Mushroom & Snow Pea Sauté [What's Cooking: Festive '12]

Well, since it's January and I'm sick to the gills of heavy holiday food, I'm going to start this What's Cooking edition with a lighter recipe. This is one is a three-ingredient recipe that's meant to be quick and basic and reasonably healthy. The idea of using salad dressing as a cooking sauce is not a bad one, even if the execution here isn't amazing.

Cookbook Recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3 tbsp Kraft Calorie-Wise Sun-Dried Tomato & Oregano Dressing (I havered over going for the branded products but they had it in my grocery store, and, well, I guess it counts as going for the exact recipe)
• 4 cup quartered fresh mushrooms (oddly, they did not specify what kind or size)
• 1 1/2 cups snow peas, halved crosswise

Following the cookbook exactly:

1. Heat 2 tbsp of the dressing in a skillet on medium-high. Saute the mushrooms for 2-3 minutes until lightly browned.

2. Add the remaining tbsp of dressing and the snow peas and saute for 2 minutes.

The Outcome:

The upside here is that the dressing does work really well as a cooking medium, though it smells exactly like cheap pizza sauce. The downside is that the mushrooms aren't fully cooked - they're whatever the mushroom equivalent of al dente is. They're definitely not raw but they retain a bit of not-quite-cooked texture. The dish is also, well, not bland but ... straightforward. The flavours work together but they don't make me go "wow!". Adding the suggested splash of lemon juice makes it pop a bit, but if I was going to make this again, I'd cook the mushrooms a few minutes longer and maybe add something spicy to make it really zing. It's not a bad recipe but it could definitely be improved without sacrificing ease or calories.

The Dogg is Home [The Achewood Cookbook]

Time for some more fine dining from the Achewood Cookbook! You know it's going to be fancy when one of the ingredients is a box of Kraft Dinner and the blurb starts with "You can eat hot dogs straight out of the package, everybody knows that". This recipe is pretty tongue in cheek, since it's meant to be in-character - a slightly out of touch "cool" uncle making something for his teenage nephew. Let's just put it lightly...this is not the healthiest or most glamourous recipe.

Cookbook Recipe:

No, I didn't win the giant 24k gold noodle.

Ingredients:

• 3 hot dogs, sliced into nickles and microwaved until hot 
• 1 box Kraft Dinner, prepared (so, you'll also need milk and butter)
• 1 cup frozen peas
• 3 slices cooked bacon, crumbled

Following the cookbook recipe exactly:

1. It takes a bit of dexterity to cook up all the ingredients at once, but I found that putting the pasta from the Kraft Dinner on to boil, then putting the bacon in the pan, then slicing and nuking the hot dogs makes sure everything comes out ready at the same time.

A hot mess.

2. Once the Kraft Dinner is fully prepared (I forgot how orange that powder was), throw in the bacon, hot dogs, and peas and stir until the peas have thawed.

The Outcome: 

Normally I'm not crazy about Kraft Dinner (I'm a bad Canadian, I know) because it comes off as both bland and cloying. This, however, is actually pretty good. It's horrifically unhealthy, total stoner food, and yet it's got enough complexity of flavour and texture from the meats and the peas that it doesn't feel like a trough of cheesy slop. I ate more of this than I should.

Oh, ok. Thanks.