Saturday, February 7, 2015

Cook it Up! 365 Great 20 Minute Recipes

For my January Cook it Up! Challenge book I selected 365 Great 20-Minute Recipes by Beverly Cox. I chose it because I was anticipating a busy January and I turned out to be right. We did end up making four new recipes from the book. There were a lot more that I marked as possibilities and didn't get to. I will try to remember to go back to this book as I liked the results and the speed of preparation was great.
  • #26: Tortellini en Brodo Florentine -- I loved this and would make it all the time except that my husband won't eat spinach (he was out of town for a week so I could eat all the spinach I wanted)
  • #84: Spaghettini with Quick Bolognese Sauce -- my husband made this and it was tasty. He used mini penne instead of the spaghettini. 
  • #278: Barcelona Chicken with Rice and Spanish Olives -- this was good, and I would make it again, but it needed some spices added to it. It used quick-cooking rice which was a new ingredient for me. My Cooking Light page-a-day calendar had a similar recipe later in the month that used the same technique with shrimp and quick-cooking rice but added spices. I liked the calendar recipe more, but will continue to play with this base recipe as I think it has a lot of potential and was super fast to put together.
  • #301: Hamburger Stroganoff -- this dish is a standard in our house, but our usual recipe comes from 365 Ways to Cook Hamburger (recipe #192). This version was a little different (more creamy) than the usual one. It was good and I would use either recipe next time, depending on which book I came across first. 
February's book, chosen based on how my upcoming schedule looks, is Fix-it and Forget-it Recipes for Entertaining: Slow Cooker Favorites for All the Year Round by Phyllis Pellman Good and Dawn J. Ranck.  I have used the original Fix-it and Forget-it book for years and have several go-to recipes from it. Several years ago my husband got me the "for Entertaining" version and I haven't cooked from it yet, though I dog-eared a ton of pages that had yummy sounding stuff on them. This month I hope to give this book the attention it deserves. 

I'm linking this up with Cook it Up! and Weekend Cooking 

4 comments:

  1. I love spinach, too! And tortellini, but haven't found a gluten-free version of it yet. I've been using my slow cooker a lot since getting a new one before Christmas, and plan to use it again this coming week.

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  2. I love spinach! Glad you got a few days with it. Sounds like there are some good, basic recipes in that book

    I really don't use my slow cooker enough, so I'll be interested in how you do with the entertaining cookbook this month.

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  3. I just saw the Fix It and Forget It at my local library bookstore. I think I'll pick it up.

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  4. Haha!! I do the same when my husband goes out of town. Except my meals consist more of cereal or ice cream when I don't have to cook for anyone else. ;)

    I'll be curious what you think of Fix it and Forget it! I've always seen those books but sadly my crockpot gets neglected unless it's for something soupy.

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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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