Everyday Food Challenge number 2

Maybe this isn't going to come as much of a surprise to anyone who's been keeping up with my blog recently, but I'm now officially throwing my hat in the ring and announcing that I'm planning on cooking through the first Everyday Food book, Great Food Fast. 

This book was published in 2007 and over that 4 year period I've only tried a handful of the recipes - many of which became our go-to dinners. The Shrimp Pad Thai recipe is wonderful, and although I've never blogged about it, I've made it for friends and everyone is surprised how delicious it is and simple to make. Of course, I go on and on about Easy Tirimisu. Every winter I find myself going back to the Curried Carrot Soup recipe.

However, I've had a whole load of failures from the book over the years. Like the Spaghetti and Turkey Meatballs which we thought were bland, Enchiladas with Pumpkin Sauce which tasted just odd and the Blueberry Crumb Bars weren't very good at all. The Whole-Wheat with Roasted Eggplant and Tomatoes was a real go-to for us 3 years ago, but now I'm not quite on board with it since discovering the Penne alla Norma from the latest Everyday Food book (which is a more revised version of that recipe). And, most recently, the Orzo and Snap Pea Salad I made 3 weeks ago we disliked because it wasn't the most flavourful - and the snap peas browned from the lemons which made them quite unappealing.

My goal isn't to do what I did with Fresh Flavour Fast. I had a maternity leave and heaps of time to nail that one down. My expectation is to try one or two new recipes a week and I'll create a list of links along the right side of the blog to correspond with every recipe entry. This is just a way of experimenting, documenting and sharing the successes and any interesting things about these recipes. Some I probably won't try (like any dish which includes steamed fish) but for the most part, these Everyday Food recipes are a lot of fun and are a great way to try new things without investing a whole lot of effort and time. There really are a ton of potentially delicious opportunities here! So keep up with me and we'll see how this goes...