allrecipes.com, Will You Marry Me?

So, I don't know what it is... I have been a bit of a slacker in the kitchen. Not so much the actual cooking part, but more like the taking pictures/creating my own food part. The family get-together (almost) two weeks ago was a SUCCESS! We ended up making a Buffalo "Chicken" Pizza, a Veggie Ranch Pizza, the Pizza-Without-The-Red-Sauce, and a meaty pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and onions. But alas... The busy day kept me from taking pictures. Then, just last weekend, we had friends from Columbus stay with us, I made lots of yummy food like a spicy hot Mexican spinach dip and artichoke/eggplant sandwiches, but once again, pictures were not taken.

Maybe it's all the coming and going, maybe it was my son being sick last week (he is MUCH better now - thanks!), but one thing I have been doing - cooking from allrecipes.com and OF COURSE taking pictures of the final product to upload on the site. If I have said it once, I have said it a MILLION times, allrecipes.com is my favorite food site! The recipe database is HUGE and I love the fact that you can upload pictures, rate and review recipes. The reviews are especially handy because you can see what other people have experienced during their attempts to make the recipe.

So, as to not leave my faithful and AWESOME readers waiting any longer, I decided to upload and blog about a few things I have made recently from allrecipes.com. The first recipe I am sharing is the Original Blue Cheese Cole Slaw. For all the meat eaters that read my blog, this recipe was originally paired with a buffalo chicken sandwich (and I thought that sounded really tasty - if it wasn't for the whole vegetarian thing, I would be on that bandwagon!) I served this slaw one Settlers night with jalapeno melts (veggie burgers on sourdough bread with sauteed onions, sliced jalapenos, and pepperjack cheese - a burger that is made quite often at the Luckey-Meyer home). I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out really good! There is only one thing I would caution people about - the next day the blue cheese had taken over the slaw! That is all I could taste at lunch the next day and it was overpowering for my own tastes (which - you know it was strong because I LOVE cheese!) So, my suggestion would be to eat it all the same day!!!

That same Settlers night I also made these Twice-Baked Mashed Potatoes. They are a take on twice-baked potatoes, only instead of putting the potato filling back into the skin, you put it in a baking dish and let it bake with some cheese on top! I did not follow this recipe exactly, as I thought some adjustments were needed to please my particular crowd. Instead of using the green pepper and onion mixture it called for, I used about 5 green onions. I sauteed some garlic with the onion, and of course used fake bacon instead of the real stuff. These turned out better then expected and I will DEFINITELY be making these again and again and again. A bit time consuming, but they do take a little less time than real twice-baked potatoes (because you don't have to stand there stuffing however many individual potatoes), so if I were you, I would give these a try!

Finally, earlier this week I made this Really Creamy Fettuccine Alfredo. I have never attempted a homemade alfredo before, and this one seemed easy enough. Because of my lack of experience with this sort of food, I followed the recipe exactly, only adding some steamed broccoli at the end. Next time (and there will be a next time because this was like one of the easiest dinners ever!) I will cut back on the cream cheese (and by cream cheese, I mean neufchatel of course). Maybe add some more parmesan or try to substitute some with sour cream. I would only do this because the cream cheese was the main flavor in this dish, and that's not really the alfredo flavor I was looking for. Also - another word of caution on leftovers - the next day the sauce had turned clumpy and the taste was almost null. I didn't even finish it to be honest because I felt like I was eating just plain, clumpy noodles.




Next post I will have a complete meal! PROMISE! Till then - Happy Cooking!!!



***Also - QUESTION for all my computer geek friends... So - I am having trouble figuring out how to evenly space my photos, paragraphs and the like on my blog. I am only using the generic posting tools for blogger, but it's funny, because I will evenly space everything on my template, but then when I publish it, everything is all uneven again (as I am sure you have noticed! I promise I am trying to keep a clean blog!!!) HELP!?!?! Anyone?