Tag: cooking

Ryan Cooks PW Recipe 3

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  • Name of Recipe: Buttered Parsley Noodles
  • Cookbook: Dinnertime
  • TV Episode: N/A
  • Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Late last week I shared with you my second recipe from Pioneer Woman: Beef Stroganoff.

Traditionally, stroganoff is served over a bed of egg noodles or other pasta which helps to make it a “complete meal.” (I say “complete meal” because I doubt the amount of vegetables in a single serving of stroganoff counts as a full serving, but I digress…) So I was a little surprised to find that PW’s recipe for stroganoff didn’t include any pasta. In fact, she recommends serving it with her Buttered Parsley Noodles.

At first, I was a little hesitant. Regular pasta is thicker than egg noodles and with beef as the main ingredient, I didn’t want the bite to be too hearty. But, I figured I’d give it a go anyway. Plus, when you are cooking-through someone’s recipe backlog, anytime you can sneak in an extra recipe or two is extremely beneficial.

This is a simple side dish that is very low fuss. It’s basically buttered noddles, but with a heightened flavor profile. This recipe calls for pappardelle noodles, which is a pasta shape I have not used before in my cooking. Much thicker than linguine, pappardelle is great when you want to substitute out something like egg noddles. Unlike egg noodles, though, pappardelle is a long pasta, similar to spaghetti or fettuccine so just be prepared for that.

Combining garlic, lemon zest and juice, salt, pepper, and of course, butter and parsley, these noodles a quick side dish that comes together before you know it. I only gave it a 3 out of 5 because it didn’t really add to the beef stroganoff recipe I made. I think I would have preferred traditional egg noddles in that instances. But, on it’s own, this side dish is great!

See the picture above for how it turned out!

Magnolia Bakery #9 – Billionaire Brownies

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It’s been a minute since I baked something out of the Magnolia Bakery Handbook, no?

The last recipe I made was the fabulous Blueberry Jamboree which I still have dreams about!

This time, I was in the mood for brownies but I wanted something a little bit fancier than your usual brownies. So, I decided to make the brownies fit for the rich: Billionaire Brownies. A shortbread crust drizzled with some caramel then topped with a lush fudge brownie sounds like heaven, right?

Well, it didn’t turn out exactly the way I thought it would. Here’s what happened.

Continue reading “Magnolia Bakery #9 – Billionaire Brownies” →

Ryan Cooks PW Recipe 2

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For my second Pioneer Woman recipe, I decided to make one of my favorite dishes: Beef Stroganoff.

  • Name of Recipe: Beef Stroganoff
  • Cookbook: Dinnertime
  • TV Episode: Kitchen Confessional: Dinner Through the Decades (Season 10, Episode 4)
  • Rating: 1.75 out of 5

As someone who did not grow up eating a lot of red meat, beef stroganoff was not something I can really remember having as a child or even a teenager. I fell in love with beef stroganoff a number of years ago when my best friend made it for dinner for us. He claims that the recipe is from his grandmother, but he leaves out certain ingredients such as mushrooms since he doesn’t like them. Needless to say, this has been the version I’ve been making for a few years.

Until I stumbled upon Ree’s recipe. Featured in her cookbook, Dinnertime! this recipe looks amazing and it is super simple.

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Ryan Cooks PW Recipe 1

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  • Name of Recipe: Teriyaki Salmon and Kale Sheet Pan Supper
  • Cookbook: Come and Get It
  • TV Episode: N/A
  • Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The first recipe on this journey was an easy one. I also loved that it was a sheet pan recipe, so clean up was extremely minimal.

This recipe was so easy and almost hands-off, so there were no pitfalls except for the fact that I think I need to add more kale to the sheet pan. That stuff really cooks down, like spinach, and I forgot about that.

There were basically three main steps to this dish: kale on the pan and season, add salmon and cover with teriyaki, bake! Super, super simple. It’s a wonderful week-night meal since it can be ready in under 25 minutes. It is also an easily scalable recipe. As a first recipe, this one was the perfect choice. It was not very involved and it tasted amazing so it gave me the renewed confidence that I needed for this project.

Here are some pictures below, since I’m trying to take more of them during the cooking process.

The seasoned kale on the sheet pan
The sheet pan with the teriyaki-covered salmon, ready for the oven!

See? An easy recipe with only a few ingredients and only one dirty dish. This is a true winner!

The finished meal with a side of white rice.

We served this meal with a side of white rice, but it would be even better with brown rice or quinoa!

I can see why people flock to Ree’s website and TV show. Her recipes are simple and are designed for modern parents — quick recipes, easy clean up makes for a real winner in my book. I have a feeling I’ll be coasting through these Sheet Pan suppers in no time! Who wouldn’t want a beautiful and tasty meal with little cleanup?

Barefoot Contessa Recipe 52

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This recipe comes from Parties! page 236.

The second baking recipe I made over the weekend comes from the early days of Ina. Her second cookbook, Barefoot Contessa Parties! takes on a menu-based theme. Recipes are organized not by type, but by party theme.

The recipe I chose to make from this book is one of three variations on the same base recipe. Combined, all three would make wonderful treats for friends or family. But the star recipe of the bake on Sunday was the Peanut Butter Chocolate Chunk cookies.

There were surprisingly so simple to make. At first I was hesitant because there isn’t a lot of peanut butter in the recipe and it makes a lot of cookies…like over three dozen! At least that’s how many I got out of it. However, upon biting into one, they tasted like a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup! I was in heaven!

In the recipe, Ina states that these cookies should bake for 17 minutes. I did that for the first tray of 8 cookies. But when I removed them from the oven, I found them to be too browned and overdone. When tasted, they were much drier and didn’t really have a lot of flavor. They were overdone.

