The Great Mac & Cheese

January is almost over! Valentine's Day is coming. I predict chocolate recipes.

This week's recipe was chosen because it had very few ingredients and was suitable as a potluck dish.

It was torn out of a calendar that came with a Canadian Living magazine. It is a recipe by Dare Foods.

 All the ingredients were easy to get a hold of.

I was not sure what it meant by 3 cups "cooked" pasta. Was I to cook 3 cups of dry pasta or cook and use only 3 cups of cooked pasta. I went with the latter. I chose to use regular sized original flavoured Breton crackers. It took 18 crackers to get 1 cup crushed. I am also never sure how to measure shredded cheese. Should I pack it? I grated it right into the measuring cup. Therefore not packing it.

The assembly was easy. Into the oven it went.

After half an hour of being in the oven it didn't look very golden or bubbly.

It actually looked exactly the same as when it went in. Yes I turned the oven on.

Even though I was weary of bringing this to the potluck I did. I was the only one that ate it. I'm glad no one else ate it. It was a disgrace to all Mac & Cheeses. Not Great at all. I am TOSSing this recipe. I'm sad to say that Kraft Dinner is still my go to for  Mac & Cheese. I need to find a recipe from scratch!

Weight Watcher's Followers: The entire recipe is 48 points. Not worth it!

Split Pea Soup

Today's recipe seemed appropriate because of the ridiculously cold temperature outside.

A bowl of warm comforting Split Pea Soup. This recipe was torn out of the Everyday Food Magazine.

I remember my mother making this kind of soup during the winter season. I remember hers being a brighter colour of green. Anyways, here are the ingredients required for this recipe. 

Step one was not hard to do. Unfortunately after 5 minutes I had already developed a concern. It was the crispiness of the bread. Their texture was more like toast than croutons. Perhaps it needed more than the requested 1 tbsp of oil.

On to step two. When I added the second tbsp of oil to the pot it started smoking. My temperature was at medium-high as instructed. I reduced it to medium and then added the onions, garlic and cumin.

After the instructed 6 minutes, the ingredients in the pot were a little well done. I added the broth, water and split peas. It took a good 5 minutes for it to come to a boil. I stirred it occasionally while it simmered for 35 minutes. I didn't like the consistency of the soup after the 35 minutes so I used an emulsion blender to smooth it out. I scooped out 3 full ladles, added the croutons and then the parsley. 

The only good thing about this recipe was the ingredients list. They were cheap. The worst thing about this recipe were the croutons. Seconds after you put them into the soup they became soft and mushy tasting. I did not enjoy the added flavour of parsley. The soup was bearable. It had a thinner consistency than the one I remember my mother making. It might taste better with bacon bits. If you have not guessed it by now, I am TOSSing this recipe.

Weight Watcher's Followers: The entire recipe is 48 points. Not worth it.

Classis Lemon Loaf & Mini Philly Bites

Both recipes were chosen for the purposes of hors d'oeuvres, served at my very first Swap Party.

The Classic Lemon Loaf recipe was torn out of a Chatelaine magazine.

I read the entire recipe first. I'm trying to make this a habit, so that I am fully prepared for the execution of the recipe. After reading it I thought maybe I had not ripped out the entire recipe. I did.

Here are the ingredients:

The only thing I had to go buy was the lemon.

After beating in the eggs, vanilla and milk to the butter and sugar, my batter looked curdled.

I think it is because the eggs and milk were cold. Not sure but when I stirred in the flour it looked better.

I put it into the oven and it took approximately 1 hour to bake.

I wasn't fond of the dark edges. It looks pretty much like the picture so, I guess I was in good shape. I poked the holes into the top of the loaf, drizzed half of the lemon syrup, let it cool for 10 minutes and then turned it out.

I was weary in the beginning when it asked for the pan to only be oiled. I am used to buttering and then flouring a loaf pan. As you can see, I did not oil the pan enough. I had planned to slice the loaf so I wasn't to worried.

Here it is after I drizzled the remaining lemon syrup on top:

On to the Mini Philly Bites. This recipe was torn out of a Canadian Living magazine.

This recipe was very simple. It was in a list of 4 other quick bites.

Here are the 4 ingredients you need:

I did not buy a caramelized onion spread. My husband caramelized two yellow onions in butter.

My husband ended up assembling these bites because I was getting ready for my Swap Party.

I gave him strict instructions to make them as identical as possible. I think he did an amazing job!

Once my guests arrived I broiled them on HI for 4 minutes.

I let them cool slightly and then ate one.

I found the Classic Lemon Loaf dry for my liking. My guests enjoyed it. There were only two pieces left. It takes a long time to bake and it's sticky. Three reasons why I'm going to TOSS this recipe.

The Mini Philly Bites were sooo yummy! Easy to assemble, had only four ingredients and took only 4 minutes to broil. Four reasons why I am KEEPing this recipe.

Weight Watcher's Followers:  The Classic Lemon Loaf recipe is approximately 78 points. A 1'' piece would be approximately 9 points. The points for the Mini Philly Bites are dependent on how much you chose to put on each slice of baguette and how much butter you use to caramelize the onions.

Banana-Cream Cheese Breakfast Cakes

Happy New Years!

New Year new post day. For the year of 2013 I will be making the recipes on Sunday and then posting the blog entry on Mondays.

Yesterday, I chose to make a recipe that should have been one that I would be comfortable with but it was not the case.

This recipe was torn out of the Food Network Magazine.

The ingredients were fairly standard. The only thing I had to go out to buy was the brick of Cream cheese.

Here are the ingredients for the filling:

I was surprised that there were only 4 ingredients!

Here are the ingredients for the cakes:

The baking soda and salt is sitting on top of the flour. The first critique I would have to make is that the amounts required for the flour and butter are really precise! There are 4 tbsp in a 1/4 cup. I wonder what would happen if I put 1 3/4 cake flour instead of 1 1/2 and 3 tbsp. For the 2 tbsp of butter I cut a 1/4 cup in half.

For the filling, I'm not sure if it would have been only 3 minutes for the egg whites to stiffen if I had whisked them at the speed of 10 instead of 8 or 9 but by whisking them at 8 it took a lot longer than instructed. It took approximately 8 minutes instead of 3. I would suggest once you have the filling made NOT to put it into an icing bag. I tried and it ended up getting very messy. The filling is not as thick as icing and will pour out of the icing tip. I would suggest putting the filling into a bowl and filling the icing bag when you are ready to fill the cakes.

 The batter was simple to make. I'm not sure if it was to be expected but when I added the mashed banana, the batter looked curdled. After adding the flour it looked fine.

I proceeded to divided the batter among the prepared muffin cups. I make a point of following the recipe exactly the way it is written. Reluctantly I filled the cups up fuller than I would usually fill them.

  

After filling them to this point I stopped. I had leftover batter.

 

Then, I added filling. I predicted they would overflow. Again I had leftover filling.

My oven took 28 minutes to bake the cakes.

I used 2 1/2 inch high cupcake paper liners. They are higher than the muffin pan. Perhaps if I had used liners that were not higher than the pan the batter would not have overflowed the way it did.

The cake was very moist and the filling tasted like baked cheesecake. Overall they tasted good.

I seriously considered throwing this recipe out but I am going to give it a 2nd chance. Next time I am going to divide the batter over 18 cups instead of 12 and I will use less filling. So for the time being I am KEEPing this recipe.

Weight Watcher's followers: The entire recipe is 122 points. One muffins is 10 points! That is when you only make 12. They could be less seeing that there was left over filling.