Thursday, May 01, 2008

By popular demand, things that won't be reappearing on the menu

I suppose it is just a fact of life when cooking for people other than yourself: not everyone has the same tastes. So, some things I might try again wind up discarded due to apathy or dislike from other parties in the household. I suppose it saves time in the end, as there are way too many recipes to be tried for me to be tinkering with mediocre ones. Here are some recipes that fall into that category:

Lemon Thyme Tilapia Packets
I personally liked this one, but apparently some people feel that lemon obscures the taste of the fish. I found this one refreshing, and very lemony, but it could probably do with a little garlic to jazz it up. In any case, I definitely want to try the technique of roasting fish and other ingredients in a packet again.

Velvety Broccoli and Feta Pasta
Admittedly, I left the parsley out of the recipe, but I still don't think that would have saved this recipe from the discard pile. It wasn't bad, but it seemed like it was missing something. Perhaps some toasted nuts, or crumbled bacon, or fried kielbasa. Turning the broccoli into a creamy pesto-like paste was a pretty cool experience. I think I need to whip out the blender more often.

Roasted Chicken with Risotto and Caramelized Onions
Needing to find a use for the home made chicken stock I didn't freeze and the leftover roast chicken whose carcass made the stock, I found a recipe for risotto that utilized roast chicken and other ingredients I had on hand. Hoping to make this a fast event, I forgot that my household's definition of caramelized onions is very different from the one found in recipes. We want them sweet, brown, and shriveled into a tiny shadow of their former potent selves. It seems as though some recipes only want them mildly tanned. In any case, the risotto was probably best the next day as a filling for inari sushi.

No comments: