Very Pinteresting…Recipes I’ve Actually Tried

Unless you are being held prisoner in a basement or something, I’m sure you have either heard of Pinterest or have already started pinning your heart out.  I admit it, I’m a serial pinner.  Like a pin hoarder.  But, I am happy to report that I have actually made some things I’ve seen on there.  I’m even happier to report that I’ve only had one REALLY EPIC FAIL:  dehydrated strawberries in the oven.  Don’t believe the pictures, people!  Anyway, I thought I’d share a few of the ones I have tried and liked.  I’ve linked to the pin on my board so you can check out the recipes if you like.

LEMON BROWNIES

We really liked these.  Mr. Foodie doesn’t like brownies (I know, right?) so these really worked for him.  They are really heavy and rich, which, in this case, is a good, good thing…

MONKEY BARS

Let me just say that I’m ALWAYS on the hunt for the best banana bar/cake.  I think this is my favorite banana anything recipe.  I loved this and if you like banana stuff, you will too!  Try it, it’s a keeper!

EGG CREAM

Pictured is a strawberry egg cream I made for Mr. Foodie, which he loved.  I made a chocolate one for myself.  I personally think they are kind of weird.  It’s not that they taste bad or anything, it’s just a weird mouth experience to me.  I’m expecting creamy, milky goodness and am met with sparkly, carbonation.  It’s unexpected so I’m not sure how I feel about Egg Creams.  Mr. Foodie is sold on them, however, so they will be making appearances in the house!

GRANDS DONUTS

Donuts out of canned biscuits?  Say it ain’t so?  Oh, it is.  And they are really good!  We tried some dipped in sugar and some in cinnamon sugar.  We much preferred the ones dipped in plain sugar.  These make some tasty, light donuts.  Foodie Jr. and I gobbled them up.  They are a little reminiscent of malasadas to me, a Portuguese donut.

I’m sure I’ll be posting about more winning Pinterest finds in the future, I just wanted to share a few with you today.  Head on over and follow me – I’m on there as Foodie Interrupted!

BLTA with Garlic Mayonaise

It gets plenty busy around here during the week and sometimes we just need a simple, quick dinner.  This one generally pleases our entire family and is not too overwhelmingly processed and unhealthy which can be a problem when you need fast, fast, fast!  This can be thrown together in an instant!  It’s sort of a non-recipe, really… but, hey, I was hungry…

BLTA WITH GARLIC MAYONAISE

Ingredients:

Sliced French Bread (or your favorite kind of bread)

1-2 Large Tomatoes, washed and sliced

1-2 Avocados, sliced

Romaine Lettuce, washed and torn

Your Favorite Bacon, cooked (we like the thick cut Applewood smoked stuff)

For the Mayo:

1/2-3/4 Cup Your Favorite Mayonaise

3 Tsp Garlic Paste

Juice of one large lemon

Salt and Black Pepper to taste (I used about 1/2 Tsp each)

Directions:

1.  Mix all the mayo ingredients together well and refrigerate at least 15-30 minutes ahead of time.

2.  Toast French Bread

3.  Assemble sandwiches per your taste.

Lemon Oatmeal Cookies – The Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap!

A little bit about ‘The Swap”…

I was hanging out on Twitter late one night when I happened upon Love and Olive Oil and The Little Kitchen‘s tweets about their Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap.  I was in luck as it wasn’t too late to sign up, which I immediately did.  I used to attend a local mother’s group cookie swap every year and it was a lot of fun.  I am no longer a member of that club and while I still participate in smaller swaps, I wanted to do a bigger one.  At the time I had signed up, they had about 550 bloggers from around the world signed up to swap cookies.  I thought that was pretty darn cool and it was fun being a part of it.  I got to exchange 3 dozen of my cookies with 3 other bloggers, blogs I had never read before!  They estimate that over 22.000 cookies were swapped across this big ole world!  That’s a lot of cookies and I’m happy I got to be a part of it!  If you missed it this year and would like information on how to participate in the next one, sign up here.

