Some are good...some not so much

Made a couple recipes out of Cooking in Cast Iron. Last night, I made Beef and Barley Stew with Roasted Garlic (pg. 2). I really enjoyed the pearl barley in the recipe even if I did have to soak it. It was like a chewy orzo. I understand it's quite healthy too. Not that that should deter anyone from trying it! The roasted garlic wasn't too powerful for the dish which was a pleasant surprise since the last time I roasted garlic, Zeb and I were nearly ill from the potency. I had two complaints with it though. I'm not a big fan of green peppers and there were two called for. Perhaps next time, I'll put in a different vegetable. Second, the recipe said that the meat would be falling apart tender by the time it was done and mine was tough and chewy. That may be a product of my meat selection however. Packaged stew meat tends to be pretty tough and only good for slow cooker recipes. Next time, I'll just slice up a steak.

Tonight, Zeb made Jamaican Jerk Chicken (Smoke & Spice, pg. 33) and Algerian Carrot Salad (Cooking in Cast Iron, pg. 109). Zeb is really getting the hang of smoking on the grill. Although his timing still needs a bit of work. Dinner was a bit on the late side. :-) The chicken was a little too spicy for me but once I trimmed a bit of the spice crust off, it was delicious! I've never had chicken so tender. It's really impressive. The Algerian Carrot Salad was another matter though. While the ingredients sound great (garlic, lemon, brown sugar, cumin, cayenne, etc.), the result was bland. The carrots come out limp and mushy. This felt like a recipe that was trying too hard to be innovative with cast iron. It's a pain in the butt to clean a cast iron pan and this just didn't seem like a recipe that benefited from its use. I still like the cookbook but next time this comes up in the rotation, we're not going to cook the carrots for as long and pump up the flavors. Oh, another thing, the recipe called for walnut oil which is pretty expensive. Based on the outcome, it wasn't worth the expense. Surely olive oil would have worked as well. This is like where Ainsley Harriot calls for sunflower oil for sauteeing. Ticks me off because my cabinet space is not unlimited.