August Recipe Roundup

Some recipe ideas...I really need to clean out my bookmarks!

This round I am trying some other font options with my current theme so I can save time...and theming this one to desserts, what a shock I know!

Homemade Nutter Butters - Cookies & Cups

Fluffy Chocolate Caramel Fruit Dip - Madigan Made

Fluffer Nutter Bites - Real Mom Kitchen

Healthy Chocolate Fudge Zucchini Brownies - Chocolate Covered Katie
(I do keep coming back to zucchini baked goods year after year in these posts)

S’mores Pancakes - Craft Quickies
(I  probably won't try these after all, I like traditional pancakes too much!)

Salted Butterscotch Fudge - Crazy for Crust

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies - Spoon Fork Bacon

Nutella Coconut S'more Bars - ShowFood Chef

Samoa Popcorn (Chocolate, Coconut and Caramel) - Top with Cinnamon

Chocolate Chip Cookies without Butter - Liz Makes

Short share today, while I have lots of kitchen adventures to share from the past few months (we've moved since I last posted last year...so now there is a different kitchen to experiment in!)

Fall Recipe Roundup, Part I

Since I haven't caught up with my monthly Recipe Roundup like I intended, I am going to break up the current recipe stash of OMG SOMEDAY I WANT TO TRY ALL THESE into a few posts. In case you forgot what the Recipe Roundup was all about. Oh shit there are a lot! Lets try to break them up into chunks of ten...

Spiced Zucchini Bread with Chocolate  Poppytalk

Banana Breakfast Dumplings with Vanilla Bean Maple Butter  Joy the Baker

Bacon Wrapped New Potatoes   Ask Chef's Forum

Roasted Apple Spice Sheet Cake   Smitten Kitchen

Zucchini Bread with Pineapple   Simply Recipes

Baked Chili Cheese Fries  Joy the Baker

Mocha Banana Breakfast Smoothie  Madigan Made

Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars  The Girl Who Ate Everything

Fudgy Brownies with Cookie Butter Frosting  Lauren's Latest

Granola Bars  The Pioneer Woman

On the "tried" front, in August I tried this idea of spiral cutting hot dogs. It had shown up in a few places online that I saw, but this writeup from Not Martha made me smile, as do all her posts.

I didn't think to leave the skewers in, but that was because I was subbing a chopstick.  These are brats that I love but are super fatty, so it worked great to help grill off some of the grease. That's grilled chicken piled behind them. I even typed 'checken' accidentally. Old joke.

Back in August I mentioned a third successful Bundt experiment; the carrot Bundt cake!

The Best Humble Carrot Cake Ever  Pastry Pal

Now this was one I found through Google-fu, and as you can see I skipped the whole nicely lining a pan and sprayed the Bundt, omitting the walnuts and raisins. I made a simple vanilla and confectioner's sugar glaze. It went over well at work, and someone even did recommend raisins; I thought everyone hated raisins! Someday I will try it with soaking chopped golden raisins in some sort of alcohol.

What made this experiment special was the carrots; they were carrot pulp saved from juicing! I placed the pulp into a plastic container and popped it into the freezer until I was ready, which turned out to be within a day or two.

I tried juicing fruits and veggies using an extractor for a few weeks in late August and September. We got a juice extractor, it works great, the juice is great, I found two veggies I hate in juice (beets and celery, beets for the taste, celery for the burpies) and had fun jamming kale into every drink...but it was hard. Cleanup, while simple, was time consuming, so to make fresh juice in the morning to sub for a breakfast/lunch was taking too much time. No, you can't leave the machine for later to clean, you will be sorry while you scrub; thankfully I only tried it with one piece one time. Also we are apartment dwellers, and can't compost, so all the fibre and solids were going into the trash (which makes it stinky fast). We also aren't in the best place to get fresh, organic, locally grown produce, so it was hard to justify spending on produce that had traveled so far just to only keep the juice?  

Mobile phone photos of juice, and one from the camera of the kale. Notes below from my facebook posts.

UL: I was trying to keep the kale happy by keeping it in a glass of water in the fridge 

UR: August 28, Carrot apple kale celery lemon

LL:  September 3, Two oranges, one lime, three apples, good handful of kale, blob of ginger, three carrots 

LR: September 2; Very pretty, but one beet overpowers all the other flavors! Maybe I won't be incorporating beets into my regular juicing trials...I have been making enough for two servings each time, so this is half. Again saved the carrot pulp, and this time the beet to make cake, I wonder if it will be purple when mixed into the batter? The carrot cake was a big success at work.