A little bit about the cookies I received…

1.  Sisters’ Snacktime ( AJ & Jas Hwang) provided me with my first cookies.  They sent me two kinds (!) –  Peach and Crisp Salted Oatmeal with White/Dark Chocolate.

2.  I got my second set of cookies from Lana Watkins at Bibberche.  They were called Roses and were Serbian recipe from her Grandmother.

3.  My final set of cookies arrived from Chrissy and Dana Marie DeCapite at Sorelle e Cibo.  They were a really yummy white chocolate macadamia and cranberry cookie.  (Mr. Foodie ate them all.)

Thank you to all of my Cookie Swappers!  I enjoyed the different cookies and stories.

A little bit about the cookies I swapped…

I wanted to make a cookie I had never made before and I wanted it to be a little bit different.  Don’t get me wrong, I love your standards like chocolate chip or peanut butter, but I definitely wanted to go in another direction.  When I was pregnant with Foodie Jr., I became part of an internet message board for moms delivering in the same month and year.  I immediately made friends with a gal named Jen and we’ve been friends ever since.  And although we haven’t even met in person, I still consider her one of my best, dearest friends.  One thing we have in common is a love of food.  I sooooooooo trust her taste in food and have not disliked any recipe she has ever passed along.  She gave me this recipe for her favorite cookie a few years back and I’ve never gotten around to trying it.  I have no idea why I waited so long because these are definitely on MY list of favorite cookies now!  This recipe came from her father’s mother and I just love that – recipes that are passed down from one generation to the next.  These cookies are pretty simple to make and generally are things you would normally (well, I would) have on hand.  These cookies can be made chewy or crunchy.  While I think everyone here preferred them on the chewier side (my friend Jen included) the crunchy ones are good too and great for having with coffee or tea.  I adore this recipe and am going to make it several more times this holiday season – my new go-to cookie.  These would be great iced too so I might have to try that!

LEMON OATMEAL COOKIES

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup Shortening

1/2 Cup White Sugar

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Egg

1 1/2 Tsp Grated Lemon Rind (I used the rind of an entire lemon)

1 1/2 TBS Molasses

1/2 Tsp Vanilla

3/4 Cup plus 2 TBS Flour

1/2 Tsp Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp Salt

1 1/2 Cups Rolled Oats

Directions:

1.  Preheat Oven to 400 Degrees (once dough is done chilling.)

2.  Mix the first seven ingredients (shortening, white sugar, brown sugar, egg, lemon rind, molasses and vanilla) thoroughly.

3.  Sift together the next three ingredients (flour, baking soda, salt) and add to the first mixture.

4.  Stir in rolled oats and mix thoroughly by hand.

5.  Press and mold into a long smooth roll about 2 1/2′ diameter.  Wrap in wax paper and chill until stiff (several hours or overnight.)

6.  With a thin, sharp knife cut into thin slices 1/8′ thick.  Place slices on an ungreased cookies sheet and bake until lightly browned, about 8-10 minutes.

A few notes:  These overcook really quickly so if you prefer them on the chewy side, they won’t look quite ‘done’ when you take them out.  Just let them sit on the sheet for another 5 minutes before moving to a rack to cool.  Also, this recipe doesn’t double well, so make each batch individually.

Dessert Three Ways

I really enjoy being a part of the Foodbuzz Tastemaker Program.  I was recently picked to try out Duncan Hines and Comstock products for this go round.  I was given some coupons for myself and to share with others for free products.  All my friends and family were very happy!  I chose several products to try:  Duncan Hines Decadent Triple Chocolate Cake with the Amazing Chocolate Glaze, Duncan Hines Brownie Mix and the Comstock Lemon Pie filling.

I made the Decadent Triple Chocolate Cake with the Amazing Chocolate Glaze as- is for my mother’s birthday party.  This cake was to die for!  We all really enjoyed it.  I made it as a bundt cake and it was so moist and rich.  The Glaze was so, so easy to use and I personally think it is much more yummy than regular frosting.  This is definitely a must-try, even if you are partial to scratch baking.

