Month Two in Review-3/31/09

This is the second month that I have made every recipe in Gourmet magazine and I am still learning from this experience. So what did I learn this month? ...

One of the things I noticed this month is that I am getting much better at the planning part of cooking. I can better gauge how long a recipe will take me to make and how to make several recipes at once without frantically spinning around the kitchen. I don't often invite guests to my house for dinner because I worry that they will arrive with me nowhere near finished cooking and the kitchen piled high with dishes. I often try to do too much and end up not doing each component of the meal well because I wasn't able to focus. The St. Patrick's Day dinner I made this month went off so well that I am feeling more confident about inviting people over. My grandmother was a great hostess and her meals always appeared to come together effortlessly. I would love to master that effect.
I am also getting better at my knife work. I'm no professional chef by any means but for example, my Cucumber Apple Pickles for the Korean menu looked really good. I sliced the apple and cucumber thinly and evenly. I think that's just a result of chopping and slicing regularly as a result of this project.

My favorite recipe of the month may come as a surprise. I loved the Garlicky Black Pepper Shrimp and Black-Eyed Peas on page 50. I thought this dish combined the elements that make an outstanding meal. The recipe was pretty simple to execute and took under an hour but had the flavor of something more complex and time-consuming. I would be proud to serve this dish to guests.
My least favorite recipe of the month reinforced some of the comments I've made throughout this project. Vegetables should taste like vegetables, healthy and low in fat. The Fennel and Carrot Confit on page 86 was so soaked in oil that I could not taste the vegetables. The recipe took two crisp fresh vegetables and made them fatty, limp, and tasteless.

Marathons and Milestones-3/29/09

Today I ran a half-marathon. That's 13.1 miles to be exact. Richard ran the full marathon so I thought I could get away with using that in the title of this post since it worked better. But today I also finished the second month of my Gourmet project. I have made every recipe in March's Gourmet magazine and you know, I'm equally proud of myself for both accomplishments. They seem a bit paradoxical, one involves eating, the other exercising but in some ways, they are a perfect match. If you are active, you don't have to worry about what you eat being a hinderance to your health. I've told you in previous posts that some of the recipes in this month's Gourmet were no where near lowfat but I can also proudly tell you that I have not gained a pound in the 2 months my diet has consisted mainly of Gourmet recipes.
For my final 2 recipes, I made quick recipes that took little effort, important after running 13+ miles in a day. I made the Ancho and Cocoa Carne Asada on page 52 and the Key Lime Margarita on page 110. The Carne Asade is basically steak tacos. The steak had a quick rub that was supposed to emulate mole sauce. Honestly, a quick rub could never match a good mole sauce but the flavor of the rub was good. Not very complex, but good in a taco. I really loved the idea of using coleslaw mix in place of the traditional lettuce for these tacos. I will try that again in any kind of taco, I liked the crunch of the cabbage better than lettuce. This dish was fast and perfect for a day when I was short on time and energy.
I also made the Key Lime Margaritas and not only did they go well with the Carne Asada but it was a nice little reward for a race well run. Post race Margarita, anyone?

Ancho and Cocoa Carne Asada- B
Cost- $14.99
Calories per serving- 635

Key Lime Margarita-B
Cost-How much do you want to spend on Tequila?
Calories per serving- 200

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner- 3/28/09

For this project, I have now made over 100 recipes and reviewed them on this blog but you will notice that 99.9% of the recipes I make are for dinner. Some of that is due to the fact that most recipes in Gourmet, and for that matter, most cooking magazines, focus on food for the evening meal. Here in the States, dinner is the main meal of the day. We eat the most variety of food at that time of day and usually the most calories too. This is not true all over the world, however. I remember my mom telling me about living in Japan and eating fish and rice for breakfast. In much of the Mediterranean, a mid-day meal is the largest one of the day. I lived in Spain for 2 summers and we ate our largest meal at around 2 and then had a break (siesta) until 4. However, this schedule doesn't work with the average American work day. Most people work too far from their homes to go home for a meal in the middle of the day and with most adults working, no one would be around during the day to prepare a large meal anyway. The scenario in most homes is that the spouse who gets home first, or in some cases, the spouse who traditionally cooks, makes a meal for everyone else when they get home from work or school.
Today, I made one recipe for breakfast and one for dinner. Ok, I admit, I made the breakfast recipe yesterday so I wouldn't have to get up an hour early and make it but we ate it today, so I'll review it today. I made the Savadoran "Quesadilla" Cake on page 16 for breakfast. The caption above the recipe said it could also be a dessert. I was glad I made it for breakfast. It did taste a lot like a pound cake, if a pound cake was topped with sesame seeds. I think a fruit compote of some kind over the cake would be excellent but by itself, it was a little dull.

