Just sharing some of the recipes I’ve made recently.
I cannot make a single recipe without tweaking it to suit my preferences, except when it comes to baking.
I am to understand baking is somewhat of a science when it comes to ratios.
This really is not my area of expertise so any tips and offerings are appreciated; I always welcome help when it comes to bread!
I think tweaking a recipe is a form of expression in the kitchen. When I post a review, I state what I changed. If it came out good, I will rate it good. I taste as I am cooking so
I can tell how the written recipe tastes before I start making changes.
Usually I can tell as I'm going what I could do to improve it. I would leave a lot more poor reviews if I weren't making changes to suit my palette! Also, I avoid leaving a poor review if my own changes caused the dish to come out poorly. I posted
this before, but I’ll say it again, cooking is an art, and I wouldn't tell a painter how to use his brush when he's painting what he likes.
That said, I DO NOT WANT TO SPARK ANY ANIMOSITY regarding the practice of leaving reviews!
No need to beat that dead horse again!
So anyway, here’s what I’ve been cooking up lately…
Roasted broccoli
This is similar to a recipe I've been using for almost 10 years. The one I’ve been using calls for fresh garlic, not powdered.
I liked using the powder because fresh leaves little pieces of burnt garlic stuck to the broccoli.
I also liked adding sweet pepper to roast along with the broccoli; it’s a nice touch.
I definitely recommend this one! This goes well with so many other dishes.
Chef John’s Macaroni and Cheese
My husband and I love a good macaroni & cheese, but we’re picky about it (and he’s REAL picky!).
Chef John has a good M&C, but like he says in his
video, if you like yours more on the creamy side, as we do, use less pasta.
I also cut back on the thyme as a personal preference. The cayenne does provide a gentle kick. I think the crust would have been better without all the cheese on top, just the crumb topping.
This is pretty delicious stuff, but DH and I are still hooked on our ‘old usual’ when it comes to mac and cheese.
Baked Chicken Nuggets
Like I said in my review, you just cannot reproduce fried food in the oven.
There is something so terribly delicious about fried food that cannot be matched.
BUT! These are quite tasty for oven baked home-made nuggets.
I almost always season chicken before I bread it, and I find egg/milk helps crumbs to stick better.
I also make my own crumbs and season them as I see fit. I melted a bit of butter in the casserole dish before laying the nuggets down and flipped them halfway through cooking.
Serve with your favorite sauce! This recipe will be made again and again in my house!
Hot Peanut Sauce
This sounded soooo good, but alas, I just could not give it the help it needed.
It was like watered down peanut butter. It may be a great base recipe, but it lacks ‘muchness.’
I will give it another try, but add garlic, ginger, rice vinegar, more cayenne, and curry powder.
I mixed the sauce with rice noodles, steamed julienned carrot, and baby broccoli florets and served as a side dish.
The recipe would not have made enough sauce for main dish portions, so keep that in mind if you decide to whip it up.
Stir Fried Vegetables
This was the main dish alongside the peanut noodles.
I stir fried some very thinly sliced chicken before I started adding the other veggies.
I just added whatever veggies I liked: carrots, broccoli, onion, garlic, mushrooms, celery and sweet bell pepper.
It was a great stir fry, but the ‘mild’ sauce fell a little flat.
It would be an easy fix to make it a great sauce, and not using light soy sauce is a good start.
Give it a try, but I recommend punching the sauce up a bit.
Cranberry Orange Loaf
Ok bakers, this is where you come in, lol!
This smelled so good but it didn’t rise. Instead I ended up with this short, heavy bread.
I followed the recipe as written, except I always use unsalted butter (don’t use margarine), and I chopped the berries up a bit first.
What could have gone wrong? It has many high reviews, so I’m pretty sure the issue lies in my kitchen.
Vanilla Ice Cream III
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!
This was sooOOoo good! After reading reviews, I decided to add heavy cream, so I used 1/3 part milk and 2/3 part heavy cream instead of all the milk called for.
I thought it was like soft serve when my ice cream maker was done, so I put it in the freezer for a few hours and it was PERFECT!
Creamy and delicious! The original recipe makes a TON of ice cream.
Make sure you check the capacity of your ice cream maker. I halved the recipe and it was still a bit too much for my maker.
I kept it in a pitcher in the fridge and made two batches. YUM!
Well there’s a handful of recipes which I made in my kitchen over the last week or two, hope you enjoyed reading!
[I am an Allrecipes Allstar Brand Ambassador (a voluntary position) and I’m not compensated for my work with Allrecipes.com. Products received from advertiser are only used for experienced-based reviews
on Adventures in Lissa's Kitchen! The reviews, content and opinions expressed in this blog are purely the sole opinions of *~Lissa~*.]
