lunch – Page 3 – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

3-6: Minestrone

Jamie Martin Group 03: Soups, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters August 31, 2021August 31, 2021al dente, basil, beef bouillon, beef broth, black pepper, carrots, celery, cheese, chicken bouillon, chicken broth, diced, dinner, easy, frozen, garlic, herbs and spices, inexpensive, Italian, julienned, leeks, lunch, minced, new book, olive oil, pan-fried, parboiled, Parmesan, pasta/noodles, peeled, pork, potatoes, rice, salt, sautéed, simmered, smoked ham, soups, sweet peas, tomato bouillon, tomato paste, tomatoes, untested, vegetable bouillon, vegetable broth, vegetables, yellow onions

Minestrone soup has a few specific memories for me: I remember there always being cans of it in our pantry when I was a kid, and all of my favorite Italian restaurants growing up still have it on the menu. My dad was a big minestrone fan–both of those memories are tied pretty closely to him.

3-6: Minestrone comes from the new book, and it’s not surprising that Simply Delicious had a recipe for it–they tend to have their own versions of most of the “classics”.

I’m not sure I’d suggest serving this in what look like miniature barrels in the picture above (imagine trying to clean those). However, the colder weather is coming soon, and this recipe is a good (and cheap) way to meal-prep, eat your veggies, and stay warm all at the same time.

13-9: Enchiladas

Jamie Martin Group 13: Vegetarian Dishes, Section 2: Main Courses January 26, 2021January 26, 2021black pepper, canola oil, cashews, Cheddar, cheese, chopped, cilantro, coriander, cubed, dinner, eggplant, fairly easy, fairly expensive, filling, garlic, lunch, Mexican, Monterey Jack, nuts, parsley, peeled, Pepper Jack, raisins, salt, sautéed, shredded, sour cream, Southwestern, spicy, Tex-Mex, tomato sauce, tomatoes, tortillas, untested, vegetable oil, vegetarian, yellow onions

Enchiladas were always a big hit in one of my previous cooking jobs, and they’re still a big hit when I make them at home for dinner today. Presenting 13-9: Enchiladas as a vegetarian dish (using vegetables as filling instead of meat) is pretty avant-garde for a 1980s cookbook, but you can always adjust the fillings as you wish.

If you want to add some options to your combination plate, you can add in 8-65: Sizzling Skirt Steaks, 3-15: Quick Mexican Soup, or 9-6: Filled Tacos.

Enchiladas were usually (and still are) one of my top choices when going to a Mexican restaurant, and the method here is not that far off from the traditional way to make them.

However, as much of a stickler as I am for authentic/homemade, I like the canned enchilada sauce you buy in the supermarket SO much better and will pretty much always just use that. Can’t tell you why, just my personal preference.

11-22: Scallops with Tomatoes

Jamie Martin Group 11: Fish & Seafood, Section 2: Main Courses January 13, 2021January 13, 2021bay scallops, butter, cast-iron, chives, chopped, curry powder, dinner, easy, egg-free, fairly inexpensive, gluten-free, lunch, parsley, salt, sautéed, scallops, seafood, shellfish, tomatoes, untested, whipping cream

Simply Delicious says that now (winter) is the time for scallops, so here’s 11-22: Scallops with Tomatoes for you. It’s very similar to one of my FAVORITE recipes from this book, 11-12: Creamy Sautéed Shrimp (otherwise known in my family as “Shrimp Something”).

Seafood + butter + curry + tomatoes + cream is pretty much always going to be a win. With rice, 10/10?

7-39: Pork Chops with Broccoli and Leek

Jamie Martin Group 07: Pork, Section 2: Main Courses January 11, 2021January 12, 2021Asian, black pepper, blanched, boneless, broccoli, cashews, Chinese, chopped, corn, dairy-free, dinner, easy, egg-free, ginger, grated, ham, inexpensive, leeks, lunch, meal prep, pork, pork chops, pork shoulder, salt, sautéed, sliced, snow peas, soy sauce, tender-crisp, untested, vegetables, winter

Looking for a way to use up some winter vegetables? Maybe your veggie box is heavy with leeks and broccoli these days–if so, maybe give 7-39: Pork Chops with Broccoli and Leek a try. It’s got big “we have Chinese food at home” energy.

If malls were still a thing, you could probably find something similar at a generic Chinese/pan-Asian restaurant in the half-empty food court.

If you want to round out your combo plate for the full experience, you could make some 8-25: Stir-Fried Beef or 11-6: Sweet and Sour Shrimp to go with it. Maybe throw in some 6-39: Chicken Pot Stickers or 1-15: Chinese Spring Rolls on the side?

2-7: Coleslaw

Jamie Martin Group 02: Salads, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters January 1, 2021December 28, 2020apple cider vinegar, apples, barbecue, black pepper, cabbage, canola oil, carrots, celery salt, chilled, crushed, diced, dinner, dressing, fail, grated, lunch, marinated, new book, olive oil, party food, picnic, pineapple, red cabbage, red wine vinegar, salads, shredded, side dish, soaked, sunflower oil, untested, vegan, vegetable oil, vegetables, vegetarian, vinegar, white onions, white wine vinegar, yellow onions

Happy New Year! I recently posted about finding a NEW (to me) Simply Delicious book at a local thrift store, so we’ll start this new year off with the first recipe I’m going to cover from that batch of new recipes, 2-7: Coleslaw. A lot of these recipes fill “gaps” in the collection I already had, and this one is no exception. Coleslaw is a pretty well-known dish, and it’s probably one of the only instances where I enjoy cabbage.

