Last week, I came home from work and was in the mood to bake. But, by the time I got home, ate dinner, and did some chores, I was not in the mood to go to the store. So, I had to pick a recipe that called for ingredients that I already had on-hand.
Enter Brown Sugar Cookies from the Magnolia Bakery Handbook. I recalled that this recipe was in the book and they looked interesting, so I seized this opportunity to make them. The only downside was the recipe required that the dough chill for at least 30 minutes before baking. Ms. Lloyd says that her cookie recipes should actually chill overnight before baking, but 30 minutes will do. In fact, I let this chill for a little over an hour before I started the baking process.
After the tiny finger cut debacle of July 18, I quickly realized that the location of the cut would make it difficult to work in the kitchen. Even with the use of the bandaid doing things was an awkward experience.
So, I had to wait until the cut was mostly healed before I was able to dive into cooking and baking again, especially for blogging purposes.
But that doesn’t mean I stayed out of the kitchen! Over last weekend my friend and I made a braided loaf of bread. But we spiced it up a bit — literally! We added Everything Bagel Seasoning to the top of the bread and that added so much flavor.
I didn’t really take pictures of the process, but I do have a photo of what it looked like after it came out of the oven.
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!
With my birthday being last week, I decided to make the cupcakes for the work-related celebration everyone gets. I could have went “over the top,” but frankly, I wanted to keep it simple. So, I found a recipe from Sally’s Baking Addition and got to work.
I made her Confetti Vanilla Cupcakes with Vanilla Frosting. The addition of the sprinkles to the decorations really made me feel like I was serving up a party! The pop of color was a fun addition!
I know this post is a little earlier than usual. But I’ve been having some busy days and I have to write when I have the time to write. So here it is!
This Friday, even though Spring has been here for almost a month, the meteorologists are predicting a chance of snow for my area. Yes, you heard me correctly. Snow!
To be fair, it is not entirely unheard of for Connecticut to see snow in April. It just hasn’t happened recently. Plus, we’ve gone WEEKS without true “winter weather.” So snow in the forecast has most people feeling a little bummed.
In an attempt to perk myself and my family up a little with the possibility of snow, I decided to make dinner for us and maybe even dessert. I’m not quite sure what I will be making, but it will be a main dish and at least one side dish. I will also try to whip something up quickly for dessert.
For those of you who are long-time readers of this blog, you may have noticed that the posts have been fewer and far between more recently. For that, I apologize. I hope that soon I can get back to my regularly scheduled program, meaning a more consistent, albeit not as often posting schedule.
Posting every day started to feel like “work” to me. I don’t want this blog to feel like work. In fact, one of the reasons why I started this blog was to have an outlet and something to look forward to when I wasn’t working.
That said, April will be a transition month for me and the blog. I’ll be cooking a bit less often and the blog will only get two to three posts per week. It will mainly be the recipes I made earlier or the week prior. An occasional herbal update will be included as well.
Look at me! March is almost half over and I realized I never posted the February Cooking Roundup! Well, better late than never, right?!
February was not as prolific for me as January was, but I was still able to make a few recipes. I am slowly but surely chipping away at that 1,056 recipe total! In February, I made a total of five Ina Garten recipes and two originals!
After taking the first week of February off from cooking, I made a wonderful vegetable soup that was my own original recipe! You can see how it turned out here. If you make this recipe, let me know how it turned out for you!
Next, I made another original recipe. This is also a recipe that I’m still working on perfecting. But for now, my Easy Sweet and Sour Chicken recipe is on the blog for all who care to enjoy.
The first Barefoot Contessa recipe of February came around halfway through the month. It still amazes me that I was able to get five recipes down in only two weeks’ time. This was Recipe Number 31: Perfect Roast Chicken. I still can’t get over the fact that it took me this long to make Ina’s signature dish!
Next, I tackled my first fish dish of Ina’s. The salmon was so tasty and will definitely become a staple recipe in my house! To go along with the salmon, I needed a side dish. After all, salmon on a plate is a little bland and unappealing. I wanted something vibrant and yummy to help enrich the plating of the salmon. Thus, I made Recipe Number 33: French String Beans. While the string beans are the pain attraction in this side dish, the peppers and onion help to bring the flavors together.
I rounded off the month with some comfort food! Banana Rum Trifle, which I’m still dreaming about. And finally, another Barefoot Contessa classic: Macaroni and Cheese.
After taking the weekend off, I am already thinking about what to make this weekend. I am really itching to do something different, of course I have many options to choose from.
Aside from the usual Friday night dinner recipe (which I made on Saturday this week), I made two additional recipes that I didn’t really plan on making. Luckily, I was able to make them all Ina recipes, so they all count towards the blog! Stay tuned this week as I review and post about each one!
Of course, I’ll have an herbal related post, even though they are less popular than some others. And I’ll be posting my February wrap-up post as well!
The snow is more fluffy today than last week. This is the type of white stuff that I like! Much easier to shovel and usually the storm passes much quicker.
Even though we are getting snow, I’m not making bread. I’ve done a lot of baking this weekend! I’ve been recipe-testing a new cookie recipe. It should be ready for posting soon!
