Week 4 & 5: Cooking way through the Runner's World Cookbook

We seem to have a combo post going on here from weeks 4 and 5, blame my busy schedule and tendency to give up and simply eat cheese, Boboli pizza and bourbon. (there is nothing wrong with that.)

I did manage to make a couple of things. I continue to be easily able to find vegetarian alternatives for Eric- I will make notes of what I change since I don't always photograph the veggie option.

As mentioned in week one I know that once I get to "meatloaf" or "shrimp" there will be very little that I can do (or am willing to do) to make those veggie friendly. Most likely those recipes will call for a two dinner kind of night. Eric is hoping for grilled cheese I expect.

Olive and Anchovy pizza (or: the cover photo on the book.)

Basically a boboli pizza! #winning!
You don't really need an actual recipe for this but it was one- so there's another one checked off the list.
Clearly I omitted the anchovy for Mr Bradlowski and while I have no gripe with the little fishes I made a game time choice to use two ACTUAL anchovies rather than two tins. Yeah, these were supposed to contain a half tin of leetle feeshes per pizza.
NO. JUST. NO.
Two per pizza was plenty. Take my word for it..... A half tin would be a nightmare.

White bean artichoke wrap

Once again... You don't actually need a recipe for what is essentially white bean hummus but why not!
This recipe calls for the bean spread, artichokes and sundried tomatoes in a wrap. Neither of us are crazy about SD tomatoes so I skipped them and added olives and spinach.
This was absolutely fine. Limit to one garlic clove if you plan to leave the house (ever.)

Hearty red scalloped potatoes, grilled asparagus. And steak, obvs.

Ask me about the potatoes au gratin that I make- go ahead, ASK ME! I am the master of the cheese & potatoes. I have perfected the art and am quite proud.
NEEDLESS TO SAY..... I had ZERO hope for these little taters. I expected them to be undercooked, flavorless and disappointing.
I did skip the skim milk and use 2% because skim is disgusting. Otherwise I behaved and followed the recipe.
If you have potato skills I expect you too will have doubts...
You don't have to- they were AMAZING. Who would have guessed? Not me . Make them and eat them all, with a steak and maybe some grilled asparagus (also a recipe! another one that you don't need a recipe for! but quite good, as grilled asparagus should be.)

Salmon with lentil tabbouleh

This salmon with lentil tabbouleh was straight up incredible.
My sister and I voted it "best so far" and Eric gave it a 3 out of 10 which is fine since he doesn't eat salmon and dislikes tomatoes, cukes and lentils. Basically a 3 is a 10 (Eric got veggie sausage in place of the fish.)
I honestly have no complaints about this dish- it was delicious! (also gorgeous- you could certainly make this to impress people.)
One note- absolutely do not cook your lentils according to the recipe directions (if you are working with dried, unsoaked lentils that is.)
Lentils need about 35-45 minutes to cook and about a 2:1 water to lentil ratio. Simply, you just won't get good results if you follow their directions, so heed my words and don't. Cook your lentils like a normal person and you will be fine.

That's it for now! I hope to get with it and get back to my weekly posts ASAP!