I think just about everyone knows how (un)talented I am in the kitchen. But sometimes, I love a good challenge.
Recently, my buddy Maris posted on her blog “6 Recipes Anyone Can Cook.” Anyone? Really? I smell a challenge. And I decided to test that theory in two parts.
So over the long weekend, I tackled part one, which included making the following recipes:
- Mixed Fruit & Nut Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
- Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Swiss Chard
- Macaroni & Cheese with Peas
I did my research, went to the grocery store, got cookin’ and wrote a little review of each with an assigned level of difficulty (1 = anyone can do it, 5 = I’ll leave it to Martha).
And here’s how it turned out:
Mixed Fruit & Nut Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette
Photo borrowed (with permission) from Maris’ blog
Level of difficulty: 1
Review: I LOVE this salad. I make it regularly in the summer and when I want to mix up my weekday dinners. Sometimes I’ll substitute mixed greens for spinach and recently added chicken breast strips for extra protein. I love the mix of cranberries, raisins and crunch from the walnuts. Adding goat cheese makes even more heavenly. But be light with the balsamic, I overdid it once and it killed that entire bowl of salad. Ick.
Whole Wheat Spaghetti with Swiss Chard
Level of difficulty: 3.5
Review: This was the dish I was MOST nervous about making. When I read over the directions, I had a near panic attack at the thought of sauteing and simmering garlic. Then adding the cooked pasta on top of it and stirring? Hmmm, I’m more of a one box/pot dinner kind of girl. But this was easier to make than I thought it would be and the taste is amazing. Sure, I got a little burn from the olive oil in the frying pan, but once I added the cheese and noodles, it all came together perfectly. I made enough to eat this whole week for dinner. Note: I substituted the Pecorino-Romano cheese for Parmesan and it still turned out great.
Macaroni & Cheese with Peas
Level of difficulty: 2
Review: I love mac and cheese (or just cheese). Normally I blue-box it but I’m always looking for ways to make it healthier and natural (given that powdered cheese isn’t really…cheese). And the directions to make this are super easy, but somehow, I managed to mess it up a little bit. Somewhere between mixing in the cheese, milk and flour, it went a little awry. I blame that on the milk and cheese I used because I deviated slightly from the recipe and went with fat-free options. But it’s good and a great way to get a serving of veggies, although next time I would halve the amount of peas used or try other veggies too.
And that is part one of this culinary test. I give myself a B+ grade and agree that anyone could probably cook these, just make sure to take your time on the middle recipe because there are definitely a few extra steps :)
Part two will be coming up soon and I’m curious to see how I handle the next batch of recipes.
What about you? What’s the easiest dinner or recipe you like to make for weekends or weeknights? Do you get a lot of your cooking or dinner ideas online? Or do you have go-to resources for recipes and easy dinners?
Me on BlogHer! That’s right, yesterday’s post was picked up by BlogHer! Very exciting. You can check it out here.
These all look fantastic! The mac and cheese sounds particularly good to me–might have to do a carb splurge on that one sometime!
I love macaroni and cheese with some broccoli and grilled chicken strips from Trader Joe’s. LOVE. Easy. You can’t go wrong with it. Try it and thank me later =) Protein + veggies + cheese + pasta? An entire meal in a pan!
I shouldn’t have read this post while I was already hungry… Ugh.
Yum! Yum! Yum!
I’m not a fan of salads but that looks gooood!
oh adding veggies to mac and cheese always makes me feel healthier, haha. i may have to look into that one.
go jessica! you’ve actually given me a little more confidence to try one (yes, just one – baby steps) of the recipes on my own. I’m thinking the mac&cheese with/ peas because YUM.
and congrats on your 20sb award today!
Salads are always easy for weeknights and I’m a big fan of leftovers. I do most of my cooking on the weekends and eat leftovers throughout the week. I get a lot of my recipes from the Web — I subscribe to some newsletters and lots of foodie blogs, plus Google is my friend when I’m looking for something specific. In the winter I use my crockpot A LOT because it is easy as hell to make tasty food in that thing.
Yay for cooking adventures:-) SO, I’m going to be the totally annoying RD and throw out the fact that peas aren’t really veggies…they’re carbs! I LOVE mac & cheese too, but I’d add broccoli instead of peas. The whole wheat spaghetti recipe looks delish…can’t wait to try it!
Good for you for branching out and cooking something new! I adore Maris and her blog (and her recipes). Broccoli is really good in the mac and cheese recipe instead of peas. I can’t wait to hear how the other recipes turned out!
Great job trying something out of your comfort zone! I usually stick to recipes with short lists of ingredients because too many and I get overwhelmed. I find most of mine at Allrecipes.com. I like that you can read reviews first. I also like the recipes from Real Simple magazine (they’re on their website, too). Because, well, they usually are real simple!
I love how delicious this all looks! I’m all about trying out new recipes this year as part of my new year’s resolution (and videoing the attempts sometimes, lol) – walnuts in salad are one of my favourite things :)
I get lots of recipes online and I also have a growing cookbook collection. Lots of times, though, I just make things up! Most of them are edible, or at least my husband says they are.
Nice work, lady! I’m going to have to try out some of these recipes because I am always on the hunt for something new.
I cannot wait to hear your next reviews!
Good for you! I loved reading this since I can’t cook. Can’t wait for part 2!
Aw they look so delicious – the best part is so easy to cook!!! I love the colors of the salad – and mac cheese peas is my kids favorite!!!
The easiest recipe is Totellini with peas and prosciutto and cream sauce. Super easy and yum yum!!!
Cooking greens scares me because I’ve never made them before. But you had no horror stories, so I guess maybe I should try it one day.
I usually get a lot of my recipes off Food Network. Sometimes I’ll go to the site or just watch it on TV and be like, I want to make that now. AllRecipes.com is a good one too!
Shrimp or chicken fajitas are always a fast go-to meal, spaghetti too.
congrats on the blogher shoutout. very cool – i saw you there today! :)
and every recipe i post on my blog is easy. i’m not a chef at all. although making homemade lasagna on new year’s eve will go down in history as one of my greatest feats of all time. iron chef style. :)
I love cooking and would love to take cooking classes to learn to do things better…or make more elaborate dishes. I am absolutely in love with Pioneer Woman’s cookbook (blog too), Top Secret Restaurant Recipes I & II and several other cooking blogs. You also can’t go wrong with good ol Betty or Kraft’s online site. Love it!
I think I’m gonna try that mac cheese and peas. I have a good one where you bake it with chicken while sauteing tomatoes with pressed garlic and minced online. Combine and its heaven. Cooking with olive oil always makes me nervous as I usually push the heat to high like an idiot and it splatters.
This is great!! The spaghetti with swiss chard looks wonderful. I sauteed kale yesterday for the first time… there’s something yummy and filling about wilted greens.