cook one new dish every week

This week, we’re cooking all new dishes! We just got a new Chinese cookbook and we kinda went nuts.

• Kung pao chicken and spinach
• Beef with scallions
• Scallion pancakes [edit: didn’t end up doing these]
• Shrimp and scallion dumplings (for a party, and from Gourmet rather than the cookbook)

And speaking of Gourmet...

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there are no words. That magazine fit us like a glove, and now it’s gone.

Have I really not posted in three weeks? Wow! I have to try to remember what we made…

• Capellini pomodoro [new]. We made the pasta sauce ourselves!
• Fig/mascarpone/basil toasts [new]. This one was inspired by the figs at the farmer’s market. We just recreated an appetizer we once had at an Italian restaurant. Most of the credit goes to my husband, but this was really good.
• Sweet and sour Indian eggplant [new]. Still cooking…I’ll let you know how it turns out.
• Sandwiches to use the leftover chicken from last week.

• Mole enchiladas [sorta new]. We’ve made mole, and we’ve made enchiladas, but I think this was the first time we’ve had them together.
• Tomato soup [new] with bread we got from a really special bakery. The soup didn’t turn out that well—we bought the mirepoix pre-chopped (LAZY!) and I think that came back to haunt us.

The week before:
I don’t remember, but I promise we made something new!

This week’s cooking was exhausting because we started shopping today at 4 PM and cooked from 5 until 10 with a quick break for dinner. And here’s what we made:

• Chicken fricassee with red cabbage from Marcella Harzan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking [not new]
• Green beans with butter and parm, also from Hazan [new!]
• “Barbecued duck confit” (aka BBQ duck from the Asian grocery store) with Asian noodles from Gourmet [new!]
• French onion soup from Gourmet [new!]
• Mocha mousse with Sichuan peppercorns from Gourmet [new!]

My girl J. is coming over tomorrow to enjoy the fruits of our labor and crack open a bottle of wine we’ve been saving for her :)

Our new dishes were caramelized chipotle chicken and cheesy creamed corn with cilantro, both from Gourmet’s “C”-themed menu this month. That subscription really pays for itself :)

• Aussie burger and sweet potato fries
• Huevos rancheros

Tonight, we made a beef stew with carrots and mint from a Bon Appetit recipe we had filed away long ago. It was just OK.

• Thai cashew chicken (an old standby)
• A chicken peanut curry soup (new recipe suggested by a friend as a use for our leftover roast chicken)
• Lemon bread pudding with maple whipped cream (new recipe, solution to the leftover baguette problem :))

Another recipe from Gourmet magazine that we’d clipped forever ago and hadn’t made yet. Gourmet really shines at these pasta recipes that sound so simple and obvious but are SO GOOD. The wine didn’t hurt either :)

[the pic is stolen from somebody else, but i’m pretty sure it’s the exact same recipe]

As for the rest of the week, we are taking the easy way out! We bought a roast chicken, pita bread, and frozen succotash, and we made hummus. AND there’s leftover BBQ from Sunday’s craving-induced pilgrimage to our favorite local purveyor of grilled meats.

We made the saag gosht (spinach w/ meat) from Julie Sahni’s book, except we used chicken instead of beef or lamb. We’re saving it for a weeknight, so we’ll see how the flavors blend over the next day or two.

(the picture below isn’t ours, but it’s not too far off)

• Scallops and snow peas in butter (adapted from Gourmet, had it tonight, delicious as always)
• Spaghetti with chard, feta, and garlic chips (from Gourmet, also new, but we haven’t made it yet and we might wuss out)

We’ve been doing this all summer, and I wish I’d been keeping track of it here, because we’ve made some good stuff!

Week of 6/28: Scallops and snow peas with butter
[forgot a bunch of stuff]
Week of 7/26: Chinese broccoli and shiitake mushrooms with oyster sauce over Shanghai noodles
Week of 8/2: Korean oyster pancakes and kimchi stew

• Turkey picadillo tacos adapted from a Rick Bayless book (total standby)
• Thai curry stir-fry with green beans and ground turkey
• Red-cooked pork belly

I made a wonderful beef stew tonight. I let it cook for about five hours, and the meat practically fell apart when you looked at it.

For Valentine’s dinner, I made this amazing chicken scallopine. I mixed Dijon mustard with the egg that I used to make the breading stick, and the flavor was amazing. YUM!

.... so good. This week I have made a Broccoli Souffle and Chicken Noodle Soup from a cookbook that my mom got me for Christmas. Both of them were outstanding! They are from a Paula Deen cookbook.
I think next week I am going to try a Black Bean Salsa that my mom used to make, and maybe Taco Soup. Yummm!!!