Cookbook Challenge: Chloe’s Kitchen

Chloe’s Kitchen is yet another cookbook I don’t own, but I’m pretty sure I’m going to buy it.  There are quite a few online resources (but it seems like Amazon took down a bunch of the recipes on the preview this past week?  Am I just nuts?), including her blog, so I’ve had a decent amount of recipes to choose from.  And I really think I like most of them!  And the ones I haven’t made still look tasty!  That usually means I need to own the book eventually.  Maybe when my summer of poor is over.  I needed to detox from beans and sweets last week, so I decided to make some smaller things that could be eaten alongside of a HUGE SALAD.  I ate so many huge salads last week.  Mmmm.

A backdrop I’ll never use again.

Yeah, this photo was not easy to color balance, everyone.  But these Crispy Potato-Leek Patties with Lemon-Dill Dip are mighty delicious, no matter what color napkin you eat them with.  Bonus: I had all of the ingredients already in my kitchen!  Well, so that means I used Yukon Gold potatoes instead of Russets, but I like the texture of those better anyway.  Creamier.  I was afraid that the recipe for the patties was almost too simple, but with only salt and pepper added to season them, the flavor of the leeks and the buttery-ness of the potatoes really shines.  And they fried up so nice!  I’ve finally gotten comfortable with pan frying patties and burgers and things.  (Without smoking out my apartment.)  The lemon dill sauce is nice, too, but is nicest eaten with the potatoes.  This will be a trend in my review of the sauce recipes that I’ve tried, by the way.  Kind of ‘meh’ on their own, but when combined with the rest of the components, awesome!

Any excuse.

If any cookbook I look through has a falafel recipe, it will be one of the first things I make.  Any excuse to get more falafel into my belly.  So when I saw the Falafel Sliders, I was like, ‘Cha!  Falafel!’  Except I made mine into 5 regular sized burgers because I don’t mess around with sliders.  At least, not when I’m cooking for just me.  Sliders for one just sounds kind of depressing.  Sliders are party food!  Burgers can be eaten alone, at your kitchen table, while perusing the internet.  Gah, I’m sad, aren’t I?  Anywho, I really loved the addition of sun dried tomatoes to the mix.  I did not use the oil packed kind, but just added a few drops of oil in case it needed the moisture or something.  They formed into perfect patties and fried up like a dream!  They got nice and crispy on the outside, while staying soft on the inside.

Patties!  I’m so good at making patties now, everyone.  I’m pretty proud of it.  As for the sauces that go with these lovelies, again, they were just ok!  The avocado hummus was downright weird…I’m not really sure why the chickpeas are even necessary, and the 1/4 cup of oil is definitely not necessary.  I only added 2 Tbsp of it, and even so the hummus was overwhelmingly olive oil-y.  Next time I would just mush up an avocado with some lemon juice and little cayenne pepper.  The tahini sauce was nothing totally special either.  Just kind of bland-ish.  But somehow, when I combined the two of them with a tomato and the falafels, magic happened.  It tasted amazing!  How odd.  But happy odd.

The last recipe I tried last week was the Tempeh Piccata.  I know, you’re obviously saying that isn’t tempeh, and you’re right because it isn’t.  The Kroger I frequent has stopped carrying tempeh, and it pisses me off.  They started carrying all this other awesome shiz, like Daiya, but discontinued the tempeh.  Like, hey lets stop carrying whole foods in favor of fancy processed stuff!  It’s like totally bittersweet, you know?  Anyway, I thought it would be ok to make this with those Kroger Simple Truth vegan chicken strips, but I was kind of wrong.  I never noticed before that they had a definite…flavor, but they do.  It kind of went weirdly with the piccata sauce.  Also, I like the piccata from Appetite for Reduction better in general.  It just has a nicer flavor and doesn’t contain, like, a million tablespoons of oil and margarine.  But this wasn’t bad.  I ate it over pasta, just because I wanted pasta and that’s how I roll.  I would try it again with tempeh to see if I like it better, but I would also take out some of the fat.

All in all, a pretty good week.  I’ve had some successes so far this week too!  I’m generally noticing that there is a lot of added fat that you can easily remove most of without sacrificing anything.  She’s also really liberal with her use of salt, which doesn’t bother me, but also isn’t for everybody.  Come back next week for more burgers and lots of noodles!