Recipe Reviews: Company Food

I guess this week is all about things related to when we had company in August! When my family was here for a week (you can read about that here), they were willing guinea pigs to try some new recipes that I had picked out of my collection. It was fun to get more than just Jason's opinion on the food, and it was fun to cook a few somewhat-strange recipes! To start off the week, I made...

Banana Poppy Seed Dressing

This recipe was cut out of a Taste of Home magazine many years ago. I picked it out since there would be more dressing taste-testers here instead
of just myself. It was one of the first new recipes I tried on our guests. I had a nicely browned banana that I was intending to use for the "ripe banana" but, while I was at work, Jason was cleaning up for our company to arrive and threw out the banana. (We have differing opinions on how long bananas are still edible.) So this recipe was made with a non-brown, less-ripe banana. And, it still worked, so it wasn't the end of the world. I served this dressing over a green salad with apple, craisins, pecans, onion, and feta cheese, I believe.

The Honest Review: It was pretty tasty! I think everyone liked it, except for Jason; I don't think he actually tried it. The banana flavor was not super strong, so I think it would taste even better if you used a nicely ripe banana. I believe everyone agreed that it would also make a nice fruit dip in addition to a dressing. We don't use dressings in our house hardly at all, but I quite liked this one. This recipe is staying in our collection.

Asian Chicken Lettuce Wraps

This recipe comes from my Betty Crocker cookbook and was one of Jason's requests a while ago. The recipe calls for home-made Peanut Sauce that is also in the cookbook.

Peanut Sauce

In this Peanut Sauce, I believe I only put in half of the amount of ground red pepper. I didn't want to overwhelm our guests that don't typically eat spicy foods! These two recipes together really didn't take that long to put together, especially after the chicken was cooked. I thought it was fairly easy to make. It is listed as an appetizer, but we made it for our main lunch dish one day.

The Honest Review: These are super delicious!! We all really liked them and found them very filling and tasty. It made for a very nice, cool, light meal on a hot day. And the leftovers were just as good!! With the ground red pepper, you could spice it up a bit if you like things with a little heat, but this crowd all really liked it with only half the amount listed. I believe we all would highly recommend this recipe! This recipe is staying in our collection.

South Seas Chicken and Bananas

This is another of those recipes cut out of a Taste of Home magazine many, many years ago! I had looked at this recipe several times, but never had the nerve to try it. When my family arrived, I thought that they were just the people to experiment with me on this! And, they were very willing taste-testers, even Bob and Sam. We were all a bit skeptical of cooking bananas with chicken, and were quite unsure of how it would taste.

The Honest Review: This dish was very unique, but good! Everyone was surprised at how much they liked the baked bananas. And, surprisingly, eating the entire combo together - banana, kiwi, and chicken - tasted really good together! (Well, everyone except for Jason thought that; he was not a fan of this dish.) It is a different flavor style than we are used to for breaded, baked chicken, but it was a good different. We did agree that it didn't need as much butter as it calls for, and that maybe using plain yogurt in place of the sweetened condensed milk would help cut down on the sweetness. With having sweet banana, sweet kiwi, and sweet in the breading, it did become a little bit too much over the course of the meal. And, we also discovered that it doesn't hold up too well for leftovers. I would highly recommend only making enough for one meal at a time. Since Jason did not like this dish, I believe I may let it go. This recipe is tossed from our collection.

Delectable Peach Flambe

Jason and I first had this recipe at a friends house in Wyoming, and they gave us a copy. We had never made it, but I really wanted to make it while my family was here. And, since they brought fresh peaches with them it was more than fitting! Kind of funny story, though: we didn't have the alcohol. The recipe calls for scotch, but Jason said we needed to use bourbon. So, one evening on our way home from an excursion, I stopped at the liquor store and Mom and Gail, who were following in their car, pulled in behind. (I'm pretty sure neither of them have ever graced the parking lot of a liquor store in their life, and I had Gail's kids along with Little Pumpkin in my car.) I told Mom that I just needed to run in, could they stay beside my car with the kids. I ran in, picked out some bourbon that I thought would work, ran back out and handed Mom the brown paper bag. She looked at me and exclaimed, "Why are you giving it to ME?!?!?!" I said that I had all the kids in my car. She replied with, "And you think it's better for ME to have it?!?!" I told her to just put it in the back seat and they'd be fine. If you know my family, you probably get the amusement of that scenario. But, on to the recipe!

We all shared in the excitement of lighting the peach dish on fire while it was cooking!

The Honest Review: This dessert tastes so good! Everyone thoroughly enjoyed it, even though it was discussed what it would taste like if you didn't use the bourbon. The nice warm peaches and sauce with the vanilla ice cream, though, is just...divine. This is a dessert, though, that you don't need to eat loads and loads; a nice, small portion is best. Otherwise, it starts to become too much sweet and then loses it's deliciousness. I think we would all highly recommend this recipe to everyone! This recipe is staying in our collection.

Cool Raspberry Soup

This recipe was another reason I had to stop at the liquor store; I had to try the authentic recipe! I made this soup on the last day our guests were here. It also comes from the Taste of Home magazine and, on the front of the card, it describes this soup as a nice brunch food. We were quite unsure of what it was going to be like, but once again everyone was a willing taste-tester!

(I'm going to hire Bob as my food photographer; he's the one that told me I needed something green on there!)

The Honest Review: This was different. It tasted good, but I don't think anyone wanted to eat it for brunch. Most everyone said it would taste good on vanilla ice cream. So we all tried that, too. I believe this was another recipe that we discussed cutting back the sugar so that it wouldn't get to be too sweet. It was definitely unique and we enjoyed trying it, but we qualified it as more of a dessert. It was a nice, cool "soup," if you will. I don't think Jason was a fan of this recipe, either, so I don't think I'll be making it again. This recipe is tossed from our collection.

Well, that concludes the recipe reviews that were on trial while my family was visiting. I have a few more recipes from the next week of company, but I'll have to do those in a separate post. Tell me, though, out of these new recipes which would you be most hesitant to try?