r/CookbookChallenge

Cooked a few recipes from When Southern Women Cook by ATK.

Fried boneless chicken thighs: 9/10. Going into permanent bi-weekly rotation. ATK’s testing shows here, crispiest chicken I’ve made at home. So good.

Drop biscuits: 7/10. Solid - no notes.

Chicken and pastry: 6/10. Leans hard on your stock. Use something homemade and I think this jumps a point. I used boxed stuff.

Fudge brownies: 7/10. Good. Surprisingly so, given they’re hitting a protein target. Don’t taste like a compromise. Would make again.

Marry me chicken: 8/10. The best thing in the book by a wide margin. Rich sun-dried tomato cream sauce, juicy chicken, tastes like a restaurant meal. Does not taste like health food. If you buy this book, make this but I still prefer the sunny kitchen’s marry me chicken recipe.

Seasoned crispy drumsticks: 7/10. Reliable weeknight protein. Nothing exciting, but good crust and easy. Dependable. You can find this recipe online.

Pick me up mocha smoothie: 4/10. Wanted to love it. Coffee, chocolate, protein, all in one glass sounds great. Just didn’t come together. Won’t repeat.

Rice: 4/10. Same story. Didn’t hit the way I wanted.
The thing that bugged me:

This book leans hard on healthy substitutions. Almond butter, almond milk, cacao powder, coconut cream, arrowroot powder, bone broth, on and on across basically every recipe. Two practical problems with that. It adds cost, because a lot of these are specialty items. And it makes the recipes feel less accessible, because calling for arrowroot powder on a weeknight is a barrier for a lot of people. I’ll also say this carefully because it’s not a light criticism…the constant swapping of regular ingredients for lower cal/lower fat versions across nearly every recipe can feel familiar to anyone who’s had a complicated relationship with food. Not saying the book promotes that. Just saying if you’re mindful of those patterns, worth knowing going in.

Tested four recipes over the past couple weeks. Short version: good book, not perfect, the planning system is better than the recipes.

What I made and how it went:

Dump and bake hidden protein pasta: 6/10. Fine. Easy to throw together but nothing about it made me excited to eat it. The “hidden protein” doesn’t do anything weird to the texture which is good, but this is firmly a Tuesday night I have nothing else going on meal, not something I’d make for anyone else.

Tangy maple barbecue sauce: 7/10. Genuinely better than bottled sauce. The maple keeps it from being a one-note sweet barbecue situation. Worth making if you have the time, but it adds to your prep so don’t count on this being a quick weeknight thing.

Sheet pan barbecue chicken and pineapple lettuce cups: 8/10. Best thing I made from this book. The pineapple and the sauce work well together and the chicken doesn’t dry out. Heads up though: this took me 30 minutes not the 15 the recipe implies. I’m also a more inexperienced cook so that might also be the reason why it took me longer. Also ditched the lettuce cups and used tortillas because my family isn’t a lettuce cup household and honestly it works better that way.

Salty peanut butter pretzel energy balls: 7/10. Good grab and go snack, nothing more. Make them on Sunday and you’re set for the week.

Who I’d recommend it to: Anyone who stares into the fridge at 5pm with no plan. The system genuinely helps with that.

Who I wouldn’t: If you want technically impressive recipes or anything that’s going to make people ask you for the recipe, this isn’t that book.

Overall I’d give it a 7.6. Not my favorite cookbook of the year but one that got me thinking about meal prepping in the kitchen.

All of our shorts can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/@PagetoPlate/shorts

Hi All!

Here is a recap of all of May and June recipes. We have been focusing on shorts to grow our audience but will be getting back to a mix of shorts and long formats in the near future!

We recommend all of these books and we have discovered that we want to make literally everything out of "Sweet Tooth" by Sarah Fennel!

Congratulations to Carolina Gelen - "Pass the Plate", and Hailee Catalano "By Heart" on winning James Beard awards! 🥳

Upcoming Recipes:

(Shorts)

Family Thai - Hot Dog Salad

Wagamama - Lychee Macha

By Heart - Sweet Pots w/ Peach Vinaigrette

Egg Rolls and Sweet Tea - Sweet Chili Peach Napa Slaw

One Plate at a Time - Peach Blueberry Crumbles

More is More - Curry Wings

(Long Format)

The Art of Gluten-Free Bread - Vanilla Cream and Strawberry Brioche Buns

Thank you all and happy cooking!

