untested – Page 19 – Simply Delicious: The Cookbook Project

15-19: Layered Fruit Salad

Jamie Martin Group 15: Cold Desserts, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods May 28, 2017July 30, 2020bananas, breakfast, brunch, chilled, cold desserts, dairy-free, dessert, diced, easy, egg-free, fairly inexpensive, frozen, fruit, fruit salad, gluten-free, grapes, kiwis, layers, lunch, MD2017, Mother's Day, orange juice, oranges, party food, peaches, peeled, powdered sugar, raspberries, side dish, sliced, snacks, spring, summer, supreme, untested, vegan, vegetarian

It’s a few weeks after Mother’s Day at this point, but better late than never. This year for Mother’s Day, I took a few Simply Delicious recipes and decided to make a brunch menu out of them for my mom. We usually do lox and bagels at home for our holiday brunch celebrations, but this year I wanted the full Mother’s Day buffet experience–but still at home. It’s not brunch without fruit salad, so the first entry for this grand event (MD2017) is 15-19: Layered Fruit Salad.

But wait a minute, you say! This is from the Cold Desserts category? How can it be for brunch?

It’s fancy fruit salad–I think it’ll be okay either as a dessert or a brunch side dish. Plus, I need to burn off some of these dessert recipes–so many of them require fresh fruit and summer is the best time for that.

3-9: Mexican Chicken Soup

Adam Martin Group 03: Soups, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters May 27, 2017October 4, 2020bay leaves, black pepper, boiled, carrots, celery, chicken, chicken bouillon, chicken broth, chili peppers, chili powder, chopped, cooked chicken, crushed red pepper, crushed tomatoes, deboned, diced, easy, egg-free, garlic, gluten-free, herbs and spices, inexpensive, leeks, lunch, Mexican, nuts, paprika, peanuts, peeled, peppercorns, potatoes, red bell peppers, salt, sliced, soups, spice blends, Tex-Mex, tomatoes, untested, vegetables, yellow onions

Chicken soup is always good on a day when you are feeling sick. I made 3-9: Mexican Chicken Soup on a really hot day, basically the worst type of day to make chicken soup. I was able to freeze and store all of this soup for future meals. Later on in the week that I made this soup, I caught a nasty cold and having a stockpile of chicken soup really helped me feel better.

The spice mixture is the only part of this soup that is remotely Mexican.

Editor’s note: Simply Delicious has another “Mexican” soup–check out 3-15: Quick Mexican Soup if you want what is essentially a ground-beef version of this soup.

1-37: Savory Cheese Appetizers

Jamie Martin Group 01: Hot & Cold Appetizers, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters May 26, 2017August 5, 2020appetizers, blender, blue cheese, buttermilk, cayenne pepper, cheese, chives, cream cheese, creamy, crème fraîche, dips, easy, food processor, fruit, garnish, Gorgonzola, grapes, herbs and spices, inexpensive, lunch, paprika, parsley, party food, radishes, salt, savory, sherry, sliced, snacks, sour cream, untested, vegetarian, white bread

We can pretend that 1-37: Savory Cheese Appetizers is something fancy and unique, but it’s really just a blue cheese spread on squares of white bread. If you like blue cheese, I suppose this could be an exciting concept–the 1980s were big on both blue cheese and dips (which this recipe can double as).

Simply Delicious has a lot of blue cheese-related recipes–a few I covered just recently include 5-20: Golden Cheese Tartlettes and 1-20: Prosciutto Appetizers. After making all three of these essentially back-to-back, I’m a little burned out on blue cheese for a while.

6-10: Savory Chicken Wings

Adam Martin Group 06: Poultry & Game, Section 2: Main Courses May 21, 2017October 14, 2020American, appetizers, black pepper, bread crumbs, breaded, butter, canola oil, chicken, chili sauce, chopped, coated, creamy, crème fraîche, deep-fried, diced, dinner, dips, dredged, dried herbs, eggs, fairly easy, fried, fried chicken, herbs and spices, hors d'oeuvres, inexpensive, lunch, melted, pan-fried, panko, parsley, party food, piquant, red bell peppers, salt, savory, snacks, sour cream, sriracha, untested, white bread, wings, yellow onions

“Chicken wings are a longtime American favorite.” Truer words have never been written, editor of Simply Delicious. To complement another recent wing recipe that Jamie made (1-1: Orange-Glazed Chicken Wings), here’s 6-10: Savory Chicken Wings.

