Mixed Bean and Portobello Ragout

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Last week, I got a little side tracked so I didn't actually make my weekly meal until Wednesday. It comes from the Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook and was quick to make (only about 30-45 minutes)

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Thoughts and Variations
I couldn't find fresh green beans so I used frozen ones, I used portobello mushrooms, and I used a 540mL can of Italian-style stewed tomatoes (17oz roughly). My pacakage of lima beans didn't have cooking instructions, so I used the green bean instructions instead and they seemed to work out fine. I forgot to cut the green beans though, so they are still whole. Using the whole can of tomatoes also didn't seem to hurt anything and the ragout thickened up just fine.

It tasted pretty good, but also kind of separate? The beans didn't seem to all play together very well and I felt like I needed more mushrooms to balance things out. I may try anither kind of ragout a different time, but I don't know if I will make this recipe again.

Chicken Swiss Bundles

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This week I thought I'd try something a little different, so I made Chicken Swiss Bundles, which are essentially homemade Hot Pockets. The recipe comes from the tasteofhome 2012 Annual Recipes cookbook.

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Thoughts and Variations
I used about 1 cup of mushrooms, because I had portobellos in the fridge that I wanted to use up. I cubed and cooked two chicken breasts, so the amount of chicken was probably closer to two cups than one. I didn't have honey mustard, so I used half a tablespoon each of honey and dijon mustard and that seemed to work okay. I didn't know what kind of frozen dinner rolls the recipe wanted (though I suspect now that they wanted *uncooked* ones), so I simply bought a bag of 12 "pee wee bun rolls" and used those.

For cooking, I used oil with the onions and mushrooms instead of butter, and I accidentally threw the garlic in at the same time. Because my rolls were already baked (and they were puffy) they didn't flatten down very well, though the top bun was worse than the bottom. The filling came together rather nicely and is tasty all on it's own, though because of the rolls I used, it got a little lost in the finished product.

This one felt like more work than it was worth to me, though perhaps it would have been easier if I used actual frozen dinner rolls. I still don't know exactly what the recipe was looking for though; my best guess is that it meant frozen dough that was ready to cook into dinner rolls. The flavours were pretty good though, so perhaps I will make the filling again and simply eat it plain, or with rice or tortilla shells.