There is a hint of my baking fail in the notes from September 2. See how I tried saving the beet pulp with the carrot pulp? We will save that story for the next post!  

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What recipes have you tried recently? 

Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

August Recipe Roundup

August Recipe Roundup, some to consider, some tried!

First up the recipes I've collected throughout the month:

Strawberry Lemonade Cookies  Back For Seconds

Yummiest Zucchini Muffin Recipe  Dollar Store Mom

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles   Pennies on a Platter

Banana, Walnut & Chocolate Cookie Cake   Joy the Baker

Jello Cookies   I Heart Nap Time

My Favorite Brownies  Smitten Kitchen 

Hash Brown Waffles  Tea & Cookies

Peanut Butter Chocolate Bars  Greta White via The Girl Who Ate Everything

Double Chocolate Cherry Muffins  Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Bacon Corn Hash  Smitten Kitchen

A few months ago I mentioned wanting a Bundt Cake pan....well I got one, from a thrift store on the first try! We dropped some donations off and browsed a bit, finding some treasures!

Wow, NordicWare and everything? At $4.99 I was thrilled. Now comparing it to new it may not have been the amazing deal I thought it was, but still a great deal for being pristine on the inside, and in my hands.

The next night, I tried it for the first time...

BUNDT PAN SUCCESS! I made a banana apple bread as my first bundt experiment (based on this Smitten Kitchen recipe, adding a chopped apple). Yum. My mom gave me a box of steel cut oats, and I added some; a little too crunchy (maybe I should cook them before adding next time?)

Next Bundt experiment...later in the week was my second try - 3 bananas, 1 apple, and measured less even that last time (A little throw-and-go? Why do I pretend I know what I am doing?) added more flour in the end and baking soda to even out (?) the extra flour, which I added since it was very wet, and the last one ended up with a wet bottom (top, since it was flipped). Rather than trying to use paper towels and plastic wrap to get the brown sugar happier, I added water; Wow look a hot slurry from the microwave! Why did the surprise me? I dumped it in anyway. With the same measuring cup, I added the steel-cut oats and water and back into the microwave, they were a little -too- crunchy last time for my taste. It helped a lot, and the leftover brown sugar slurry sweetened them enough that I was eating the rest out of the measuring cup. I added some regular oats as well - tossing in a handful. I was successful in making a drier bread, but may have overcooked it at 40 minutes at 350 - powdered sugar and a bit of water made a topping that I practiced making a pretty pattern.

For my third Bundt experiment, wait, this has a whole other story! Since I'm not the most consistent blogger, I'll start a new post to share, and try to get some more content up here. ^^

What recipes have you tried recently? 

Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

July Potential Recipe Roundup

So this time I started this post as soon as I saw I had a few recipes waiting to be added; it seems to have gone well, except the darn formatting fight! I find I go back and forth from the "Compose" to the "HTML" screen more than I should...

I made banana-flop muffins. That means the rose beautifully and then FLOPPED when I brought them out of the oven. Sometimes you can't throw-and-go with a recipe (or mish-mash of recipes); or I need to not add more bananas just to use them up. Edible, I took them to the office and they would have all been eaten had someone not put the container back onto my desk; a sign, I incorrectly assumed, that they were no longer good. It turned out a hour later someone was asking if there were any left, after I had pitched the last half-dozen, oops. 

On the success side, I made beans and rice. Yes it sounds silly to have never made it before, but I took time to look up a Chili's clone because I LOVE their beans and rice. The clones I found were super simple, so I took a few and made something that turned out GOOD and CHEAP. I sauteed half of a diced onion until translucent and starting to brown, and dumped in a can of black beans (Go GOYA! - my favorite) and then started adding spices and garlic and cooking it to reduce the bean liquid and make them softer. I ended up making it too spicy for my taste, but J thought it was great. I made quick brown rice and a bag of corn, and now can boast a meat-free pantry meal as part of my potential rotation. Just next time I will taste as I go a bit more (as opposed to NOT AT ALL) so I can make it a teensy bit more mild. Can of beans, cup of rice, can or bag of corn, spices/onion on hand = way cheaper than going out. If I could add one meal like this a month to my mental rotation, it would save us a lot of money eating at home and having lunches to take to work. 