So, I adjusted for the remainder of the batch. I baked them for only 16 minutes and they were perfect! What a difference 60 seconds could make, huh? Who would have thought so much could happen in such a short amount of time?

These cookies are super simple but packed with flavor. Everyone loved them. I think they belong on the Favorites list!

Weekend Recipes 7/16/2021

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After a much longer than anticipated hiatus from baking and cooking for the blog, I am excited that this weekend I am planning to make no less than 5 (yes, 5!!) recipes. All of which are Barefoot Contessa recipes.

Today I am going to make one of the two cookie recipes that I’ve been eyeing for sometime. I plan to use the duck eggs that I talked about in an earlier post. I’m really excited to work with them!

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The Easiest (and Tastiest!) Sausage and Peppers

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Summer is officially here! If you’re anything like me, then you are probably excited to do all those things that we couldn’t do last year. And you’re probably looking for a quick and easy dinner than can be thrown together in no time at all.

If so, then I have the perfect dish for you: Sausage and Peppers!

This recipe is great because it’s a one pan meal and it can be thrown together ahead of time, kept in the fridge until needed, and clean up is a breeze! Plus, it can easily be adapted to your own tastes and the ingredients you already have on hand. I used chicken sausage that comes pre-cooked, so you’re basically just reheating it. It’s a bit of a time saver and usually these types of sausages have more flavor combinations that regular sausage.

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Barefoot Contessa Recipe 50

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This recipe can be found in At Home, page 37

Well I finally made one — a sandwich!

I had been anxiously waiting to start the sandwich category for a little while, but it just never came to be. Until this past weekend. It had been a while since I made my last BC recipe — especially a savory one. But this weekend was a little busy for me and I didn’t want to spend a lot of time standing over the stove, in line at the grocery store, or baking something in the oven.

The solution? A sandwich. After glancing through the list of 28 sandwiches, a few jumped out at me. Such as the Croque Monsieur, Lobster BLTs, and Soft-Shell Crab Sandwiches. While these all sounded very tasty, and my mouth did start to water when reading about them in the cookbooks, I quickly realized that all these choices would involve at least one of the things I didn’t want to be doing that day.

So, I skipped them and settled on something that seemed easy enough. And I had just about everything on hand already. It was a win-win!

This chicken salad was pretty easy. But, I did make some modifications to it. First, I didn’t roast the chicken in the oven. I cooked the two breasts on the stove (I didn’t want to turn my oven on that day…too warm!). I also only made enough for two sandwiches, not the four that the recipe yields, so I made the adjustments to ingredients accordingly.

It doesn’t look like a lot of chicken, and to be honest, it wasn’t. But, it was the perfect amount to make my two sandwiches.

I added the tarragon, salt, pepper, celery, and mayonnaise just like Ina said. I also decided to include some red grapes that we had left in the fridge. There was only a large handful left and only a few that were still “edible.” So, I just used them up.

However, after combining everything, things looked a little loose. So, I popped it in the fridge for about a half hour before making the sandwich, just to firm things up and allow the flavors to marry. When I was ready to make the sandwich, I toasted some bread, slathered a thin layer of mayo on one slice, and piled about half of the chicken salad on top.

When I bit into it, I was pleasantly surprised. The addition of tarragon adds a hint of licorice-like flavor that I wasn’t really expecting. But, I did like it. Tarragon and poultry go well together, it seems. Many chefs (including Ina) use it when making roast chickens or turkeys. It’s definitely an herb I’ll have to keep in mind.

This chicken salad is a great quick meal that can be made in no time any night of the week. It also seems like it can be scaled up easily to serve a large group of people. While it didn’t blow me away, it did hit the spot, and it taught me to add tarragon to my chicken salad to liven things up a bit!

Magnolia Bakery Recipe 5: Peanut Butter Icebox Bars

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Wow!

I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’ve made a recipe out of the Magnolia Bakery cookbook. Almost two months! Where has the time gone?

A few weeks ago, my family hosted some family members for a little get-together. It was the first one since the pandemic started and since we all had become fully vaccinated, and it was held outdoors, we felt safe enough.

I was asked to provide dessert for the occasion, which of course, I jumped on! I made two desserts. The first one was Ina Garten’s Boston Cream Pie and the second was these Peanut Butter Icebox Bars. I really liked this one since this was a no-bake recipe so it made my life a bit easier.

This recipe was one of the easiest ones I’ve ever made and the result? Decadent peanut butter clouds that were a huge hit!

While they were tasty and well-received, I did taste a little too much cream cheese for my liking. If I made them again, I will probably use more peanut butter or a little less cream cheese — or maybe both! Also, I ended up using way more caramel sauce than called for. I probably needed double the amount in the recipe to “thinly coat” my 9×13 pan.

The only other downside to these was the fact that they would “melt” quickly. There is no gelatin in these bars, so in order to stay firm, it relies solely on the cream cheese consistency. Once they are held in your hands, from either just handling them or eating them, they do warm up a bit and start to lose their shape. Leaving them out on a hot day? Forget about it, they will start to spread.

But have no fear! I’ve found a solution — well actually, my mom did. She froze some of the pieces. When we tried them a few days later, they tasted even better and stayed firm which I think improved the taste a bit. Thanks, Mom!

Cut these on the smaller side since they are quite rich. The crust alone was a treat!

My counter while the crust was cooling. I was anxiously waiting to do the next step of the process!

I tried to take a close-up shot and be artsy. I only realized when I went to upload it to the blog that this photo has the tray in focus and not the topping, which is what I was going for. *sigh*

And finally…..!

Completed and chilled! Nom…nom…nom! It’s going to be a bit warm today. I wish I had one of these frozen to snack on later.