I love having chicken wings as both an appetizer and a snack. The editor of Simply Delicious know me too well.

2-23: Grilled Chicken Salad

Adam Martin Group 02: Salads, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters May 8, 2017October 4, 2020balsamic vinegar, black olives, black pepper, boneless, breasts, broiled, brushed, chicken, cilantro, dairy-free, Dijon mustard, dinner, dressing, dried herbs, easy, egg-free, gluten-free, green onions, grill pan, grilled, herbs and spices, iceberg lettuce, inexpensive, lemon juice, lettuce, lunch, marinated, minced, mushrooms, olive oil, radicchio, red bell peppers, red wine vinegar, Romaine lettuce, salads, salt, sliced, spinach, Tabasco sauce, thighs, tomatoes, untested, vegetables

Who doesn’t love a simple salad? The editors of Simply Delicious knocked one out of the park with 2-23: Grilled Chicken Salad. Combining fresh vegetables with nicely cooked chicken is an easy method for creating a killer salad. My final product didn’t look much like the photo below, but the flavor is totally on point.

I love the bowl of strawberries and fresh baked biscuits behind the salad in the product photo.

1-1: Orange-Glazed Chicken Wings

Jamie Martin Group 01: Hot & Cold Appetizers, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters May 6, 2017February 19, 2024appetizers, blender, bone-in, broiled, canola oil, chicken, dairy-free, dinner, easy, egg-free, glazed, gluten-free, green onions, hors d'oeuvres, inexpensive, lemon juice, lunch, marmalade, oranges, party food, salt, snacks, Tabasco sauce, untested, wings

We’re over 3 years into this project, and I’m only now covering the very first recipe in the book, 1-1: Orange-Glazed Chicken Wings. I don’t think I’ve ever made these wings before, but the memory of coming up with this project and starting to put it into motion (by sitting down and actually scanning the cards) features this recipe very prominently. Since this was the very first one, that might explain why the edges of the card pictures are strangely cropped.

While this would probably make a decent appetizer, I feel like as a society we’ve come pretty far in wing technology and distribution methods in the last 30 years–these are a lot of work for something that are pretty easy and cheap to just buy in, especially in more interesting flavor/spice combinations. There’s entire restaurants dedicated to wings at this point (even ones that don’t feature an owl and scantily-clad women).

We did make wings in-house during my restaurant tenure, but people are awfully finicky about the preferred style (fried vs baked, breaded vs non-breaded, vinegar-based sauce or not, etc.) of their wings, especially when craft beer and other hipster-y stuff like chalkboards and cornhole are involved.

17-11: Scones

Jamie Martin Group 17: Baked Goods, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods May 5, 2017January 29, 2021all-purpose flour, baked goods, baking powder, breakfast, brown sugar, butter, buttermilk, cakes, coffee, cut in, dessert, dough, easy, egg wash, eggs, English, gift ideas, inexpensive, jam/jelly/preserves, marmalade, milk, pastry, quick breads, salt, scones, scored, Silpat, slit, snacks, tea, untested, vegetarian, whole wheat flour

Scones have a lot of different methods of preparation, usually depending on varying geographical interpretations. There’s even different pronunciations of the word “scone”–some rhyme it with “tone”, while others rhyme it with “gone.”

Simply Delicious‘ take, 17-11: Scones, seems to most closely adhere to the British version of scones in that they make theirs into round cakes, score them, and then break them apart into triangle shapes after baking. The North American versions tend to be individually-sized, round, and more often than not closely resemble what we refer to as biscuits.

