Joyful, But Not So Tasteful Cooking

Today I decided to tackle The Joy of Cooking by Rombauer, Becker and Becker [RBB? BBR? BRB?...cute nickname will be forthcoming]. I decided to do the Baked Stuffed Boneless Chicken Breasts with the Scalloped Cauliflower in White Sauce and Butter Made Dumplings. Despite the more complicated recipe names, I found them easier to make than the past few I've tried. It was Ian's favorite thus far, but I felt some of the spicing was lacking.

First off, the chicken. I started by making the Italian bread crumb stuffing. It wasn't too complicated, just some sautéed onions, spices and bread crumbs. Next was hammering out the chicken - my favorite part! - then rolling up the chicken with the Italian mix in the middle. I did forget to buy toothpicks so I had to improvise how to keep the chicken rolled. Luckily, we have been doing to picture hanging around the house so we had some things on hand:

Yeah, that's a nail holding it all together!

Don't worry I washed it then sterilized in boiling water before I used it! I did, however forget to take them out before serving and Ian got a little surprise with his meal. Luckily, while cutting up his chicken he commented on the bones in the boneless chicken and I remembered before we took a bite! The only thing I would change - other than the extra iron - was that the recipe didn't call for spicing the chicken and I think little salt, pepper, onion powder would go a long way. The stuffing was nice though (Ian loooved it) and with a few tweaks it could be super good.  And it looked pretty cool in the end:

3 out of 5 on Yum scale...for looks :)

Next up was the cauliflower. I whipped up the milk based white sauce earlier in the day and turns out it was the same one that my mom makes. I think there must be some more spices in her sauce because I much prefer hers. I poured it over the steamed cauliflower and sprinkled parmesan cheese on top before I put it in the oven. It was very comforting, if not very flavorful.  Last I made the butter dumplings. They were also a little bland, but I liked the idea of boiling them in the chicken stock/water mix instead of just water - it helped a lot. I also added some Herbs de Provence (thanks Aunt Jan!) on top after taste testing and it helped a bit, and added some color to my all beige colored dinner.

Dumplings and Cauliflower:  2.5 out of 5

 Next time I'll try to add some color to the dish! In the end it all tasted alright, but didn't hold a candle to the herb crusted pork, even in leftover form. I'll see if I can fix them in post to make some good lunches for the rest of the week.