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 . . .