Carmelitas - Review

These little bad boys are delicious. And dangerous. Yum. I described this to my kids as an oatmeal cookie sandwich. But stuffed with chocolate and caramel. This has safely made it on our family favorite list. I doubled the recipe to make a 9x13 pan so we could give some away. They are fairly rich, so a little goes a long way. I took some to the office ladies at my son's school and told them what they were, then left to go help in the classroom for a bit. When I got back the lady at the front stopped me and said that she needed to write down what they were called because they were so good, and she wanted to remember what they were.

from luluthebaker.blogspot.com

Yeah, they are super delicious. And the side pieces were some of the best because the caramel got a little crispy on the sides - YUM. Here's how ours turned out:

Well, at least how the little piece I was eating turned out. That was a good size for a piece. Yep, they are rich and yummy. I had to get the kids to help me unwrap the caramels because I have little patience for that, and they were more than happy to help. Many hands makes light work. And sometimes gets a caramel as a reward at the end. :)

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: *****
Cost: $$ (if you do the 9x13 size - once you factor in the caramels, chocolate, and other stuff)
Difficulty: Easy. The hardest part is waiting for the caramels to melt in the pot.

Brown Sugar and Balsalmic Glazed Pork Loin - Review

This recipe was pretty good. It looks pretty in the picture. See?

from candcmarriagefactory.com

It was easy to make, and tasty. Not my absolute favorite ever, but pretty good. The pork loin was tender and good, everyone ate it pretty well, but none of us were wild about the sauce. The flavor combination seemed a little off. Here is how ours turned out:

I put the glaze over the top twice during the last hour, but thought I would hold off on drizzling it all over the final product in case the kids weren't happy with the sauce. The kids ate the "non sauce" meat great, but didn't really eat well when the sauce was on. Again, the meat flavor was very, very good. I would recommend this recipe to try, but it won't probably make it on a normal rotation here since we have a couple of other pork recipes that I like better.

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: ***
Cost: $ (depending on your price of pork)
Difficulty: Easy - we love crock pot meals! :)

Chicken Enchiladas with Green Chili and Sour Cream Sauce - Review

THESE little beauties were excellent. I usually order enchiladas with green sauce of sorts when I go to Mexican restaurants, and these did not disappoint. I actually liked them a lot better than a lot of the restaurant variety because I could use good chicken inside, not the fatty kind that they often will serve.

from sissistersstuff.com

They were fairly straightforward to make - the worst part by far was shredding the cooked chicken, though I did see that some people will cook their chicken, and then while it is warm put it in their Kitchen Aid with the paddle attachment, let 'er rip and then the paddle will shred the chicken. When I get such a machine, I'll have to try it. Shredding meat is not my favorite task.

My 7-year old said that he wanted to help make them, and he did great. The directions were very easy to follow. Here is how ours turned out:

We had two requests for this for a birthday dinner, so I think they were a hit! I personally preferred them on day #2, but the boys all liked them better on the first day. We still horked them down, at any rate. This is definitely going into our family favorites. One of my favorite things about these enchiladas is that it doesn't use cream of chicken soup - it has more of a "fresh" flavor.

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: *****
Cost: $$ (closer to the $5 end than the $10 end)
Difficulty: Moderate - you have to make a "roux" and shred the chicken, so it's a little bit more labor-intensive than dumping stuff into a pot. Still not too bad, though.

Lasagna Toss - Review

This recipe is a family favorite. It is SUPER easy, and very yummy. It is definitely much easier than real lasagna. It may actually be easier than real spaghetti too because you don't have to drain off boiling hot water. You literally just dump a bunch of stuff in, let it cook, and VOILA! - dinner. *That is, if you have your beef pre-cooked. If not, it takes a little more time.

from allrecipes.com

 The one thing I would have to say is that the picture from the website is deceptive. DO NOT use a pan that barely will have enough capacity to keep the lasagna juice inside. I made that mistake the first time I made it and it was a MESS. So, I use a bigger pot. It still works the same to cook everything, it just doesn't look as pretty when you take pictures of it.

See? This is after I'd started serving everyone up for dinner. Looks like lasagna!











Four of five happily devour it - good enough for me!

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $$ (again, depending on price of beef - should be near-ish to $5)
Difficulty: Easy. Hardest thing is cooking up the beef, which is pretty standard.

