Cook-it-up: Monday to Friday Pasta

Back in April I said I was going to keep going with the cook-it-up project. I have continued to make stuff from the cookbook I chose for that month, but the posting the first Saturday of each month and changing books monthly didn't happen.
I am going to try to get back on track with this (because I did find it a good way to use more recipes).
Since April I have been making things from Monday to Friday Pasta by Michele Urvater. I love this book! Since the beginning of April I have made about a dozen different recipes and I have made a couple of them more than once. Among the highlights:

• Garlicky Mushroom Sauce (p. 46) was great over cheese ravioli
• Dijon butter sauce (p. 38) was so good (over tortellini with chopped asparagus added) that we also made the horsradish variation
•  Sweet and spicy beef with egg noodles (p. 132) was delicious and spicy--I made the sour cream variation, next time I will try the feta

The only dud was the Pecan Noodle pudding with ricotta cheese. It was too dry and not pudding-y enough for my tastes. I have marked lots of additional recipes in this book to try (including a couscous that is on tonight's menu). 

Up next is Martha Hall Foose's Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook. I may stick with this book for the summer as it has a lot of excellent-sounding warm weather dishes in it that I want to try. When I am ready to move on to another book I will post a report on this one and my next pick. 

I'm linking this post with Weekend Cooking.

Cook it Up! A Transitional Post

March 2015 was the last month of the Cook it Up! Challenge link ups at Love, Laughter, and a Touch of Insanity (check out her new Inspiration on Monday project) but I was really liking the project of choosing a cookbook from my collection to focus on during the month and cooking from it as much as I could so I am going to continue. I will post about it on the first Saturday of the month (I've almost gotten the habit set so I don't want to mess with it). 

During March I focused on Good Eats: The Early Years by Alton Brown. I got this book as a gift several years ago and read it cover to cover at the time. There is a ton of useful information and entertaining trivia mixed in with the recipes. How could I not love a book with sidebars like "Great Moments in Potato History" and "Fun Bean Facts to Know and Tell*"?  During the past month I re-read much of the book.

I didn't cook a lot from it, but what I did cook was delicious. Many of these recipes are for fairly involved, time-consuming things which makes it tough to fit into a regular meal plan. However, it is totally worth taking the time to follow one of these recipes and learn from the experience when you can commit the time.

I made Vlad's Garlicky Greens (p. 239) which were delicious and included different ways to prep the garlic to get different flavor elements from it. Meatloaf Again (p. 110) had you grind up the meat yourself which I only did for part of it and I didn't think was worth the trouble. I did love the technique of putting everything else into the food processor because it gave the meatloaf a great texture. My only complaint with the recipe was that it took longer than expected to bake to the indicated temperature so we were waiting for our dinner. The last recipe I tried was Curry Chicken Pot Pie (p. 380) which was really yummy and had you microwave the liquid for the sauce (a basic white sauce). I am definitely using this white sauce technique going forward as it came together beautifully and fast. All three of these are keepers and I have a few more marked (I'm looking at you Broccoli Casserole) to try on occasions when I have the time to spend on them. 

In April I will be focusing on Monday to Friday Pasta by Michele Urvater. This book was published by Workman and the edition I have came out in 1995. We have already made a couple of things from this book this week and they have been excellent. 
 
I'm linking this up with Weekend Cooking.

* Beans appear in more slang expressions than any other food.