Pork Chops with Rhubarb-Cherry Sauce & Snap Peas with Mint

1 Toast

Worst meal ever:
chops too fatty
fruit and chop weird taste
peas soggy
strange taste

rhubabb sauce tastes great on it's own. Today Spatula admitted that maybe the porkchops were off a bit cause a few were a strange colour.

Cashew Chicken pg.40

5 Toasts
More please

Leaf-Lettuce Salad with Parmesan Crisps - Reduced-Fat Herb Vinaigrette pg.27 & Spring Risotto with Peas and Zucchini pg.70

Thanks Easter Bunny for the window herb garden and the dinner at Sauvignon (pricy French restaurant next to Meat on the Beach). The parsley has grown like crazy and we used a little in scrambled eggs already.

Lettuce Leaf Salad 3 Toasts
We didn't buy parmesan and used regianno by mistake so the crisps didn't crip. They didn't even melt, they just crumbed. Salad and dressing fair.

Risotto 4 Toasts
We used red wine from the freezer so the rice took on a purple colour. The whole time I was making it I had in my head that it should have "a bite" as Baret said. Hmm overcooked no bite but still really good.

Farfalle with Salmon, Mint and Peas pg. 81 & Glazed Carrots pg.85

4 Toasts 1 Crust

Instead of having sauce with all pasta, the butter and lemon juice did hit the spot on this crisp spring evening. The steamed salmon had a nice texture. There were leftovers for work too.

Spatula didn't even notice that the carrots were glazed but he did gobble them up fast so
5 Toasts
for a nice change to frozen or broiled root veggies

Carrot-Cumin Slaw pg.35 & Cherry Tomato Crisp

For Good Friday/Easter dinners this year we decided to experiment on our family.
The slaw was a 3 Toasts - any comments from the Spoon household? We though the cabbage could have been cut a little thinner.

The bake was a 5 Toasts from Spatula's sister Squirrel - any comments from the Spatula household?

Yes the eggs were made with the fool proof hard cooked eggs technique.

Also stop giving Spatula candy you readers. His dentist is trying to find his sweet tooth to pull it out.

Thai-Style Steak Salad pg.50

5 Toasts

This dish converted me from being a well done steak cooker to a medium rare. Just like in the picture, cooking the outside and the letting the steak rest while under an aluminum tent is all you need to get the most tender results.

Make sure you make some carbs to go on the side or try the hot and sour soup because we were hungry after a few hours.

Hot and Sour Soup pg.20

5 Toasts

The best part of making this was stirring the ribbons into the soup. I brought this to a potluck at my office. I was a little nervous about hearing the critiques from my collegues since I left the stems on and didn't know if either of them liked mushrooms. Newbie loved the soup and told me that Russians and other Europeans often go mushroom picking, even in Canada. Memory Bank liked the chewyness, texture and taste.
We used oyster mushrooms instead of shiitake.

Sauteed Chicken In Mustard-Cream Sauce pg.32 & Roasted Asparagus with Parmesan pg.85

3 Toasts 1 Crust

This was the first time we cooked with tarragon and I found it too strong. The sauce also didn't thicken as much as I would have liked it.

Instead of the reccomended side dish of steamed asparagus, in order to make another dish we made the roasted asparagus with parmesan 3 Toasts - too salty to go with the main dish.

Greek-style mini lamb burgers pg142

3 Toasts 1 Crust

Spatula made this one. We both prefer the prepared tzatziki instead of our own. Why are pitas always hard to open?