Oatmeal Blueberry Pancakes

What did you make?

I made some half flour and half oatmeal pancakes with blueberries! I followed a standard recipe that said it was possible to substitute up to half the flour with oats or whole wheat flour.

How long did it take?

It took roughly 30-40min because I made the whole batch of pancakes. Mixing together the ingredients is not so bad and making pancakes can be fun if you aren't too hungry.

How did it taste?

It tasted pretty good. It had the right texture for pancakes. It was a bit less fluffy than I would hope though so I give it an 8.

Rice Krispies Treats

What did you make?
Rice krispie treats! You can't really mess up this recipe unless you burn the marshmallow or something but all you have to do is melt a bag of marshmallows with some butter and pour it onto the rice krispie treats.

How long did it take?
I think it took around 3o minutes for everything to melt, mix, and cool.

How did it taste?
I would give this a 9. I love the texture and gooeyness of rice krispy treats!

Blueberry Lemon Yogurt Olive Oil Cake

What did you make?
I made a lemon and blueberry cake that uses cake batter with a yogurt and olive oil base. I zested some lemons and added frozen blueberries as the topping. I also added some powdered sugar into the lemon juice so that you can pour it on top of the cake while it is still hot.

How long did it take?
Roughly one hour. The kitchen clean up, zesting, and the numerous ingredients take up quite a bit of time.

How did it taste?
It tasted great! I would give it a 9. Olive oil and yogurt cake batter result in very moist cakes that are very rich tasting too. I liked the citrus of the lemon and the added taste of the blueberries too.

Cultural Exchange

Thanks to Sara and Ola from Sweden and Nina from Germany

What did you make?

I recently had friends visiting NYC. On their last night they made a few dishes for me. The first is a greek yogurt with garlic. Cucumbers and red onions can be added and we ate this with crackers.

The main course was stir-fried chicken with roasted potatoes and vegetables. We also used the yogurt base for the chicken and vegetables.

How long did it take?

I'm estimating 45 minutes. The potatoes take longer than the other components of the meal.

How did it taste?

This was very tasty and simple. I would give it a 9 because it was also eaten with good company :) Roasted potatoes with some spices are very satisfying and it is hard to go wrong with chicken.

Taboule Salad Part 2 aka Multipurpose Fusion Meals

What did you make?

The taboule salad (refer to post below) was good but the real meal was being created on the fly. I needed a more substantial and colorful dinner and something for lunch too!

For dinner I added some salad and mixed in a few spoonfuls of the taboule salad. I also had made a garlic vegetable stir-fry (mushrooms, frozen spinach, frozen green beans, and frozen mixed vegetables--- also a chicken tender was chopped in there after I microwaved it so that there was some meat) that I added to the taboule and salad mix.

For lunch the ingredients were largely the same but I added a bit of mozzarella cheese, blue cheese, and some chipotle hummus for extra color, texture, and taste.

How long did it take?

Both the lunch and dinner together took around 40 minutes. I kept adjusting the taboule salad so that took some time. Waiting for the stir-fry to finish also took awhile since my vegetables were mainly frozen.

How did it taste?

So far I've only had the dinner salad but it was a 8. I was too lazy to add more balsamic vinegar but it needed just a little more of a kick.

Taboule Salad Part 1

What did you make?

I followed the recipe on the back of Trader Joe's whole wheat couscous box to make a version of Taboule salad. I used 1/2 cup of boiling water, 6 tablespoons of olive oil, and 1/3 cup lemon juice as the liquid base to 1.25 cups of couscous. I was really surprised by the amount of olive oil called for. I also found that the couscous was not really cooking with just one cup of boiling water.
I modified this recipe by putting this on the stove on low heat. I also added some of the juice from the garbanzo beans to add moisture to this mix. I seasoned the dish with just some salt and pepper and dried oregano. I was also considering adding tuna but I decided to leave it vegetarian with just garbanzo beans and chopped tomatoes.

How long did it take?

This took around 40 minutes only because I was multitasking as I made this. (keep an eye out for Taboule Salad Part 2). I think this dish could be made in 20 minutes if you only boiled enough water for the dish instead of a whole tea kettle's worth.

How did it taste?

I would give this a 7.5. I really like the taste of garbanzo beans in this dish and tomatoes were also nice. In the past I added some white vinegar to this dish and I kind of wish I had done that this time because while my taboule tasted good I think it could have used an extra kick.

Infinity/10- Chocolate chip cookies with attitude

Priscilla from Santa Clara, CA made these delicious chocolate chip cookies that she ranked Infinity out of a scale of 10 :)

What did you make?

This is a long overdue post about some supercalifragilicious cookies I made on March 12, 2008. My oh my were they delicious! I am hoping they are not a fluke because every time I've made chocolate chip cookies before they tasted hard. I don't mean even Chips Ahoy hard but rock hard nasty. These most recent cookies, however, turned out oh so heavenly soft yet chewy at the same time. I tried really hard not to eat them all by sharing them with my buddies, yet every time someone took one of them away from me, I mean graciously accepted my tasty gift I felt secretly resentful.

What did I do differently this time?

The big thing I did that I had never done with making cookie dough before was melt the butter. Yes that's right, I did not cream the butter at room temperature. Rather, I nuked the room temperature butter into a golden liquid lusciousness. Another thing I did was allow the eggs and all the other ingredients to sit out to room temperature. Usually I am too lazy, impatient, or unprepared to let the ingredients reach their optimal temperature for cookie dough ingredient goodness but this time I wanted to see if such a thing made a difference. Who knows, maybe it does and maybe it doesn't.The walnuts I added impromptu gave it a nice crunchy texture.

Finally, I did not skimp on the butter or sugar. Come on people! If you want to make a cookie, I am sorry but it cannot be also low-fat, low-calorie, or low-sugar. After making these cookies I am even more convinced that you are better off eating nothing rather than a half-assed cookie, which now in my opinion is not a cookie at all. One day I will try these methods again to see if I can reproduce the results. I will keep you posted. Enjoy the cookie porn. Too bad they are all gone.

How long it took: 45 min

How did it taste: infinity/10