All that being said, my recipe resolution this year is to make (at least) one new recipe each week from a cookbook (or magazine) in our collection. I often find myself trying out recipes from online, which often turns out well, but occasionally results in a #pinterestfail. We have a pretty solid collection of cookbooks that are way under-utilized. These are among some of them, but by no means scratch the surface of all we have.
Since there is no such thing as a #williamssonomafail, we need to be tapping into these a little more frequently. (Also please note that hideous wallpaper hiding back there, which will be coming down very soon in our mini-kitchen remodel).
A few bitter cold stay home days have helped me launch into my recipe resolution this year (and also helped me be able to sit down and write the first blog post in four months). We happened to have all of the ingredients on hand here (use what you have), so yesterday, we dug into this one:
I'm not sure I have ever made anything from this cookbook (though we have had it for 3 years). Anyway, with some help from Cooper, we decided on Blondies.
They were very delicious. Once I started making them, I was very intrigued by the whole process. I didn't use a mixer but just lightly mixed the ingredients by hand. You also melt butter and brown sugar together before mixing with the other ingredients. The result of this process starts to smell like my homemade toffee. The other thing I noticed, upon tasting, was that the very sweet, sugary taste was highlighted by the salt coming through towards the end of the bite. Here is the full recipe, courtesy of Williams-Sonoma:
Now I am a sucker for lasagna. I have tried a variety of recipes, from chicken lasagna with a white sauce, to mile high lasagna pie, to my Mom's traditional lasagna recipe. I have enjoyed most every recipe I have ever made (save for the #pinterestfail Crockpot Lasagna I tried which resulted in me throwing up in the sink because of the smell and not being able to even taste it; I was pregnant at the time, so maybe we can chalk it up to that but I'm not convinced - I never experienced sickness in either of my pregnancies). Anyway, I saw a recipe for a skillet lasagna in one of my new cookbooks.
This recipe uses the same skillet to prepare and assemble the entire dish. It was a little awkward at times (tomato sauce boiling over the side of the pan onto the stove), but the result was pretty delicious:
My husband and I had a few suggestions for change, including draining the tomatoes so the sauce is a little thicker (the picture in the book showed a thicker sauce, but mine did not develop as such), and perhaps using a bit more of the marscapone cheese (I have never used this before but it was pretty amazing!). I've decided to start writing my notes in my cookbooks so I will remember them the next time I make it.
Find the full recipe here.
Since we were blessed with another bitter cold, stay home day, we ventured into the world of make-your-own pop tarts. This recipe came from Food 52, a new online food network I have turned to to help strengthen my cooking skills.
These strawberry pop tarts were pretty good. We lost a lot of the strawberry jam in the cooking process since I didn't seal the sides as well as I should have, but on the whole, I'd try them again. By the way, these won't go towards my recipe resolution, since the recipe didn't come from my cookbook collection, but I'm still hoping to expand my repertoire through online sources as well. I am turning away from Pinterest and towards Food 52 to hope for more successful outcomes. The decorating style for these came from Cooper. As you can see, both of my kids have been very helpful in the kitchen this year.
Here's to a new year full of new recipes from old sources. I'm hoping to get on here every week or so to share recipes and document my journey.
