Week 12 - recipe reviews

Avocado and Bean Salad
Avocado Soup
Baked Pasta
Pesto New Potatoes
Spinach and Pine Nut Pasta

MMMMMM. 5 for 5 this week! None of these recipes were particularly kid-friendly, but the adults liked them! Nothing really new or different this week, but delicious, none-the-less.

Avocado and Bean Salad - some yummy new textures mixed in to this salad, it was nice! B said the dressing was too tangy, but I liked it.

I did not think the avocado soup would be good. I thought it might be like drinking runny guacamole. Boy, was I WRONG!!! This soup was much more like Tortilla Soup, and it was delicious!!

Pesto Potatoes. I regularly forget how much I like Pesto Sauce, and these where a great reminder! New potatoes are so yummy, but I like them best when they are Spicy New Potatoes from Limericks!

Baked Pasta is Nice. Nothing fancy, but yummy, the eggs sneak in some protein, and the veggies make it a well-rounded meal. I don't usually put my sauce in the blender, but it was a fun (though messy) change.

Another pasta dish, Spinach and Pine Nut Pasta. This one B wouldn't touch. My family just refuses to like mushrooms! But I thought it was good.

Week 11- recipe review

Roasted Veggies on Muffins
Mushroom Souffles
Bulgar Stuffed Eggplants
Pasta with Zucchini Sauce
Eggplant Timbale

This week's recipes really stretched my untrained chef skills! There were a lot of great new techniques I would never have thought of using, and I was very nervous about my first soufflé! Although the family was not particularly impressed with my new-found skills, I thought everything was really delicious!

Roasted Veggies on Muffins - I have roasted vegetables before, but they were never this perfectly cooked or delicious! Add bread and cheese sauce, and how can you go wrong? My kids pulled them apart to eat them, but they ate the veggies and muffin, as did the Husband. They could have lived without the cheese sauce.

My first soufflé. I was nervous. It sounds like creme brûlée. Something you order when you are at a fancy restaurant, not something you whip up in your tiny kitchen on a random tuesday night. I was intimidated, but I had my trusty three-year-old sous chef to help! She whipped up some perfect egg whites!

My soufflé was light and fluffy and tasty! It was even puffier than this, but I forgot to take a picture, so it settled a bit. It really was so easy, I don't know why i was ever afraid. I think I'll be whipping the egg whites for all my egg dishes from now on!

Bulgar-stuffed Eggplants- Another new ingredient, but easy as couscous to work with! The pilaf was yummy. Stuffing it in the eggplant is pretty but unnecessary. When I make Stuffed bell peppers, my husband doesn't eat the Bell Pepper, and he didn't eat the eggplant. I'd make this again, but I'd just put it in a bowl as a side dish!

Pasta with Zucchini sauce was a success as well! B has been surprising me, I really didn't think he'd like this sauce, but he did! and it looked so pretty with the thin zucchini slices! Again, something I would never had thought to do, but it turned out nice.

I also peeled eggplant slices to wrap the baked pasta for Eggplant Timbale. As pretty as this was to look at, there was something about it that that just didn't work out right. It was definitely a texture thing, not a taste thing, but I don't think I'd make it again.

Week 8 Lentil Pate

I found this picture on my phone, It's the lentil Pate from week 8. It was not good, but I figured I'd add the picture, since I had it.