Green Beans with Gado Gado Sauce

Love this! Andrew thought that this was a great dinner. He loved the flavors in the Gado Gado sauce, but he told me that the green beans were too crunchy and the sauce was a bit bland. I agree with him completely about the green beans. I didn't steam them long enough. I really enjoyed this and I will definitely make it again. The recipe was fairly simple. The sauce was quick to make and it all came together really well. There was enough left over for my lunch tomorrow. Maybe the beans wont be as crunchy after a night in the fridge.

Mexican Pinto Beans and Brown Rice

I love cooking a new recipe every night. It's like an adventure every day. This dish was quick and easy to make. After the last two nights I was ready for something easy. I didn't have any pinto beans, so this became Red Beans and Rice. The whole apartment smelled yummy as it simmered on the stove. We couldn't wait to eat it. Thinking back, I should have de-seeded the chipotle peppers before I added them to the pot. After one bite my lips were on fire. Andrew decided not to eat it. We are having a Mexican themed luncheon on Thursday. I think I'll make this again tomorrow to take to work, just not as spicy!

Potatoes Anna

Another Eat Clean recipe today. I had Russet and sweet potatoes on hand, so I used both in the dish. Unfortunately I don't have a very good concept of time, so the bottom (that became the top after it was cooked) burned around the edges. I used the food processor to slice the potatoes for me, so the only part that took a lot of time was the layering.

I put the pan on the stove, turned on the burner, and started layering potato slices in a pretty spiral pattern. This took longer than I thought it would. The perfectionist in me took over. By the end of the first layer the pan was very hot and the potatoes had started down their path of eventual charring. After 4 layers of potatoes and 3 layers of onions I was tired of layering. The potatoes smelled good and tasted decent, however Andrew decided not to eat them. He saw me make it and told me that there were too many onions. I actually cut the amount of onion down! Anywho, the potatoes tasted a bit strong on the rosemary and were way too labor intensive for my taste. Either I have to learn to leave my OCD at the kitchen door or I need to find a way to make these potatoes tastier if I'm going to make this again.

Ratatouille

We decided to invite another couple over for dinner because this dish made so much. Even after cutting the recipe in half we were afraid that there would be too much.

Dana and Mark Poling came over to our apartment shortly after church, but the food was not ready. Everyone sat around for a bit while I finished sauteing all the veggies before they went into the oven. We played some games and then a few more. When the food was done we were all starving. We had the ratatouille over brown rice. I think the rice made it a lot better than it would have been on it's own. Dana and Mark enjoyed it so much that they had 3 servings each! Andrew didn't like it very much. He said that everything seemed mushy. Between the four of us we ate it all. I couldn't tell if it really was THAT good or if we were all THAT hungry. Mark said that he would gladly replace the typical Sunday Roast, Carrots and Potatoes with Sunday Ratatouille.

In the end, I really enjoyed it, but Andrew did not. This might be something we eat with the Polings again, but I'm not going to go to all the trouble of fixing this again for just Andrew and me. I don't think I could eat that much Ratatouille by myself.