Recipe Review from 5/5/08

Spring may be thinking about visiting us here in the Northland...I'm not sure. Mornings are still around 30*. We did have a couple of days that made it to 60* but this weekend was downright damp and cool. Makes it hard to get into the garden and the soils not warming up, but it makes it easier to curl up on the couch with a book or knitting.

So the emphasis for mealtime has still been on warm hearty foods:



Pasta with Sun-dried Tomaotes, Ricotta and Peas (Cooks Illustrated, Jan/Feb 04, pg 13) 2.5
This sounded good - shell pasta tossed with ricotta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, sauteed garlic, and some peas. Unfortunately, this was lacking in the flavor department big time. Bland, bland, bland. I thought it was perhaps just me, but when the Hubby mentioned it as he was reaching for the salt and pepper, I knew the dish had a problem. And also unfortunately for us, this made quite a bit and the leftovers were not much better. Very disappointing for a CI recipe.



Beef and Barley Soup Mix (gift from co-worker) 4.0
At Christmas time, a co-worker very generously gave out little mason jars of a soup mix. It just needed the occasion and some meat. We had a buffalo roast in the freezer and a cool damp weekend and this got made. We did some changes (can't leave a recipe alone can we?) - for starters, this ended up in the crock pot, we used a beef boullion rather than straight water, added a bottle of beer, and added carrots and onions.

This was super tasty. The meat ended up being a bit tough (more likely I have become a bit sensitive to eating beef), but the addition of the beer and beef boullion made for a hearty backdrop to the barley and lentils and seasonings. My only regret is I forgot to get mushrooms. That would have made this dish stellar. I may have to hunt this recipe down and give it away next year.



Popovers (Michael Ruhlman's Blog) 4.0
I was bouncing around the blogs I like to read on Sunday afternoon and I popped over to Michael Ruhlman's. He had a posting (which is linked above) about popovers and thier simplicity. Simple was an understatement and I knew I had to try these. I did quickly consult one of my bread baking books as a comparison, decided to add some butter to the ingredients and Wa-la! Popovers!

It's so simple I'm going to put the recipe here: 1 egg, 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 tsp salt, (1/2 tsp butter, melted). Combine well. Divide evenly between 4well buttered ramikins (muffin tins will work too). Bake at 450* for about 20-30 minutes. I got fancy and topped mine with grated parmesan cheese and a splash of paprika.

YUM! I didn't think I liked popovers but these were good! They puffed up (oddly, but they puffed), they were steamy-hot, mmmm...it was a good think I only made four otherwise I would have ate the whole lot of them.