Week 1: Day 4 (Asian Fusion)

Gingery Beans and Bok Choy
The dinner for this night was actually supposed to include salmon, but I could tell from looking that I wasn't going to like Real Simple's way of making salmon.  They said to season with salt and pepper then cook.  A five-star chef cannot make that taste good.  If you want to eat salmon, eat it with a maple glaze or with pineapple teriyaki.  Salt and pepper is not enough to make any meat spectacular.  So I skipped the salmon and tried making a tuna melt.  Don't try to make a tuna melt.  It will be disgusting.  Chris ate it, but he seems to eat whatever.  He reminds me of my dad in that way. My sisters and I managed to ruin Rice Krispies Treats, falafel, spaghetti, rice, potatoes, and a host of other things, but he still ate them.  We suspect it was because he didn't want to discourage our cooking.

Anyway this review will be about the wanna-be Asian vegetable stir fry.

Ingredients:  B
I think green onions are the same thing as scallions, and I think chives are something separate.  The recipe calls for scallions, so I purchased green onions.  It also calls for baby bok choy.  I just bought grown-up bok choy because I prefer my vegetables to be self sufficient.  That was probably a mistake.  It ended up costing me an arm and a leg.  $6+ for a head of Korean cabbage?  In that case I'll go to a Thai restaurant and buy an entree. Wal-Mart had ginger, but when I decided my stir-fry needed more, I sent Chris to Tom Thumb, and they did not have it.  I didn't have to go out of my way to get things, but they are certainly not every-day stuff, and they were expensive.

Ease of Preparation:  A-
It wasn't hard, and I didn't get injured but the prep work did take time.

Taste:  B-
I used way more bok choy than the recipe called for, so the ratio of ingredients used for taste to ingredients used for volume was smaller.  However, there is not a binding ingredient to make the ginger and onions stick to the bok choy and the carrot, so even if I had used more ginger it just would have sank to the bottom of the pan.I tried to improve the flavor by adding more Sriracha, but that just made it overwhelmingly spicy.  Chris's culinary motto is "Sriracha on everything."  He even puts it on an already perfect Papa John's pizza.  So he probably liked it more than me.  What this recipe needed was white rice.

Leftovers:  B+
This stir-fry keeps well.  Storing it in the refrigerator and microwaving it does not lessen the quality, so it's excellent for taking to work.  I don't like taking Mexican food to work because I absolutely cannot have Mexican food without tortillas, and I absolutely will not have tortillas heated in a microwave, which means no Mexican for lunch.  This stir-fry, however, is perfect when all you have is a microwave.

The bottom line is to only make this stir-fry if you are satisfied with just a subtle hint of ginger.  If you like a stronger presence of spices in your food, try something else.

Week 1: Day 3 (Italian)

Tortellini with Butternut Squash

Ingredients

• 1  small butternut squash (2 pounds), peeled and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1/2  pound  button or cremini mushrooms, stems trimmed and halved if large
• 1/4  cup  fresh sage leaves
• 2  tablespoons  olive oil
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 1  pound  fresh or frozen cheese tortellini
• 2  ounces  fontina or Gruyère, grated (1/2 cup), plus more for serving

Directions

1. Heat oven to 450° F. On 2 rimmed baking sheets, toss the squash and mushrooms with the sage, oil, ½ teaspoon salt, and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Roast, tossing once and rotating pans halfway through, until the vegetables are tender, 20 to 25 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, cook the tortellini according to the package directions. Reserve ½ cup of the cooking water; drain the tortellini and return to the pot. Add the vegetables, fontina, ¼ cup of the cooking water, and ½ teaspoon salt and toss gently to coat (add more cooking water if the pasta seems dry). Sprinkle with additional fontina.

This was a terrible waste of time. Whoever included this should never curate recipes ever again.

Ease of Ingredients:  C

This recipe required fresh sage leaves, and fontina or Gruyere cheese.  A fresh herb and a fancy cheese, we're already off to a difficult start.  Luckily I live in a major metropolitan area and was able to get both items at Whole Foods.  It also calls for "cremini" mushrooms, which I couldn't find at Wal-Mart.  Since Whole Foods is pretty expensive, I wanted to limit the number of items that I buy there, so I substituted baby portobellos.  Turns out they are the same thing.  Since the magazine is called "Real Simple," they should use the most familiar name.  What a bunch of presumptuous a-holes.  Things didn't cost too much.  I'd estimate the total cost of this dinner to be about $15. 

Ease of Preparation:  D

The butternut squash was difficult to cut and damn near impossible to peel. The skin is tough and thick, like that of a pumpkin, so a potato peeler was not working well.  I tried a paring knife and a regular knife, and they both sucked.  I think Chris was better at it than me. Other than that, it was a fairly easy recipe, but it still gets a D because I cut my finger. 

