Thursday, January 28, 2010

Week 3: Mexican Chicken Casserole

I'd received this recipe from a friend after asking for suggestions for a potluck. It sounded interesting, so I thought I'd try it out.

The Recipe
Bake 2 chicken breasts until they're done. Cut it into chunks. Crumble nachos chips into a baking dish. Cover with the chicken. Mix together chicken broth, cream of mushroom and chicken soup, green chilies and sour cream and pour on top. Top with more nachos chips and cheese. Bake for 30 minutes until heated through.

The Verdict
Unfortunately much too rich for my tastes. I wasn't too fond of the soggy chips at the bottom, and really missed some more greenery. I think if I were to make it again, I'd only have chips on top, and add heaps of bell pepper to the broth/soup/chili/sour cream mix.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Week 2: Pork Marinara

Yet another recipe from my ever-growing stack of printouts.

The Recipe
Brown diced pork tenderloin in oil and curry. Add red wine vinegar, lemon juice and 2 cans of tomatoes with chilli and herbs. Let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Add chopped onion, garlic and bell pepper and let it simmer for a bit longer. Serve with spaghetti and shredded cheese.

The Verdict
I was actually pleasantly surprised by this recipe. When reading it, it didn't sound all that different from spaghetti bolognese, so I almost gave up on trying it. I'm glad I did though, because while it is very similar, it's a refreshing variation to a well-known recipe and one that I think I might actually prefer. Especially since it uses half as much meat and twice as much tomato sauce... I think there may be a closet vegetarian hiding inside me somewhere.

Another recipe that'll go into my permanent collection.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Week 1: Pepperoni Roll

I tend to print out far too many recipes from the internet. Surely these printouts count as being among my cookbooks as well, right? After all, I need to get those thinned out as well!

The Recipe
Roll out pizza dough, brush it with a mixed-up egg and cover it with spices, pepperoni and a LOT of cheese. Add any other pizza toppings that strike your fancy, but remember you can't build it up too high, as you have to be able to roll it afterwards. Hold the tomato sauce, we'll get back to that later.

Once you've decorated the pizza to your heart's content, roll it up lengthwise, pinching the ends closed. Brush a bit more egg over the seam, and place it seam-down on a baking tray. Brush some more of the egg all over the top of the roll. This will make it turn a lovely golden. Bake it in the oven at 175C/350F for half an hour.

While it's baking, get out your favourite pasta sauce and heat it up. If you're feeling ambitious, add bell pepper, onion and chilli, otherwise just leave it as it is.

Serve the roll in inch-thick slices, spooning the pasta sauce on top.

The Verdict
Basically this just tasted like pizza, so nothing adventurous there. Both my husband and I like pizza though, and this took no longer to make and was a lot easier to serve, so it's being added to my regular repertoire. It's a lot handier for school box lunches as well.

I don't want any more loose paper, so I'm copying it into the one cookbook I hope to limit these printouts to.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Week 0: Spanish Brunch

Week 1 doesn't actually start until tomorrow (January 4th), but I figured I might as well get off to a head start and try out some brunch recipes as they would be very hard to fit in once work starts again. Both of these are taken from "Spanish Cuisine".

Flaming Eggs
The name sounds fascinating, doesn't it? At least I thought so. Basically, you cook up a tomato sauce using canned tomatoes, paste, bell pepper, onion and chilli, pour the sauce into an oven proof dish, make small indentions in the sauce for the eggs, cover each egg with 2 slices of chorizo (or some other salami) and cook it in the oven for 20 minutes. Serve with toast. Quick and easy dish.

Unfortunately also boring. The yolk of the egg was supposed to still be soft, which wasn't the case at all, so obviously 20 minutes was far too much. It's probably yummier if the yolk is still runny.

Also the recipe only calculated with one egg per person which is definitely far too little if nothing else is served. I had to fill up with more toast. I may try it again with certain modifications.

Scrambled Eggs with Squash
No surprises here - it is exactly what the name suggests. Only the name left out the onion, bacon, tomatoes, bell pepper and chilli also added to the scrambled eggs (2 eggs per person). Serve with toast.

Tasted exactly as scrambled eggs with squash, bell pepper, chilli etc. I'd hoped the tastes would 'mesh' somewhat, but that wasn't the case at all. Tasted decent enough, and I was plenty full from the portion allotted me, but not something I need a recipe to make again.


Ah well, at least neither were total disasters, and I got off to a good start with two recipes in one week.

Friday, January 1, 2010

52 Weeks - 52 Recipes

I have far too many cookbooks with recipes I never use. It's time to work my way through them, try the recipes I think sound interesting, and chuck the rest... maybe that way I'll actually have room in my kitchen cupboard again!

So for my New Year's Resolution I've decided to try one new recipe a week. I know one a week doesn't sound like much, but with a busy life that often takes me out of the house for dinner and a somewhat picky husband who prefers the "tried and tested" one a week is all I dare commit myself to... For now anyway ;-) I'll be posting the recipes and results here, with pictures if I remember to take them.