Recipes by Amanda's Cookin

Cherry Pecan Bread

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 21:22:00 +0000

Have you ever made a recipe and just not been sure if you like it or not, yet you seem to keep going back to the plate, picking pieces off and eating it? Then before you know it, it's gone? That was me with this cherry pecan bread. I think the thing that threw me for a loop was that it was baked in a bundt pan, yet it only filled the pan halfway. So I ended up with this shorty bundt when I really think it should have been baked in a loaf pan to begin with. Flavor? At first I though it was okay, nothing special, but I couldn't stop nibbling at it. I think maybe I baked it a little long because it was just a tad dry and it definitely had a tendency to crumble a bit. It wasn't very sliceable, so I would cut off a piece and use my fingers to break bits off to eat. I tried the fork, but...

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Pasta with Garlic Roasted Broccoli

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 00:01:00 +0000

I've been making a lot of pasta without red sauce lately. I still like red sauce, but have grown pretty tired of the same old same old, so trying recipes with broth or olive oil based sauces has been wonderful. Hubby won't eat a white sauce, so Alfredo is out. This particular recipe is a little different than any of the others I've tried. It calls for roasting the broccoli in the oven then at the end tossing in broth and cheese with the hot pasta. I'll try anything (well, almost anything) once. I love the addition of walnuts in this dish. It's simple and tasty, but I think it needed a little something extra. Maybe something as simple as a little salt or garlic salt would do the trick, but you could play with it easily enough. I always sprinkle garlic salt on my pasta dishes, so that...

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Peach Almond Bread with Cinnamon Topping

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 20:56:00 +0000

I'll start by saying I've never been big on peaches. Almonds, on the other hand, are a completely different story. I decided to be adventurous and try this recipe which combines the two topped off with cinnamon because frankly, it sounded good! I don't hate peaches, they just aren't up there as a favorite. I don't usually buy them, so for this recipe I grabbed a bag of frozen peaches. The verdict? Divine! I have a new appreciation for the peach. While it might not be my favorite as a fruit to each fresh, it's definitely a keeper in this almond laced quick bread. I'm not sure if it's the almond extract that brings out the flavors, or the use of the cinnamon, I just know it's yummy. At first I thought there was something wrong with the recipe because I ended up with way too much...

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Shredded Beef and Chile Enchiladas

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 15:21:00 +0000

It's no secret that I love Mexican food. I don't mean enchiladas made with condensed soup or tacos made with powdered taco seasoning packets. I love authentic Mexican flavors; fresh cilantro, roasted chile peppers, and plenty of fresh grated cheese. Earlier this year I found one of those BHG special interest publications called Ultimate Mexican. I've made several recipes from it. You might remember the sweet conchas (Mexican sweet bread), or the champurrado (thick Mexican hot chocolate), or the delicious spicy grilled chicken with baja black beans and rice. I also have a chalupa recipe waiting in the wings that I still haven't posted yet! Everything I've made from this magazine so far has been phenomenal. This recipe for beef enchiladas, one of five different varieties...

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Almond Butter Cake

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:52:00 +0000

Anything with almond is good in my book. I have to admit though, when I first read this recipe and it said to fill it with blueberry filling and then top it with vanilla cream cheese frosting, I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around all those flavor combinations. I mean really, would a simple glaze or maybe something cherry flavored make more sense? I had successfully made a recipe for Sunflower Whole Wheat Quick Bread from this cookbook (Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook) before, so I decided to trust the author's judgement and forge ahead. I think it's time for me to actually buy this cookbook. Two recipes down, both successes, always a good sign! I originally checked this book out from the library and copied a few recipes down before having to return it. Think I'll be buying...

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Mediterranean Chicken

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 01:44:00 +0000

Absolutely delicious! The pictures of this fabulous chicken dish are awful, so I apologize in advance. While the pics don't do it justice, I can tell you that the flavors in this dish all play off of each other so well, and it smells so good while it was cooking. I served it with some vegetable rice and ate every morsel of the yummy sauce. So good! This is on the must make list. See last night I had planned to make this for dinner. My two younger boys have football practice every weeknight from 5:30 until 8:00, so they weren't home. My oldest son and my teenage daughter weren't home, and hubby called and said he wasn't that hungry. But, but, but... I really wanted to make this tonight... sad face! :( So I was sitting here, pouting, when my daughter and her boyfriend walked in. I...

