Cooking for One - wrapup

Confession time: In case you haven't noticed, I dropped the last course. It was essentially just fresh pears served with unshelled nuts which you roasted in the oven at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. Pears aren't really in season right now (in fact, they didn't even have any at the store yesterday), and I also just wasn't in the mood to go on a mad hunt for unroasted, unshelled nuts. If I happen across either this fall, I'll make the effort to come back to it. Otherwise, sorry kids. Two menus in and I'm already skipping recipes. *sigh*

In any case, this was really a standout menu. Troy and I thoroughly enjoyed this meal, much more so than the previous one, and I'm planning on adding it to my regular repertoire of dinners. Even with a crabby toddler hanging on my legs, I still managed to get everything prepped and cooking in about 20 minutes. It worked out so that by the time we got her off to bed, I had just enough time to make the salad and then T & I sat down and ate everything in peace. Ahhhh.

I especially loved the chicken, and I can already see myself making it often this winter with a whole cut-up chicken. I love anything that makes it's own sauce, as well as gives me a chance to use my big dutch oven. Salad was great too. Very light. As I mentioned before, T said he'd eat that salad anytime. I will probably add tomatoes to it the next time I make it. Not traditional, I know, but I love tomatoes in my salads.

I think the etuvée was a bit of a dud, although I did like the idea of steaming vegetables on top of the rice to save time and space. I'm still 50-50 on whether I'd make this particular recipe again, but I'll probably file away the veg idea for future use, maybe with a quinoa pilaf.