Reviews without Pictures

I fixed the jalapeno poppers almost as soon as I got the cookbook in the mail.  It turned out that we were having some friends over so I fixed these.  They were A-MAZING!  I followed the directions and the recipe.  USE GLOVES of some sort when handling the jalapeno's.  The poppers weren't hot and just had a pepper test.  I have fixed these twice and both times they were the hit of the party.  We are having a Super Bowl party this year and I am sure that I will be fixing them again.  I'll try to take pictures this time though. 

I also fixed the chili a couple of months ago.  I can't remember for sure; but I am pretty sure that I followed the recipe.  I cooked it on the stovetop and it was really good.  I think that next time I will cook it in the crockpot like the others did to make it easier on me.  I liked the chili recipe because of the masa and also because it made quite a bit so I was able to freeze and save about 1/2.  We ate it a couple of weeks after we had originally had it and it tasted fine. 

Alright, I guess I have been getting a little carried away with some projects since a certain crazy man two year-old is at his very very very nice Grandma's house. I forgot that it was my turn to choose until my mom reminded me today. I will pick the onion strings on page 93. Also, I have many, many reviews to post so hopefully I get to those very soon.
-Nika

Kim's review

So, as always I'm about to do multiple reviews in one post. I make all the recipes, I don't know why it's so hard for me to post them as I make them. Oh well. First one up:

Cinnamon Rolls


These were yummy! I halved the recipe, like a lot of you guys, and it made PLENTY!! Was I the only one that thought it called for a CRAZY amount of butter and sugar? I also had a hard time rolling the dough up, but that could be because this was my first time making cinnamon rolls and it is kind of an awkward motion. I baked a pan, frosted them and then froze them. A few weeks later I heated them up for our family and they tasted perfect!

Next item of business:
Red Velvet Cake (I know it doesn't look perfect, but it was yummy!)

We used this cake as my birthday cake!

We liked this recipe a lot, but my cake was a little dry. I think I baked it longer than I needed to. I have this fear of under-cooking things and as a result I usually OVER cook them :( I'll work on that!

Simple Perfect Chili

This was yummy and my husband really liked it. I personally found it a little spicy. My kids felt the same, neither one ate any of it. So next time I will lay low on some of the spices.

That's all for now. I'll try and stay up to date on my posts!

Recipes for Week of January 17th

Leon stole the book from me and anounced to the boys that we were having the BBQ Jalapeno Poppers this week. Hope this will give everyone an excuse to have a party this Friday/Saturday night =;)
The recipe is on Pages 14 & 15, Enjoy!!

Jacki’s Review of Simple, Perfect Chili

We just had this Chili for dinner tonight and I thought it was a very good recipe.  I especially liked the masa in it.  The one thing I did not care for was that I used ground venison and I thought the flavor of the venison was quite strong and gamey so the next time I grind up some venison I will definitely add some ground beef or sausage or something to it to cut that flavor.  (I have not noticed it before with just the regular cuts of venison, not ground).  But, back to the recipe – I used about 1 pound of the meat and added 2 cans of kidney beans, a can of diced green chilis and a can of diced tomatoes.   Other than that I followed the recipe as directed but cooked it in the crockpot.  It smelled really good cooking.  I served it with some corn muffins.  Good solid recipe that I would make again.

Simmering in the crockpot:

Ready to eat:

Tarin's French Breakfast Puffs

So this is one of those recipe's that I just haven't gotten around to making, I'm not normally the one cooking breakfast. But since Atlanta is on Snow Day #3, I figured this was a great time to try it out.

I made everything just the same as the directions stated, except I had to use evaporated milk instead. (We've got less than a gallon left and the stores here are still sold out!) So I did 1/2 cup evaporated milk mixed with a little over 1/3 cup of water for my milk. The batter turned out great. It reminded me of cream puff batter and after I cooked the muffins I thought that if I had used my finger and a little water I could have smoothed out the top of the muffin so that they would all be uniform when cooked.

I thought they felt really heavy when I removed them from their pan, but when I ate one it was so light and fluffy...it reminded me of a doughnut. I will definitely use this recipe again. Everyone liked it. I left one without sugar on it and let Addison eat it...man did she go to town on it!

Leslee's Chili

I made this Chili on Sunday night and since we have late church I just threw everything in the crockpot so it would be all ready when we got home. I decided to just use 1 lb a meat since I was going to add the optional beans. I browned the meat before adding it to the crockpot and then added all the other ingredients. I also added the optional pinto beans, tomatoes with chilies and then a can of green diced chilies and black beans. I let it cook on low for about 7 or so hours. I made some oven tortilla chips (tearing up corn tortillas, coating with cooking spray and seasoning and the broil) to accompany the chili. Sean and I both really liked this chili. I have to say it is probably one of my favorite chili's ever! I will definitely use this recipe again!

