Domenica made Potato and Bacon Frittata. It was like a potato pancake and a quiche made a baby. Instead of being just a crustless quiche like most frittatas are, this one replaced the crust with a crisp layer of grated potatoes. What a great concept!

Laura made Grilled Ginger-Sesame Chicken Salad. The dressing is what makes this dish. It is salty, sweet, and has good ginger kick to it. Laura put some dressing on the salad, but didn’t want to dress it all for fear of making it soggy. I happily added a generous pour of additional dressing to my serving.

Shayna made Orecchiette with Brown Butter, Broccoli, Pine Nuts, and Basil. I was looking forward to trying what I imagined would be a wonderfully herbal and nutty dish, but to my disappointment found this pasta to be somewhat flavorless and uninteresting.

I made Spaghetti with Garlic, Lemon, Kale, and Parmesan. I liked the brightness that the lemon brought to the earthy flavors of this dish. Tasty and simple, though I did have a hard time getting the kale evenly distributed among the spaghetti, as it tended to clump up.

Kathleen made Chicken and Chorizo Paella. Well actually she made chicken paella, as she went to several different stores and was unable to find Spanish chorizo. Perhaps due to the lack of chorizo, the dish needed salt, but it was good once salted. I’d like to see what it would have been like with the chorizo.

Anthony made Tomato-Salami Pizza. The topping combo of garlic, salami, heirloom tomato, and fresh mozzarella was really nice. Curtis Stone provided a dough recipe, but did say to feel free to use purchased pizza dough, so Anthony chose to use a different recipe for his dough – no matter the recipe, I give him props for home-making it!

John made Shrimp Rolls with Herb Aioli. This was one of my favorite dishes of the night. The creamy shrimp salad made for a great shrimp sandwich, and if I hadn’t been so full I definitely would have gone back for a second one.

Jesse made Poached Salmon with Green and Yellow Bean Salad. I like salmon because it can be done simply and still make for a wonderful weeknight meal, but I found this salmon to be bland and boring.

Jesse also made Crab and Avocado Dip with Crispy Tortillas. This is a Curtis Stone recipe, but from his website rather than his What’s For Dinner? cookbook. I am not complaining, because this was one of the winners of the meal for me even though Jesse ran out of time to make the fresh crab he’d bought and used imitation crab instead. I loved the texture of the fried tortillas against the creaminess of the dip, and I’d love to try this dish with the real crab.

Cindy made Southwestern Chili. It was passable, but just felt like it was missing something. There was nothing in particular that I could identify was wrong with it, but it wasn’t a memorable chili. Not something I would think of again or want to make.

Erin made Olive Oil Cake with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote. The rhubarb at the store hadn’t looked promising, so actually she made strawberry compote and added a bit of fig, but it was delicious on top of the moist and fragrant olive oil cake.

Kim made Peach and Almond Cobbler. The filling seemed runnier than it ought to have been, but the flavor was fantastic. The cobblers I’ve had in the past had a thinner batter topping, but I found I really enjoyed the thicker biscuit topping of this dish, especially with the almonds for added flavor and texture.

Anthony also made bonus lemon bars. These were not from the cookbook, but he got homegrown lemons from his neighbor’s tree, and we were happy to have them. He cut back on the amount of sugar, so they were nice and lemon-y without being cloyingly sweet as many lemon bars tend to be.

And Anthony made lemon sherbet with those homegrown lemons as well. Also not from the cookbook, but great with the lemon bars and a nice refreshing finish to the meal.