Milk_Maid's Reviews
14 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 14Sort by: Title 
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The Complete America's Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook
By Editors at America's Test Kitchen
Cook's Illustrated - 2009
Blueberry Cobbler : page 660
I decided to make this because I had a pint of bland, flavorless blueberries on hand, and they needed to be punched up a bit by cooking. This recipe was perfect! I halved the ingredients and made the cobbler in a 1- quart baking dish rather than in a pie plate. The biscuit dough came together perfectly and was just the right sweetness and crunchiness (thanks to the dab of cornmeal). The cobbler was beautiful straight from the oven, but the filling receded and pulled away from the edges of the dish after a few minutes, as you can see from my photo. This did not detract at all from our enjoyment of it.
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Broiled Asparagus : page 476
This was so easy and worked perfectly. I used fairly young, thin spears and cheated a little on the cooking method. I was baking biscuits at the same time, so rather than broiling, the spears were baked on the top rack at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, with a pan-shaking halfway through. Delicious!
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Classic Gingerbread Cake : page 608
This was a wonderful departure from your typical gingerbread. You can really taste the Guinness (though perhaps not identify it as such) and the finished product is SUPER gingery. I served it with bourbon whipped cream, and took some slices to a party a full two days after baking it. It ages well, and I think the flavors mellowed somewhat on the days following the initial prep. I'll make this again.
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Irish Soda Bread : page 548
Very nice crusty bread. Easy and fast to prepare. Made tasty toast the next morning, but wasn't good much past the second day. Next time I'll halve the recipe to have less left over.
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I followed the alternate directions for Moroccan Chicken, since I was preparing for someone who doesn't care for olives. This involved substituting chopped, dried apricots and chickpeas for the olives, and I would say it was a qualified success. The dish was tasty, with a nice blend of spices and exotic flavors. My only complaint is that the apricots became a bit mushy in the cooking liquid, and adversely affected the texture. Next time I'll stick with olives and my dining companion can fend for himself!
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Mulligatawny Soup : page 20
I was unable to find unsweetened shredded coconut in my local grocery store, so ended up using lightly sweetened frozen coconut. This resulted in a slight sweetness to the soup, which was not at all unpleasant.
Against my better judgement, but as directed by the recipe, I pureed the finished product in my blender. This resulted in a hot and messy volcano of soup, which was not adequately pureed. Next time I'll use my stick blender.
The soup was delicious, and I'll definitely make it again, using unsweetened coconut and blending in the pot!
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This was a bit labor intensive but the results were tremendous. My only deviation was to use 2 dark chicken quarters in place of the thighs, since that's what I had on hand. The steaming of the breast meat in the foil packet made for remarkably moist and tender white meat. We got 5 very hearty servings from the recipe, two of which were frozen and reheated with no adverse effects. I've probably made 10 recipes from this cookbook so far, and this one is tied with the Blueberry Cobbler for best yet!
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Quick Roasted Baby Carrots : page 479
Much like the broiled asparagus recipe from this same cookbook, this one seems dead easy and pretty much foolproof. My results were wonderfully flavorful and tender-but-not-mushy carrots.
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Roasted Green Beans : page 483
Can you tell I like roasted veggies? This recipe is nearly identical to those for asparagus and carrots, but it also works great for green beans. The beans came out slightly charred and "dessicated" - in a nice way - and the roasting seemed to bring out the sweetness of the beans in a way that other cooking methods don't. I will be doing this again!
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Skillet Lasagna : page 51
This was my first near-failure with this cookbook, though I should admit up front that I made a number of substitutions that likely affected my results. I know, Chris Kimball would NOT approve!
My two main complaints were the soupiness of the lasagna (i.e. its failure to properly thicken), and an overall lack of flavor complexity. The first of these is probably my fault - I used very lean ground beef (7% fat) rather than the meatloaf mix, and I'm guessing that the fat would have promoted thickening. Probably even more significant, I added 8 oz. of fresh mushrooms to the initial saute, and I know they released a good amount of water. I should have cut the added water proportionately.
