TAMLVS2COOK Recipe Reviews (Pg. 1) - Allrecipes.com (18318982)

Extreme Chocolate Cake

Reviewed: Jun. 13, 2010

Instead of two cups of sugar, I substituted 1 cup organic sugar and 1 cup Xylitol (look it up, it's better for you than sugar and tastes essentially the same). I didn't realize I didn't have AP flour, so I had to use bread flour. No big deal, because it's cake, so it rose up better and no one is allergic to gluten here. I took someone's advice about the coffee trick and used freshly brewed coffee instead of just plain hot water. Used raw milk instead of store milk, so it had all the yummy cream at top to use in the cake. Used olive oil instead of veggie oil, but next time, I'll just add Virgin Coconut Oil when pouring in the hot coffee (VCO will solidify with colder temperatures and melts at higher...VCO is very good for you and a very stable oil at high temps). So with those changes, it made for a very delicious cake/icing. :)

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Grandmother's Punch

Reviewed: Dec. 11, 2009

I've been making this punch since 2002 and can't believe I haven't rated it! We've made it year after year for various occasions. It's one of our favorites! I leave out the oranges and add only about 1 1/2 cups of sugar. I've never been able to find plain pineapple juice concentrate, so I usually use the pineapple-banana-orange concentrate or something with pineapple in it (whatever is there). Everyone has always loved it when they come over! Been using it for seven years now, so it's obviously a keeper in our household. :)

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Health Nut Blueberry Muffins

Reviewed: Nov. 3, 2009

Pretty good. I think everyone else has summed up this recipe pretty well, so I don't need to add anything more. :)

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Creamy Macaroni and Cheese

Reviewed: Nov. 3, 2009

Very good. One of my children will not readily eat Mac and Cheese, except the boxed kind or Boston Market's. I'm not crazy about boxed or Boston Market's, but the entire family loves Mac and Cheese. So to find one that suits all our tastes, would be a sure miracle. This one still isn't it, but it has come the closest so far. :) I attribute it to adding the chicken broth and possibly the evaporated milk. Everyone ate it, including the pickiest one. Personally, I don't see the point of any Mac and Cheese recipe with cornstarch or flour, so I never use that anymore. Roux's are good for other dishes, but not Mac and Cheese. I can get my desired texture from milk and cheese just fine. Next time, no mustard! I only put in a squirt and still found it to be too much, so I imagine a full 1.5 TBSP would be excessive. A good base recipe to tweak around to your liking and add extra yummy ingredients to (i.e. bacon, onion, ect...). :)

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Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal Bread

Reviewed: Nov. 3, 2009

This is pretty good. I only did a few things differently. Never heard of chunky applesauce, so I just used smooth. Added more cinnamon. Used one package of oatmeal (half in batter, half on top). Used King Arthur's White Whole Wheat flour instead of all-purpose. And added sliced almonds to the top. The edges did start to brown a little too much towards the end without being fully done in the middle. Didn't take away from the taste on the inside, though. Overall, pretty good.

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Potato Bacon Chowder

Reviewed: Nov. 2, 2009

Perfect comfort food! Mmmm! I did add a little cheese, substituted the water for chicken broth, and added cornstarch, like others did. Hubby and kids liked it and they aren't fond of chowder. We're a meat protein family, so we will add more meat protein (i.e. chicken) next time, but it's still delicious as is.

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Taco Seasoning II

Reviewed: Nov. 2, 2009

Even though my husband and I like the Restaurant-Style Taco Meat Seasoning recipe from this site more, our kids loved this recipe more, so it's here to stay! We did add Himilayan Salt and used Chipotle Pepper (double) instead of cayenne, because we didn't have cayenne pepper on hand. I'll admit, it is slighly bland for adult tastes, but if you have kids, give this a try, they may like it more because of that. :)

