Recipe Round-up

Oops.  Just realized it’s been a few weeks since I updated.  It’s been a rough month as far a cooking goes but things are finally looking up.  Me and my boyfriend were really sick for an insanely long amount of time (I kept re-catching the same damn cold).  So cooking and/or eating wasn’t a huge priority.  Then last week was stupid Tropical Storm Fay, which more or less stopped in my area for about 3 days, so I wasn’t able to get groceries.  The one day I did make dinner, the power cut out in the middle of cooking it.

But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been cooking at all.  I’ve had a few failed recipes or at least recipes that I didn’t think were blog worthy.  I’ve made some VERY yummy things, too, but they were things that cooks much better than I have already posted about on their own blogs. So with that in mind, I will link to these wonderful dishes which you should go and make right this minute.  Also, I just wanted to mention my Food and Recipe Links on the sidebar over there.  I bookmark lots of yummy recipes from all the foodblogs I read, so I highly recommend taking a look if you are searching for something new to make.

Pioneer Woman’s Spicy Shredded Pork – This was sooo good and deceptively easy to make.  I recommend roasting that pork for as long as possible.  I think I did it for 7 hours?  I was worried about having to shred it but when I took it out, it just fell apart, I barely had to do any work.

This is another instance of my branching out as my severe pickiness has not allowed me to eat anything but chicken in tortillas.  But pork in tortillas is just as good, I have no idea why the idea of it bothered me for so long.  I’m just an idiot, I guess.  We had plenty of leftovers, so I wound up making quesadillas with it a few days later, which was a treat.  But this stuff is so versatile, you could make sandwiches, you could put it in casseroles, I don’t even know what else, but I’m sure a more creative cook that I could think of about a million dishes to make with this pork.  It will definitely be a staple in my house for now on.

Crash Hot Potatoes – I’m always looking for new side dishes, especially new things to do with potatoes.  I made these a while ago, but they were really good and also just a fun way to eat potatoes.

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake – My boyfriend, who hates cake, by the way, decided that he wanted a cake last week while we were watching Ace of Cakes.  I never get to make cakes so of course I jumped at the opportunity.  The problem is he wanted a white cake.  I have lots of good recipes for chocolate cakes, but I’ve never made a white cake that I’ve been happy with.  That is until now.  This recipe produced the lightest, fluffiest, yummiest, white cake I’ve ever had.  I was amazed by how good this was, because normally I’m not really a fan of white cakes at all.

It was so good that it overcame the horrible frosting I made for it.  Seriously, I am never again attempting frosting.  I will buy it in the store because the five bucks will be more than worth the time and effort it takes to make this stuff from scratch.

The problem was mainly that I tried to alter the recipe, but also that I just don’t think it’s possible to make icing with a hand mixer.  Maybe once I get a real mixer, I will attempt this again, but otherwise it’s just not worth it.  I used this recipe for Swiss Buttercream and it did eventually come together (after about half an hour holding the damn hand mixer), but I had altered the amounts and I guess added too much butter because in the end it pretty much tasted like, well, butter.  Like eating straight butter.  So I tried to add melted chocolate to it to make it taste less buttery and I guess the addition of that made it too watery and I was tired of mixing at the point, so I just gave up.  It tasted ok and I put it on the cake anyway, but it was pretty much a disaster.  But, like I said, the cake was so good that you really didn’t even care about the frosting.

I was just looking through my pictures and realized I do have some recipes that I haven’t posted yet, so I will get those up next week.  Right now I’m going to go marinate some chicken for dinner tonight (a great recipe which I will post soon) and since my boyfriend and I have been craving cookies I must submit and make some.  You can never go wrong with chocolate chip cookies.