I mentioned on Facebook once that blogging was hard. Really hard. You have a thousand things to say, all disjointed and too different for a single post (hence "random thoughts"), so you start like five posts, then never publish them, and become your own worst enemy and blog badly. I am a bad bad blogger! Bad girl!
And now I'm so behind. I still stand around and think about all these subjects I want to blog about, besides recipes, but there they sit in my posts to be edited, and ugh.
And then... revelation! I have a whole bunch of recipes in my arsenal, that I tried and are waiting for review, and it hit me: do short versions all at once! Yeah, that's the ticket! And that's what I'm going to do! Ladies and Gentlemen, in no particular order, chronological or otherwise, a bunch of recipes!
1.
Marbled Chocolate Pumpkin Brownies
I love pumpkin. I love all things pumpkin: pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin butter, pumpkin pie, any kind of pumpkin dessert, coffee, smoothie, ravioli...whatever. I also love brownies, and so these were not going to go unmade. I remember these being tasty, just a tad dry, a little involved for brownies and that I made these quite a while ago and not again since. I didn't move the recipe to my "keep" file either. I would say go ahead and give them a whirl, but also, just try your favorite packaged brownie mix and then just make the pumpkin swirl part (a cop-out, I know, but I didn't find the actual brownie portion of this to be remarkable). Actually you know what? I don't know if it's just because I'm hungry right now and would really love a brownie, but I'm going to move this over to my keep file and try it again.
[ok - I just saw the creepiest commercial with an overweight woman having a conversation with her skinny self about how great she looks. I'm really confused with how that is happening. Back to our regularly scheduled programming.]
2.
Leftover Roast Chicken Soup with Roasted Vegetables
So pretty, so nice for a fall dinner, so easy... but here's the thing... you just don't need a recipe for chicken soup. I make my own broth when I roast a chicken for dinner, and if there's not enough (or I get lazy and don't do it), just buy some chicken broth [NOTE: ALWAYS HAVE BROTH ON HAND!]. Now heat up the chicken broth and use it to cook whatever veggies you chop up, or to warm up leftover veggies you're throwing in, add the meat, cook up some pasta or rice and add it. You can't do it wrong. You can come up with whatever version you like and make it your signature soup. In terms of this recipe, it is a very nice combination of veggies and flavorings and textures. I learned how to make broth from my (first) mother-in-law and it was one of the best things I ever learned. Here's just a quick instruction I found from Epicurious in case you need one:
Leftover Roast-Chicken Stock
3.
Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki
So yummy, so annoying. Nothing bugs me more than crockpot recipes that start with "In a heavy skillet..." and end with "Preheat broiler..." Why? Who did not get the memo that Crockpot means: put stuff in, add some liquid so things don't burn, turn on, leave it alone... and voila dinner? Not cook everything in a pan first, put it in the Crockpot, then take it all out, and do more cooking to it. This is what I will say if you make this: brown the chicken if your thigh meat has skin-on, if not forget it, do your sauce like it says so it gets all thick and nice, and don't bother with the broiler. If the chicken is cooked like it should be in a crockpot, it should fall off the bone and it won't matter anyway. But it is really yum... You could use the sauce alone for other non-crockpot dishes also. (By the way, I am not keeping this recipe - it's good, but not so great as to put it in the pantheon of keepers.)
4.
Holy YUCK Chicken
The actual recipe here, brought to you by the "Table for Two" blog, is called "Holy Yum Chicken". I have also found it in other places as "Man Pleasing Chicken". I beg to differ on both counts. I don't typically copy and paste the entire text of a recipe, but I am compelled to do so only with the disclaimer that comes with this recipe, not unlike Happy Fun Ball:
"DISCLAIMER:
1. If you don’t like mustard, you likely will not like this dish. 1/2 the recipe’s ingredient is mustard.
2. It will taste mustardy with a nice hint of sweetness! So again, if you don’t like mustard, don’t make this.
3. If you don’t follow directions and want to improvise, that is definitely ok! But please do not come back to yell at me for a failed dish. The instructions are laid out completely below because I have tested it myself and it works the way it’s written below.
4. If you do not use the right equipment it will likely not turn out either. 8×8″ pan means 8×8″ pan. 2 layers of foil means 2 layers of foil. Why? 8×8″ pan will keep the sauce together and compact and won’t cause it to spread out over a large surface area. If you put it in a larger pan, it will spread, therefore, causing the sauce to get cooked off and you’ll end up with dry chicken and little to no sauce. Double layering the foil insulates the sauces and the chicken, it’ll keep the sauce from burning on the scalding hot pan.
5. Yes, it really is cooked at 450 degrees. I’m not going to lie to you. Yes, it’s very high but it also works (proof: above pictures!) :)
6. If you’re using chicken breasts, reduce cooking time to 25-30 minutes or you’ll end up with dry chicken.
7. You may use bone-in chicken thighs. Cooking time is the same.
8. Whole grain mustard is not the same as Dijon mustard.
9. Rice wine vinegar and rice vinegar are the same thing. The names are interchangeable.
10. If you can’t find unseasoned rice wine vinegar, you may use seasoned rice wine vinegar and vice versa."
And now that you've ready that I will again say to you, there was no cries of "holy yum!" and there was certainly no pleased man (and he eats everything). I keep wondering if I did something wrong, but nope. It is disgusting; I think it may actually be un-holy. The texture of the sauce was actually like powder suspended in liquid, too liquidy, too harsh, and smelled kind of nasty. I made it with chicken breast and I ended up scraping and washing off all the sauce and making some chicken salad with it. Don't make it - you won't respect yourself in the morning.
5.
Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cupcakes
So pretty, right? Abby had a party for her dance competition team and I offered to bring a dessert, so I looked for something pretty and pink and ballerina-y and I found these. Let me tell you how easy these are. Like I've done with other recipes that just call for a cake, I made cupcakes from boxed chocolate cake mix but did not do any of the modifications here, had Connor help me make chocolate covered strawberries, and then the magic: that strawberry buttercream. Tastes like strawberry ice cream and I swear you could eat it like that - gimme a big bowl. Tip: I ended up using much more puree than it says to use, don't be afraid to play with it. Also, the cake mix I used was too soft and fluffy. The girls ended up eating the cupcakes the next day, and they weren't substantial enough to hold up, so I may try re-making just the cake part as prescribed in the recipe to see if that matters. If nothing else, the strawberry buttercream recipe is worth saving. Oh, and making the pretty swirls of frosting on top looks easier than it is. First, doing that uses way more frosting than you think, and although it looks like it'd be superfast, in order to get pretty, evenly graduated swirls, you need to be less super-fast. Just moderate and steady. I love iambaker's blog, and she has a really good tutorial on it right
here (click on the "here"). It uses an open star tip, but you can figure it out.
So - I have more to go, but I would think five's enough to bore you with for now. I'll add in the rest later, AND an update to what happened after "oooo-eeee-oooo part 2". Go read that and part 1 if you haven't, but not alone on a dark and stormy night. Kidding! It's just wierd.
