Well, back to business. I miss my blog! Here we go, diving right back into the kitchen. Cookbook number two: Cooking for Two: Perfect Meals for Pairs by Jessica Strand.
(image courtesy of barnesandnoble.com)
In the interest of full disclosure, what I love most about this book is its design. It's very visually appealing, which is muy importante to me when I'm purchasing a cookbook. Let's be honest: most of the fun of a cookbook is flipping through, reading the the recipes, and finding something that looks so irresistible that you must- MUST-- drop all previous cooking plans and start trying that recipe immediately (you're probably starting to get a pretty good idea about how and why I get into so many kitchen conundrums.)
My favorite recipe in this one is for individual chicken pot pies. It's a great way to use leftover chicken and vegetables you have sitting around, and it seems much fancier than it is. The more I cook, the more I start to understand how a recipe works, if it will work, if it's missing something... And so here, I must be honest; as much as I love this cookbook, I have found some flaws, at least in this particular recipe. Flaw #1: it doesn't mention SALT. I'm pretty sure that's an oversight. Believe you me, I followed this one to the letter once, sans salt, and while it was fine, it definitely would have benefitting from a bit of the ol' salty salty. Also, it requires you to make a bechamel sauce for the insides of the pies; once you've learned how to do that, which is quite easy, you start to recognize when a sauce will work, and when it will make dough instead of sauce. This one required too little butter for the amount of flour it called for-- 2 tablespoons butter to 1/4 cup of flour! So I increased the butter to 3 tablespoons and used a scant 1/4 C. Perfect. Here's my adapted recipe after the jump (CLICK READ MORE, MAMA)-- enjoy!