For dinner, I made the Pork Cutlets with Smothered Parmesan Green Beans on page 49. I had green beans, though they were not french cut, they worked just fine. I liked the cream sauce on the beans. I've mentioned that I like my vegetable to still taste like vegetables and this sauce was not too heavy or rich. It was thick enough to hold to the beans but not thick enough to feel fatty. I served the pork with rice and the cream sauce tasted great on the rice too.

Salvadoran "Quesadilla" Cake- C

Cost-$2.22

Calories per serving- 250

Pork Cutlets with Smothered Parmesan Green Beans-B

Cost-$15.14

Calories per serving-830

A Butchery Beginner- 3/26/09

I am realizing I am a real novice when it comes to figuring out if a cut of meat is the correct one. I need to take a class on basic butchery. I rely on the label and that is obviously not enough information. The recipe for Black-Pepper Ribs on page 17 of this month's Gourmet called for beef back ribs. The label on the meat I bought said just that but I think what you see to your left are actually beef back short ribs. It wasn't a huge deal as far as flavor but as far as cook time and amount of meat, I think it was not what the test cooks had in mind. The ribs were done but not tender. The meat was very dry and difficult to get off the bone. Some of this may have been the way the ribs were cut but I also think that a sauce of some kind would have helped. The dry rub was good but more salty than I like. The pepper overpowered the sweet.

A heavy meaty main like the ribs was a great compliment to the Cocktail of the Month. The recipe for The Old Fashioned used the bourbon that I'd made dessert with last week. I've mentioned I am not a sophisticated drinker. I haven't drank bourbon more than a few times but I liked this drink. The sugar and fruits added a sweetness that cut the bite of the bitters and complimented the heat of the bourbon. It did pack a punch, though. You can see from my picture that this drink was less than half a glass but I noticed about 10 minutes after drinking it, I felt very light headed. Bit of a lightweight in my old age!

For dessert, I made the final Key Lime dessert. I must admit I'm a bit over Key Limes, particularly juicing fresh ones. Key Limes are really tiny and I get like 3 drops of juice from each one. That's a lot of Key Limes to make a 1/2 cup of juice! I made the Key Lime Mousse on page 110. It was easy to make but there were some glitches in the recipe. The whipped cream did not fold into the pudding easily and after chilling, the mousse was almost grainy. I pushed the pudding through a sieve as recommended but there was still a strange grit to the final mousse. It tasted good but the texture was off-putting. I guess I could use some help in mousse making too, not just figuring out cuts of meat. Almost 2 months in and still much to learn!

Black-Pepper Beef Ribs-C

Cost- $44.95 (My ribs were not even close to this much. Hmmmm!)

Calories per serving-770

The Old-Fashioned-B

Cost- How much do you want to spend on bourbon?

Calories per serving-70

Key Lime Mousse-C

Cost-6.16

Calories per serving-350

Lots of Dishes -3/25/09

When I began the project of making all the recipes in each month's Gourmet magazine, there was one thing I'm glad I didn't think about or I may never have done this. Doing the dishes! The average "quick" meal uses only one pot, maybe a bowl, but no more. The recipes in Gourmet often use several pots and if I am making more than one recipe, these pots and bowls can add up quickly. The picture at right is the remains of one of these dinner's dishes. After I made the Korean menu several weeks ago, it took me two days to get all the dishes through the dishwasher. I must admit, I am getting very sick of doing lots of dishes every night but some nights I get a break. Thankfully, tonight was one of those nights so I had the patience to write about doing dishes objectively.
I made two recipes from this month's Gourmet. The first recipe was the recipe for Provencal Chicken and Tomato Roast on page 51. This recipe was quite simple to make. There was minimal chopping and other than turning over the chicken and putting on the second round of vegetables, it wasn't much work at all. The chicken was perfectly cooked in the time given and the skin was crispy and lightly salted. The vegetables were soft and the flavors worked well together. Eyrleigh couldn't get enough of the Kalamata olives.

I also made the Tomatoey Spiced Chickpeas on page 47. The spices smelled wonderful while cooking and the chickpeas and tomatoes were coated with the spiced oil . The dish had a very Mediterranean flavor and worked well with the chicken. I've mentioned before that I didn't really like chickpeas as a kid but since making the Gourmet recipes for the month, I've found some great chickpea recipes. This recipe is more a side dish than a main in my opinion but on couscous, it would be a good vegetarian dish. Oh, and if I'd served the chickpeas still in the skillet, I'd have one less dish to wash! What was I thinking?


