Fine Cooking's Favorites from 10 years

Fine Cooking magazine celebrated its 10 year anniversary by asking its readers what their favorite recipes were. This small collection was included in one of the issues. It's been great for me because half of the recipes go back further than my subscription.

So far we've tried the pork chops (as noted in the preceding entry), the tandori chicken, and tonight, we tried the Sear Roasted Salmon Fillets with Lemon-Ginger Butter.

Well we were not let down. As simple as the recipe was, it was enough to earn an excellent. Who knew lemon-ginger butter would taste so good? :) We paired it with sauteed spinach and that's it. We ate a lot of salmon and we didn't want to confuse the issue with too many sides... Oh, and white zinfandel, which worked out fine.

Sear Roasted Salmon Fillets with Lemon-Ginger Butter, from Fine Cooking, March 1999
Rating: excellent

You mean you want to know how the Tandori Chicken was? Well, let me tell ya! It was good stuff. Easy to make with a great marinade. Throw it on the grill, and boo ya. We had a side of curry potatoes with peas, coconut milk, jalapeno and cilantro. Yum! (Don't forget the rice!)

Tandori Chicken (grilled), Fine Cooking, July 1997
Rating: great

Which fork is which?

While serving up our coffee cake this morning (with coffee of course), my husband and I debated over the difference between a salad fork and dessert fork. I did some google searching and found the coolest web site that identifies more utensils you ever thought possible. No, really. If you sat down invented pieces, you wouldn't get all of them listed here. http://www.replacements.com/piecetype/flat_piece.htm

Speaking of coffee, our coffee maker died. If you run any two appliances simultaneously on this one outlet, it trips. J.T. was making coffee while I was nuking water and bang - trip. The coffee maker came online, but the on/off button didn't do anything. Not much to troubleshoot: it's dead Jim. Naturally our espresso maker is acting up as well but I won't go into that right now. At least it's producing coffee.

Based on the product comparison from Cook's Illustrated December 2003, we're thinking of a vacuum style machine over the drip. Black & Decker has an attractive product. Actually, it's ugly, but the performance was solid according to Cook's. I toured the mall yesterday and neither Macy's nor William-Sonoma carried a vacuum coffee maker. How weird. I thought I saw one before at Starbucks (they're unique looking, kind of bulbous), but I don't see it on the web site. If the vacuum style coffee maker is so superior, why can't I find any in the stores??

Cooking Pork Chops

I'm sure there is an art to cooking pork without poisoning yourself or drying out the meat. In cooking these thick pork chops last night, we opted on the side of more cooked than less. The chops weren't bad, but past their prime. The recipe had a lovely orange-Dijon pan sauce, but we had to return the meat to the pan to finish. As a result, the sauce had time to separate. :( But I tasted the sauce to test the salt (before killing it) and it was yummy, yummy! Too bad we didn't quite bring it all together. We served it with roasted red potatoes with olive oil/salt/pepper and green beans.

Sauteed Pork Chops w/ Orange-Dijon Pan Sauce, Fine Cooking March 2001
Rating: I'm sure it's great when done right...

Thumbs Down

I'm sorry, but I have to give Rachel Ray's "30 Minute Meals Get Togethers" a thumbs down. I gave it one last chance on Mother's day by preparing "A Hearty Lunch" but alas. The cauliflower soup with the sourdough "dippers" was good, the mushroom leek frittat sounded better than it tasted: blah. We'll probably make the dippers again (i.e. big English muffins with a bunch of cheddar cheese broiled...)

The big hit was the "Mamma-osa". A variation on the mimosa that used Limoncello instead of orange juice. A bit stronger, but that didn't stop anyone. :) The Limoncello (lemon flavored liqueur) was great and we look forward to experimenting with it.

Quick cooking from Fine Cooking

From one of my favorite magazines, we tried Rosemary Steak & Potatoes from Fine Cooking March 2004. The recipe is in the "quick & delicious" section which features fast food (even in 30 minutes...)

Well the steak and potatoes came in with a strong good. We've since used rosemary sprigs when grilling our steak and it adds a subtle flavor. Boy do we need to just plant a rosemary bush somewhere. My parent's have a beast of a plant and they use it all the time.

Rosemary Steak & Potatoes, from Fine Cooking March 2004
Rating: good
Reheat: steak - same; potatoes - worse

Initial Reports are In

The Rachael Ray 30 Minute Meals is a hoax. Do not forward.

After 4 attempts at dinners for 2, my husband and I have yet to serve it up in a half hour. It's more like an hour with 2 people working in parallel. It would probably go faster if we knew the recipe by heart (or wrote it!), didn't have to wash & dry vegetables, or didn't chop like an amateur.

The meals so far have not exceeded my expectations. They have all been pretty good, but that's it. For the amount of time spent, it's a low payout. And what's worse, I look back at the kitchen afterwards and it's a mess! Lots of cutting boards, knives, mixing bowls, pots and pans. For so much mess I expect more in the flavor department.

And here's another weird observation I made last night. Cooking from this book is stressful! Maybe because we work on different things so we don't talk. Maybe because of the artificial 30 minute expectation. I don't know the psychology behind it just yet.

Anyway, the more notable dishes were the artichoke hearts & asparagus tips in rice from the "New Year's Eve Supper", the smashed potatoes from the "TV Dinner for 2", the portobello mushroom "fries" from "Uptown Burger and Fries" and the gyoza from "Seven Samurai Plus 2" though it could use a lighter dipping sauce. IIf we did it again, we'd:
-use ground beef (15-20% fat) instead of ground sirloin (7% fat) - ground sirloin is too dry for most uses
-use low sodium soy sauce instead of tamari; it's too salty!
-forget the champagne vanilla sauce
-be more careful to keep the gyoza from sticking to one another, maybe through an alternate cooking method; it turned into one big lump

As far as the book reads, it's not bad. She doesn't always tell you what the dish should look like when done. For example, the ginger peach cobbler in the "TV Dinner for 2" gets baked 10-12 minutes. She didn't say "until warmed through", or "until lightly browned". If I don't know what to look for, I can't account for variances in my appliances. I DO like the suggestions for when to "eye ball it". It's helping me learn what's important to measure and what has wiggle room. I don't have a professionally trained eye so it's helped to have the measuring cups in sight as a guide.

I haven't tried any meals for a crowd yet. That is yet to come.