Chocolate Chip Cookies

Kim had apparently signed me up, without informing me or asking me, to make her 36 chocolate chip cookies. Which is a lot, since there is approximately a 10% tax on all cookie dough going through my Kitchen Aid mixer, but I sure enough managed to do it. To top it off, I decided to make Mike and Bruce an extra large cookie! I was honestly a little nervous about making the larger cookies, but by flattening them down, they managed to come out nice and evenly without requiring a modification to the cooking time or anything. I also decided to make cookies for our favorite Boba employees! I think that they were extremely appreciative of the cookies, which is nice, especially since I don't have to eat all the cookies myself, which is a very rough task to have to endure.

Two special-order cookies, extra large!

For recipe, I just used the recipe that came with the Kitchen Aid mixer. They come out extremely legendary, and are pretty simple to make. I am not a huge chocolate fan, so i typically go light on the chocolate chips.

-Mike

Kim: I DID tell Mike that I had signed him up to make cookies.  I gave him over a month's notice!  I told him that I promised that we would make cookies as soon as I found out that we would be making food for the homeless shelter.  I just forgot which date in May we were supposed to be going to make food.  As a result, I REMINDED Mike a few days before the cookies needed to be made.

Tuna Cakes

Here is dinner!

Here are the Tuna cakes after they were finished cooking.

I have a can of tuna in the cupboard that I wanted to use up.  I saw a recipe for "Tuna cakes" and knew that I had to try to make it.  It's supposed to be similar to crab cakes, which I love, but using Tuna!

I didn't have any Worcestershire sauce, so I used soy sauce.  Michele said that I could use soy sauce instead.  I also didn't have any Old Bay Seasoning, so I used Grizzly Joe instead.

This tasted mainly like Tuna and soy sauce to me.  I think that part of the problem is that the recipe says to use the Tuna undrained.  I'm not sure why.  The Tuna cakes came out rather watery.  If I made this again, I would definitely drain the tuna before using it.

Broccoli Beef

For dinner the other night, I was instructed to make the Broccoli (Little Trees) Beef from the "Comfort Food Makers". It actually turned out pretty amazing, which is rather surprising because I made it. I am not exactly known for making excellent asian cuisine, but this came out exceptionally well. I had to substitute Extra Virgin Olive Oil instead of Sesame Seed Oil, since we didn't have the later, but it still came out marvelous. Suggest you give it a whirl!

-Mike

Homemade Rice-A-Roni

Here is the BBQ chicken with home made Rice-a-Roni and the Walnut, Cranberry and Feta Cheese salad.  It was a very complete dinner.

Here is a picture of just the home made Rice-a-Roni.

And here is a close up of just the home made Rice a Roni with the BBQ chicken that Mike made.

Mike really loves eating Rice-a-Roni, however the stuff that comes in a box is very bad for you.  It has too much sodium and so many preservatives.

I found this recipe for Home Made Rice-a-Roni.  It was pretty easy and seems like it would be much healthier than the stuff from a box.  Also, after making a dish with orzo, I realized that I really don't like it.  This dish uses orzo, but combined with rice, so it's not "overpowering".  The dish was pretty good, but not amazing.  Part of the problem may have been that I didn't use sharp Cheddar cheese.  I used Cheddar and Colby Jack cheese.

Cranberry, Feta, and Walnut Salad

Mike has claimed that he really likes the cranberry, walnut, feta, spinach salad ever since we had one at Aaron's house.  I don't even remember eating this salad at Aaron's house, and Mike really hasn't expressed an interest in any salad except Casear.

I found multiple recipes for this salad, some of which said it needed apples and other various ingredients.  The Cranberry Feta Walnut Salad recipe on food.com seemed pretty simple.  I still had to buy more of the ingredients, but at least I'll have them if I want to make the salad again (Mike has already requested it again!).

After looking at multiple recipes  though, I only put in a quarter of the feta and cranberries, and threw in a small handful of walnuts, without measuring it.  I also doubled the amount of mixed greens (I bought a package of mixed greens).  Other recipes called for up to 10 cups of mixed greens and the same amount of feta/cranberries.  I only put in 4 cups of mixed greens with one fourth of the other items.  I did put in all of the salad dressing.  It didn't seem like it had too much salad dressing, but I might put in two more cups of mixed greens with the same amount of salad dressing.

Chicken Florentine

Mike and I both love eating the Chicken Florentine Complete Dinner for Two meal by Bertolli.  However, the meal is rather "heavy"/rich and salty, not to mention that it looks like something we should be able to easily make at home for a quarter of the price.

I found a recipe for Chicken Florentine in the Comfort Food Makeovers book, and wanted to give it a try since I had all of the ingredients anyway.  One "odd" item is that this recipe didn't use any pasta at all.  It's just chicken and spinach and a cream sauce.

The dish came out very soupy.  That aside, it wasn't a bad dish.  The recipe calls for two cups of low sodium chicken broth, then adds another cup and a quarter of water.  The recipe then says to keep cooking this until it reduces to about three quarters of a cup of sauce.  Needless to say, I had at least 2 cups of liquid by the end.  I even added cornstarch, but it still didn't thicken enough.

I ended up making pasta and then pouring this chicken/spinach "soup" on top of it as a sauce.

