I like my chicken on the French side and something "Tasty"

I know, I know... I was supposed to do this like three weeks ago and the guilt has been gnawing at me, but so has the procrastination, and now I am proud to report that I have overcome all of that, and now I am here for you. Actually, I'm watching Jimmy Kimmel, it's National Hugging Day, and this random girl from the audience is getting hugged very warmly while dancing to "Died in Your Arms" with Zac Efron and I'm mesmerized because damn he's hot. But enough of that! I do have to tell you that I am obsessed with sparkling ICE drinks. Have you seen these? Link: http://www.sparklingice.com/product/black-raspberry

They're pretty and the bottle's kind of inconvenient but soooo good.

Anyhoo - the chicken. I'd been seeing (on Facebook of course) this picture of insanely delicious-looking chicken. Chicken Francaise - looks very om nom nom, doesn't it?

This recipe comes to you courtesy of a site called Recipe30 and there's really a lot of nice-looking recipes on the page, but this one picture kept going past my face in my Facebook feed, looking all buttery and herb-y and all kinds of bad for you, and I was sold.

So first instruction is to butterfly the chicken breasts and then pound them flat. Now, when you do that, you can cook one breast at time in your pan, you just can't fit more, and what's the point really? I just slice them in half (parallel to the cutting board)all the way through and then pound them out (if you want - not totally necessary). You say to yourself "uhhhh... what's the difference?" I'm getting there. Next steps are something I use for chicken parm, egg plant, chicken fingers - dredge in flour, dip in egg wash, dredge in bread crumbs. Now, here's where you'll thank me: if you cut your chicken through instead of butterfly, you can then (either before or after pounding if you choose to) cut into a smaller piece, and what will that do for you? It will allow you to coat and cook the chicken in larger batches. I use a dinner plate for my flour and bread crumbs - instead of coating one butterflied piece of chicken at a time, you can do multiple and then cook multiple. One thing I highly recommend you do not do: dip in the flour and then put in the egg wash and let it sit there. It's ok if it sits in the flour, it's ok if it sits in the bread crumbs, but do not have the floured chicken sit in the egg - it just creates a gooey surface...yuck... Then do your frying as directed. For the sauce, I don't have alcohol in the house, so for white wine I usually just substitute chicken broth. Yes, it is not the same flavor, so just make sure your acidity is right - you can add some vinegar or lemon juice with the chicken stock, and this recipe already calls for lemon juice, so taste test if you're going to go the non-alcoholic route. I reduced the sauce but I wanted it to be a little more...ummm... silky? I don't know if that's the right word, but something a little more substantive, so I ended up adding more butter. What the hell, it's "French", right? Do Julia Child proud and add as much butter as humanly possible. I also did not have fresh parsley so I good bunch of dried will have to do. It was fine.

So here's my finished product (taken with my nifty new phone, with help from a child because I cannot hold it still):

The color's a little weird (and so is the angle) but I think that's not too shabby. And the chicken doesn't look half-bad either! The best part... children rated it a 10 out of 10 - woo hoo! It is really good. I served it with herb & butter egg noodles and some veg that I don't remember right now. I say - if you haven't already tried it - do.

Now for the Tasty: I actually did what I said I was going to and used a recipe from a Tasty video... Pull Apart Garlic Rolls


(recipe:
Ingredients:
1 tube refrigerated biscuits
3 Tbsp. butter, melted
1/2 tsp garlic powder
2 Tbsp. fresh parsley, minced
1 cup shredded mozzarella

Cut biscuits into fourths, and place in a large mixing bowl. Add the butter, garlic powder, parsley, and mozzarella, and mix with your hands, coating all of the biscuit pieces. Place the pieces in a muffin tin, 3 pieces per tin (you’ll have 2 extra—just use them in whichever tin you want). Bake for 15 minutes. Best served fresh out of the oven!)

