Cook Club: Week 3

So there I go - all promising an entry a week and then I immediately blow it. 

We did do cook club on the 20th.  I chose everything from the Cook's Country Cookbook I got for Christmas.  I don't know why I like the Cook's Country stuff, but it probably has something to do with the combination of watching America's Test Kitchen and then getting like ONE magazine of theirs that had a delicious Blueberry Grunt in it.   They also have a really good 1 skillet meals cookbook.

After cleaning the kitchen, I made Peach Squares - essentially they're like lemon bars only made with peaches.  I made them because Shawn's not a fan of lemon bars.  In the end, they were so much work (and they would have been less work if I just chopped the peaches with a knife instead of putting them in the food processor as instructed (of course, if I had a 12 cup processor, it would have been easy peasy).  I didn't take a picture (I meant to, but totally forgot).  Will I make them again?  maybe.  Did I like them?  not really - I would have preferred lemon bars.  2/5

So then I cleaned the kitchen again.  And then I started in on the rest of the meal - Oven Fried Chicken, Green Bean Almandine, and Pot Luck Baked Mac and Cheese.

First the Chicken:  It's not quite as good as real fried chicken, but it was easy to make and had good flavor - the marinade (buttermilk, dijon mustard and hot sauce) was wonderful and I'd be willing to use that same marinade but pan fry the chicken.  The biggest problem we had was that the chicken breasts I used were massive so I cut them up into pieces and we had 9 servings when it was all said and done.  4/5

Green Bean Almandine:  Or, as my coworker calls them, "Green Beans with dem little Almandines."  Easy-peasy and yes, there is an actual recipe for it. 5/5

Pot Luck Baked Mac and Cheese:  Oh. Em. Gee.  It comes out of the pot looking essentially like cheese soup with some macaroni thrown in, but then it goes into the oven and becomes a delicious, wonderful little casserole.  It has a slight kick to it (hot sauce), but it is WONDERFUL.  5/5 and even more importantly, this will become something that we'll make with some regularity.

Then I cleaned the kitchen again.  And that is the point when Shawn said that we should only do one recipe instead of a whole meal because we're essentially throwing a dinner party for ourselves.  So next week, we're only going to do one recipe instead of 4 or 5.