In an attempt to finish off last year’s Christmas dishes (XMAS 23) before this year’s Christmas gets here, here’s 16-22: Apricot Swirl Cheesecake. Probably more of a summer recipe, but whatever, cheesecake is good any time of year. I made this together with 16-20: Chocolate Mousse Cake, because you need both a chocolate dessert AND a fruit dessert.
Fun fact: this may look okay-ish in the picture, but trust me, this does not go well. Jump behind the cut for the details (and mistakes).
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”.
This one was weird for me–not the recipe itself, but the fact that I could have sworn I’d already cooked 3-10: Potato-Onion Bisque for this project. Alas, that did not seem to be the case as I could not find pictures of it anywhere. Strange, as this seems like it would have been one of the ones I cooked way back in 2014 when this project first started. Maybe I did and just forgot to take pictures?
It IS getting cold out there (I mean, we’ve had to put on hoodies here in California–that’s winter weather as far as I’m concerned), so maybe a quick and easy soup might be a nice & warm lunch/dinner option?
Hi there–it’s been a while, but things got busy recently. Here’s one that’s been half-finished in my draft queue for way too long.
We got onto a “ridiculous desserts” kick recently, and made 15-14: Knickerbocker Glory along with its similar cousin, 15-7: Banana Split. If you’re still holding off on going out somewhere for ice cream, either one of these are pretty easy to make at home and are definitely ridiculous. Not quite on the level of “cake hanging off of a milkshake for Instagram“, but also definitely not something you’d eat very often.
“Knickerbocker glory” is a real thing that Simply Delicious didn’t just make up, and has been around for about a hundred years at this point. They were allegedly invented in the US (at the Knickerbocker Hotel), but seem to be a much bigger deal in the UK these days than they are here. They’re even mentioned in Harry Potter!
Since Independence Day is just around the corner, maybe you can make these as an “American” summer treat–especially if it’s super hot where you are right now.
We’ve just passed the 7-year anniversary of starting this project (April 16)…and I’m still nowhere near done. This is going to take me the rest of my life at this rate, I think.
A dish that WON’T take you the rest of your life to complete (notice my flawless segue there) is 8-30: Hungarian Goulash. It’s supposedly a dish for cold days, which are quickly becoming few and far between here in California now that it’s almost May. However, if you’ve still got a touch of cold where you are (or maybe your hemisphere is heading towards winter instead of summer), this might be a good option.
Hungarian goulash is very well-known outside of Simply Delicious…in fact, it’s Hungary’s national dish. 🇭🇺 Many countries have versions of it due to various Hungarian diasporas over the last few centuries. You may know the modern American version better as American chop suey, slumgullion, or maybe Hamburger Helper?
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. 🦀🌶
The photo of this delectable dish is enhanced by the superior dishware chosen to accentuate the fluffiness of the iced desert within. I made 15-36: Pear-Orange Sorbet before a few years ago when we first started this project, but I forgot to take photos. I finally got back to it in January 2019.
The recipe card describes this dish about as well as I could. The ripe pears did have an intense fruity flavor that was intriguing. Can’t beat that.
A nice, cool parfait is the perfect dish for summertime. Raspberry and lemon are two of my favorite flavors and they blend together nicely to create this creamy dessert. My version of 15-29: Raspberry-Lemon Parfait will look much different from what you see here, but it is equally as delicious even though it is lactose-free.
The set designer and photographer did a particularly good job of staging the photo for this recipe card. The fresh raspberries and lemon rind really add a nice pop of color. The choice of tablecloth, wine, grapes, and flowers each provide a nice contrast to the yellow and white creamy colors of the dish and the parfait itself.
Editor’s note: This entry was written last summer, but didn’t get posted until now.
Much like Ben Wyatt, a late-addition character from NBC’s Parks and Recreation, I have enjoyed my fair share of calzones. Hawaiian calzones are one of my favorite types, pineapple and Canadian bacon can’t be beat! However, when wanting to eat in a health conscious manner, 13-8: Vegetarian Calzone is a great meat-free alternative.
Preparing this dish was super easy. A lot of time can be saved by using ready-bought puff pastry.
Editor’s note: This was a dish I made as part of a big family dinner I cooked with a family friend when I was 13–my step-grandmother is vegetarian and we made this so she’d have something to eat. My mom made her a baked potato for Thanksgiving once, complete with a toothpick-and-construction paper turkey head, wings, and tail that I painstakingly spent the day crafting. She did not appreciate the turkey-potato (too closely resembled an animal for her…go figure), but she did like this calzone.
There are a few great songs about coconuts. Zazu in Disney’s The Lion King sings a cheeky, British song about the coconut. If the fruit pairing in this recipe were different, I’d also share this Harry Nilsson song that you may recognize if you’ve ever been to a chorus concert at an elementary school. Is coconut a fruit? a nut? a seed? Let’s find out together with 15-25: Coconut Custard with Mango.
The cracked coconut in the background is what you may think of when hearing the word “coconut”, however, the brown and white fleshy part is the seed of the fruit. Every part of the fruit of the coconut is used in many different applications all around the planet.