Golden Cinnamon-Pumpkin Bars

Prep Time: 21 minutes
Cook Time: 30-45 minutes

Grade: A-

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Whole Grain Baking

I wasn't sure if I liked these right away, but I did end up really liking them, after they cooled completely. The pumpkin flavor was more subtle by then, and the cinnamon became more pronounced.

Chicken Divan Pasta

Total Time: 40 minutes

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Me - inspired by Cook's Country Modern Chicken Divan

I tried changing up the Modern Chicken Divan recipe from Cook's Country to make it a little more appealing to me. I had really liked the flavor of the sauce, and I love chicken and broccoli, so I wanted to find a way to make it really work for me. My goals were:

1) quicker. I don't care if I mess up another pot, if I can make something faster.
2) lighter (don't want to use a full cup of cream in a weeknight dish). However, this is still not a truly "light" dish
3) some sort of carbs included in the recipe, like pasta
4) using more reasonable ingredient amounts (I hate it when a recipe calls for strange amounts of chicken broth - like 2.5 cups of broth, meaning I had to open a 2nd can).


So here is my version:

Chicken Divan Pasta

Serves 4

1 1/2 pounds broccoli , florets cut into bite-sized pieces
1 T. vegetable oil
1 small onion, minced
2 T. flour
1 3/4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1/3 c. heavy cream
1 1/4 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in half, and sliced into bite size pieces, about 1/4" thick
1/2 c. dry vermouth (or sherry)
2 t. Worcestershire sauce
1 c. grated Parmesan Cheese
salt and ground black pepper
2 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoons unsalted butter
8 oz pasta (I like Gemilli or Bow-tie)

1. Bring large stockpot of water to boil while starting to prep ingredients

2. When water boils, add 1 T. salt and broccoli. Cook for 1-2 minutes until bright green and starting to get tender. Remove with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels.

3. Bring water to boil again and add pasta. Cook until just al dente and drain. Set aside.

4. Meanwhile, heat oil in 12" pan (or a dutch oven, if you have 2nd large pan not being used for the pasta) over medium-high heat until almost smoking. Add onion and cook for a minute or two until softened.

5. Add flour and stir for a minute.

6. Add broth and cream, scraping up bits from bottom of pan. Stir until sauce is not lumpy from flour, about a minute or two.

7. Season chicken pieces with salt and pepper and add to sauce. Stir to break up pieces. Cook for a 3-4 minutes until chicken is cooked through (time will depend on size of your pieces.) When cooked, removed chicken from sauce with a slotted spoon, and place in a clean bowl.

8. Add vermouth and Worcestershire sauce to the sauce and simmer until slightly reduced, 2-3 minutes. Stir in Parmesan.

9. Whisk lemon juice and yolks in a small bowl. Stir in 1/4 cup of the sauce. Remove pan from heat, and add yolks mixture into the sauce, whisking immediately. Whisk in butter.

10. Add broccoli and chicken back to the sauce. (If you are using a 12" skillet or saute pan, you might want to combine everything in pot you cooked the broccoli and pasta in instead, for more room.) Stir carefully to combine everything and reheat briefly.

11. Optional - place in ovenproof dish, add a little more parmesan to the top and broil for a few minutes (put dish in middle of oven, not at the top.)

Classic Brownies

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Cook's Illustrated (March 2004)

This recipe is somewhat similar to the One-Bowl recipes found on the Baker's square box, but uses more sugar, chocolate and eggs. CI doesn't like Baker's chocolate, but it is what I am used to for brownies, so I don't mind it.

Lemon-Oat Squares

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Whole Grain Baking

These were good and fairly easy, but it does involve getting out the food processor to process some oatmeal. I really liked the crust on this. And the filling was easy using sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice. A nice way to get lemon flavor but easier (and better, I think) than lemon squares.