So I looked in my fridge and said to myself - why not? I have all of these ingredients so let's go for it... So

Step 1 - open can of biscuits. I had Pillsbury Flaky Layers and that's fine

Step 2 - wave hands over biscuits to instantly transform into pieces. I actually had to manually quarter them. I used my favorite kitchen shears and cut them individually. They're sticky so after you cut them they immediately want to start sort of becoming a single biscuit again. It's kind of creepy actually, like amoebas joining to become some larger amoeba... uhuhuhuhh (shudder noise).

Step 3 - throw all the rest of the ingredients on top and mix it all up with your hands. Again, these biscuits want to stick to each other, and as soon as the ingredients hit, they pretty much want to stick just to the top biscuit pieces. As you mix them all around, it's not as easy to distribute as in the video. Believe it or not, it actually takes longer than 2 seconds, just try not to smash the pieces or you will have just dense biscuit pieces later.

Step 4 - put three pieces in each little cup of the muffin tin. Again, these things just want to keep forming back into a whole biscuit so it is actually hard to find those little individual quarters, and you may have to pull them apart. No biggie just do that and don't worry about it. Also, out of fear, I sprayed the pan with store-brand-equivalent-Pam, even though it's non-stick. I would definitely recommend doing that if your muffin tin is not non-stick because despite all the butter, they will absolutely be stuck to the pan because of the cheese, and this is not a paper-liner situation. And yes, you end up with a couple odd pieces left, I just added them to another biscuit grouping.

Step 5 - Bake aaaand done! Pop out and eat... I was worried that the center would not be fully cooked, but it was perfectly fine.

Kids loved it. My one recommendation - well two actually - I would add some fresh minced garlic. Not too much, but the garlic powder was not enough for me, and actually became kind of stuck to the first dough contact made. You could, I suppose, melt the butter, and the garlic powder to it and then dump it in and it might be better, but I just think it really needed a real garlic boost. You also don't need to use as much cheese if you don't want to. The only other thing I'd say is that biscuits are inherently sort-of sweet. A little sprinkling of salt or maybe even a touch of grated Parmesan on top will help with that if you find you don't care for that kind of flavor. And yeah, I didn't take a pic of mine, but they really did look like video. Success!

So two, count 'em two great recipes. They don't go together, i.e. don't serve the garlic rolls with the chicken - I didn't, those were two separate incidences- but definitely try them. So au revoir, ciao, bon appetit, mangia... go cook something.

And welcome to the annual installment of "what was I thinking?"

Yo yo yo my peeps and Happy New Year. After a very long hiatus I feel the need to write to you all. No clue why. (It's not really about you, actually. Shhh.) So what's up? Me? Not much - no big changes. Just hanging around, doing the everyday thing - work, chauffeur, stay up until 2am because, well, anxiety knocks. But I digress. Topics for another day.

Oh! I got a new phone! Totally rots. I had a good-ole-fashioned Blackberry that I became way too comfortable with, and then the unthinkable: text messages started to come through blank and I could not send or receive picture messages due to formatting my phone no longer supported. Noooooooo!!!!!!!!! The time had come, I had no choice: a new phone. Now I can text and no one can read it because I am completely inept at using a virtual keyboard. Great.

So what compelled my return? A) I always want to be blogging and time frankly doesn't permit since I crochet and drive around and yada yada, and I wordsmith like a madman and that causes entries to take forever to be published (currently have about 4 in draft form because of this issue), b) I enjoyed cooking and then blogging about it, c) sometimes I really want to write about personal struggles that maybe other people could benefit from knowing the ins and outs of for however they connect. BUT really - I very much enjoyed taking the recipes that pop up all over Facebook, trying them, and then telling you about them. I love to cook and it was fun and a good way to try something new. Now the big things are these cooking videos like those from "Tasty" and "Buzzfeed", making delicious food look achievable in 30 seconds or less. So, I thought I'd give it a go - try a video recipe and see if it works! What fun!

But now back to the main topic, the reason for the title - the holiday cooking blitz that I subject myself to yearly. There is no need to do this, I completely choose to and then when it's the 11th hour and I'm still cooking, I thoroughly hate myself. Thanksgiving was pretty uneventful - I did not have time to do anything due to work, so I opted for some quick and dirty pies: 1) blueberry, which I will confess used canned filling - why? Because it was supposed to be a terrible but much beloved (by me) cherry pie and I didn't have any cherry pie filling, but it did have a really pretty lattice top, if I do say so myself, 2) pumpkin, and 3) chocolate cream which was not from scratch and I did it wrong and whatever, it was still chocolaty and creamy and in a crust, what else can you ask for? But Christmas...

