BLUEBERRY-NECTARINE GALETTE PG 291
Serves 6
One 9-inch refrigerated piecrust
2 medium ripe nectarines or peaches, peeled, pitted, and thinly sliced
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries (keep frozen until ready to use)
2 Tbl. sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. cornstarch
Check the cookbook for more information on the recipes. Enjoy!!
I 
thought that there were a lot of ingredients for the beans and rice. I didn't know what pink beans were, so I used pinto beans. I found the recipe to be very tasty and colorful. I really liked it and good thing as I was the only one that would eat the leftovers :) Doug, Brock and I all tried the recipes and Doug said that they were okay, Brock liked the meat and I liked both recipes. We did eat the meat in the tortilla like a taco, like Sean did. I would definitely cook both recipes again. Good job picking them out!
For the most part we liked this meal. Rich really liked the Risotto. I used chicken instead of steak since I had plenty of chicken and no steak. I had fun making the marinade as I had never used a fresh chili pepper before. It always sounded like too much work to seed etc. But, I donned some gloves and seeded and chopped away! I used a blender to mix it up and marinated it for about an hour or more so it had good flavor. I cooked it on a grill pan. The risotto took longer than 20 minutes to cook and at least 4 cups of liquid. I watched Rachel Ray 30 Minute Meals today and she made a risotto. She heated her broth first so that might make a difference in the cooking time. She also said you only need to stir it for a minute or two each time you add the liquid so you don’t need to be stirring constantly. It is something I will experiment with the next time I make a risotto. It was tasty and creamy though. I didn’t add the chives because I didn’t have any. I wasn’t a big fan of the asparagus. I really like asparagus but roasting it just seemed to kind of shrivel it up and it was crunchier than I prefer. Maybe I needed to move the oven rack closer to the burner. I also didn’t care for the garlic powder on it. But, we both liked it well enough to eat it :) These three meals made for a very tasty meal and leftovers.
We had the Stuffed Peppers and Fruit Tart last night and I thought they were both delicious. Rich proclaimed them “ok”. For the Stuffed Peppers I used red peppers and followed the recipe pretty much as written with a few minor changes. I didn’t use any olive oil to brown the meat because I used a nonstick pan and it didn’t need it. I used regular rice (about 1.5 cups cooked) instead of instant rice. I used almost 2 cups of frozen corn which I cooked up in the microwave first instead of canned because I am not a big fan of canned corn. I omitted the cilantro because I didn’t have any. I did cook the red peppers in the microwave first for a few minutes to soften them just a little before stuffing and cooking them in the oven. It was an easy dish to prepare and the flavor was really good with the rice, meat, beans, corn, and spices and sour cream.
A yummy blend of textures, flavors and spices with gooey melted cheese on top!
I followed the recipe for the fruit tart pretty much as directed also with a few minor changes. I didn’t have a tart pan so I used a pie tin. I made my own crust because I find it easier than wrangling with the premade- store bought ones. I used the regular cream cheese and the final product was not thin at all, in fact it was maybe a bit too thick. I only mixed it up with a fork so I think it would have been lighter if I would have used a mixer to whip some air in. It was still really good though. For the fruit I used fresh strawberries and blueberries. I sprinkled a little sugar on them because I didn’t plan to use the apricot preserves since I didn’t have any and it worked out great although the apricot would have been a nice flavor to add also. I put a plop of whip cream on top for the fun of it. We both really enjoyed it although Rich thought the filling part was a little too sweet and we both agreed you could probably add less powdered sugar and it would still be really good. This would be a good summer time recipe to use with fresh peaches, nectarines, berries etc.
Woah! Makes you want to dig into the picture with a fork doesn’t it? :)
We all loved these two dishes and would definitely make them again. The testers here were Sterling, Nika, Isabelle, Max and me. I did make a few changes. For the tacos I used chicken instead of pork since we had plenty of chicken (Nika stocked the freezer when they were in season :)). I ended up adding a little water as the chicken cooked to keep it moist. We also used corn tortillas instead of flour since that is what was in the freezer. You could easily adjust the “heat” by adding a little less of the chipotle chilles but we didn’t think it was too terribly spicy. The chipotle chiles in adobo sauce did give the meat a nice smoky flavor. For the Beans and Rice I used a can of black beans and a can of pinto beans. We didn’t have any instant brown rice so I used 1 cup of regular white rice and added more liquid. I also omitted the dried Thyme since Nika didn’t have any (I am visiting at Nika’s). Again, the “heat” of this dish could be adjusted by adding less of the cayenne. I didn’t feel it was too spicy though. We served the two dishes with a moist cornbread type side dish from a packet I bought at the store (it is like that corn mix stuff they serve at Chevy’s) lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese and sour cream. The whole meal made for excellent leftovers. I liked Leslee’s idea of cooking the meat in the crockpot but I didn’t get it started soon enough to do it that way. I hope the rest of you get a chance to try these two recipes.
The fruit tart was very good. I used frozen peaches because I was too lazy to buy fresh fruit and slice it up :) It was good; but it would have been really good with the fresh fruit. 
After product. 
Mmm this was one tasty meal! I made a few changes to both recipes to fit our likes and the available ingredients but they turned out great.
For the pork I decided to use a pork roast and cook it in the crock pot. The recipe looked very good but I am not a huge fan of chunked meat in tacos and prefer shredded so that is what I did. Summer and I had gone to the store in the morning to get the supplies, including the chipotle chilies. After I got home and started dumping things in the crock pot I noticed that the chilies had wheat flour in them so I couldn’t use them. Because I didn’t want to go to the store again I added some brown sugar to make it sweeter along with the spices called for. I also used a bigger can of tomatoes instead of the sauce since it was going to be cooking for a while. Later Sean went to the store for me and found a different kind of chipotle chilies and we added some in after the pork was shredded up. Sorry for the long story on that recipe!
I usually don’t cook with instant rice so I used regular white rice and cooked everything in the rice cooker. For some reason I kept thinking I needed tomato paste instead of sauce (not sure why) so in the end I mixed some of the paste with a little water. I used frozen corn and just one can of black beans. I also added in some extra water. It took a while for the rice to cook all the way and after the cooker thought it was done I added a bit more water and cooked it for longer.
Sean ate his taco style with corn tortillas:
I ate mine like a salad with chips:
We both really liked it and would definitely make it again. I often make sweet pork in the crock pot like this but I thought the chipotle chilies added a nice smoky and spicy flavor. I will probably use these again next time which is good since I have plenty in the freezer to use up! The rice was very tasty…basically Mexican rice.
