 8 months would be a really creative eater all of the time. Sorry to disappoint you. You remember that kid that ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches every day for lunch. I'm kind of like that kid. Eyrleigh and I have a very predicable lunch routine virtually every day of the week. We race home from whatever morning activity we've been doing, grocery shopping, going to Gymboree, whatever, with the radio blaring so she won't fall asleep. While she sits at the table and has some drink and maybe some apple, I make a quick cheese quesadilla in my red Salton Quesadilla maker. We share the quesadilla. She has two sections and I have four. Sometimes I have to finish hers. It's boring, but it works. She likes quesadillas and so she eats well and I do to.

Nights like tonight, I'm glad I liked my lunch. This was not the most impressive dinner I've made. I found the Tomato and Tomatillo Gazpacho on page 104 watery and a little heavy on the heat. I put in only one Serrano chile and I actually took out the seeds and the white pith. I think the problem was that the other flavors didn't stand up to the heat and so the soup tasted pretty one-dimensional. I've had good gazpacho and this recipe was missing some flavor. Though I needed the cup of water to blend the vegetables, maybe a half cup would have been better.

The Xuxu and Shrimp with Chile and Lemon on page 105 was also pretty disappointing. Chayote, or xuxu in Brazil, is a classic South American ingredient and I found the thin lemon garlic sauce a bit weak. I understand it's tough to find a recipe with X but I think there has to be a better way to show off this new ingredient. I had a near miss at the grocery store. I found an unlabeled green vegetable and asked one of the men if it was chayote. His English was not good and he said yes. I almost made this recipe with green papaya so I guess it could have been worse.

Tomato and Tomatillo Gazpacho-D

Xuxu and Shrimp with Chile and Lemon-C