Cookbook Project, Books #53 and 54

[ladysprite]

"One-Dish Collection," Publications International, Ltd

This is actually a collection of three different cookbooks, but because they're all bound in one jumbo edition (and because they're kind of cheesy and mediocre, I admit) I'm treating it as one book and allowing myself to make just one recipe from the whole collection. This is another book that neither my husband nor I will admit to being the source of, but I'm fairly certain it originated with him. Either way, it's a giant spiral-bound mass of strange white trash food, divided into casseroles, slow-cooker recipes, and stir-fries. Not actually bad, but full of bizarre acts involving canned cream of mushroom soup, velveeta, powdered onion soup mix, or canned chow mein mix.

There were actually a handful of decent looking recipes mixed in, though, and because I am white trash at my roots, I decided to go ahead and try their Family-Style Hot Dogs with Red Beans and Rice. Also because I love hot dogs, and I love red beans and rice.

I have no idea what made this family-style. I do know that it had way too much brown sugar and molasses - it tasted like I was eating candy. The basic idea of the recipe was sound enough, but I'm much more likely to just make my standard red beans and rice recipe, and add hot dogs (or chorizo, or... anything) than I am to ever dig this out again. Oh, well.

"Williams-Sonoma Vegetarian," Chuck Williams

I decided that it had been long enough since I broke out one of the Williams-Sonoma cookbooks that I was free to start using them again, especially as a reward for having toiled through some of the recent Kwik-n-Eezy eats I've been putting together. This is another one that I picked up at a secondhand store, and I've used it at least once before. We're not vegetarian, but I tend towards a lot of vegetarian cooking, mostly because it's easy, yummy, and often faster and easier than dealing with thawing and prepping meat.

The hardest thing here was narrowing down to one recipe that I wanted to try - I'm probably going to come back before the year is out; there's a couscous salad that will be amazing once our garden starts producing, and the polenta with saffron tomatoes sounds fabulous. But we eventually compromised on the Roasted Pepper Frittata as our choice for the moment.

I missed the most fun part of the prep for this (roasting and marinating the peppers, which my amazing husband did while I was at work), and I'll admit that the final plating was a bit messy - flipping something from a 12" skillet onto an 11" plate is a skill I have yet to develop - but the end result was still delicious. Onto the make-again list it goes.

Now, off to plan baking for this weekend's social events....

Comments

[outlander.livejournal.com]

When you finish the cookbook project, what do you plan to do with the cook books that got less that got less than favorable reviews?

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Not quite sure, yet. So far there's only been one that I've put into the 'get rid of' bin rather than cook *anything* from it. I suppose it depends on which book and where it came from, more than anything else. Howcome?

[outlander.livejournal.com]

I'm not looking to acquire them, if that is what you mean--I have way, way too many of my own.

Just wondering if they will keep hanging out with the 'cool kids' once they have proven that they are not particularly useful.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

As much as you enjoy cooking, it seems wasteful to hang onto cookbooks that have proven themselves not very useful. They take up shelf space that could be used to hold more good cookbooks!