Recipe Reviews! Week 10

Somehow, this week, I did not make a dessert-type of recipe! I usually try to have a variety, but I guess the sweet side got skipped this week. Sorry! The recipes I did make include...

Tassajara Granola

I'm pretty sure this recipe came from Mary Z., a lady I worked with when I lived in Montana. I have been wanting to find a granola recipe that we
like, and decided to try this one. I used sliced almonds, honey, maple syrup, and safflower oil. I was starting to add the raisins when Jason walked in and said he didn't care for raisins in granola. And, he never told me what dried fruit he would prefer, so I didn't add anything else. Oh, I didn't freshly grind the cinnamon; I don't have a spice or coffee grinder.

The Honest Review: It was good, but I don't think I did the recipe justice. I may have slightly burnt the sauce part, as I don't understand what the "heat until it turns watery" means. And, when I was toasting it in the oven, it over toasted a bit. (Our oven rarely holds a steady, or accurate, temperature which can negatively effect my baking.) Jason said it was pretty good, but as he has stated before, he likes chunky granola. I would like to try this recipe again, without burning it, and see how it tastes. This recipe will stay in our collection at this time.

Bacon and Double Cheese Quiche

I don't really know where I acquired this recipe, but I have been lugging it around for a very long time. Since we like quiches, it wasn't too hard to decide to try this one. I did have to hunt around to get the Gruyere cheese, but I forgot to get white pepper so I just used black pepper. I actually made a half recipe for this one.

The Honest Review: Little Pumpkin liked, and ate, this quiche! We liked it quite well, too, but I've started rating the quiche recipes by if Pumpkin eats them or not. This is definitely a quiche that we want to make again. It had a really nice balanced flavor. My only complaint was the crust: I never have good experiences with blind baking pie crusts and, as usual, the sides of the crust fell down during the blind bake. Jason thought the pie crust texture was crispier than my usual pie crust recipe, and it was very flaky. This recipe is staying in our collection.

Alterations: Figure out how to keep the sides of the crust from falling down during the blind bake.

Farmhouse Barbecue Muffins

This is another recipe from the old Taste of Home magazine. Typically, I turn into a food snob with recipes that take "instant" things, like pop-biscuits (that's what I call refrigerated biscuits). I thought about making my own biscuit dough, but I was at the store and decided to just buy a can and follow the recipe.

The Honest Review: They were unique. I once again messed up the recipe- it called for a 10oz. can of 10 biscuits, and I ended up with a 10oz can of 8 giant biscuits. So, the biscuit part was a bit too much. The barbecue part, well, none of us were especially fond of it. Jason didn't really care for it that much, and it just tasted kind of funny to me. We decided that we liked the concept of this recipe, but not the ingredients. This recipe is tossed from our collection.

Chicken Pot Pie

This recipe was on the back of the quiche recipe. We like chicken pot pie, but I've never really followed a recipe before. I did go get some white wine to use in this recipe. I'm not an expert on what white wine is best for cooking, so I got a Sauvignon Blanc. After tasting it, I figure I probably should've gotten a drier wine, but I'm not sure how that affects the cooking part.

The Honest Review: It was very tasty! I thought it was a fairly rich dish, but Jason didn't think so. There aren't a lot of competing flavors in this dish, so it is a simple, delicious chicken pot pie. Jason asked to please have this recipe again. The one issue I did have with this dish was that it bubbled and leaked onto the top of the crust, and it was kind of soupy. I tried to follow the recipe exactly, so maybe it is supposed a bit soupy. It was still delicious, though! This recipe will stay in our collection.

Alterations: I am looking for suggestions on how to keep pies from leaking?

Broccoli Rice Casserole

Yet another Taste of Home recipe cut-out from ages ago! I almost didn't make this recipe as it calls for a jar of processed cheese spread. I can't stand that stuff! But, in the spirit of trying all the recipes we have, I decided to go ahead and make it. I actually looked for the jar of processed cheese spread, but couldn't bring myself to buy it. Instead, I used Velveeta cheese- I know it's the same thing, but at least it's in a block and not in a jar!! Oh, I also used regular milk instead of buying evaporated milk.

The Honest Review: I was hoping no one would like this dish so that I wouldn't have a recipe with processed cheese spread in my cookbook! But, Jason REALLY liked it. Very much. As did Little Pumpkin, he declares. I ate some of it, too, and it was pretty good. I just couldn't stop thinking about the processed cheese spread! Oh well, I can try alterations. This dish did honestly taste good, and would be a nice side to a meal. This recipe is staying in our collection.

Alterations: Use shredded cheddar cheese, maybe try making a white sauce with white wine and mushrooms to replace the cream of mushroom soup.

Mini's Best Burgers

This recipe comes from my sister, Miriam. I have looked at this recipe several times, but Jason always "dumps and stirs" his hamburger mix whenever we grill burgers. So, I've never tried it before. Since it called for extra lean ground beef, I used our ground elk meat that is really lean. And, I let it marinate overnight. I also made hamburger buns using my mother-in-law's pizza dough recipe ( that you can find that in Week 1).

The Honest Review: It was different. They weren't bad, but the flavor was kind of unusual. Jason said he couldn't figure out just what it was that tasted odd, even after I told him what all was in it. Also, and this may be the fault of the elk meat, they were fairly dry unlike what the recipe said. I guess the dryness could also be the fault of the griller- I'm definitely not an expert! Sorry, Mini, but we were not big fans of the burger recipe. This recipe is tossed from our collection.

Since I don't have any dessert recipe for this week, that concludes the Recipe Reviews. I hope you enjoyed it and maybe got some new recipe ideas!

If you have experience blind baking pie crusts, especially recipes taking butter, do share in the comments how you keep the sides from falling down during the blind bake. And, if you know how to keep a pot pie, or pie in general, from leaking out the top, please teach me!