What's in a Name?

[stoutfellow]

I very much like the slow-cooker cookbook I've been using lately. That is, I like the dishes; they're easy to make, and many have been delicious. I have a bit of a bone to pick with whoever gives names to those dishes.

Case in point: last week's dinners were "Mexican Rice and Cheese". The recipe called for "Mexican-style beans"; I had no clue as to what was intended, but settled on a can of red beans. It also called for cream cheese, which has never struck me as a particularly Mexican delicacy. Anyway, that dish didn't quite make it into the Delicious category, though it easily cleared the Tasty bar.

This week, I made a big pot of "Italian Spanish Chicken and Rice". It involves kielbasa. (It also called for an onion, a red bell pepper, and five cloves of garlic. I was in no mood for finicky cutting-up, so I just slammed all of them through the onion-chopper. The bits of garlic were probably too big and those of bell pepper too small, but whatever. This one looks like it gets the Delicious label.)

There are times when I wonder why I ever buy frozen dinners. Well, no, I don't. Laziness and/or lack of time usually explain it. Still, tasty cooking really isn't, or needn't be, all that hard. I really should work at doing it more regularly.