Taste:  C-

The picture was taken directly from the Real Simple website.  My dinner did not look like that.  The squash did not roast with lovely little grill marks on it.  It turned mushy and tasted like a sweet potato, which is just the dumbest combination, filled pasta and a sweet potato.  The sage may as well not have existed, and the mushrooms added nothing to it.  The recipe says you can use fontina or Gruyere.  Fontina can be young and soft, or aged and hard.  Gruyere is generally a hard cheese, so to use them interchangeably in a recipe just seems incredibly vague.  It would be like using Philadelphia cheese in place of Parmesan.  

If you were thinking of making this recipe, I suggest you save yourself the trouble.  Buy the tortellini and some sun-dried tomato Alfredo sauce and have that.  Or forget all the ingredients except the Gruyere cheese, buy a bottle of Riesling and instead of having dinner, have some fun.

That being said, it was still edible.  I just hope Chris wakes up super hungry tomorrow and eats all the left overs so it doesn't go to waste.  By the way, the recipe makes four servings, and I had two guests over, so we should have finished it, but we didn't.

Left Overs:  ????

I have no idea how this will fare tomorrow.  I might pick up a jar of alfredo and try to improve it like that., or bake it with a bunch of mozzarella cheese.  Sometimes I bring home my Olive Garden left overs and pop them in the toaster oven and they taste even better the second day.  But Olive Garden actually tastes good the first day, so who really knows about this.

Update:  Chris got some tomato soup from yesterday and used it as a sauce, and that kinda fixed the problem.  That's what I like about Chris, he always fixes things.  

Week 1: Day 2

Tomato Soup with Roast Beef, Cheddar, and Horseraddish Panini

Ingredients

• 2  tablespoons  olive oil, plus more for the grill pan
• 2  large onions, chopped
• 4  cloves garlic, chopped
• 1  28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes
• 3 1/2  cups  low-sodium chicken broth
• 1  teaspoon  dried thyme
• kosher salt and black pepper
• 1/2  cup  sour cream
• 2  tablespoons  prepared horseradish
• 8  slices  sandwich bread
• 8  ounces  thinly sliced roast beef
• 8  ounces  sharp white Cheddar, sliced
• 2  cups  baby arugula (1 1/2 ounces)

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the onions and garlic and cook, stirring often, until softened, 5 to 7 minutes. Add the tomatoes (with their juices), broth, thyme, and ½ teaspoon each salt and pepper. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened, 15 to 20 minutes. Working in batches, in a blender, puree the mixture until smooth.
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together the sour cream and horseradish. Form sandwiches with the bread, roast beef, Cheddar, arugula, and half the horseradish mixture. Heat a lightly oiled grill pan over medium heat and cook the sandwiches until the cheese is melted, 5 to 6 minutes per side. Top the soup with the remaining horseradish mixture and serve with the sandwiches.

Ease of Ingredients:  B
The ingredients for this recipe were surprisingly difficult to find.  I found the white cheddar at Wal-Mart and that surprised me.  I would expect them to only carry yellow cheddar.  I expected to find prepared horseradish and a can of whole peeled tomatoes, but I did not.  I think I would have found both items at Tom Thumb or Kroger, but I just went to Whole Foods since I was in that neighborhood.  By the way, horseradish is a root, and prepared horseradish is just minced horseradish preserved in vinegar.  Most items here were pretty inexpensive.  The horseradish ran me about $5 which isn't a lot, but I'm not sure how often I will use it.

Ease of Preparation:  B
Overall, this was a pretty easy dinner to make, but it does take time.  I made this recipe on my day off, because I knew I wouldn't want to deal with it after a stressful day at work.  To make the soup, I spent about 8 minutes softening the chopped onions, and an additional 20 minutes cooking it to let the broth thicken.  I thought it wouldn't thicken properly so I added a spoonful of flour to the pan, but that was a mistake.  The flour just made clumps, which I fished out.  I delegated the responsibility of pureeing the broth to the Chris.  I figured I would spill it and burn myself trying to move it from the pan to the blender.  He did a most excellent job.  The paninis were surprisingly difficult to make.  For starters, I used up all the arugula on my first day of cooking, but that's neither here nor there.  The real challenge was trying to toast the paninis and melt the cheese on a skillet without burning them.  I burnt them.  Apparently, you are supposed to use a skillet on medium heat, not high heat.  This whole problem could be solved with a sandwich press or a George Foreman.  Anyway, the boyfriend solved the problem by scraping off the burned areas with a cheese grater.

Taste:  B
The tomato soup was way better than anything Campbell's makes.  The boyfriend really liked it, and so did my buddy David, who will probably be taste-testing many of these recipes with Chris and I.  There are two ways to have the soup.  One is with the sour cream/horseraddish mixture spooned into it.  This will give it a creamier consistency and a little bit of a kick.  The other is without it.  Chris and I preferred with the mixture, David didn't want to add it to his.

The paninis were not great, but they were edible.  Chris said they were plain.  David didn't comment on them.  Probably because he wasn't crazy about them.  If he can't say something nice, he won't say anything at all.  I bought pre-packaged roast beef that has been processed to death, so all the meaty flavor is gone.  Next time I make this, I'll have to get choosier with my choice beef.