I planned. I read recipes over and over. I worked out the timing in my head. I was going to bring some cookies to work even. That didn't happen. Going to the grocery when needed - didn't happen. My dishwasher broke. And all of this wrapped around the horror of horrors: every single gift I had ordered for the girls for Christmas (and Abby's birthday on top of it) was on back-order. I'm not kidding; as of the week before Christmas there would be nothing under the tree for them to open, and eta's for everything were somewhere in the vicinity of 12/28 - 1/7. NOT GOOD. Many panic attacks and sleepless nights ensued, and all cooking considerations by the wayside. And then a miracle - one of the packages showed up on Monday, then another Tuesday, and by Christmas Eve, it was all here. I could NOT believe it. This is why I believe in Santa, frankly. He's real, I tell you, real!

Back to cooking...
I always have my staples: Italian Crescent cookies, Chocolate Espresso Snowcaps, chocolate gingerbread bars, and then I like to throw in something new. I set my sights on Raspberry Palmiers (made with a sour-cream dough similar to rugelach, instead of puff pastry, but whatever), and then I thought I'd throw in some Linzer cookies too. And there was the chocolate mint roll. Oh and 1979-ish Jello poke cake. And then on Christmas Eve I decided I needed some lemon bars. AND because my sister graciously hosts Christmas at her house, I like to try to help as much as I can, and I promised butternut squash stuffed shells, and balsamic glazed green beans. Timing actually went surprisingly well. No major glitches (except for some late-night baking, and absolutely no green beans to be found anywhere, but that's alright). Now what you've all been waiting for, drum roll please: the results:

So naturally when needing something new, I turn to Martha - hence the palmiers. Sounded like a great idea because it made a ton (9 dozen) and could be done in stages since the dough needed a fair bit of chilling here and there. Everything was really ok except for one thing: I hated them. Execution was fine, and I'm sorry Martha, you know I love you, but palmiers made with anything but puff pastry is not good. You can see the attraction - this is Martha's pic and mine looked semi-close (not as browned):

They just weren't..well, palmier-y. I took half the dough, wrapped it and put it in the freezer, and I'll just use it for rugelach later. It will be fine for that.

I've made Linzer cookies before, I made the dough, and then...did not have the energy. I wrapped it up for the freezer also, and I'll use it another day. The lemon bars were meh - not lemony enough for me. I used this recipe by Joy The Baker because I didn't want to make a ton and it seemed about right. I should have used Ina Garten's or of course, Martha's - she's got about 5 lemon bar recipes but the classic would have been fine, despite both recipes making about twice as much as I wanted. (Side note - apparently lemon bars freeze very well - will test that later.)

My real fancy dessert that I was NOT going to skip was the Mint Chip Cake Roll by Crazy for Crust. A thing of beauty combining chocolate and mint - how can you go wrong? Guess what? You can't! I've made cake rolls before and this went very well - easy peasy, honest! Now mine did not look like this:

but only because I didn't sprinkle all the nice chips and stuff on the outside. But what I did do was make a ganache, add a little peppermint extract, and slap it on with the back of a spoon. The result: totally looked like a yule log! Oh yeah... who's da bomb-diggity? Me, baby!

Anyway, this is really long. Everything turned out exhausting but awesome. I am happy to say that despite kicking myself, it was probably the easiest cooking under pressure I've done and why? Because I said no - when something didn't go like I wanted, or I didn't have time, I didn't push it - I put it aside. When I had to frost the cake quickly - it didn't matter - nobody cared, it was fine. The Jello poke-cake by the way, ended up as part of Abby's birthday. And when green beans were nowhere to be found, that's when I threw in the lemon squares. Super doable, and yeah not a vegetable, but at least a shot of Vitamin C, right? No Christmas scurvy for anyone! Ho ho ho!

