Mega-Recipe Marathon, Part II -- The long-awaited conclusion

Finally, finally, I will finish up the recipe review marathon. And, because it has been such a ridiculously long time coming, I've added a fourth recipe. So...let the reviewing begin!

One weeknight dinner (long, long ago) we had grilled herb chicken with roma tomato sauce. I had high hopes for this dish, and truth be told, the sauce was pretty good. But it wasn't knock-your-socks-off amazing, just good tomato sauce. And the chicken was just too big and bland. I think, if you're going to cook chicken breasts whole, they really need to be marinated in something. Otherwise, chop them up, slice them, do something to break up the big bland breast monotony! Also...I do not have a grill and it's impossible to use the grill pan on a cooktop, so the chicken got pan-fried instead. But I honestly don't think the grill could have saved it from blah.

Another night, we had Thai hot and sour soup with shrimp. And this was fantastically yummy. I omitted the kaffir lime leaves, which are hard to find, subbed bean sprouts for the mushrooms (they're expensive and P's not a huge fan), and added cellophane noodles to the broth along with the shrimp. I'm also terrified of habaneros, so we just added sriracha tableside, like you do with pho. I know I served this with some sort of veg, but I can't remember since I've been so remiss in the posting (sorry). Make this dish though...it was easy, delicious, and very waistline friendly, even with the noodles.

For the first Hoar-Daly Mother's Day bbq at P's mom's house, I made a healthy veg side dish of roasted fennel with dill and lemon. I doubled the recipe, but wish I had made more. It was really delicious and the fennel cooked down so much it ended up not making a whole lot--maybe half of a casserole dish? Also, you absolutely don't need to add any more salt or oil in step 3...it is plenty oily and salty already. The dish was a huge hit, even among non-fennel lovers (P said, "how did you make it not taste like fennel?!"). It was almost more of a really subtle roasted onion dish. Either way, mmmmm!

Finally, last week I made fingerling potato-leek hash with swiss chard and eggs. This dish was pre-approved by Pat, and we thought it would be a great, healthy, meatless dinner. While it was both healthy and meatless, it was not great. In fact, it was entirely without character at all. The only mod I made was using small red potatoes instead of fingerling, only because they weren't available at the Teet. But honestly, this dish really needed something exciting...maybe a sharp cheddar in place of the really subtle Gruyere, or a dash of vinegar or something. As is: blah, blah, blah. CL fail.

Also, apologies for the lack of pics. I promise to be better from here on out!

Root 246 (Solvang, CA)

This place is soooo over-rated. You guys know how much I LOVE to eat, and this was the first time in I can't remember how long that I looked over the menu and was excited by nothing. And that made me sad.

What also made me sad was to learn that either a) chef is watching his blood pressure, or b) they ran out of salt, because this was the most under-seasoned food I've ever tasted. I'm pretty sensitive to salty food, but this stuff had me searching for a salt shaker. I seriously pinched the fleur de sel off the table butter to add to my asparagus soup (which was also, besides being bland, lacking any complexity). Ditto for the Caesar salad with poached egg (which additionally was a weird, slightly cold temperature) and for P's salmon with ham hock (I know! Who can make under-salted hock?!).

The two highs of our dinner were the amazing blue corn bread muffins and a delectable chocolate cake dessert. But they alone could not save this review. Especially since our request for more muffins was summarily forgotten by our server...(x-posted to yelp.com)