Oatmeal Fudge Bars

Mike made this dessert using a recipe from the Comfort Food Makeovers book.

Sour Cream Noodle Bake

Mike wanted to make more peach muffins, which require sour cream for some reason.  I told him that we didn't have any sour cream (we rarely have any since he hates it).  As it turns out, we already had a container.  Now I had to find a way to get rid of two containers of sour cream, by hiding them in dishes, since Mike won't even touch a dish if he thinks sour cream may have been near it in the refrigerator!

Since Isaac and Rebekka were packing for their move to Louisiana, I thought it would be nice to make them some food.  I found a recipe on the Pioneer Woman's website for Sour Cream Noodle Bake.

Unfortunately I informed Mike that I wanted to make this dish in order to get rid of the sour cream.  He thought I was trying to be be nice and help Isaac and Rebekka.

Even though the recipe said that it served 8, it looked a little small, so I ended up doubling the recipe, since we figured that we'd be feeding 8 people, including 2 teenage boys who would have been hungry from packing and moving furniture.  As it turns out we had just enough sour cream to make 2 batches of the peach muffins and double this recipe.

I didn't have any egg noodles, so I used small shells instead.  I would've used Farfelle, but I needed a pound of noodles, and Mike had used some for his pesto pasta the day before.

The dish itself was average.  The noodles came out a little soft after the pasta had been baked.  I tasted the meat sauce while it was cooking.  It was pretty tasty!

Catfish Parmesan

I had two pieces of catfish fillets left in the freezer which I defrosted.  I wanted to try to make something different with them, instead of simply cooking them in a little oil, garlic salt, and Grizzly Joes seasoning on the stove (which is pretty good too).

I found a recipe for Catfish Parmesan which sounded good, was baked, and used ingredients which I already had.  Most catfish recipes I found were either deep fried, and/or used cornmeal.  While I don't have any issues with cornmeal, I didn't want to buy a whole package of it just for one dish.  I'd have to go out of my way to try to find more uses for it...

The recipe said to dip the catfish in butter before putting it in the "crumb mixture".  This just sounded very unhealthy, so I put some oil on it instead and then dipped it in the crumb mixture.

The dish was pretty good.  I don't like these breadcrumbs that I was using.  It was the generic Ralphs brand.  I'm glad that I was able to finish it off.  I would consider using this recipe on chicken or some other meat.

Creamy Chicken and White Rice

I love creamy chicken and wild rice.  It combines all of my favorite foods, chicken, rice, cream, all in one soup.  Since I was still not feeling well, I thought it might be a great time to try to make this soup.

I finally found a Creamy Chicken and Wild Rice recipe which did not require celery. I hate the taste of celery.  I also hate the "flavor" it adds to food.  I know most people say that celery has no flavor or taste.  I can taste the celery and I don't like it!

I didn't have potatoes on hand, and didn't want to go to the store, so I just didn't add it to the soup.  I also probably used half the amount of onion, because I don't like onions that much, and it sounded like a lot of onions.  I also didn't have any wild rice, and didn't want to go to the grocery store, so I just used white rice instead.

It wasn't a bad soup, but it was by no means my favorite soup every.  I would consider making it again, but wouldn't be one of my "go to" recipes.

"Panera" Broccoli Cheddar Soup

I wasn't feeling well, and Mike wasn't 100% healthy either, so we wanted to have soup.  He loves Panera.  I don't understand why.  The food is ok, but the portions are so small for the price that have to pay for the food.  He wanted to get Broccoli Cheddar soup from Panera; I said that I would try to make it at home.  The fact that I had a Broccoli crown that needed to be eaten in my refrigerator did not impact this decision at all.

I found a "copycat" recipe for Panera Broccoli Cheddar Soup, where I had most of the ingredients.  I didn't have the carrots, but I figured they were more healthy and tasty.  If I liked this recipe I could get carrots next time.

Mike said that he really liked the soup.  I felt that the broccoli was not as soft/tender as I would have expected.  I would throw in the broccoli earlier next time.  I think I also halved the amount of onion, since I don't like onions very much.

Chicken Pesto Pasta

This beautiful green dish is the Chicken Pesto Pasta...

This beautiful dish is the Chicken that Mike grilled on the BBQ...

This beautiful green dish is the Pesto Pasta...

There are no pictures of just the pesto, since Mike felt that it didn't photograph well by itself.  I guess some food just isn't photogenic.

Kim was trying to use up some more spinach, and she also had the basil plant which her mom had given her.  The plant was pretty much on its last legs at this time.  According to Mike, the basil plant is in the path of the sprinklers, and should be getting water when the sprinklers run.  I think the poor plant disagrees, since it was pretty beige when I saw it.  We were out of town for a week.  When we got back, Mike said that he would water the plant when he was in town, so Kim thought Mike was going to water the plant.  For some reason, Mike thought Kim was going to water the plant.  The result is that no one was watering that poor basil plant...

It was actually pretty easy to make this recipe.  Kim put all of the ingredients (she used pecans instead of almonds, since that is what she had) into the Vitamix and turned it on.  She was able to make probably about two cups of sauce, which is enough to coat quite a bit of pasta.

 Spinach Basil Pesto Recipe.