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Donna's Lasagna

Reviewed: Oct. 9, 2009

Finally, a really good base recipe for homemade lasagna that my family enjoys! I've made several and almost gave up on enjoying a good homemade lasagna. Saw this in the Allrecipes cookbook and decided to give it a try. Must be good if it made it into the cookbook, right? I'm so glad I did. I only did a few things differently, but nothing much. I added a little extra sauce and added fresh, lightly steamed spinach. Made homemade garlic bread with it, too. I plan to use this recipe as a base recipe and try various things in the future. I also plan to make a big batch of it and freeze a few pre-made ones for quick dinners later. Freeze it before cooking in the oven. Then cook it like you would a frozen lasagna dish from the store. Thank you, Kathy, for submitting a great lasagna recipe our family enjoys! :)

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13 users found this review helpful

Kid-Friendly Wheat Bread

Reviewed: Oct. 9, 2009

Very good bread! It is definitely kid friendly, because within minutes of taking this out of the oven, the smell got their attention and almost an entire loaf was gone within ten minutes. I did do a few things different, but not so much to change the recipe, per se. I always use King Arthur flour or home-grinded. In this case, I used KA flour, as it is far superior to all other brands, imo. Used coconut oil for the vegetable oil; Rapunzel sugar instead of brown sugar; Himalayan salt; and raw milk. The end results were delicious! Oh yes, only used three cups plus 2 TBSP. of the whole wheat flour. It's easy to know when you have added enough flour, if you're using a stand mixer with a dough hook. The dough will come together and completely come away from the sides of the bowl. It'll also come away from the dough hook (not be sticky to it) where the dough hook is only kneeding it. If kneeding by hand, same thing, except with your hands, it won't be sticky to your hands anymore and will come away from them. Just a tip for anyone new to bread making. :) Do a search on bread making and you'll find all sorts of tricks of the trade! Bread making is so much fun!

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10 users found this review helpful

Campfire Foil Packs

Reviewed: Aug. 29, 2009

Very good! I added some extra veggies, like green beans, carrots, ect. My husband hates green beans, so let me tell you, I was absolutely shocked when I saw him eat one and say he thought it was really good! So any recipe that does something like that for my husband deserves a five star rating! Instead of smaller sheets of aluminium foil, find the extra long, heavy duty foil. We only used two long sheets of it. Very, very good recipe that we will use again when we go camping (or just over the hot coals of our grill)! Thank you!

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Over the Fire Scalloped Potatoes

Reviewed: Aug. 29, 2009

We cooked these when we went camping and I must say, they were pretty good! In order to avoid burning it, we double foiled it using the extra long aluminium foil, heavy duty kind. So basically two very long sheets, instead of the 8 seperate ones. Placed directly in the coals and it cooked up nicely! Very good recipe! Will use again when we go camping!

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Restaurant-Style Taco Meat Seasoning

Reviewed: Aug. 28, 2009

I agree with Diamar on the directions. But the recipe itself is great! I left out the red pepper flakes and used a 1/4 tsp. of chipotle seasoning I have on hand. I didn't have corn flour, but used corn meal and it turned out good. I don't use garlic salt, so I just added extra garlic powder and himalayan salt instead. All my kids ate it, but my youngest ate it, which is the most impressive. So for that alone, this recipe gets five stars!! Hubby and I did feel it needed a slight bit of something, but for the kids, I think it's perfect. Will definitely use again! Thank you for the great recipe!

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'Got Some Crust' Macaroni and Cheese

Reviewed: Aug. 27, 2009

A good basic recipe for Mac and Cheese, with a few wonderful additions! I enjoyed the addition of onions, but I also added fresh garlic to the mix. I agree with others that I don't prefer the grainy taste of cheddar cheese, so perhaps I'll do a white cheddar cheese next time. The topping didn't add much, in our opinion, but it was still good. Kids are eating it, so that's all that matters!! I like to try recipes as they are before I slip in healthy additions, but like Lambchop's Mom, I'll slip in some veggies in there next time. I usually slip in ones that match the color of whatever I'm making, so they don't notice them there. I'll chop it up in my Vita-Mix blender, which gets it real fine, and then slip it in the mix. Kids hardly ever notice! I'll make this again in the sense that I'll add what we like, take from other recipes we like, and add our healthy goodies to make our own homemade Mac and Cheese. :) Thank you, Gallis!

