Houston Style Carnitas

You probably get that I'm very inexperienced at cooking meat by now, but I was even able to make these really, really good carnitas. I did exactly what the recipe said and even though it looked and smelled unappetizing in the beginning, I let it keep cooking and by the 2nd hour it was looking like real carnitas.


I added some guacamole, onions, cilantro and lime. Pickled red onions would be a great addition. Make this, impress your friends. (I forgot my camera so these are iphone photos courtesy of Ilya)

Jambalaya

Let me preface this by saying I rarely make rice in a pot- I mean I always use a rice cooker. That might explain how my "jambalaya" pretty much turned into a risotto. I guess I had too much liquid in the pot... but it was still good. Oh and those burned black bits? That happens when you forget to stir the rice and there's a nice burned layer of rice at the bottom of the pot... which you then accidentally stir up.... at least it still tasted okay.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

This is a reaaallyyyyy good recipe for carrot cake. I used this recipe for the cake and this recipe for the frosting. I didn't use the can of crushed pineapple and it was still ridiculously moist and delicious. I'm not sure how it would even stay together if I had used the pineapple.

I even liked the frosting! And I'm not a big fan of cream cheese frosting (tastes... weird to me), but I used a whipped cream cheese so it was very light.

YAY more PIZZA!

I've come a tiny bit closer to a good pizza recipe. This recipe comes from Saveur and was inspired by Pizzeria Mozza one of my favorite restaurants in LA. It was surprisingly easy to shape and there's a great accompanying recipe about how to shape a pizza. I ended up making 2 large (and way too doughy) pizzas, 1 of which was for lunch. There is just no good way to microwave this type of pizza, it gets doughy and chewy... egh. Next time I'll just make 1 pizza to eat right away.


I made my regular (marina with a lot of sliced garlic) and a potato rosemary "pizza." Not sure it counts as pizza when there's no cheese or sauce!

Chocolate and Pecan Cookies

This is another recipe to use the huge bag of pecans I bought to make the german chocolate cake. This is Dorie's Best Chocolate Chip cookie. That would be Dorie as in Dorie Greenspan. There's a great group of blogs that makes a new Dorie Greenspan recipe every Tuesday (known as Tuesdays with Dorie). A good way to learn how to bake although sometimes the recipes are beyond difficult.

Now the blogger I got this from tested various resting times and temps for the dough so I decided to pop my cookies in the freezer for a bit before baking. It seemed to work- I didn't have time to freeze the last batch and they spread out into thin (and burnt) cookies.

Chocolate cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting

Sorry peanut-allergic friends, it's another peanut butter recipe. This time it's a dark chocolate cupcake with peanut butter frosting. I had some soft caramel candies left over from the samoa's so I melted it in intervals in the microwave. Be sure to use a very large bowl because the caramel bubbles as it heats up and if you don't use a huge bowl you'll end up cleaning caramel off the bowl sides and the microwave like me.

These were really good- you can't go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter. I also chopped some pecans and sprinkled some on top so you weren't as overwhelmed by all the sugar. The cake was surprisingly not that sweet so you can eat the whole thing without feeling like keeling over from sugar overload.

Oatmeal Cookies

I know, I know- not like I've never made an oatmeal cookie before. But these are different- I usually use the oatmeal cookie recipe on the Quaker Oats box or a crispy oatmeal cookie recipe, but this is different. They are both crisp and chewy, without falling apart in your hands. They have a lot of butter though which you can feel free to decrease. I added raisins because I have a big bag of raisins to use and they're good for you.

Samoa Bars

I have a hate-love relationship with Girl Scout cookies. a) why aren't they available year round? b) why are the boxes SO SMALL.

Well now you can make your own- except they'll be called "bars" because you are much too lazy to cut out donut shaped cookies and they're delicious as is.

I made very messy cookies- I don't know how the blogger was able to have crumb-less bars. Mine were falling apart as I dipped them in chocolate so I had to freeze them for a bit. This was very helpful in using all the leftover coconut from the german chocolate cake.

Mac and Cheese (with broccoli)

I know what you're thinking- another mac and cheese? Well this is mac and cheese, with Beecher's Flagship Cheese Sauce. If you haven't had Beecher's mac and cheese, stop and book a flight to Portland go mosey on over to Beecher's. If you're a cheese hound you will probably find yourself suddenly overwhelmed, if you are lukewarm about cheese (like me) you will be amazed and a little weirded out by all the cheese products. You can even watch them make cheese!

It's not a ground-breaking recipe by any means, but the addition of chili powder is a welcome change. I added broccoli so as not to feel so depressed about the amount of cheese + pasta consumed. Also I used a gruyere from Whole Foods and it was the smelliest gruyere I have ever used! I had to use a outdoor micowave at work. beware...