“À la Grecque” means “in the Greek way” in French, and 2-2: Mushrooms à la Grecque is a French preparation of vegetables (in this case mushrooms) in a seasoned oil and wine marinade. Simply Delicious considers this a salad, so I guess we’ll go with that description as well.
This is essentially marinated mushrooms, a pretty classic dish. This one’s pretty simple, it holds well, and most people are into it, so it makes a good party dish too. 🍄
I’ve often talked during this project about my mother and her predilection towards recipe experimentation. One of these instances was where she attempted to make gumbo–I’m not sure where she got the recipe from, but I remember the family failing to choke down poorly cooked okra and my father making a quick run to KFC while she surreptitiously got rid of the rest.
The mere mention of gumbo usually brings this unsavory memory back, and so I attempted 11-26: Fish Gumbo with a fair amount of trepidation.
Roux is something I’ve covered several times throughout this project, and it’s an essential flavor and texture component of gumbo. Letting a roux brown deepens its flavor, and there’s a fine line between too light and over cooked.
It’s been a while since I’ve covered something out of Group 03: Soups on here–the last one was 3-14: Creamy Corn Chowder back in January. 3-20: Italian Tomato Soup is pretty simple when it comes to ingredients…and flavor. I ended up inadvertently turning my batch into what was essentially Spaghetti-Os, but even that wasn’t terrible.
This soup is pretty basic–Simply Delicious has you add a bit of cream to make it more of a bisque-type tomato soup. If it’s not tomato season, no worries–you can make this with canned tomatoes too. 🍅
Since there’s been a lot of asparagus around lately, I’ve been trying to get through as many asparagus-related Simply Delicious recipes as I can. 5-39: Asparagus-Clam Quiche doesn’t sound particularly exciting or palatable, but it involves our featured ingredient and we have to cover them all, so onward we go.
Quiche is not a foreign concept for Simply Delicious–check out 5-1: Mushroom & Cheese Pie, 5-7: Quiche Lorraine, or 5-23: Cheese Pie with Tomatoes for a few different takes on the dish.
There are LOTS of different ways to prepare meatballs–at least 20 according to this Serious Eats piece. So far, the only meatball recipe I’ve covered on here is 9-4: Swedish Meatballs, although 9-44: Wok-Fried Beef Patties are pretty close. A quick Google search brings up albondigas for “South American meatballs”. Prior to 9-30: South American Meatballs, my only experience with either of these concepts is something similar to this recipe that you get at Mexican restaurants. And none of it involves coconut. 🌴
Coconut is the main thing here–it’s meatballs with coconut all up in there. It’s not a bad taste, just an an acquired one. Paprika is usually associated with Hungarian (European) cuisine, but its origins are in the Americas, brought over during all of that New World/Old World business in the 16th century.
I’ve done over 100 recipes for this project so far, and I’m about a week shy of working on it for 2 years. Most of those recipes weren’t bad. Maybe not repeats, but not too many of them stick out as YUCK in my mind…until now. I did NOT like 12-2: Rice and Vegetable Bake, but maybe that’s just me–I can admit that I’m weird about certain textures and flavors.
Simply Delicious describes this dish as “colorful” and “nutritious”, which is 1980s code for “bland diet/health food that nobody really likes but can tolerate to varying degrees”. Having had too much of this kind of stuff forced upon me throughout my parents’ yo-yo dieting phases, the mere notion sends a shiver down my spine.
Onward, for science. 💀
Since the last entry was a garlic & beef entry (8-20: Juicy Steak with Garlic Topping), here’s another garlic recipe for you, this time with pork: 7-34: Grilled Pork Slices with Garlic. I used a cast-iron grill pan for this, but you could use a BBQ or even just do a pan-sear if that’s what you’ve got.
This is some serious garlic game–whole cloves, in fact. But they’re right–blanching them does make them pretty mild and yummy. If you’re willing to risk some garlic breath, this recipe is a pretty decent one to check out.
Late March/early April is right around the time asparagus begins its short season, so if you happen to find yourself with some in the near future, here’s a recipe for you: 4-9: Asparagus with Italian Butter Sauce. I served this as a side dish along with 8-20: Juicy Steak with Garlic Topping.
There’s such a short window of time when asparagus is in season–you start seeing it around March-April, and it’s done around early summer, in June-July. We’ve recently signed back up for our CSA box after a break, and asparagus was waiting for us in the first one.
In 8-17: Pan-Fried Steak with Onions, I talked about using a different method to cook steaks than what’s usually written in these recipes–namely, the restaurant method where you sear the meat on the stove and finish cooking in the oven. If you want some practice with that method, 8-20: Juicy Steak with Garlic Topping is a decent (and garlicky) recipe for it.
Honestly, it sounds like even Simply Delicious couldn’t think of anything especially creative or memorable to say about this dish. It’s not much more than steak with some garlicky cheese on top, but if that interests you, read on.
I had mentioned in 7-36: Pork Tenderloin with Curry Sauce that I had an abundance of pork tenderloin due to a Costco sale. As I work my way through the freezer (mostly because I keep adding new things into it), I find myself with another pork tenderloin–this time, we’ll try it as 7-27: Pork Tenderloin in Creamy Sauce.
There’s not a HUGE difference conceptually between this one and 7-36: Pork Tenderloin with Curry Sauce–the major differences are just spices & condiments added to the final sauce. Otherwise, this is another perfectly serviceable weeknight dinner option, or even a decent meal for entertaining.