Provencal Chicken and Tomato Roast-B+
Cost- $8.05
Calories per serving- 358

Tomatoey Spiced Chickpeas-B

Cost-$9.50

Calories per serving-337

Starting Fires- 3/24/09

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. This is tonight's recipe in a leftover dish. But don't blame me for forgetting to take a picture. I was still a little rattled from the small kitchen fire. Yep! I put my steak on the little indoor grill that we got as a wedding gift in '01 and it promply burst into flames. Actually, the oil and grease in the grill pan caught on fire so I immediately unplugged the grill, made sure the fire stopped, and Eyrleigh and I got out of the kitchen. Unfortunately, the smoke alarm went off. I had to put Eyrleigh down to get on a chair to pull out the battery and she really freaked out between the noise and smoke. Everything turned out fine and I even used the same grill pan, outside, to finish grilling the steak and peppers. I did throw the grill pan out though. The piece that holds the element up had broken a long time ago and the element sat on the grease pan. That's probably what caused the grease to flame up so quickly.
Tonight, I eventually made the Grilled Steak and Peppers Vinaigrette on page 48 on this month's Gourmet. This dish was good but not outstanding. I thought the bed of leeks was very salty. The leeks didn't really add anything to the taste of the steak or peppers. The steak and peppers were good but again, the vinaigrette made them too salty. Thankfully, the steak was not burnt!

Grilled Steak and Peppers Vinaigrette- C
Total Cost-$23.45
Calories per serving-1,060 (Reduce vinaigrette to reduce this #)

The Wonder of Childhood- 3/23/09

One of the best things about being a parent is seeing your child take joy in the little things. Today I went shopping at the our local Asian grocery store, Super H Mart. I love taking Eyrleigh into the seafood section. There are several large tanks of live fish and eels swimming around and even blue crabs climbing over each other in a basin. Today, she squatted in front of the talapia tank until I had to take her away. She was just fascinated by the fish all swimming together. Later tonight, after dinner, we walked as a family at the park. Eyrleigh refused to be picked up and kept walking off the trail to pick up pine cones. She was in love with the world around her and it was wonderful.

Tonight's dinner was the Roasted Pacific Cod with Spring Vegetables and Mint on page 52 of this month's Gourmet. I've mentioned before that Eyrleigh has not always been enthusiastic about fish but she did very well tonight with it. She ate the fish and zucchini with relish. I enjoyed the dish too. I did not buy several small fillets but instead bought one large fillet so the cook time was longer. The vegetables were not too oily and the artichokes and zucchini really complimented each other and the mint added a fresh note. I made risotto to go with the dish and it was a great match.

For dessert, I returned to the Key Lime theme with the Key Lime Coconut Cake on page 4. This was a light sweet cake that was easy to make and tasted wonderful. My coconut got a little over toasted, it did not take anywhere near 8 minutes, but the extra crunch made a great topping. The Key Lime and sugar syrup added to the cake after baking helped keep the cake moist and add an extra tang of lime.

Roasted Pacific Cod with Spring Vegetables and Mint-B

Total Cost- $25.39

Calories per serving-637

Key Lime Coconut Cake- A

Total Cost-$4.12

Calories per serving-472

Me? Make Breakfast? - 3/22/09

Little secret. I am not a morning person. I frequently forget to put grounds in the coffee maker before turning it on. I often reach in the fridge to get the milk for cereal and take out the applesauce. But for today's recipe, I had to make breakfast, not just pour cereal, but make breakfast! The recipe for Bridge Creek Heavenly Hots on page 26 of this month's Gourmet did not instill confidence in my morning cooking abilities. The batter for these silver dollar pancakes was the consistency of cream and ran thinly over the griddle. Richard was sure I had done something wrong in mixing the batter but after reading the ingredients, he agreed that the recipe was too runny. As you can see from my picture, my pancakes look like mini-crepes, not like the pillowy pancakes in the picture supplied in the magazine. Later, we added a bit more flour and got the fluffy pancakes most people are used to. I don't know if the recipe was wrong but with 4 eggs and 2 cups of sour cream and less than a 1/2 cup of dry ingredients, it makes sense that this recipe seemed more liquid than batter. The flavor was more like a crepe than a pancake as well. Eyrleigh loves pancakes and she loved these too. I thought they were fine either way but much easier to make with a little more flour. But what do I know, I may have still been sleeping.

Bridge Creek Heavenly Hots- C
Total Cost-$2.92
Calories-387

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!)

The Moroccan Diet- 3/19/09

All of us have heard of the South Beach diet, the Scarsdale diet, and the Atkins diet but have you heard of the Moroccan diet? Nope. Well, after making tonight's meal, I think the idea has promise. I made a Moroccan themed meal to go with the recipe for Oasis Carrot Salad found on page 17 in this month's Gourmet. I've been adding components to this blog this week and wanted to add an approximate number of calories per serving for the recipes I'm making. Some cooking magazines are designed to help the reader eat healthier. Gourmet addresses the need for healthy, low-calorie meals but it is not the main focus of the magazine. I have never seen nutritional information after a recipe in Gourmet. I am very fortunate in that I don't have to calorie count in an effort to lose weight. I'm active and have good internal portion control so I don't worry about what I eat. This is not true of many Americans and I think it would be interesting to see how Gourmet's recipes stack up in the health department.
As I said, tonight I made only one recipe from this month's Gourmet, the Oasis Carrot Salad, a Moroccan flavored salad. Using a calorie counting website, Fitday.com if you're curious, I added up the total calories in tonight's recipe and divided by the number of recommended servings. The carrot salad was a mere 116 calories per serving. I used the same site to factor the nutritional information for the Moroccan Beef Stew I made to go with it that was on Epicurious.com. This hearty main dish was just over 500 calories per serving, still quite conservative for a main dish. I did serve the stew over couscous, at 150 calories per serving. That's just over 700 calories for a full meal. I see a real future for the Moroccan diet.
As for flavor, the Oasis Carrot Salad is best classified as interesting. I found the vinegar a little strong. The small description before the recipe said that this would be good with any meal. I might disagree. I felt the Moroccan stew matched it well but some other milder dishes would be overpowered by the strong vinegar of the dish.

