A Walk on the Wild Side

I do not do complicated.  I like things easy-peasy, and enjoy simple successes.  While I can follow multi-step directions, I try not to when it comes to a recipe.  The more steps there are, the more ways I can mess up dinner.  I avoid things that I think won’t be successful  because there is nothing worse than feeling that you have to have a pizza for dinner after you’ve worked for the past two hours to make a not-pizza.
Regardless, I have had a lot of success with Pampered Chef recipes.  I might be feeling a little cocky, but I feel like there aren’t a lot of PC recipes that are vindictively hard, or that you have to worry at every step of the process that you’re about to mess things up.  After my Chicken Napoleon success, I’ve been feeling more on top of my game and ready for a little step up in the challenge department.  Now, that doesn’t mean that you’ll read this recipe and think it’s difficult, I’m just saying that it was intimidating to me.
Little did I know, before starting this evening, that Phyllo dough is such a pain ...




Truly.  The first roll I opened was so dry it just flaked into a million pieces.  Once I got the hang of that roll, it was done, of course.  Fortunately, the second roll unrolled much more nicely and was much easier to work with.  I moved quickly, but the Gruyere Chicken en Croute looked like this on the way in and out of the oven...

Thomas claims the meal was fabulous.  I, personally, believe that Phyllo dough is not tasty enough to warrant that much work to assemble this.  Thomas packed the extras up for lunch (this made a lot of food!), and I'm keeping the veggies for my lunches.  For a fancier dinner where I know I'll be putting in more time than I'd like in the kitchen, these aren't so bad, but for a Monday night dinner...  thumbs down on my behalf.  (I know I'm the only one who felt that way, but I'm entitled to vote my own way.)

I did also make the steamed broccoli and sweet maple carrots.  Loved the veg.  Oh, and while I was busy making these items, Thomas and the pups were making trip all over the kitchen because he was making some traditional South African biltong (aka jerky).  Luckily, we've got the system pretty much down so this rig only dominates my kitchen table for about three days.  Of course, given Desilu's height and curiousity, she may have them all down by tomorrow afternoon!

And now, while you're reading this, I'm off to New Orleans for a weekend with my Mom and family for my cousin's wedding.  I'll be back by the middle of next week, so enjoy some time away from me, and maybe I'll find a new recipe for everyone to enjoy!  (At the very least, I hope to sell some PC products to my family.  HINT HINT!)

 

Happy Six Month Birthday, Desilu!

(please don't eat papa's biltong!)