Week in review

After Monday, I had a pretty easy week ahead cooking-wise. Tuesday I tried out caldo verde, a Portuguese soup from the America's Test Kitchen Best of 2009 cookbook. M wasn't a big fan of either kale or the sausage---which was not my preferred brand of chorizo---but liked the flavorful broth. It was simple and easy and I was glad to have the leftovers for lunch.

Wednesday was another new recipe, beef teriyaki, from CI's Best International Recipe. I thought this went okay, but I was distracted with my quickly cooking green beans and the unevenly cooking steak and the rice that kept spilling over and the massive amount of dishes/utensils spread all over my counters....and I tend to be prejudiced against dishes that have me flustered and dreading the clean-up when I sit down to eat. I'd be willing to try it again, though, and M liked the flavor a lot.

Thursday I made a mediocre pasta sauce, because I keep forgetting that there is basically nothing M likes with ground beef except burgers, and this is the only other way I can think to use it when I buy it. But I can never get this sauce to taste very interesting. I've come to prefer the extremely simple tomato-butter-onion sauce from Marcella Hazan, or sauces like it.

Yesterday we went to M's boss's house for a crawfish boil, which was fun, though I opted out of the crawfish---too much work and too little reward. I brought Dorie Greenspan's blondies, which were probably almost on the "too sweet" end of the sugar spectrum, but very good in small amounts. I might reduce the sugar next time. The mixture of chocolate, butterscotch, and coconut was a winner.

Today I've been in the kitchen a lot since the time we woke up. I made M's favorite blueberry muffins (an ATK recipe) for breakfast, then a chocolate chip banana bread for church tomorrow. For lunch, perhaps for the last time until fall, I made my favorite soup in the whole world, a cream of tomato soup (from CI of course) that takes about 30 minutes and tastes like perfection. I heated up some focaccia I made Thursday with that.

Again as sort of a last hurrah before the hot weather hits, tonight I made this one-dish roasted meal with great results (the chicken skin was to die for), plus a warm green bean salad and the most decadent biscuits I have ever made. I think I've said that before, but this time I really mean it. They're made with buttermilk and a blend of all-purpose and cake flours. They're a hybrid between regular rolled-out biscuits (which I hate) and drop biscuits.

And in stark contrast to that wintry meal, we have Philly-style vanilla ice cream for dessert after I freeze it later. Yum.