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Lemon Cornmeal Cake with Blueberry Sauce

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 01:47:00 +0000

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I hadn't yet made a cake with cornmeal. I had been holding on to the recipe, a page I pulled out of my Bon Appetit magazine over a year ago, and finally decided to make it. It's strangely addicting. I found myself taking bite after bite trying to determine if I really liked it or not. Before I knew it, the piece was gone. I never told anyone there was cornmeal in it, yet my oldest son, daughter, youngest son and my husband all had a piece or two and enjoyed it. Some used the blueberry sauce, some didn't. After all, it was good with just the glaze, but the sauce pushed it over the top. Cornmeal adds an interesting texture to cake, giving it a slight crunch that's noticeable but not too much that it's no longer a cake. The aroma of this cake while it...

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Cookie Sticks

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 17:18:00 +0000

Chocolate chip cookies. Would you agree that they are as American as apple pie? Or baseball? I would say yes, absolutely. While there are a few that don't care for chocolate chip cookies, you are pretty much guaranteed to bring home an empty plate if you bring some to a get together or party. That's where these cooke sticks went; to a pool party where they were quickly devoured, leaving me with an empty container. That works! I'll admit, I didn't change anything in this recipe, but I was very tempted. This recipe used canola oil, which I thought was odd considering every other chocolate chip cookie I have ever made uses either butter or shortening, or a combination of those two. It's not too often you hear of using oil. I found it on the Taste of Home website, but decided not to...

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Cantaloupe Quick Bread

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:36:00 +0000

This bread is so moist, it could pretty much pass for cantaloupe cake. In fact, I think this would be really good baked in a bundt pan with a fabulous glaze. This is a really delicious bread and would make nice muffins too. The only thing is, it doesn't taste like cantaloupe.. at all! I even cooked some extra cantaloupe puree in an effort to evaporate some of the water and create a more intense melon flavor to use in the glaze. painstakingly created a glaze out of cantaloupe puree, cooked down, some powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. It only had a hint of cantaloupe flavor for all my efforts, and once it was on the bread, you couldn't tell anyway. :-P The cantaloupe puree adds moisture, much like when you make a banana bread. I guess the flavor just isn't strong enough to...

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Spiderman Cake and Homemade Marshmallow Fondant

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:15:00 +0000

Late last week my 16 year old daughter asked me to make a Spiderman cake (yes, technically Spiderman should be hyphenated as Spider-man, but for the sake of my sanity I am typing it in this post as Spiderman, no hyphen.) for her best friend's birthday. I was surprised to hear that her BFF wanted a Spiderman cake, but my daughter insisted that she was indeed obsessed with all things Spiderman. So who am I to question, or for that matter, to say no? (Come take a look at the cute stenciled frame we made for Jordan too!) So I set out on a quest to find a fun Spiderman cake design. At first I was going to use a simple white frosting, pipe black frosting around it and drag a knife through it to create a spider web design. Kristen wanted a Spiderman face in the middle. Hmm. So I...

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Chile Lime Chicken on the Grill

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:58:00 +0000

I love marinades and rubs. Whenever I see a recipe for a marinade that has ingredients that I like, I'll usually give it a shot. Chicken is especially good once it has soaked in a marinade for several hours. Make sure you wipe off the excess marinade before placing the meat on the grill, otherwise it'll just burn the marinade and can also cause the flame to flare up, which you don't want. I recently came across a marinade recipe on About.com: Mexican Food. The marinade included dried chiles, limes, garlic and a jalapeno pepper. The instruction did not say to seed the pepper or the chiles, so I assumed you weren't supposed to. However, hubby has a rough time with things that are overly spicy, so I did devein and seed the jalapeno, and I also removed the chile pepper seeds. It was...

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Chicken Scallion Stir Fry

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 02:17:00 +0000

I'm always up for a new chicken recipe, especially one that's fairly easy. I'm also a big stir fry fan and use my wok often. I have several stir fry recipes in my arsenal, and this one just got added to the permanent library. This makes a delicious gravy and the ingredient list is short and simple. The only adjustment I really made was to use some dried ginger I had instead of fresh ginger. Everyone enjoyed this and there were no leftovers. Besides, I got to use one of my pretty garage sale plates for the pics! :) Chicken and Scallion Stir Fry Recipe from Healthy and Gourmet printable version 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts 2 tablespoons cornstarch 1/2 teaspoon chili powder 3 tablespoons canola oil 2 garlic cloves, minced 1 tablespoon freshly grated...

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Double Glazed Almond Orange Bundt Cake

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:04:00 +0000

Orange flavored desserts, along with lemon and almond, fall into my top five favorites. I wanted to develop a cake that would incorporate all three flavors, and I achieved that goal today. This cake is soft and moist, full of delicious flavor, and ummm, it's also gone. Devoured. Eaten by all, only tiny crumbs left on the plates. This was a huge hit, which of course makes me feel great, as it's a recipe I developed on my own. :) I developed this recipe by comparing some cakes in a few different cookbooks and websites. I then added zest here and extract there to come up with this lovely dessert. My daughter said she liked how soft it was, and the hubby and youngest son both used the word "scrumby", which is a spin-off of scrumptious and yummy. ;) If you try this, please tell me...

