Camacho Watcho

Well, this week is the home stretch…I have a couple posts from meals over the weekend to catch up on that then it’s the final push to finish everything by April 30th. I’m optimistic, although I do have meals planned for breakfast, lunch and dinner to make it happen.

So this will be a quick update on five recipes I’ve tried over the past week. Overall this group did not have many favorites – each was just okay, nothing special.

Green Chile Pork Posole:

I liked, did not love, this recipe. Although it did have a good amount of spice to it (just the way I like it!) I wish it had used fresh jalapenos or other chiles to make it spicy rather than just a bunch of chile powder. It just gave it more of a canned soup taste to it, than a clean fresh taste. Also, I used a cheaper cut of pork than the tenderloin it calls for and just simmered it longer than the recipe called for. I just had a hard time using such a nice piece of meat for a soup that should be simmered long enough to make the meat tender.

Green Pea Soup with Tarragon and Pea Sprouts:

This was another soup recipe that I liked, but did not love. It was a little bland and just didn’t have the fresh Spring taste. There was a pea soup recipe I made last year about this time that I just LOVED. I’ll have to dig up the recipe to make it again and post.

Tagliatelle with Baby Vegetables and Lemon-Parmesan Sauce:

Although this was one of the simplest recipes, I really liked this pasta and I loved that the recipe took a very basic sauce and just added lemon juice and zest to make it fresh and new. It had a good tang to it with the lemon zest and, although it was a cream sauce, it didn’t sit too heavy. I did have to swap out linguine for the tagliatelle (I couldn’t find any locally sourced tagliatelle). The ingredients are easy to keep on hand, so I could see making this again as a side dish with a piece of fish or grilled chicken.

Grilled Chicken Salad with Radishes, Cucumbers and Tarragon Pesto:

This is perhaps the most disappointing recipe so far. The picture of this dish is on the front of the magazine, which I have been drooling over for a couple months now. It looks gorgeous with the fresh, colorful vegetables, grilled chicken and intriguing pesto drizzled about. Unfortunately, the vinaigrette was just pretty standard and I really didn’t like the tarragon pesto. I think I would have liked this better if I would have just made my standby vinaigrette and drizzled the leftover walnut pesto (from the proscuitto) sandwiches on it. On the plus side, the chicken was really good – perfectly grilled, but I think that has more to do with Kyle’s grilling skills than the recipe.

Dijon-Cilantro Tuna Salad on Whole Grain Bread:

If I was most looking forward to the last recipe, this tuna salad recipe is one of the recipes I was least excited about. I do not like canned tuna, however this recipe partially proved me wrong. It was light, made with plain yogurt instead of mayo, and the cilantro, pickle relish and red onion gave it a nice zip! I could see making this recipe again, but substituting diced grilled chicken instead of the tuna.

So I know I sound like a total Debbie Downer, but I promise great recipes are coming up next! There was a pizza party night and a seafood fest that I really enjoyed.

All recipes can be found on Epicurious.com.

Tags: challenge, Food, recipes

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 at 1:38 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.