Sichuan Pork Noodles (Splendid Table Weeknight Kitchen Newsletter from The Best Simple Recipes)
Peanut butter sand...er noodles. What a odd addition to give it that sort of flavor. This was very simple to make and tasted very good.
Chipotle Chicken Tostadas (p58 Bon Appétit April 2010)
With the Chipotle Roast Chicken Tacos I made last week, we had leftover chicken, so it was a matter of just putting this together. I suppose I could've made my own refried beans, however that's not really what it called for, but luckily for my HBP self, we found Amy's Organic Refried Beans which were low in sodium. They were pretty good. Not as good as home made, but still a reasonable substitute.
So this was just putting things together. If I followed the recipe closely, it would've had less on it. But they kinda turned into a taco salad on top of there. Simple could've been good, but I added more vegetables and etc, so it was good.
Chicken Vesuvio (Splendid Table Weeknight Kitchen Newsletter from Cooking for Two: 2010)
So this turned out pretty well, thought the "sauce" that it was didn't really come together totally. It wasn't that it fell apart, it's just that there wasn't enough at the end to make it, though everything else in there soaked up the sauce. I actually suggested it for modification to Holly for the veggie breasts she had with her movie night dinner, which was surprisingly good (I cannot remember their name). But this meal was pretty good and was nice, though not the most simple, but still relatively easy.
Quick Chicken Paella with Sugar Snap Peas (p89 Bon Appétit April 2010)
I agree with the directions here. It seems to me that if you are cooking long grain rice, you need to do it fairly low and slow for a long time (like 50 minutes). This wanted to cook at 400 for 35 minutes? Seriously? I know the long grain rice I have like to cooke for around 50-60 minutes to be done to the good and done...so this didn't make a ton of sense to me. So some of the rice was done well, some was a bit under cooked. But over all this was good. The actual spanish chorizo that I used was very good, but sweated out a ton of the red deliciousness from them. Over all the chorizo was pretty good, though not like a revelation. The paella over all was really good and actually makes me curious about other ones. I may investigate that in the future, but we'll see, since they're often very seafood heavy and good seafood is often very difficult to get around here.
Poblano, Potato, and Corn Gratin (p58 Bon Appétit April 2010)
This turned out pretty well. Though I am glad I put a pan under it cause it kind of overflowed...so I saved myself a little smoke there. I wouldn't necessarily make this again, but I did get to use my Mandoline again, so that was nice.