Ten Recipes

For the past week, I made a goal to try ten new recipes. Ten might seem like a lot for one week under normal circumstances, but... coronavirus. So ten? No problem. It helped changed things up around here and gave me something to look forward to. I decided to document the recipes for accountability, so I'll share them with you today. Just rememeber, this is not a food blog, so I'm not willing to do a lot of work to make my food pretty for blog photos. But I do believe in food photos. So I had to provide something. Nothing is more frustrating than a recipe and NO PHOTOS!

Here are the recipes I tried:

Recipe #1: 20-Minute Pesto Pasta

This sounded nice and easy, and I really like basil, so I was excited to try it. Plus, it's meat-free (I'm always excited to add something meat-free to our dinner rotation). 

My kids ate it better than I expected. Nicky and Daisy liked it. Zoe and Eva mostly just scooted it around on their plates and then begged for something else, but that's pretty normal for them (and we do not oblige).

I accidentally left out the salt, so when I started eating, it seemed a little bland. I reviewed the recipe and realized my mistake. Once I added a little salt on top, it was much better. 

The ingredients in this recipe are kind of pricey, and having to get out my food processor and then wash it afterward kind of undoes the simplicity of the dish. Overall, the the pasta was good, and I would be happy to eat it again when I'm craving something basil-y, but I'm not going to bookmark it as something "quick and easy" to make . I may find myself fixing this again in the summer if I'm overloaded with cherry tomatoes (things aren't looking so good for my cherry tomatoes right now, though - I planted from seed this year, and tomatoes are a plant I usually do from starts).  

Recipe #2: One-Hour Breadsticks

(In photo above)

I'm still trying to figure out my relationship with yeast breads. Sometimes I have great success. Other times I totally fail. I can't figure out what makes the difference!

The breadsticks turned out okay, but I had to bake them for almost 15 minutes longer than the recipe says. I keep running into this problem, and I don't know if it's my oven... or the high elevation... or a personal flaw. It makes me feel very insecure. The less I have to rely on my own judgement, the better!

Regardless, I got good reviews for the breadsticks from my family. 

Recipe #3: Chicken Cordon Bleu Rice Bake

I made this casserole with a few adaptions. First, I used short grain brown rice instead of white instant rice. I cooked the rice in chicken stock (at the recommendation of some of the commenters on the blog). Also, when I put the ingredients in the dish to bake it, I felt like it needed a topping, so I quickly crushed up some Ritz crackers with a little melted butter. I only put the topping on half in case it wasn't good (but why would it not be good?) 

In the end, the whole family was pro-Ritz topping.

We liked it, but we had tons of leftovers and, after three days, ended up throwing some out. 

Recipe #4: Dortitos Taco Salad

My reasons for wanting to try this recipe were three-fold:

1. We needed to eat a vegetable.

2. But I was craving Doritos.

3. The recipe reminded me of a salad my grandma used to make for family parties, but with a twist

Everyone in the family gave this one a thumbs up. My kids love taco salad, but they were a little wary of this one at first because it's different than our usual taco salad set-up. 

I kept the dressing separate rather than tossing it altogether because some of my kids like to eat their salads without dressing (I know, weirdos). In the end, everyone liked it. 

The only adaptions I made were to leave out the green pepper (we didn't have one, but my kids wouldn't have eaten it anyway), and I used a pinch of cayenne instead of adobo sauce in the dressing. 

We'll make this again. Especially during the summer.

Recipe #5: 30-Minute Dinner Rolls

I tried this recipe twice. The first time, the rolls were so dense, I could have thrown one at someone's head and rendered them concussed. But who wouldn't love being able to make decent dinner rolls in 30 minutes? So I had to make one more attempt.

The second time, I used less flour, and everything seemed to go well until we sat down to eat, and the rolls were completely doughy on the bottom (note the doughy blob in the upper corner of the photo). We ate the tops, and I have to say, I don't care for the flavor of these rolls. 

I give up on this one.

Recipe #6: Chicken BLT Tacos

For this one, I didn't grill the chicken as the recipe indicates. Instead, I used rotisserie chicken I had in the freezer and tossed it in a pan with some water and taco seasoning. I used Tortilla Land fresh tortillas.

