Recipe 3: Potato Soup

Recipe Number: 3
Cookbook: Dinnertime by Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman)
Cuisine: American
Category: Soup
Pros: Pretty simple to make, makes a large amount (enough to eat and enough to freeze), tasty comfort food
Cons: crappy Iphone photo, had to peel potatoes (which is like the number one reason I rarely cook with potatoes)

So I've been slacking on the blogging in the past week, but have still been meeting my goal of cooking 2 new recipes a week! I made this on Sunday the 16th so it totally counted for my second week of the challenge. 

I had been craving comfort food and soup all week long, and with a slight dip in temperatures in the evenings, this seemed like an easy match. I even got my sous chef to help me a little by using the "if you help me, you get to eat faster" motivation. My husband cooked and drained the chopped bacon for me while I finished chopping all the veggies and peeling/dicing the taters. Recipe calls for 6 pieces of bacon, which he was surprised to find didn't yield many bacon bits to top soup with. Agreed...bacon needs to be bigger/less pricey for the good stuff. 

This recipe is pretty simple overall, and didn't require hours of simmering like some soup recipes do. Don't be alarmed that it doesn't look very creamy at first. You basically saute the veggies and taters for a few minutes, add stock and boil it until the potatoes are done. Then you puree it (in my case, I blended it since I don't have one of those fancy immersion blenders). So, it didn't really resemble a cream of potato soup like what's in the picture until the end, but that's ok! I opted to blend the entire recipe of soup (instead of a few batches) because I like creamy potato soup without chunks of tater. The Pioneer Woman said you could do it either way - either blend half and leave chunks or blend the whole thing. 

This makes quite a bit of soup! The two containers pictured above are after my husband and I had dinner - and I think we each had 2 bowls apiece. I threw one in the freezer because to be honest eating soup for lunch and/or dinner is overrated after a day or two. You get sick of it and that's sad because food should be loved and appreciated!

Rating: will likely make again if the weather ever gets cold...and hey! I have some in the freezer to pull out for a quick dinner one night. 

On another note: some have suggested I post the recipes that I'm making on here, but I think there is likely a copyright legal something or other that would prevent me from doing so. Plus, what is the point of buying a cookbook if you can just find the same recipe online? I like supporting the chefs whose cookbooks I buy, and so besides the legal mumbo jumbo, I would like to protect their hard work. 

Recipe 2: Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies (gluten free)

Recipe Number: 2
Cookbook: Everyday Cook by Alton Brown
Cuisine: American??
Category: Dessert, Snack
Pros: Extremely simple, you probably have all the ingredients already in your kitchen (I did). Doesn't use chunky peanut butter or added chopped peanuts (which I don't care for in peanut butter cookies). Gluten free (I don't care about this at all, but I know many people do nowadays).
Cons: crappy iPhone photo, other than that it was perfection!

So, the reason I decided to make this recipe is because 1. I had all of the ingredients already and since it's Friday night and I have my PJ's on, I knew a trip to the store was out of the question and 2. I really love peanut butter cookies (and desserts without chocolate). Not that I have a problem with chocolate, because I don't. I just very rarely think to myself "Hmm, I could really go for some chocolate right now" be that candy, cookies, cake, hot cocoa, etc. What's hilarious is my twin brother DESPISES chocolate (I'm pretty sure there was a point he claimed he was allergic to it) and has since we were young. Now I can definitely identify as a non-chocoholic.

Anyway, this recipe was awesome too because there was barely any cleanup! You mix the ingredients in a bowl with a wooden spoon (which made me nervous because I'm so far along in my pregnancy that pretty much everything makes me winded) and then roll into balls and push out with fork tines. Everything was surprisingly easy to mix together (probably because there was no flour).

The batch only made 16 cookies total, but for me, that's a perfect amount. My husband has zero sweet tooth at all (I don't have much of one either, to be honest), but this will allow me to munch on a few and either donate the rest to the bake sale at church on Sunday or take them in to my coworkers on Monday. No, our 1 year old will not be having one.

