12-23: Tortellini with Broccoli

12-23: Tortellini with Broccoli

12-23: Tortellini with Broccoli is yet another Simply Delicious recipe where their idea of a cream sauce is pouring sour cream on top of something warm and stirring it in. When using lactose free sour cream, the sauce comes out too thick. It’s still chunky on top of the pasta. Maybe I need to cook it longer or stir it more, I will keep experimenting to find out. Onto…the recipe!

It had been a while since I ate tortellini and this recipe gives you an idea of how to make a sauce in a pinch. Simply Delicious has other recipes such as 6-2: Fiery Chicken Casserole where the method to make a quick cream sauce is to dump sour cream into the pot.


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6-17: Chicken Breast with Cheesy Filling

6-17: Chicken Breast with Cheesy Filling

There was apparently a week in April 1992 (can’t say that without thinking of this) when my mom was on a tear through this book. 7-14: Easy-to-Make Pork Casserole is from two days earlier, and there’s a few more coming up from that same time period.  6-17: Chicken Breast with Cheesy Filling seems like something my mom would have been all about–she loves chicken breasts and blue cheese.

Stuffed chicken breasts aren’t new territory for Simply Delicious6-4: Easy Stuffed Chicken Breasts and 6-25: Salmon-Filled Chicken Breasts are two variations on the concept that I’ve already covered.


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13-6: Mushroom Stroganoff

13-6: Mushroom Stroganoff

When you think “stroganoff”, you usually conjure up images of a dish with beef (or ground turkey, if you grew up in my house). Simply Delicious does have a beef version (8-12: Beef Stroganoff), but they also have a vegetarian version–13-6: Mushroom Stroganoff.

My picture and their picture look very different–I think mine looks more like stroganoff than theirs does, though. Maybe they didn’t think it photographed well?


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4-7: Mixed Vegetable Bake

4-7: Mixed Vegetable Bake

4-7: Mixed Vegetable Bake is yet another boring vegetable dish. 🍆 🌶 🍠 There wasn’t an emoji for the vegetables used in this dish, but it was such a bland dish that even the text needs a little excitement with some added emojis! 😉

This onion is about the most flavorful part of this combination behind the cheese. The vegetables add a lot of color, but not a lot of flavor.


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8-12: Beef Stroganoff

8-12: Beef Stroganoff

Stroganoff was a VERY common dish in my house when I was growing up. Since this was the 90s (low-fat everything), it was usually made with plain ground turkey, powdered mix from a packet, and some light sour cream (which is essentially tasteless mush–real sour cream was a revelation when I got older). It got to the point where I couldn’t even stand the smell of stroganoff because my mom made this dish so often.

Time has passed, and stroganoff & I have had a reconciliation. I make it about once every other month now for work, but from scratch and not with packet mix (but still using ground turkey since it’s leaner). Simply Delicious has two stroganoff recipes: 13-6: Mushroom Stroganoff (a vegetarian version) and this one, 8-12: Beef Stroganoff. I made both at the same time, as part of a stroganoff-off.

Beef stroganoff is a pretty well known dish, and it’s not surprising that it’d be included in a book like this with so many other “classic” dishes. Let’s see how far Simply Delicious strays from the norm–who knows…they might surprise us.


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7-7: Mushroom-Stuffed Pork Rolls

7-7: Mushroom-Stuffed Pork Rolls

If you haven’t figured it out by now, Simply Delicious uses mushrooms pretty heavily throughout their recipes–about 20% of the recipes I’ve covered so far have involved them. I wasn’t a big mushroom eater when I was a kid, but I’ve (slowly) begun warming up to them. 7-7: Mushroom-Stuffed Pork Rolls aren’t especially fancy, but they’re not a bad option for lunch, dinner, or even making in a large batch for a party.

This is the first recipe (of 160+ at this point) that uses sage, described as being “savory & slightly peppery.” I like using sage with mushrooms (along with parsley, rosemary, & thyme–the “essential herbs,” according to Simon & Garfunkel), as the earthy flavors of both complement each other well.🌿


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12-41: Spaghetti with Green Sauce

12-41: Spaghetti with Green Sauce

Green sauce can mean a lot of different things (pesto, chimichurri, etc.), but for 12-41: Spaghetti with Green Sauce, it features leek tops. Because this recipe is so light, I made this dish for a quick lunch during the week.

The sauce in the photo doesn’t look as green as a pesto, but it definitely is green.


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3-3: French Onion Soup

3-3: French Onion Soup

It’s the middle of summer right now, so soup’s probably not your first thought. However, I continue to be surprised that how no matter how hot outside it is, people still enjoy soup. So here’s a classic: 3-3: French Onion Soup.

Simply Delicious cites Les Halles (the Parisian farmers’ market, not the NY restaurant where Anthony Bourdain worked) as the originator of French onion soup. I wasn’t able to directly verify that with 5 minutes of lazy Googling, but I did find a food timeline that gives a bit of the dish’s history–I suppose their claim is totally still possible.


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9-18: Stuffed Onions

9-18: Stuffed Onions

Never before did I think, “Boy, I should stuff some onions and eat them.” 9-18: Stuffed Onions were not the easiest dish to prepare and I don’t think I would ever choose to prepare it again.

This dish did taste exactly like meat loaf. It is a lot easier to make a meat loaf than to stuff onions, so next time, I’ll get the loaf pan out and chop the onions up.


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10-17: Lamb Chops with Mozzarella

10-17: Lamb Chops with Mozzarella

I definitely did NOT eat a lot of lamb or veal growing up, but cooking through these recipes has given me the opportunity to try out some different dishes these days. On a recent Costco trip we found lamb chops on sale, so I decided to use them for 10-17: Lamb Chops with Mozzarella.

This seems like a strange trend that Simply Delicious is perpetuating–7-2: Pork Chops with Tomatoes is essentially the same idea except with pork, Cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and green beans. Take meat, stack a slice of cheese and random fridge/pantry items on it, call it a recipe. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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