This ‘n That: Recipe Edition

I’ve tried several recipes worth noting in the last few months, so this week’s Friday mish mash is all about cooking! For those interested, you can find all of these plus others I’ve made on my “I’ve Cooked/Baked This” Pinterest board.

— 1 —

After our second strawberry picking outing last Saturday, I decided to try make this strawberry cream cheese bread. It turned out quiet well — although you could probably argue it’s more of a cake than a bread. To me, it tastes like a strawberry pound cake. This version has chopped fresh strawberries in it, but I think the recipe would work equally well with blueberries, raspberries, or really any kind of berry. I may try that in the future.

(Fun fact: Wikipedia taught me that pound cake is thus named because it used to make with 1 pound of each ingredient — flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Who knew?)

— 2 —

After the first round of strawberry picking four weeks ago, I made Sprinkles’ Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream. We ate several ourselves and I took the rest to a Super Bowl party. This was actually the second time I’ve made these — the first was a couple years ago when I turned them into aliens. That time, I messed up the icing by adding too much strawberry puree, which made the texture really weird. This time I read the recipe more carefully and things went a lot better. (Not that they tasted bad the first time, but they were better without weird gloopy icing.)

— 3 —

Last month’s recipe club theme was “red” in honor of Valentine’s Day, so I made Pioneer Woman’s Roasted Red Pepper Pasta — the easy version with a jar of peppers, as opposed to roasting them on the stove myself. I liked this, but as I have often found with PW recipes, I felt it was slightly on the bland side. So while I’d make it again, I’d also add more herbs. Anything you find in those Italian seasoning mixtures — more basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, thyme — would work.

— 4 —

Back in December, I wanted to bake something for Emma’s daycare teachers for Christmas, and the room mom told me they all said they liked pineapple. At first I was kind of stumped, because I couldn’t think of a single dessert I’d ever made with pineapple — and I didn’t want to make a single pineapple upside down cake that they’d have to share! But then I found a Giada recipe for Mini Pineapple Cakes. I had a lot more batter than I could fit into my 6-cup mini bundt pan (I have this one) so I made several in a normal muffin pan as well. They were delicious — fluffy and moist and sweet. I put them in cute boxes for the teachers and they liked them too. If you’re a pineapple fan, you should try this one.

— 5 —

I also did some baking for my coworkers for Christmas, and gave them each a small bag of chocolate chip cookies and soft eggnog cookies. I didn’t ice the eggnog cookies but even without that, they were tasty — and indeed soft, almost cakey. When eggnog reappears in the grocery store for the holidays this year, I predict that I will make another batch of these.

— 6 —

Wayyy back in October when we were furloughed from work, I used a whole bunch of key limes from my friend Cari’s tree to make Pioneer Woman’s key lime pie. There’s not much to say about this one except YUMMMMY.

— 7 —

When Jose was out of town last month, I made a big bowl of Smitten Kitchen’s Broccoli Slaw, which I’d made once before almost a year ago for recipe club. I’d forgotten all about it and how much I liked it until last month. I think I need to add it into regular rotation — it’d be great to have in the fridge for days when I pack lunch.

(Linking up: 7 Quick Takes, hosted by Conversation Diary)