Can You Say Culinary Challenged?

Salad Dressing Goodness....

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:54:00 +0000

This is one of my favourite salad dressings. Note that it's the "Lighten Up" kind. That's very important! It tastes kind of vinegary and lemony and wonderful! I especially like it over cut up english cucumbers and grape or cherry tomatoes. Yum!

BBQ Summer Skewers

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 14:34:00 +0000

BBQ Summer Skewers

This is an adaptation from the recipe Sensational Sirloin Kabobs on allrecipes.com that my friend Angela told me about. It's soooo good! Below is my variation based on what our family prefers.

INGREDIENTS:

1/4 cup soya sauce

3 tablespoons light brown sugar

3 tablespoons distilled white vinegar

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt

4 fluid ounces Sprite or 7Up

2 lbs beef sirloin stead cut in 1 1/2 inch cubes

1 green bell peper

1 red bell pepper

1 yellow bell pepper

10 - 12 mushrooms, whole

1 zucchini

DIRECTIONS:

In a medium bow, mix soy sauce, light brown sugar, distilled white vinegar, garlic powder, seasoned salt, and Sprite. Reserve about 1/2 cup of marinade for basting. Place steak in a large resealable plastic bag. Cover with the remaining marinade and seal. Refrigerate overnight.

Preheat grill. Thread steak, peppers, mushrooms and zucchini onto skewers in any order you'd like.

Cook skewers on the grill for 10 minutes or till desired doneness. Baste frequently with reserved marinade as they cook.

NOTES:

* You can use any vegetables you'd like. Choose what your family prefers.

* We like our bell peppers undercooked so they remain crunchy. If you prefer yours much softer then you can cook you peppers in boiling water for roughly a minute first before putting them on the skewers.

Enjoy and Happy 4th of July to all my American friends!

Cupcakes....

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 22:08:00 +0000

I made these last week for an Etsy Craft Party I was attending. I am in love with these cupcake liners. They're from the wonderful shop HeyYoYo on Etsy. They're thicker than most I've used so they keep their shape and don't become nearly as transparent after they're cooked. Yay!

Happy Weekend!

Please forgive me? I have chocolate!

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 21:42:00 +0000

I have neglected this blog soooo badly! I have in all honesty not tried a new recipe since March. Bad huh?! So far I'm failing miserably at my challenge. This blog may be taking on a different life in hopes of at least getting updated. We'll see. In the meantime I'm going to bribe you to still like me by giving you a link to the most amazing looking dessert. Holy Wow! It's called The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie n' Oreo Fudge Brownie Bar and it can be found on the fun blog Kevin & Amanda. Enjoy!

Life is a Cookie Bowl!

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 20:25:00 +0000

I've been very bad at keeping up with this blog. Not a great way to start out. I neglected to factor in life when starting this challenge. Life has been busy the last few weeks. Just too much going on all at once. I have still managed to get dinners on the table but not new ones that's for sure! So I apologize and while I get back on track I'll post some foodie eye candy for you to enjoy instead starting with this amazing Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bowl recipe I found on the blog Michael Ruhlman via Pinterest. Yum!

Honey & Soy Baked Chicken Thighs - New Recipe #4

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 22:27:00 +0000

This was so yummy I may have had 4 thighs just myself....but I did have to share with my daughter so it was probably more like 3.5 which is so much more respectable!

Ingredients!

This weeks recipe comes from Tidy Mom (I'm sort of lovin' this blog) but more specifically Amy from She Wears Many Hats who guest posted this recipe on Tidy Mom. This recipe is super easy and it turned out so yummy that I wouldn't change a thing except the cooking time but that's because in the 6 short weeks that we've lived in our new house I have discovered quickly that our oven cooks hot!!! Wow! At anyrate I have a cold and words are not coming easily to me today so without futher ado I give you....

Honey & Soy Baked Chicken Thighs (recipe straight from She Wears Many Hats via Tidy Mom)

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons soy sauce
5 tablespoons honey
4 cloves of garlic; minced (or substitute 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder)
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper
3 pounds (approximately) chicken thighs (or preferred chicken meat)
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

- Preheat oven to 425°F.

- Mix first 6 ingredients together in a large plastic zip-top storage bag. Add salt and pepper to taste. Add the chicken to plastic bag making sure to coat each piece.

- Place chicken in baking dish along with sauce/marinade or leave in large plastic bag to marinate in the refrigerator.

- When ready to cook, in a baking dish, bake chicken in a 425° oven for 25 minutes with the skin side up. Turn the chicken and cook another 15 minutes. Then turn the chicken again to skin side up and finish cooking for another 10 minutes to crisp up the skin. Cook until internal temperature of chicken reads 165°F. Note: I would have liked the chicken to be a tiny bit crispier but that was my ovens fault not the recipe. My oven cooked this chicken so fast I didn't have time for the last 10 minutes with the skin side up. I'll have to modify the cooking time next go round. :)

Chicken taking a delicious bath.

Before!

Quick Fun Fact: I've owned this Corelle baking dish for 10 years and this is the first time I've cooked with it. Yeah.....

After

We ate this with sticky rice and it was soooo good!

