100 Recipes - #50-51 Chicken Roulade and Orzo "Risotto"

[lillibet]

#50 Chicken Roulade with Olives and Preserved Lemons I worked from this recipe, but since I didn't feel like waiting two weeks, I skipped making my own preserved lemons and went with store-bought. I halved the recipe and found that there was not enough stuffing and too much sauce, but the latter problem was solved by reducing at the end. Jason quite liked this but I found it a bit too sweet and would probably skip the raisins next time and try harder to stick to the recommended amount of turmeric. I'd also pair it with rice pilaf, rather than the orzo. Or not--this was more work than other things I'd prefer to do with chicken breasts.

#51 Orzo with Lemon, Galic, Parmigiano and Herbs This one came from here and I added steamed spinach to it, because we have a lot of spinach to use up. It turned out to be fairly bland, but that may have been at least partly because much of the cheese stuck to the whisk I mistakenly used to stir it. Next time I would up the salt quite a bit. Jason quite liked it--he thought more than rice pilaf--and it was certainly better when mixed in with the sauce from the chicken.

And with that, I am halfway done with the challenge, three weeks ahead of schedule. Given that I didn't make anything new between April 22nd and May 18th, I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. June looks pretty good for cooking, so I'm hoping to get further ahead while the weather is good and not have to push myself during the height of summer and rehearsals.

Comments

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

I bought store bought preserved lemons once, from one of the middle eastern stores in watertown, and I threw them out after tasting them because they tasted like chemicals and not food. but I think I've had preserved lemons I liked at restaurants and can only presume this was a fluke of this brand / process or even some weird seasoning they used. But that was the end of my experimenting. Where did you get yours?

Congrats on getting halfway to 100 recipes! I'm not at the halfway point this time around, and my "year" runs from September to September! =P

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

These were Lulu brand preserved Meyer lemons from Whole Foods. They're pretty good, but I am intrigued to make them myself sometime.

And thanks--I figure if I don't power through it, there's no way I'd ever make it. I'm totally impressed that you're doing it again.