Left Overs:  A
I'm pretty sure the soup will be excellent when I microwave it tomorrow.  And I only made enough sandwiches for three people, so no leftovers there.  Who wants to eat a day old sandwich anyway?

Week 1: Day 1

 Pork Chops with Roasted Beets

Ease of Ingredients: A
One difficult thing about cooking is finding the right ingredients.   Who the hell just has sherry vinager in their pantry? So I will use "Ease of Finding Ingredients" as a criterion by which to judge a recipe.? Everything  on this recipe was easy to find at the grocery store, even the fresh beets, which I had only ever seen canned.  Also, everything was pretty inexpensive.  I couldn't find a package of just arugula, so I had to get the arugula/radicchio blend, but whatever; grass is grass.  Also, the oranges I bought were definitely dry.  I think the recipe would have turned out better with juicer oranges. But that is not the fault of the editors at Real Simple.  I just need to learn to pick better oranges. Also, it did not require wine or liqueur.  So you don't need to be 21 to make it.


Ease of Preparation:  A+
The recipe itself was easy to prepare.  There was no marinating ahead of time, or doing anything that required skill or patience.  I hate recipes that ask you to reduce something by 50 percent.  How can you even tell when a sauce has been reduced to that.  It takes so long to thicken that by the time you get it to half its volume you forgot how much you started with.  It does require you to turn your oven on, which can be a pain in the summer, but that's what AC is for.  Maybe you can use a toaster oven for that step, but I don't have one, so I have to live with a hot kitchen.

Taste:  A-
I loved loved loved the roasted beets.  Even with shitty oranges it was still quite good.  Beets look like unpeeled red potatoes, but they kinda taste like baby corn.  And their texture, when cooked is somewhere between a pear and a melon.  I was not crazy about the pork chops.  For starters, I used about 1.3 lbs of boneless chops, but the recipe called for 2 lbs of bone-in chops.  This resulted in  overly-seasoned chops.  Also, I could taste the oregano and the thyme separately.  Flavors should blend in harmony and compliment each other, not just sit there and stimulate your taste buds independently.  I have very little experience in cooking meat, and thus ended up with slightly overcooked chops.  But I'd rather eat a tough pork chops than die.  The boyfriend was happy with the pork chops and unimpressed with the beets.  I grew up poor, so my mom would whip up meatless dinners all the time, and I developed a penchant for vegetables.  The boyfriend  grew up Texan, so he is a carnivore by definition.

Left Overs:  B+
The recipe tells you to toss the roasted beets with the arugula and serve.  Whatever is leftover wilts in the refrigerator, but it still tastes good one day later.  I added feta cheese and raspberry vinaigrette and had a tasty salad.  I microwaved a left over pork chop and ate one third of it.  It was too salty and the texture was somewhere between a rubber boot and a Hoffbrau steak.  By the way, don't ever go to Hoffbrau.  If you want good steak go here.  Since I did't love the meat the first day, I will not lower the "Left Overs" score significantly.

Overall Rating:  A.

I'm Going To Start Cooking And Tell You All About It

While getting my oil changed a few months ago I noticed the most useful headline for a twenty-something woman like myself whose mother had always cooked for her.  "A MONTH OF EASY DINNERS:   Your no-stress plan for delicious weeknight meals."  I pretended that I had brought in the magazine myself and held it in a way that it would blend in with my crossword puzzle and hoped that the receptionist wouldn't notice.  Looking back, I don't know why I was so nervous about it.  The magazine in question was the October 2011 issue of  Real Simple magazine, and it was already February-ish.    Also, the address label had been torn off, so I'm assuming that the receptionist herself has a subscription and she brings her old unwanted issues to the lobby of Grand Prarie Ford.

By the way, if you need your oil changed, you should definitely go there.  They will change your oil, up to 5 quarts of synthetic, for $20.  And if you sign up for their loyalty program, you get a free oil change for every five that you pay for.  

But I've digressed.  The purpose of the next posts will be to evaluate the collection of recipes.  Real Simple presents you with five dinner recipes per week.   It does specifically say "weeknight meals," so they don't have Saturday and Sunday recipes.  One night you could have random leftovers, and a different night you can order a pizza because  you must always leave room in your meal plan for a Papa Johns pizza prepared the following way.

• Large Thick Crust
• Three-Cheese Blend
• Pepperoni
• Italian Sausage
• Red Bell Peppers
• Banana Pepers
• Mushrooms
• NO CHICKEN because chicken has no place in pizza.
• Well done.

I've digressed again.  The dinners are also intended for a family of four.  I live with my boyfriend, so we're going to have leftovers.  I hope I manage to take some to work the next day and save on lunch because I'm tired of giving Wendy's all my money; I have several bones to pick with their location on Harry Hines Blvd and Butler St, but that's a blog for another day.  

One more great thing about this is that it gives you a shopping list so you don't have to think about "what the hell should I buy?"  Most times when I go to the grocery store I buy breakfast food because I have breakfast on lock.  From Apple Jacks to Waffles, I have mastered breakfast.