I used the Brownie mix to make a peppermint mocha brownie by just adding one tablespoon of instant espresso powder and 1 cup of chopped white chocolate peppermint bark.  I based this around popular holiday drinks as I thought the brownie would lend really well to the flavors.  I used a lot more instant espresso than I normally would as I really wanted to drive the mocha flavor home and it worked!  The brownies were very easy and turned out just as I had planned so I was really happy with them.

For the Comstock Lemon Pie filling, I made a bread pudding.  It was my first time making bread pudding but I really thought that lemon would go well with the texture and mild flavor.  Again, I was really happy with the result!  It came out creamy with a mild lemon flavor, our family really enjoyed it!

I really urge you to try any of these products, whether to bake as-is or to experiment with putting your own twist on them!  Thank you to Foodbuzz, Duncan Hines and Comstock for giving me the opportunity to try these great products!

LEMON BREAD PUDDING

Ingredients:

12 Cups of Croissant or Butterflake Rolls, cubed

6 Eggs

1 Cup Sugar

2 Cups Whole Milk

1 Tsp Pure Maple Syrup

1 Cup All Purpose Flour

1 Can of Comstock Lemon Pie Filling

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Generously grease a 9×13 pan.

2.  In a large mixing bowl, beat the eggs, sugar and maple syrup together.  Gradually mix in the milk and the flour until well blended.

3.  Add bread cubes to the mixture and stir until all bread cubes have soaked up the liquid.  Add half the can of lemon pie filling to the bread mixture and mix well.

4.  Add half of the bread cubes to the baking dish.  Spread half the can of the lemon pie filling over the entire the layer.

5.  Add the remaining bread mixture on top of the lemon pie filling.

6.  Bake for 45 minutes, toothpick inserted should come out clean.

Cranberry Jalapeno Sauce

Or ‘cranapeno’ sauce?  Whether you go with the long drawn out name in the title or the cutesy nickname I gave it, it tastes the same – good.  I’ve known a lot of people over the years who make a version of this and I generally put my feet up and let someone else make the cranberry sauce for Thanksgiving but this year, I thought I’d give it a try.  (Frankly, I did not even start eating any kind of cranberry sauce until maybe five years ago, it never did anything for me.)  And though I now love my beloved can-shaped, congealed, whatever that is that graces family tables every year (I know, I know) this kicks butt on that.  I love the sweet heat of this sauce and can’t wait to try it with my bird tomorrow.  Confession?  I can’t wait to try in on my leftover turkey sandwiches after Thanksgiving.  Even bigger confession?  I will probably dump this on cream cheese or ricotta and eat it with crackers before it even takes it’s place on the table next to that stinkin’ bird.  So, from my table to yours, I hope you have a really great Turkey day and relish is all the things you are most thankful for.  Oh, and if you need something to be thankful for – make this.

Okay, so once I threw the jalapeno in, I just loved the festive color of the dish.  It made me want to start playing Christmas carols, almost.  So, I wanted to share this photo because well, I thought it was pretty.

CRANBERRY JALAPENO SAUCE

1 12 oz Bag of Fresh Cranberries, washed

1 Cup Water

1 Cup White Sugar

1-3 Jalapeno Peppers, cleaned, seeded and chopped (This pepper amount is dependent on how big of a spicy kick you want your sauce to have.  I used one larger one and one medium one and liked it just fine.)

Juice from 1/2 a Lime

1/4 Cup of Cream Sherry

Directions:

1.  Add sugar and water to a sauce over medium-high heat and bring to a slow boil.

2.  Add cranberries and lower heat, simmer for 10-12 minutes.

3.  Add Jalepenos and lime juice and continue to simmer another 10-15 minutes, until you get the consistency you want.

4.  Add in Cream Sherry and simmer a few minutes longer.

5.  Remove from heat and serve either room temp or chilled.

Flipped Sausage and Apple Cornbread

I was given this recipe a long time ago from a friend and with the abundance of
apples I have, I thought I would try it out again.  I think it is a good brunch recipe.  It is not too sweet and the cornmeal definitely gives it its own texture which got mixed review from my crowd.  I love the idea of this recipe and will definitely play with it in the future to give it a more smooth, cake-like texture as I think that would go better overall with the balance of savory and sweet.  Having said that, I think the recipe stands alone just fine, I would just be tweaking it for my own personal taste.  I do love the combination of apples and sausage though – definitely high on the yum factor scale!  If you are looking for a good holiday recipe or simply went apple picking and find yourself saying, “What am I going to do with all these apples?” you might want to give this one a try!

