Chicken Soup with Lime and Hominy (p23 Fine Cooking April/May 2010)
This reminds me of the Yucatan-Style Chicken, Lime, and Orzo Soup from Week 2 of 2010, though not as good. Don't get me wrong it was still a tasty dish on a chilly day, by comparison to the fluctuations that we've been having recently, but I liked the spicing of the other soup...perhaps because it was spicier...
Skirt Steak Tacos with Spicy Sour Cream (p22 Fine Cooking April/May 2010)
Grilled apparently, but since I have no grill, I cooked in high heat and ended up making a bit of smoke in the upstairs because of it. This still turned out pretty will. I the spice rub on the skirt steak was quite good and added a lot. I used the leftover steak to make a wonderfully delicious sandwich for work the next day.
Spaghetti with Creamy Braised Garlic and Leeks (p21 Fine Cooking April/May 2010)
Ten cloves of garlic? Really? Initially this frightened me a bit but when it braised for a while, it mellowed out the garlic and leek taste quite a bit. Made for a good meal and lunch the next day (for both of us).
Classic Eggs Benedict (p84 Fine Cooking April/May 2010)
There's something magical about eggs benedict for me. When I go out for breakfast or brunch or near any chance I get, I have trouble not ordering it (Gateway Market makes a really good one). But because the Hollandaise sauce seems like some sort of magical thing, I have avoided making it. With my recent experience with poaching eggs, the four I made here turned out quite a bit better. I think the vinegar helped quite a bit to hold the egg together.
The sauce seemed initially to work pretty well and came together easily, but when I went to look over at the eggs to check on them and look back, my sauce had broken. Went from smoothness to granular looking in a few moments. But with a quick google search, I added another egg yolk, whisked pretty hard and came back to a nice smooth sauce.
I was pretty proud of my self as I made the sauce, bacon (Iowa raised round bacon) and eggs pretty much at the same time. The only drawback I had was that the eggs were done a bit more then I would've liked. Still a bit liquid, but not like it should be. The sauce it self had a shocking amount of butter in it, and ended up tasting a bit lemony (the other recipes that I saw used less lemon juice). I should've added more cayenne pepper as well, perhaps the lemon juice was kind of overwhelming the cayenne pepper.