This Week's Concoctions Ending 3/11

Here are some highlights of items that I made this week other than the "Weekly Cookie"

It was my co-worker's birthday so she requested this cake. It's a chocolate cake with dates with walnuts and chocolate chips on top. I guess it is more like a brownie because it didn't rise but it had the consistency of a cake.

This is a roasted vegetable and feta cheese dip. It's just a Tastefully Simple dry mix and cream cheese.

This is a blueberry dump cake. It's a can of blueberry filling on the bottom then cake mix/butter mix dumped on top and baked for a hour in the beanpot.

This Week's Concoctions Ending 2/25

Here are some highlights of items that I made this week other than the "Weekly Cookie"

I used the beanpot again and tried this Tastefully Simple recipe for chicken stroganoff. I did cheat and bought biscuits instead of making them out of Bisquick. I don't think I have ever made successful biscuits from scratch.

For dessert, I used another Tastefully Simple mix for this caramel strudel cake. I had some extra cranberries so I threw those in the batter.

It was my co-worker's birthday over the weekend and she wanted a chocolate cake. So I used a standard cake mix with a can of sprite and lots of eggs. It was very moist.

It was also "salad" week at work this week so people were bringing in all different kinds of salads (taco, fruit, etc). I made this cold farfalle salad with pesto, olives, peppers, onions, scallions and peas.

In addition to the birthday and the food themed week, it was also the week of my recipe exchange program with the comfort food theme. I made creamy slow cooker macaroni and cheese. It was a little heavy and chunky for a Saturday morning at 11am, but it ended up coming out really nice.

This Week's Concoctions Ending 9/24

Here are some highlights of items that I made this week other than the "Weekly Cookie"

We went to a friend's house for the football game on Sunday and I brought this as dessert. It was supposed to be a pumpkin swirl cheesecake brownies but I modified it because I was dumping tablespoons of filling over the brownies and was finding that I was going to have a lot leftover so I decided to make it a layer and then add the reserve brownie batter as a topping I guess. As you can see it, it came out looking like a result of some kind of gastrointestinal distress. I overcooked the brownies so the bottom layer is a little tough.

There was a tailgating/party food theme at work last week so I decided to use my beanpot again. These are Texas Cowboy Beans. It is a mix of ground beef, beans (pinto, white, kidney), ketchup, onion, and BBQ sauce.

This Week's Concoctions Ending 9/3

Here are some highlights of items that I made this week other than the "Weekly Cookie"

A while ago, I bought a pound of alligator meat. Then, I was delighted when one of our friends wanted to try it. I found it difficult to find a recipe that didn't include deep frying the meat. It was really quite tasty. I thought it had a slightly fishy taste but nothing stronger than the flavor of fish sticks. I would definitely make the meat and this recipe again.

Alligator Jambalaya

One of my culinary challenges has been homemade rice pudding. I have attempted it maybe 3-4 times with only 1 success. It usually comes out very watery. Recently I went to a "Celebrating Home" party and lured into buying this bean pot ("It's a crockpot without the cord"). After browsing through the bean pot cookbook, I decided to attempt rice pudding again for Labor Day. I had to work that day so I cheated and bought rice from a Chinese restaurant. I added all the ingredients and it went in the oven for 3 hours at 250. When it came out (see picture), it was dry and tasted bland and not good...

Rice Pudding 4          Molly 1

Over the last couple of weeks at our vegetable share, we have been given kohlrabi. I had never heard of it so of course I wanted to experiment with it. I found a recipe that used them, avocados and a red wine vinegar dressing. You have to peel them and they feel like a potato when you cut them up. However, they are gross....so gross. I had one bite and spit it into the sink. I felt awful because I also made the rice pudding that day so I served our guests 2 unappetizing dishes. On the bright side, I made pulled pork in the slow cooker that came out well.