I also picked up a bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp at Aldi (OMG why is shrimp so expensive, I thought it was supposed to be cheap? Aldi had the best deal I had seen.) I was starving late one night, but ended up being lazy and saying "Let's just eat here" - J made an omelet and I made a bowl of pasta with a few shrimp and a fake fancy sauce; margarine, garlic, Parmesan cheese (aka 'shakey cheese' - processed stuff in a shaker-can). The pasta was udon noodles, which were bundled in the pack into perfect portion-sized servings. Tasted great, but I did need to rebrush my teeth from the gaaahlic. Something I can make in bulk and pack for a work lunch? Not unless I bring some mouthwash. ;)
Onto the delightful looking recipes!

Chocolate Mint Brownie Bites  The Pioneer Woman 

Zucchini Pineapple Bread  Brown Eyes Baker

Honeyed Peaches  The Hip Girl’s Guide to Homemaking

Cappuccino Bars   Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Balls   Joy the Baker

The Amazing Incredible Broccoli Surprise Sauce  Tea & Cookies

Cinnamon Roll Waffles with Cream Cheese Syrup  Lady Behind the Curtain

Breakfast Nachos  Joy the Baker

Waffle Brownies  Tea & Cookies

Classic Icebox Cake   Serious Eats

Tarragon Corn Chowder  Simply Recipes 

Zucchini Tots  The Curious Country Cook

Crockpot Strawberry Jam  The Lady Wolf

Beer Batter Bread*  Epicurious

*We bought some beer; lemon shandy...I am not a beer drinker, so I am trying to cook with it.

Beer Batter Bread Round 1; I find I don't taste the lemon in the beer nor in the bread. I used 2/3 wheat flour, and added some extra sweetner (no-calorie stevia based). Sifted in the baking powder since it was getting to the end of the container, age unknown. Maybe I will like it more when it has cooled more? I was on my third piece of deciding if I did or did not like it that I cut it up and took it to work; I got some nice feedback!

Round 2; Nice enough feedback from the first Round that I tried it a second time; still half-wheat-half-white, extra tablespoon of -sugar-sugar, added some cinnamon, ginger, and a teensy bit of nutmeg. Better to enjoy on its own, still didn't rise much. I blamed that it was the last of the baking powder. Taste was much better for enjoying on its own.

Round 3; Took a bread pan and a can of the ale to my mother's. This time the beer was room temperature (maybe it didn't rise to being awesome last times because it was cold?) and I used her dry ingredients. Same as first try; a dense yeasty product that is a great vehicle for bringing a spread (jam, apple butter, peanut butter, etc.) to your mouth. Probably not something I will try again unless at some point I am in possession of an unopened beer that I have no desire to even try.
  

Not -too- bad looking, right?

What recipes have you tried recently?
Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

June Potential Recipe Roundup

Apple, banana, strawberry yogurt,
coconut, oatmeal...

I feel like June flew by, just as I was used to writing/typing the digit '6' for the month... I didn't make any new recipes to share, but I did make some everything muffins cobbling together a few muffin recipes in my print-out binder to match what I had. They were very well received at the office, something that always makes me feel good! See, in some cases I do well with throw-together baking; I guess that means I am learning?

As far as cooking basics, I did learn how to cook fresh green beans in the microwave. Sometimes basic things slip away from your mind; I'm sure as a kid we cooked and ate fresh green beans at least on occasion! Trim the beans, add a little water to a Corningware dish, season, add butter/margarine if desired, nuke for 5 minutes, check for level of doneness. Spellcheck thinks I am making stuff up with the word "doneness" (ironically, also the word "spellcheck".) 

This time I am creating this post using a copy-paste method from last month's post; keeping the same formatting can be frustrating, but I think this method is moving the creation of this monthly post into less of a chore.

Breakfast Pasta Bake   Kayotic Kitchen

Buttermilk Chocolate Chip Pancake Mix   Joy the Baker

Super Easy and Delicious Zucchini Butter   The Kitchn

Chocolate Zucchini Bread   Simply Recipes

Pan-Roasted Chicken With Lemon-Garlic Green Beans  Real Simple

Crispy Potatoes with Green Beans & Eggs   EatingWell

Mini Pretzel Dogs  Joy the Baker

Broccoli Parmesan Fritters  Smitten Kitchen

Chocolate-Chocolate Chip + Bacon Cookies  Foodbuzz

Ginger Walnut Chocolate Blondies  Joy the Baker

What recipes have you tried recently? Are there recipes out there that you would love to make?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

April/May Potential Recipe Roundup

I was running behind with adding my April Roudup, so I decided to wait a bit and make it cover the two months. I finally was able to get myself to save the links as I came across them as bookmarks, rather than have them sit in my Reader queue and potentially expire. Next step? To make a draft post and add them to that as I go!

