Category Archives: Challenge Recipes

[47] Simplest Roast Chicken 1.0

How to Cook Everything, Revised Edition by Mark Bittman

So, by now it’s beginning to look like this challenge was actually “cook our way through _’How to Cook Everything, Revised’_”, I know. But it isn’t, I promise. I’m actually getting a little irked, in all honesty, that this cookbook is the one I keep pulling out. They’re not all up on this site yet, but I have 42 other cookbooks to cook from! Still, it’s amazing the recipes that are lacking. My “Complete Italian”:http://metacookbook.com/permalink/complete-book-of-italian-cooking.html cookbook? I totally expected it to have a Pasta Carbonara recipe, and it didn’t. So, Bittman it was.

With all of that said, I didn’t even hesitate to pull out _How to Cook Everything_ when I wanted to roast a chicken. The yellow, original version is how I learned to make a “knock your socks off” roast chicken.… Continue reading →

Redo!

We just made the “White Bean and Spinach soup”:http://www.metacookbook.com/archives/15-7-White-Bean-and-Spinach-Soup.html from early June again today.

I decided to make it again because I realized we had everything on hand (even though I swore we wouldn’t use canned beans again), and it’d be fast. It wasn’t as fast as I thought it would be, but it was still pretty fast and tasty.

It wasn’t as good as last time. I blame, partially, that I forgot to add the salt right away. It didn’t really have as much time to marry the flavors together.

Finally, we did have nutmeg and cheese on hand for garnishing this time. Totally not worth it. The nutmeg added an extremely odd note to the dish, especially on the occasions I got a strong mouthful of it.… Continue reading →

[46] Pasta Carbonara

How to Cook Everything, Revised Edition by Mark Bittman

You’ll notice this recipe looks a touch out of order. Specifically, you might be wondering, “Where is recipe #45?” Well, I didn’t get any response on whether “Everyday Pancakes” out of “How to Cook Everything” and “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” were multiple recipes or a single recipe. So, for the moment, I’m counting them as separate recipes, but not giving a post to something you’ve already heard about unless something truly interesting happens, or I figure out a very good new technique or something. That’s boring. So, let’s move on to more interesting topics.

I picked last night’s dinner idea mostly out of my brain, assuming one of my cookbooks would have a recipe. Actually, to be honest, I assumed more than one would. I was wrong, and so we ended up with yet another Bittman recipe.… Continue reading →

[44] Classic Lasagne, Bolognese Style

How to Cook Everything, Revised Edition by Mark Bittman

This wasn’t at all the lasagne I had in mind when I decided I wanted to make some lasagne for dinner, with an eye toward freezing the leftovers for lunches. I had in mind the more common (at least in the States) noodle dish with ricotta and mozzarella and a thick tomato-based sauce. However, when I “asked Bittman” for a lasagne recipe (a.k.a. looked in the index), this was the first one that popped up. It was so intriguing and different that I just had to go for it, even if 1) it wasn’t my original vision and 2) he had a recipe for what was my original thought right there.

As the previous two posts indicate, it was kind of a lot of work, and this is the end all of that.… Continue reading →