Lemon Linguine - New Recipe #3

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 22:22:00 +0000

I think I'm done with recipe books. I'm throwing in the towel. They aren't accountable. They sit on our shelves on in our cupboards laughing at us, knowing that they're filled with terrible recipes and one day we'll try one and there won't be any retaliation towards them. I mean yes we could spill water on them or throw them in the fire but are we really going to do that, no. I think I'm going to stick to blogs. Blogs are accountable. When someone posts about a recipe they know that at any given time a reader can post a comment about their love or hate of said recipe. I mean yes everyone is different and we all have different tastes and really what are the chances that someone is going to rage on you for posting a recipe they didn't like but still, it could happen! Blogs are way more accountable than recipe books.....that's what I think anyway.

Ingredients

So why the long winded rant at the beginning of this post? Well this weeks recipe did not turn out so good. I got it from a recipe book in my cupboard. I don't even know where the recipe book came from but it has a few yummy sounding recipes in it so I thought I'd give one a try. Did I mention already that it did not turn out so good? The pasta ended up having this weird texture/coating to it and the taste was way too lemon heavy. Still I do think it could be good but perhaps with a lot of tweaking that I'm just not capable of doing. Here it is none the less.....try at your own risk!

Pasta before sauce....looks good huh? Don't be fooled!

Lemon Linguine

8 oz. (250g) linguine, cooked and drained

1 tbsp. (15ml) olive oil

2 tbsp. (25ml) chopped fresh parsley

1 tsp. (5ml) grated lemon peel

1/2 tsp. (2ml) freshly ground pepper

3/4 cup (175ml) chicken stock

2 tbsp. (25ml) fresh lemon juice

2 tsp. (10ml) cornstarch

1/4 tsp. (1ml) salt

Dash (dash, haha) nutmeg

2 tbsp. (25ml) grated Parmesan cheese

Combine cooked linguine with oil, parsley, lemon peel and pepper. Meanwhile, combine next 5 ingredients (stock through nutmeg) in saucepan (this is the part where I think everything went wrong but maybe not....). Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat; simmer until thickened, about 2 minutes. Toss linguine with sauce and parmesan. Serve immediately. Serves 4 as a side dish.

I added shrimp to ours and I'm so glad I did as it was the only yummy part! I love shrimp. I defrosted some frozen shrimp and then warmed them up with some butter in a frying pan then added them to the pasta at the same time I added the sauce.

The lemon lime Koolaid we had with dinner was super yum! Good old Koolaid, hard to screw that up!

Herbed Roast Beef - New Recipe #2

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 13:00:00 +0000

This weeks recipe comes from the show Best Recipes Ever. It's on CBC (a Canadian channel) so I'm thinking it doesn't run in the U.S. but the internet is a marvelous thing so here's a link to the recipe from the Best Recipes Ever site.

I give this recipe 1.75 thumbs up but it's not really it's fault, it's not my fault either though....okay maybe a little. The recipe itself is really easy and really yummy and this is by far the best roast I have ever made, EVER! The reason it doesn't get a full 2 thumbs up is simply because the roast itself was a bit tough due simply to the one I picked. I'd probably try a different cut next time or be more selective in choosing the Sirloin Tip Oven Roast suggested in the recipe. With that said, on to the good part!

The ingredients....don't they look pretty!

Herbed Roast Beef

(4 servings)

1 tbsp (15 mL) balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp (15 mL) vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp (2 mL) dried thyme
1/2 tsp (2 mL) dried oregano
1/2 tsp (2 mL) grated lemon rind
1/2 tsp (2 mL) cracked peppercorns
1/2 tsp (2 mL) salt
3 lb (1.4 kg) Sirloin tip oven roast
1/4 cup (50 mL) all-purpose flour
2-1/2 cups (625 mL) beef stock
2 tbsp (25 mL) tomato paste

* In small bowl, combine vinegar, oil, garlic, thyme, oregano, lemon rind, peppercorns and salt; rub all over roast. This is always my favourite part. I'm not really sure why.

* Place on rack in roasting pan; add 1-1/2 cups (375 mL) water to pan. Roast in 500°F (260°C) oven for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 275°F (140°C); roast until thermometer inserted in centre registers 150°F (65°C) for medium-rare, about 1-1/4 hours. It doesn't actually say this in the recipe but when I watched the episode that this recipe was on the reason you start out at such a high temperature is so that the roast will get a nice carmelized crust on it. I have to admit this didn't happen with my roast but either way it cooked really well so I'll keep following the temperature recommendations. : ) Also I highly recommend that you use a meat thermometer for this recipe as it ended up being done a half hour early. More on this below.

* Transfer roast to cutting board; tent with foil and let stand for 10 minutes before thinly slicing. Be aware that the roast juices ran everywhere!

* Meanwhile, skim off any fat from pan juices. Sprinkle with flour; cook over medium heat, whisking, for 1 minute. Whisk in stock and tomato paste; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened, about 3 minutes. So adding the flour to the pan juices seemed a bit weird and made my gravy a wee bit lumpy no matter how much whisking I did but it still tasted super yum. The tomato paste seemed strange too but again it was yum! Definitely on the thick side though and I don't know if that's because I let it simmer too long or if it's just a thick gravy.

