recent endeavors

http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/speckled-for-the-freckled/

At first I thought this was not as good as mom's tried and true. But a day in the fridge allowed the flavors to blend and it got so unbelievable moist. I used nearly 4 bananas. Mine could have used a day or so to get even riper though (were as speckled as the ones in the picture).

Greek Yogurt Frosting:

Had to add some butter and powdered sugar. Eventually got it right, but if you are going for frosting, just do cream cheese (Ina Garten's from Carrot and Pineapple Cake is awesome).

Also, that is the best carrot cake recipe. Tried to use the 101cookbooks recipe, but let's be honest, cake without sugar is just not worth it. Had to add sugar, oil and carrots till the batter achieved near Ina quality.

2-3 tbls milk, 1 tsp oil, and 1 tsp baking powder in the kiss cookie dough recipe to make it safe. Excellent taste but cookies just the teeniest bit flat.

2-3 tbls milk, 1 tbls butter, 2 tsp just whites in the toll house choc. chip cookie dough batter. Excellent taste but cookies just the teeniest bit flat.

Cake balls are not worth it unless you had a failure (if your cupcakes or brownies are not moist enough).

Cookie dough cupcakes I thought at first were bad (when straight out of the oven) but turns out once cooled in the fridge so the cookie dough achieves cookie dough texture, it is quite a neat surprise (I did the PB dough in a yellow cupcake).

Tasty Kitchen's "that's the best frosting you'd ever had" is SO not. Too much like whipped cream consistency.

Pioneer Woman's brownies from the salted caramel brownie are not as good as a box mix (I've switched to Ghiradelli because no partially hydrogenated oil, but honestly these are not as good as betty crocker's triple chocolate chunk brownies).

Nutella brownies http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/08/4-ingredients-nutella-brownies/ were easy but not great.


German chocolate frosting is amazing.

Cake batter mixed with ice cream == heaven.

recent endeavors to remember

Recent: too much cooking as usual.

Do not make roasted chicken ever again.

This dressing was very good:
http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/03/recipe-liberation-day/

Majorly changed the main bit of the recipe, basically ended up as my barley toasted with roasted zucchini and eggplant, tomatoes, onion and tons of basil. Very good though.

best meatballs:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Meatball-Nirvana/Detail.aspx

fresh spinach (not baby) can taste good in a salad. rub with lemon or lime juice, bit of salt and olive oil to soften texture and super green taste.

Sangria

I amended this drink mixer recipe for Sangria.

With amendments:
1 jug of sangria
About 250 ml diet sprite.
200 ml lemonade
orange juice to taste
2 tbsp. sugar
cut in cubes melons
canned crushed pineapple with juice
slices of oranges, limes, lemon
diced apples
cut in cubes strawberries

It doesn't need the ice if served cold -- just gets watery!!!

Cranberry Berry Apple Pie

I used Pioneer Woman's Pie Crust with 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour since I ran out of flour. It turned out very good. However, when divided in 3, the recipe barely makes enough for the pie plate -- don't expect high edges or a thick crust.

I thought cranberries would be only as tart as rhubarb but I was wrong. For the filling I used 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice, 3/4 c. sugar, 3 tbsp. flour, along with 6 c of the fruits. A little less than 1 c. of this was chopped cranberries.

The crumb topping was an amendment to the crumb topping under the Betty Crocker recipe for Rhubarb Pie. I used 3/4 c. sugar, 1/2 c. white whole wheat flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice, some chopped walnuts, a little less than 1/2 c. quick oats, and 5 tbsp of butter. This was quite good.

25 min with foil around the edges, 25 min with foil removed. Was a couple minutes too long---top got a little brown.

Pioneer Woman Big Steak Salad Review

This was probably the only recipe of Pioneer Woman's I would not make again.

The marinade for the steaks was not very strong once cooked. The taste of the dressing/marinade was delicious, but you definitely need to drizzle more on the steak after it is cooked.

We used ribeye. This is not my favorite type of steak. I think I would rather have the cheap sirloin kind.

While the dressing was delicious, it didn't really go with the toppings on the salad. It was more of an Asian style dressing -- the candied pecans (I used walnuts) were especially out of place. I also reaffirmed I do not like bleu cheese. I had to use just the white bit without any blue streaks.

better than in mom's cookbook?

Quaker's Chewy Choc-Oat-Chip Cookies

More flour, less salt. More brown sugar, less white.

Chicken Marsala

Combo of these two recipes is amazing. Used 14 c. baby portabella relative to less than 3 lbs chicken breasts (weighed uncooked). Still wanted more mushrooms/sauce relative to chicken. Used about 2/3 of the required chicken broth, and used a bit of cooking sherry as in the Allrecipes version.

Emeril

Allrecipes