Week 13: Oktoberfest

Recipes to Go: 507 389
Weeks to Go: 52 39

Recipes Made this Week
Nut-Topped Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins
Asparagus Crepes
Cinnamon-Pecan Coffee Cakes
Sweet Milk Dinner Rolls
Hearty Sausage Sandwich
Sauerbraten
Red Cabbage with Apple
Crumb-Coated Spaetzle
Black Forest Cake

Since I missed two recipes last week, I spent most of Sunday morning and afternoon baking. It ended up being a bread-filled day. I cooked the rolls since the dough was ready from the night before. They were very sweet, which is surprising because there no sugar in them. Just the milk, which I guess should tell me how sweet milk really is.They were pretty amazing, and I just found two tucked away the other day, two weeks after making them and no mold. They were rock hard, of course, but still good. So apparently they are hardy, too.

I made the yummy breakfast I had planned for Saturday on Sunday instead which consisted of Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins. I must say, I'm liking rhubarb more and more. It's such a unique flavor; I like the way the aftertaste feels in my mouth. I think it will become a freezer staple for me.I only put nuts on half of these so The Captain could enjoy them, too. We ended up eating all the nut-topped one quite fast,but I still managed to be able to enjoy them all week for breakfast.

With the muffins, we had asparagus crepes. They were delicious, but had very complex flavors, thus The Captain did not fully appreciate them like The Husband and I did. I haven't had something this delightfully complicated in a long time.Simple, but wonderful. So I guess you don't have to be complicated to be complex. At least in the culinary world.

The last thing I made was this beautiful coffee cake. I've never braided dough before, but it's something I've wanted to do for a long time. This was even more complicated than that since I had to "jelly roll" each of the strands of the braid before braiding them. And I don't jelly roll that much either. It would have been easier to see the cool design this made if I had used the nuts, but I didn't for The Captain's sake. They did end up quite yummy. Needless to say, we had good breakfasts this week.

Monday night, I made this Stromboli Sandwich. It was another night that I ate way too much and had a stomach ache, but it was a Thanksgiving-esque stomach ache where I could not complain about the pain since it was caused by joy.This was a hearty sandwich. We didn't need anything else with it for dinner and didn't even finish the whole loaf in one sitting. It tasted a little like stroganoff, with three kinds of cheese. The Captain enjoyed it as well, and the leftovers for lunch.

Tuesday was my anniversary. We spent the day together, shipping The Captain off to our friends' house. As payment for their sacrifice, we sent The Captain with the other loaf of coffee cake. It was the least we could do. But before we left, I taught my morning class and came home to freshly made waffles and yummy syrup. We ate lunch out and got dinner on the way home, so I didn't cook anything that day.

Wednesday, I used the leftover bread from the Stromboli Sandwich to make Ham and Broccoli Bake, which I had made before, but this time I used broccoli instead of peas. It was still delicious. The Husband liked it more, I liked it less, but that's because I love peas and The Husband doesn't.

Thursday was Oktoberfest. We used to have Foreign Food Fridays in my college apartment. They were awesome. I remember them all. And after our great time at an Oktoberfest event last year, I decided celebrate Oktoberfest this year by doing something I haven't since I started this goal--make a meal as it was designed in the cookbook. There are several groups of recipes in the back of the book that are set up as meals, and there happens to be a meal with a German theme. . . . voila, Oktoberfest.I didn't have time to marinate the sauerbraten for two days, but I did start early in the day, so it got a lot of time. Plus, instead of marinating in a bag, I marinated it in a bowl so it was completely submerged, speeding up the process slightly. I also made the cake in the early afternoon, so it would have time to set up in the fridge. The sauerbraten baked for 4 hours, so come actual dinner time, I only had to make two recipes.It actually worked out quite nicely.

The Husband told me to remind him occasionally how much he loves cabbage. This was delicious. The apples gave just the right touch.And I was lucky to have The Husband there because I almost forgot to put in the bacon. It would have still be good, of course, but missing a big taste vitamin. Bacon is one of the three basic taste vitamins along with cheese and chocolate.