Substitutions that I made and was happy with: I didn't have any lasagna noodles so used farfalle (bow ties) instead. I made an even layer of the raw noodles at the stage where the recipe has one add the broken lasagna noodles. This worked very well - the noodles were tender and perfectly cooked at the end of the 20 minute baking period. Also for lack of ricotta, I used cottage cheese that I'd slightly pureed with a stick blender. The warm melty cottage cheese was a yummy enhancement to the top of the lasagna, and just as good as ricotta would have been for me.
Lastly, I think the dish needed some spices! As called for in the recipe, I used plain diced tomatoes and tomato sauce. If I make this again, I will either add some Italian seasoning or use seasoned tomatoes.
Over all not a terrific success, but I may try it again some day. It was awfully easy.
Update: I'm adding a star to my review, because the leftovers of this dish were actually quite delicious. I think full incorporation of the cheese topping helped with thickening the sauce, and the flavor also improved with a little "aging".
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Skillet Tamale Pie : page 54
This was my first project from the new Complete America's Test Kitchen Cookbook, and I was not disappointed.
For lack of black beans (how can I not have black beans? I ALWAYS have black beans!), I used garbanzos. I appreciated the quick preparation and the instructions were nice and clear.
The finished pie was excellent, and made very good leftovers for lunch the next day.
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Slow-cooker Pork Loin with Cranberries : page 181
I had a serious issue with this recipe! Namely, my roast was only 2/3 cooked when the my meat thermometer read 145 degrees. Here's what happened: the recipe calls for a 4.5-5 lb roast, which is too large for both my family and my small crockpot. The roast I used was 2.5 lbs. The recipe cautions against overcooking, and suggests 4 hours on the low setting as a time to cook the larger cut of meat. One is supposed to remove the roast from the crockpot when it has reached 140-145 degrees.
Reasoning that my roast was much smaller than that described, I decided to check for doneness at the 3-hour mark. The temp on my meat thermometer read 145 in 3 different spots on the meat, so I removed it and tented the roast for 10 minutes while preparing the sauce.
When I sliced the roast to serve it, the top 1/3 of the roast (the portion uppermost in the crockpot during the cooking) was totally raw and actually cool to the touch. I guess I placed my thermometer down into the cooked portion of the meat when I inserted it. Since we were ready to eat, I ended up nuking individual slices of roast to finish it off, and the dish was delicious. But... if I make this again, I will have to come up with a better way of timing the cooking and checking for doneness. Perhaps the roast could be turned over half way through? I realize that my difficulties may be the fault of my cheapo slow-cooker, and the fact that I did not use the thermometer properly, but I think the recipe might need to address these hazards.
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Spaghetti al Limone : page 238
This was superb - rich and flavorful with a perfect hint of lemon. And so easy!
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This recipe had many good elements that I will be incorporating into future stir-fries. The marinating and pre-frying of the tofu worked wonderfully well, and promoted a nice crisping of the cube edges. The last-minute addition of the aromatics (garlic, scallions, ginger and jalapeno) was also a nice touch. These flavors were maintained and enhanced because they were not subjected to overcooking.
Overall, my main complaint is that there was simply not enough flavor or "kick" in the sauce as the recipe is written. I did seed and derib my jalapeno, as recommended, but this resulted in a dish with absolutely no heat. The overwhelming "flavor" of the sauce was cider vinegar, with no other elements to offset the acidity. I think a generous squirt of Sriracha could easily fix this (as it does so many things!).
You'll see from my photo that I substituted yellow onions (for lack of red ones), and added a handful of baby bok choy, but I don't think these impacted the success of the recipe.
I may use the cooking methods described in this recipe again, but will not likely stick to the specifics of the sauce to the degree I did on this first pass through.
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