Dylan’s Reviews > How to Cook Everything: The Basics: All You Need to Make Great Food -- With 1,000 Photos > Status Update

Chicken in a Pot with Soy Broth (168/168)
Finally done! This one got pushed to last largely because the photo in the book is really unappetizing, but it was good. Can't say it was going out with a bang, but it wasn't going out with a whimper either. Going out with some sort of mid-range noise!

Chicken Stock and Chicken Noodle Soup (167/168)
I'm not really into chicken noodle soup, except when I'm sick—and I have thus far avoided the bugs going around, but I still enjoyed this quite a bit. The biggest remaining question mark is the reheated orzo texture, which I imagine may put a damper on what would otherwise be pretty good leftovers.

Battered and Fried Squid (165/168) and Steamed Mussels or Clams (166/168)
The squid here tasted mostly like batter and the batter tasted like not much, presumably so as not to distract from the flavor of the squid. The mussels were a bit better, as they took on flavor from the wine they were steamed in, but my main takeaway from the Seafood section of this book is that I'm not really that into seafood.

Turkey Parts Braised in Red Wine (164/168)
We made this with the leftover turkey from Thanksgiving because we were not about to buy a whole second turkey. The dish had an extremely unappetizing purple color to it, and the bland turkey flavor was not enough to overcome it.

Roast Turkey (163/168)
I'm not as much of a turkey-hater as some, but it really overstayed its welcome this year, as we were forced to used turkey leftovers to make various dishes that would have been better with pretty much any comparable protein choice.

Roast Leg of Lamb with Vegetables (162/168)
This was good, but if you look at the effort & money to deliciousness ratio, it really can't compare with something like buttered noodles.

Simple Sandwich Loaf (161/168)
Made the honey-wheat variation of this, which was pretty good, I thought, but does not hold a candle to the no knead bread.

Lobster (or Other Seafood) Boil (159/168)
Once we decided to do shrimp instead of lobster, this one felt like a lot less of a project. Very easy to make, as it's just: boil one ingredient, put it on a tray, boil another ingredient, put it on the tray, and so on. Unfortunately, we recently discovered a seafood boil place with incredible butter garlic sauce, so this came off a bit dry and bland (but still good).

Lamb Curry (158/168)
I'm basic enough that if you put curry powder in something, I'm going to think it's great. This was much better than the other lamb preparation we tried from here.

Pumpkin Pie (157/168)
Kept forgetting to buy cool whip for the pie, so the first few time I had it, I was like "yeah it's good" but then I bought the cool whip and it really transcended.