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Cinnamon Chip Banana Muffins and Loaves

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 15:26:00 +0000

Let me preface this by saying that while these muffins and mini loaves were phenomenally delicious, they were also ugly ducklings. I had decided to take an old tried and true banana bread recipe, add some cinnamon chips and make some muffins. When I opened the oven to see if they were ready to come out, my heart sank. I thought for sure they were going to burn as the outer edges were already getting quite dark and they were quite obviously not yet done in the middle. To top things off, they were flat, no rise at all. So I closed the oven door, spewed off a few expletives, and cursed the stupid cinnamon chips that are famous for altering the behavior of my baked goods! You see, I had an opened bag of cinnamon chips in the pantry. They needed to be used up and I have tried cinnamon chips...

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Blueberry Breakfast Cake

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 13:41:00 +0000

Breakfast cake, coffee cake, whatever you want to call it, it's overflowing with blueberries and absolutely delicious. The crumb topping really is enough for this, but I always have to have a pretty white drizzle on top. :) However, you can certainly leave it off if you like. I would imagine this would be good with other fruits too, such as raspberries, sour cherries, blackberries, or cranberries in the fall. No matter what fruit you decide on, definitely add this to your "to do" list! You can play around with it too. if you decide to use cherries, add in a bit of almond extract. If using cranberries, I would add a few fall spices like nutmeg and cinnamon. If you use a tangy fruit like sour cherries or cranberries, you might want to add the drizzle for added...

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Asian Broccoli Salad

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:54:00 +0000

Last weekend we were at a friend's house who served this really yummy Asian Broccoli Salad. I was actually quite surprised at just how simple it was to put together. I cheated though, I didn't make this. This is some of the salad I gleaped and brought home with me. ;) Very tasty! This salad is great just like it is, but I can see several possibilities here, depending on your tastes. Some chopped nuts, maybe walnuts or almonds, would be a nice addition, or maybe even some soy sauce? Rice wine vinegar would be good, instead of the white vinegar too! Asian Broccoli Salad printable version 1 package broccoli slaw 1 package chicken ramen noodles broken into pieces, with seasoning packet 1/2 cup salad oil 1/4 cup white vinegar 1/4 cup sugar 3 green onions, sliced 1/2 cup sesame...

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Banana Cake with Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 03:09:00 +0000

Bananas are one of my favorite fruits, and I adore cake, so it's a match made in Heaven for me. This moist and delicious cake uses 4 ripe bananas as well as some coconut for added moisture and tenderness. This is my favorite banana cake of all time. I have tried several different recipes over the years, but this is the one I like best. It should not come as a surprise that this cake recipe comes from the wonderful Dorie Greenspan and her amazing book, Baking From My Home to Yours. This post is a little sad for me. As you know, for almost two years I baked along with the amazing men and women of the >Tuesdays with Dorie baking group. However, I've fallen off the participation wagon in the past few months and had made the decision a few weeks ago to leave TWD. I joined the...

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Honey Pear Bread

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Sat, 17 Jul 2010 23:04:00 +0000

Quick bread and muffins are one of my favorite things for breakfast. They make marvelous after school snacks, but seeing that it's summer, these ended up being "all day" snacks. When I saw the original recipe on Alicia's, I knew I wanted to try it, but I didn't have everything on the ingredient list. I am trying really hard to stick to my grocery budget, and while I had pears on hand, I did not have molasses. So instead of running off to the store, I chose to substitute honey instead. I also left out the nuts, since my family are a bunch of nut-a-phobes. This was a really good quick bread. It makes two loaves, so instead, I chose to make one loaf and 12 muffins. However, I was a complete ding dong and forgot to take the muffins out after 25 minutes, so I ended up burning those. UGH....

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Cherry Pie Squares

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:22:00 +0000

So many people have raved about the blackberry pie squares I posted a few weeks ago, that I decided to try an adapted version with my homemade cherry pie filling from the fresh sour cherries I picked from my neighbor's tree. This time I kicked up the flavor with some almond extract, and instead of a white drizzle, I gave the topping a chocolate twist. These were delicious. The almond, cherry and chocolate go so well together! The only issue I had was that I must not have spread the pie filling evenly as I ended up with some areas that were dryer than others. I encourage you to try this recipe with whatever flavor pie filling you like. My friend Tami tried them with apple pie filling and said they were wonderful! Ingrid said hers were terrific - she made them with blueberry and added...

