GCC: Menu 27 - Spanish Lentils

April 03, 2011 by Monica in Cookbooks, Cooking Club, Gutsy Cooks Club, Main Courses

It felt good to be back in the kitchen this weekend. First order of business was taking care of lunch and what better way to do that then serve our gutsy cook option for this week, which was Spanish Lentils.

I could go on about how lentils is a pulse and not a grain and all that jazz, but then I wrote about it in our Gutsy Cook pre-cook post and you can read about it here.

This recipe was super easy to do, the only thing I found difficult was to get the lentils to be soft enough for the dish. I cooked them as noted, but after 40 minutes they were still hard, not even to “al dente” stage, but “hard”. So, I cooked them an extra 15 minutes and they still did not reached the right stage. I was afraid of cooking them more, since they still had to be cooked with the other ingredients, so I took them out and hoped for the best.

GCC: Menu 25 - Sweet and Sour Chicken

March 20, 2011 by Monica in Chicken, Cookbooks, Cooking Club, Dinner, Gutsy Cooks Club, Main Courses, Quick Meal, Vegetable

I love quick food, so there is not surprise that I live anything that can be cooked in a wok. The prep work may be a bit long, since they use a long list of ingredients, but for the most part, that is the only thing you need to do, then it’s just a matter of firing up that wok and step by step you pile on the good stuff and end up with this:

Oh yes, it did taste as good as it looks.

GCC: Menu 24 - Irish Stew and Ficelles

March 13, 2011 by Monica in Bread, Cookbooks, Cooking Club, Dinner, Gutsy Cooks Club, Main Courses, Meat

This weeks Gutsy Cook Menu is a tribute to the upcoming Saint Patrick celebration. Chosen by Shandy of Pastry Heaven, it was the perfect Saturday night dinner. The Florida weather even cooperated, since we were enjoying a nice sunny, COLD day. Perfect for a stew, with a crusty homemade bread. There was a third option of dessert – French Apple Tart, which I skipped.

I’m not a huge meat eater, in fact I really try not to eat meat at all, but lamb is just too good to pass up and this weeks stew called for lamb as the main protein ingredient. While it is a bit pricy, the fact that this was feeding only 3 of us, and one of those was a child, I got away with spending about $14 bucks for 1 pound. And it was just the right amount and we still have some leftover for Tom to take to work on Monday.

As like any savory dish I try out of a cookbook, I tend to use it as a springboard for me to put my own twist on it. And this one was no exception. The instructions tells you to pretty much layer all of the ingredients in a heavy casserole, season and bake for one and half hours.

Raw.

I just could not bring myself to follow this.