Oasis Carrot Salad- C
Total cost- $2.00
Calories per serving- 116

Perfect Timing- 3/18/09

When I wrote out my menu at the beginning of March, I had no idea how perfect tonight's dish would be. It rained on Sunday and my tennis match was cancelled and rescheduled for tonight at 5:30. Richard gets home around 5:00 so that gave us a really small window for dinner. The Monte Cubano on page 51 was a perfect fit. Basically a sandwich with some additions, it took no time at all to make. The garlic mayonnaise and pickles were great additions to the sandwich and the frying in egg batter made it a melty, crusty dinner time sandwich for a busy family, exactly what we were tonight.

Monte Cubano: Flavor Grade A-
Approximate Total Cost: $4.00

The Spending O' The Green- 3/17/09

After tonight's meal, I started a blog post about traditional St. Patrick's Day dishes but quickly realized that I had nothing new to add to that discussion. So in the spirit of the day of green, I will introduce the next component that I want to add to this blog. How much green am I spending to make these dishes? Both Richard and I assumed our grocery bill for the month would go up while I was making all the recipes from each month's Gourmet magazine. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Gourmet usually has a number of recipes that use obscure and often expensive ingredients. This month, however, that has not been the case. Although the Korean meal I made last Friday did have a number of non-traditional items, surprisingly, nothing I purchased was very expensive. The biggest cost is usually for meats or seafood and that menu used only short ribs and shrimp. Neither are very expensive. So instead of just assuming I am spending more, I want to come up with an approximate cost for each Gourmet dish I make.

Tonight I made only one recipe from my March Gourmet magazine, Downey's Soda Bread, on page 17. This recipe fit in well with a traditional St. Patrick's Day menu of corned beef and cabbage, champ, and chocolate-whiskey souffle tarts. As for the cost of the soda bread, it was an extremely pantry friendly recipe. I did not have to put a single item from this recipe on my weekly shopping list because I already had every ingredient. I must be honest, my buttermilk had an expiration date of February 27th, but buttermilk is actually sour milk anyway so it's perfectly fine long past the expiration date. I figured an approximate cost of this dish at $5.50 for the recipe as it was written and I actually halved the recipe as I only needed 1 loaf for dinner. I figured this total by simply looking up the cost of each ingredient and dividing or multiplying to find the actual cost in this recipe. For example, this recipe called for 1/3 cup of dark brown sugar. A 16 ounce box of of Domino Dark Brown sugar is on sale for a $1.oo at Acme. That works out to about 6 cents an ounce or about 16 cents for the third of a cup that the recipe calls for since a third of a cup is essentially 2.6 ounces. I won't do all the math for every ingredient here. As for the flavor of the soda bread, I really enjoyed it. It was not as dense as many soda breads I've made before. I thought I'd miss the raisins and caraway seeds I usually add but the whole wheat added a nice complexity.
The other three recipes I used tonight came from the website Epicurious.com. I love this website because of the variety of ways you can find a recipe. You can search by ingredient, type of cuisine, or even look for whole menus. The three recipes I choose were all listed under Irish cuisine. The Corned Beef and Cabbage was a very traditional but very easy recipe. Simply add the beef with some carrots, onion, cabbage, and spices and let cook for 1 hour per pound. It was excellent and I invited some friends for dinner who had never had the dish and they liked it too. Champ is basically mashed potatoes with scallions but again basic was good.

The dessert was a little more challenging but still easy for a souffle. You made the crust and souffle and then froze it before cooking. My only complaint was removing the frozen souffle tarts from the tartlets pans before cooking was really tricky. Several tarts baked with telltale fingerprints in the sides. It was a great dessert though and I added a little green food coloring to my whipping cream in the spirit of the day. Also, just for fun, I totalled up the other components of the menu. The Corned Beef and Cabbage totalled $12.50, the Champ was $5.00, and the Whiskey Tartlets were $14.00. The entire meal cost approximately $34.00 for six people, working out to about $5.67 a serving. You can't tell me that wasn't a whole lot cheaper than going out to eat. Whoops, didn't add the beer. A six-pack of Guinness : $6, six-pack of Harp: $7, A half and half on St. Patrick's Day: Priceless

