Week 9 done of my US National Food challenge with 5 out of 7 accomplished! This was the week we moved to the US for me to start a new job. It will be interesting to see how much time I have on my hands for cooking and continuing the quest … wish me luck!
August 6 – National Root Beer Float Day
Not being in the US yet, it was a little difficult to find root beer, plus I don’t really like it. So today was a rest day!
August 7 – National Raspberries in Cream Day
| It must be raspberry season in August in the US, because I’ve already had a few raspberry-based days. For this day, I made a raspberry cream slice, based on the peaches and cream slice that I had made for a previous National Food Day (recipe here). Really yummy, even with the substitution of the fruit. When I get the chance, I might try other types of fruit in this recipe as well! |  |
August 8 – National Zucchini Day
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I contemplated making something like zucchini brownies for this day, but considering the multitude of sweets in the US National Food Day calendar, I thought I should try to be a little more healthy. So I steamed some zucchini, scraped out the insides, mashed it together with some ham and tomato, topped it off with grated cheese and baked until the cheese melted. Quite nice, but probably could have made it a little more tasty! |
August 9 – National Rice Pudding Day
This was the day we actually flew overseas, so hopefully you’ll show me some leniency and let me off of making this. If I did make it, I would have used my Arroz con Leche recipe (here), mmm … I remember how yummy that was!
August 10 – National Banana Split Day
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I could have just sliced a banana, added some ice cream, chocolate topping and nuts and I would have satisfied the day’s requirements. But I thought I’d try something a little different. I made a ‘banana split cake’, with my nut crust (here), sliced bananas, the cream cheese/icing sugar/cream filling from the Worms in the Mud (here), more bananas, chocolate topping and sliced almonds on top. Really yummy – it all went in one go between the 5 of us! |
August 11 – National Raspberry Tart Day
| Another raspberry day. So, to change it up a bit, I made my shortcrust pastry base (here), and the raspberry filling from the raspberry cream slice (here) and baked it in the oven until the filling had set. With a dollop of gluten-free ice cream on the side, it was quite yummy … and I learned that my shortcrust pastry works well when you roll it out thin enough! |  |
August 12 – Julienne Fries Day
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Another attempt at shallow-frying. This one ended up ok, but there were a few dramas in the middle of the cooking procedure. I didn’t have the oil hot enough to begin with, I over-crowded the frying pan, then realised that the potatoes were cooking but getting soggy and not crispy so changed over to a non-stick pan to try to crisp them up. And then Grant told me they weren’t Julienne cut either … but they were as thin as I could cut them. I liked the end result – not so keen on this shallow frying thing, though! |
Coming up next week:
- August 13: National Filet Mignon day
- August 14: National Creamsicle day
- August 15: Lemon Meringue Pie day
- August 16: Bratwurst day / National Rum day
- August 17: National Vanilla Custard day
- August 18: National Soft Ice Cream day
- August 19: Potato day / Hot & Spicy day
Stay tuned to see which ones I choose to make/eat and how successful (or not) I am!
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