Let's Do It Again!- 3/2/09

I had so much fun making all the recipes in the February 2009 issue of Gourmet, I've decided to try it again for March. Last night, I sat down and wrote out a menu for the month that enabled me to make all 51 recipes before the end of the month. That's another thing I've really enjoyed about this project. I know what I'm having for dinner in advance and don't have to rush out to the store at the last minute (most of the time). I've never been good at making a meal plan and this project has helped me do that and still give me some flexibility to say, "Let's go out, I'll cook tomorrow!".

I began my March recipes by making the Sangria

Chicken on page 50 and the Spicy Spanish

Tomato Soup on page 79.

The Spicy Spanish Tomato Soup was not as rich as I had hoped but I think that may have been for two reasons. One, it's not fresh tomato season and the tomatoes at the store were the very type that the Gourmet article this month, "The Price of Tomatoes" talked about. They were mass produced and virtually tasteless, but without a bruise or blemish. They looked great but didn't even smell like tomatoes. The second reason may have been that in my chopping haste, I put in an extra green bell pepper. I halved the recipe in everything but the bell pepper. Green bell peppers can be a bit bitter and that is what I tasted too much of when we ate the soup. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the addition of green grapes. I though it would taste strange but it really added a nice sweet tang to the acid of the tomatoes.

The Sangria Chicken was easy to put together. I put the chicken in to start while I made the glaze so it took less than an hour. The glaze went on the chicken nicely but did get a little black as you can see in my picture. Some of the grapes litterally scorched to my baking pan, which was a bit of a pain to clean off but other than that, the dish was a nice contrast of sweet and meaty. Richard really enjoyed it too and I even convinced our resident vegetarian to eat a few bites. Eyrleigh is not eating any meat right now by her own choice and consequently is eating a lot of hard boiled eggs to get her protein. I haven't seen any hard boiled egg recipes for March. Oh, well.