Tomato-Basil Parmesan Soup - Review

This soup was AMAZINGLY good. And vegetarian. Mwa ha ha. I realized that as my husband was asking what was in it - hoping it had some kind of meat in it. When I told him what was in it he said, "So, it's basically like a drink?" I told him to sit down and eat his dinner. And he loved it. And then sneakily fixed himself an egg roll afterward. And a peanut butter sandwich. We're working on the vegetarian night here still, apparently. :)

from 365daysofcrockpot.com

This was not too bad to make, except at the end it calls for making a roux. That is basically mixing a fat with flour to make something to thicken your dish up. For this recipe, you melt 1/2 cup butter, then pour in 1/2 cup flour, and whisk for 5-7 minutes. When you are done, you have an unimpressive runny mixture. Ta da! BUT, when you add in the hot soup, crazy things happen. I have actually never seen something react that quickly, so be prepared. When you dump in the first cup of soup, it will IMMEDIATELY thicken up. It's crazy. Get that all stirred together, then add the other three cups at once, and stir. It will amazingly enough still be thick. Then you dump that all back into the crock pot and stir, then add the remaining ingredients. Not too hard.

This soup smelled SO good when it was cooking, and it had a really good flavor. My kids were a little "eh" about it - the 7-year old ate a serving of it and was done. The 4-year old decided that it looked unappetizing and he didn't want to eat it. We have a family rule (that we learned from a much wiser family) that you have to eat as many bites of a dinner as you are old, so he had to eat four bites of it. He actually liked it, but it was admitting defeat at that point, and he wasn't quite willing to do that.

I would probably eat this daily if it was an option. I almost had some after breakfast today. And I don't typically eat "dinner-y" things early in the day. I thought it was THAT good.

Family Rating: ***1/2
My Rating: *****
Cost: $ (all veggies!)
Difficulty: Moderate - due to the veggie chopping and the roux making. Not quite "dump it all in the crockpot and forget about it", but it wasn't too bad to make either.

BEST Bakers - Really. Truly.

You can use this as a side. As a main dish. Be vegetarian. Be meatatarian. Whatever. It is the beloved BAKER.

from whatscookingamerica.net

My 4-year old; however, will not eat potatoes. We have the best potato soup recipe ever, and he will not eat potatoes. He won't eat the potatoes in stew. BUT, he will eat these bakers. Because they are awesome. Skin and all.

We found these because my husband and I were having a debate as to whether you can cook the potatoes straight in the oven without wrapping them in foil, or if they needed to be foil-wrapped in the oven. We were out of foil. Thankfully I lost that debate by finding the recipe linked above.

The process takes a little more work than normal bakers, but not too bad. You scrub and poke the potatoes as usual, BUT instead of just leaving it at that and baking them, you rub them in oil and put coarse salt on them. It does not take much oil - just enough for the salt to stick - and I usually will flake a bunch of the salt off of the skin after baking. The salt and oil make all of the difference in the world. The skin becomes a part of the flavor of the meal instead of something you just discard, or feel guilty for discarding because it is supposed to be so vitamin-packed.

Here is what my oven prep looks like for this:

The potatoes will go on the top rack, but your potatoes are also covered in flaky salt and oil, which will make a mess in your oven. So, before I put my potatoes in I will take a cookie sheet, line it with foil (keeps you from having to clean up the cookie sheet - just throw away the foil when you are all done) and put it on the lower rack. Done. Then you can have easy clean up for your tasty bakers.

Of course, my kids kept telling me that I needed to take a picture of their bakers once they were loaded and ready to be eaten - and I didn't do it. But the bakers were all eaten and enjoyed. We like to put ham, chili (homemade - that's for another post), broccoli, cheese & other veggies.

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: *****
Cost: $ (Potatoes are CHEAP!)
Difficulty: Easy. Clean, Poke, Dip, Roll & Bake.

Cookie Dough Brownies - Review

These are just wrong. In a good way. My sister called me yesterday and said something to the effect of, "Curses to you and your food blog!" She'd seen the link on the sidebar and tried them too. They are good. SUPER rich (or, as my sister put it, "intense"), but VERY good.

from sissistersstuff.com

Since these are done in layers, and you need to let each layer cool/set up before dumping the next layer on - prepare for these to take some time. Again, I am a very impatient person and tend to underestimate how long something will take me to make. So, warning - it will take time. Not hard, just time.