The Spaetzle was just as delicious as I remembered from when my roommate used to make it. I could eat spaetzle with every meal. It's not very photogenic, but don't hold it against it.It's easy enough to make, too, just takes a little work to mash it through the colander into the pot to bake. Worth it.

The Black Forest Cake is my new favorite. It could be the best thing I've ever made. (I think I say that every week, but this time I'm serious.) You know by now I don't really like cake, but I think I might have to amend that to say I don't like cake-mix cakes that taste like cake-mix. (There are some people that have a talent for deliciously disguising cake-mix. I am not one of those people.) But that doesn't matter because this was more like brownies, plus pie, plus cheesecake. Could there be a more yummy combination?It was divine. I normally am not extremely tempted by desserts, but this one was like a siren. Seriously. It was like the cake was a women in a slinky black dress with red underwears and I was a man. I didn't stand a chance. I might have to use my own seductive powers more carefully after this. That's powerful stuff.

Didn't make anything over the weekend because we went to D.C. Which was fabulous. We will definitely be going back, and hopefully soon.

Week 12: Prematurity

Recipes to Go: 507 398

Weeks to Go: 52 40

Recipes Made This Week

Spicy Shrimp

Garden-Fresh Fettuccine

Creamy Lime Sherbet

Creamy Chicken Enchiladas

Hazelnut Pear Tart

Raspberry Coconut Bars

Pacific Rim Salmon

Mixed Bean Salad

Before this week started, The Husband had a conversation with me which reminded me that I have let this experiment overwhelm me too much in the last few weeks. I did sign up for this, I knew what I was getting into, for the most part. And despite having specific goals I wanted to achieve, it was primarily, a bit of fun. So with that in mind, I rethought some of the philosophies and practicalities I have been employing thus far. I decided to start earlier to prepare dinner and have it waiting in the fridge, so that when things go crazy at 4:30, as they always do, I could be almost done, or already have dinner in the oven. Who doesn't want to just be able to stick something from fridge to oven?
So afternoon snack time has become dinner-prep time. Result? = a little too much gusto on my part. I ended up slightly over preparing this week.

Monday was the beginning of a cold front that lasted all week. We had zero prepared foods in the house, which meant there was literally nothing for The Husband to take to work for lunch except three hard-boiled eggs. In this sad state of affairs (brought on mostly because I hadn't be able to go shopping on Saturday), I did the shopping and made beet curry for dinner. Not in the book, sadly, because it was good and lasted all week, but it used up a delicious beet I bought from the farmer's market and warmed us all up.

So Tuesday was really my first day to cook. Luckily so because we were having the missionaries over for dinner and one of them had really set the bar high for me by talking up my cooking to her companion. So the preparation began. We were having Creamy Chicken Enchiladas and a corn salad I made for a funeral and didn't get to taste. A repeat, but I meant it as a surprise since the missionaries loved the leftovers the first time. I also wanted to make Lime Sherbet for to celebrate The Captain's 1/2 birthday. I personally love 1/2 birthdays, but this one is special because it means he gets to go into the nursery class at church instead of wrecking small havoc hanging around with me. I'm sure lots of people will be sad he isn't around, but he will definitely be happier, consequently, I will, too.

Well, that was the plan. Starting a little after 2, I got the ice cream going, made the corn salad and got started on the chicken. It was about 4 o'clock when the missionaries called. Everything was in the fridge ready to go into the oven. But as it turns out, we weren't feeding the missionaries on Tuesday, we were feeding them on Thursday and they were calling to ask if we could have dinner at a specific time and with one more person. (Both of which I said yes to, of course, since dinner was pretty much already done.) Story: I usually feed the missionaries once a month, and always on a Tuesday. When I got the schedule for September, it was full with only one day left, the 30th. So I took it and made a mental note to put it in my calendar when I got home. Only I forgot, so I planned on Tuesday and prematurely made dinner.

