July 28, 2010
Thyme-roasted Chicken with Potatoes
img class=”centered” src=”http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4112/4838051960_4e5193608b_z.jpg” alt=”Thyme-roasted Chicken with Potatoes” width=”640″ height=”426″ />
I’m not a very talkative person. I think that’s something that readers of this blog might be surprised about. Because I know my posts tend to be long, especially compared to a lot of other food blogs I read. But if you met me at a party, I might not say much, whereas if you give me a keyboard and a textbox to fill, I could probably “talk” for hours on end. That’s one reason I love blogging and the internet so much. I guess I just feel more free to express myself here than I do in “real life”. That’s probably something I need to work on, but that’s not really for this post to address.
The point I’m trying to make is that I’m usually so excited about sharing a recipe and describing why it’s so good and my experience making it etcetera etcetera that I never have trouble coming up with things to say about it. Editing that sentiment down to something more concise is what always trips me up.
July 20, 2010
Homemade Buttery Croissants
I’m always up for a baking challenge so when Julie over at Willow Bird Baking challenged her readers to make croissants, I didn’t hesitate to sign up. I love croissants, but like donuts, I rarely eat them because of how bad they are for you. But there’s just something about making something from scratch that makes it seem less bad for you. I guess because you have to put actual time and effort into making it instead of just going into a store and buying it. Plus, it’s Brandon’s birthday this week and that is one of the 4 times of the year (along with my birthday, Thanksgiving and Christmas) that I let myself eat whatever I want without feeling guilty about it.
And these croissants? Are absolutely worthy of much guilt, but they’re just way too delicious and way too much work to feel guilty about. I mean, I made these croissants. From scratch. All by myself. That is an accomplishment, not something to feel bad about. These croissants taste better than any that I’ve had from a bakery or store. It could just be because …
July 13, 2010
Lasagna-style Baked Ziti
Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m in a food rut, making the same things over and over again, so I’m making an effort to try new things; not just new recipes, but new ingredients that I’ve never eaten or cooked with before. The easiest way I’ve found to do this is to pick one cookbook and only make recipes from that cookbook for the next couple of weeks. That way I can’t just go through and pick and choose the “safe” recipes, I actually have to try things that I would normally flip right past. This led me to choose a recipe with goat cheese in it, something I’ve liked in restaurant dishes, but not something I’ve ever bought and cooked with before. Well, that did it. I guess maybe it never occurred to me that you could buy goat cheese at a normal grocery store? I don’t know, but now that I know you can, it’s all I can do to keep from buying a package of goat cheese every time I go to the store and eating it whole.
July 7, 2010
Marbled Chocolate Banana Muffins with Chocolate Graham Cracker Streusel
I did it again. I bought a bunch of bananas and let them sit there until they looked worse and worse. Tell me I’m not the only one who does that? Please? In the grand scheme of things bananas are cheap, but still…starving kids in blahblah and all that…so I always feel bad about wasting food. I cannot tell you how much I didn’t want to make banana bread, though. I don’t even really like banana bread, I much prefer my mom’s applesauce bread. But what do you make with mushy bananas besides banana bread? I searched for alternatives but didn’t find anything interesting that I had all the ingredients for or that wasn’t a million calories.
Since I was stuck with banana bread, my next thought was that I should do something to make it less banana-y. Of course, chocolate popped right into my head. Chocolate makes everything better. You might know I’m kinda obsessed with marbled chocolate desserts, so I decided to do a marbled chocolate banana muffin. It’s just more …
July 2, 2010
Giveaway Winners! (and my favorite recipes)
Thanks so much to everyone who participated in my giveaway, it was really fun to read everyone’s comments and learn about some of your food preferences. I’ll definitely be thinking about your answers when I’m looking for new recipes to share in the future!
Anyway, let’s get to it, shall we? I wanted to make it as fair as possible, so I made a numbered list of each comment in the order they were posted and then I entered the number range in the random number generator and got it to pick 2 numbers.
June 28, 2010
Roast Beef with Peppers, Onions and Potatoes
Thanks to everyone who entered last week’s giveaway! You guys really love your mac n’ cheese, which makes me think I should post my favorite recipe for it. Anyway, if you haven’t commented on that post yet, you still can and you’ll be entered to win Everyday Food: Fresh Flavor Fast
June 23, 2010
Warm Berries and Cinnamon Dumplings
Next Monday, this blog will be 2 years old and since I didn’t really do anything to celebrate the anniversary last year I decided to go all out this year. So welcome to the completely redesigned Back to the Cutting Board! If you’re reading in the comfort of your feed reader, I’d love it if you’d click on through and take a look. Plus there is a reason you will want to visit, which I’ll get to soon…
Since I’ve posted quite a few recipes over the last two years, I wanted to make the site easier to browse. I cleaned up the Recipe Index and I added a new Ingredients Index if you want to search for recipes with specific ingredients. I also made an effort to simplify things. I loved my previous design, but I wanted something cleaner and simpler this time. I think the home page and sidebar were too busy before so I made an effort to pare everything down to the essentials (well, mostly anyway, minimalism is kind of against my nature, so this is as pared down …
