Pan frying pork chops is not the easiest method for cooking pork chops. It is really easy to over cook pork chops that way, but 7-23: Pork Chops with Tarragon came out “just right”.
These pork chops are pan fried and the sauce is added to the pan, drippings and all at the end. Cooking the sauce and meat together creates a flavorful sauce.
Pretzels are my favorite snack food, which means that 17-21: Small Golden Pretzels were right up my alley. One of my favorite episodes of the Simpsons is based around pretzels. Making pretzels usually involves boiling the dough in baking soda water.
These golden pretzels are good as an afternoon snack. Saffron gives these pretzels the golden hue.
I’m not going to write a long dissertation on the origins of the well-known French dessert, Tarte Tatin–I’ll let Wikipedia handle the background of it. Instead, I’m going to focus on my history with 16-15: Tarte Tatin, evidenced by my mom’s handwriting all over the front & back of the recipe card.
Since she and I already had plans to go to a local farmers’ market for this year’s Labor Day BBQ supplies and apples were plentiful, I decided to bring back an old classic for us to cook together. 🍏
Most versions of Tarte Tatin are somewhat similar–it’s a pretty basic recipe. My mom’s notes claim it’s “easy”, and she stands by it to this day. Her other notes turned out to be helpful as well–the importance of good note-taking.
After staring at the screen for much too long (not the whole two weeks since the last time I posted, but at least some portion of it), I’ve determined that I just can’t think of anything all that notable to say about 17-19: Parmesan Bread. I’ve even made it once before, despite the lack of notations or photographic evidence. It’s just not what I hoped it could be.
The first time I made this bread, it turned out (somewhat) like the one shown in the Simply Delicious picture. This time, it turned out more like savory, vaguely cheesy monkey bread.
We really enjoyed this dessert. 14-16: Chocolate Nut Pudding is a fancy version of “cake in a coffee mug” with additional toppings. ☕
This dessert was awesome while still warm, still great while cold.
Editor’s note: “If you don’t eat your meat, you can’t have any pudding, how can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat!” 🎸🇬🇧
Croissants are a culinary item that have been around for well…a really long time. Crescent-shaped rolls are a part of several cuisines–one example would be the kifli from Eastern Europe, versus the well-known Western European version, like 17-1: Croissants. 🌙
Wikipedia mentions that frozen pre-formed croissants are pretty readily available these days (and have been since the 1970s), so making this recipe’s truly a labor of love–it takes a good amount of effort, as noted above.
🐰 The Easter Bunny has come early this year and he’s brought 5-13: Italian Easter Pie! I prefer the Cadbury Bunny to the Easter Bunny, but I’ll eat this pie any day.
This dish is certainly elegant and delicious, I’ve never made a Torta Pasqualina before. Now I can check it off the list. ✅
The photo of the pie for this recipe, 16-4: Blueberry Pie is epic. The peasant blueberry picker doll in the background is a great departure from most of the photos in Simply Delicious. 👍 We bought a case of blueberries during a trip to the market because they looked super fresh. I was going to make blueberry muffins, but after flipping through the recipes, this seemed like the best choice.
The whipped cream in the receptacle looks great. Check out how they used the pie in the background as well as in the center of the photo. The blueberries scattered on the table and the baby’s breath everywhere makes this photo extra fancy. 🎩
Simply Delicious has provided a plethora of burger recipes for me to try, like 9-15: Peppercorn Beef Burgers and this recipe, 9-5: Modern-Style Hamburger. I like to cook these on the electric griddle because I can cook the entire batch off at once and they all cook evenly.
I tend to prefer burgers that are dinner sized. These burgers are more like sliders or a thin lunch style burger. 🍔
The whole time I was making 6-2: Fiery Chicken Casserole, I had this image in my head because I thought my sauce came out wrong. My sauce was light colored and the chicken in the photo shows a crispy, golden skin. If you look hard at the bowl in the upper left corner, you can see the white sauce that the authors described.
My version of the casserole came out a lot differently than the image shown on the card and didn’t taste very “fiery”. This dish would need a lot more heat to be considered “fiery”. 🔥