But after all that prepping, I didn't really have any time or energy left to make an entirely new large meal, so we had leftover curry that night. We did, however, get to eat yummy sherbet.And yummy it was. Authentic lime flavor, none of that artificial stuff, which is to be expected when you use lime zest and fresh squeezed lime juice. The Captain liked it, despite what his face says.
Then came Wednesday. I started chopping vegetables for the spicy shrimp and garden fettuccine around 3, while the shrimp was defrosting. I had all the cans I was using for the week set out on the counter already, which sped things up as well. So while the timing of the fettuccine was a little tricky, it all came out nicely and at the same time.

The Spicy Shrimp was very spicy. I didn't skimp on the Louisiana hot sauce. Luckily The Husband loves that stuff.I love shrimp and it was very refreshing to have a different protein source for a change.

The fettuccine was surprisingly spicy as well. I put in just the tiniest amount of red pepper flakes as per the recipe instructions and it really made a difference. This made a huge amount of pasta. I'm always surprised because the pasta itself never seems like that much, but it goes a long way. I didn't even get to put in all the veggies it called for because I didn't have fresh tomatoes and my pan didn't have enough room.This is definitely a harvest overload type of recipe--throw in whatever's growing and it will be delicious.

So when Thursday came, you would think it would be easy-breezy, but I decided to make the pear tart. I also decided after reading the recipe before hand, something I don't do often enough, to make the bean salad for Friday's diner a day in advance so it could fully refrigerate. That was easy enough. And the tart was less complicated than I would have thought. It turned out all right.

And the enchiladas look like any enchiladas, this picture was the forth time we had it for leftovers, or something like that.The recipe made 20, so we ate them with pleasure all weekend.

Also on Thursday, I decided to make a treat for my early morning class instead of waiting for Game Night on Friday, since we weren't sure if we were having a Game Night or not. So I made the Raspberry Coconut Bars. But since I used strawberry preserves instead of raspberry, so I guess they were technically Strawberry Coconut Bars, but regardless of what you call them, they were wonderful.Remember how I said I didn't love bars, just chocolate. I might take that back. These were simple, easy and yummy. The teenagers agreed. Also, we discovered the secret to drizzling chocolate is momentum. Also, don't put vanilla chips in the microwave for too long, they burn very quickly.

So on Friday,I started out ahead of the game with half of dinner all ready in the fridge, but as it turned out, I didn't prepare the other half since we didn't eat dinner at home on Friday. We were out with the youth, cooking hot dogs and stuff. Okay, confession, we did eat leftovers before we left because, they're hot dogs. They're pretty gross. And even though every once in awhile the idea of a hot dog is appealing to be, usually halfway through I wonder why and vow to never eat one again. These ones weren't as bad as some I've had because they were properly burned before eating. That's the only way to get the idea of leftover meat parts out of my mouth when eating one. So all my preparation was in vain again, since the salad now had two days to marinate.

But unlike the corn salad which has avocado in it and thus suffered somewhat from excessive fridge exposure, the bean salad did not.It might have made it more yummy. Here's another salad like the Tim Salad we used to make. Delicious. And all that marinating got The Captain to eat celery and green peppers. It was like a Christmas miracle without all the snow and stuff.

So we didn't get to eat it on Friday, and Saturday morning was a little rushed getting shopping in before our two day conference, so breakfast was neglected. Don't worry, I made up for it on Sunday, but I did finally make the other half of what was planned to be Friday's dinner--salmon to go with the bean salad. Remember way back when I bought the salmon and I said it was too fishy, well it was a little fishy with this recipe, but in a good way, if that's possible. It must have just been the tomato sauce that first time because the last two times have been delicious.This one was supposed to be grilled, and we still haven't bought a proper grill yet, so I pan grilled it, with a lid on, so I half grilled, half steamed it. The marinade was lovely and the fishy flaky and light. A very light, summer meal. Too bad it was very cold outside.

Does it seam as though something is missing on this plate?Well, I was supposed to make dinner rolls to go with this meal, but it was so cold outside and consequently inside, that the dough wouldn't rise. I had to take it downstairs and put it on top of our receiver that controls our whole television set up. It gets very warm when on and it had been on all day thanks to the conference which we were able to view via the internet on our giant tv thanks to our laptop. I love technology. So that worked really well, actually, but it was time for bed by the time the dough had doubled. So there was something else that got postponed until Sunday.