These were really good, but if I ever make them again, these tacos need a good sauce. Perhaps the sauce in this recipe. Or maybe a cilantro lime dressing. I tried them with sour cream and ranch dressing (separately) strictly for research, and neither provided the right saucey goodness. Avocado or guacamole might also be a nice addition, but then we're really getting into a lot of work. So overall, maybe it would be better to just keep BLTs and tacos as separate foods. Combining them created a yummy, but not superior, dish. I might have to give them one more try with a sauce and see what happens. 

Recipe #7: Ina Garten's Lemon Bars

I love lemon, and therefore, I love lemon bars, but I don't know if I've ever made them. There might have been an attempt about twenty years ago, but knowing my baking history, they probably sucked. This week I tried Ina Garten's lemon bar recipe. 

There were good things and bad things that took place. 

The bad things: I checked the lemon bars a few minutes before the minimum baking time, and the center was still completely liquid. I checked them every 3-5 minutes for almost half an hour past the baking time. Finally the center seemed set (seriously, what is the problem here?)

I took the darn things out of the oven and let them cool. Then I gave them a thorough powdered sugar dusting and dove in for a bite. 

The good things: they ended up having a great crusted texture on top with a nice, creamy, lemon center. They were thicker than any lemon bars I've had. 

But another bad thing: they were so overly sweet that after two bites I kind of wanted to barf. But they were also incredibly tart. I usually prefer my lemon desserts to be tart, but this was a little too much. Something seemed off-balance to me. Since I had pinned this recipe, this review showed up in my Pinterest feed shortly afterward, and I agree with what she says about the recipe. It's just too sweet!

We ended up throwing out half the pan after a few days. 

Recipe #9: Hawaiian Chicken Sandwiches

I've had this recipe pinned for a long time, so it was time to give it a go. For this recipe, you cook and thicken the sauce prior to putting everything in the crock pot. I didn't realize that beforehand, and I found myself scrambling at the stove top trying to get dinner in the crock pot before Zoe started speech therapy online. 

This recipe calls for 3 lbs of chicken, and with as much sauce as it has, I'll throw in an additional 1.5 lbs of chicken if I make it again. I ended up freezing half of it, so it's definitely a meal that keeps on giving. If I add an extra 1.5 lbs of chicken, I can probably feed my family three times on this recipe (well, the chicken part of it, anyway. I sure wish I could say the same for the cole slaw). 

As for the cole slaw, I love slaw on sandwiches, but it's not a hit for the entire family, which means there ends up being a lot of waste, and I don't like that. Possible solution: buy a small container of slaw from the deli at the grocery store instead of making a big batch??? Things to consider for next time. 

Scotty and I really liked these sandwiches, but sadly, they have a tragic amount of sugar in them. I have two other Hawaiian chicken recipes that have a lot less sugar, but I've never tried them as sandwiches. I may do so just to compare. 

Recipe #10: French Bread Rolls

(In photo above)

I totally cheated on this one because I've made these rolls many times, but it's been about five years since I last made them, and the recipe blog post has been updated since then, so I decided to count it as a "new" recipe. 

We really like using these rolls for pulled pork sandwiches, so I thought they'd be great for the Hawaiian Chicken Sandwiches. After experimenting with several bread recipes lately, I was refreshed by how simple the ingredients in this roll recipe are.

Recipe #11: Asian Chicken Wraps with Peanut Sauce

What is this? An eleventh recipe? Yes! Now I don't feel so bad about cheating on the last one. 

We had this for dinner last night, and I had high hopes. I'm really hoping to find some new summer recipes to add to our rotation. One by one, my children bit into their wraps and spit them right back out. I can't say I was surprised - they've rejected peanut sauce many times in the past. 

Then I ate my wrap, and well... I won't be making these again, which is such a bummer because they came together so quickly! I realized, once I started eating my wrap, that I was really hoping it would taste like the Applebees Oriental Chicken Wrap. That's what I wanted, and this wasn't it. These wraps were a little too peanut butter-y. 

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Other new recipes I've tried during quarantine:

Overnight Breakfast Bake - too "biscuit-y"

Cake Mix Lemon Sweet Rolls - didn't like the texture of the roll but loved the glaze 

Almond Joy Cookies - yum! Loved!

The Best Cinnamon Rolls - good but not amazing (possibly due to my own failures as a baker)

Diane's No Fail French Bread - great bread, but the recipe requires a lot of attention

Small Batch Soft and Fluffy Wheat Bread - great! 

The Best White Sandwich Bread - great!

Can you tell I'm on very specialized coronavirus diet?