New Recipe for Jan. 9-15

Simple, Perfect Chili  (82-83)– good winter meal.  I chose this recipe so I could use my new meat grinder to grind up some venison to use in it.  I know many of you might already have a favorite chili recipe (or can:)) that you like to use but it might be fun to compare this one with it.  Hope you all get a chance to try the recipe and let us know how you like it.

"Spicy" Pork

I fixed the "spicy pork" last night for dinner.  As Jacki and Leslee mentioned it wasn't spicy.  I almost thought it was bland.  I was so excited to use my new food processor... so much easier and faster to chop things up.  That part was VERY exciting :).  I missed one of the spices - cumin - b/c I didn't have any.  Maybe that would have helped it have a little more flavor.  I cooked it in the crockpot as Jacki and Leslee did.  It sounded like a lot of work to cook it in the oven and have to turn it every hour... something I would have probably forgot to do anyways.  The meat was very tender and moist so that part was really good.  I just added some BBQ sauce to mine and we were good to go.  Connor really liked it and cleaned his plate (a rare happening). 

The kids plates ready to go.

 Out of the crock pot - mid-way through the shredding.

Rutter Red Velvet Christmas Cake

I'm sorry it has taken so long to post our cake. The RUTTER CHICKS are still cooking!!! Promise!!! LOL. It has just taken me forever to post.

Let me start off with wishing everybody a Happy New Years. I also hope everybody had a great Christmas. We definitely enjoyed our Christmas this year! This was actually mine and Brandon's first year to spend the holidays as a married couple. We both were able to celebrate the Christmas holiday with both of families for the first time together. It was so much fun!

On Christmas day, we enjoyed opening presents, spending time with each other, and cooking the Christmas meal. For dessert, we had the Red Velvet Cake. Let me tell ya....we loved it.

Notice Audrey's Christmas Gift. That's right...she got a KitchenAid!!!

Also, during the mixing of the cake, we decided that we wanted to add 1/3c of cocoa instead of what the recipe called for. We decided that this was a good decision.

We also discovered, all because of me, that if you mix the cake, put it in the pans, place it in the oven, then take them out, put the mixture back in the bowl, at the baking soda, then put the mixture back in the pans then into the oven, the cake tastes better! ;) Just saying!

(FYI: I missed putting the baking soda in the

batter. LOL. I would not recommend doing

what I did. LOL)

Now to the best part...the icing! I didn't get to help

with the mixing of the icing. I was snoozin' after lunch, but Audrey and MeMa whipped it up and iced the cake. It was so Yummy!

The Final Product!!! WOW it was so good. We loved it. It even turned out Great with my goof up. I think we will definitely make this cake again. We really enjoyed it!

Jacki’s Review of Spicy Pulled Venison

I made this recipe last night with minor additions and changes.  After talking with Leslee about the dish I went ahead and cooked it in the crockpot so I didn’t crisp up the meat at the end.  I also substituted venison for pork since I have so much of it.  I think my venison roast was only about 1.5 pounds but I made the whole batch of sauce for it.  I also used chicken broth instead of water and I added a few sprinkles of crushed red pepper and cayenne pepper each for a little more kick as Leslee suggested.  The venison shredded up nicely and had a good flavor.  I served with warmed flour tortillas, lettuce, tomatoes, shredded cheese and sour cream – Delicious!  If any of the rest of you tried this recipe, let us know how it turned out.  Hope you all had a great Christmas.  Happy New Year!:)

Nika and Jacki’s Review of Red Velvet Cupcakes

Nika, Isabelle and Max made these while we were there for Christmas.  They were very moist with good flavor and the cream cheese icing was especially tasty.  As suggested before we made them into cupcakes – some regular and some mini for the kids.  Nika used a paste food coloring and said next time she would just add the cocoa powder and food coloring in separately because it just made a mass difficult to get from the bowl/spoon into the mix.  It was a fun recipe to make and they turned out quite pretty.

Looks like these are straight from Magnolia Bakery in NYC!:

The bakers:

Leslee's Spicy Shredded Pork

I decided to just make this pork in the crockpot since that seemed a lot easier to me than the oven.  In the morning I plopped a pork roast in, rubbed it with the seasonings and added some beef broth in place of the water.  I only made half the recipe since it was just for the three of us.  I didn’t see anything in the recipe that would make it spicy at all so I added a dash of hot sauce and some ground red pepper.  I let it cook all day on low.  I shredded it and we ate it as tacos or a salad.  It was very moist and tender but wasn’t spicy as the name suggested.  If you want some spice to it I would suggest adding something else in there!