There are one or two meals we have every week just to make things easier. One of those meals is pasta with tomato sauce. I thought I'd make it a meal worth looking forward to a few weeks ago by trying yet another recipe I found on Pinterest. I happened to notice a friend of mine pin a recipe for Garlic Cheesy Bread.
Modifications/Substitutions: I did not have bread flour, so I used all-purpose. Also, I didn't have garlic butter, so I made my own (butter, garlic powder, parsley, and a touch of salt). Because I was short on time, I didn't let the dough rise quite as long as I was supposed to (and I didn't let it cool as long as I was supposed to before slicing). I think my choice in flour and rising times definitely impacted the final product (which I'll explain below).
Ease: This was time-consuming (really only for the dough to rise), but very easy to make. I'll give the recipe 3.5 stars.
Affordability: I pretty much had everything I needed, and most of the ingredients are normal kitchen staples. Five stars for affordability.
Taste: This bread tasted pretty good, though it was a little chewier that I would have liked. I think this has to do with the fact that (1) I used regular flour and (2) I didn't let the dough rise as long as the recipe called. Four stars for taste.
Family Friendly: I think the girls would have liked it more if it wasn't as chewy. Jonathan and I ended up eating most of it and the girls did a little nibbling, but not more than that. I'll give it 3 stars because I think it was my fault they didn't like it.
Jonathan and I celebrated New Year's Eve the same way we did last year. We fed the girls and put the girls to bed (Lily even slept too). Then we had a cozy, quiet, Chinese food dinner and watched movies before watching the ball drop.
After dinner I used my new stand mixer to make a recipe I found on Pinterest for Overnight Monkey Bread. It was so nice to have a machine do the kneading for me! I liked the idea of having breakfast mostly taken care of the night before. It turned out really yummy! The girls had their fill. It isn't exactly the breakfast most people would eat to kick off the New Year, but we did have fruit with it too, so that should balance things out a bit.
The girls wore their matching dresses that Grandma and Papa Kapaldo got them for Christmas. I didn't get it in the picture, but they came with adorable tights too.
Here's an outtake:
Here's Lily doing something we didn't see a lot of on the first day of 2012: sleeping!
I've made New Year's resolutions in the past, but not in recent years. As I've mentioned before, I'm really good at starting things and not always finishing them. I end up feeling pretty defeated in the end. Sure, I have goals I want to achieve and areas of personal growth I want to experience, but I don't need the added pressure of resolutions. Instead, I'm going to do what our Pastor suggested today in his first sermon of the year: ask God for something big in 2012-something only God could do. And then go on living life in a way that shows I believe God will answer. I encourage you to do the same. I'm excited to see what happens!
I'm back at it again (at least this week anyway). I've found another new recipe I wanted to try and I decided to share it with you all.
I've been hearing a lot of buzz lately about a site called Pinterest. I saw that a friend had joined and thought I should too. Basically, Pinterest is a site where you can organize what you would normally bookmark, but also share them with your friends. This way you can see all sorts of great ideas you may not normally stumble upon during a normal google search. I'm pretty slow to pin things at the moment, but hopefully over time I can build up a nice collection of interesting recipes, crafts, and other neat projects to pursue.
Anyway, my point: I have seen a number of great looking recipes that other people have pinned. One is for Orange Chicken cooked in the crock pot!
Modifications/Substitutions: I didn't cut the chicken into very small pieces because I wanted to be sure they wouldn't overcook and dry out. I ended up using vegetable oil instead of olive oil because my pan was pretty hot. Also, to spice things up a bit for Jonathan, we added a dash of red pepper flakes to his portion.
Ease: There was a little prep work involved in that I had to coat the chicken in flour and brown it before placing it in the slow cooker, but it was a simple and easy step. This was a very easy recipe to execute - 4.5 stars.
Affordability: I try to only buy boneless chicken when it is $1.99/pound. The other ingredients for this recipe are extremely affordable - 4 stars.
Taste: I had high expectations for this recipe. I loved being able to smell the chicken cooking, anticipating a wonderful feast. I was a little disappointed though. I managed to still overcook my chicken (ugh) and I think the sauce was a little tart (though this could be due to cooking it a tad too long). And the site the recipe comes from had pictures of genuine-looking orange chicken - mine looked nothing like it. Jonathan gives this recipe a 3.5 though. He was actually pretty happy with it.
Family Friendly: Why would your kids eat your chicken if your garbage disposal had a hard time chewing it? Seriously though, Abigail did really like the sauce and did actually eat some of the chicken. I think Sarah did try hers, but she passed on actually eating it. I think if I had executed this recipe better (like cutting down on the cook time) then we would have had more success. Poor chicken, only 2.5 stars for you. I am trying to make my kids like you, but cooking you is not one of my strengths.
What's Cooking Rating: 3.5 stars (rounded to the nearest 0.25)
Modifications/Substitutions: The only thing I did differently was using a hand blender instead of a standard blender.
Affordability: This recipe is very affordable. The most expensive ingredient was the bacon, and I only used a few slices (so the rest was plenty for another meal). I'll go with 5 stars for affordability.
What's Cooking Rating: 4.75 (rounded up to the nearest 0.25)
