Category Archives: Recipe Reviews

Mar 22 2012

Corned Beef for St. Patrick’s Day

I was a day late getting it done (and several days late getting it posted!), but we finally had our corned beef. I found a recipe on Real Simple online that looked good. It uses thinly sliced Brussels sprouts instead of cabbage.

I got home at 11:30 from a trip to my parents house and immediately got to work. I figured I would need to cook it for about 7 hours on high in the slow cooker.

I used a 5 pound corned beef with seasonings from Costco, 2 beers, 6 whole carrots and about a pound of fresh Brussels sprouts.  Slicing the sprouts in the food process was genius! I plan to use that technique again stews and soups.  They cook incredibly quickly in the hot broth. Served it up family style of a big platter. It was a huge hit with our family that night. Even my picky kids ate the beef!

The recipe includes a sauce for the beef made of sour cream, fresh tarragon and whole grain mustard (I used regular Dijon). It’s a nice touch but not really necessary. The flavor of the beef and sprouts is so good, it gets overpowered by the sauce, in my opinion.

Related posts:

Jan 7 2012

Dark Chocolate Chips Cookies

As I was passing through the baking aisle and saw some dark chocolate chips. Ghirardelli Bittersweet 60% Cacao chips to be exact.  I’m a fan of dark chocolate so I decided to try some chocolate chip cookies with these dark chips.

But which cookie recipe to use? I’m not a huge fan of the Nestle Toll House recipe, the cookies run a little too much and end up flat.  I tried one from my Better Homes and Gardens  cookbook the last time, but it had a weird flavor with both butter and shortening.  The best cookie recipe is my mom’s oatmeal chocolate chip recipe, but it makes about 5 dozen, which is way too many.

I took a chance and went with the recipe on the bag from Ghirardelli.  It actually worked really well.  The cookies turned out thick instead of runny and had great flavor.  Not too salty, and yummy strong chocolate flavor.  I added chopped walnuts because that’s what I had on hand.  I think pecans would have been nice too.

Here is the recipe:

Ghirardelli Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 ¼ c. flour

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

1 c. butter, softened

¾ c. sugar

¾ c. brown sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 large eggs

10 oz. Bittersweet chocolate chips

1 c. chopped nuts

 

Mix flour, soda and salt, set aside. Cream butter and sugars. Add vanilla to creamed mixture.  Add eggs, beating on low speed after each one. Mix on low until combined.  Gradually blend in dry mixture.   Stir in chocolate and nuts  by hand.

Drop by rounded tablespoons onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 375° for 9 to 11 minutes, or until golden brown.

I would also recommend having a cute boy help you.  That makes it extra fun.

 

Related posts:

Jan 3 2012

Recipe Review: The Barefoot Contessa, Linzer Cookies

I received The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook by Ina Garten for Christmas and spent the next day reading it almost cover to cover.  The photos are beautiful and the instructions are simple and clear.

I couldn’t wait to try some recipes, so I started with something simple that I could do while watching the kids.  Linzer cookies, as Ina calls them, are a type of shortbread cookie which is made of butter, sugar, flour and vanilla extract.  She actually has a few variations of the basic recipe in the book. We made the jam-filled sandwich cookies and they turned out wonderful.

I did have a little trouble getting the dough to come together in the beginning. After refrigerating for 30 minutes I tried rolling it out.  The dough was still too crumbly.  I added some additional vanilla extract for some moisture. After rolling out the remnants of the fist cutting again the dough finally reached a good consistency and didn’t give me any trouble as I rolled and cut several times.

The photo in the book shows beautiful round cookies with a fluted edge, with a center cut out, also fluted.  I SO need to get some biscuit cutters!  But luckily, I had a cute one-inch apple-shaped cutter.  It’s meant to be used to cut vents in an apple pie crust, but it worked perfectly for my cookies.  It worked out to a dozen large sandwich cookies. The recipe says 14-16 cookies and I could have made at least two more easily: I rolled the dough a little thick, and the kids wanted some “apple cookies” using the 1″ cutter.

They were a big hit with my husband and family so I will make them again!

Get the full recipe and instructions here: Barefoot Contessa Linzer Cookies.

Related posts:

Dec 28 2011

Italian Sausage & Escarole Stew

Photo by Pampered Chef

We had our first Christmas in our new home, and started what may be a new tradition: Soup Party on Christmas Eve.  Soups are easy and inexpensive to make. Add a vegetable tray, cheese, salami and fresh bread from the bakery and you have a low-stress meal to feed a family! Best of all, I had the guests bring the side dishes, so all I had to cook was the soups.

I made three kinds of soup (which of course, was too much). I made a French Onion soup, and two new recipes: Italian Sausage Stew and Lemon Herb Chicken.  Of the two, I liked the Italian Sausage & Escarole the best.  The recipe comes from the Pampered Chef Soups & Stews cookbook. It was a little spicy thanks to the hot Italian sausage and had assortment of fresh vegetables.

I opted to use a bag of baby spinach in place of the escarole.  I was in a hurry and honestly, not sure what escarole looked like.  The spinach worked fine and actually saved a step since I didn’t have to wash and cut the escarole. The next time I make this dish I think I will leave out the ditalini pasta. It was fine the evening I served it, but it continued to absorb the liquid from the stew as it sat in the refrigerator.  The stew is hearty already, so the pasta isn’t really necessary.

You can get the recipe here, from the Pampered Chef website. Give this one a try, I think you will be pleasantly surprised!

Related posts:

Oct 18 2011

Honey White Bread

I tried my first white bread recipe yesterday. I saw Ina Garten make some on Barefoot Contessa and thought it looked easy enough.  I was a little unnerved by some of the recipe reviews saying it didn’t turn out, so I followed the recipe steps carefully.

My loaves turned out beautiful!  I did make a couple of alterations: I used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour.  I had some on hand, so I figured why not?  The other thing is the butter.  Ina always uses unsalted butter, but I normally only buy salted.  I went ahead with my salted butter and instead of a TBSP of kosher salt I used about 1 teaspoon of table salt.

The bread rose properly, in less than an hour each time.  The only thing that disappointed me was that the loaves fell a little when I took the cloth off to put them in the oven.  I think with a little more practice this is a recipe I could use on a regular basis.

Related posts: