Creamy Grilled Chicken Piccata

Ok so clearly not my photo. I got halfway through eating my plate when I realized that I hadn't taken a picture. There was no stopping at that point so I decided to snag a picture from the original website: http://www.plainchicken.com It was actually a pretty good recipe. I wish it had some fiber in it, but the capers were better than I've had previously. My end complaint was that it was overly citrus-y, but that's an easy fix for next time. Otherwise I just need to plan ahead a bit more since step one is marinate chicken overnight. Oops, that made for a pizza for dinner tonight type delay. But that was yummy too, so I'm pretty ok with it. 

Creamy Lime Squares

These were fairly easy and fun to make. I'm not sure I'm in love with the recipe itself. The crust was delicious but I found the lime section to be a bit overly tart for me, and it also had a strange "skin" on top that I found to be an odd texture. James really liked them though, so they at least won the vote of a citrus dessert lover.

Fudge

An incomplete pan of fudge; not nearly as rare of a photo as a complete pan of fudge would be, at least in my house. Not a whole lot to say here. It's Grandpa Poplawski's good old spoon fudge recipe. It becomes normal fudge if you keep it in the fridge, but I happen to not like it as well that way, so low and behold it sits on the counter top. Not a good friend to the out of site out of mind dieting concept though. Great for my personal yum-happiness rating.

Beefy Beer Mac and Cheese

Ok so I totally forgot to take a photo of this one. It did actually look semi-good at one point. The recipe however I decided was kind of a bust. It was a recipe for beer mac that I found on pinterest and then I added the beef because I had a separate pinterest recipe for beefy mac and cheese so I sort of improvised and combined the two. The end result was that it was really bland. I used a Schlafly's summer ale that wouldn't be as much flavor as a different beer could have been, but it also didn't taste like cheese either. I did substitute a Mexican cheese blend for the cheddar and an Italian cheese blend for the parmesean, but I wouldn't have thought that would make it taste less cheesy. Also I should have just learned by now that I do not like bread crumbs on my pasta, but it was in the recipe. I'm not saying this recipe couldn't be good with a little bit of tweaking, but I doubt I'm going to give it the second chance. 

Italian Lemon Drop Cookies

These were a definite hit. James loved them; which really, what more could you ask for when making a lemon dessert for one specific person. My personal opinion is that they were surprisingly biscuit-y in texture, I prefer frosting made with butter instead of Crisco but that's an easy fix, and they weren't that hard to make, even with the lack of a kitchen aid mixer. 

The recipe said to roll the dough into balls, but I found it was way too sticky to really end up with any sort of smooth ball so I ended up dropping them on the sheet with spoons. Much cleaner. I also would beef up the frosting recipe a bit as far as volume. I ended up running out before I finished frosting the cookies and then had to go back and make them share. I suppose the other option would be to budget your frosting better, but I pretty much always vote for making more frosting. 

Stuffed Peppers

I was too hungry to bother to take a good picture. We're just lucky I remembered a picture at all. These were pretty good. Not exactly my favorite, but a nice change of pace. I started with a recipe, but its mostly just simple cooking concepts so I opted not to keep it. I'm pretty sure I'll remember enough to wing it, and if not, there's always the internet. There's a lot of room to experiment with this recipe, so to anyone who likes peppers a bit better than I do, I highly recommend having some fun. Also this was baked, but I bet you could grill them to keep house temps down during Summer.

Vanilla Peach Piecakes

These were a giant pain to make, but they turned out both cute and tasty, so somehow that makes it worth it. And of course I knew that they would be a pain before I even started. That being said, next time I try to make something that requires a 425 degree oven in the middle of July, somebody please stop me!

 These actually don't have much downtime while baking which is nice, it's just the assembly that really takes up time. I'm sure I would get better and faster at construction if I keep making these. There were some problems with the recipe/instructions that caused me to only end up with about eight piecakes and about four regular cupcakes, but I've since made adjustments to the directions and I think that could be corrected for next time. The end result regardless is that I'm just not sure these piecakes are for me. My favorite thing about pie is the filling, and my favorite thing about cupcakes is the frosting, so to have something that is mostly crust and cake with only some filling and no frosting is just not going to make it to my favorites list. However, I think my mom would really like these, so that's a definite thought. I do really love baking for other people.

 I'm not sure I'll make these again but I'm keeping the recipe since it was a success and they do make for a both impressive and cute display should I someday feel the need to be a baking show off.