Downey's Soda Bread Flavor Grade: A

Cost: $5.50

Brussels Sprouts Epiphany- 3/16/09

I feel a bit guilty admitting there is a recipe I don't like without giving a good reason but it's true. I just don't like Brussels sprouts. I never have. Two things I read last night while reading my Bon Appetit magazine, the sister magazine to Gourmet, make me feel a little less guilty though. The first was a response to a question asked of the BA Foodlist. A reader stated that they hated cilantro, a thought I don't share but I know of others who do. The BA Foodlist guy responded that there is scientific evidence that some people actually have a negative genetic reaction to cilantro. It's in their genes, they can't help hating it. Now I don't think I have a genetic predisposition to hate Brussels sprouts but it raises the possibility that we could have certain foods we are less likely to enjoy because of our genes.
The second thing I read in Bon Appetit was the article "Sweet Memories" where the author, Molly Wizenberg, reminisces about her father. Her father loved rice pudding and through much of her childhood, Molly hated it. On a trip to France, she had a gateau de riz, or the French version of rice pudding. Since then, she has loved rice pudding. She lost her father several years ago and spoke of the bond she still felt every time she enjoyed rice pudding. Though rice pudding and Brussels sprouts don't share much in common, this article made me think that even the things we don't like should always be given another chance. There may be a dish or way of cooking that might makes Brussels sprouts something I enjoy. I won't go out of my way to order them but at some one's house as a guest, I will give them a try, always hoping for a Brussels sprouts epiphany.
Tonight's recipe from this month's Gourmet magazine was Linguine with Brussels Sprouts Barigoule on page 53. Obviously, the dish was not a huge hit given the aforementioned distaste for Brussels sprouts. It was an easy dish to make and it looked really pretty but even Richard, who really doesn't mind Brussels sprouts, said it was missing something. I served it as a main dish as the magazine recommended but it was not a filling, robust main dish. Even for a person who enjoys Brussels sprouts, I think the dish needed something more, another layer of complexity. I really can't tell you what, I was stuck on the Brussels sprouts part but the dish did not have much depth of flavor. Maybe I'll try it again with the more traditional artichokes.

Linguine with Brussels Sprouts Barigoule- D

The Grades Are In- 3/14/09

I'm going to add a component to my fledgling blog. I mentioned in an earlier post that I put a grade for each dish I make from a cooking magazine next to that recipe's listing in the recipe index. I've graded recipes for years and use the grade as a quick way to see if a recipe I've made is worth making again. The rating is as follows; A means Excellent, B is Very Good, C is Average, and D is not worth the time. I don't even have an F because anything worse than average ... well, isn't worth making. The grading system is a bit basic, the teacher in me, I suppose. But using it helps me differentiate between that good dish and the outstanding one. I debated adding a grade for both flavor and ease of preparation but the truly outstanding dishes
are worth the preparation. So I will only grade on flavor.
Tonight's dish actually used two recipes. One was the Leftover-Roast-Chicken Stock recipe on page 99 in this month's Gourmet that used the carcasses of the chickens I roasted on Tuesday. I actually made the stock on Wednesday, but since I didn't eat anything made from the stock, I didn't write about it until today. The chicken stock was pretty basic. It was darker in color than most other stocks I've made and a lot less saltier. I used the stock in the Leek and Pea Risotto with Grilled Calamari. The risotto was not as creamy as I would have liked. I really can't tell you why but I have a good guess. The brand of risotto I used is the same I've used before so that wasn't it. In fact, everything was the same as risotto I've made before except the stock. I usually use bouillon in my risotto. It's cheap and easy. And it has 740 milligrams of sodium in each teaspoon! That's 4440 milligrams of sodium in this recipe if I used the bouillon. The chicken stock I made didn't even call for salt. I'm no detective but I think this dish just needed more salt, maybe not 4440 milligrams, but some. Actually, the best part of the dish was the squid. I bought rings instead of whole squid, they were cheaper. The lemon vinaigrette was very good on the squid and even Eyrleigh was all about the squid. Tofu one night, squid the next, this kid is eating!

Leek and Pea Risotto with Grilled Calamari- C (needs salt)
Leftover-Roast-Chicken Stock- C (needs salt)

Mind, Body, and 14 Recipes- 3/13/09

I've never kept track of how many recipes I've made in one day but today may have been a record. The Korean menu in this month's Gourmet magazine has 14 recipes and I made every one. I guess I technically made 3 of the recipes last night but that's still a lot of dishes for one meal. For that many dishes I was pretty impressed with how easy the menu was to put together. Several of the recipes were for banchan, or small dishes that are served alongside the main course. Pickled ingredients are a common banchan so I made the Cucumber Apple Pickle and the Soy-Pickled Jalapenos the night before so they could sit in the pickling mixture for 24 hours. For the Cucumber Apple Pickle, all that was necessary was some slicing and combining of ingredients. These pickles were Richard's favorite dish. The vinegar taste was light and did not overpower the sweet of the apple and the freshness of cucumber. The jalapenos were appropriately hot but still flavorful with a hint of sweet. I also made the dessert, the Mandarin Orange Ice Cream with Sesame Brittle, last night to give it time to freeze up after mixing in the ice cream maker. I halved the recipe and it worked fine. It took almost a whole bag of mandarin oranges to get a cup and a half of juice. I got a little nervous when the custard didn't thicken much but after cooling, it froze up well in the ice cream maker and was very good. The Sesame Brittle was very easy to make and looked really cool. The only thing was that I think the brittle in the ice cream was a little much. It made a great garnish but it overpowered the light citrus flavor of the ice cream.