They are gluten free since there is no flour in them, so I guess that might make them paleo friendly too?? I don't know. Alton Brown admits he didn't care at all that this recipe turned out to be gluten free, he just wanted to eat cookies. I'm the same way - I don't seek out gluten free options in anything, but if something happens to be gluten free then cool. I don't know what the difference between gluten free, paleo, flexitarian, or any of those other things are and I don't follow any of those restrictive eating plans. But, if you do need/want a great gluten free peanut butter cookie, this is it!

The cookies baked quickly and evenly and look really pretty, despite them looking not appetizing when I rolled them into balls. They are pretty soft, even after cooling completely, so you have to be careful when transferring to the cooling rack. That's just how I like my cookies - soft!! 

Recipe 1: Sesame Chicken Noodles

Recipe Number: 1

Cookbook: Cravings by Chrissy Teigen

Cuisine: Asian-ish

Pros: Super easy! Tasted delicious, and not too many ingredients I didn't already have.

Cons: My crappy Iphone picture, I mixed in the garnish, no vegetables

For those of you who know me, you know I am an absolute pasta freak. Like....would eat some form breakfast, lunch, and dinner for weeks (probably). This was a great dish to start with since it didn't use any of those Asian type noodles that need to be cooked differently than my beloved Barilla. I had most of the ingredients to make the sesame "dressing" as the author called it. I've been wanting to try other similar dishes, but have been hesitant since many call for peanut butter in the sauce and for some reason I have a brain block against that idea. I love PB but the thought of it in a savory dish kind of grosses me out. This recipe uses tahini, so that was great. I'll admit that instead of 8 oz of pasta, I made the whole box (16 oz), and held some of the noodles back. I also didn't use all of the sauce for the first batch of noodles for dinner because I despise having anything Asian that is swimming in sauce. Thankfully, the amount of chicken was perfect as were the green onions (that I mixed in instead of "garnishing" with because....I was feeding myself and my husband). I can't remember the last time I garnished anything....

Anyway, this recipe was super quick - all you had to do was cook the chicken and noodles and mix up the dressing. You rinse the noodles when they're done cooking to cool them down (a big no-no in my kitchen when I make Italian type dishes), but for this, it worked. Served it at slightly more than room temperature since the chicken was still warm as were the noodles). I liked it at that temp, but to be honest, I brought some leftovers for lunch and will be nuking them to see how it compares. 

Overall, a good dish to start with since it was super easy to make and didn't take much active cooking time on my part. My husband said the "noodles are too al dente" which is his general comment any time I make noodles because I use the time on the packaging instead of boiling the heck out of them til they're mushy. Personal preference. Other than that, he liked it. Dressing was a little bit spicy but not overwhelming, just an enjoyable hint of heat. 

Rating: Probably will make it into my general rotation of meals since it's easy. Needs to be served with a salad or side dish with vegetables because it doesn't have any...and every meal needs vegetables! 

New Goal and a little background

Hello interwebs! I figured I'd start a blog because I don't have enough going on in my life and needed to add something in (sarcasm...). But really, I just need a way to keep myself accountable on this new goal I have. My husband said to me the other day "You know, you have a lot of cookbooks, but how many of the recipes have you actually made from them?" This got me thinking that 1. He was right (as usual) and 2. I should really start trying out all of these recipes I have at my fingertips to find things I can add to my repertoire/feed my growing family well/relieve some stress since cooking is fun for me. So here we are! 

The goal: make 2 new recipes a week. That's it. Nothing fancy...doesn't have to be 1 side dish and 1 main course. Can be 2 desserts a week if I feel like it. Just get to cooking new recipes from the cookbooks I already have. 

For full disclosure to my (currently nonexistent) readers, I am due with our second baby in less than 5 weeks, so it's likely there will be some time coming up where I'll be missing out, but I'll be back once things settle down again. I didn't do much cooking (in fact, hardly any) after our first baby came and I think it would have helped me tremendously once all our freezer casseroles and things were finished.  

So without further ado....