So thanks for reading...if anyone wants any of the recipes or needs them copied from their respective sites or if you need a link for something that's not already linked here, just ask. Requests? Maybe I'll oblige. My next installment will be of the dinner entree variety. Now for some black mint tea... this was entirely too much.

Killing many birds with one stone...

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.

The Most Excellent Cookies & Cream Cake

Easter dessert..hmm...what to make? I like to think of myself as the family dessert-provider for (almost) all occasions. Now, that doesn't mean that I necessarily make everything, I just like to bring it. (And I don't do apple pies - that's my BIL's job; last time he made one Connor consumed his weight in pie.) I am also compelled to have not just one but two, or three desserts, usually 1) something I've wanted to make, 2) something everyone will eat, 3) something my Dad will like. This year was a custard pie for my Dad, a Pavlova with strawberries which I know everyone likes, and the titular Fudgy Cookies and Cream cake from Confessions of a Cookbook Queen. That was the one I had been wanting to make since I first saw it, and why not? Who doesn't love cookies and cream anything?

I don't normally gravitate toward a big chocolate-y dessert, BUT Oreos are perhaps the best cookie ever and that's what got me - that nicely speckled crushed cookie filling... when I was younger and not lactose-impaired and could drink a big glass of milk without later complications, milk and oreos... I think perhaps a whole box of oreos to one glass of milk was about right. I'd soak them until the cookie was almost mushy, but then the filling consistency was still the same...in the words of George Takei: "oohh Myyyyy". Make this I must!

[Note: Can I tell you that I have literally been writing this for weeks... shortly after Easter until... well now it's May 15th. Geez. I apologize for being the most sucktastic blogger ever. Back to the cake.]


There is of course, the actual recipe for the chocolate cake for this. Being pressed for time (and lazy), I used a Duncan Hines Devil's Food boxed mix. Why the heck is that called "Devil's Food"? I have to find out. Apparently, according to Wikipedia therefore it must be accurate, the cake is called so because it is the opposite of Angel Food cake. Alright, sounds plausible enough. I made my cake as 2 8" layers, wrapped it, and put it in the deep freeze.

When I got close to ready to assemble is when I actually made the filling, because I wanted to keep it as fresh as possible, and it's made with whipped cream and I didn't want the consistency to be affected if it sat. I crushed the bejesus out of my cookies. I wanted the cookie crumbs to be as fine as possible, so I did them in the food processor. I also bought the cheapest cookies known to mankind. It's an ingredient in a cake, and kind of minor in comparison with what is to be a lot of chocolate flavor - there's no need to buy the most expensive cookies out there. I would not change a single ingredient in the filling. It's perfect - so very light in flavor and texture and yet substantial enough to use as a filling in a multi-layered cake, and makes a great counterpoint to all the rich chocolate. A word about assembling: since I did not make the chocolate cake as written in the recipe itself, I do not know what the density of that cake would be, but the boxed Devil's Food was so light and moist that it actually didn't freeze as well as I thought. What do I mean by that? I mean that the cake was very cold but still very fluffy and soft. This did not cause me a big problem, and I was able to cut each round into two layers, and still filled easily.

For the frosting, I opted to do a ganache. What is described in the recipe is a buttercream, but I find buttercream to be such a pain in the arse. Ganache can take on a couple different forms. It's very simple - almost equal amounts of chocolate and heavy cream. Put your chocolate in a bowl, heat up the cream, pour on top of the chocolate, and let the chocolate melt, stir it so it all comes together, and voila a nice velvety liquid chocolate sauce. Let it cool and it starts to get thicker. When its very very cool, you can continue to a whip it up and make more of a frosting consistency, but I decided I wanted to just pour the cooled ganache over the top of the cake and I did pick up what fell to the bottom, I used a small spatula (a.k.a. butter knife) and made sure the sides were covered also. And that's it! Done!

Verdict: Deeeelicousness. Everyone loved it and come to think of it, on a difficulty scale the most difficult part was assembly and it was not bad at all. I used boxed cake and it was fine. Changing to ganache - perfectly easy. What's the hardest part? Washing everything. Totally worth making and I wouldn't change anything from what I did, except maybe try the cake (itself) recipe.