So my original ten recipe plan dwindled down to 8, despite my uber preparedness. Prematurity strikes again, I suppose. But on the bright side, I squeezed the two recipes into next week, so I haven't really lost any ground.

Week 11: Saved from Extinction

Recipes to Go: 507 406

Weeks to Go: 52 41

Recipes Made This Week

Fruited Feta Spread

Turkey Muffuletta

Apple Peach Cobbler

Sesame Chicken Wings

Chow Mein Chicken Salad

Ham and Broccoli Bake

Peanut Butter Cookies

Very Berry-licious Smoothies

I had a few things that were going bad this week, so I used the opportunity to make some really yummy food. Starting with the lunch meat from last week. I had my eye on the turkey muffuletta recipe for awhile, but it never quite worked out until now.

I had some questions about the ingredients, but everything tasted amazing together. It had a very Spanish taste, and definitely filled us up, with leftovers for lunch.

To use up some of the leftover ice cream that didn't get fried last week, I made Apple Peach Cobbler. It also helped that I had two peaches on the brink of death and an apple left from the Farmer's Market. The Husband loved this dessert.

I did too because it came together really fast and was really delicious. It was perfect with the ice cream, too. We got to eat it right out of the pipping hot pan thanks to that frozen dessert.

For lunch that day (so I guess this should have come first, oops) I made the Fruited Feta Spread to use the leftover Feta cheese, grapes and pimentos that had been in the fridge almost too long.

This spread was extremely addictive. The Captain remembered it after he woke up from his nap and wouldn't stop crying until I gave it to him.

That's the first time that has happened. Also, I think this is the first time I've ever enjoyed pimentos. There was an awesome savory/sweet duality to this dish. And it lasted for quite a few days. Yay for easy lunches.

Riding the high from my last few successes, I decided to try my hand at chicken wings. I had purchased chicken wings awhile back, but I have little enough experience eating them, that I hadn't tried making any yet. But I had purchased sesame seeds last week for the bread, so I had nothing to buy for this recipe. It wasn't nearly as much work as I thought it would be. And other than my really crappy tongs destroying the breading, they were delicious. How the smell do you get perfectly coated anything? I have never been successful at this, ever. Luckily the wings were still good.

I thought why not pair sesame with sesame and chicken with chicken, so I made the Chow Mein Chicken Salad to go with the wings. This is the best salad I've made yet. I'm sure that's partially because I pan-grilled the chicken in butter to cook it. The dressing was so good. The Captain was actually eating lettuce because of it. He normally picks around that. There were no leftovers from this dinner because I couldn't bear to stop eating this salad. I will be making this again.

Because I had to cut out the center of the loaf for the muffuletta on Monday (which is brilliant, by the way, everything fit so nicely) I had this leftover bread that was too yummy to throw away. Luckily, I planned for that so I made the Ham and Broccoli Bake with the leftovers. Unfortunately, I didn't plan on not having any frozen broccoli (I swear there was some in the freezer when I went shopping). But it was ham, and peas go well with ham, and I had plenty of frozen peas, so that was a quick substitution that for all I know is much better than the original. I like broccoli well enough, but peas are my favorite. They aren't The Husband's first choice, but he agreed that this was a well above average meal.

I had pretty much made all my recipes for the week on Wednesday, and because they were so good, we didn't have many leftovers. This meant that I had to make burritos and plain pasta and macaroni and cheese this week. It was strange to fall back on old habits for a few days. It made me even more grateful for this goal since it has certainly livened up the kitchen.

Anyway, for Game Night I made Peanut Butter cookies. They were a good twist on the classic. The cloves and nutmeg and ginger added to them made them taste more spicy and autumn-esque since we get those flavors in most winter desserts.

I halved the recipe and still ended up with 3 1/3 dozen cookies and only 2 people at Game Night. Plus because of the peanut butter, I couldn't give them to The Captain, so they have been tempting me all weekend. Which is bad since I couldn't eat until dinner today.

