Split Pea and Ham Soup (p20 January/February 2011 Cook's Illustrated)
This, to me, illustrated is the difference between using my stand by bacon (Hy-Vee Amana Bacon) vs. really good bacon. While the Hy-Vee bacon is ok for most things, the Vande Rose Farms bacon was something else. It added a smokiness that I don't think I've ever able to get out of the Hy-Vee bacon. The smokiness of the bacon permeated the entire soup to make it seem like, I used a really good hunk of ham to do this (which, clearly I didn't). Do I have to rethink my bacon use? Why is it that every time I rethink something, it ends up costing me 2-4 times as much per ingredient? The only thing that I found kind of depressing, is that when I was taking the, basically, boiled bacon out of the pot, I threw it away, which seemed a waste. Anyways, this was a great shortcut way of getting a split pea and ham soup that tastes really good. I do have a ham in the freezer, and I do need to use that sometime, but for a soup that you don't get to have very often, because you don't make a whole ham that often, it shortcuts it into the right place.
Nut Crusted Chicken Cutlets with Orange and Oregano (p9 January/February 2011 Cook's Illustrated)
I halved this recipe (no sense in making 4 for the two of us). This turned out pretty good. It was a bit nutty and the chicken turned out very well.
Our Favorite Chili (p15 January/February 2011 Cook's Illustrated)
The only problem that I have with this recipe is that I should have doubled it. That much effort for half a pot of chili? Anyways that was quite good, and other then me roasting some of the dried peppers that I shouldn't have (led to much coughing in my kitchen). I think that it might be the way to go in the future. To make my own chili paste. I do, however, have some spice mixes from All Spice that I wanted to use, which would be back to the old method. But the flank steak turned out to be quite tender and everything tasted great. Topped with shredded cheddar and sour cream, a nice meal for a chilly Saturday.
Spaghetti with Lemon and Olive Oil (p21 January/February 2011 Cook's Illustrated)
We were both surprised as to how lemony this was. It was surprisingly simple and ended up tasting very good. I used my new method to get zest off of a lemon (with a vegetable peeler and then super-petite dicing it). It may just mean it's time to replace my zester, or get one that is not so fine. This was great. This was the only thing I took a picture of, but it's a bit blurry, so I'm not posting that.
Thin Crust Pizza (p8 January/February 2011 Cook's Illustrated)
Maybe I didn't use enough flour...maybe it was something else, but I don't understand how I was supposed to get the pizza to the stone. I had the wooden spatula thing and it still got stuck and after a little bit of sauce spilled on it, it was game over. It was quite frustrating. Anyways, everything else turned out pretty well. Good sauce, the crust had developed a nice flavor over the night. and with the simple toppings it made for a good meal. However, I'm not completely satisfied with how this worked out, so I want to make it again, but this time, I'll use a pan or something (I kind of destroyed the wooden spatula and the pizza stone).
Pancakes
So this is a prime example of the problems that I've been having. Whisking? Painful. Grating Frozen strawberries? Painful. Anyways, I had bought some frozen strawberries for another meal, because the fresh ones looked a bit gross (and why wouldn't they?). So the idea here was to put the strawberries in the pancakes, and the idea struck me that the strawberries are frozen, so I could grate them. So I did. Generally these turned out pretty well, however the strawberries have quite a bit of liquid, so it kinds of over balanced the liquid to flour ratio. So if I were to do it again, I'd reduce some of the liquid by a bit. Taste wise they had a mild strawberry taste to them.