Recipe Review and Year End Summary!

And so it comes to pass, another year has come and gone. Where oh where do the days go? Looking back, this was a particularly momentous year for me: I took my first trip to Vegas with my youngest sister; my folks moved "up north" and for the first time in a very long time they live 15 miles from me; I changed positions in my department; and the Husband came home from a two year tour in Iraq. I think that's enough change for one year.

What didn't change was my continued exploration of new recipes. But before I give the final recipe tally for the year, I have the last reviews for 2007. Oh my goodness! I just realized I forgot to take any pictures! Drat and bother...I will have to work on that in the new year.

Classic Waffles (Ckng Lght BB/allrecipes.com) 6
These were good. They were a rather sweet waffle that baked up nice and golden. The recipe also made about 14 waffles for me - about 7" circular size. So a nice amount was frozen for later breakfasts. I would make this recipe again.

Roasted Pumpkin and Winter Squash Soup (Ckng Lght Nov 07, pg 258) 6
This used up the last of my 2005 pureed pumpkin, although I did need to modify the recipe just a tiny bit to do so. The recipe calls for roasting cubed pumpkin and butternut squash, then adding to the onion and chicken broth before pureeing the whole batch. I just roasted the butternut squash and combined the pureed pumpkin to heat. Love that immersion blender!

Frosted Sugar Cookies (c/o Karen Z, co-worker) 8
My intent was to make cut out cookies, but time was running out and the dough was ultra sticky and I said screw it and just rolled the dough into balls and squished flat before baking. What I like about these cookies is the almond extract rather than vanilla extract. It gives them just a little extra pop! These baked up into nice soft cookies. I also omitted the frosting and just sprinkled them with colored sprinkles.

Turkey Alfredo Pizza (Ckng Lght Dec 07 ) 8
This was so easy to make - shredded turkey or chicken, drained spinach, Alfredo sauce, fontina cheese and a Biboli crust. That was the base of the pizza. I added artichoke hearts because it just sort of seemed to call for it. Mix the shredded poultry with the spinach and spread on the crust. Add the artichoke hearts and top with about 1/2 cup of the Alfredo sauce. Sprinkle cheese over all - but not to much! Bake and eat. The flavors were good, but as a whole it was bit bland for us. We found ourselves sprinkling ground sea-salt on top. I will be making this again - probably tomorrow night in fact - and I will be adding some procuitto for a bit of seasoning. Mmmm....

Barbecue Spareribs (Cooks Illustrated, Jan/Feb 06, pg 11) 8
Oh, my oh, my! Absolutely incredible. And so easy! A seasoning past is made out of mustard, chili powder, Cayenne pepper, and a couple of other things which I am not recalling. This is wrapped in plastic and put back in the fridge for several hours. It was supposed to be for 8-24 hours, but I managed 2 (didn't read the directions far enough in advance). Place aluminum foil in the bottom of a large sheet pan and put a baking rack on top of that. Sprinkle finely ground loose leaf tea on the bottom and put the ribs on the rack. Yes, that's right. Loose leaf tea. Now cover everything super snug and put on a preheated baking stone in a 500* oven for 30 minutes. At 30 minutes, reduce the temperature to 250* and carefully pour 1/2 cup of apple juice in the bottom of the pan and close the foil back up again. Bake for another hour or so.
Remove the foil and broil each side for 7-10 minutes.

It seems like a lot, but I was surprised at how easy and smooth everything went. And the taste? It was honestly, melting off the bone tender with a nice spicy zing to it. I only bought one rack of St. Louis baby back ribs (about 2 lbs) and I wish I had bought another one for more leftovers. So we had enough for 1 dinner (feeds 2) and 1 leftover lunch for the Husband.

Barbecue Beans (recipe from the Husbands Sister, source ??) mixed review
I had some leftover pinto beans in the freezer from a chili I made several weeks ago and this seemed an opportune time to try this recipe out. It was pretty simple - pre-made bbq sauce (or homemade works too, but I had a little jar I needed to use up), ketchup, mustard, molasses, maple syrup, and brown sugar and mix with the beans and cook. Now the sauce was fantastic - sauce-y, tangy and spicy. The beans...well, if there were some way to scrape the sauce off the beans and pitch the beans I would have. Somehow, between making the beans, freezing the beans, thawing the beans and reheating the beans they became even more crunchy and starchy than before. I really wish I had used bottled water when making them.... oh well. I'll try this recipe again with better beans.

Sourdough starter (The Bread Bible by Beth Henspberger)
A while back, in one of his homebrew magazines, the Husband found a recipe for making sourdough starter from the dregs of the homebrewing process. Unfortunately, he hasn't been able to find the article since then. But after pointing out several of my baking books, he found an acceptable substitute and last week he started the starter. It is a combination of organic rye flour, AP flour, plain natural yogurt, the dregs from 3 bottles of homebrew topped off with warm water and sugar. This has been carefully tended and stirred and sniffed. Yes, each morning we anxiously sniff the starter trying to determine if it smells "citrus-y", "tangy", and well, "right". Yesterday he fed the starter for the first time and whoo! by mid-morning it was happily percolating away. Folks, I think we have a success! We'll be making a batch of Sourdough Rye Bread on New Years Day.

And to end the year, I have started a batch of Homemade Vanilla. I don't have a specific recipe, but pulled from several sources. Basically, a bottle of vodka and 5 sliced vanilla beans. Let sit 3 months or longer. Shake every couple of days or so.




And (drum roll please.....) the recipe tally for 2007 is:

118

My goal was 120 so I am satisfied with where I hit. Next year I am aiming for 134.



Here is a comparison of past years:
2006 - 103
2005 - 137
2004 - 143
2003 -154
2002 - 129