So my apologies for this being the longest awaited recipe review yet, even though technically you, dear reader, have no concept of how much time has actually elapsed from start to finish (but it's a lot).

'Til we meet again....

Pork Chops and apple sauce....ain't that swell?

Anyone who knows me knows that I can relate any personal situation to something in a tv sitcom, and here I am showing my unhealthy love of TV by quoting Peter Brady when he was pretending to be a '40's-style gangster. I will now attempt to embed this video:


I did it! Awesome! You know, these awesome things and super-exciting posts are exactly why I am scratching my head in disbelief that I ONLY HAVE FIVE FOLLOWERS. I mean, seriously?! Wow - you five people tell your friends they do not know what they're missing because today we are talking about what? That's right, pork chops... (but not applesauce, I was just putting in a teaser that falls flat, like the evening news previews while you're watching your evening programming).

I once again made a somewhat empty, and undeniably premature promise to post my review of Crunchy Honey Garlic Pork Chops from Just A Pinch. But rest assured that I always come through eventually, although it could be posthumously, so just hang tight! And here I am following up on my promise! They sure do look tasty, and my kids love pork chops, so here's our dinner experiment:

I used 6 very large, 1" thick, bone-in chops. The picture definitely looks like bone-in, but my judgement told me anyway that where this was going through a pan fry and then into the oven, that the bone-in should be a little more forgiving because it tends to have more fat than boneless, which helps it to not dry out so much. Also, for the most part, you'd have to probably pound out, or slice in half the boneless if you had it, since they're usually quite thick. Another thing about this recipe that's a winner - you likely have all these ingredients already: honey, brown sugar, ginger (I used dry), soy sauce, garlic... very basic. Let's get started!

Because my chops were so large I could only cook 2 at a time, and even that was pushing it. I made the glaze right away while the first chop was cooking. There's no need to wait and it's really easy so you may as well get to it. Issue #1 that I had was that my chops were so large that I did not know what to do for the baking dish. You are supposed to use the 9x13. There is no way you'd get 6 regular chops, never mind large ones in that size pan. They will overlap, so if you don't mind that, then ok. The ones I had were so large that I should not have even used that pan. They ended up way too stacked up, even 3 layers at one point. But... I started and the pan's dirty now, so that's what I'm going with. I carefully fried everything so that it's nice and crunchy and follow the instructions for the sauce but I just know that the way these things are piled in the pan, that the sauce will not really glaze up like in the pic. And it doesn't. Really the coating becomes soggy with the sauce. BUT - super tasty.. kids loved it! It was yummy, even though I didn't really want to it eat it (after I've been cooking for a while, I don't want to eat what I made. I know, weird, huh?).

Would I make this again? Yes, and here's what I would do to fix it:
The glaze needs to be cooked longer to be more reduced and concentrated and syrupy. As it is, bringing it just to a boil at the original volume, it's too much in quantity and very wet, not at all like a glaze, and what happens is that it just soaks into that nice crispy coating that you so painstakingly worked at while frying the chops, and pours right over it all to the bottom of the dish. It needs to have some substance to actually cling and coat without making everything soggy. I'd be sure to use a pan or more than one pan, that the chops can all be in an even layer. They are going in the oven for another 20-ish minutes and if the glaze has just all poured to the bottom, and everything's on top of something else, then they will never look like that pic. Also - be sure not to overcook in the frying pan. You are finishing in the oven not just to set the glaze, but to finish the cooking, so make sure you don't have chops that are dry as a bone before you put them in. However, if they were to be so done that you don't dare put them in the oven, I would think that not all is lost - serve them anyway and just drizzle the glaze on. It seems to me that it should be pretty forgiving. The recipe also suggests trying chicken breast, and I could definitely see it working with that, but I haven't tried it. Crunchy honey garlic chicken tenders... now that's an idea. Maybe with cornflakes in the coating? The mind reels....

