Personal Egg and Sausage Pizzas

So much potential, and it just didn't pay off for me...but the family liked it.  I found this recipe in the mymagzine that was mailed to my house from Smith's.

I've recently discovered naan flatbread.  I like to eat it warmed up with a bit of butter.  Or I've used the little rounds of naan bread to make mini pizzas for my kids with spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, and fresh basil.  But this recipe was about Breakfast for Dinner.

The first thing I would say is LINE THE COOKIE SHEETS WITH PARCHMENT.  The flatbread stuck to the pan and the egg mixture baked onto the pan.  Clean up was awful.  The hash browns didn't add a lot of flavor and I wonder if baking them before (or using Alton Brown's recipe) would make a difference.  I bought and cooked sausage links and cut them up instead of pre-cooked sausage patties to crumble.  I think patties would make more sense and be easier to sprinkle across the surface of the pizzas.  I shredded my own cheese instead of buying the finer shredded store bought stuff.  I think a finer shred would act as a barrier to the egg mixture better than what I did.  I didn't dice the tomatoes small enough, but they lost the fresh tomato taste and were really yummy being roasted (yes, this is coming from someone who doesn't like tomatoes).

All these good ingredients ended up for me with a bland taste and not worth the effort.  (A bland quiche is what it reminded me of when I was aiming for Christmas Casserole.)  However, the kids liked it, and Nate ate two full flatbreads.  Maybe with a bit of practice, I can get this one to work.

Salt-Baked Potatoes with Roasted Garlic and Rosemary Butter

 Two posts in one day because this recipe needs its own post.  To quote Nate, this recipe is so good that "if we weren't already married, I'd marry you on the spot!"  High praise indeed.

I found this recipe back in 2012 from America's Test Kitchen and I have always been pleased with the results.  (Email me if you need to for the recipe.)

What made today different, and worthy of renew our vows, was that I used Yukon gold potatoes instead of russet and Nate had roasted MANY cloves of garlic earlier in the week to make his own "garlic butter" (without the butter.). When served with sour cream and chives and the garlic butter (and accompanying the Glazed Pork Chops) this was a fantastic dinner.

This recipe takes time (1 1/2 hours) but the results are worth it.  The potatoes are soft and creamy inside and the skins are crispy and delicious.  And even though I made extras to finished off the bag of potatoes, there were no leftovers.  I love it when I get a recipe right.

Glazed Pork Chops with Apricot-Ginger Sauce

 Day 3 of New Recipe week and I'm still working in the Our Best Bites recipe book with Glazed Pork Chops with Apricot-Ginger Sauce (again, the recipe is coming from someone else's blog).  I liked this recipe, but I need some practice with it to make it better.

I overloaded my pan with too many pork chops, so cooking was slow.  I didn't pull out my cooking thermometer, so the pork chops were overcooked and dried.  I only purchased apricot preserves instead of apricot-pineapple preserves and the flavor was definitely missing.  The spices didn't penetrate the pork as much as I would want, so next time I will let it sit for 10 minutes or so before cooking.  (That's a tip from this wonderful pork recipe from Cook's Country.)

With all those problems, the pork did turn out good, and my husband (who doesn't generally like pork) said that I should do this one again.  That is a win in my book.

Orange Chicken with Snow Peas

 Day 2 of new recipes this week and I'm serving rice again to my husband.  Yikes!

Orange Chicken with Snow Peas is another recipe from Our Best Bites (but the link to the recipe is to someone's blog).  This was a 4 star recipe, that my husband liked...with the rice.  Yay!  The store didn't have any snow peas, so canned peas it was, but the chicken was flavored wonderfully and everyone liked it.  (Okay, my son wasn't a fan of the ginger.).  The chicken would be really easy to overcook, so be careful.  However, the sauce needs time to thicken up, so there's a really fine line to work with for perfection.

Black Bean Soup

 It's cold and I want warm food.  That means another soup recipe.  In fact, this whole week's worth of recipes is new.  I hope my family forgives me for subjecting them to so many new recipes in one week.

I received Sara Wells & Kate Jones' recipe book of Our Best Bites several years ago for Christmas, and am still working my way through all of the recipes.  So, this week's stuff all comes from there.  Today I tried their Black Bean Soup.  I was "souper" worried because I don't normally serve black-colored food for dinner (besides chocolate), and while the kids seemed apprehensive, they didn't actually say anything.

The soup itself tasted really good and smelled really good when cooking.  I don't use my immersion blender often, so that was a new experience.  (And took a really long time).  I liked adding taco chips and cheese to the soup.  I would definitely make this recipe again...

...but not as a soup.  At dinner, Nate said, "You made a really good bean dip."  And he was right.  The texture was off for soup, but if I'm ever asked to bring a bean dip, this will be what I make.  Yum!

Brown Butter Chicken & Rice

 On the back of the Herbed Skillet Pastitisio recipe page, there's another appealing picture for a recipe called Brown Butter Chicken & Rice.  Just a couple of ingredients, and a quick amount of time brought this recipe together.

I really liked how easy the recipe was to cook, and I loved the aroma of spices that I was using.  But the recipe had some problems, too.  I struggle cooking regular white rice outside of my rice cooker, and this time was no exception.  The rice was undercooked and crunchy--not a good thing for my husband who doesn't like rice.  Green beans are out of season, and canned beans just didn't add anything special.

In the end, I liked the chicken and the flavor of the rice,  my oldest did too; but we were alone in our approval of this recipe.  That makes this recipe get 2 stars and the recipe gets tossed.

Chicken Barley Soup

Several years ago, Nate bought a Low-Glycemic cookbook from Deseret Industries (a local thrift store).  I  have been so impressed with the flavors in this book and how full everyone is.  Not everything is a success (I'm looking at you, Sweet Potato, Carrot, and Ginger Soup), but this book has definitely added some fun recipes to my files.  And here's another one.

So, this isn't a new recipe per say because I've cooked it before, but none of my family remembers me serving it in the past, so I'm going to count it.  This is a great recipe for a Sunday because it takes a while to poach the chicken and cook regular barley.  However, I "cheated" this time on a Tuesday with left-over shredded chicken from another meal and "quick barley" which was all I could find at the store.  The chicken was a little dry versus previous time when I've poached and cubed it myself, but it wasn't horrible.

I took a knife cutting class a couple of years ago, so I got to practice my knife skills with the carrots, celery, and onions.  Yay for vegetables.  I left out the mushrooms (eww, gross), but hesitantly added the spinach.  Glad I did.  It was fun to watch it shrivel up and it actually tasted pretty good in the soup.  Even the kids didn't complain, so that's a win.

In the end, this recipe gets 3 stars from us and will remain in my Winter menu rotation.  If you want a copy of the recipe, email me.