One of my first memorable experiences with scones were at an 18th birthday tea party I attended in the last few months of senior year of high school–we had just come back from a Spring Break trip to England & Ireland, and I came to the tea party prepared with white gloves and pinkies up. They had scones with clotted cream & jam, finger sandwiches, and lots of flowery, delicate pots of tea. ☕️

Wouldn’t have been my choice for an 18th birthday party (I spent a good portion of mine in my freshman dorm room hungover from the Halloween extravaganza the night before), but it was definitely unique.

1-20: Prosciutto Appetizers

Jamie Martin Group 01: Hot & Cold Appetizers, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters May 3, 2017January 28, 2020appetizers, basil, black pepper, blue cheese, cheese, chilled, chives, chopped, cream cheese, creamy, dollop, dried herbs, easy, egg-free, fairly expensive, favorites, filling, gluten-free, Gorgonzola, ham, herbs and spices, hors d'oeuvres, parsley, party food, Prosciutto, Roquefort, sage, salt, snacks, stuffed, stuffing, tarragon, toothpicks, untested

There’s not a lot to 1-20: Prosciutto Appetizers, but think of them as a fancier version of the classic appetizer roll-ups that feature some sort of cold cut wrapped around some sort of cream cheese. I originally intended to make these to bring with when we attended a fancy picnic-type event last year, but ran out of time before the day arrived.

Since I’m the only one who can eat these anyway, I ended up making them as a snack for myself when Adam was out of town a few weeks ago. I love Prosciutto ham, blue cheese, AND cream cheese, so these were snacks I was quite looking forward to.

16-39: Apricot Tart

Jamie Martin Group 16: Pies & Cakes, Section 3: Desserts & Baked Goods April 24, 2017November 5, 2020all-purpose flour, almond extract, almond meal, almonds, apricots, baked goods, baking powder, breakfast, butter, citrus, creamed, dessert, dough, eggs, fairly easy, fairly inexpensive, filling, fruit, gift ideas, glazed, granulated sugar, half-and-half, jam/jelly/preserves, julienned, lemon juice, lemons, melted, milk, party food, pastry, peeled, pie crust, sifted, snacks, springform pan, tart, tart pan, toppings, untested, vanilla extract, vegetarian, zested

I had mentioned in 16-24: French Chocolate Cake that it was one of two desserts that I made for a recent baby shower I attended: 16-39: Apricot Tart was the second dessert. I’ve been meaning to make this thing since near the start of this project, and it only took me a few years to finally get around to it. There’s something about this recipe and procrastination, though–this entry’s been sitting in my writing queue half-finished for over a month.

For the length of time that it took me to make it (and to write about it), I never even got to try it–I ended up leaving this and 16-24: French Chocolate Cake still wrapped up on the table at the party. We’ll just assume that both of them were delicious and everyone ate every last crumb of them.

2-20: Potato and Sausage Salad

Jamie Martin Group 02: Salads, Section 1: Appetizers & Starters March 22, 2017March 10, 2020American, appetizers, beets, boiled, capers, chicken, chilled, chives, chopped, creamy, Dijon mustard, dinner, dressing, easy, fingerlings, franks, garnish, ham, herbs and spices, horseradish, hot dogs, inexpensive, lunch, mayonnaise, pan-fried, parsley, party food, peeled, pickled, picnic, pork, potato salad, potatoes, red potatoes, roasted, sausage, side dish, sliced, smoked ham, sour cream, turkey, untested, vegetables, wieners, yellow onions, yellow potatoes

Simply Delicious has a few variations on potato salad–2-17: Spicy Potato Salad is closer to a German variation, using a vinegar dressing instead of mayonnaise. This recipe, 2-20: Potato and Sausage Salad not only uses mayonnaise, but includes your choice of cured meat to accompany it–I went with chicken sausage, but you can use hot dogs, spicy links, or anything similar.

I caught a typo here–they mention capers in this blurb above, but dropped it from the actual ingredients list after the jump. I never realized it and now wish I had–capers would have been a welcome addition to this potato salad, especially instead of beets.