100 New Recipes is not only a good way to encourage oneself to make new things, it's also, I hope, a good blogging warm-up exercise. I'm not feeling terribly inspired lately, but I hope that starting out with some easy recipe blogging will get the juices flowing! We'll see.
Anyway...
New Recipe Number 43: BBQ'd Asparagus - I found this recipe via Lex Culinaria's Summer BBQ Challenge blogging event, which I had intended to participate in, but missed the date. It was really delicious. This is hands-down my favourite way to eat asparagus now. I served it with swiss chard quiche, but I'm itching to try Ruth's entire Simple Spring to Summer Menu, which looks great. Just need to get my hands on a cedar plank.
New Recipe Number 44: Rigatoni With Goat Cheese Sun Dried Tomatoes And Kale - Pretty good! But wouldn't you know it, just as I'm really hitting my stride with finding good ways to use up my fresh harvest box's chard, kale, and sunchokes every other week, Spud stops including these items! Now it's broccoli and potatoes.
New Recipe Number 45: Stuffed Peppers - Tobias made this to accompany some more fish tacos on Saturday night. He got the recipe from one of these little books I can't seem to stop collecting, despite the fact that the recipes in them are pretty hit-and-miss. You can tell by the photo that the Irish one is my favourite because it's the most worn out. I think the primary flaw with these recipes is that the flavours are just generally too small. Too small for Mexican, Thai or Indian cooking, that is. The Irish recipes taste right. The peppers were from the Mexican one, obviously, and, as usual, not enough flavour.
New Recipe Number 46: Mexican Hot Fudge Sundaes - A reader recipe from Bon Appetit. Delicioso!
New Recipe Number 47: Chicken and dumplings - From the Joy. If I thought I was going to have a hard time making it to 100 this year, I would count this as two, because the Joy has you make chicken fricasee, then add dumplings at the end, so it's really two new recipes. But I don't think I'm going to have a hard time making it to 100, so I won't be a bore and count it as two. This was pretty darn good, aside from the dumplings. I thought it would be smart to make the dumplings before Tae Kwon-Do, then cook them afterward. It wasn't! They were hard and chewy! Must try again and make the dumplings immediately before cooking.
New Recipe Number 48: American Blue Cheese Dressing - From Delia Smith's Summer Collection, which I (don't tell the authorities!) borrowed from the library, then photocopied my favourites out of. I hate using bottled salad dressing and make my own (read: force Tobias to whip up some of his awesome balsamic viniagrette) whenever possible. But I do love blue-cheese dressing and have never made that myself.
This was a good one, but next time I will use less garlic. This is probably the strongest-tasting dressing I've ever tried. Ah look! It's online! Lucky you. I recommend <1 clove of garlic, but I guess it depends on how large your garlic is. Mine is largish. Hmm, I wonder why hers turned out so white. With 1T of balsamic, mine was a lot browner.
New Recipe Number 49: Hot Pork Curry - Tobias is still on his curry kick. He seeks the perfect curry-at-home recipe. Suggestions are welcome. We're talking Indian curry here, but I am also open to ideas re: Thai green curries, which are my personal quest. This pork curry, despite its tamarind concentrate and cardamom pods, was not the winner. It was also from one of the books pictured above, and had the same flaw as the peppers: not enough oomph.
