Stuff I Cooked

This past week I did a lot of cooking, and made quite a few new recipes. Although I love trying new recipes, it's pretty disappointing when I put all that work into something that Erik and/or the girls don't rave about. I had quite a few things this week that I liked but they didn't and it discouraged me. So, I think I'm going to stick to a majority of well-tested and liked meals with just one or two experiments each week. 

Although, I just ordered a new cookbook, and will probably have a slew of new recipes to try very soon! :-)

Anyways, back to what I made this past week:

I think I mentioned the spicy shrimp tacos in my last menu post, here's a picture of them.

Spicy Shrimp

I have a bunch of pork in my freezer and found this recipe for slow cooked pork carnitas, which seemed perfect. I love a good slow cooker recipe. It was pretty easy and made for some yummy meat. Everyone liked it, so it will probably go in my regular rotation for whenever I have pork ribs to use up!

Pork Carnitas

Then there was the night of almost 100% new recipes. I spent hours in the kitchen that night and was exhausted when it was said and done.

First was the Slow Cooker Chicken Cacciatore (try saying that ten times fast!). It used boneless/skinless thighs which I get for a pretty good price at Costco, and the slowcooker, so I was sure it would be a success. It smelled wonderful all day cooking, but unfortunately no one in this family liked it but me. I thought it tasted great, but because it makes  a large amount, I probably won't make it again cuz I was eating it everyday the rest of the week for lunch to use it up. The Roasted Broccoli & Bacon was a hit--everyone loved it and that says something because usually the girls don't like the texture of roasted broccoli. The Creamy Ranch was tasty--I liked it and the rest of them were ok with it, but not enough for it to replace store bought ranch for them. Boo. I'll try it again with a little less dill and see if they like it better that way. I found it really awesome on top of a green salad with beet relish. Delicious!

 Chicken Cacciatore, Roasted Broccoli & Bacon, peppers with Creamy Ranch Dressing

Bread. Again. This time I tried a different recipe from the very talented Elana's Pantry. It worked out great and was pretty tasty, but the girls both prefer the recipe I made last week.

Paleo Bread

I thought it was pretty tasty with my mother-in-law's strawberry jam spread on it. :-)

The most time consuming recipe I did was for Homemade Nutella. The recipe calls for blanched/shelled hazelnuts, which I couldn't find. So I bought them with shells and had to blanch them myself. That is a very tedious task that I would love to never repeat. The flavor of this after I was done processing it was delicious. Unfortunately, I think I did something wrong because once it cooled off, it was not a spreadable consistency. It'll get eaten, I'm sure, but more as a warmed up fruit dip than a spread. 

Nutella

I hadn't planned on making pumpkin bread this past week, but had this recipe in the hopper and needed something to bring to a baby shower and to a friend for her birthday, so I whipped up a few batches of this super easy recipe. It's amazing to me that there is absolutely no flour of any sort in this recipe and yet it works. The pumpkin isn't too overwhelmingly pumpkin, but it tastes wonderful with some butter smeared on top. I threw in some dark chocolate chips for a twist. Everything is better with chocolate chips, right?

Primal Pumpkin Bread

I didn't get to the "Egg Nests" but hopefully this next week. One recipe I did try that I totally forgot to take pictures of was the zucchini pizza crust. It was interesting. It tasted good but did not have the consistency of regular ol' pizza crust. I think next time I'd use a bit more zucchini and broil it afterwards instead of baking longer. It's pretty cheesy, so if you're not doing dairy it's not an option for you. I served it to a dinner guest and she said it was good, so that's good I guess! :-) I'll probably try it again because it did give me the pizza taste that I've been missing. And what a great way to use all that zucchini that you get in the fall!

I'll be working on the menu for the week today, so that'll probably get up too. One thing I'm excited about is that we ordered another 1/4 beef this past week and we'll get it in a week or so. I'd seen quite a few paleo recipe using beef tongue lately and so I was really brave and asked for the tongue from the cow this time. I will definitely be blogging about that adventure in the near future! :-)

Your turn! 

Try any new recipes lately? 

Or have you ever spent a ton of time on a experimental recipe only to have your family hate it? 

What is the most adventurous thing you've ever cooked?