Greetings, and happy Friday! It’s been a minute, but I’ll always come back eventually–I’ve put way too much time/work/energy into this project to give up now. Today, I present to you 1-12: Mixed Seafood Au Gratin. Au gratinis not new for Simple Delicious, and neither is the use of the pictured serving shells. I finally broke down and bought some a year or two ago for 11-10: French Scallops–I’m happy they’ll get another use here.
When was the last time you heard the phrase “tantalize the taste buds”? I feel like that went out of style around the same time as soufflé humor.
Hello there, and happy June! I was on vacation (a real one!) for most of May, but I’m back now with 5-2: Old-Fashioned Oven Pancake. There’s not a lot that goes into this dish (just 4 ingredients), and it’s probably better/more commonly known as a German pancake and/or a “Dutch baby”.
So far, this is the only mention of lingonberries that I’ve seen in this whole book–I always think of them as something you only see in jam form at IKEA, but according to Wikipedia they are grown in multiple regions including North America (not just Europe/Scandinavia). They’re tough to find fresh here, but frozen seems to be widely available.
Hi there, back again with another “Asian” dish for you today. It’s interesting that Simply Delicious didn’t choose to name 8-45: Korean Sauteed Beef “Korean Beef Stir-Fry” instead (maybe because 8-25: Stir-Fried Beef is already in the book) —stir-fries seemed like they were all the rage in the late 20th century as a “healthy” dinner option. I suppose they still are popular today, but they don’t seem as “unusual” to make for dinner at home as they did back then.
I remember when my mom would bust out her wok every so often for a stir-fry back in the 1990s–it always seemed so much more interesting than when we would just cook in a regular pan on the stove. The blurb above suggests to serve it with noodles, but you can also do rice (or veggies, if you’re one of those actually healthy people–I clearly am not).
I’m aware of two salmon steak recipes in my Simply Delicious collection, 11-15: Grilled Salmon with Thyme and this one, 11-18: Salmon Steaks with Mushrooms. The other one mentions you can substitute salmon fillets if you can’t find the steaks, which is what I had to do for this one. Strangely enough, I WAS able to find them for the other one. Believe it or not, I’ve been looking for them for a while and just haven’t had very good luck with it (even in Northern California, where it seems like you can find just about anything if you look hard enough).
Simply Delicious does NOT miss an opportunity for a mushroom sauce–it’s kind of their thing. They suggest rice (10/10?) as a side dish, but I’m going to go with some gnocchi instead.
Quick note: Just passed the 8-year anniversary of this project, and I’m STILL going. I’ll be doing this FOREVER.
I’m (more than) a little reluctant to post 15-5: Strawberries Romanoff given the current state of the world, but I made it over a year ago and I need to get it out of my queue, so here you go. And yes, that’s really how long it takes me to get to these sometimes.
Strawberries are in season right now, so this is somewhat seasonally appropriate (but perhaps not politically so). I’m not sure being from the “courts of the Russian czars” is much of a selling point anymore these days (although arguably, it probably wasn’t much of one in the late 1980s-early 1990s either), but it is what it is.
You can find ways to support the people of Ukraine here. 🇺🇦
It’s not unusual to find a “ginger chicken” recipe on a Chinese takeout menu, but in case you’re looking to cut down on those high restaurant and delivery costs, here’s Simply Delicious‘ take on it: 6-6: Ginger Chicken. I don’t really buy meat anymore these days (unless you count the occasional boiled chicken/plain white rice I make when the dog gets an upset tummy), but from what I can tell, even those prices are pretty much through the roof. Maybe consider Ginger Tofu instead?
I don’t even have peanut allergies and yet I look at that picture and start to get itchy. I love it though–who at Simply Delicious decided that they REALLY needed to drive home the fact that this recipe HAS LOTS OF PEANUTS? And yet, the actual recipe only calls for about half a cup.
What are we supposed to do with the rest of them? Guess it’s a good thing baseball solved that whole lockout thing.
Howdy, y’all–it’s been a minute since we’ve last met. Like everyone else in the world, things can get busy/stressful/overwhelming for me at times and then unfortunately this project takes a backseat. I’ve still been making recipes here and there though, and I’ve got a few built up to share with you. I can’t promise a robust posting schedule (count me as partly responsible for the death of blogs) but I’ll do my best.
To kick things off, here’s 2-9: Pasta Salad, one from the new book. Ugh, I WANT that kitschy 70s flower/watering can picture–if I found it in a thrift store, it’d definitely be coming home with me. I’ll take those FABULOUS flower-shaped plates too.
I love that this is such a time-capsule of an era where we fully embraced carbs–I don’t know of too many people today that would classify pasta as “nutritious”. We were just on the precipice of the ridiculous food pyramid of the 1990s at this point, where we were advised to eat 6-11 servings of carbs a day and stay far, far away from anything fatty (low-fat/high-sugar EVERYTHING was the result).
I also feel like Simply Delicious couldn’t figure out anything exciting to say about pasta salad, so they attempted to turn it into a half-assed history lesson. “He might have done it, maybe not, who knows! Have some pasta anyway!”
My elementary school education (which occurred around the same time) went pretty much the same way. Oh, the late 80s/early 90s.
Another day, another Simply Delicious “quick” dinner recipe featuring some sort of creamy sauce with mustard in it. This particular version is 8-6: Quickly Sautéed Beef and Peppers–I bet you can figure out the basic gist of this recipe just from the title.
They REALLY need you to know how quick this dish is–it’s not only in the title, it’s also in the description. Pepper steak is not a new concept, and is not too far off from this recipe in terms of ingredients and prep. Whip up some rice to serve it with, and you’ve got yourself a QUICK and easy dish.
Happy New Year, and welcome to 2022! I’m going to start this year off with a redo–although you didn’t know that it was such. I cooked 11-10: French Scallops early last year (2021), but did such a terrible job of it that I didn’t even want to share the pictures of it with you. I’ve had it hanging out in my queue for almost a year, and it’s time to fix that–when you know better, you should do better.
I took far too many liberties with my first attempt, not realizing that this dish was somewhat specific in its design and not just “up for interpretation”. Coquilles St. Jacques (note Simply Delicious misspelled it) is a French preparation of scallops, hence their abridged title of “French Scallops”. There’s lots ofversionsof it out there, most somewhat similar to this one.
Happy New Years’ Eve! 2021 has not been my favorite year (probably not yours either), and so I’m not sad to see it go–in fact, we’re going to celebrate its departure with a holiday-ish dessert today: 15-34: White Chocolate Strawberry Soufflé. This soufflé is not baked, but does include meringue being folded in. I’m not sure if that makes it “not a soufflé,” but at this point, does it matter?
“Dramatic” is definitely a good way to describe this past year, so perhaps this is the perfect dessert/recipe for today. However your 2021 has been, I hope that 2022 is a safe and prosperous year for you and yours.🎇
Now–let’s get off the heavy stuff and into something much lighter–discussion of this “soufflé”.
