The Kitchen Journal – Page 17

Recipe #26 Chocolate Chunk Blondies

Published on January 19, 2021March 16, 2021 by RJ2 Comments

This recipe can be found in Foolproof, page 233.

Today, I am off from work so I decided to make a couple recipes. One of them is this amazingly yummy dessert. The other is a vegetable dish that will serve as a side for tonight’s dinner.

These Chocolate Chunk Blondies are basically a chocolate chip cookie in bar form. However, they are super dense and chocolately, so they hit that spot a little differently than a cookie would.

Ina recommends baking them in 8.5 inch by 12 inch by 2 inch pan, but I don’t have one of those, so I used one slightly smaller. However, I probably should have used the 13 by 9 inch pan we have. Regardless, they came out great!

I like that this recipe calls for chocolate chunks over chocolate chips since chunks tend to have more of chocolate flavor. I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s because they are larger? The more surface area? Who knows!

These will make an excellent dessert tonight! I can’t wait to try one.

My First Pioneer Woman Recipe

Published on January 15, 2021February 19, 2021 by RJ1 Comment

In September of 2019, I created a different blog that I have since made private. However, I did want to share this recipe with you all since I will most likely not be doing any other cooking this week. This recipe was made in February 2020, before COVID hit the United States. This post appears as it did when it was originally published.

In a future post, I will talk about my love of all things Ree, but for now, here’s the recipe review. Enjoy!

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Recipe #25 Ultimate Ginger Cookie

Published on January 14, 2021March 10, 2026 by RJ1 Comment

This recipe appears in Barefoot Contessa At Home, page 192.

Last week was a busy cooking week for me. I made a total of three different recipes! Earlier this week I posted about the first two which you can read about here and here.

But, I still haven’t written about the dessert that I made last week — until now. For dessert last week I made the Ultimate Ginger Cookie. This was definitely a new type of dessert for me since I am usually not a fan of gingerbread. But, I have to admit, these cookies were tasty!

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Recipe #24 Confetti Corn

Published on January 12, 2021March 16, 2021 by RJ2 Comments

This recipe appears in Back to Basics, page 160.

As the side dish for the Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas I made for dinner last Friday, I decided to keep with the Mexican theme and a make corn side. This looks like a simple corn dish, but since it’s from Ina Garten, we know that the dish takes a humble corn side dish and cranks up the flavor volume.

There isn’t much to say about this flavorful and easy side dish. It combines uncooked corn (I used canned corn since it’s winter), a red onion, a pepper, and some spices to add color and flavor to what would be an otherwise bland dish. This is totally one that should be in your back pocket for large crowds since it has the potential too feed around a dozen people.

I did modify the recipe and used a red pepper instead of an orange one and I changed up the spices. As long as the spices you choose work well together, you shouldn’t have an issue with this dish being tasty.

(The photo of this dish is in the header image above!)

Recipe #23 Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

Published on January 11, 2021March 16, 2021 by RJ2 Comments

This recipe appears in Modern Comfort Food, page 114.

The first recipe back from my short Ina Garten hiatus was a total hit! Which, to be honest, surprised me since my parents do not typically have the taste buds for Mexican food. However, I think it went over so well because these enchiladas are loaded with cheesy goodness and I left out practically all of the heat.

Making these enchiladas was a challenge! Well, parts of it was challenging anyway. For the most part the recipe was straight forward and enjoyable. The problems arose when it became time to actually stuff the enchiladas and roll them. That part was tricky and turned messy — both my kitchen counter and the attractiveness of the dish. The good news is since they bake in the oven and are covered in sauce and cheese, no really noticed how sloppy they looked.

Seeing that this recipe appears in Ina’s latest book, Modern Comfort Food, it lives up to being a classic comfort food recipe. It is also one that I plan to make again in the future, but with some modifications. Instead of chicken I may use tofu or a meat replacement. I may even use vegetables entirely instead. Anything with cheddar and goat cheese has to be good, right?

Even the photo above couldn’t save the dish from looking messy. Well, it probably could have, but these enchiladas were so yummy that I almost forgot to snap a photo for the blog!

Weekend Recipes 1/8/2021

Published on January 8, 2021March 10, 2026 by RJLeave a comment

It’s Friday. Finally. This week was long for me. I’m not really sure why. But at least now I can look forward to the weekend ahead and spending some time in the kitchen. Over the last week I’ve taken some organizing and planning steps to help me stay more on track with the blog and cooking/baking. Now it’s time to put them into practice!

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Cold Days Are For Soups

Published on January 5, 2021March 10, 2026 by RJ1 Comment

Over the weekend, my house was filled with soups.

On Friday, I decided to make a recipe out of the cookbook I will be reviewing this week: The New Mediterranean Diet Cookbook. The review comes out on Thursday, so stay tuned! Since the weather turned back to more seasonably cold temperatures, I figured a soup recipe was in the cards.

So, I decided to make Butternut Squash Soup, North Africa Style.

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What’s the Deal With Liver?

Published on January 4, 2021February 19, 2021 by RJLeave a comment

For a while now this question has been spinning around in my mind: What’s the deal with liver?

It seems to be a pretty commonly featured dish in cookbooks, often in the appetizer section. Julia Child adored liver and Ina Garten touts its fame as well. Me, however? I don’t see the hype. I am a meat eater — for now — but the idea of eating an organ from an animal has always put me off. I’ve never tried liver pâté and I’m really in no rush to do so.

I will admit that when I decided to cook my way through Ina’s cookbooks, the liver recipes always made me a bit queasy. They weren’t the only ones, either. The mussels and clams on the half-shell also turned my face green.

While the focus of the blog has changed slightly to be more inclusive, that doesn’t mean that the cooking-through-Ina-thing is going away. So, I guess eventually, I’ll have to try liver pâté or any other dish Ina decided to include this gross ingredient. Maybe I’ll make it as an appetizer….

Photo credit: emerils.com

I tried to find the most appetizing photo for this. Was I successful?

What are your thoughts on liver? Have you tried it? Is it worth it? Let me know!

New Year, New Recipe

Published on January 3, 2021February 19, 2021 by RJ1 Comment

For the first weekend of 2021, I decided to try something new on the blog! Post a recipe. It is below and I hope you find the muffins as tasty as I did!

This weekend I was rummaging around the fridge and discovered that we had some cranberries that were waiting to be turned into something tasty. I decided that muffins would be something nice to have around. It’s been a while since I baked muffins.

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Christmas Recipes

Published on December 28, 2020February 19, 2021 by RJ2 Comments

I hope everyone who celebrates had a wonderful Christmas!

I did not do too much cooking over the last few days, but I did end up making a Yule Log cake and keeping with the theme of this blog, I learned a few things.

I found a recipe on Sally’s Baking Addiction for the cake, but I chose to modify it a bit. For example, I did not use hazelnuts. Instead, I used peppermint extract and crushed up candy canes to give it a little peppermint flavor. Unfortunately, the cake ended up having a little too much peppermint flavor overall.

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