New Recipe for Week of Dec. 29, 2013

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year.  Perhaps you all have  been cooking right along with us and will find the time to post your results and reviews soon.  In looking through the cookbook I see we have cooked a lot of the recipes.  Lets try the Mini Puffed Oven Pancakes with Easy Berry Sauce on page 12.   

Jacki and Leslee's Pepperoncini Beef and Spinach-Walnut Salad

I made these two recipes on the day Leslee and her family came in to town for the Christmas holiday.  First up is the review on the Pepperoncini Beef Sandwiches.  All I can say is YUM! We all liked it.  In the recipe book she has a tip about the different brands of pepperoncinis.  I bought the spicier  one - Marzetti because that is what the store had.  It made the beef perfectly tasty.  I think you could do this with pork and even chicken.  So good and easy.  Some of us had the beef on sandwich rolls and others had it on rice - very good both ways. I forgot to take a picture with either the roll or rice so I just put some of the meat on a plate.
Next is the review of the Spinach-Walnut Salad with Fresh Citrus.  It was also delicious.  I really liked the fresh oranges in it.  For the dressing I only added half the oil and made up the difference with water and it was fine. 

New recipes for week of Dec.15th

I chose two recipes and one craft for this weeks picks.
1. Pepperoncini Beef Sandwiches pg. 222
2. Spinach-Walnut Salad with Fresh Citrus pg. 214
3. Tin Can Treats pg. 130
I'm looking forward to trying the sandwich and salad recipes as they look simple and tasty.  I've also been saving my tin cans for this craft project and thought that it would be something fun to hand out at Christmas time.  Have fun :)

Tarin's Beignets and Hot Chocolate

We had the missionaries over for dinner last night and they are always my best guinea pigs. I made these for dessert. They were really good. I followed the directions exactly, except I cooked them in normal veggie oil. Everyone enjoyed them, but I felt like they tasted more like the scones that we make with bread dough. But they were easy and fun so I'll probably make them again.

As far as the hot chocolate it was a pretty good/basic recipe. I really liked the toasted marshmallows on tops with the chocolate sauce, but something about the graham cracker bits on the side just kind of weirded me out, but they looked really pretty. (Sorry I forgot to take a picture!)

New Recipes

Sorry everyone that I am so late posting the recipes this week! Thank you Jackie for the reminder! The last couple weeks have been crazy with travel, remodeling our kitchen, and office Christmas parties...oh and a week of negative degree weather! 

So with all that in mind lets do the:

S'mores Hot Chocolate on pg 202 

Beignets on pg 44

Jenny's Caesar Salad

This week I made the caesar salad.  I used it as a side salad, so I didn't do the chicken, although I would love to try it that way too some time.

After reading Leslee's review I cut down on the oil too.  I would say I did about 3/4 a cup, instead of the full cup.  When I first tasted the dressing I thought it was a tad too lemon-y.  But after I tossed the salad I realized I was wrong!  I thought it was great!

I am usually not a crouton gal, but these homemade ones were delish.  I made them just as the recipe states, except I forgot to toss them in the parmesan cheese at the end.  The whole time I was making them it was running through my mind, "Don't forget the cheese at the end...don't forget the cheese."  But it didn't matter.  I still forgot.  They still tasted great though!

I would definitely make the salad again.  I want to try it with the chicken.  It would be a fun salad to make for a luncheon.  And I thought it would taste great with some purple onion, tomatoes, and black olives...but I guess then it wouldn't quite be a caesar salad ;)

Jacki's Pumpkin Muffins and Chicken Caesar Salad

I made both of these recipes today and they were good!  I followed the recipe for the muffins as directed except I didn't have pumpkin pie spice so I made my own by mixing up cinnamon, cloves, ginger, and nutmeg.  Easy and delicious.  Of course I forgot to add the chocolate chips until after I had filled the muffin cups for baking but at least I had not topped with the streusel yet.  So, I added some chocolate chips to each muffin and stirred them in with a chop stick.  The whole bag of chocolate chips the recipe asked for seemed like a lot so I didn't add it all but I should have.  What was I thinking?...too much chocolate?! Never.  Anyway, good, tasty recipe.I only needed to cook the muffins for 20 minutes.  Having said all that I recently made a much easier pumpkin muffin courtesy of Pinterest where I just mixed yellow cake mix and canned pumpkin and the above mentioned spices and I loved it - dense and moist. 
The Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad was also very good.  I did make a mistake though.  I remembered Leslee said she only added half the oil so I did as well, but......I didn't add milk or water in place of the rest of the oil and the dressing was SO strong.  So, good to add less oil but be sure to make up the difference with water or milk.  The croutons were so tasty and a fun addition to the salad.  Another good recipe. 

New Recipes for Dec 1st

This week I have chosen:
1. Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad pg 82
2.Streusel-Topped Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins pg 140

I have actually already made the Chicken Caesar Salad so I will give my review:) I made the homemade croutons and those were a hit and a nice addition to the salad. I cute way back on the olive oil in the dressing since 1 cup seemed like a lot and it didn't make too big of a difference. It was a yummy salad that surprisingly my whole family liked!

Jacki's Tortellini Sausage Soup

I made this soup a few weeks ago and loved it.  I followed the recipe exactly except I used apple juice instead of apple cider because the store only had 1 gallon jugs of cider and I don't love it that much.  The recipe was easy to put together and made good leftovers for a few lunches.  I would definitely make this again.

Jacki's Dulce de Leche and Butternut Squash Pasta

I hope everyone had a Happy Thanksgiving filled with family, friends, and good food!  And, maybe you were able to catch up on a few recipes from our blog too.  A couple of weeks ago I made the Dulce de Leche and the Butternut Squash Pasta with Pumpkin Sauce. Both were good.  The Dulce de Leche was super easy and made a nice dip for sliced apples.  I followed the directions exactly and wasn't disappointed. 
For the Roasted Butternut Squash with Pumpkin sauce I made a few minor adjustments to the recipe.  The store I went to didn't have any fresh butternut squash (I know, strange for this time of year) but they did have frozen butternut squash so I bought that instead which was easier since I didn't have to peel and dice it.  I omitted the sage and rosemary.  I was wondering if the sauce would have too much of a pumpkin flavor but it didn't - very tasty.  Next time I would probably omit the onions or dice them fine and saute them first.  I like onions but the roasted ones were still a little firm for the dish where everything else was soft and creamy.  I wasn't in love with this recipe but I thought it was good and glad I tried it.   A different twist on pasta.
                                         
                                         Dulce de Leche

                                          This is what it looked like all ready for the oven

                                          Above is the Roasted Butternut Squash with Pumpkin Sauce.