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.

Horseradish Cheddar Cheese Ball

First I would like to apologize to those who do take the time to read this blog for not having posted yesterday.

I attempted to choose a recipe that I could do after work last night and post before midnight but when I came home, I read the instructions and realized that was not going to happen. Oops!

I chose to make a cheese ball because it is suitable to serve at a party. Maybe even a  New Year's Eve party.

I tore this recipe out of the Food Network Magazine but is really a recipe that is supposedly to accompany a lovely bottle of entwine wine. 

Here are the ingredients that are needed to execute this recipe.

You can choose whichever crackers you like. These are the ones my husband brought home. They worked nicely.

The manner in which the first step was to be done was not specific. So, I threw all of the requested ingredients in a bowl and used a wooden spoon to kind of mash it all together.

The second step confused me slightly. I was most likely reading into it too much. Instead of forming the cheese mixture into a ball in the bowl and then covering the bowl with plastic wrap, I scooped it out onto a piece of plastic wrap and formed the ball while wrapping it.

It is at the end of step two were I realized that I should have read the directions before selecting this recipe, as the recipe I would make at 10pm. The words "chill until firm" and "4 hours or overnight" were the cause for this late blog entry. Sorry.

Anyways, this morning I executed step three and four resulting in this:

Although this recipe is time consuming and requires quite a few ingredients, I am going to KEEP it. Next time I will add more Horseradish. You can taste it so, if you aren't a big fan like I am the amount that is requested is enough.

Weight Watchers' followers: I would estimate 1 tbsp of cheese ball on a cracker would be 3 points. It depends on which crackers you choose. You could just eat it with celery. Celery is 0 points!

Happy New Year's Everyone!

Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

Happy Holidays!

With the time of year in mind I chose to make cookies today. This recipe was torn out of an insert that was in the Canadian Living Magazine.

It is another double sided recipe.

I did not have to buy anything to execute this recipe. If you enjoy baking on a regular basis you should have all of the ingredients.

Here are the ingredients for the dough:

I love the way the brown sugar looks.

I made the dough in my mixer and then divided it. Put it in the fridge to chill for 2 hours.

After two hours I took one half and proceeded to roll the dough to the instructed 1/8' thickness. I personally think that is too thin. My first rolling attempt was not successful. The dough stuck to the counter. Solution: more flour. I chose to cut my cookies into stars. Again referencing the holiday theme. I cut out the bases of the cookies and then the tops. The first time I did the tops I cut out the center while it was on my counter. Not a good idea. I had difficulty moving it from the counter to the cookie sheet. After re-rolling the scraps, I cut the tops, put them whole onto the cookie sheet and then cut out the center.

Although the recipe did not instruct it, I placed the cookie sheets into the fridge for approximately 5 minutes. Then I put them in the oven. The instruction say to bake them for 9-12 minutes. My oven seems to be hotter then the ovens used by recipe makers so, I set my timer for 7 minutes.They were not done after 7 minutes so I added 3 minutes and ended up with these.

They were done a little to well for my liking.

The frosting ingredients are staples in my home.

It was easy to make.

I assembled the cookies and took them over the third Christmas dinner I have had this year.

This recipe was ok. Nothing too special. I like the flavour combination. Somewhat time consuming. The cookies could be more spicy. The frosting was sweet and over powered the flavour of the cookies. I am going to TOSS this recipe.

Weight Watcher's followers: 1 sandwich cookies is 4 points.

Slow-Cooker Vegetarian Chili with Sweet Potatoes

Today I chose to do a simple, non labourious recipe.

It was torn out of the Real Simple Magazine.

Here are the ingredients:

I did not use exactly what the recipe called for. The grocery store I chose to do my shopping at did not have 15.5-ounce cans of black beans or kidney beans. I used 28-ounce cans instead. I was concerned that because of the quantity change the chili might have come out drier but it did not. I could not find fire-roasted diced tomatoes so I used regular diced tomatoes. The only other thing I did not end up using was radishes. Not a fan.

The preparation took as stated 20 minutes. Here are all the ingredients in the slow cooker:

I went with the 4-5 hours on high option. I checked on it every hour and gave it a stir.

After 3 hours the sweet potatoes were cooked so, I turned the slow cooker down to LOW.

This is what it looked like after 4 hours and when we chose to eat it:

I have to say after looking at this picture the brown liquid isn't very appealing but the house smelt amazing!

I served myself two ladles full, added some sour cream and scallions (green onions) and ate it with tortilla chips just like the recipe suggests. No radishes.

After smelling it for 3 hours I was eager to eat it. Unfortunately it was underwhelming. It lacked flavour. Next time I would add a diced up jalapeno. My husband would have replaced the sweet potatoes with meat. That completely defeats the purpose of it being vegetarian. I am torn about the decision to keep or toss this recipe. My vegetarian upbringing enjoyed it but my husband the carnivore didn't. I cannot eat it all on my own. Although I could make it and freeze it for myself. Hmmm. I need a stand alone freezer.

I am KEEPing it.

Weight Watcher's followers: This is a good one! The recipe the way I made it had approximately 9 cups. I ate approximately 1 1/2 cups. Each cup is 3 points. Not including the sour cream or the chips.