New Recipes for Week of Nov. 25th

Hi all, I know some of you live in warmer parts of the country but out here in Northern Virginia it is down right chilly so lets cook up a pot of Chicken and Noodles (because we haven’t had enough poultry lately:).  

Chicken and Noodles  pg 82

Jacki’s Review of Rigatoni and Meatballs

I made this recipe this past week and thought it was pretty good – nothing amazing though.  First off, I used spaghetti instead of the Rigatoni.  I made the full recipe and it made plenty of  food!  We both thought the meatballs needed more flavoring.  I used ground venison so maybe that had something to do with it.  I didn’t fry the meatballs as directed but cooked them under the broiler – so much easier. My bread took almost an hour to dry out in the oven – way longer than the 20 minutes the recipe stated.   The sauce had a good flavor – probably needed a bit more salt.  I used dried basil instead of fresh.  I enjoyed the meal but would probably use a different meatball recipe or add more spices.  I still have not had a chance to make the Caprese salad  but I am looking forward to it!

New Recipes

Rigatoni and Meatballs - page 126
Caprese Salad- page 98

Jacki’s Apple Dumplings

This was a strange recipe but it worked and was quite tasty.  I cut the recipe in half and it worked fine.  I melted the butter in the microwave and then just added the sugar and vanilla and stirred – very easy.  The canned crescent rolls make it super easy.  I imagine you could use any of the canned rolls/biscuits if you pressed them thin enough.  I read Tarin’s review and I was glad because I also worried about all the liquid but it worked.  I used Ginger Ale for the soda, vanilla ice cream and a Fuji apple (because that is what I had).  Very easy dessert. 

Tarin's Apple Dumplings

I loved!loved!loved! these.

So I used 2 apples. I know she asked for Granny Smiths, but I had Galas.

Peeled and Cored.

Rolling them up was really easy.

I was worried about the amount of liquid that went into this dish...

I cooked them for 40 minutes. At around 35 minutes I put a sheet of aluminum foil over the top to keep them from browning anymore. I was worried because it still looked so liquid-y, but they were delicious and soft but not soggy on the bottom. This is definitely going to be used again! They are really sweet so I was done with 3, but I kept wanting more! Yum!

Jacki’s Roasted Cauliflower and Citrus Butter Cookies

I am trying to catch up on some past recipes so yesterday I made the roasted cauliflower to go with dinner and the citrus butter cookies for dessert. 
The roasted cauliflower was pretty easy except it took way more time to cook in the oven than the 15 or 20 minutes Ree suggested.  After 30 or more minutes I took the pan out of the oven and cooked it in the microwave for 4 minutes.   I guess I should have broken the cauliflower into smaller chunks for faster cooking.  The bread crumb topping was good but it made a  lot.  I also decided to add parmesan cheese to it after I had already measured out the panko crumbs but didn’t add extra butter so it seemed a bit dry to me but all in all it was really good and tasty.  I would make it again but I wouldn’t add as much bread crumb mixture and I would cook it longer than 5 minutes once the crumb topping was on.  (didn’t brown enough after 5 minutes).
The citrus butter cookies were interesting to make and very tasty but also very rich and sweet.  The recipe didn’t call for any baking soda so I was interested to see how they turned out.  Mine were a little flat but not bad – probably needed a smidge more flour.  I was totally incapable of making nice lines across the cookie with the icing so I just ended up frosting them all over the top with it.  I didn’t add the raw egg white to the frosting – just didn’t seem quite right. In my recipe book there was an error - they list “2 large eggs” twice.  I halved the recipe for the cookies and only made 1/3 of the icing recipe.  There was still too much icing so I could have only made 1/4th of the recipe and had plenty.   Very flavorful cookie and something different. 
I am planning on making the (virgin) Blood Mary drink today so stay tuned. 

 

New Recipe!

Hey guys!

This week let's make the Apple Dumplings on page 234.

Happy Cooking :)

Spicy Dr. Pepper Pork

We enjoyed this pork for dinner tonight and made a few changes (so we didn't have to go to the store:). We put it in the crock pot this morning and turned it a few times throughout the day.  We only used about half an onion since that is what we had.  Also we used diet soda in place of regular and doubled the sugar to make up for it.  The results were good! The meat ends up being pretty spicy but you could take out the peppers before shredding the meat which would help.  We made another batch of the restaurant salsa and enjoyed tacos or taco salads.

The Recipe!

For this week I chose the Spicy Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork on page 158.  I have made this before and it is good.  We are having it tonight for dinner so I will do a review soon since we have made a few little changes.
Hope everyone is getting a chance to try out some the recipes!

Jacki and Leslee's Recent Recipe Adventures

Chicken Parmesan

We all thought this was a very tasty dish.  I didn't have a meat mallet so I had a hard time getting the chicken breasts uniformly even.  I substituted chicken broth for the wine and we used gluten free pasta. I forgot about the spinach and made broccoli to go with the meal.  This is definitely a recipe to make again.  I agree with Dana and Brandon - Italian sausage would be great with the sauce.

  Panfried Spinach

I thought this was very good.  I usually just steam my spinach so this was a nice change.  I liked the Kale cooked this way as well.

Sloppy Joes

These were pretty good.  I have a recipe I like a little better but I also enjoyed this recipe.  Leslee actually made this recipe and she said it was pretty easy and straight forward.  It would make a good freezer meal.  

Spicy Lemon Garlic Shrimp

Ok, I know this doesn't look anything like shrimp because it isn't.  Certain people here (I am at Leslee's helping with new baby Lacey) don't care for shrimp so we substituted with chicken.  It was good!  Leslee made it and said she cooked it on a baking sheet but recommends putting it in a smaller pyrex baking dish so the chicken can soak up more of the juices.  She also only used 1 stick of butter instead of two and used dried parsley.  I would like to make it again using shrimp because it looks really tasty with the bread to dip into the juices.

We still have a few recipes we have not cooked yet so we will get busy and report back as soon as we do.