If You Can’t Take the Heat, Stay in the Kitchen…

“Or, if you can’t take the taste, make the recipe anyway…” ~eam II

Yes, that’s my quote. I made it up. Why? Because eventually, we were going to get to those recipes that I just didn’t want to make.

Why not? Because I didn’t think I’d like the taste, or the ingredients, rather. But I said I’d make all 40 recipes in this Cook the 40 Challenge I gave myself, and so here are a few of the recipes that I kind of saved for the latter part of the year, because I wasn’t looking forward to eating them.

Photo of the magazine cover. — Best-ever recipes? Let’s see how the next two—even if I knew they wouldn’t be my favorites—measure up.

Cook the 40

Why take on Food & Wine’s best-ever recipes from their forty years in publication? Well, after making so many of the recipes so far (featured in earlier blog posts), I will admit that the magazine knows what it’s doing.

I was not looking forward to making the next two, but hey, what’s a challenge without a little challenge. Or two.

40 Years of Food & Wine

According to the September 2018 anniversary issue of Food & Wine, and editor Hunter Lewis, https://twitter.com/notesfromacook?lang=en, what makes a good recipe is it being delicious, of course, and (I think even more important sometimes) the best recipes “tell a story worth repeating.” Well said, Hunter.

And so what story will these two not-very-much-looked-forward-to-recipes tell? Let’s find out…

Tiki Snack Mix. No offense, but I don’t really like snack mixes, in general. Although this one does call for bacon…

Recipe Twenty-Four: Tiki Snack Mix

First of all, I was happy that I was able to find most of the ingredients in their exact form, although I did have to improvise a little bit.

While the recipe wasn’t a difficult one to make, it did include some ingredients that I had never bought before, and/or usually don’t eat or haven’t eaten. Things like candied pineapple, sesame seeds and honey.

I know, I know, I’m just not that into those things. But here goes…

I found candied pineapple, although not in ring form, but I did find dehydrated pineapple rings. Who knew such things can be found in the bulk section of the grocery store!

The recipe first called for cooking bacon and then cutting it into 1/2 inch pieces, to be mixed with the other ingredients.

Once mixed and the honey and soy sauce were added, it went onto a sheet pan and into the oven.

I may have overcooked it a little bit although it wasn’t really as dark as it appears in this photo.

And so, what did I think? It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In fact, it wasn’t bad at all, just not my thing. I’m not one to mix my sweet and savory but I can see that this would be great for someone who likes these kinds of snack mixes.

If that someone is you, I recommend you give this recipe from 2008 a shot. I am glad I did.

What Was I Doing in 2008? What Did I Eat? Where Did I Go?

2008! That was the year we moved into the new house we had built in New Braunfels. One of the best things about building your own house? Using your construction loan to buy lots of supplies and things on a credit card with points. This way, you save up those points to take a vacation after the house is done. Because you’ll really need a vacation!

That was actually advice given to us by the man we hired to build our house. Some of the best advice we’ve ever been given and we took it—all the way to London and Paris.

Nobody does fish & chips like the Brits!

Enjoying an amazing sandwich outside Notre Dame in Paris.
(And yes, my hair is orange. I was using a horrible store-bought brassy hair color because I thought I had too many gray hairs…blah.)

Note: The following recipe number (in the order I’m cooking them) is indeed out of sequence as this post is really about two recipes that I didn’t want to make.

Recipe Twenty-Six: Farro & Green Olive Salad with Walnuts & Raisins

According to Food & Wine, “when food bloggers hit the scene, a whole new slew of talent became part of the pages of F&W. Among the first was Heidi Swanson, who started writing her wonderful vegetarian food blog, 101 Cookbooks, in 2003.”

This next recipe is from Heidi Swanson. I admire her food blog success, even if I can’t recommend the flavors of this recipe. I’m sure someone out there will absolutely love it. I am not that person.

To be honest, I had never heard of farro before I saw this recipe. Do you know about farro?

The ingredients: well, at least I like lemons, olive oil and crushed red pepper… :/

I mixed all of the ingredients and I took three bites. It was three bites too many, but I tried.

Where Did I Go in 2013?

2013 was primarily the year of road trips, which included one major road trip that I had been wanting to take for a long time, and that was a trip to see the Grand Canyon.

Besides that Grand Canyon road trip in July in 2013, we also drove to Ruidoso, New Mexico in January, several other trips around the great state of Texas during that summer, and we also took a flight up north to hang out on the beach in Peter’s hometown of Michigan City, Indiana (and also to get pizza in Chicago before flying back home.)

Liberty’s first real snow experience in Ruidoso, New Mexico.

Ready for an epic road trip in July 2013!

Elda Fest 2013 saw us head to the Grand Canyon in July.

Seeing the Grand Canyon up close was an amazing experience.

When I think of where I went in 2013, I fondly remember the major bucket list item that was the Grand Canyon. Every view around the Grand Canyon was breathtaking.

There’s Always Pizza

There has been a joke at our house the last two years (while first making all of my 52 things recipes in 2018, and now this year with this challenge) that if a recipe doesn’t work out, I’ll just order pizza…

I will not say whether or not I ordered pizza on the days I made the two recipes above, but I will share the photo below of my all-time favorite pizza that I actually had during that trip to Chicago in 2013 that is mentioned above.

Thank God for pizza!

Elda XO