Three of the recipes were for drinks. The first drink was the Grapefruit Soju Cocktails. Honestly, this was grapefruit juice with some alcohol. It wasn't that impressive. I tried the Soju alone and can only compare it to a sweet sake. It may be an acquired taste I haven't acquired yet. The second drink was a Roasted Barley Tea, a very mild tea that is supposedly good for digestion. It must have worked because I ate a lot 5 hours ago and I feel fine. The final drink was the Hot Ginger Tea with Cinnamon on page 108. The ginger flavor was very strong so I really didn't taste any cinnamon but I enjoyed the tea.

There were eight other banchan recipes. Kimchi is a quintessential Korean dish that usually ferments for days but this menu included a Quick Kimchi recipe. It was quite salty but had that traditional pickling fish sauce taste. The Korean-Style Romaine was a similar recipe but without the pickling. It was basically a salad with an Asian style dressing. The Warm Tofu with Spicy Garlic Dressing had a very similar dressing to the salad. Eyrleigh absolutely loved the tofu. I did not like tofu as a kid so it was great to see her eat it up! The Sauteed Oyster Mushrooms were just that, sauteed mushrooms. The oyster mushrooms do taste different than traditional white mushrooms, a bit earthier is the best way I can describe it. The Sesame Quail Eggs were the one recipe I found a bit overkill. They were a cool color but other than that I think they didn't add to the menu at all. The Shrimp and Scallion Pancakes were excellent. Eyrleigh loved them too. They were easy to make too.

This menu put a little twist on the ubiquitous rice in a Korean menu. The recipe for Brown Rice and Barley added a depth that white rice does not have. The barley added a chewy note that I enjoyed. The main dish, the Short Rib and Vegetable Stew, was good but not the standout of the menu. I used the hot pepper threads instead of the paste the recipe called for and I think the extra heat form the paste would have helped. The Korean radish was really good uncooked, I tried it, but cooked it lost is flavor. It was almost indistinguishable from the potato. The meat was very tender though and the soy sauce, fish sauce, and molasses came together for a great broth.
As a final summary, I really enjoyed making this menu. There were a lot of components but no one was so long and time-consuming that it drew away from the fun of doing them all. Aside from the Sesame Quail Eggs, I thought all of the recipes worked well together and we all loved certain parts of the menu. Richard's favorites were the Cucumber Apple Pickle and the Shrimp and Scallion Pancake. Eyrleigh loved the pancakes too as well as the Warm Tofu with Spicy Garlic Sauce. I really liked the pancake and the Mandarin Orange Ice Cream with Sesame Brittle.

Can you say "Tsatsiki"?- 3/12/09

Ok, now is the time for honesty. How many of you have been at a restaurant, wanted to order something but hesitated because you didn't want the servers all laughing at you in the back about how badly you butchered the name of your wine or dish? I live in the South and people order "Gy-rows" at the Great Wraps. In fact, I just looked it up on the Merriam Online Dictionary and that is exactly what they said. I always thought the word was "he-rows" and have ordered them like that for years. Now imagine that with "Tsatsiki"? I tried to look that word up on the online dictionary and you know what is suggested instead? Testicles. Yep, could entertain a few servers for years with that one! Can you picture it? "That lady ordered Chicken Gyros with Cucumber Salsa and Testicles!" Ok, seriously, how do you say "Tsatsiki"? Do you just drop the t, like sat-siki? Or does the ts make some other sound that is not common in English?

But let's get back to my first question. I'd love to hear how many people are like me, maybe a little insecure, and have not tried a new dish or wine because you know you will butcher the word and you don't have a safe out like at the Vietnamese place where you can just order a #12. I have a feeling I am not alone.

Obviously, with that lead in, tonight I made the Chicken Gyros with Cucumber and Tsatsiki on page 99 of this month's Gourmet. This recipe is the third in the "Birds in Hand" article and uses the rest of the roast chicken I made on Tuesday. This was a really fun recipe to make but it was pretty time consuming. When it says the active time is 40 minutes, it means 40 minutes and then some if you are a slow chopper like me. This was really 5 different components that you combined to make the gyros so it got a little messy. I'd never made Tsatsiki before but it was pretty easy and I liked it. I know the purists will revolt but I thought some crumbled feta on the Tsatsiki or mixed in with the salsa would have been an awesome addition. Gyros traditionally have very salty sliced lamb and I missed that salt contrast with the Tsatsiki. Another favorite thing about this recipe was how pretty it looked. The bright colors of the tomatoes, red onions, and lettuce contrasted on the white sauce and toasted bread were wonderful and made me feel healthy just looking at it. (In a good way!) Eyrleigh loved the dish too and since her's was a little deconstructed, I included a picture of her yumming it up. Anyone up for some Greek wine? How about a lovely glass of Agiorgitiko? Say that one, wine snobs!

