Awesome Pot Roast

I could happily live off of cooking chicken, pasta, and veggies for the rest of my life, whereas Dave prefers steak and potatoes.  I've been attempting to branch out into non-chicken-or-pasta main dishes, and fortunately Pinterest offers more options than I'll ever be able to cook.  The best find to date is a Crock Pot recipe for The Best Pot Roast Ever--with celery added per Dave's request. Seriously, if Mr. Picky Carnivore asks for a vegetable be added to dinner, you can bet I'll be adding it!

Carrots, celery, and potatoes

Add meat and a little water

Three packets of seasoning

Ten hours later!

A Pumpkin and a Plan: Part II

The ingredients were ready to make Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies (aka "test run cookies" before I attempted the recipe for Pumpkin White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies).

The batter was a little gooier than expected (but so was the homemade pumpkin puree), so I added some corn starch and a little more flour...and then *after* I had baked the first batch, I realized that I had forgotten to add the oatmeal. Since there wasn't much of a pumpkin taste to the first cookies, I also added 1/4 tsp of Pumpkin Pie Spice to the second batch.

The last tray of "test run cookies" from the second batch (with oatmeal and Pumpkin Pie Spice) died a horrible death when the wax paper I used as a cookie sheet liner started smoking so badly that I'm surprised the smoke detector didn't go off.  I thought I'd read somewhere that wax paper was okay in the oven--guess it's not!  Dejected at what seemed like such an epic cookie fail, I turned off the oven and rifled through my recipes till I found a cookie recipe I had most of the ingredients to bake.

After a grocery run (and dinner), I made Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies.  They actually look like the picture on the recipe, so yay!  Next time, I'll prep the recipe in half because it had trouble staying in the mixer (just the opposite of too-gooey cookie batter).

I *will* attempt Pumpkin White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cookies again, but this time I think I'll stick to canned pumpkin...

Green Bean Casserole

Only two weeks till Thanksgiving! Dave and I have a Thanksgiving potluck dinner with friends this weekend, and the dish I always bring is green bean casserole. It's a very basic recipe given to me by my mother (who probably got it from the back of a can of cream of mushroom soup or something).

Yeah, my casserole doesn't look that pretty when it's done...

Mom's Green Bean Casserole

3/4 cup of milk

1 can cream of mushroom soup
2 - 14.5 oz cans of French cut green beans (drained)

2/3 cup French fried onions for mixing into the casserole

2/3 cup French fried onions to serve on top of the cooked casserole

• Mix the first four ingredients together in an 8x8 dish
• Cook at 350° for 30 minutes
• Garnish cooked casserole with the remaining French fried onions

I've seen some recipes with 1/8 tsp pepper and/or 1 tsp of soy sauce added to the mix as well!

This year's special ingredient: Cheddar French Fried Onions!

As Seen on Pinterest

I blame my BFF. She got me hooked, and now I can't stop!

As I get ambitious enough to try some of the ideas I find on Pinterest, I will be posting them on my blog.  The good.  The bad.  And the epic FAIL.

To start off with, I'll mention a trio of recipes I tried last weekend.  Friday night got a thumbs up and a thumbs down.  Betty Crocker's Impossibly Easy Broccoli and Red Pepper Pie was a pleasant surprise, especially for my husband who eyes any meatless dish with suspicion.  For a side dish, I prepared garlic red potatoes, which sounds fantastic, but after doubling the cook time, they were still crunchy and we were hungry (which probably made the Betty Crocker pie taste that much better!).  I ended up covering the baking dish and tossing the potatoes in the back of the fridge for a few days.

The third recipe I absolutely loved because it was so easy!  Appropriately titled "Easiest Dinner Ever," this chicken, Rotel, corn, black bean, and cream cheese dish tasted great on top of plain white rice.  And the leftovers tasted good on the baked garlic red potatoes that failed the other night!  This time I cooked the potatoes on a cookie sheet like the glorified french fries they were... and next time, I won't use lemon juice to season them (odd, I know!)

Lucky Number

Only 25 days (my favorite number) till Turkey Day!  Here's some healthy inspiration for the holiday... do you prefer fruit or veggie turkey?  And thank you to Pinterest for the inspiration...

