12-18: Mushroom Risotto is another recipe with a loose definition of risotto. This one didn’t even ask you to cook the rice in wine, just broth. I already had some mushroom broth infused white rice on hand, but the recipe called for brown rice.
This ended up being a dish that tastes very similar to the 12-41: Spaghetti with Green Sauce recipe that I cooked recently. Mushrooms and basil give this dish an earthy flavor. 🍄
I’ve been saving some lox in the freezer from a past brunch for this recipe, 6-25: Salmon-Filled Chicken Breasts. There’s not a lot of salmon recipes in Simply Delicious (despite salmon’s popularity in the 1980s & 90s), and this may be one of the only smoked salmon ones that I have in my collection for this book.
Definitely not the first time Simply Delicious has given a recipe for stuffed chicken breasts–see 6-4: Easy Stuffed Chicken Breasts for another take on the same idea. However, if you like smoked salmon like I do, you may have some extra laying around–here’s a use for it. 🐟
Here’s a short one that was a solo dish for me (those cream ones always end up being a solo affair) – 12-26: Pasta with Creamy Shrimp. I envisioned it being more like an Alfredo sauce and less like herb-filled whipped cream with shrimp in it, but unfortunately the latter is what I got.
The description on this one is deceiving–it’s honest, yet vague. There is cream, shrimp, and horseradish–and it is easy to prepare. However, the “mouthwatering” and “delicious” descriptors were noticeably maladapt for me. 🍤
Editor’s note: AHOY-HOY to everyone visiting from HungryBrowser.com! If you’d like to know more about this site, please visit THE COOKBOOK PROJECT–it’ll tell you what this is all about. I’m not the only author on this site–my husband Adam wrote the post below (it’s kind of a teamwork thing–there’s a LOT of recipes in this book). Thanks for stopping by, and feel free to check out some of the other recipes we’ve done! — 11/01/17
Beef Stew – Another classic recipe that Simply Delicious cannot get quite right. This dish tastes delicious, but isn’t quite what I would consider a beef stew. It’s almost like a simple Boeuf Bourguignon.
I used a slow cooker instead of the oven for cooking this dish. I apologize that some of the photos are blurry from trying to shoot down into that very slow cooker. Without any other photos in focus, I chose to display some of them in this post just for posterity.
It’s hard to think of things to write about something you cooked awhile ago–a moment of honesty while I get my gears turning here. 13-2: Onion Tart is a great vegetarian (with a modification or two) option that satisfies everyone for any meal of the day. It’s not super exciting (which explains my inability to think of anything particularly interesting to say about it), but it’s definitely a pretty good fallback option if you’re in need of an easy, crowd-pleasing, inoffensive, yet impressive recipe.
Simply Delicious notes that this recipe is French and that this version comes from the Alsace region of the country. I found a few other takes on that version scattered around the Internet, but give or take some bacon and Gruyère cheese, they’re all relatively similar to this one. 🍷
I think Simply Delicious was aimed at the working-mom demographic primarily–a lot of the recipes focus on easy weeknight meals just as much as the fancy dinner party options. 7-14: Easy-to-Make Pork Casserole is a casserole in the sense of a casserole being a bunch of random stuff thrown together in a vessel and then heated.
Casseroles are typically defined as the traditional green bean or tuna types that we (by that I mean mostly Americans) associate with that word. This dish is a loose mixing of vegetables and pork cubes, and is honestly much more reminiscent of 7-55: Sunday Pork Stew than of “casserole”. My mom seemed to like it though, when she made it back in April of 1992.
This recipe is already setting high expectations with the title 11-25: Best Ever Sole Au Gratin, and I’m not here to completely dash those hopes. This is a pretty decent fish recipe, as those go (I’m usually wary of home-cooked fish recipes), but it’s nothing spectacular, despite Simply Delicious’ assertions. 🐟
This one gets fancy with the piping bag and tips for the potatoes. I still haven’t replaced my piping/pastry bag set-up since it all failed during the making of 17-52: Apricot Macaroons for the holidays last year (2015). Since I’ve yet to replace it, I’ll have to get creative again.
Here’s yet another boneless/skinless chicken breast recipe born of the health-conscious 1980s. We ate a LOT of chicken breast when I was growing up, so I’m surprised my mom never busted 6-43: Cheesy Chicken Cutlets out for yet another version.
I’m sorry, but it’s ALWAYS seemed just a bit morbid to dip chicken in egg. I realize it’s often a big part of one of my favorite things (fried chicken), but it still always nags. I’ll leave it there–you do the math if you want to. 🐣