The World of Food Blogs- 3/11/09

I got the idea to write a blog about my experiences with cooking magazines from Richard who writes a detailed blog about his training for triathlons and marathons. I'd never read a cooking blog before this evening. The Epi Log, the blog for epicurious.com, had a post about being thrifty at restaurants and waiter's reactions. There was also a list of blogs that epicurious.com likes. I looked through them and found a couple I liked too. My three favorite blogs were Chubby Hubby, The Food Section, and The Amateur Gourmet. Most of the blogs were by big names in food writing and had lots of advertising on them. I don't see this blog going that way. I think I'd need more than 6 readers.

Last night I roasted two chickens as the recipe recommended so I had a roast chicken left over to shred for dinner tonight and tomorrow. I made the Cheesy Chicken and Mushroom Lasagna on page 98 of this month's Gourmet, the second recipe in the "Birds in Hand" article. This was a Bechamel lasagna, meaning the sauce was a blend of milk and roux. I've mentioned before that I'm not a huge fan of Bechamel sauce. It's often bland but in this lasagna, it worked. The dish called for Gruyere cheese instead of the traditional Mozzerella and the stronger flavored cheese worked well with the milder sauce.
It also used no-boil noodles which I've used before without much success. The Barilla brand noodles that the recipe specifically called for are short flat noodles that softened up beautifully with no precooking. Richard and I like the dish a lot but I think the cheese was a bit too strong for Eyrleigh. She had to be convinced to eat more than just a few bites and she usually loves pasta dishes.
On my original menu for the month, I didn't have a dessert planned for tonight but I decided to add a dessert recipe I had originally scheduled for later. I didn't want to load too many desserts into one week since it takes us a few nights to finish a dessert and I hate to throw food out. I saw raspberries on sale at Super H Mart yesterday so I made the Chocolate Raspberry Clafoutis on page 49. I'd never had a clafoutis and the description is accurate. It IS a cross between a custard and a cake and I'm glad it said that in the description. It didn't look cooked when I pulled it out of the oven but it was firm when I cut it after it cooled. The baked part was not overly chocolaty so the melted chocolate on top was a nice addition. The description said that cherries are the traditional fruit but the tart raspberries were excellent in my opinion. Since it's my blog, I guess that's the opinion that counts!

The Classics- 3/10/09

Every family has their classic dishes, the dishes they have regularly that everyone in the family loves. I've already mentioned that my mother was a rather unconventional cook but some of our classics were pretty traditional. We had spaghetti at least once a week. Mom had learned how to make pizza dough from an old Italian neighbor and pizza was another favorite. My mom grew up outside of Atlanta and also has a great pork barbeque recipe. When I asked Richard about his classic dishes growing up, he asked me if Hamburger Helper counted. Joking aside, he had some classics too. His mom made Sunday roasts and meatloaf.

Tonight's recipe is one I'd like to make a family classic. The Roast Chicken with Pan Gravy recipe on page 98 was not that different from many roast chicken recipes but the caption above the recipe was correct. It's a great idea to have a reliable roast chicken recipe. I was impressed with this one and it was easy. My picture looks a bit dark because I used minced garlic in the butter and the garlic burnt on top but that didn't affect the flavor. The recipe called for 2 chickens so I have one left over to make the two other recipes in the article "Birds in Hand".

My grandmother had lots of wonderful classic dishes and she never served a roast without potatoes. I made the Panfried Smashed Potatoes on page 47. In theory, the idea of smashed but intact potatoes was a good one but in actually, it was pretty impossible. Basically, I pan fried mashed potatoes with skin. They were good but looked like hash browns at Waffle House. Well, aren't Waffle House hash browns a classic?

Spring is Here!- 3/9/09

Living in Georgia has its perks. Spring arrives here a little sooner than most of the country. Last Monday, the kids in our area had a day off from school because of snow. (An inch and a half is a lot here and there are no plows and road salters so we wait until it melts!) Today, just a week later, the high was 81 degrees!
I have mentioned before that one of the things I love about cooking magazines is the seasonal nature of the recipes. Since March is still winter in much of the United States, my Gourmet is not yet rolling out the asparagus recipes and bringing on the peas. But tonight's recipe did incorporate pasta and veggies. I made the Linguine with Rustic "Meatballs" on page 48 of this month's magazine.
I must confess I'm usually a bit stodgy when it comes to pasta. Marinara sauce, Alfredo sauce, or pesto are my standbys and I rarely deviate from those when making pasta. That needs to change. There are so many wonderful combinations of pasta and this recipe was one of them. The sauce was chicken broth and vermouth, thicken with a bit of cornstarch. It adhered well to the pasta, unlike my watery steak sauce in the previous post. The "meatballs" were simply ground beef that was not broken up and were a lot simpler than rolling balls with egg and bread crumbs. The addition of the celery leaves at the end added a spring freshness that parsley would not have had. Richard enjoyed this recipe too and Eyrleigh ate quite a bit, which is always a good sign. She may be having this one for lunch for a few days as I made plenty of extra. Bring on the spring!