For Saturday morning breakfast, I was very glad I had planned on a fast and easy shake since we had to go into the city early in the morning. This shake was awesome and fruit filled and with no extra sugar, not overly sweet and very filling.

Oh, and it was easy to put together because I have an awesome blender so I didn't have to slice anything, just take the tops of the strawberries and blend.

Week 10: Excessive Desserts

Recipes to Go: 507 414

Weeks to Go: 52 42

Recipes Made This Week

Egg Scramble

Noodle Pudding

Five-Topping Bread

Country-Style Vanilla Ice Cream

Chicken Mushroom Melts

Pot o' Gold Cookies

Nutmeg Blueberry Muffins

Fried Ice Cream

Butter Pecan Sauce

Most of the recipes I made this week were dessert recipes. This was partially by accident.

One of my friends from church had her baby on Sunday. This was a little unexpected as she wasn't due until the 20th. I had planned on making something to take over to her, but I hadn't planned it with this week's menu. So when I got the news Sunday, I looked through the plan for the week and all I saw were desserts and appetizers. So I decided to make the Noodle Pudding for her to freeze, and take over half of our dinner that night, which was the Egg Scramble. I felt a little pressure to do this because a) neither one of their families are local, though they aren't far away, so I didn't know if anyone would be there to help her, and b) I didn't know if anyone else at church knew, so I didn't think anyone else would be there to help, either.

So poor The Husband came home to me in full panic mode on Monday evening. I wanted enough time to be able to help her get stuff done that night and give them dinner at a reasonable hour. So, of course, the elements combined against me and everything started going wrong. The noodles turned to mush in the two minutes I had my back turned, so I had to have The Husband stop by Walmart on his way home to pick up more. And when I called him the first 3 times he didn't answer. Meanwhile, The Captain is vying for attention and being generally underfoot. Needless to say, I wasn't very pleasant for awhile. Luckily, The Husband is awesome, took The Captain downstairs and refused to be offended by my meanness.

Finally, I got the food ready, put The Husband in charge of getting our half ready, loaded everything in the car and promised not to be too late. When I got to their house I saw cars there, which was reassuring. So I just stopped by, dropped everything off, and went home to this:

and it was yummy. Nice and fluffy, and The Captain liked it. He even liked the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Since I had already done the hard work for dinner on Tuesday and simply had to put the Noodle Pudding in the oven, I took some time to make some bread. This loaf turned out so well, I think, because I used fast-active yeast instead of the regular stuff. This wasn't on purpose, I didn't have any of the regular stuff left, but it was lucky because it took the alloted time to double, and if I had used the regular yeast it might not have. I will keep this in mind in the future, especially in the winter when I don't have too many warm places to let dough rest.

The Husband said this bread tasted like bagels, and I agree. It was really delicious and didn't even need bread pans to cook in. I am a bit curious as to how it would taste without the five toppings. Luckily for me, the store bread here leaves everything to be desired (oh, how I miss Grandma Sycamore!), which means I could end up making bread often. And I've said it before, but I'll say it again, nothing smells better than baking bread.

I also made the Country-style vanilla ice cream on Tuesday. This is because I needed to have it to fry later in the week. I found it oddly satisfying to use 3 recipes for just one dessert.

I felt really bad when I cooked the Noodle Pudding that night because it turns out it's not a main dish, but rather a dessert. It was really rich and really sweet.

In fact we still have leftovers in the fridge I'm struggling to get through. So I felt really guilty that I had given this away as a dinner. Which just means that I will have to make another dinner to take over.

So, after being disappointed by the Noodle Pudding and the lack of actual food during the week, it was a wonderful surprise to have the Chicken Mushroom Melts. They were very filling, and so simple. I remember thinking, this is what I love about the Taste of Home recipes I made at the beginning of the experiment--they are simple, use a few ingredients that are usually in my pantry, but they taste delicious. That's exactly this recipe. Of course, The Husband didn't like it as much as me because he doesn't have a love affair with mushrooms like I do, but he still thought it was decent.

