Following other people’s recipes

For all the recipes I find in cookbooks, magazines, and blogs, I don’t make very many!  I’d say they serve as inspiration mostly.  My taste preferences usually then guide me in tweaking things to make them how I want them.

But in the past few months I’ve been drawing blanks in my kitchen (I crave nothing and because of this I cannot for the life of me create menus in advance).

So basically I have been (a) remaking my faves over and over (and over) again; and (b) (finally) making things I’ve starred from these other sources.  So here are a few that I’ve made recently and recommend.

These cajun crab and quinoa cakes from Cooking Light.

Tasty, but didn’t hold together well.  Needed more egg (or some other binder).

This crispy orange cauliflower by Cara at fork & beans.

 

I prepped it all during the day (yay nap time!) so it was all ready to go come dinner time, but then I met up with some friends at the park and ended up hanging at the farmer’s market into the early evening.  By the time I got home it was time to start P’s bedtime routine and I didn’t have the energy.  So we ate leftovers and I made this for the next night.

I served it over brown rice and added cashews to bulk up the calories.

This shakshuka from the NY Times (via Teri at A Foodie Stays Fit).

I nixed the feta and stirred in some plain lactose free yogurt.  I also served it over quinoa and sautéed spinach.

So good!  Truth be told I don’t think the plain yogurt added much, so I’d probably ditch it if I were to make it again.

I already told you about these recipes here, but they were all fantastic and I would happily eat them again and again.

These cookies (which you’ve all been asking about) were inspired by Averie’s chocolate chip and chunk cookies).

I mostly followed her recipe for the dough, but used only all-purpose flour (no bread flour) and swapped the cornstarch for more flour.  I also used baking flour instead of soda, and nixed the chocolate chips.

Instead of the chocolate chips, I placed Hershey’s kisses in the center of each scoop of dough.  They weren’t done in the (written) 8-10 minutes, so I baked them a few extra minutes.  Perfection!