Ad Astra Review - C3PO by Ef Deal

What Is It? Chopped vegetables, pineapple, and pecans in cream cheese.

Haiku
Cream cheese and peppers
Pineapple, onion, pecans
It's C3PO

Review: C3PO is a pretty simple recipe. It more or less consists of a can of crushed pineapple with chopped bell pepper, onion, and pecans all mixed into a pile of cream cheese. That is basically it. The only change I made from the text of the recipe was that I used a red bell pepper instead of a green bell pepper, mostly because I had a red bell pepper on hand. The end result is a spread than can be used on crackers or fresh vegetables. The end result is also delicious.

I must admit, I was a little bit apprehensive about this recipe, mostly because it is so very simple. There are no spices or anything else added to the mixture to flavor it up. Despite my misgivings, this recipe turned out to be quite flavorful, with the sweetness of the pineapple combining with the sweetness of the bell pepper to give the whole a fresh taste that was tempered just enough by the onion so that the whole wasn't cloying. The only element that really kind of disappeared were the pecans, which I really couldn't taste and didn't seem to provide much additional crunch. The dip is a bit chunky, as all of the ingredients are basically just diced and mixed with the cream cheese, so if one wanted something smoother I suppose you could run it through a food processor or blend it with a stick mixer, but there is not really a need to do so other than personal preference.

I made this as an appetizer for Thanksgiving, and we had it with crackers and an assortment of vegetables. It went over well with everyone, with the redhead going so far as to declare it to be the best recipe from Ad Astra thus far.

One final note on the name, for anyone who doesn't get it: It is an acronym that results in a Star Wars reference. It is cream cheese for the "C", pineapple, pepper, and pecans for the "3P"'s and onion for the "O". Sadly, the recipe doesn't actually look like a golden robot, which would have been cool. It is quite tasty nonetheless.

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Ad Astra Review - Anouchka's Grandmother's Salmon Pâté by Cat Sparks

What Is It? Salmon blended with cream cheese and spring onions covered with chopped pecans and chives.

Haiku
This needs a kick of
Cayenne pepper for flavor
And use red salmon

Review: The second recipe in the Ad Astra Cookbook under the heading "Savory Snacks" is one for salmon pâté from Cat Sparks. I tried this recipe out on my regular game group, and it got mixed reviews from them, mostly because they didn't like the texture (and one just doesn't like fish, which I did not know until then, but didn't surprise me at all).

The redhead and I, on the other hand, found this to be quite good. The recipe is basically canned red salmon, cream cheese, sour cream, spring onions, and cayenne pepper blended together with a coating of finely chopped pecans and chives. The recipe is pretty easy, and doesn't require an oven or any equipment other than bowls, knives and some sort of blending equipment - the recipe says to use a food processor, but I used a stick mixer which worked just fine. We ate it on crackers, which seems like the ideal way to eat it, although the redhead suggested possibly adding it to pasta with an alfredo sauce, a suggestion that seems like it would be worth investigating.

The instructions say that the recipe makes a lot more than one might expect, and that seems to be accurate. When I blended the cream cheese and salmon, the volume of the mixture ballooned quite noticeably. I suggest being generous with the spices, especially the cayenne pepper, as the mix is just a little bland unless one does so. Even though you are using red salmon which has more flavor than pink salmon, the mix of fish and cream cheese doesn't really have much kick on its own. The recipe says to shape the mixture into a log, but it was so sticky that the best I could manage was an kind of half sphere. The pecans and chives also add a lot to the dish, with their crunch adding a needed break from the creamy texture of the pâté itself.

Overall, this was a really good recipe. I can see this being something that I'll bring to family holiday gathering as an appetizer. If I was going to make this for anything less than a large gathering, I would definitely halve the recipe. The redhead and I have been eating it for three days now and we still have some left. On the other hand, it is good enough that we're not tired of it yet, so you could take that as an endorsement.

Previous recipe in Ad Astra: Ajvar by K.V. Johansen
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Ad Astra Review - Ajvar by K.V. Johansen

What Is It? A roasted eggplant and bell pepper spread flavored with garlic and chili sauce.

Haiku
This is really sweet
Much sweeter than expected
But still good on bread

Review: The first recipe in Ad Astra: The 50^th Anniversary SFWA Cookbook is one that K.V. Johansen discovered when some of her books were translated into Macedonian and she began traveling to the Republic of Macedonia, presumably to promote her work.

Ajvar is an eggplant and bell pepper concoction flavored with garlic, cider vinegar or lemon juice, and hot sauce that can be served as a spread on naan or bread. I have to say that this recipe really doesn't taste anything like I expected it to. The roasted eggplant is almost completely overwhelmed by the sweetness of the roasted bell peppers, and even though the recipe calls for a quite generous amount of roasted garlic, it isn't really noticeable either.

After roasting all the vegetables, peeling the eggplant, garlic, and bell pepper, and then puréeing the lot (I used a stick mixer rather than a food processor), the end result was a lot runnier than I had thought it would be. I don't think I added too much liquid - I didn't add any more olive oil than had been used in the roasting process and I only put in a little bit of cider vinegar and hot sauce. I was anticipating something more hummus-like in thickness, but this turned out to be more "uncooked pumpkin pie filling" in texture.

The flavor of the ajvar is basically that of a sweet bell pepper. I was expecting more of a kick, but even when I went back and added more hot sauce, salt, and pepper, the flavor of the mixture was still mostly just bell pepper sweetness. This isn't bad, but it is blander than I was prepared for. The redhead and I ate it with naan bread, and she had a similar reaction to mine. Her exact quote was "That was a lot of work to eat puréed bell peppers". I can't really disagree. It wasn't really all that much work compared to many other recipes, but the end result seemed kind of underwhelming. It might be improved by increasing the amount of garlic in the recipe (although the recipe itself calls for the reasonably generous amount of eight cloves of garlic), or reducing the number of bell peppers used.

Overall, this was decent, but it didn't knock my socks off. I might try it again, but if I do I'll probably add some extra spices or garlic or something. The redhead suggested adding a can of chickpeas to thicken it up, which might be a good adjustment as well.

Next recipe in Ad Astra: Anouchka's Grandmother's Salmon Pâté by Cat Sparks

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