This picture is horrible, I realize now, but they are gone, so I can't reshoot.

For Game Night I made Pot o' Gold cookies because I didn't think I'd get to make all the St. Patrick's Day recipes on St. Patrick's Day. But instead of using green frosting, I made it orangy-red like the leaves that have started to change. I love the fall, and I'm really excited for all the leaves to turn colors. Those of you in higher altitudes are probably almost done with leaf changing, while I have to another month to go. I took this picture with the token brown cookie so it would like there is more diversity in my baking.

Actually, I've been lucky that I haven't burned a batch of cookies in this oven, yet. Knock on wood. These cookies tasted like Pecan Sandies, which are okay, but not my favorite. Unfortunately, no one came to Game Night, so I was forced to give these away to some ladies from church. The last thing I needed in the house this week was more sweet things.

The nutmeg blueberry muffins were super yummy. Nothing beats fresh blueberries. And even though I put the sugar and nutmeg on the top after they were done instead of before they baked, it was still really good.

I'm not sure I would have ever paired nutmeg with blueberries, but it was delicious. And they were breakfast for me the whole week, and they were still good on Friday.

We finally got to make Fried Ice Cream on Saturday.

It was good, but super rich and we had to eat noodle pudding for dinner, so it was just too much. Too much sugar. I think I finished and ate lunch meat, which I then realized was almost going bad, which meant we had to use it the next week . . .

Week 9: Time Consuming

Recipes to Go: 507 423

Weeks to Go: 52 43

Recipes Made This Week

Coconut Crunch Cookies

Broccoli Chicken Supreme

Slice 'n' Back Lemon Gems

Fiesta Lasagna

Green Salad with Raspberry Vinaigrette

Grilled Corn Dip

Lemon Basil Cupcakes

Pesto Veggie Stacks

Three-Cheese Pesto Pizza

Peaches 'n' Cream Cups

While we were still with The Husbands's family for Labor Day, we decided Sunday's dinner needed a yummy dessert. After consulting The Book, we decided the Coconut Crunch Cookies looked the best, which is saying something because it we hadn't eaten all day and everything looked good at that point.

We made a double batch, which normally wouldn't have been a big deal, but the yield on these was surprisingly accurate, so we ended up with tons and tons of really yummy cookies. We ate all we could fit, and took a few home, but we left most of them there to be traded at lunch in Kindergarten.

The Broccoli Chicken casserole was decent enough, but nothing spectacular. And it definitely got not-as-good as the leftovers went on.

Though, maybe it wasn't the casserole's fault. It did have to compete with leftover lasagna later in the week, and few things are as good as leftover lasagna. This casserole took awhile to put together. So with all the prep and just an okay rating, I doubt this one will become a go-to recipe.

These lemon cookies look really good, but they were also a pain.

Probably because I was quite grumpy at the casserole taking forever. In hindsight, these weren't as bad as stated in the recipe. Thanks to my awesome fridge, I only had to put them in there for half as long as stated. Next time, I will try to cut them with a more even thickness, and I will make more icing. I guess I need to figure icing out, because it seems to be all about timing. Things have to be cool enough to put the icing on, and the icing has to be almost set up, but not quite to make dripping at a minimum. But the cookies themselves weren't that sweet, which meant you could eat tons. Good thing I made them for The Husband to take to Young Men's because we didn't eat that many.

The Fiesta Lasagna was worth the hour it took to bake in the oven. I have made Mexican-style lasagna before in this book, but this recipe was the perfect blend of Mexican and Italian flavors.

It hit just the right note and we highly enjoyed the leftovers for the rest of the week. In fact, The Husband got sad that I wouldn't let him eat it for lunch and dinner the next day. In my defense, we had other leftovers to get through, and we need a little variety.

We served the lasagna with a salad with homemade raspberry vinaigrette. This salad had everything in it to be tasty, except that we had to use leftover mustard greens and they were just too bitter.

Some day, we'll make it again, because what the heck else am I going to do with a bottle of raspberry vinegar?

