Denver Life with Carl and Mark: March 2021

Tuesday, March 30, 2021

New recipe, March 30, 2021

The Persian New Year, Nowruz, was on the spring equinox. We are a bit behind but did want to make some Persian and Persian-inspired dishes to celebrate the spring. This is Spiced Chicken with Spaghetti Squash Pomegranate and Pistachios. The spices on the chicken (turmeric, salt, allspice and cayenne) are fabulous, and the vegetables are delicious. Our chicken legs were monstrous—when we do this again, we'll decrease the proportion of chicken! We give this a 4.

Monday, March 29, 2021

New recipe, March 29, 2021

Served with a reprise of the Sous Vide Peanut Ginger Pork, the new dish is Roasted Broccoli with Vinegar Mustard Glaze. This is simple but quite elegant. We give it a 4.

Sunday, March 28, 2021

New recipe, March 28, 2021

Sous Vide Peanut Ginger Pork with Celery Slaw from NYT Cooking. Sous vide is a wonderful way to have very moist pork, and the flavor is great. Our only quibble with this recipe is that the proportion of meat to vegetable seems a bit off—we would make a lot more of the slaw the next time around! We give this a 4.

Saturday, March 27, 2021

New recipe, March 27, 2021

This is the final recipe made from the home cured corned beef—Corned Beef and Cabbage Soup from Spruce Eats. This is a vegetable soup, and is very warming comforting and tasty. We give it a 4.

Friday, March 26, 2021

New recipes, March 26, 2021

Happy Birthday Carl! We had a delicious dinner at Barolo Grill, so the new recipes are a Campari Olive Oil Cake from NYT Cooking (a 5!) and the Sorrentino cocktail from foodandwine.com, which was pleasant but did not stand out—we give it a 3.

Thursday, March 25, 2021

New recipe, March 25, 2021

Skillet Meatballs with Peaches Basil and Lime from NYT Cooking. No peaches yet, so we used plums. Delicious flavors, fresh, wonderful. We give this a 5.

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

New recipe, March 24, 2021

We aren't finished with the home cured corned beef quite yet! This is the Reuben Sandwich from NYT Cooking, and it is really good. It is a classic, after all. We give this a 5!

New recipe, March 23, 2021

The Tequila Matador from https://www.cocktailbuilder.com/recipe/tequila-matador. This has just 2 ingredients, but it is really good! We used a Reposado tequila. We give this a 4.

Monday, March 22, 2021

New recipe, March 22, 2021

Turmeric Black Pepper Chicken with Asparagus from NYT Cooking. This is super fast, elegant, and delicious with so many layers of flavor. This gets an enthusiastic 5!

Sunday, March 21, 2021

New recipe, March 21, 2021

Sausages with Tangy Gingery Pineapple from NYT Cooking. This is easy (it is a sheet pan recipe) but has lots of delicious layered flavors. We give this a 5.

New recipe, March 21, 2021

Sausages with Tangy Gingery Pineapple from NYT Cooking. This is easy (it is a sheet pan recipe) but has lots of delicious layered flavors. We give this a 5.

Saturday, March 20, 2021

New recipe, March 20, 2021

One Pot Pasta with Ricotta and Lemon from NYT Cooking. This is pleasant, though not a dish that stands out as unususl or extraordinary. We give this a 3.

New recipe, March 19, 2021

Irish Potato and Corned Beef Cakes from the August 2014 Food and Wine. The interesting part of these is half the potato's are boiled and mashed, and the other half are grated and mixed into the batter before being cooked. We felt the grated potato still tasted kind of raw when these were cooked. We give them a 3. Looking at other Irish boxty recipes (of which this is a variation), it looks like the batter could have been a little thinner, and the cakes are meant to be flattened out quite a bit more than we did. Ah well.

New recipe, March 18, 2021

We we have corned beef, so today's recipe is Irish Tacos from NYT Cooking. Not a traditional thing about this, but it is really fun and quite tasty! We give this a 5.

