project forty: cooking (8/100)

I have seriously not been keeping up with Project Forty.  Gotta get back in the game.

#19: Cook at least 100 recipes from The New Best Recipe.  Recent additions include:

6/100: Pancakes.  Nothing special.  They're fine, but no particular improvement on Joy that I can tell.  It was nice to see them explicitly recommend the lemon-and-whole-milk substitute for buttermilk that I've been improvising for the last couple of years.

7/100: Lemon-parmesan brown rice pilaf.  I love brown rice.  My family does not.  So I try to sneak it into our meals at every possible opportunity. keyne is very polite and patient but consistently avoids it.

This, she told me, was probably the best brown rice dish I'd ever made.  Brown rice cooked slowly in broth in the oven, then tossed with lemon juice, lemon zest, and parmesan.  She went back for seconds.  It was a home run.

8/100: Butternut squash soup.  I made this tonight for T-day tomorrow, so the jury is not entirely in, but I'm not sure I did right by it.  I ended up with a lot more liquid than they said I would (about 4 cups rather than 2½-3) and it didn't blend very smoothly.  I'll try it another time when I have a proper vegetable steamer and see if it works out better.

Tomorrow: brined turkey, at last!