Is Key Lime a Theme? -3/6/09

Some of my favorite issues from cooking magazines have issue-wide themes. For a number of years, the March issues of Gourmet focused on a theme of famous food cities throughout the world. They covered New York, London, Montreal, and Rome, just to name a few. I love experiencing a city through its food.
This year, the March Gourmet did not have a city theme. There is a menu of Korean dishes, an article about the Extremadura region of Spain with only one recipe, an article that extends 2 roast chickens into a week of meals, and 5 recipes with Key Limes as a main component. I think I understand why the editors moved away from the city issue. Right now, the economic recession is on everyone's minds. Travel is low on many people's priority list and saving money is high. But I would welcome the excuse to "travel" to another city through its food. Gourmet, don't try too hard to compete with other cooking magazines that are giving us recipes on the cheap! Let us escape to another place, if only in our kitchens.
With my opinion given, for what it's worth, tonight I made 2 of the Key Lime recipes. Technically, I made the Key Lime Pie yesterday but it needed to chill for 8 hours so we didn't eat it until today. My first recipe was the Steak with Chile Key Lime Sauce on page 110. Easy, easy, easy but not something to rave over. The steak was simply seasoned with salt and pepper and broiled and turned out great but the sauce was way too watery. When I poured it on the cooked steak as recommended, it all just ran off onto the rest of the plate and covered my broccoli and sweet potato as well. The flavor was not bad, an interesting mix of salty, hot and sweet, but it did not have any thickness so it ran like water off the steak and looked strange. I would have liked it to have been thickened either by heating it or adding a thickening ingredient.
The Key Lime Pie on page 17 was a very traditional Key Lime recipe. In fact, the recipe on the side of the bottled Key Lime juice I bought because I couldn't find Key Limes at the store was virtually the exact same recipe minus the almonds in the crust. I haven't had Key Lime Pie a lot. I forgot how tart it is but I really enjoyed it. Richard felt it was a little too sweet but there was no way around sweet when you use 2 cans of condensed milk. The recipe did say it was twice the normal amount of filling. Eyrleigh loved it and I don't mind her having the extra sugar. She had only gained 10 ounces since her last doctor's visit 3 months ago so we need to fatten that baby up a little. Key Lime Pie should help!

Memories of India- 3/5/09

In January of 1995, I traveled to India with a group of students from my college. It was a month-long tour of Bombay (now Mumbai), Delhi, Jaipur, Agra, and Goa. We were ostensibly studying the history of the country but mostly we visited the sites and ate Indian food. I loved all of it but mostly the food. I had had Indian food before but not every day. Some might wonder if you could get tired of Indian food day after day for a month. As Americans, we are used to a large variety of foods. You can easily eat Italian one night and the next night, go out for Vietnamese. I love that about our country but I loved focusing on one cuisine as well. Indian food has such great variety of flavors and styles. Everthing from curries to chutneys, from cooking styles like Tandoori and Tikka, define Indian cuisine.

Tonight's recipe, Chicken Key Lime Curry on page 110, used the popular Indian spice and is one of the 5 recipes in this issue that incorporates key limes. The onion-ginger paste mixed up well in the food processor and made a wonderful curry sauce that covered the chicken well. It was an easy recipe to make with very little chopping. I used a very mild curry, I would have liked it a little spicier but all in all, a very good dish.

Southern Food I Like- 3/3/09

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm not a fan
of hush puppies and white gravy, two very traditional Southern foods. But I don't want it to appear that I don't like all Southern foods. In college, one of my roomates was from Hilton Head, South Carolina. When we visited, her dad always made a Low Country Boil, a wonderful one-pot meal of potatoes, sausage, shrimp, and corn. Tonight's meal was inspired by the "low country". The Garlicky Black-Pepper Shrimp and Black-Eyed Peas on page 50 was easy to make and one of the best recipes I've made from a cooking magazine ever. I've never been a fan of black-eyed peas but they were excellent in this recipe. The wine and chicken broth made a juicy mixture that brought flavor to the vegetables and the shrimp.
For desert, I made the Cardamom Vanilla Pound Cake on page 27. Pound cake is another very traditional Southern food. This pound cake was like most pound cakes in texture but the cardamom and vanilla beans was a nice addition of flavor. The recipe says it's better the next day. I'm looking foward to trying it tomorrow.