New recipe, March 17, 2021

Homemade Corned Beef from NYT Cooking. We have never made corned beef before. Takes time, but very easy. We loved the flavor of this, though it was a bit salty for us and we would consider reducing the salt in the curing process by 1/4 to 1/3. Overall, we give it a 4, and we will make it again with a tweak to the salt.

New recipe, March 16, 2021

Lentils Diavolo from NYT Cooking. We enjoyed these lentils. There are a number of ingredients, but we found that it was dominated by the smoked paprika—a little less might have brought out the other flavors better, so we give this a 3.

New recipe, March, 15, 2021

French Onion Soup with Roasted Poblano from the March 2021 Food and Wine. There is no rushing this soup—it takes a long time to get the onions perfectly caramelized. Not the classic recipe, but stunning in its own way. Be sure you have a lot of time for it, but it is worth it! We give this a 5.

New recipe, March 14, 2021

Tartiflette, a recipe by Melissa Clark on NYT Cooking. A slight variation on a traditional Alpine potato and bacon casserole. We have never had one before and we were blown away. This is fabulous, it gets a 5!

New recipe, March 13, 2021

Pulled Chicken Gumbo, from Chef Brett Newman, Executive Chef at Project Angel Heart. He gives great instruction! We enjoyed this quite a bit, and we give it a 4.

New recipe, March 12, 2021

The Greenpoint Cocktail from Saveur.com. This is a variation on the Manhattan with just a bit of yellow Chartreuse. It really changes the drink! We looked this, we give it a 4.

New recipe, March 11, 2021

Cast Iron Cornbread, from Chef Brett Newman, Executive Chef at Project Angel Heart. This is wonderful! Carl is so relieved to finally get a cornbread that is not sweet, and that is so true to his southern roots. We give this a 5.

New recipe, March 10, 2021

Mushroom Cuban Quesadillas from the March 2021 Food and Wine. The mushrooms get marinated ahead of time, which gives them a depth of interesting flavors. This feels like a really interesting variant on a Cubano, and it won us over. These are great, and we give them a 5.

New recipe, March 9, 2021

Hanger Steaks with Cabbage and Beet Salad from the March 2021 Food and Wine. This has great and unexpected flavors, especially with the tartness of the labneh/yogurt and the richness of the blue cheese. We give this a 5.

New recipe, March 8, 2021

The Royal Tannenbaum from The Drunken Botanist by Amy Stewart. We give this a 3. It has a small amount of Zirbenz in it, which is a pine liqueur. Still too much for us.

New recipe, March 7, 2021

Seared Scallops with Pomegranate and Meyer Lemon from the March 2021 Food and Wine. This is a nice combination of flavors, we give it a 4.

Monday, March 15, 2021

New recipe, March 6, 2021

Baked Feta Tomatoes and Pasta from the February 24, 2021 Denver Post. I had a fixed idea of what feta tastes like and this article opened my eyes to other types of feta than what you usually find in the market. This is simple and delicious, with the right feta. We give this a 5.

New recipe, March 5, 2021

Kung Pao Chicken from the March 2021 Food and Wine. We enjoyed this dish, and give it a 4.

New recipe, March 4, 2021

Quick Black Bean Salad from NYT Cooking. A nicely balanced salad, we give this a 4.

New recipe, March 3, 2021

Marianito Preparado from the March 2021 Food and Wine. A lovely sweet vermouth drink, we give this a 5.

Sunday, March 14, 2021

New recipe, March 2, 2021

Brown Butter Butter Beans with Lemon and Pesto from the February 24, 2021 Denver Post. We give this a 5-delicious snd interesting flavors!

Monday, March 1, 2021

New recipe, March 1, 2021

Barley Tomato and Watercress Stew from Ottolenghi's Flavor. Another amazing set of layered flavors. This gets a 5

New recipe, February 28, 2021

Another from Ottolenghi's Flavor, Curried Cartot Mash with Brown Butter. Amazing layers of flavor, thus is incredible! We give this a 5!

New recipe, February 27, 2021

Curry Crusted Rutabaga Steaks from Ottolenghi's Flavor. The recipes in this book are not difficult, but they do have multiple steps, cooking different ingredients in different ways to bring out fascinating flavor combinations. This recipe is very tasty, we give it a 4.