Halfway through the year and more than halfway through the challenge!

Creme brulee from Dominique Ansel's Life's Sweetest Moments - I have made creme brulee before from Ruhlman's Egg, which calls for futzing with little foil lids for each creme. Ansel's recipe was much easier. Turned out lovely. I appreciated the painstaking weight measurements (I ended up adding more egg yolk because mine didn't add up to the weight called for) and good instructions. Some nice stories in this book as well. A lot of the recipes are more involved. No, he didn't put a cronut recipe in the book. Found this book at Ollie's and glad I did.

Swedish meatballs from Scandinavian Cooking (pictured). A coworker accidentally purchased ground pork and beef blend instead of beef but their family doesn't eat pork so I made some meatballs! Recipe did not include gravy, which I like with swedish meatballs. I had them over mashed potatoes. They were good but not spectacular. I think I prefer the Scandinavian Feasts book I have reviewed a few months ago. I think I got this one from a library book sale or maybe a thrift store some time ago, first time cooking from it.

My challenge/project is to try at least three recipes out of my unused or underused books. Next up is What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking, by Caroline Chambers. Unwieldy title, but a great book.

First up is Peanutty Pork and Brussels. Doesn’t look like much, but it was the absolute standout winner of what I’ve made so far this year. Quick, extremely easy, and the family absolutely demolished it. Posting this reminded me to pick up the stuff to make it again. Technically this book belongs to my son. If he ever moves out and takes it away, I’ll be buying a new copy on the strength of this recipe alone. (I also have her new book in my cart as well speak.)

Second is Chicken Burrito Bowls. It’s what I think of as a “gets the job done” recipe. There’s nothing innovative or exciting, but it came together quickly and everybody ate it happily. That’s always a win.

Last is Grilled Pork Coconut Bowls. I was being lazy on this one. I had pork tenderloin, so I just sautéed that instead of grilling sliced pork. It was a little boring without the grilled meat, but obviously that’s on me. I’d definitely make it again because all of the other components were very good, but my note in the book reminds me to color inside the lines next time.

It’s actually been a while since I did all of these. I forgot to post it. Looking through reminded me how much I enjoyed this book and I pulled it back out to check out more seasonal things to try. Definite keeper.

It’s been a bit…

My ongoing project is to try and cook at least 3 recipes from my previously unused cookbooks. I’ve been intrigued with this one for a long time, but never got around to using it, so it’s perfect.

First, I made the Teurgoule. It is definitely not pretty. It was tasty though. And very simple. I’d definitely make it again. Actually the only reason I haven’t is because the only other rice pudding eater in the house has been out of town and I, personally, do not need to eat that much rice pudding.

Recipe #2 was the Double Crumb Halvah Cake. Loved this. I love halvah anyway, so any excuse to eat it is cool with me. It’s a really nice tea cake/bread. Not too sweet, and the halvah is different, but not so unusual that picky people would turn their nose up at it. The only change I’d make would be to marble the cake a bit before putting the crumb on and baking. The solid line of halvah and crumbs in the middle would have been better distributed a bit more evenly.

Recipe #3 was the Cocoa Brownies. A decent brownie recipe. Nothing earth shattering, but the texture was good and everyone liked them. They disappeared right quick.

Recipe #4 was the Sugared Sesame Banana Bread. This was a really nice banana bread. I’m not the biggest fan of bananas, so I thought the sesame was a really nice addition. Broke up the banananess a bit :) (My spouse has never quite got past their COVID era dive into banana bread and, at this point, I’m just thrilled over anything that’s a bit different from their standard recipe.)

Recipe #5 was a miss. We didn’t even remember pictures. We made the Rhubarb and Pink Peppercorn Tart. (Banana Bread Dude is also a huge fan of rhubarb.) This wasn’t bad, but also wasn’t great either. I can’t see making it again. I did appreciate the addition of polenta for some texture, but it just didn’t quite work.

The only other quibble so far with the book is that the index is a bit funky. Some recipes get a bit lost. The rice pudding is only in the index as Tergoule. If you forget the name and look for rice pudding, you’re out of luck. The banana bread shows up in the bread list, and alphabetically under “Sugared,” but not under banana. Not a big deal, but can get a bit annoying.

But, aside from that tiny gripe, I really like the book. It’s got a great selection of recipes based on unusual and different flavor profiles and spices. Definitely a keeper.