These are rich enough to enjoy, and to want to share with others. You can seriously eat four of them and feel like you have had a good experience, and then share some with friends. We gave a good-sized plate to each of my boys' teachers. One of them stopped me this morning to say that she is not a brownie person, but LOVED them, and wanted the recipe.

The one change I made from the recipe was that I made it all with margarine instead of butter. After the super-rich experience of the BYU mint brownies (which I still liked slightly better than these), I thought I would try and help a bit. They turned out great. One difference from my brownies and the brownies in the lovely photo above is that my layers were not quite so equal looking. The brownies were more thick and the cookie dough layer was a bit smaller. I thought that was a good thing - more cookie dough flavor would have been overkill, I think.

See? Not a pretty picture, but the brownies turned out a lot thicker.

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $ (esp. with margarine)
Difficulty: Easy - you just have to mentally prepare for each layer as far as time goes.

Sunday Beef Stew - Review

This is another recipe from Our Best Bites - a stew. It had a lot of similar characteristics to our "normal" stew here, but had a few differences as well.

from ourbestbites.com

It has quite a bit of celery, which was nice since we got THREE HEADS OF CELERY with our Bountiful Basket this week (my kids usually turn their nose up to celery unless it is disguised in something - no ants on a log here....), and I appreciated that it seemed to have a lot of stuff cut up in it, like a good stew should.

The concerns I had were that it turned out a little thinner than I usually like my stew (it was more like a "stoup" - a soup-y stew). Also, it wasn't very salty. The recipe actually does not call for salt at all. I know there is beef bullion and tomato soup, both of which have "salt content", but it wasn't enough for us. All of us kept having to add salt to get it to where we liked it. I know salt is essential to good flavor, but I can't remember the last time when I added salt to something. Usually I am taking it out of things (like the frittatas). So the next time we make it, I'd add some salt. Not much (a teaspoon?), but something to get it a little closer to helping to bring out the good flavors of the stew.

My husband graciously took a picture of his leftovers since I had forgotten to take one of the original - thanks J. :)

Overall, though, it was tasty. I would definitely try this one again. The boys all gobbled it up, and that always makes me a happy mom. :)

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: ***1/2
Cost: $$
Difficulty: Easy - just chopping veggies and chucking stuff in a crockpot.

Mini Frittatas - Review

These were fairly easy, and good. The work is all in whisking eggs, cutting up veggies, shredding cheese, or dicing ham (or cooking sausage, if desired). Not too bad. It was a little fancier way of eating basically scrambled eggs, or an omelet.

from familyfun.go.com

We put in cheese, green peppers, ham & sausage. They turned out great. Actually, I was expecting them to look all nice and flat and pretty like in the picture, but when I went to check on them in the oven, I saw something more like this (but bigger - they'd settled a little at this point):

Seriously, I had "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (think 2001: A Space Odyssey) spring right into my head. They looked a little out of control, but they eventually flattened out nicely. I'm wondering if part of this was because I used milk instead of half and half. ?

Overall, they were tasty. All agreed they were better than scrambled eggs, but I would leave out the salt next time. Especially with the ham and the sausage, they were plenty salty as it was.

Family Rating: ****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy.

Peanut Butter Bars - Review

Anything with peanut butter and chocolate automatically gets vaulted to the top of my favorite things in the world. These peanut butter bars (scroll down the post a bit until you find them) were very, very easy to make. They are no-bake. As in you don't have to bake them. You melt things in the microwave. Then you mix stuff. Then you pour into a pan. Then you wait while it sits in the refrigerator. Awesome.

from morganmoore.typepad.com/one_more_moore

Here is how ours turned out:

They actually looked the same as the ones pictured above. I'm just afraid to cut more to put in a picture because, as you can see, we (I) have made quite a dent in these in the past few hours. (cough).

We all agreed that these were tasty. They surely did not taste just like Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (which is what someone had said, so my hopes were all high), BUT, they are very easy to make, and, as you can gather from the picture, we weren't rejecting them at all. More like inhaling them.

Family Rating: *****
My Rating: ****
Cost: $
Difficulty: Easy....Melt. Mix. Dump. Melt. Mix. Dump.