Saturday, February 12, 2011

Penne with Mushrooms & Dolcelatte

Tonight I made Penne pasta with mushrooms and dolcelatte. I was looking forward to having the spinach and mushroom sauce covering one of my favorite types of pasta, but none of us were much fans of this sauce. It packed a strong punch of cheese that none of us really have the taste for. 






As for this recipe, we'd either have to alter it, or pass it up. Perhaps if the sauce has been more subdued we would have liked it better.


322 days, 114 recipes.

Soufflé

I had always been under the impression that soufflés were incredibly difficult to make. The recipe I had seemed easy enough, but I was so nervous about it collapsing once I took it from the oven. 


As you can see, the soufflé turned out really well! I had never had a soufflé before, and was eager to know what it tasted like.


I bought the ramekins just for the occasion! I was nervous but excited to start this recipe.


Soufflés originated in France in 1782. There are lots of different types including chocolate soufflés--I am really looking forward to trying to make a chocolate soufflé soon.



I'm happy to report that I didn't have any issues as I made this soufflé! (Notice the adorable ramekin I bought! hehe!) I actually made this recipe February 10th, but I was far too busy to write the blog until now. :/

The soufflé tasted delicious!! I can't wait to be able to make this for a dinner party someday!

322 days and 115 recipes to go! (One I will be making tonight!)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Garlic Cheese Melt

On this wintry day, all snowed in, I decided to make recipe #5: Garlic Cheese Melt. Now, the origin of Garlic Cheese Melt was a piece of information I could not find, but if I find out later, I will add it.


This recipe was not what I was expecting. This wasn't your typical "bread and garlic butter sprinkled with cheese" recipe. It involved a mixture of egg, yogurt and milk put in an oven-safe dish and baked with the bread. 


Several issues:
1. With the snow storm coming in, bread was scarce at the grocery store by the time I got there. They didn't have the Texas Style bread I had hoped to get for it. Actually... they had very little bread at all.
2. Apparently "straining yogurt" takes FOREVER. Also, I had no idea what this was. I, being the intelligent person I am, asked my mother at the last second, leaving no time to do it. We improvised. 
3. The recipe told me to "rub the bread with the garlic clove." I don't use fresh garlic--ever. But I was thinking, Ok, rubbing this clove on here isn't going to get the taste... but so much of this recipe isn't going as planned, I'm going to follow the recipe. And I did. And there wasn't a whole lot of garlic-y taste. We could smell it--but I think the flavor was all baked out of it.






This recipe didn't turn out bad, by any means. The entire thing was eaten shortly after it came out of the oven. But it wasn't what we had thought it would be, and it also wasn't as strongly flavored of garlic as I had expected. Definitely not a bad dish. Next time I would:


A) make sure I had the thicker bread,
B) make sure I strain the yogurt...
C) use a smaller dish/less of the egg mixture.
and
D) use a homemade garlic butter vs. olive oil/butter.


All-in-all, a good dish and a great learning experience.


116 recipes, 334 days to go!