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Chicken with Garlic & Parsley: (quick dinner)

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 14:24:00 +0000

I love chicken. My husband, on the other hand, could really live without it. There's only a select number of chicken recipes that he welcomes with open arms, and that's even stretching it. When I found this recipe for chicken with garlic and parsley on a blog called All That Splatters I thought it looked delicious and might make it onto hubby's short list. Well I was right. He took one bite and said, with his mouth full, "Oh that's good. You can make this again!" Victory! [UPDATE] July 11, 2010: I am updating this recipe for 3 reasons: to include a marvelous gravy that I made the other night, to add new photos, and to give you a printable version link. I've made this dish MANY times, it can be thrown together in less than 30 minutes, and really, you could use any...

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Cantaloupe Cream Pie

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 04:18:00 +0000

Cantaloupe cream pie - something I hadn't heard of until just recently. Really, it sounded a little weird to me. I mean, come on, cantaloupe? In a pie? Turns out, there are recipes for not only cantaloupe, but others melon, and even watermelon! Well, I'm game for almost anything, especially a flavor like cantaloupe, which I love, and the fact that it's a dessert just locked it in. In case you're wondering how I actually came across this idea, it wasn't completely mine. I work for Old Fashioned Living as their editor. A site visitor named Lydia had written to me after having trouble with a recipe... for cantaloupe cream pie. The recipes was posted within the article "Harvesting and Using Fresh Cantaloupe", amongst other interesting recipes such as cantaloupe bread and cantaloupe...

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Vanilla Zucchini Muffins

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 01:40:00 +0000

Vanilla. I love vanilla. So when I saw this recipe on Annie's I knew I had to make them. Last fall, I shredded and froze a bunch of zucchini. So I grabbed a few bags of frozen zucchini and went to work on this simple recipe. The recipe called for nuts and raisins, so I used golden raisins and some chopped pecans I had in the pantry. I also used coconut oil that I received from Tropical Traditions, instead of the called for vegetable oil. The coconut oil can be used interchangeably with vegetable or canola oil in many recipes. I have to admit, I actually did not like these at first. In fact, it was one of those "can't wait to get it out of my mouth and down the sink" type of "not like". :-/ They smelled awesome and looked great, so I left them on a plate in the kitchen to see if...

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Homemade Cherry Pie Filling

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 00:26:00 +0000

Ta da! I did it, I conquered my fear of canning and was able to preserve 9 pints of delicious cherry pie filling that I made from the wonderful fresh sour cherries from my neighbor's tree! I actually accomplished this a week ago, but am just now getting around to posting. I also have another basket full of cherries that I picked just before the weekend. They need to be pitted and I plan to make some cherry jam from some and hopefully another sour cherry almond cake. However this time I was thinking of making individual cakes, maybe in ramekins? Yum. :) UPDATE: I made Cherry Pie Squares with my homemade cherry pie filling! Stop by and see :) END UPDATE So this cherry pie filling recipe is pretty much everywhere on the internet. I didn't want to get complicated,...

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KFC Coleslaw recipe

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 15:11:00 +0000

With the 4th of July upon us, I thought I would share with you a fabulous recipe I discovered. My husband loves the coleslaw from Kentucky Fried Chicken. In fact, he's a terrible mayo-phobe, so it took many, many years just to get him to try other coleslaws. He had even told me one day that he wished I could find a recipe for KFC's coleslaw so we could have it at home more often. Then I saw it. A post on my friend Debbie's blog, mocha me, for KFC Coleslaw. I immediately saved it and printed it out. It wasn't until a couple months later that I finally tried it. The results, at first taste, were pretty close to KFC's, but there seemed to be an overwhelming fresh cabbage flavor right after making it. However, after this sat in the refrigerator for several hours, the cabbage had time to...

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Vanilla Bean Mulberry Cake

amanda@amandascookin.com (Amanda) — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 02:39:00 +0000

Mulberry trees grow wild everywhere here in southeastern Wisconsin. I knew I wanted to bake something with these abundant, sweet, juicy berries. Honestly, the first thing that came to mind was muffins, not cake. Cake was an after thought, but the more I thought about it, the more appealing it seemed. I am a vanilla fiend, and yes, I prefer a yellow or white cake over a chocolate cake any day. So that settled it, I knew I had to develop a vanilla cake, using my last vanilla bean no less, while at the same time making good use of these mulberries. I remember picking the mulberries in the yard when the kids were little, the berries never made it to the house. When mulberries are ripe, they are quite sweet and very juicy. Mulberries look like blackberries, but they grow on trees, unlike...

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