The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Hi folks, and welcome to the second posting of my blog. I have made it to two! One more entry and I will have surpassed my last attempt at blogging.

Yesterday I cooked Easy Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas. I got the recipe from a Campbell's cookbook my sister gave me for my birthday a few years back. Basically, these were flour tortillas with a mixture of marble cheese, chicken, and picante salsa inside. Poured over the top was a sauce made of sour cream, more picante salsa, cream of chicken soup and some chili powder. I then tossed it all in a shallow baking dish and baked for 45 minutes. This recipe is the 'Ugly' from the title - check out how it looked:

Enchilada Vomit

As you can see, not the most aesthetically pleasing creation. However, buried inder all that slop are indeed two flour tortillas filled with the above mentioned concoction. I also cut up some tomatoes and green onions and sprinkled on the top. Despite its less than beautiful appearance, this was quite tasty. Very little prep time and the fact that it had a little bit of a kick to it makes it something I'd turn to if I'm in the mood for a cooked meal but not really in the mood to cook. I'd give this meal a 6 out of 10.

Today, I went for a Rachael Ray recipe in the new cookbook Randy gave me for Christmas. The recipe is called 'Sliced Chicken with apples, pears, and camembert mashed potatoes'. Yum. This recipe had quite a bit more prep time and I found it difficult to co-ordinate the cooking of the potatoes with the separate cooking of the chicken so I had to re-heat the meal after it was prepared. The chicken is pretty basic (salt and pepper, then fried in a frying pan and sliced) and the apples and pears were sauteed in butter, honey, nutmeg, and lemon juice. For the potatoes, I boiled a bunch of baby yellow potatoes, then mashed them up with some camembert cheese and milk. Sprinkled over the top of both the potatoes and the chicken was a mixture of chives, fresh thyme, and lemon zest. Om nom nom.

Sliced Chicken with Apples, Pears, and Camembert Mashed Potatoes

Randy and I both enjoyed this meal - the sweetness of the pears and apples complimented the simplicity of the chicken quite well. While I enjoyed the mashed potatoes, I didn't really notice a difference with the use of the camembert cheese than if I had used another (possibly cheaper) cheese. Still, Rachael Ray is all about trhe flavour and this definitely had lots of that. Likely not the healthiest meal in the world, but healthy meals don't always taste great, either. I'd give this one a 7/10.

Shout-outs from the past two days also include: peanut butter M&M's, chocolate peanut butter macaroons (thank you, SPCA meeting!), and tuna fish sandwiches with hot sauce and green onions (totally better than using mayo).

Tomorrow I am hitting up the Sopranos cookbook again and making Meatball and Mozzarella Heroes!

Kathryn