Week 16: Asparagus

I was a little wary of this week's theme, since I absolutely love asparagus just roasted with olive oil, salt, and pepper.  Luckily, this recipe takes that same roasted asparagus, mixes it with a few tasty friends, and results in an incredible salad.  This is definitely one of the best dishes I've made so far this year. This recipe (and the tablecloth, serving dish, napkin, and utensils....) are all courtesy of my Aunt Maggie, who will now be serving as my weekly food stylist.  =)

Here's a quick "before" picture, when the asparagus is just about to go into the 450 degree oven.

And the final presentation, which includes the following: grape, pear, & cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, red onion, grated parmesan, and a delicious homemade dressing.  

Week 15: One pot

This was one of the first weeks where I decided first what I wanted to cook, then figured out how to make it fit the challenge. This week's challenge was one-pot cooking, which "by definition, includes all essential ingredients in one pot. Any recipe that requires the cook to 'prepare pasta separately' or 'serve with bread' doesn't fit the bill".  I've been craving the Carlsbad Tavern's green chile mac and cheese for quite a while, so I scoured the internet to find a highly-reviewed one-pot mac and cheese recipe.  It wasn't as easy as it sounds, most recipes had horrible reviews.  I finally found something and adapted it to incorporate the green chiles and the right type of cheese.  Here are two photos of the process, which uses just enough water to have most of it evaporate while the noodles are cooking:

And a photo of the final product, which I garnished with pancetta left over from last week's submission and thinly sliced green onions.

Week 14: Sandwiches

This week's challenge was sandwiches.  These are some of the highest rated submissions I've ever seen on the challenge website, mostly because I think sandwiches kind of lend themselves to being photographed better than some other types of dishes.  I hope my submission is no exception.

I made a roasted chicken caesar sandwich with shaved parmesan, pancetta, sun-dried tomatoes, and spring greens.  It includes a from-scratch caesar dressing sauce and supposedly home-roasted chicken.  I did cheat and buy a rotisserie chicken from the store, but as far as I can tell I haven't done the sandwich any disservice.  The recipe comes from Ina Garten on the food network.  I haven't tasted it yet, since I'm waiting for my boyfriend to come home from work and eat his share, but it looks delicious!

Week 13: Russian

Following last week's creative endeavor, I found myself looking for something simple and low maintenance this time around.  This must be technically "week 3" of the month since our challenge was culturally based: we were instructed to cook something Russian inspired.

I chose to do a cookie very similar to the classic Russian tea cookie: the familiar crumbly, nutty, powdered sugar coated delicacy.  I made orange tea cakes flavored with orange extract, zest, and fresh squeezed juice.  They came out just right, especially dipped warm in powdered sugar.

Week 12: Cheese

This week our challenge is cheese.  For the first time in several weeks, I decided I really wanted to try to make something at least slightly photogenic.  For that reason (and also because I have helpful, artistically minded family visiting) I have 2 dishes to submit.

First, I made the Parmesan cheese straws from the American Test Kitchen cookbook. They are essentially just puffed pastry sheets sprinkled with cheese, salt, and pepper, and twisted into twisty logs.  We weren't at all crazy about them, they basically just taste like puffed pastry.  They did look pretty though, so mission accomplished?

Part 2 was our family Sunday dinner.  With the help of my aunts, I made a spring vegetable and cheese dip.  It's made with white cheddar, goat cheese, asparagus, leeks, and artichoke hearts.  And mint, lots and lots of mint.  We served it with crusty bread, and though it was definitely unusual, it got good reviews.  We thought it was even better warmed up the next day with crackers.

 

Week 11: Breakfast

I seem to be caught in a rut of unattractive submissions, and this week is no exception! This week's challenge is breakfast, and the challenge forum is full of beautiful, colorful omelets and sky high stacks of gingerbread pancakes.  I, on the other hand, decided to make biscuits and gravy from scratch.

Here are the biscuits:

Here is the gravy:

And here is everything all put together: 

The biscuits are a simple, 5 ingredient drop biscuit.  They were tasty but a bit bland.  The gravy is a pork sausage gravy, flavored with black pepper and garlic powder.  My main complaint about the meal is that it was exceptionally heavy, even for biscuits and gravy.  I might use the leftover gravy on egg noodles, I'm hoping it makes a better dinner than breakfast.  

Week 10: Movie Inspired

Welcome to Week 10 of the 52weeksofcooking challenge! This week's challenge was a creative one: to make a dish inspired by a book or movie.  I rarely watch movies, and am ashamed to say that I'm hardly reading these days, so I defaulted to the last novel that I read: The Help.  It's also one of the more recent movies I've seen.

There was a lot of great looking food featured in that movie, but one particular item stands out to anyone who has seen/read the story.  It's Minny's chocolate pie, seen here:

Now I won't ruin the story for anyone who hasn't seen it, but rest assured my pie is free of any unsavory additions that Minny might have added.  Here are two photos of the process:

                    

And  photo of the finished product, seen here served with whipped cream:

It certainly isn't as pretty as I would have liked, but I guarantee it tastes a lot better than Minny's pie.