Low-Fat Meaty Lasagna

Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 45-60 minutes (sauce)
Assemble Time: 5 minutes
Bake Time: 25-30 minutes
Rest Time: 20 minutes

Grade: A+

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Cook's Country (February 2007)

This was better (and easier) than I thought it would be. Lasagna can be a pain, but the sauce was not that hard to put together. I did use less mushrooms (about half) because they only had baby portabella at the store and they were kind of expensive. Plus I don't love mushrooms. But the method of chopping them up in the food processor was easy, and made them very easy to take and fit into the sauce nicely.

I did not cook my sauce enough and it was a little bit watery. Next time I'll let it go longer. The bechamel sauce on top was very easy and tasted pretty good. Overall, I am pretty happy with this recipe. It was much easier to put together than most lasagnas, because it doesn't have ricotta or cheese. I love the Barilla no cook noodles too - they end up tasting almost like fresh pasta, so this is a nice dish and one I would serve to others. They would be surprised it was light. (I think a little over 350 calories per serving.)

Update: I froze 6 servings of this as leftovers, and have been eating them almost weekly since I made this. The reheated lasagna has been very, very good. There is sometimes a slight bit of separation in the cheese sauce, and maybe a tiny bit of grease that seeps out, but it is pretty minor and everything really tastes great still. I like that the Barilla noodles don't get so thick and waterlogged liked some other pastas do when saved for leftovers.

Banana Chocolate Bars

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Rest Time: 15 minutes
Bake Time: 35-40 minutes
Rest Time: overnight

Grade: B-

Make Again: No

Recipe Source: Whole Grain Baking

These were ok, and again, definitely are better after letting rest (like the brownies). But I think the cinnamon might be too much in this. Also, I think I might just mix the chocolate chips in to the batter, instead of sprinkling on top. The recipe called for pecans (I think) to sprinkle with the chocolate, but I skipped those. The texture was a little more cakey than I like, and this was in the "Bar Cookie" category, so I didn't like it as much as I expected. I should also add that I didn't use spelt flour as called for, so that may be why.

Update: I decided after a while to toss those remaining in my freezer. I just didn't love the cinnamon banana flavor combination I think. I prefer most of the other baked goods from this book more.

Modern Chicken Divan

Total Time: 55 minutes

Grade: A-

Make Again: No

Recipe Source: Cook's Country (October 2006)

I liked this, but felt like it took too long. I am not sure that pan roasting/steaming the broccoli added anything, and I am also not sure about the browning of the chicken breasts and cooking them whole. I believe that cutting the chicken up first and just cooking it in the sauce would be a lot quicker, and I suspect the chicken would taste just as good to my taste buds.

I did lighten up this dish a bit, and it still had a very flavorful sauce that I really liked. The one thing this recipe didn't have was some rice in it, which I missed. I cooked up some egg noodles to mix in the leftovers and it was delicious. I think I am going to try to recreate this dish with my changes to make it lighter and quicker and see what happens because it does make a nice meal, and I think it could be done in just over 30 minutes my way. We'll see.

Black-Eyed Pea Tacos

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Every Day Foods (April 2004)

It was a perfect time to use this recipe, because I found some frozen black-eyed peas in the freezer that were over a year old! (last used here) I wasn't sure if they would taste ok, but they did. I also had some leftover goat cheese, and corn tortillas and cilantro, so everything was aligned for this dish. I love it when I don't have to buy anything to make a recipe, especially a unique one like this. I used up some corn I had blanched and frozen last summer from the farmers market and it still tasted great. (So much better than store bought!)

I thought this recipe sounded strange the first time I read it, but I love goat cheese, so I tried it. I find it very tasty and I have made it several times since the first time. I don't even really like corn tortillas, but the combo of ingredients of this one work with them. I do spray them with a little non-stick spray and heat them in the oven, making them more tasty. I also don't used canned peas, but frozen. So these need to be started cooking right away while prepping other ingredients, since they take 20 minutes to cook.

Overall, I think this is a good, healthy, unique meal.

Molasses Spice Cookies

Prep Time: 21 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes (per sheet)
Cool Time: 5 minutes (on pan)

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Sources:
~ Cook's Illustrated (Jan 2002)
~ The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook
~ Baking Illustrated

The prep time includes rolling all cookies in sugar. I get more than 22 cookies from this recipe, because I like them a little smaller (and then just eat more!) I'm not sure what is better, this one or the Everyday foods Ginger cookie recipe. I really like spicy cookies.

