One to Go

After the last two days, I only have one recipe to go.  I think I might make a cookie or muffin tomorrow as a treat to celebrate 100, but I've got rehearsal in a little over an hour so I thought I would update the rest of my dishes first.

95 was a Wild Rice and Blueberry salad from Big Vegan.  I questioned the combination of celery and spring onion with fruit, but it was a winning combination that I ate leftover with lunch today.  I used balsamic fig dressing instead of balsamic raspberry, but it was still incredibly good.  Once again, I reduced the amount of oil called for in the recipe by about half, and I also used thawed frozen berries instead of fresh, as those are more reliably available most of the year.  It helps they keep longer, too.  I give this recipe an A.  Why haven't I tried wild rice before now?  I love it.  The toothsome quality to it is comfortingly chewy, and earthy taste is wonderful.

Next came a new favorite for 96, Orange Scented Broccoli from Appetite for Reduction.  Once again Isa has hit it out of the park.  I am incredibly happy to have found two recipes for eating broccoli this summer that I love; one raw, one sauteed, both using orange juice.  It is amazing to me how a little ginger, garlic, and soy sauce is useful in making so many vegetables tasty.  I plan on making this recipe again, and soon.  I would have made it tonight if I hadn't been so busy trying to rack up my numbers!  A+



I also finished making kim chee last night and tasted it on its own.  I found it too sour and hot for my tastes, however, I still have some left over and have a recipe in which it is used in small servings as a condiment.  At present I'd say the recipe (from Big Vegan) is a D or D-, but I can imagine the kick might be useful played against the other ingredients of Korean tacos so I might have to come back to this one.

98 and 99 made up a Mediterranean-type dinner tonight.  I made sauteed kale with white beans and Greek roasted potatoes with oregano and lemon.  Both recipes were from Donna Klein's Mediterranean Vegan Kitchen.  I ate them with some (burnt) stewed green beans and tomato from Italian Vegan Kitchen, a favorite from earlier this summer.  As far as the new recipes went, however, I don't think I will make them again.  The beans were bland and occasionally too sweet due to the sauteed onions within, and the potatoes, while not bad, were not good enough to displace any one of the many potato recipes I already like within my cooking canon.  D for the beans, C for the potatoes.

So there we are.  One to go.  I'm looking forward to consolidating all the numbers, making sense of what I did make this summer.  I plan on continuing to try new recipes as well.  I've learned so many new techniques and how to use and combine certain ingredients, I can't imagine giving all the trying up.  However, I'm still quite excited about remaking some food I haven't had the chance to fit in due to all the new things I've been cooking.  I'm also looking forward to having a more reliable source of leftovers.  With new recipes, I never knew if something would be horrible enough to throw out or so good I'd eat it all in one meal.  This threw a little havoc in my meal planning, particularly once my weeks got busier at the beginning of the new school year.  I'm also planning on spending a little more time developing my own recipes, like the spumoni cookies I've been toying with.

See you at 100!  Enjoy your last day of summer!