My salad dressing is as good as this

Last night, I got kind of lazy, so I decided to make a basic salad with a side of polenta. This is actually a dish I had one year at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. One of the vendors made polenta, which they put in one of those flat gyro containers, and topped a basic salad on top. Sounds weird with the hot/cold combo, but it was actually quite good.

But I did consult my ATK cookbook to make their basic vinaigrette. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that it tastes every bit as good as mine! Well, I can't really say "mine", since it's really Mike's original concoction. But it's mine now! I took it! Mwahahaha.

Sorry.

So anyway, their recipe calls for all the same ingredients that I have used before -- oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, shallots, dijon -- but I did use my chardonnay vinegar, rather than the types they suggested. And their recipe called for garlic and fresh herbs, such as basil, which I had on hand. That gave it a fresh flavor.

Salad was topped with fresh strawberries and feta. Yum.

I had a pre-made package of polenta, which was good. But next time I'll make my own. It's pretty simple.

Supper club!

We had our second installment of supper club last night. It was at Laura's house and she chose Mexican as the theme. There were nine people there: Laura/Gary, Heather/Chris, me/Jenny, Amanda/no guest, and Neely and her husband as the guests).

I thought it was a lot of fun! I wasn't sure exactly how it was going to work since her place is so small, but it did. In fact, it was probably more successful than mine since the dining room table was in the living room, rather than being separate. She also had two less people, which helps.

I made Tortilla Soup from the ATK cookbook. I thought it was a total success, and everyone seemed to like it. I did the prep at home, and then the assembly at Laura's. It was difficult because of the limited space, since there is a fair amount to assemble. But it worked out.

Laura made chicken quesadillas, Amanda "made" guacamole, cheese dip, and salsa (thanks, La Paz!), and Heather made a dessert called "chocolate goo pie". Despite the horrendous name, the dessert was good! She said it wasn't particularly Mexican, so she added toasted cinammon-sugar tortillas to make it more so. I would have liked to have more of that. Yum!

Welcome home, Sarah!

I was relieved to arrive home. Traveling is fun, but it takes it out of you! Two countries in under a week is tough.

I had no groceries in the house, so I went scavenging in the freezer to see what I had frozen. Hamburgers it is!

I decided to try out the hamburger recipe in ATK cookbook. (89). It was good. I will need to try this one again, though: at first, I undercooked it. Then I kept it on too long. I went from rare to well done. I prefer a medium burger. Ah well.

I made no sides -- just the hamburger. I was pretty wiped out, so that's all there was to it.

Feta Chicken with Zucchini

Another meal from Saving Dinner. If you are reading my blog, you're probably going to see a fair share of these.

Tonight, I cooked Feta Chicken with Zucchini. I also made a second attempt at the Roasted Potatoes that I tried when I cooked for Mike. The ATK cookbook provides variations on some recipes, so this time I tried Roasted Potatoes with Feta, Olives, and Oregano (141).

The chicken was good. I didn't really think that the zest was needed. There was already so much lemon in that dish. It was okay, but I probably wouldn't make that again.

The potatoes were cooked exactly as the recipe called for. I got nice browning this time. But maybe too much brown. First, I substituted fresh parsley for the oregano, since that's what I have on hand. I also thought to de-stick the potatoes when I took off the foil, which helped tremendously with subsequent cooking issues. When it was all said and done, I just think I like potatoes that are less dark. These were crunchy, but almost too crunchy. I also thought the topping was okay, but the original recipe is much tastier.

Chicken Tender Parmasan

I subscribe to Saving Dinner's recipes. I find the service to be pretty nice. All the recipes are healthy (Leanne Ely, pictured right, is the nutritionist who makes the mailers), and there's a pretty nice variety of things. Plus, each weekly mailer comes with a grocery list, broken into sections (meat, produce, dairy). The best thing for me is that she does a mailer for servings of two. This is perfect for a person living alone. My typical routine is to cook the meal for dinner, eating one serving, then have the other serving for lunch. This way, I can practice portion control. Good stuff.

So, last night, I ate Chicken Tenders Parmesan with Sauteed Garlic Spinach. Thoughts:

The main dish actually called for turkey, but I had chicken on hand. It was really good! I think that in the past, I have not given the pan and the oil time to heat up, and I did this time. So, even with the non-stick pan, I had nice browning. The taste was delicious -- I wanted much more than one serving, and at 5 Weight Watcher points, it was possible, so I did.

The spinach I put together was way simple. Just added some spinach to a pan with EVOO and about a 1/2 tsp of minced garlic. I wish I had made more of that. It is also super low-cal. I had more spinach I could make, but I got lazy.

Tuna Cakes -- not sure about this one

Tonight's dinner was Tuna Cakes, from Saving Dinner. Not so sure I was going to like this recipe. But I gave it a shot, and it turned out quite good.

The recipe was 8 points per serving, but I felt as though one serving wasn't enough. The cakes were small, so I consider it to be more of an appetizer, rather than a meal. I thought they were very tasty, considering that they were relatively low-cal. Gotta like dill pickles, though. I ended up eating both servings -- 16 points! The recipe actually calls for 7 ounces of tuna -- but cans of tuna are in 6 oz quantities, so I suppose I had a tad less than two servings. But I made up for it in EVOO; I felt that you had to use more oil than the recipe calls for to get adequate browning.

Better try to eat lightly tomorrow.

Cooking a meal for my man

Mike loves to cook. That's a fact. So, in the year and a half of our dating, I have never cooked anything for him on my own. So, we were flipping through my new cookbook, The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, and we decided to cook one of the proposed meals in the back. Mike wasn't feeling well, so I took this as an opportunity to make him a delicious meal.

Meal:

• Roast Lemon Chicken (318)
  
• Fast Buttery Peas (136)
  
• Roasted Red Potatoes (141)
  

I think the chicken turned out nicely. Lots of flavor. The dark meat still had a bit of pinkish tint to it -- I probably would've eaten it, but Mike asked me nicely not to, so I stopped. This reminds me that I need to purchase a meat thermometer.

The peas were yummy, and really simple to do. Adding the shallot and thyme just jazzes up your basic old peas.

I got pretty huffy about those potatoes because they took longer to do than I expected. First, I didn't read the entire recipe, so my timing on these was way off. That's my bad (although it gave me the excuse to use my warming drawer for the chicken). But even after I cooked the potatoes according to the time in the recipe, I found that they were not browned enough. The ones on the edge were, but the middle ones were not. This was frustrating. Once they finally came out of the oven and onto the plate, however, they were actually pretty good. Just not totally browned, as I thought they should be.

Overall, I thought the meal was pretty successful, other than the temporary mild tantrum of "Well, I guess that just goes to show you I can't cook!" Not a shining moment, but I got over it.