Where have I been?? I bet you were worried. At the very least, you may have feared I was eating nothing but take-out pizza and cereal, since I’ve showed no signs of cooking for this blog. Rest assured, nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, ever since March started and I have been allowed to go grocery shopping again, my fridge has been packed to the gills with half a dozen new recipes from Dinnertime as well as inspirations from Food Network shows, Alton Brown, and Cook’s Illustrated magazine… I’ve been cooking up a storm! Let me catch you up on the first three March recipes:
Recipe #120: Strawberry Sauce. Of all things, the Desserts chapter was the least completed out of the whole book! What a sad state of affairs. I remedied this situation by kicking off my March cooking with a simple, from-scratch strawberry ice cream sauce. Simple is the key word; I am a big fan of complicated recipes with lots of ingredients and techniques, but there is a lot to be said about the ones that only have a couple things in them. (On a completely separate topic, brownies made from one cup of flour and one cup of Nutella and nothing else are PHENOMENAL. And they would make an amazing sundae paired with vanilla ice cream and this sauce. Maybe it’s a related topic after all…) Anyway, this sauce is really pure, just fresh strawberries, sugar, and a bit of fresh lemon juice. Don’t use that crap in the plastic yellow lemon; just go buy the real thing for fifty cents! You won’t regret it. The hardest part of making this recipe was squashing the cooked and mashed berries through a sieve to extract just the thickened liquid. That did take some effort and patience, but not having to ingest the atomic-red, storebought version made from dozens of chemicals was worth it. Sorry, Hershey’s and Nestle’s Qwik!
Recipe #121: Hawaiian Burgers. I love pineapple. I love burgers. I love teriyaki sauce. But this one garnered a great big “meh” for me. I don’t quite know where it went off the rails, but part of it MIGHT have been my fault. I just plain put my foot down on this recipe because I wasn’t in the mood for “expanding my horizons”. I mean seriously Ree, can you lay off the peppers for just a minute?? I flat refused to put thick slices of red pepper and raw red onion on this burger, and not only did I miss some much-needed color, but I’m sure I lost out on a lot of the intended flavor. The second downfall was the sadly out-of-season state of my pineapple. Evidently, March is not peak pineapple time in Colorado! Who knew. Fruit should be sweet already, but grilling it really brings out the flavor and caramelizes it. In theory. This sad excuse for a pineapple had virtually no juice to begin with, but at least it got some nice little grill marks. The highlight of the burger was the “schmear”, made with teriyaki sauce, honey, mayo, and a little red chili flake. This would make an excellent sauce for a grilled chicken sandwich! If I haven’t discouraged you entirely from this recipe, I think that would be a perfect substitution for the beef. Go give it a try and report back to me!
Recipe #122: Spinach Dip. Y. U. M. Spinach dip is simple, right? It usually just requires adding a Knorr seasoning packet to some mayonnaise and sour cream, and throwing in some spinach. But not today, pal! I went the extra mile, no mix allowed, and it was super complicated. I had to add carrots. Yep, that was about the most complex additional step. It did add a pretty pop of color and some crunchy texture otherwise missing in most party dips. Again, simple recipes win the day! I was craving this, and I loved the fact that the hardest part was waiting for the spinach to thaw under hot water and then squeezing out the liquid. I was able to cram Ruffles laden with this spinach-y, garlicky, creamy deliciousness into my mouth within 30 minutes of the idea coming into my head. And that semi-instant gratification, my friends, is the key to culinary happiness!
Have Book, Will Cook 