Strangeness and Charm

It's been a while since I've posted this and I have quite a few to post. So I will be doing several!

54. Baked Spaghetti Squash with Spinach and Cheese

recipe here

A bunch of friends came over and made dinner with me. This was a rich dish, like most dishes with spaghetti squash are. Unfortunately my friends didn't mix everything together once it was in the pan, but it was still really delicious and easy to make. In fact, cutting the spaghetti squash was really the hardest part. It is a bit time consuming as the squash has to cook for an hour before you can shred it, so that plus preparation plus baking the actual dish probably took about 2 hours.

55. Skinny Chicken Enchiladas
recipe here

So, I say I used that recipe but I kind of didn't. What happened was that I realized that I had bought EVERYTHING for the enchiladas except the tomato sauce to make the actual enchilada sauce with. None of my friends had tomato sauce, but I found a recipe that was like, Italian style enchiladas that used spaghetti sauce instead. But because I used spaghetti sauce, I had to chance the recipe quite a bit. Like, I couldn't use a lot of the spices because the flavors would clash. And then for some reason the oven wouldn't melt the cheese, so it was a bit of a disastrous experience all around. Next time, I will definitely make it like the recipe says AND remember the tomato sauce.

56. Spiced Pumpkin Muffins
recipe here
Delicious and easy. I did the option that used extra pumpkin which made it a pretty rich muffin. I didn't have pumpkin pie spice or nutmeg/ginger/clove/allspice so I just used cinnamon and sugar for the topping.

57. Sour Cream Apple Pie with Streusel Topping
recipe here
I got invited to some people's house for Thanksgiving, so I decided to do a test run with some friends of apple pie before making it for guests as I have never made a pie before.

First, we got the kind of dough that you have to roll, which ended up being kind of hard. Fortunately there was enough dough for TWO crusts and this pie doesn't require a crust on top. The first one we baked too long and it burned a bit, so we ended up using the second one, which wasn't quite high enough on the pan but worked well enough.

The filling itself was pretty easy to make. The topping was sprinkled on a bit unevenly. Due to it being our first attempt, very ugly pie but VERY delicious. Would definitely make again, but maybe with dough already on the pie pan that has been frozen to avoid the complications of rolling it and putting it on the pan just right.

58. Pumpkin Snickerdoodle Cookies
recipe here
A pretty straightforward cookie to make! It needed a bit longer of a chill time for me. Used every ingredient except for the ginger, the house I was making it at did not have any.

The pumpkin made this cookie very soft, almost more of a bread texture than a cookie. It did solidify a bit more when I left the cookies in the fridge overnight, but still not really a cookie texture. Either way, it was good!

Caramelized chicken with mushrooms

This was REALLY good. Reminded me of an easier version of the brown butter parmesan chicken linguine I made last year, only without the pasta. But the mushroom/onion/wine/chicken combination tasted much like the one used there. The chicken wasn't quite cooked through even when I doubled the time, so I ended up heating it up in the microwave for a minute. After that, it was cooked perfectly.

I used less better than it said and didn't do the toasted herb bread. All in all I'd say this took about 30-40 minutes to make. I served with green beans and salad.

I offered to make dinner tonight and wanted to make something with zucchini in it.I got a request to make something with white fish in it, so I decided to make fish and zucchini tacos.

The recipe.

I'm not a huge fan of white fish but since it was his request figured I'd try it anyway. These were really easy to make. Most of the prep time was just cutting up the zucchini. The directions for how to cut the zucchini were phrased a bit oddly but I figured it out. I cooked the fish for 10 minutes as instructed but it was a bit undercooked so I had to do it for a few more minutes.

I got a lot of compliments for these! I wasn't thrilled due to the white fish, but if I had to cook it this was probably one of the better ways to eat it. And it's certainly healthier than frying it.

I've been at college for several months now and I did manage to make a few things before I left and then I baked quite a bit during this vacation so I do have a lot to post today! And possibly more after this weekend as a few of my friends want to bake with me.

32. pumpkin nut muffins
Last week I went to San Francisco for a few days and wanted to make some muffins to eat for easy breakfasts while there. We also didn't have any butter so I wanted a muffin recipe that used oil instead. These were a success! At first I thought they were a bit bland when I tried one after it had cooled for half an hour or so, but I changed my mind after that. I might add a few more spices next time but it was fine. And I added walnuts instead of pecans, as we had no pecans in the house. But the walnuts were great, too.

33. oatmeal chocolate chip cookies

I LOVE oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, so this recipe looked great for me and I decided to make it before heading off to college. Unfortunately, I discovered that I do not like applesauce as a big substitute. I thought it tasted strong of apples and gave it sort of an odd texture. I also did not have dark chocolate chips so I used milk chocolate instead.

34. zucchini and feta balls
I love zucchini and I love feta, and these were delicious! I'd never really fried anything before so that was an interesting experience. I used fresh mint from my garden and dried dill for the spices suggested. I also thought the peanut oil was quite strong in the flavor it gave the balls. I might have to experiment with different kinds of oils. Definitely eat this fast! An hour and a half later I had a few left and they had gotten a bit soggy by then, though they were still very good.

