Recipe Review 10/29/07 and Pantry Challange!

After much waiting, the recipe reviews have started again! Now, I must apologize in advance, as next week already there won’t be very much (deer hunting trip to western MN kinda got in the way), but I have made myself and my readers the promise that I will get back on the "chuck wagon" and review some food!

I have found a new way of attacking the pantry reduction and I’m going to invite you to play along! I know you all have those items in the cupboard and pantry and freezer that you are going to get to "some day" or that you bought for one meal and didn’t use the rest of, or you bought then never got around to useing (I know you have them....). Well! It’s time to move them along!

The challenge is simply this - find one item, say...that bag of pinto beans. Now! Find a recipe to use them up! Such as...BBQ baked beans. And then come back and tell us about it.

In the mean time, before you scurry off to find that lost, forgotten, pantry item, I have these reviews to offer:

(Banana) Chocolate Chip Waffles (Ckng Lght Annual 04, pg 20) 6
I was in need of a fairly quick meal and the thought of a fried egg over a waffle sounded very appealing. A quick search through my cookbooks and I dug this recipe up. It was pretty basic, flour, sugar, baking powder, egg, milk, chocolate chips - I added the banana. What was different was in the egg. You beat the egg white into stiff peaks and fold into the batter. The end result was okay - I had trouble with the batter sticking to the iron and the banana flavor wasn’t real pronounced. Still, it made a nice batch and I had plenty to freeze for later.

Chicken and Root Vegetable Potpie (Ckng Lght, Sept 07, pg 172) 6
I am always on the lookout for a good potpie recipe and this one grabbed my attention (it helped that it was on the cover of the Sept issue). It also used a nice amount of veggies: a potato, sweet potato, celery root (new veggie for me!), and frozen veggies (it called for peas, I used what I had in the freezer). The root vegetables were boiled in chicken stock and removed, and the stock then thickened into the nice thick gravy that we associate with a good pot pie. I had pre-cooked chicken ready to go, so that didn’t need much but re-heating. Then everything was seasoned and combined into a 9x13 pan and topped with a puff pastry. Here I made a tiny mistake: I forgot to vent my puff pastry so it didn’t puff very well. This made a lot (9x13), but it’s been decent for leftovers so far.

Two notable items, 1) the chicken could easily be left out and the veggies increased, 2) if one didn’t want to buy a frozen puff pastry, a pre-made/bought pie crust such as Pillsbury can be baked ahead of time and put on top just before eating. I’ve done that for a different recipe with very satisfying results.

Multi-grain Breakfast Porridge (Ckng Lght, Oct 07, pg 131) 9
Yum yum YUM! Wheat berries are boiled till plump and tender, then rolled oats are added, and grits (I used polenta). Maple syrup and milk are stirred in (this is also where I added dried cranberries and cinnamon). This nice and warm concoction is topped with toasted chopped walnuts, and in my case, a little extra half and half. It was so tasty I had two bowls! The rest I set aside for the coming week. I’ll be making this again!

Susan Brackett’s First Prize Apple Pie (Ckng Lght, Oct 07, pg 143) 5
This was just...okay. It baked up just lovely with a beautiful crumb topping, but as the day went on, the apples really condensed and the crumb topping got very soggy. Even more disappointing was how gummy the bottom crust was. Perhaps I should have baked it right on my baking stone, or pre-baked the crust slightly, but I haven’t had that problem before. I would consider making this again, but doing something different for the bottom crust and adding pecans to the topping (and doubling the crumb mixture).


*Please note that the Ckng Lght recipes can be found at CookingLight.com or myrecipes.com