2nd Time's the Charm

Not every recipe works for me the first time.  Don't even ask about all the cake, muffin, and cookie recipes that I've had go wrong.  I want to become a better cook but for now I'm sticking with the easy stuff.

This recipe for shells with peas, pesto, and sun-dried tomatoes seemed like just my thing.  Quick, easy, pasta.  Still, the first time around, I managed to mess up before I even started cooking- while I was at the grocery store in fact.  The only sun-dried tomatoes my grocery store had were organic and much more expensive than the regular canned, diced tomatoes.  So I decided that the cheaper tomatoes would be a safe substitution.  I didn't think they'd be as delicious, but it seemed worth a try.  For some reason, I chose diced tomatoes with lime and cilantro.  Just for the record, lime, cilantro, and pesto do not really go together.  The results certainly weren't horrible but I had a strong feeling that I could do better.

So, I gathered my ingredients again.  I broke down and bought some (less expensive) sun-dried tomatoes.  I think I probably could have left out the tomatoes entirely but I wanted to try the recipe in its true form.  This time, I was more than pleased with the results.

Just a couple things:

-- My sun-dried tomatoes were "Julienne sliced."  That was fine but I think diced would have been better.

-- I halved the recipe and that does seem to yield three modest servings.

-- I used pre-made pesto from a jar because I didn't want to have too many things going at once.

Yes, this recipe is one to remember.  I love that I can keep all the ingredients in my fridge and freezer and just throw it together in minutes.

No Tomatoes for Me, Please

I have a bit of a thing against tomatoes.  I don't eat them uncooked and I don't like big, chunky, mushy tomatoes in my cooked food either.  Spaghetti sauce is about the only exception and even then I have standards.  Because of my avoidance of tomatoes, chili is not one of my favorite foods.  There are some great recipes out there that make it less tomato-y but, usually, if it has red broth I'm a bit wary.

So imagine how delighted I was when one of my favorite bloggers posted the recipe for what she calls "Southwest White Bean & Chicken Chili."  As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to try it.  Not simply because I idolize Kate at Centsational Girl as the goddess of all things blog and diy related, although that was a huge factor, but because it has no tomatoes!  None, nada, zilch.

Pop on over to her blog to check out the recipe.

I did make a couple of changes.  Changing recipes, especially when I'm making something for the first time, is always risky for me but I can't seem to help myself.  Probably because I was raised by the queen of ingredient substitution, which is not a bad thing at all.  It means I'm flexible and very resourceful, right?

So to cut on costs, I used a green pepper instead of a yellow one.  Sweet onions were on sale so no yellow for me.  I accidentally let my green onions get a bit wilted so there aren't as many in there as the recipe calls for.  I love love love black beans so I added half a can of those to make up for the fact that I'd already eaten some of my two chicken breasts.  I also skipped both the garnishes.

Despite all the changes, I thought the results were absolutely delicious!  Kate was totally right that it's not too heavy.  It didn't even feel like it had to be served on a cold day!

So here are my veggies in my beautiful new (thrift-store) soup pot:

I've never washed beans before so I kind of winged it by putting them in a colander and rinsing.  Is it normal for them to get foamy like that?

And the final product!  Next time, I'd like to try the pop of yellow or red pepper but the green was quite good.

It's a good thing I like this recipe because now I have a ton of leftovers.  I've been halving all the new recipes I'm trying but when I was shopping for this one, I accidently bought the full 32 oz of chicken broth.  So there will definitely be a lot in my freezer.  I'm no sure how many servings it is, but after I ate two medium bowls, I still have enough to fill 2-3 of my 4-cup tupperwares.

So now I've officially made soup and it was delicious.  Thanks, Kate!

Safety First

Well, they say that when you move into a new apartment, you should always test your smoke alarm.  One more thing checked off my list, conveniently done while I was cooking dinner, of course.

There was simply a small incident involving some burned-to-a-crisp sweet potato fries.  I was determined I would make them myself instead of buying frozen ones.  Healthier and cheaper, right?  Somehow I missed the warning that you really should make sure all your wedges, discs, sticks, whatever, are about the same size.  Maybe this is a common sense thing, but I blithely put an array of fries in the oven and then began to wonder why I started to smell something burning.  I turned on a fan and pointed it at the open window.  I turned on the over-the-range exhaust.  What I didn't think to do was check in the oven and see that the cause of the problem was just a couple of the super thin fries.  So the smoke alarm went off.  I panicked, wondering what my neighbors must be thinking.  When I pulled the pan out of the oven, I had an uh-oh/ah-ha moment.  Most of the fries were just blackened around the edges but two truly were little black crisps.  So those went in the trash and I put the fish sticks on the tray.  I was scared to cook them for too much longer because the edges of the fries had looked decidedly blackened and I didn't want to set off the smoke alarm again.

Here's the recipe I used.  It had a great tip about putting the a baking/cooling rack in your pan and putting the fries on top of that so you don't have to flip them.  Oh, how I hate the flipping process.  So I'll remember that for next time, but I think I'll be cutting my sweet potatoes more like this recipe from Our Best Bites.  Hopefully that will eliminate the blackened edges. Plus, I can't wait to try the honey-lime dip.