Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Edible Adventures II

I kinda made this resolution to try and make/bake/cook something new (and preferably edible) once a week. Here are a few more of my attempts:

Steak... It's What's For Dinner  

I don't think it is any surprise to anyone that I love steak and mushrooms. But I didn't feel like that was a new and interesting recipe, so I got online and found this recipe entitled Men Love This Steak.  It's a new recipe, so I figured why not. It was pretty good --  steak topped with mushrooms and bacon. To complement the entrĂ©e,  I added oven-roasted red potatoes, and green beans cooked in chicken broth. Aaron had purchased some fresh mozzarella, so we added that to the green beans. It looked a little odd, but was really tasty!

Oreo Cheesecake!

We made 'Dirt' for a dinner with the Meeces and had a ton of left-over oreos, so Aaron suggested we make an Oreo Cheesecake. My first step was buying a springform pan! (Yay, for $10 off coupons from Kohl's. I got three different sized pans for $11!!) Since I had reduced-fat oreos, I decided to go with low-fat cream cheese, too. It probably would have tasted better with full-fat cream cheese, but it was still very tasty. So tasty, in fact, that I 'forgot' to bring it to school and share it with everyone. I did share a little with the Howenstines -- which is also when I discovered that you should probably put foil or something down when baking a cheesecake, as the butter from the oreo crust seemed to have melted onto the bottom of my oven, causing a smoking problem when I tied to bake a take-n-bake pizza for dinner that night. Good thing Ken is a firefighter!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

My dad always enjoyed rhubarb. We rarely ate it, and I don't really remember liking it, but I do recall dad loving it. So when I received an email containing a recipe for a Strawberry-Rhubarb pie, I knew I needed to attempt it for my daddy's birthday! I went out and bought Monte Vista strawberries and fresh rhubarb. Cleaning all the produce took a while... and let me tell you, the smell of *fresh* rhubarb is not my favorite. It's not a horrible smell, but it is not what I would consider tasty either. Luckily you add so much sugar in the end all you smell is sweetness! I also used pre-made pie crust; the kind you use that you roll out into the pan. It did not roll out so well. I ended up balling and re-rolling the crust for the lattice top crust. But it all worked out. I tried engraving "Happy Birthday, Dad!" into the lattice, but you could not really see it once I baked the pie. For my first attempt at using rhubarb, it turned out deliciously! It was super tasty!

Strawberry-Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake

So, apparently I had purchases way too much  rhubarb for one pie. Having already chopped up the malodorous rhubarb, I decided to make something else. I remember my Granny making Rhubarb Upside-Down Cake, so I thought I would attempt it. I basically made another batch of the Strawberry-Rhubarb pie filling for the bottom of the cake pan. But I did not have a yellow cake mix, do rather than walk my lazy ass down to the grocery store (which is less than half a mile away mind you) I was going to make a cake from scratch. How hard could it be? Well it was not hard, but it was time consuming! No wonder people just buy a box! I used a 1-2-3-4 Cake recipe from the Joy Of Cooking. The cake itself turned out really well, I was able to make a few cupcakes because I did not want to overfill the other cake pan. It would have been super tasty with some chocolate frosting, but I digress. The Upside-Down Cake was also scrumptious! It looks kind of disgusting in that picture -- like a bunch of raw meat on a cookie sheet. But it was very tasty.

2 comments:

  1. Ok.... so the oreo cheesecake caught Max's eye. He pointed to the screen and said, "What's that??" I asked him what he thought it was...and I swear to you, it was, "Yummy" lol So there you have it. The Rhubarb upside down cake did...indeed look like a pile of raw brains....but I bet it WAS yummy!
    If you're up for it I'd love to get together one of these weeks to teach you an Assyrian meal.. we can discuss which one later. But I know Max would love some Aaron time (if of course HE would be up for some Max time. The boy is massively testosterone starved)
    Anyhow.... that was my comment. On more than just your yummy food!

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  2. Thanks, Joy! I will bring it up with Aaron. :) If not, I am sure Albert and the Wii would love the attention, too... my weeknights are opening up!

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