Recipe Reviews

I've tried several new recipes over the past few weeks. Most of them were good, but a few weren't so good.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Who isn't on the hunt for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe? I had a craving for some a few weeks ago and really wanted to make good ones. I usually follow the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag. Those turn out alright, but not memorable. I came across this recipe on Pinterest (did you expect anything less?). It claimed to be "the best chocolate chip cookie recipe ever" by another pinner. So I gave it a try.

Oh.my.cookies! Heavenly! I whipped the dough together fairly easily and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. I followed the recipe exactly, using sea salt where it calls for either sea salt or table salt. After it sat in the refrigerator overnight, I baked the cookies for 12 minutes exactly. They turned out perfectly crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside. The sea salt gave them the perfect sweet/salty taste. I definitely ate more than my fair share!

Breakfast Casserole

As we were planning for company during the Florida Fellowship, I hunted for good breakfast ideas. I knew that I wanted to do a "traditional" breakfast one morning, but I wanted other ideas for the other mornings. Breakfast casserole can be an easy breakfast idea, but it can also be tricky to find one that is tasty. This one hit the spot!

My additions/changes to this recipe were that I used a pound of Johnsonville Sage sausage. We really like the flavor of the sage sausage. I also used 6 or 7 eggs instead of just 5. For the spice mixture, I used salt, pepper, a little garlic, onion powder, oregano, rosemary, dill, and thyme. I didn't measure any of those, but I would say a healthy amount of each. Maybe 1/2 tsp. salt, garlic, onion, oregano, rosemary, dill, thyme and 1 tsp pepper. I also didn't measure my cheese (who does that?), but I think I probably used a little more than 1 cup. I assembled the casserole in a freezer pan and stuck it in the freezer a week or two before the meeting. I put it in the refrigerator overnight, then baked it like the directions say in the morning.

It was scrumptious! I loved the spice combination a lot. I have a hard time eating eggs, so the more hidden they are, the better! Several of us wanted leftovers later that night!

Chocolate Chip Cheesecake

I made this recipe for church one Sunday. It was easy to put together and was very yummy! I used a 9-inch store bought graham cracker crust. The filling made WAY more than what could fit in the crust. I ended up saving some of the filling and using it later in the week. I made a 10 inch graham cracker crust and made another cheesecake with the rest of the filling. I didn't make the chocolate glaze, but I'm sure it would have added to the deliciousness!

When I made it, I put a handful of extra chocolate chips on the top of the cheesecake after it had baked for about 10 minutes. A lot of the chocolate chips from the batter sank to the bottom while it baked, so this helped it to have a layer more towards the top of the cake. Again, it was a good sweet/salty mixture with the graham cracker crust.

Country Club Chicken

We eat a lot of chicken around here, which doesn't always go over well. I like chicken a lot more than I like beef and I find it's easier to be creative with chicken. So, when I find a new chicken recipe that sounds interesting, I'm excited to try it out! This recipe was one of those that I was excited to try. At first glance, the flavor combination sounds odd: chicken (yum), bacon (yummo), cheese (yum), creamy sauce (yum), apple (saywha!?!). I make another chicken recipe with pureed apple that is pretty good, so I thought this might be good too. Well, it didn't quite live up to expectations.

It was a bit time consuming and used a lot of dishes to prepare. It was a very rich dish and it had an interesting flavor. We didnt' care for the flavor of the sauce. I'm not sure if it was the apple, or the combination of several things. I can't even describe what it was that we didn't like about the flavor. It was just odd. In an unappealing way. But, you might think differently if you try it!