Bunches of recipes

Last week I realized that my poor bloglines was overflowing with recipes that I had saved but never made. We went through and picked several to make during the week. I had planned to only post the ones that were good but it turned out they were all good so here is a recap of all of them. I'm going to post links to the original posts instead of retyping all the recipes since we made very few changes.

First was Monkey Bread from Dine and Dish. I picked this to make first to really get Kay in the mood of new recipes and it worked! Who could resist a pile of cinnamon rolls!

As you can see, we had a few issues with ours. It did not come out of the pan very well and the very center was still a little raw. We ate it anyway! It was really good. I think we might try spreading them out on a cookie sheet next time instead of using the bundt pan.

Kay: The outside of this was kind of hard and the middle wasn't cooked but the parts that were cooked right tasted really good. I want to make this again but I want to cook them separately on a cookie sheet.

Next we made this cucumber salad from Absolutely Green. The blog is in French but if you scroll to the end of the post, the recipe is translated into English.

I took this to my parent's house for a get together. We all went to the pumpkin patch but our buffet looked more like it was meant for 4th of July. It was 90 degrees that day! Kay didn't try this (there was a ton of food) but I heard good things from other people about it. I liked it but I expected the coconut milk flavor to come through a little more.

Then I made a broccoli and chickpea pasta dish from Words to Eat By. The date of this blog post will give you an idea of why my bloglines is so full! I didn't take a picture of this because it looked very similar to several other broccoli and pasta dishes that I've already posted. It didn't taste the same though. After two bites, Kay looked at me and said "this is really good!". We all really liked this and it was a nice change from all our other broccoli recipes.

Kay: This was my favorite recipe of the week. I don't like chickpeas much but the broccoli tasted really good.

The next day, we had a meal made up of several side dishes, two of which were new. First was gingered carrots which was from two different blogs, Vanessa Cuisine (which is in French) and La Tartine Gourmande (in English). They were slightly different and so I took ideas from both of them.

Kay isn't a big fan of carrots but she did eat some of them. We eat roasted carrots often with just salt, pepper, and olive oil. This was a nice change.

Kay: I don't like carrots!

That same night, we had Indian spiced cauliflower and potatoes from Smitten Kitchen.

I really liked this and it was a great excuse for using the new pan my mom bought me! One warning though. This does not smell so great when warmed up and I got several complaints at work the next day. Oops!

Kay: The cauliflower and the potatoes were ok but I don't think I like the spices that are on these.

Now for my favorite out of all the recipes this week. Carrot Spice Muffins from Fatfree Vegan Kitchen.

I have some kind of crazy metabolism that keeps me hungry and eating pretty much all day long. I thought this would be a nice healthy snack that I could eat at work between breakfast and lunch. These were way better than I ever dreamed! Days later they were still really moist. Plus they are so healthy I didn't even feel guilty drizzling some glaze on them! I didn't have agave nectar and so I substituted honey instead.

Kay: I liked the glaze but I don't like carrots, even in muffins.

And now for the final recipe of the week, apple and chocolate tart from La Popotte de Manue. I'm always a little nervous when I have to translate recipes from French just because the ingredients may not translate so well. This one worked fine though so I guess I got it pretty close!

Here is my translation of this recipe.

Combine one egg and 2 tablespoons of milk (I used vanilla almond milk) in a stand mixer at high speed until well combined and light. Reduce the spead to low and add 250 grams of flour and 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder. Mix well. Add 50 grams of melted butter and mix on high until it forms a ball (mine never did so I formed it into a ball with my hands once it was well mixed). Cover the bowl and let sit 30 minutes.

Line a 9 inch square pan with parchment paper. Spread the pastry dough on the bottom of the pan (I pressed it down with damp hands). Chop 100 grams of chocolate (we used chocolate chips). Spread half the chocolate over the pastry. Quarter and core 3 apples and then slice them. Arrange the slices standing up around the edges of the pan and then circling in until the entire top of the pastry is covered. Mix the remaining chocolate with 2 tablespoons of sugar and sprinkle over the top of the apples.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes.

Manue suggests topping it with apricot presserves but we didn't.

It was really nice to have apples with something other than cinnamon and nutmeg. Plus, in my opinion, chocolate make everything taste better!

Kay: I don't know what is up with the apples I always eat lately but they always taste too sour when they are cooked. I liked this more than the apple crisp my mom makes though because it had chocolate on it.

All of these recipes have now been printed and added to my permanent recipe file and so now my bloglines is at least a little lighter!