Trying out new recipes

I’ve made two ‘dud’ recipes in the past two weeks. I guess that’s part of trying out new recipes, but it’s still somewhat disappointing.

Last night I decided to make zucchini sticks, which I love, since my grandmother gave me some leftover caesar dressing I wanted to use up (it was a great dip!). I’ve never made zucchini sticks at home, but I thought, why not? I even found a recipe for baked zucchini sticks on Epicurious.

So I made up some bread crumbs, did the triple-dipping thing (flour, egg, bread-crumb topping) and stuck them in the oven. Well, they were edible… but it’s a good thing I really like zucchini because that’s pretty much all they tasted like.

The moral of the story: some things taste better fried. No, wait, everything tastes better fried. So I guess I should say there are some things that only taste good fried!

I don’t know if I’ll actually try making fried zucchini sticks one of these days because (a) I try to avoid fatty foods and (b) frying makes a giant mess and stinks up the house. Oh, and it scares me. I spilled some olive oil from a dish in the oven the other day and it set the oven on fire…

By the way, the other dud was a recipe for Moroccan Chickpea Stew. I thought it would be really flavourful, which I guess it was, but I found the tomato flavour overpowering. Maybe I’m just not used to eating tomatoes anymore? (MB isn’t a fan.) Actually, not true – I had a tomato sandwich the other day and it was GREAT. Yum. But anyway, I don’t think I’ll be making that recipe again.

On the other hand, one new recipe I tried recently had my friend raving about it – it’s a good way to make cauliflower interesting (recipe here). I didn’t think it was that great, but I’ll probably make it again just to see how it turns out.

Some food blogs I like: Smitten Kitchen (beautiful photos), Chocolate and Zucchini (there's an English version of her blog as well), Not Martha (not just a food blog)and 30 Bucks a Week. I just recently discovered One Frugal Foodie. And I also regularly check out Epicurious (obviously) and Mark Bittman's column in the New York Times.