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Bacon-Wrapped Potatoes

Reviewed: Aug. 24, 2009

I haven't made these potatoes, per se, but I have done something very similar. My suggestion to anyone who says there isn't any flavor would be to poke holes all around your potato, rub olive oil or melted butter on the outside skins, then wrap it up with bacon (you can do the onion in the middle, too). That way, the juices from the bacon soak into the potato. Wrap it up with foil, put in the oven or on the grill, and it should taste even more yummy! (We get our bacon from a local farm. If you can get bacon straight from the farm without all the additives, with thick slices [aka, lots of fat juices], you'll be in dog heaven with these potatoes wrapped in them! Mmmm!)

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Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Reviewed: Aug. 7, 2009

My oldest has been begging for something pumpkin for days, so my husband graciously decided to make these cookies for the family tonight. He followed the recipe exactly and the end result was not exactly what we're used to. So I compared the two recipes and this is what I discovered. My recipe appears the same from a glance, but the minor differences are what made the differences. First, I use butter, not shortening. Second, for the amount of flour this recipes calls for, it only requires 1 can of pumpkin. My recipe calls for half the flour (plus 1/2 c.), with 1 can of pumpkin. To me, this is a HUGE difference in the end result. My recipe calls for about 1/2 c. more sugar. Mine also uses more pumpkin pie traditional spices than this one calls for. Meaning, this recipe lacks in spices. In the end, we felt we were only eating flour with chocolate chips to soothe over the flour taste when you bit into one. We couldn't taste the pumpkin at all. :(

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Blueberry Buckle

Reviewed: Jul. 31, 2009

Delicious! A little of this goes a long way in the belly! :) I made it exactly as is, except that many of the ingredients I used are not the usual (i.e. used organic palm shortening, Himilayan salt, raw milk/butter, ect...) I doubt that made a huge difference, but either way, it tasted great! It also took longer to cook, so I baked for about 45 minutes. This one is a keeper in the recipe box! Thank you, JBS BOX!

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Neat Sloppy Joes

Reviewed: Feb. 2, 2009

This was delicious. I didn't chop up the onions (feeling lazy) or celery (none of us like it), but followed the rest of the recipe. We loved the taste and how quick it cooked up, so this is a keeper. Thank you!

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Chili Rick's

Reviewed: Jan. 22, 2009

I made this for a large group of people coming over and they all loved it! The only thing I really did different was that I used only half a bottle of the hickory sauce and added a 1/4c of brown sugar instead. (A full bottle would have been way too sweet in our opinion, so I'm glad I took the advice of others on that one). I also let it cook ALL day (a good 10 hours at least), which made a HUGE difference. I tasted it throughout the day and by nights end, it tasted great compared to just four or six hours of cooking. Chocolate seemed to make a delicious difference in the outcome of this recipe. A wonderful mix of spice and sweetness. :) I cooked this up with a side of Grandmother's Buttermilk Cornbread (also from this site), which was an excellent recipe to go with it. The chili that was left (this makes a lot), I put in a food saver bag and froze to eat at a later date. Freezes well. **Also, one person in our group doesn't eat pork, so I made them a small side of this without the sausage and instead sliced up some beef sausage. To be honest, I would have sliced up some more beef sausage into the main pot if I had known how good it would have tasted! So next time I will! It was delicious!** Thanks for the excellent chili recipe!

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Grandmother's Buttermilk Cornbread

Reviewed: Jan. 22, 2009

This was delicious cornbread! I had to make a few changes, because of what I had. I didn't use buttermilk, because I didn't have any. So I did the buttermilk substitute of milk/lemon juice (for every one cup of milk, use about two tablespoons less of milk and mix in two tablespoons of lemon juice instead). Let it sit for a few minutes while it foamed and then poured it in. Also, the company I was having over who would delight in this dish, wanted creamed corn in it, so without changing any ingredients around, I simply poured in a can of creamed corn and let it cook longer until it was set. My company loved it and so did we! Thank you for such a great recipe! It's a keeper! *I made this cornbread with Chili Rick's (from this site) and it was delicious together.*

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