Part 2 (Bettina’s First Guest continued)

How It Tasted

Boubons

Hard to believe that yesterday’s battle axe of a steak could be transformed into a tasty and tender cup of meat, but it’s true. This came out very well, and I’m tickled it didn’t require the purchase of any fresh meat—really the first time that Bettina’s penny-pinching ways have been worthwhile.

Tomato Sauce

Filip: Don’t we have any catchup?

That pretty well sums it up. The sauce was pale and unappetizing and definitely lacked the tomato wallop of a good marinara—or even a bottle of Heinze

Baked Peppers Stuffed

Milomir: What happened to these?

The peppers themselves were wilted on the outside and tough within, the filling overspiced but still tasty (Bettina does salt her foods pretty heavily, and my use of deli-style Black Forest ham for the stuffing didn’t help). My husband dutifully ate all of his, but my son and I stuck to the filling and discarded the peppers. Boiling them in sauce, as I generally do, would have made a huge difference.

Potatoes Anna

This archaic dish tasted fine, but its almost complete lack of color was a little unsettling. As a rule I have no quarrel with white, ie highly processed foods, but somehow plopping this dish on the table made me feel like a habitual Wonder Bread eater.

Bread and Butter

As always the store-bought loaf was good was unremarkable.

Head Lettuce with De Moines Dressing

Thanks to the generous use of vinegar this stuff was more powerful than I’d realized, and I inadvertently poured too much over the salad. It’s a nice change from the Ranch and the vinaigrette usually gracing our table, but it’s definitely a example of “ a little dabble’ll do ya”—one teaspoon, even half a teaspoon, per person is enough.

Cottage Pudding with Lemon Sauce

Of course this pudding/cake contained no artificial preservatives, but its texture had an odd smoothness that made feel like I was chowing down on a Twinkie. The sauce had only the weakest of lemon flavors, the result I suppose of my use of lemon juice rather extract. It was pretty cloying, and no one else seemed to care for it either.

Would I Make This Again?

Probably--this was by far the most successful of the Bettina meals to date. Only the Potatoes Anna was a total flop, and that could be remedied with the addition of chopped onions and a some paprika for color. The peppers, the pudding, and the sauce needed some tweaking but were for the most part edible.

The one catch with the meal was that, ultimately, every dish required some serious cooking time. I have an electric stove equipped with only one small oven—having four items baking all at the same time really pushed it to its limits. Bettina talks (well, crows) about being economical by loading her gas oven with multiple dishes every time she fires it up. Hard to see how this is any savings of either time or energy when an overburdened appliance takes longer than it should to cook the food.