FFWD January (Long and Slow Apples, "Liver", and Shrimp and Cellophane)

Just for my own records, I'm going to try to do quick run-downs of all of the recipes that I've failed to blog about over the past few months.  I think I've actually made all of the recipes except for one.  Here's January:

I was pretty underwhelmed by the Long and Slow Apples.  Luckily I own a mandoline so they weren't too hard to make, but I thought the flavor was only so-so.  Maybe what I needed was better apples, but the options in January usually aren't that great.  This definitely needed the whipped cream to pick it up.  This is probably why I'll never be very skinny, but I'd definitely choose an apple pie, crisp, or tart any day!

I am normally a very strict rule follower (even my mother teases me about it!) but I didn't do a very good job with the Chicken Liver Gateaux.  I know I wasn't a very good sport, but I really don't eat liver so I decided to make vegetarian chopped liver (like this one) instead.  I was planning on at least trying to mold it and making the pickled onions to accompany it, but I ran out of onions (this never happens to me, but yet I managed to do it twice in two weeks!) so that didn't happen either.  The vegetarian chopped liver was actually pretty good (although Paul said it was nothing like the real thing), but I did wish I had the pickled onions to go with it.  I think it would have cut some of the richness.  What really was good was the Rachael Ray minestrone soup that Paul made to go with the dinner.  I know she's easy to make fun of (I do it often too), but I really do enjoy her recipes.  I very rarely actually get them done in 30 minutes but they are usually relatively quick, always work, and are usually very good.

Last, I still don't quite understand the placement of Shrimp and Cellophane Noodles in a French cookbook, but we did really enjoy these.  I thought the sauce had a nice, subtle Asian flavor to it.  My only complaint was the portion size.  It didn't seem like a lot of noodles for four servings!