35. good morning muffins

I didn't like these at all. It was a bit time consuming to make although not very difficult, but the main problem was that I didn't like it with orange juice and orange marmalade. That was mostly my fault, though. I don't mind orange jelly but I had forgotten that I disliked orange marmalade as I hadn't had it in a while. Fortunately my sister's friend liked it so I was able to give the batch to her.

36. snickerdoodle chocolate chip cookies

These were so good! I love snickerdoodle cookies and I love chocolate chip cookies, so when I got home after months of not baking I thought why not make a recipe that combined both? Again, I did make some very minor changes. The first was that I did not have toffee chips and I don't like them very much, so I just added a few extra chocolate chips. The second is that my oven might not be as strong as hers, so I ended up having to bake them an extra 10 minutes or so. I only made a half batch, too, as I had just enough butter for that. I think I ate all 8 cookies in less than 24 hours! And then I used the extra cinnamon sugar to make cinnamon toast.

I haven't updated this challenge for a while, mostly because I either haven't been cooking much, have been remaking some things like the turkey burgers I've posted before, been making super simple things, or just haven't gotten around to it! So I have a few to update. I'll post another one tomorrow, hopefully.

Now, normally I wouldn't post a grilled cheese sandwich on here (unless it was a gourmet complicated one) because mostly it's just bread, cheese, oil or butter, cooking a few minutes on each side. But this time was actually a bit more experimental for me. We didn't have any cheese in the house except for grumbled goat cheese, and I wasn't too sure how that would turn out. And actually, it turned out really well! I pressed the cheese down so that it wouldn't be quite so thick and slow to melt, and spent about 5 minutes on the first side, since I didn't want to flip until it had melted enough, and 3 minutes on the second.

lentil stew with ayib

Well, this certainly was an adventure. To start, the store I went to didn't provide any red lentils, in a can or bagged, so I got green instead. I'd never cooked lentils in a bag before and followed directions, but it never mentioned draining. Now that I think about it, it makes sense, but there didn't seem to be a whole lot of extra water. Well, when I added the 6 extra cups of water, it was TOO MUCH but I thought that maybe some of the water evaporated. I ended up having to pour out some of the water, and guessed the extra amounts of tomato paste and spices to make up for that. So this wasn't a porridge like so much as LENTIL SOUP! It seemed to be a hit with my family, though I personally thought it was a bit on the bland side (and looking back, although she listed the garam masala in the ingredients, I didn't see anywhere to put it in so I hadn't noticed I never used it until after), though I liked it much better the second night.

The cheese was easy enough to make and did add a nice flavor to it. I'm not fond of cottage cheese outside of lasagna, but I didn't mind.

I'm definitely getting better at cooking and being ok with not following a recipe exactly, but it certainly makes me laugh when I'm reminded how much of a newcomer I am. But that's kind of the fun of cooking too: having to improvise when things don't go exactly right. And when it tastes good after, it really feels like an accomplishment.

recipe here

If you can't tell, I've been a bit recipe crazy these past few days. It helps that there's a bunch of stuff in the house that needs to be eaten. We were gone for a few days and when we came back we had these GIANT zucchinis. My contribution today were these zucchini bites, which according to the site is something like a mini quiche and a muffin. Personally I think they're more like a min quiche, or maybe an omelet.

The original recipe said it would make 24 mini muffins, but my eyes must have skipped the mini part. I decided to halve the recipe because 12 would be just fine for me. I took out a regular muffin pan and it filled about 6 of those maybe a little over half. I also didn't have fresh parsley in the house but I'm not a fan so I was fine going without.

I used slightly sharp white cheddar. The recipe was really simple, just a lot of peeling, grating, cutting, and stirring.

They were OK. Light and fluffy, and the cheese I chose wasn't too strong or overpowering. Next time I might add some salt or pepper, just to give it a little oomph, because they were a bit on the bland side.

Had these for lunch, along with some of my leftover cashew chicken, and it was a good meal.

recipe here

I must admit that I didn't just make this. This was a recipe I made (twice, actually!) a little while ago but with the fail of a burger recipe I posted today I thought I'd post a good one as well. This is actually one of my FAVORITE recipes!

It's really good and so easy to make. I'm not even much of a mayo fan but the lime mayo was fabulous! No changes made except for the fact that I usually use a little extra meat and make 5 burgers.

I bought some chicken yesterday planning to make chicken gyros (soon!), but was informed that we would be using the chicken for dinner tonight. I asked if I could still make dinner, so garlic chicken it was!

recipe here

Very easy to make. I was asked to put in 3 tbsps of brown sugar instead of 4, so ours was slightly less sweet. Still good, though! Next time I might add some onions because I love onions.

I would suggest cooking it for 25 minutes. 30 minutes made the glaze harden onto the pan pretty badly which made for one hell of a cleanup, though the chicken was cooked very nicely.

reciple here

It's been VERY warm lately which means that I was in the mood for a cold drink. Saw this recipe a few days ago and thought I'd give it a try!

I liked it, although it didn't taste very much like chai to me. Maybe with a little bit less banana, because the banana flavor was very strong. If I make it again, I'll probably try with the chai tea bags instead! Maybe I'll try it with a bit of coconut too, even though I'm not a big coconut fan.

{Take the 100 Things challenge!}

Going to do this with recipes!