So since my kids and Bruce really thought this was tasty and ate it all up, yes, I will put this in my "keep" file and try it again with modifications, and I'll let you know how it turns out when I do. Or if you try it, comment and tell me!

What shall I review next...hmm...

She ate reeeeeeeeeeeeed velvet...

Bobby Vinton, anyone? Bueller? Bueller? I'm so lame. Bobby Vinton actually sang about a woman who WORE BLUE velvet, but I promised to do a review of a recipe for Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies. I found this recipe, cut and pasted it to my "recipes to do" document, and that was that. I didn't get a link, but I can tell you that it came from FoodiesTV.com which has their own FB page. So at the end I will just post the recipe text for you.

Look at these pretties:

They look soooo good, how could I resist? I didn't! I had all the ingredients so I started immediately! One thing I did not have is a "brownie pan". Apparently this is a new-fangled thing sort of like a cupcake pan, but with little squares instead of cups. And I guess you can get paper liners for it too. I did find one of these pans at Target:

They're about $16 and I did think about it last time I saw it and then decided against it. There's a point where you have to just let it go. A pan with little square cavities because you can't be bothered to cut a regular pan of brownies into squares ... let it go and not spend money on another thing in your cabinet, especially one that only has one purpose. The instructions do say that I can use a cupcake pan, so that's what I'm going with.

I have to say that I do not know what this hype over "red velvet" desserts has come from. Red velvet cakes have been around for a long time. The red never came from food coloring, like you see now, but from a reaction between cocoa, buttermilk, and vinegar, which turns the chocolate red. It's where "Devil's Food" cake came from - it wasn't just chocolate, it was nearly red. Now Devil's Food is just a really chocolate-y cake. The red velvet desserts are somehow in-style now, and I supposed it's just visual appeal.

[btw - I don't know when I actually started writing this but it was quite a while ago...probably 3 weeks...so be patient!]

So I made the batter (which was nearly a disaster when I didn't add the chocolate - but I fixed it), added it to the cupcake liners, about 2/3 full, and moved on to the cream cheese mixture. The cream cheese mixture is quite thick, and when I put it on top of the batter in the cupcake tin, and tried to swirl it, I couldn't. It won't move. So, I just continued along because being cupcakes, I didn't think it was a big deal. I put it in the oven, set the timer for 20-25min, and go! 25 min = pretty much raw. 30 min= not much better... this went on and on for nearly an hour. I have checked my oven temp thinking that could be the problem, but it's not. I think you cannot make them as cupcakes. I had to cover them at one point to finish the cooking because the top was getting way too brown. We ended up with tasty, but very chewy (not in a good way) cupcakes.

Verdict: Would I make this again? Actually yes. But I would NOT even attempt a cupcake. I would make this in probably a 9x13" pan (which for brownies I always line my pan with foil, and then spray or follow whatever pan prep instructions, so I can lift the brownies straight out of the pan and cut nicely, and not have to clean a pan). I also would not use the mix as prescribed for the cream cheese component - it's too thick - you can't swirl it, it's just blobs on top of the brownies. I looked up several recipes to see what is typical and almost every single one of them (including Martha's which is hands-down the best cream cheese brownies recipe), and they all call for half of the cream cheese, to approximately the same about of sugar, egg, and vanilla. I would definitely do that. Also watch the cook time - even in the bigger pan, I'm going to guess it's still longer. The batter is sort of "wet" compared to typical brownie batter.

Here's the original recipe with a note recommending correcting the cream cheese amount. Try it and let me know how it worked for you!

RED VELVET CHEESECAKE BROWNIES

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter
2-oz dark chocolate, coarsely chopped
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp red food coloring
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
8-oz cream cheese, room temperature NOTE: I RECOMMEND 4 OZ OF CREAM CHEESE
1/3 cup sugar
1 large egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F.
Line one brownie pan/cupcake tin with cupcake liners NOTE: CUPCAKE PAN DID NOT YIELD A GOOD RESULT - I RECOMMEND TRYING A 9x13" PAN
In small bowl, melt (microwave) butter and chocolate together in 30 second increments. Stir until combined and very smooth.