Simply Delicious suggests you can eat coleslaw with just about anything, and they may not be too far off with that claim. Not only can you eat it with a sandwich, you can even put it IN the sandwich.

3-7: Snappy Crab Soup

Jamie Martin Group 03: Soups, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters December 26, 2020December 26, 2020bisque, blender, boiled, Cajun, chicken bouillon, chicken broth, crab, croutons, dinner, easy, egg-free, fairly expensive, frozen, gluten-free, krab, lunch, marinated, milk, New Orleans, parsley, purée, salt, seafood, shellfish, sherry, simmered, soups, sweet peas, Tabasco sauce, tender-crisp, tomatoes, untested, whipping cream

Many moons ago when I first began this project, I wrote about Simply Delicious‘ use of adjectives to spice up the descriptions of their dishes. 3-7: Snappy Crab Soup reminds me of 3-13: Velvety Carrot Soup in its use of flashy words to get you interested in something hard to get excited about.

This is essentially a crab bisque, without the extra steps of simmering shells. The “hot pepper seasoning” they refer to in the blurb above is Tabasco sauce, so this is a mildly Cajun-influenced recipe as well. I remember thinking Tabasco sauce was the HOTTEST thing ever when I was a kid…I’ve learned so much since then. ??

7-4: German Pork Stew

Jamie Martin Group 07: Pork, Section 2: Main Courses December 18, 2020December 17, 2020boiled, bratwurst, butter, cabbage, Canadian bacon, cumin, Dijon mustard, dinner, dried spices, easy, fairly inexpensive, German, lunch, melted, parsley, peeled, pork, sauerkraut, sausage, sautéed, spicy, stews, yellow onions

Guten Tag! Today, I have 7-4: German Pork Stew for you, which is probably a very appropriate winter-weather dish for right now. This isn’t an original recipe–you can find a lot of varieties of this same dish with just some simple searching. They all seem to include the same three base ingredients: onions, pork, and sauerkraut.

Stews are varied for Simply Delicious–sometimes you get something rather traditionally “stew-like” (like 8-27: Classic Beef Stew), and then sometimes you get recipes like this one that seem closer to…something else. Not anything bad, just not “stew” (as I think of it).

8-13: Japanese Beef Casserole

Jamie Martin Group 08: Beef, Section 2: Main Courses October 12, 2020October 12, 2020Asian, bamboo shoots, beef, beef bouillon, beef broth, beef tenderloin, braised, canola oil, casserole, celery, chard, dairy-free, dinner, easy, egg-free, fairly inexpensive, frozen, Japanese, Japanese soy sauce, julienned, kale, lunch, meal prep, mushrooms, salt, sautéed, sesame oil, sherry, shoyu, sirloin, soy sauce, spinach, stir-fry, untested, vegetable oil, white pepper, yellow onions

Usually, I give Simply Delicious a hard time for their attempts at “cultural cuisine”–I had gone into 8-13: Japanese Beef Casserole with the same expectations. I even cooked the recipe with that thought in mind–that this was just another lame attempt at something “exotic” for the 1980s housewife crowd to try to excite their disaffected family about. I mean, read that description below and try to imagine how that would go in real life.

However, while researching for the write-up (the last part of this multi-step process), I found some interesting “similar” recipes. I’m still not sure if I’m right or wrong about this one.

Here’s my thoughts on the two things this recipe could be (given my new findings):

They might be trying to attempt nikujaga (Japanese “beef stew”), but it’s missing potatoes which are a crucial (and easy to obtain) part of that dish.
They’re attempting some sort of pan-Asian sautéed beef/Asian veggies dish that you’d be more likely to find in a dead mall’s food court and just calling it Japanese casserole.

I’m guessing it’s the latter, but if you’d like to decide for yourself, keep reading.

Oh, and that dead mall link above? That’s another one of our projects…

5-17: Crab-Filled Crêpes

Jamie Martin Group 05: Eggs & Cheese, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters October 2, 2020October 2, 2020all-purpose flour, batter, black pepper, breakfast, brunch, butter, Cheddar, cheese, crab, crêpes, dill, dried herbs, eggs, fairly expensive, fairly hard, filling, griddle, herbs and spices, krab, lunch, melted, milk, roux, salt, seafood, shellfish, shredded, untested

You thought I’d run out of crêpe recipes by now, didn’t you? Here’s yet another for you (#7, at the time of this posting), 5-17: Crab-Filled Crêpes. Simply Delicious has featured both sweet and savory crêpe recipes, and this one would probably be EXCELLENT for a nice brunch.

WAY, way back, when I first started this project (April 2014), crêpes were a new frontier–something I’d never done before. You can read about it in 5-24: Meat-Filled Crêpes.

Now, they’re easy. Time changes so many things.

3-29: Herbed Cucumber Soup

Jamie Martin Group 03: Soups, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters October 1, 2020October 19, 2020appetizers, apple cider vinegar, black pepper, chilled, chives, cucumbers, diced, dill, dried herbs, easy, egg-free, garnish, gluten-free, grated, green onions, healthy, herbs and spices, inexpensive, lemon juice, lemons, lime juice, limes, lunch, mint, parsley, peeled, red bell peppers, salt, scallions, soups, summer, tzatziki sauce, untested, vegetables, vegetarian, vinegar, white wine vinegar, yogurt

Soup isn’t usually thought of as a hot weather food (unless you’re Lisa Simpson). However, if it’s summer and you’re looking for ice-cold soup options AND gazpacho isn’t your thing, maybe try 3-29: Herbed Cucumber Soup instead.

It’s not technically summer anymore at the time of posting this (October 1), but we’re still hitting 100ºF temps here in California, so I think it counts.