Week 10 - Foccacia Turkey Sandwich

How could something so simple turn out so...utterly...disappointing? I blame the foccacia bread that I found at Copp's. ICK! Parmesan and onion bread sounds good when perusing the bakery, but after taste testing and closer inspection, it became obvious that they layered copious amounts of onion over the bread and then threw on a hard crust of baked parmesan cheese. What?! Anyway, I really want to try foccacia bread again. I just need to find relatively plain bread. The pictured bread looks so light and airy on the recipe website. What I had purchased was anything but light and airy; it was instead dense and insanely pungent. Anyway, here are the ingredients that I used.

• 1 (1 pound) loaf focaccia bread - parmesan/onion flavor
• 1/2 cup chive-and-onion cream cheese spread or spinach dip
• 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
• 8 ounces thinly sliced deli smoked turkey
• 4 slices Swiss cheese
• 1 medium tomato, thinly sliced

Cheap recipe, this was not. It was probably the most expensive sandwich that I have ever made or purchased in a restaurant for that matter. The failure of the bread really destroyed everything else that could have been so darn successful.

I will likely try this again someday. However, I can't rate this particular rendition any higher than a 3 today, though it serves as a sufficient base recipe.

Week 9 - Jambalaya

Oh man, I am really behind. Jambalaya was the second (in one week) new recipe that I made a couple weeks ago. Despite cheating a bit on the Zatarin's rice mix, this was a really tasty recipe.

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 medium yellow bell pepper, chopped
• 1 (14.5 ounce) can regular diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 cup water
• 1 (8 ounce) package ZATARAIN'S® Jambalaya Mix
• 1 (12 ounce) package andouille sausage, cut into 1/4-inch slices

The original recipe called for shrimp but I am way too cheap to experiment with expensive food in new concoctions. I will give shrimp a try the next time that I throw this one together. Other than that, I didn't change anything from the original recipe.

I don't have much to say other than this was a very acceptable rendition of jambalaya. It had perfect moisture content. Usually Zatarin's rice alone doesn't keep well for a second meal. However, with the addition of the diced tomatoes, it created a mixture perfect for leftovers. The diced tomatoes truly made the meal.

I will definitely make this again sometime. I will give it 8 stars out of 10. I am not sure if there is anything to improve upon this recipe other than to wean myself off of the Zatarin's mix. I would really like to make jambalaya entirely from scratch someday.

That's it for now.

Week 8 - Chicken Stir-Fry

Uh-oh. I am not quite on schedule with my project. I made two new recipes last week as result. The first recipe was a Chicken Stir-Fry. My stir-fry recipes are slowly improving, which is a good thing. However, they aren't quite where I would like for them to be.

The ingredients are listed below. The hoisin sauce, chili paste, green pepper and jalapeno pepper were my additions from the original recipe that I swiped from Allrecipes.com.

• 14 oz chicken pieces/tenders
• 3 tablespoons cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
• 1 tablespoon chili paste
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
• 3 tablespoons cooking oil, divided
• 2 cups broccoli florets
• 1 cup sliced celery (1/2 inch pieces)
• 1 cup thinly sliced carrots
• 1 small onion, cut into wedges
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules
• 1 jalapeno pepper
• 1 green pepper

Overall, I liked this attempt at stir-fry. It was a bit too spicy for John. He tried to use BBQ sauce to mask the spices. That, however, was somewhat of an offensive deviation from the chef's (my) intention for the recipe.

Nothing can beat the fresh vegetables in stir-frys. It probably would have worked with mushrooms as well. I might try adding that the next time I make it.

I think there needs to be a change made with the method of seasoning/marinading. The original recipe called for marinating the chicken, corn starch, soy sauce, and garlic powder in a sealable bag for 30 minutes. (I also added the hoisin and chili paste during this phase). It seemed that some of the flavor was lost as result. Perhaps, I just need to add a bit more of the sauces/spices when actually cooking the recipe. John had indicated that there should have been more soy sauce. Also, it seems that a thicker sauce would have been more appropriate. I had reduced the amount of corn starch but probably should have gone with the 3 tablespoons that the recipe called for.

I give this a 6.5 out of 10. I will definitely use this recipe as a base in the future, but it still needs to be modified.