White Bean Bundt Cake  Joy the Baker

Awesome Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies   Simply Recipes

Homemade Honey Lollipops   The Chick n' Coop  

Fresh Strawberry Yogurt Cake   Little Birdie Secrets 

S'more Cups   Texas Cottage 

Coffee Coffee Cake Muffins   Joy the Baker

The very best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever   Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Oatmeal Sandwich Cookies with Creamy Peanut Butter Filling   Joy the Baker

Coconut Chocolate Macaroon Bars  Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Strawberry Lemonade Shortcake   Little Birdie Secrets 

Cake Mix Peanut Butter Cookies*   Scrumdillydilly

* tried this one - yumm! Definitely take some extra time to chill it in the fridge, because SUPER STICKY is not an exaggeration. I am going to make it again without the chips so it can be lactose-free (Richfood brand cake mixes contain no milk, and using lactose-free milk as the liquid.) 

What recipes have you tried recently? If you click a few of these, you may notice I haven't tried any that involve a Bundt pan - I don't have one! I'm also not willing to spend a lot to get ONE MORE THING to fit into the kitchen, so I am on the lookout for something inexpensive. Maybe one that looks nice enough to hang?

Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

March Recipe Roundup

Totally gonna add a “Recipe Roundup” tag, since this is the third group – it can be a theme! Monthly I have to clear out the Reader stuff I have been hording in the area of recipes!

Homemade Graham Crackers Little Birdie Secrets

Crunchy Chicken Stuffed Waffle Pops and Maple Dijon Dip Snappy Gourmet

Braided Spaghetti Bread Rhodes Bake-n-Serv

Shepherd’s Pie with Cheddar-Spiked Mashed Potatoes Fine Cooking

Potato Chip Cookies Smitten Kitchen

Super Quick Homemade Mac and Cheese Tried & True

Colcannon Simply Recipes*

* tried this, twice! It is awesome with a few slices of cooper sharp cheese in the mixer when mashing the potatoes – made a second batch since I inhaled the first and added ham bits (I should have gone with the first amount of ham I added, now it has too much, but still yummy). I didn’t really follow the recipe as it states, just took the idea of making mashed potatoes, and adding sautéed cabbage and onion. Great to help add veggies to my diet and not be eating a BIG blog of starch as just mashed potatoes. I Didn’t bother peeling the potatoes either time since I knew the cabbage would add texture.

What food have you tried recently? I have a whole upcoming post about the different foods I tried at a friends’!


Search this blog for other Recipe Roundup posts and view them here! 

2012 Potential Recipe Roundup

Time for another Recipe Roundup, as I keep saving these ideas for later in my Google Reader, but not quite to the point of printing them out! I actually had my Reader list down to nothing for the New Year, so I am trying to keep it manageable, and not lose any good ideas because they time-out (posts over a month[?] old get purges from your list automatically, else you would be perpetually reading until the beginning of time of your blogs)

Bite-Sized Baked Brie

Bierocks from Scratch

Toasted Coconut Clusters

Egg McMuffins for Home Skillets

Green Pea Pesto Ravioli

Previous Recipe Roundup links here

Foods I want to make

aka ‘Potential Recipe Roundup’!

Food, I think I love you.

Yes I do really like food, and cooking, and making something AWESOME…but…

But I need practice.

You see there are times when it is easier to go out and get what I want from someone else’s hands – eating establishment, pre-made, frozen. I also have to contend with the understanding that my tastes do not always have the prefect alignment with my other half, which can leave me frustrated, and with too many servings!

Regardless, I keep getting my head full of ideas of recipes I want to try….and maybe having them in little posts will be easier than printing them and losing them in a folder in the kitchen.

Baked Potato Potato Salad

Make Your Own Ice Cream Cones

Homemade Ricotta

Coconut Cream Cheese Cookies

World’s Easiest Chocolate Pudding

YUM.