The beginning of "Giada Delaurentiis" Month!

This week we served up some recipes from Giada Delaurentiis' cookbook "Giada's Kitchen: New Italian Favorites" for our families to devour.  We chose this cookbook because we love Giada AND because we wanted some recipes that looked easy enough to tackle on our first go at food blogging!

The Book:

Giada's Kitchen: New Italian Favorites

The Author:

Giada de Laurentiis

The Menu:

Orzo-Stuffed Peppers - Page 132

Beef and Butternut Squash Stew - Page 138

Asparagus and Zucchini Crudi - Page 78

Chocolate Panna Cotta with Amaretto Whipped Cream - Page 174

The Undertaking:

Our menu for the evening began with Orzo-Stuffed Peppers.  The filling was super easy to put together.  We didn’t have a baking dish small enough for the 6 peppers that the recipe calls for though, so we used what we had…a larger dish…which made it difficult to keep the peppers upright.  We advise that you use a small enough dish to keep the peppers nice and snug and standing upright!

For the Asparagus and Zucchini Crudi prep included slicing veggies and dressing a salad…also super easy to do.  Fun fact: We used my mandoline to slice the zucchini!  I love my mandoline and haven’t used it in such a long time.  The last time that I used it was to make home made Cactus Cut Potatoes…you know the potato chips that you can get from Boston Pizza! YUM YUM!  I used to be so addicted to those little potato slices, that I tried making my own dipping sauce for them which did not turn out.  After my failed attempt at my own dip, I called Boston Pizza and asked them what was in their “Cactus Cut Potato Dipping Sauce”, and to my amazement they actually told me!  Wanna know the secret?!?!?  Do ya?  Comment on my blog and I will email the BP’s recipe to you J

Anyways…back to Giada…

So far it was looking like we picked the right cook book for our first attempt at food blogging!

Next up on the menu was the Beef and Butternut Squash Stew.  Again, this was a simple dish to put together and the stew only has to simmer for an hour, so it’s also a quick meal!  The aroma that filled the air as the stew simmered was so appetizing that we couldn’t wait to get that mouth-watering wine injected stew onto the table so that we could taste it!

Now, for the dessert!  I am not going to lie…the only thing that I did was the whipping cream (the easy part).  Helen’s observation while preparing the dessert was to make sure that the milk was still warm when adding it to the chocolate.  She said that by adding room-temperature milk to the chocolate, the chocolate became chunky and she ended heating the chocolate again to get it smooth once more.  Also, when it came time to take the dessert out of the oven, the recipe did not specify whether we should cool the baking dish inside or outside of it’s water bath.  We made an executive decision to remove it from the water to cool it since we were using stoneware (we figured it would cool quicker if it was no longer in a stoneware water bath).

The Judgement:

The Peppers

“Enjoyed the subtle healthy flavors…my favorite of all of the courses” – Amber’s Man

“The taste of all of the flavors incorporated in one bite was good” – Helen’s Bob

The Stew

“Great Comfort Food” – Amber’s Man

“Not a fan of squash, but it was good” – Helen’s Bob (who after tasting the squash, ate everything except for the squash)

The Salad

“Too much Zucchini…it was also bland” – Amber’s Man

“I don’t like vegetables, but the raw asparagus was actually good” – Helen’s Bob

The Panna Cotta:

The men just summed up the dessert as being really tasty!

The Kids Vote:

The Peppers:

For the appetizer, we only served them the stuffing from the peppers since we know that none of our kids will eat peppers when served to them.  The kids enjoyed eating the orzo, but did not enjoy the tomatoes in the mixture.  They ate around the tomatoes.

The Stew & Salad:

I will start off with a tip…if you want your kids to try eating squash, feed it to them in a stew.  They will think that they are eating potatoes!

“I really like the stew.  I like the meat and I even like the potatoes!” – Amber’s Daughter

The Panna Cotta:

The kids gobbled up the chocolate panna cotta in no time!  They were asking for seconds even before we were able to serve the adults their portion of the dessert.  Unfortunately, we could not give anyone seconds, as there was no Panna Cotta to spare after feeding 10 people.

The “Leftovers” Verdict:

Stu was given the leftover stew to sample for the leftover verdict.

“It was good” - Stu

I might make this recipe again because I think that the stew would turn out incredible after sitting for a day.  The meat and squash would soaked up all of the flavor from the wine and just be so yummy!

Amber & Helen’s Overall Review:

If we were to make the peppers again, we would add more cheese…the cheese was what made the peppers great!  I loved the stew, but Helen found the meat tough and wanted a richer taste.  Perhaps next time we will stew the meat longer and add the squash later (so as to not over cook it).  We both agreed that the wine and sundried tomatoes were delightful additions to the recipe.

We suggest serving the salad with additional salt, pepper and lemon juice.  We also think it would have been better if we had left it marinating in the dressing for a while before serving it so that the zucchini could have absorb the flavor from the dressing…when preparing this course, we just tossed and served.

Now, for the dessert…we suggest doubling the recipe…because it was scrumptious!  Surprisingly, it was really rich (having been made from chocolate chips).  The whipping cream (my contribution to the dessert) lacked pizzazz…it might have been better with some more amaretto or the addition of cinnamon or something.

Other recipes that we plan on trying from the cookbook:

Linguine with Shrimp and Lemon Oil – Page 127

Salmon in Lemon Brodetto with Pea Puree – Page 166