Hoisin Glazed Chicken Breasts

From Cooking Light, originally here

Ingredients

1/4 cup hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice
1 tablespoon low-sodium soy sauce
2 teaspoons bottled minced garlic
2 teaspoons dark sesame oil
3/4 teaspoon bottled minced fresh ginger
Cooking spray
4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
4 lime wedges

Preparation

Preheat broiler.

Combine first 6 ingredients. Remove 2 tablespoons of hoisin mixture, and reserve to brush on cooked chicken. Line a shallow roasting pan with foil; coat foil with cooking spray. Place the chicken on prepared pan. Brush 2 tablespoons of hoisin mixture evenly over chicken; broil 5 minutes. Turn chicken over; brush with 2 tablespoons of hoisin mixture. Broil 5 minutes or until chicken is done. Spoon reserved 2 tablespoons of hoisin mixture over cooked chicken. Serve with lime wedges.

This was a pretty standard Cooking Light recipe, I'm finding. They really love using garlic, ginger, and hoisin sauce, but it works so I'll keep doing it. This was really easy to put together, especially since the sauce really lends itself to not measuring.

I served it with brown rice. I wanted to serve it with broccoli on the side, but discovered all I had in the freezer was broccoli stir fry, which was pretty good too. (It just now occurred to me that I have fresh broccoli in the fridge. WOOPS!)

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Originally found here.

I've never made pulled pork before, but was looking for something that wouldn't require much of my time the day before the party. I decided on this, and we were very happy with the results.

I used a small cut of pork butt. It was three pieces, which the butcher at Shop Rite suggested when I told him I wanted to make pulled pork (when he showed me the pork butt I should use, I balked and said, "Um, there's only two of us.")

I also used a can of root beer (Shop Rite brand!) and store bought creole seasoning (because I had it).

This is definitely a keeper in our house. In fact, I will probably be making it the next time we have a big party, we liked it that much!

your favorite cut of pork (shoulder, butt, whatever you like)

8-12 ounces of root beer (some girls use Coke)

spices (I used Emeril's essence)

your favorite BBQ sauce (I used Dinosaur)

Put pork, root beer and seasonings in the crock pot and cook on low for 7 hours. Drain the crockpot, and add the BBQ sauce. Cook on low for 30 more minutes. Remove from the crock pot and shred, adding more BBQ sauce if you like. Serve on sandwiches!

Magnolia Bakery Cupcakes, Part 2

I frosted them with store bought icing, and they were outstanding. The cake was divine, and since it was so darn easy, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to use a box mix.

The cake with store bought icing was clearly good enough for Baby SBF's first taste of cake:

Cat in the Hat Cake

I am by no means an artist. In grade school, I drew an Easter bunny that came out looking like a camel.

When we started to plan The Boy's first birthday party with a Dr. Seuss theme, I found this on the internet and though, "Hey, she said it was easy. That's what I'll do." But then time got in the way, and that plan went out the window.

We then decided we would cut a cake in the shape of The Cat in the Hat's hat. In the middle of the night before the party, I decided it would be way too much and way too easy to screw up, so decided instead to frost the cake white and draw on the hat.

Somehow, my little plan worked, and here's what came out:

Who wants a $50 gift card???

I found a contest!! WOOHOO.
It's for a $50 Target gift card.

Check it out here
and please say that Christina from feistybaby.blogspot.com sent ya!

Spaghetti Sauce

Things happened last night, and dinner didn't get started until 6:30. So I went looking for something fast... I found ravioli in the freezer, so that was dinner.

I did, however, have the cooking urge, so I sought out a pasta recipe for the stovetop. I found one, but actually made some of my own modifications!! I CAN do it!!!

Original recipe found here

1 med. onion
1 carrot
1 stalk of celery
2 cloves of garlic
2 tbsp. olive oil
1 can (28 oz.) whole tomatoes & puree I used crushed tomatoes
1 c. water
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. basil
1 bay leaf

Chop finely in blender: onion, carrot and celery. Chop garlic the same, but separately. Saute onion in oil until tender. Add garlic, carrot and celery and cook until tender. Add tomatoes, water, salt, pepper, basil and bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then simmer uncovered for 10 minutes. Pour through a food mill (optional). Discard solids. Simmer 15 minutes. Will thicken if chilled overnight.

I added in a frozen cube of red wine, a can of tomato paste, and some oregano in during the tomatoes step. I didn't measure at all. I found it to be a bit too salty, but BAJ thought it was fine. I did, however, add way too much water. I didn't food mill it, but I do wish I had chopped my carrot thinner. In short, the flavor was decent, but I probably should have added more tomato paste to thicken it up after adding too much water.

Magnolia Bakery's Vanilla Birthday Cake and Frosting

Recipe originally found here

The cake was very very good, and I will for sure make it again. The frosting, through no fault of the recipe, didn't turn out so great. I think the problem was that I substituted for powdered sugar (from here). The frosting turned out grainy and just plain yuck. I also added 2t of raspberry extract, just to try it out. I definitely got some of that flavor, but BAJ said the frosting was flavorless.

Picture of my poor sad wimpy frosted cuppie coming soon.

No cooking in these parts

We are without stove/oven for awhile. It conked out in the middle of making dinner for my parents on Thursday. It seems the computer went haywire, and will cost $150 to replace. It also might not fix the problem, so it looks like a new one is in the works.

We went to a few stores and finally decided on a range at Sears. For some really really stupid reason, the warehouse that ships to our town is out of stock. If we lived one town over, we could get it. How stupid???

So now we either have to wait until this warehouse has them again (luckily, they are holding the sale price for us), decide on another range, or go to a different store.

It can never be easy, right?

One Pot Thai

This came from my new cookbook from Food and Wine Magazine, One Dish Meals.

I liked that it was so veggie filled. I'm not a huge fan of radishes, but they worked in this dish. It's a recipe that calls for ground pork, but ground turkey was on sale, and that's what I used. It was pretty good and I'll probably make it again, but we're not RAVING about it.

Cleanup was nice, though, since it technically only used a skillet and a cutting board (although I didn't use a large enough skillet at first!)

Fried Tilapia

This was a recipe for Fried Catfish from ATK. I wasn't sure if I would like catfish, and tilapia was on sale, so away we went.

It was pretty good, although not delicious. It was a little bit too much of the SAME for me to eat a whole filet. I served with corn on the cob and McCain's steak fries.

Catch up

Wow, it's been a while.

First, HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY! My little boy is only 26 days away from being one. Absolutely unreal.

I went away for awhile to Colorado for some work type stuff. It was an awesome trip, but after being cooked for, cleaned up after, and not having to do any domestic stuff for a week, I had a hard time adjusting and we went out to eat a bit more than normal.

I HAVE been cooking, but haven't yet uploaded any pictures, so those are coming soon.

I've decided to take a hiatus from TWD. Money is tight right now and I just don't have the energy for baking at this time. We'll see if I can manage it again in the fall... hopefully I can because I really enjoyed being part of the group.