King Ranch Casserole

Prep Time: 45 minutes
Cook Time: 25 minutes
Cool Time: 10 minutes

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Cook's Country (April 2007)

I heavily modified this recipe, which I will describe more below.

I really liked how this turned out. I have tried some of the chicken casseroles from Cover & Bake, and this seemed a little bit easier and less rich to me. It was spicy and flavorful, and I liked the reddish creamy sauce. I always like casseroles in the winter, so I can see myself making this again. The prep took a while, but really, there was some free time in there where I was able to clean up in my kitchen, so it didn't feel like a lot of work.

I didn't want to make as much to serve 8 people, and I wanted it to be a little bit lighter. However, it is by no means a "light" recipe. I just know that ATK casserole recipes often are too "saucy" for me and also the sauces that use cream, are often to rich for me. So I adjusted accordingly - using less cream, less cheese and more tomatoes. I have some ideas for future changes so I am going to record the ingredients here. I think I will skip the jalapeno in the future and just use pepper jack cheese in addition to using a diced tomato with chiles in it.


My Version of King Ranch Casserole

8 (6-inch) corn tortillas
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 medium onion, chopped fine
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 15-ounce) can petite diced tomato with chiles
1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. heavy cream
1 15 oz can low-sodium chicken broth
1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts (2 large), halved lengthwise and cut crosswise into 1/2-inch slices
3 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro
2 cups Pepper Jack cheese, grated
Salt and pepper
1 cup Fritos, crushed (about 3 oz)

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Spray tortillas with cooking spray, and bake on sheet until slightly crisp and browned, about 12 minutes. Cool slightly, then break into bite-sized pieces.

3. Heat butter in Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook onions with 1/2 t. salt and cumin until lightly browned, about 8 minutes.

4. Add tomatoes and cook until most of liquid has evaporated, about 8 minutes.

5. Stir in flour and cook 1 minute.

6. Add broth and cream, bring to simmer, and cook until thickened, 2 to 3 minutes.

7. Stir in chicken and cook until no longer pink, about 4 minutes.

8. Add cilantro and cheese and stir until cheese is melted. Season with salt and pepper.

9. Scatter half of tortilla pieces in 2 quart casserole or baking dish. (Place on rimmed baking sheet if pan may overflow). Spoon half of filling evenly over tortillas. Repeat.

10. Bake until filling is bubbling, about 15 minutes.

11. Sprinkle Fritos evenly over top and bake until Fritos are lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

12. Cool casserole 10 minutes. Serve.

Double Chocolate Brownies (Whole Wheat)

Prep Time: 30 minutes
Cook Time: 30 minutes
Rest Time: 24 hours

Grade: A

Make Again: Yes

Recipe Source: Whole Grain Baking

Part of the prep time is waiting for the butter sugar mixture to cool, so these really don't take much time. Actually, it could have been quicker if I was willing to move the mixture to a bowl after cooking in my pan. But I was enamored with the idea of not dirtying a single bowl when making these, so I waited. It is so easy cleaning my non-stick saucepan, I just like the idea of only having to wash that!

I did try these out of the oven before waiting for the rest to soften the bran. I thought they tasted pretty good then, but a little crunchy. The overnight wait really did soften the bran and these were very good. Of course, brownies don't have a lot of flour in them, so using whole wheat doesn't have a huge impact.

Actually, the interesting thing to me is that a brownie made with only cocoa would taste this good. I've always used unsweetened or bittersweet chocolate with possibly some cocoa added, so I was wondering about the flavor, but it worked. Well, to be clear, these are made with chocolate chips mixed in, but the base of the brownie is just made with the Dutch cocoa. I do like these, but who knows if I will make them again. I have a million brownie recipes I like. (I truly don't understand why people make them from box mixes, because they are so easy to make from scratch and probably take about two minutes more effort. this way.)