Life List: Cookbook Challenge Update

You may have noticed (or not, whatever) that I haven't gotten around to doing a wrap-up post in months and months. Mainly because I finished my Bluebell challenge and didn't have enough stuff going on to make a wrap-up post interesting.

But! I am still (very slowly) working on my Cook-All-The-Way-Through-A-Cookbook Challenge! Just as a refresher, I'm cooking through the "Bride and Groom First and Forever" Cookbook, which Matt and I got as a wedding gift. I have made many delicious recipes from it; Matt has cooked none. (Though when I get to the section on breakfast, you better believe I'm going to be recruiting his help. He's the king of homemade breakfasts!)

Thai-Style Corn Soup with Shrimp and Green Curry

The coconut milk-base broth was very flavorful, but probably could use juuuust a smidge less fish sauce. But that's a very small complaint, considering I ate three bowls for dinner. I wouldn't call this soup spicy by any stretch, but you can add more green curry to make it hotter if you'd like. Overall, once the shrimp was peeled and deveined, this recipe came together very quickly.

Summertime Marinara

This was much better than the last time I tried to make marinara! It turned out really delicious.

Edit: I wrote that description in August. It's now November. I don't remember anything else about the marinara, so I'm sorry that's all the description you get. I imagine it was similar to every other type of marinara you can make or get at the store. Use in-season tomatoes if you make your own!

Harvest Apple Crisp

This is the first dessert I've made in a very, VERY long time. I'm just not a dessert-maker. I'm a dessert-EATER, but I don't like to know how much sugar and butter are in what I'm eating, so I rarely bake anything. But this one's got apples in it! Healthy! It didn't have very many ingredients, so it was easy to assemble once I had the apples peeled — ya'll! peeling apples is a huge pain! — and it made the house smell deeeelicious when it was baking. I took it to a book club meeting, and then I brought the leftovers home and Matt demolished the rest of the pan.

Wild Mushroom Risotto

I had never cooked with cremini mushrooms before, and I couldn't imagine they would do THAT much to elevate a dish I've made several times before, but man! It tasted so much fancier with the expensive mushrooms than it does with button 'shrooms! This was quite delicious. Even Matt liked it, and he doesn't really care for mushrooms of any variety.

Rise-and-Shine Smoothie

This orange-banana-strawberry smoothie was pretty good, and I'm not really a smoothie person. (Why drink your meals when you can eat them instead?) And I guess you could say the smoothies turned out to be the best of both worlds, because after it was all blended together, it was almost too thick to drink. Matt and I ended up eating our breakfast smoothies with spoons.

Completed: 45 of 150 recipes

What have you been making for dinner (or breakfast) lately?