FLIPPED  SAUSAGE AND APPLE CORNBREAD

Ingredients:

1/2 lb. Sausage Links (pork or turkey is fine)

4 TBS Butter

1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

4 Small Apples (of your choice) – peeled, cored and sliced

1 Cup of Flour

3/4 Cup Yellow Cornmeal

3 TBS Brown Sugar

1 TBS Baking Powder

1 Tsp Salt

1 Egg, beaten

4 TBS Melted Butter

1 Cup Milk

Directions:

1.  Grease 9 inch round cake pan and preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2.  Brown sausage in skillet over medium heat, remove from pan once done, leaving about 1-2 TBS drippings in skillet.  Cut links into small pieces and set aside.

3.  Add butter and brown sugar and stir until sugar melts.

4.  Add apples and saute until soft, about 10-12 minutes.

5.  Add sausage pieces and apples slices in a single layer to prepared baking pan and pour skillet juices over the top evenly.

6.  Let apple-sausage mixture sit until room temperature while you prepare the rest of the recipe.

7.  In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, baking powder and salt.

8.  Add egg, melted butter and milk and stir until well combined.

9.  Pour batter over apple sausage mixture, smoothing out to cover entire pan.

10.  Bake for 25 minutes, or until your cake tester comes out clean.

11.  Remove from oven and immediately invert onto serving dish.

Easy Strawberry Trifle

We recently had a new grocery store open up close to us and they had a special on strawberries.  Never one to pass up a deal, I purchased a whole bunch of them!  Foodie, Jr. is a big lover of the strawberry but even with his voracious berry appetite, I still needed to find a use for the strawberries overflowing in my refrigerator.  Enter Fourth of July.  We were headed to a family get together and I decided to throw together something to bring, involving – you guessed it – strawberries.  I threw together this very easy trifle.  So easy, it will make your head spin.  Everyone really seemed to like it a lot, it was gone anyway.  So, if you find yourself needing to use a bunch of strawberries or hard pressed to bring a potluck dish, I highly recommend this!

EASY STRAWBERRY TRIFLE

Ingredients:

4 Cups of Fresh Stawberries, sliced plus a few whole for garnish

1 Box of Instant Vanilla Pudding

1 Tub of Whipped Topping

1 Angel Food Cake, cubed

Directions:

1.  Prepare instant pudding then fold in whipped topping until well incorporated.

2.  In a trifle dish, or similar, start with a layer of about 1/3 of pudding mixture.  Next a layer of angel food cake and then a layer of strawberries.  You should be able to repeat this twice and then end with a layer of pudding mixture on top.

3.  Garnish with strawberries, whole or sliced, as you desire.

New Belgium Mighty Arrow Beer Bread Monte Cristo

I was recently selected to be a part of the FoodBuzz Tastemaker Program for New Belgium Brewing Company.  I was excited to create a recipe using one of their brews – many thanks to FoodBuzz and New Belgium Brewing Company for the opportunity!

I decided to make a Monte Cristo Sandwich using beer bread I made with their Mighty Arrow Pale Ale.  This product appealed to me because of its honey malt base (and who can resist a beer made in tribute to a dog?!?!?)  I knew the slight sweetness of the brew would go well with the sweet-savory combo that the Monte Cristo offers.

Both Mr. Foodie and I were pleased with the results.  The Mighty Arrow gave the beer bread a slightly sweet flavor and a nice, dense texture that held up well to the batter and pan frying. A winner for us!

NEW BELGIUM MIGHTY ARROW BEER BREAD MONTE CRISTO

Ingredients for Beer Bread:

3 Cups All Purpose Flour

4 TBS Granulated Sugar

1 Tsp Baking Powder

1 Bottle of New Belgium Mighty Arrow Pale Ale

1/4 Cup Butter, melted

Directions for beer bread:

1.  Grease a standard size loaf pan and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  In a large bowl, combine all ingredients except melted butter.

