A couple of weeks ago, I bought a magazine in the checkout line at the grocery store. Not really a new thing for me -- I'm always pulled in by those little cookbook magazines full of crock pot meals, or casseroles, or just the ones that promise to tell me new and exciting things to do with ground beef and chicken. And I usually do try a couple of recipes that don't linger in anyone's memory long enough to repeat them again later.
What's different about this one is that I've made a LOT of the recipes (and plan to make most of them again) --
Cuban Sandwiches
Chicken Enchiladas with spinach and plain yogurt inside
Quesadillas with salsa and black beans inside (the little guys eat a lot of plain cheese quesadillas, but these were tasty for the grownups, too!)
Hashbrown and Ham Casserole
And there was that one unfortunate shrimp and rice concoction that made my husband almost head out for a pizza after it had gone uneaten.
(Except for the awful shrimp and rice thing, I plan on making most of them again. And there are a bunch of others I want to try, including the cheese souffle.)
One of the things I really love about this magazine is that the meals are suitable for large families. I've done some scaling up, but not nearly as much as usual. And the recipe call for actual ingredients and aren't riddled with specific brand names. (Yes, I know that I can use whatever brand I want, and I almost never buy the brand the recipe calls for, but it's nice that the magazine isn't one big advertisement.)
Most of the recipes seem to have been reprinted from other publications, but I didn't see them the first time around and I'm looking for ideas that I can cook and that my family will eat, not originality.
And maybe it's just me, but there seems to be a lot of sour cream called for. Works for us, because we all love sour cream. But I've bought endless containers and still haven't managed to make the
Sour Cream Blueberry Pie from Jo's Country Junction. We finally ate the blueberries with the yogurt left over from the enchiladas.
