Category: food

Today’s project was Japanese Cheesecake, which the husband and I made following this recipe from the Green Cilantro blog. The best description I read of this type of cheesecake is that it “looks like pound cake, tastes like cheesecake.” I won’t disagree, it certainly tastes quite similar to a cheesecake.

The only deviation we made was using a 9″ springform round instead of a 7″, since we couldn’t justify buying a 7″ for a single recipe. This made our result flatter than what Green Cilantro pictured. For some reason ours never became golden brown on the top even though we cooked it following their times (even had it got a bit longer). It tastes fine, but for the amount of time it took to make it compared to a traditional style cheesecake, I can’t say we’d bother with it again.

We had our hands full most of the time, but I did manage to grab a few pictures while we were getting the many different pieces together.

Here’s about halfway through, with the butter/cream cheese mix and the egg yolk mix on a double broiler waiting for the milk to be added. Yes, our stove needs cleaned. 😛

The husband mixing up the components of the meringue.

Full mixture in the 9″ round with the husband adding boiling water to the broiler pan underneath.

After going through the full baking time, plus a bit extra during the “temperature to 160°C” point. The little flakes were from bumping into dried mixture on the parchment paper.

We definitely expected the flatness, but were a bit disappointed that it didn’t hit that golden brown color on top. Like I mentioned before, it tasted good, but wasn’t spectacular enough to likely bother investing the time into again. Definitely worth trying at least once if you like cheesecake, though!

Tomorrow’s project we get to enjoy as a side for dinner: Cauliflower Cheesesticks!

Today’s project was Taco Seasoning, which simply entailed mixing everything together from the spice list in this pin.

We had tacos for dinner, using the directed two tablespoons of seasoning per pound of hamburger, plus 1/3 cup water. It had a great smell and tasted just fine (though my husband said it could use a bit more cumin). All the kids were happy with the dinner, including my nephew who said they were “the best tacos I’ve ever had!”, though I have no idea if that was just him being polite or if they were actually spiced that darn well. 😉

Tomorrow’s project should be an interesting one… it’s a Japanese Cheesecake!

Today’s project was another dinner one: Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese. I followed this recipe by the Short Stop blog for it.

The big question I try to answer with these food projects is “will I make this again?” For this one, I’m torn. It was tasty, sure, but there is so much cheese in this recipe that you could accurately just call it “Crockpot Cheese”, as the macaroni is barely noticeable aside from texture. My friend suggested halving the cheese next time, so I suppose that’s what I’d do if we do decide to give it a whirl again.

The recipe is simple: cook pasta, layer in crockpot with cheese and butter, add milk, cook for four hours on low, stirring at the 2-hour mark. I managed to partially screw one part up: I forgot to add the milk until the two hour mark, but at the end it still seemed to be blended appropriately anyway.

Onward, to pictures!

Bottom layer of cooked pasta, cubed cheese and butter.

All the components added, sans the milk I forgot.

At the two hour mark, where you can see I remembered to add the milk!

At the end of four hours.

Cheese, cheese, cheese everywhere!

I did have one out of three children refuse to eat it, but he’s a picky six year old who thought I was going to be making boxed Mac & Cheese and was offended by my offering. The other two ate it just fine, with the eldest asking for seconds.

Tomorrow’s project is Taco Seasoning! By coincidence, my children decided (without knowing) that it was taco night tomorrow, so we’ll get to try it out as well!

Today’s project was Homemade Nutter Butters. The recipe I used was from the Cookies and Cups blog. The only modifications I would do next time is use less than one-inch rolls (mine came out huge compared to hers) and one cup less powdered sugar in the filling (the taste is close, but too sweet). Our yield was about 33 sandwich cookies and they taste great. Pictures of the creation process are below!

After mixing the butter, peanut butter, and sugars.

Not much difference, but after the egg and vanilla extract were added.

After mixing in the flour, baking soda, and baking powder. At this point I put it in the fridge for just over an hour.

Rolling into “logs” and shaping it.

The first tray I did on the left, hubby’s on the right.

Here’s how the filling looked after mixing it all!

Hubby adding the filling to a cookie. He advises having the filling at room temperature!

The taste is fairly close to the real thing! Definitely one to bake again in the future. 🙂

Tomorrow’s project is a Confetti Bowl!

Today’s project was Ranch Crockpot Pork Chops and Garlic Cheddar Biscuits. The crockpot pork chop recipe was from Life in the Lofthouse and the Garlic Cheddar Biscuit recipe was from Jenna’s Journey.

I don’t have many in-progress photos because one you simply dumped in a crockpot to cook all day and the other only took a couple minutes to mix up. They both turned out tasty, and the recipes are sound. My kids devoured both for dinner (they even had extras on the biscuits). I do have a few comments, included with the pics below!

The pork chops turned out fine. My gravy wasn’t as thick as shown on the recipe, but it may be because my husband accidentally got one can of Cream of Mushroom soup (someone had put it in the Cream of Chicken soup section, oops!). The gravy still tasted fine, anyway, though I think I’ll try Cream of Broccoli next time.

The pork was tender enough to easily cut with a fork. I cooked it for six hours on low, occasionally stirring and flipping.

The biscuits were simple and mixed up in only a few minutes.

It recommends refridgerating them for 15 minutes, and I actually had them in for almost 30 minutes. I wish I had them in longer though because they did not want to shape nicely. While they tasted just like I would imagine garlic cheddar biscuits would, my youngest child put it aptly when he stated that “Mom made us garlic cheddar pancakes!”

Next time with the biscuits I think I’ll grate up a cheddar cheese block rather than use pre-shredded cheese, and probably cool the dough for several hours.

Then dinner was served! Everyone ate well and it was a rare meal where none of my children complained. That’s a score in my book!

Tomorrow’s project is Paper Bag Booklets!