Set aside to cool for a few minutes.
In a large bowl, whisk together sugar, eggs, vanilla extract and red food coloring. Add chocolate mixture and stir until smooth. Add flour and salt and stir until just combined and no streaks of dry ingredients remain.

Pour batter into lined wells.

To prepare cheesecake mixture, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg and vanilla extract in a medium bowl until smooth. Distribute the cheesecake mixture over batter in the pan. Swirl in with a knife or spatula.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until brownies and cheesecake are set. A knife inserted into the cheesecake mixture should come out clean and the edges will be lightly browned. Let cool completely in pan. ENJOY!

John Legend vs Elayne: Mac and Cheese showdown

Hey y'all...
There are a few things in my "Karen's Book of Cookery" (should probably be "Kookery") that are obsessions for me, and one of those is mac n' cheese. Besides ye olde Blue Box Kraft dinner (btw - the Stop & Shop version is exactly the same and way cheaper. If your kids will only eat the blue box, then save some of those boxes, and pretend it came from there), my go-to benchmark is Elayne's - really simple and yummy, and even I don't need to write the recipe down, so you know it's easy. I'm not giving it away because it's a secret. Well, actually I don't know if it's a secret, but whatev's. But in my search to best it (which is frankly, impossible), I must test other recipes. Some are very good, but different, for example, the BLT Mac n Cheese by Cooking with Sugar made with what, you say - yeah Velveeta.

"Sugar" developed it for Betty Crocker but the link is to the original (you can also find on the Betty Crocker website). My kids are crazy about it, Connor will even eat the spinach happily, but they also know this isn't a mac n cheese that Mommy is going to make very often because our arteries will cease to function.

Then along came Martha. Martha has many mac and cheese recipes, and this new-er one popped up on Facebook - John Legend's Macaroni and Cheese, and looked very very tasty:

So I put it in my "to-do" pile of recipes. Now, I had no clue until very recently who John Legend was, and I know now that he's a musician and singer and that's great, but why he's hanging out with Martha is beyond me. How totally random. But when Martha's involved, I'm in!

I really only needed one ingredient, the Monterey Jack cheese; I had everything else in my inventory. I always keep at least 6 lbs of unsalted butter in the freezer, I always have elbow macaroni because you can use it for just about any quick dinner/lunch thing you want to whip up, cans of evaporated and condensed milks, and shredded cheeses that I buy in the biggest quantity and dole out what I want, and put the rest back into the freezer. Maybe one day we'll talk about my pantry and freezer! Won't that be fun?! The recipe uses minimal pots and pans and what's most interesting is that it does not entail the creation of a cheese sauce. Instead, you boil the pasta, and in a separate bowl you mix up all the liquid ingredients, and then in another bowl, blend your cheeses together. Then instead of mixing everything up before you put it in a baking pan, this was layers like a lasagna - pasta, cheese, pasta, cheese, and end with pouring the liquid all over the whole thing and bake! Well, ok then. And bake you shall.

[Oh my God - I just went to grab a little snack while I'm typing this, and there's a Doritos bag in the cabinet that's folded up, and clipped shut, that has what in it? Crumbs. What the hell?!]

So the concoction comes out of the oven and looks very much like the pretty picture. And it's also underwhelming. It's just not cheesy; it's a very dry mac an cheese, like all the liquid absorbed into the pasta (and trust me my pasta was not undercooked, which could lead to that happening), leaving just sort of pasta with melted cheese in. That also leads to the whole thing quickly becoming a hard glob of cheese with some macaroni welded to it as it cools. Here's the defining moment - the kids didn't like it. That's right, you heard me - the kids did not like a simple mac and cheese. The leftovers were dreadful too, since it became very solid and drier, and I just pretty much forced them on Bruce to take to work for lunch.

Elayne's is simple - has a grand total of 5 ingredients - an American cheese sauce, mix with your macaroni, kablam! Deelish classic mac n cheese. (I add a pinch of cayenne for fun.)

So what do I say about John Legend? Keep your day job. It's not worth repeating the recipe... on to the next mac and cheese challenge, if there is ever a worthy opponent.