Noel's Brownies

Back before Easter, I found a random recipe online for Peep-Stuffed Brownies. In honor of Noel, I baked these today for book club and dusted them with red, yellow, and green sugar (Alpha Gamma Delta colors).

Cutting Peeps in half is harder than it sounds!

I molested the Peeps for the yellow sugar dusting...

Not as pretty as the picture from the recipe, but I'm sure they'll taste good!

Stress-Fighting Foods

As my friends and family know, I do not handle stress well. Recently I've been trying to take a more natural approach to fighting stress by researching "stress-fighting foods" online and trying to incorporate them into my diet. My favorite so far has been spinach--lots of spinach salads, a pretty good spinach and chicken recipe, and the omelette below with spinach, red pepper, and bacon bits.


Other good stress-fighting foods include:

• pumpkin, sesame, and sunflower seeds
• kiwi, cranberries, plantains, blueberries, citrus fruits
• raisins, figs
  
• chamomile tea
• dark chocolate
• skim milk
• oatmeal
• salmon
• walnuts, almonds
• yogurt
• broccoli
• garlic
  

Christmas Cookie FAIL

On the eve of Christmas Eve, I headed home from work with intentions of baking Christmas cookies for my family. I figured I'd start easy: chocolate chip cookies with M&M's instead of chocolate chips. The batter was a little gooey going into the oven, but I didn't think much of it until I pulled out the cookie sheet after 10 minutes.


Instead of a dozen cute Christmas cookies, I had a caterpillar-like blob. After a couple of calls to my mother debating what I could do to rescue this recipe, I decided to force the cookies into perfect circular shapes using the best cookie cutter I could find--a drinking glass.


Despite my best hopes, I had to concede FAILure on this particular recipe and moved on to something different. I made a batch of red and green sugared snickerdoodles (which turned out perfectly), and went to bed with hopes of regrouping in the morning for round two with M&M Christmas cookies...

I found a different chocolate chip cookie recipe and was determined to follow each instruction perfectly to limit the possibility of another FAIL. I also discovered a cookie scoop in my kitchen gadget drawer which quickly became one of my new favorite kitchen toys. Since I was low on M&M's due to the FAILed batch, I made these with mini chocolate chips in the batter and one M&M on top.

See the difference? I now have a new favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, and hopefully I won't have to endure another epic cookie FAIL any time soon!

Cutest Cake Ever!

Barn Cake with Farm Animal Cupcakes

It's almost too cute to eat--not that I would actually expend the energy to do something this complicated with food! That's why Publix has a bakery... and JustJulie has themed parties ;-)

Another Cranberry Cookie Recipe

I was in a baking mood over the weekend and tried out the recipe on the back of a package of Craisins. No, this is not the Cranberry White Chocolate Shortbread cookie recipe... it is the *Oatmeal* Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk cookie recipe. And people seemed to like these better--it must be the oatmeal, which makes them healthy ;-)

2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1-1/2 cups old-fashioned oats

1-1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 6-oz package Craisins

2/3 cup white chocolate chunks or chips

Preheat oven to 375 F. Using an electric mixer, beat butter or margarine and sugar together in a medium mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl. Add to butter mixture in several additions, mixing well after each addition. Stir in sweetened dried cranberries and white chocolate chunks. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cook on wire rack. Makes approximately 2-1/2 dozen cookies.

Mom's Birthday Cookies

Mom's birthday was last week, so I baked for PINS this past Saturday in honor of the occasion. The recipe of choice was one I found while browsing around at KraftFoods.com: Cranberry-White Chocolate Shortbread.

I took half of the more than four dozen cookies produced by the recipe to share with the ladies at PINS, where the cookies were a hit with the needle crafters. I think three lonely little cookies came home with me, and I sent another 5 or 6 home with my parents. I took a half dozen to HistoryDiva's apartment for her and LibraryDiva to share. The remaining cookies went to work with me yesterday, where the last one disappeared somewhere around lunchtime. Unless HistoryDiva and LibraryDiva are hoarding their cookies, every single one of the 55 cookies I baked on Saturday morning have been eaten. And there is no greater complement to the baker!