Game Night this week was served Grilled Corn Dip which should have a warning label: Highly Addictive. the Husband had to put it in the other room so we could actually play games.

It was spicy and sweet and creamy and I always seemed to have too many chips or too much dip on my plate at the end, which meant I had to keep eating more. Anyone with extra corn from their gardens should get this recipe. It's a great way to use some surplus.

Saturday morning I spent WAY too long on these cupcakes.

Why? Well, we were short on a few ingredients, so I had to fudge a few, which meant the batter took a little long. Then, they are stuffed, so we had to work that situation out. Then, the frosting is made up of a syrup that you first have to make and cool. Then, we didn't have enough powdered sugar, so I had to process some of my own. I don't recommend this, and I have since re-organized my pantry to make it easier to tell when I need refills on the smaller packages of things, like powdered sugar, brown sugar, and coconut. But The Captain enjoyed helping with the frosting.

Anyway, after all that work, I figured I might as well sugar-ize the basil leaves too. So after about 2 1/2 hours, we had something really pretty to show for all my work, but they weren't as good as the lemon crumb cupcakes, so I don't think it was worth it. I gave a few away--some to our neighbors, some as a "payment" for some plumbing help. Oh, I guess I forgot to mention that water started coming through the ceiling on Saturday morning. Not good.

We could have had leftovers for lunch and dinner, but I needed a few more recipes, so I picked our big zucchini, made some pesto and used it for two recipes. I handmade the pizza dough from the Giant Calzone recipe I made before, but it wasn't quite as awesome this time because the dough was tough and too dense.

Other than that, the pizza was good. Very Greek tasting. It won't make it on the First-Sunday-of-the-Month pizza menu any time soon, but it was good to experiment and try something new.

The Pesto Veggie Stacks would have been better if I had sliced the zucchini a little thinner. And if the oil had stayed at the right temperature.

I think this would be a great way to get rid of some excessive zucchini, but they didn't warn me that they would be so filling. I could barely eat one.

I bought some fresh peaches from the Farmer's Market before we left for Labor Day, and I finally got around to using them in the Peaches 'n' Cream Cups.

They were tasty, but the topping was too gingery for me. Next time I'll use cinnamon instead. And like the book points out, this recipe is so easy and so versatile that you could use any fruit and corresponding yogurt.

Week 8: Do Over

Recipes to Go: 507 433

Weeks to Go: 52 44

Recipes Made This Week:

Coconut Rhubarb Spice Cake

Tomato-Cucumber Mozzarella Salad

Gingered Chicken Dinner

Creamy Corn Salad

Spicy Sausage Wonton Stars

Pork 'n' Shrimp Spring Rolls

Mango Pork Stir-Fry

Peanut Butter Surprise Muffins

Motoring Munchies

Lemon Ricotta Pancakes

Artichoke Ham Puffs

Broiled Grapefruit

I had a conversation with someone at a baby shower a few weeks ago where I brought up my goal, as I am want to do, and she asked if I had had any dismal failures. I thought and said honestly, no because every recipe calls for normal ingredients and they are very easy to follow. Thus far, no problems.

But this week I've had to eat my words, and it hasn't always been tasty. The aftertaste is a little bitter.

I've had a lot of firsts this week. On Sunday, our Home Teachers came by for the first time. So I made dessert like I always do for Home Teachers, to encourage them to come by every month. I decided to make the Rhubarb Spice Cake. I was going to make it last week, but couldn't find any rhubarb. Well, I bought an abundance, chopped it, froze it, but left two stalks in the fridge for this week. So my inaugural rhubarb recipe might be the best cake ever. And I don't even like cake. I don't normally like coconut either, but it was sooo good on the top. Now I want to make this in cupcake form and take it to my Seminary class. I bet it would work for that . . .

Monday was the first day of Seminary, and I will blame that fact on the first food disaster of the week, the ginger chicken.

I didn't read the recipe in advance, like I should do the night before I cook, so I didn't read that I needed to marinate the chicken overnight. Well, that didn't affect the dish too much since half of the marinate is used to cook the rice in, but the problem was that we didn't have instant rice, and I didn't have time to cook rice first. Result - hard, chewy rice. Yuck. I definitely call a do-over with that next time I have cooked rice in the fridge.

