In the interests of playing catch-up, I'm going to cover three recent (and I use this term loosely) dinners that were particularly good...sadly, none of them was very pretty, so this will be a words only post--use your imaginations!
The first dish was all veg: brandade of white beans and baby artichokes. This was absolutely fabulous and very fancy-feeling, but I think I burned more calories making it than are actually in it. While this is somewhat of a positive, it pretty much guarantees that I will never make it again (not that there is ever really a danger of this happening...). Made this as-is, but I used canned artichoke hearts because really, who can find baby artichokes?? The layering of flavors was incredibly complex and interesting, although this is definitely a "serve immediately" dish. Leftovers were somehow bland and boring, and all of those interesting components kind of muddled together.
The second recent fav was semi-veg, since it's egg-based. Scrambled eggs with ricotta truly did take no more that the advertised 10 minutes, and actually is one of the few WaPo recipes I've made and been happy with. This is probably because it's derived from a Thomas Keller recipe. Ergo, borne from greatness. I used all-skim ricotta because that's kind of how I roll, and it made me feel a little better about the fact that I was seriously cooking with canned creamed-style corn. I also used about half or a third of the suggested butter. This was incredibly creamy and flavorful and richly satisfying, especially paired with veggies (I think maybe I did asparagus?) and some toast. Yum-freaking-o.
Finally, a chicken dish. Instead of our normal takeout Friday night, we decided to cook in (I believe this was right after our 2-night binge-fest in Lovettesville post-wedding). But since it was still Friday night, I went with a recipe with a bit more calories than I normally cook. I see chicken biryani on Indian restaurant menus all the time, but never order it because it's rice-based and I still have lingering carb-guilt from the Atkins days of my youth. This was PHENOMENAL, with one caveat: do not use brown basmati. I did, and I ended up having to cook this for an eternity (seriously, it was like 2 hours), and the rice was still al dente when I finally gave up and served it. That said, the flavors and textures are so satiating and comforting and fantastic. The jalapeno, even seeded, snuck in a significant amount of heat, which the carbiness of the rice and the sweetness of the raisins (I used regular raisins because it seems ridiculous to me to by a totally different box of raisins just for aesthetics) offset nicely. I paired this with the recommended cucumber and plum tomato salad, which was also quite good. This is the only recipe of the three that made really solid leftovers.
So, some new recommended recipes for herbivores and omnivores alike! Enjoy and let me know what you thought! (portions x-posted on myrecipes.com)
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