Vietnamese Pork Lettuce Wraps Recipe

Very good!  We used romain lettuce instead of the bib lettuce.  Other than that, I stuck to the recipe.

These sort of recipes are pretty easy to make.  But sometimes, there are many "parts" to the recipe.  Same with this recipe.  There are lots of little things you can add to enhance the flavor of the final serving.  And all well worth it.

Chicken with Apricots and Olives

UPDATE:  Well, the website linked below is defunct.  I found the recipe - or something pretty close to the same thing here. 

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/member/views/ROASTED-CHICKEN-WITH-CLEMENTINES-ARAK-51179661

It calls for almost all the same things.  In some ways it's better.  But....there are no apricots. I wish I had bought some for it anyway.




I think I may have talked about this recipe before.  But good recipes are always worth repeating.
The cook book from which this book is from is found on Amazon here.

The author has come out with a new edition, but I don't know if it includes this particular recipe.

The recipe is pretty straightforward.  Just be forewarned you marinade overnight.

The person who highlights this recipe thought it was too sweet.  I am not sure how she got that.  Maybe she used too many apricots?  Our family loves the recipe.

Classic Chicken and Dumplings

I think my mom made the best chicken and dumplings in the world.  We scarfed them up whenever she made them.  This recipe is quite good.  However, there was one step I might try to skip next time I make it.  You're supposed to mix flour in with the broth to give it a nice creamy consistency. Probably, if you want a more brothy type stew, skip this step.

We didn't have any baking powder.  Only baking soda.  I thought the dumplings were quite tasty.

Vinegar Pie

I was always very intrigued by this.  Vinegar pie?  All I could think of was sour/bitter and...nothing else.   But the results were very surprising and tasty!

It turns out that vinegar pie is one of many pioneer recipes that was normally made when there was no more fruit.  All the dried fruit and preserves had been consumed and no new fruit had ripened on tress yet.  I found it mentioned in the Little House On The Prairie series of books.

What's fun is to make it for guests and call it a "fruit pie" without being specific.  Then when all is eaten, ask them what fruit was in the pie.  You will get puzzled looks and good guesses.  And then surprised looks when they find out there is no fruit in the pie at all!

The only issue I have with the pie is that it has no form.  It's sort of flat and thin.  I guess because there is no fruit, the pie doesn't look to have much substance.  I'd like to try it again and double the recipe.  I think that would help.

The recipe I used was pretty good.  However, the way it was all put together wasn't the best.  It's a simple recipe and I found the explanations a little overdone.

Chicken and Sausage Jambalaya

This turned out pretty good.

I pretty much followed the recipe.  I may have added more sausage than what it called for.  I didn't have any tomato sauce.  But I had lots of tomatoes.  So I added them instead.

For the creole spice we used the Tony Chachare's spice.  We didn't over do it and the flavor was good. I don't know if anyone else makes it.  Probably so.

CROCK POT CABBAGE AND HAM

This recipe turned out pretty good.  I mean, what could go wrong? Most of it's pretty basic. There is one difference in that celery seeds are included.

I had trouble getting it all to fit in our crock pot.  And I had even halved the recipe.  So, what I did was put the chicken broth, potatoes, onions and cabbage in first and let it cook for several hours. This caused the cabbage to shrink, making room for the other ingredients.

Also, I added precooked cubed smoked ham with lots of fresh ground black pepper. The pepper gave it a nice kick.

Moroccan Tagine of Lamb and Cabbage - Recipe for Cabbage Tagine

Yes, the Moroccan spiced leg of lamb was great! Now...what to do with the leftovers?  Make a tagine!

Since the meat was already cooked, it really shortens the time to make this recipe.  And since I live in the Deep South, things like preserved lemons just don't exist at all.  So, I just used regular lemons and extra lemon juice.

There was one goofed up line in the ingredients calling for "grated" tomatoes.  I just bought about 5 roma tomatoes and chopped them into pieces.

Also, since the lamb meat already was infused with the most of the Moroccan spices, I just sprinkled some additional spices on the herbs.

It didn't come out as lemony as I would have liked.  I think I should have grated the lemon peel.  I think that would have helped immensely.