Here's my lovely roast all rubbed up!

Left - my meat thermometer. The thermometer itself sits on the counter but has a cord attached to it that goes into the oven and a metal piece at the end is inserted into the meat. Awesome! I've only used it once for this recipe but it worked great and without it we would have had a very tough roast as it reached the correct temperature half an hour before the time given in the recipe.

Middle - super thick but tasty gravy.

Right - the roast was very tired and needed a rest, blanket and all. ; )

Yum, yum, yum! We like our roasts a little on the rare side but we followed the recipe and this is what we got so if you like your roasts cooked a bit more you'll just need to keep it in the oven a bit more.

If you try this recipe out please let me know. I honestly can't say that I'll make this exact recipe again but it was good and I will be making other roast recipes so if this one ends up being our favourite when it's all said and done then I'll be back.

Pulled Pork - New Recipe #1

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Well I'm super pleased and excited to say that the first new recipe I tried and the one that inspired this wee old blog turned out soooo good! Like I'm talking jump up and down, holy crap I can't stop eating it good! It comes from the awesome blog Tidy Mom which I just discovered a few weeks ago and have become a huge fan of. She apparently got the recipe from The Pioneer Woman. I followed Tidy Mom's version to the letter. It was delish and is the recipe posted below but from my experience. Thanks Tidy Mom!

There seems to be a million and one recipes for Pulled Pork out there but I'd never tried any as most of them seem to be BBQ Sauce heavy which is something I enjoy but the hubs isn't too fond of. The reason I tried this one is because Cheryl's (Tidy Mom) description of the recipe just made it sound beyond delicious and there's no BBQ Sauce in sight. This recipe is basically a merinade without the merinading part that makes the pork taste oh so yummy but the beauty is if you want to add BBQ Sauce each person can add as much or as little as they'd like.

The first night we had baked potatoes with the Pulled Pork as is and the second night we had left over Pulled Pork on Kaiser buns which we added BBQ Sauce to (again to each person's liking). I'm not a huge fan of leftovers but oooooooh man this recipe is scrumptous even on the second day. Now on to the recipe!

Wet rub (is that even a term?) or perhaps merinade (not sure what to call it) without the liquids first simply because I thought it looked pretty and again with the liquids added.

Pulled Pork

4-7 pounds pork shoulder (you could also use pork butt)
1 tsp Chili powder
1/4 cup Brown Sugar
3-4 Cloves of Garlic minced
1 tsp dried Oregano
1 tsp. Ground Cumin
2 Tbsp Salt & Pepper
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
3 Tbsp Red Wine Vinegar

* Rinse roast and pat dry.
* Mix all ingredients together (except roast) in a bowl.
* Rub all over roast.
* Spray roasting pay with no stick spray and place roast in roster. Add about 1-1/2 cups water and cover with lid. Roast at 300, 4-6 hours (1 hour per pound) – turning every hour.
* Remove the lid and roast it by turning the oven up to 400 and let it cook, skin side up 15-20 mins. This will crisp up the outsdie, yum! (This step caused some oven smoke so be sure to turn on your vent fan if you have one)
* Let it sit for about 10 mins. then shred with two forks. (This is the part that gives me hand cramps but it's worth it!)
* Pour juice from the pan over the pork and serve!

Pork in it's raw form and pork in it's cooked form.

I have to admit that shredding pork or any meat is not the funnest job. It makes my delicate hands cramp up but for this recipe I'll sacrifice!

The second day......Shredded Pork leftovers on a bun with BBQ Sauce and raw veggies. Because, as I've mentioned I'm not the best cook around I really wasn't sure of the best way to warm the pork up. I've used the microwave in the past but it's just okay so this time I put the pork in a sauce pot and added a bit of water and heated it up so that it basically steamed and oh man was it ever good. Not dry at all! Just be careful how much water you add or you'll end up with a soupy mess!

I hope you've enjoyed my first recipe. I hope to have many more for you! If you do end up trying this please let me know how it went! Happy eating!

The What and The Why

noreply@blogger.com (craftedbylindy) — Sun, 13 Feb 2011 14:11:00 +0000

I may have, accidentally but kind of on purpose started a new blog. You see I already have two of my own and contribute to two others so starting yet another one puts me in the category of "what is she thinking" but here's the thing, I really like blogging and I have a really good idea! I had to do it! haha!

I'm Culinary Challenged and that's putting it nicely. I'm a terrible cook, just terrible! I burn Pillsbury Apple Turnovers everytime I make them which begs the question as to why I keep buying them! It's become a standing joke between me and my dear hubs for quite some time. Well I've just moved into a fancy new house, with a fancy new kitchen, complete with a fancy new oven and I'm bound and determined to figure this whole cooking thing out. So I've started a blog and I'm challenging myself to make a new recipe every week and post it along with pictures and details on how my culinary adventure went down.

I can't promise that the pictures will be gorgeous and I can't promise that the posts will be the whittiest things you've ever read (as I'm language arts challenged as well) but I can promise a new recipe each week (I'll try my best) and some fun along the way.