After reading "Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes" as inspired me to take on something along the same lines...but this time using the infamous book "Joy of Cooking". No, I don't plan to make all 4,500 recipes...nor do I plan to do it in one year either...but I do plan to make a fair few of the recipes...mostly as a challenge to force us/me to cook something other then what we make all the time
First Three-Ish Recipes
- Italian Meatballs
- Ladyfingers
- King Ranch Chicken
We were told we had to make these...so we did..they were good. I didn't have any bread crumbs so I just toasted a hot dog bun up and pulverized it in a blender. I know I should have used a food processor but I am too short and didn't want to go through all the trouble of getting it out from teh cabinet behind the microwave then cleaning it...the blender was right there
After I got all the goodies mixed up
Shaped them into meatballs, they should have been bigger but I like my balls smaller .....::that's what she said::, hahaha, yes, I am nerd, thank you.
Frying them up. They look strange because you dredge them in flour before frying them. The pan in the back consists of the ones I have already fried
Here they are in with the spaghetti after being baked in the oven.
They were delish and were the perfect accoutrement for the spaghetti. I didn't have any eggs, so I used red wine and that made it even more delish. I think from now on meatballs will be homemade and I will use red wine, yum.
2) Ladyfingers
Well, I can safely tell you that I failed MISERABLY at these. Part of my problem is that I was supposed to be studying for a test, so I was sort of rushing through them and second off, I really need some practice in created peaks in eggs...it could have also been my eggs. I will have to attempt this at a later time when I can focus more energy on the task at hand
3) King Ranch Chicken
First off, YUM. I chose this recipe mainly because I needed something I could cook one night and then eat for like a week whilst the Hubs was gone. Everything went pretty well, baking the chicken was simple and smelled yummy and tasted yummy as well. The only problem I ran into was that I forgot to buy an onion, so I just tossed in some onion powder with the soup. I think a real onion probably would have changed the flavor somewhat.
Another problem I ran into was that I didn't have a proper baking dish...so I just used a comporable jelly roll pan and the soup and cheese bubbled over and made the bottom of my toaster oven a mess...so much so, that I had to yank it out and pre-heat the regular oven to finish of the last 20 mins or so.
I also used shredded Cheddar cheese and not shredded American cheese because that didn't make sense.
I already promised both the Hubs and my mother that I would make it again for them, yum, yum, yum.
Well, that is all until my next round of recipes
2) Ladyfingers
Well, I can safely tell you that I failed MISERABLY at these. Part of my problem is that I was supposed to be studying for a test, so I was sort of rushing through them and second off, I really need some practice in created peaks in eggs...it could have also been my eggs. I will have to attempt this at a later time when I can focus more energy on the task at hand
3) King Ranch Chicken
First off, YUM. I chose this recipe mainly because I needed something I could cook one night and then eat for like a week whilst the Hubs was gone. Everything went pretty well, baking the chicken was simple and smelled yummy and tasted yummy as well. The only problem I ran into was that I forgot to buy an onion, so I just tossed in some onion powder with the soup. I think a real onion probably would have changed the flavor somewhat.
Another problem I ran into was that I didn't have a proper baking dish...so I just used a comporable jelly roll pan and the soup and cheese bubbled over and made the bottom of my toaster oven a mess...so much so, that I had to yank it out and pre-heat the regular oven to finish of the last 20 mins or so.
I also used shredded Cheddar cheese and not shredded American cheese because that didn't make sense.
I already promised both the Hubs and my mother that I would make it again for them, yum, yum, yum.
Well, that is all until my next round of recipes
