Zucchini Bread: FAIL

Note to self: use more cooking spray and cook a lot longer than recipe says. The husband said it still tasted good and ate most of a loaf. Maybe not a complete failure?

Homemade Tortillas

One of my new favorite food websites is Our Best Bites. They have fabulous and simple recipes. A few days ago I tried the homemade tortillas:

As you can see, I had a hard time rolling out a circle:

I figured they'd taste the same (and they did). Maybe I'll invest in one of those pie crust measuring mats... Cooking them was trickier than I thought.

I over-cooked several and they were pretty much inedible, but the ones I thought would be undercooked were perfect (they're the ones on the bottom of the pile in the first picture). I also made the taco chicken, black beans(I didn't add the coriander because I didn't have any and I used water rather than broth, but it still tasted fine), lime cilantro rice (I used left over brown rice warmed up in the microwave and skipped the pineapple) and creamy lime cilantro dressing. We put that all together with romaine lettuce and mozzarella, for a fantastic dinner that I'll make again.......soon.

r's Random Tip #1

Months ago, we had an ant problem.  Thousands of teeny-tiny yellowish ants crawled around our apartment.  (I don't think that we're particularly dirty, but with 2 kids the floor is often covered in crumbs right after vacuuming.) Eventually they made it to the pantry.  Oh the horror!  It was awful.  I had to throw away many boxes of cereal.  We had someone come spray but they must of missed a spot, by the pantry no less.  So, I took matters into my own hands.  I picked up several cans of Raid and proceded to empty the pantry:

Yes, my kitchen is the size of a closet.  Seriously.  Anyway, I got fancy plastic cereal containers, as well as one for each of the sugars.  I filled up the granulated sugar container and had about half a bag that didn't fit.  So I stuck it in the freezer with the flour.  Bad idea:

These are the shards of sugar that have formed.  Sugar to shard ratio is about 1:3.  Apparently what works well for flour, does not work for sugar.

Tip #1:

Do not store your sugar in the freezer.  (though I would guess that most of you are smart enough to have figured that out already)

Sweet Cuppin' Cakes?

Never fear, dear readers! I'm back. Of course, I never actually went anywhere. I'm not really sure why I haven't posted for so long. But here's a doozy for you: Yesterday, I made these Chocolate Balsamic Raspberry Cupcakes from Love and Olive Oil. The cake part was sooooooo good. Moist, light and fluffy, and chocolaty. mmmmmmm. I didn't have any almond meal or soy milk, so I just added more flour and used good ol' regular cow milk. The frosting.........well, it was a bit tart but good.......I just didn't love it with the cake. Too make it more pipe-able, I doubled the butter and added a bit more powdered sugar (I also used frozen raspberries rather than fresh).
And it has to be said: looking at this picture makes me think of this Cake Wreck. Just scroll down a bit, you'll see what I mean.

Not-So-Creamy Spinach Alfredo

I love the frozen Bertolli pasta meal Chicken Florentine & Farfalle and I've been trying to recreate it at home. I didn't think it would be too hard, I just needed a creamy Alfredo-type sauce. I found a recipe and this is what ensued: Looks scrumptious, doesn't it? {heavy sarcasm} I'm pretty sure things went badly because I used whole milk and butter instead of cream. Let me share this tragedy with you.

Not-So-Creamy Sauce:

4 cloves of garlic, minced

4 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 cups whole milk

10 oz package frozen spinach, thawed and drained

parmesan & mozzarella cheeses

cooked pasta

.

Melt butter with olive oil. Add garlic and cook for a couple of minutes. Add milk and simmer. Start getting nervous when the butter doesn't combine with milk and the sauce refuses to thicken. Think that the parmesan will save the sauce. Add it and the spinach. Watch it get worse. Desperately ask your husband for suggestions. Listen to his idea and throw in a bunch of mozzarella. Once the spinach and cheeses have clumped together, toss with pasta. Choke it down while apologizing profusely. Try to believe your husband when he says that it tastes fine.

Enjoy......or not.