Luckily the tomato cucumber mozzarella salad was really good.

Could have been the home-grown tomatoes, me thinks. It would have been better with fresh mozzarella, of course, but we make do.

Tuesday was the first time I've ever made food for a funeral. There was a big one in our ward and they asked everyone who could to make something. They asked on Sunday during our combined lesson on service-I couldn't say no. So I thought it would be a good opportunity to make one of the potluck recipes in the cookbook at full serving size. Sadly, I had to do some shopping to do this, so The Captain was stuck in the car all morning, then we rushed home for nap time. I cooked during that and afterwards, back in the car to the church. Poor kid was stuck in the car for too long. And that's why I don't have a picture of the salad. Nor did I taste it, but it looked really good.

We fed the Missionaries on Tuesday as well. Which meant that poor The Captain got home and didn't get any attention as I went straight back to work. I decided to have Asian night as a treat. It was my first time making Asian food besides curry, my first time working with Wonton Wrappers, and supposed to be my first time working with Bok Choy, but does any store in this entire county carry Bok Choy? No, they do not. And I had neither the time, nor The Captain the patience to drive 30 mins into town to pick up Bok Choy. Especially since I knew I was driving to town on Wednesday to take my friend to her doctor's appointment.

So we made do. And can I just say, an hour should be plenty of time to put together 3 Asian recipes, but alas it is not. Shrimp and pork are deceptively difficult to prepare. If I had chopped veggies at my disposal and everything pre-measured in little cups, then maybe. But 2 people in the kitchen and the missionaries arriving an hour before we ate led to chaos. Due to that chaos, and having to keep so many instructions straight in my head simultaneously, I accidentally put in 1/4 cup red pepper flakes into the stir-fry instead of 1/4 teaspoon. Luckily no one minded a little heat. And luckily pepper flakes can only take the heat up so high. It was hot, but not unbearably so. The bad thing was just that the pepper flavor overwhelmed everything else. Which means the mango and the delicious pork were all but in vein. So, do-over number two.

Thursday I actually did make the Gingered Chicken Dinner again, and while the rice was better cooked, as you would imagine, but marinating the chicken for 24 hours made it oddly juicy and slightly rubbery, so the texture was all off and it seemed raw even though it wasn't. So I guess third time will be the charm for this one.

And Thursday morning, I took the peanut butter muffins to Seminary for a treat. The surprise? Well, I 4x-ed the recipe and it turned out really dry. So the surprise was that they weren't as tasty as I was expecting. Okay, so the real surprise is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup baked into the muffin, which I will probably do differently next time, as well.

One of the few recipes that went well this week was the Motoring Munchies. Since we were driving to Kentucky to visit our family 6 hours away, I thought I'd take the time to make some travel mix.

This was made with good individual ingredients that combined really well together. Surprisingly so. It was a big hit, which was good because it made a ridiculously large amount. We used our biggest bowl and practically begged The Husband's sister to take some off our hands. Luckily it is good, so she was happy to oblige.

Apparently, all I was lacking this week was a sou chef because the breakfast-for-dinner we made on Saturday was back to the ridiculously delicious standards I've come to expect. The Lemon Ricotta Pancakes were a lot like crapes and rhubarb makes an excellent syrup.

Don't worry, my plate was never this empty again.

The Artichoke Ham Puffs might be the greatest gravy ever invented.

Sorry the picture is so far away. I was really hungry, so I didn't spend much time photographing.

And the Broiled Grapefruit is the only way to eat grapefruit. Plus it just looks so nice.

Three recipes was not nearly the disaster from earlier in the week with someone helping who was a) competent, which The Captain is not, and b) able to devote their full attention to cooking, rather than watching children, which The Husband is not. So extra thanks go out to the men that night for keeping all those hungry kids out of the kitchen temporarily.

And apparently I was also terrible at taking pictures this week, could have sworn I got a few of those . . . oh well. I'm sorry.