3.  Pour batter into greased loaf pan and top evenly with 1/8 cup of melted butter.

4.  Bake for 45 minutes, baste with remaining butter and bake an additional 10-15 minutes.

5.  Remove loaf from pan and let cool completely on wire rack before slicing fairly thin to assemble sandwiches.

Ingredients for Sandwich:

2 Thin Slices of Beer Bread

1 Tsp Mayonaise

2 Thin Slices of either Black Forest Ham or Turkey (I made sandwiches with both, Turkey is pictured above.)

1 Slice of Havarti Cheese

3 Eggs

1/3 Cup Milk

3 TBS Butter

Mascarpone Cheese

Strawberries, slices thin

Powdered Sugar

Directions for sandwich:

1.  Spread each slice of beer bread lightly with mayonaise.  Layer ham (or turkey) and Havarti in between the two slices.

2.  Heat and melt butter in a skillet over medium heat.

3.  In a small bowl, beat eggs with milk.

4.  Dip assembled sandwich into the egg mixture.

5.  Fry dipped sandwich in butter until golden brown on both sides.

6.  Remove sandwich to plate and sprinkle with powdered sugar.  Add a dollop of mascarpone cheese and sliced strawberries and serve.

Shortcut Chocolate Guinness Cake

In an effort to use up some of our St. Patrick’s Day Guinness stash so Mr. Foodie did not drink it all, I thought I would make one of my most favorite cakes – a chocolate Guinness cake.  Pictured above is one of my best gal pals at a Girls Night Out Baby Shower.  She requested a post baby shower so she could have a beer  –  the cake went well with the theme.  (Excuse the beautiful iPhone photo!)  You can make this cake from scratch or from a box mix.  Honestly, it is good either way and people will gobble it up.  I’m including the recipe for a doctored cake mix because, well, it’s that kind of day around here…

CHOCOLATE GUINNESS CAKE – THE SHORT CUT WAY

Ingredients:

For Cake

1 Box of Dark Chocolate Cake Mix (extra moist with pudding preffered)

1 Bottle of Guinness Stout

1/2 Cup Canola Oil

3 Eggs

1/2 Cup Bittersweet (or Semi-Sweet if you prefer) Chocolate, chopped

For Ganache

6 oz. Semi-Sweet Chocolate

6 TBS Heavy Cream

3/4 Tsp Instant Espresso

Directions:

1.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and coat a bundt pan with cooking spray.

2.  Combine cake mix, stout, oil and eggs in a large mixing bowl and use electric mixer on medium to beat until combined.  Pour evenly into bundt pan.

3.  Bake 35-40 minutes until toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

4.  Remove from oven and allow cake to cool in pan for about 15 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack.

5.  To make ganache, heat chocolate, cream and espresso in a double broiler and combine until smooth.

6.  Drizzle ganache over cooled cake.

Baked Red Pepper Eggs

I needed to bring a hot dish to a gathering recently and was in a pinch for time.  No time to run to the store, so I had to make due with what I had on hand.  This was really easy and came out tasty.  Great way to use up my extra eggs before they expired too!  (Darn those buy one get one free 18 pack sales!)  You could easily use the base ingredients for this and add anything – a different vegetable, a breakfast meat, change the spices..  Very versatile!

BAKED RED PEPPER EGGS

Ingredients:

1 Dozen Large Eggs

1 Large Red Bell Pepper (or 2 small), seeded and diced

1 Can of Evaporated Milk (Small, 15 0z.)

1 Tsp Salt (you can alter to your taste)

1 Tsp Brown Mustard

1 Tsp Black Pepper (you can alter to your taste)

1 TBS Dried Parsley

1 1/2 Cup Shredded Monterey Jack Cheese

Directions:

1.  Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees and spray 9 x 13 pan with cooking spray.

2.  In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, evaporated mil, salt, pepper and mustard.  Stir in red peppers.

3.  Spread cheese to cover the bottom of the baking dish.

4.  Pour egg mixture over the cheese and then sprinkle with parsley.

5.  Bake about 45-50 minutes until eggs are set (ovens will vary.)