BakeAwayGirl

 Our neighbor brought us a basket of fresh picked strawberries, and while our kids inhale strawberries, we had just picked up a bunch from the grocery store. There was no way we could eat them all.  Well, there was, but it would be ridiculous. So instead, I headed to Pinterest for ideas. This particular recipe was so delicious that we immediately made it again, substituting the strawberries for raspberries and lemon. It was way more tart with the raspberries and lemon, but I also went hard with lemon, so it's possible to sweeten it up.  The point is, you can use most berries in some form. It's worth noting that this does go bad relatively quickly when left at room temperature, even when well wrapped.  We didn't quite finish the last pieces of either version before they went bad... and we ate it fast. So either store it in the fridge, or bring it to share within a day or two. Strawberry Oatmeal Bars Adapted from here 1 cup rolled oats 3/4 cup flour 1/3 cup brown sugar...

Yum!  Fall is here, and that means everything turns into a pumpkin.  My kitchen churns out all sorts of pumpkin spiced baked goods, from bread to donuts to these new cookies.  My son loves to help me bake, and our favorite activity is cookies, mostly because he loves to eat the chocolate chips that play a major role in every cookie I make.  Including these beauties.  I've never had pumpkin cookies, but everything else it touches is delicious, so why not?  Well, except pie.  Pumpkin pie is gross.  Fight me. So in my first attempt of pumpkin cookies I have learned a few things. These don't spread.  However you plop them on the cookie sheet is pretty much how they come out.  I happen to like them to look like delightful little blobs of pumpkin-y goodness, but the original recipe suggests using the back of a spoon to squish them down a little. These are cake-like.  Very dense.  It makes it extra delicious and increases your...

We had a ton of cherries that we just could not eat them all before they were going to go bad.  I always wanted to bake with cherries, but I don't have the patience to pit them.  Luckily, I have the best, most patient husband in the world, and he said he would pit 6 cups of cherries for me!  Perfection!  That was the right amount for my very first cherry pie, something I've wanted to do forever. But the group we were having over had a gluten-free member.  She never expects anyone to accommodate her, but a life without dessert just sounds terrible, so I always try to make some dessert she can have.  Seriously, I'd never go to a party if I couldn't ever have dessert.   So instead, I found two similar recipes, one gluten-free.  That one was supposedly with blueberries, but the topping was a sort of lemon shortbread topping, which would work just as deliciously with cherries.  So I made double the amount of cherries needed for the crum...

I have admired trifles from afar for a while now, and then my cousin told me about one she made and I was very jealous.  But as it's not a baking dessert, I generally steered clear.  Also, I didn't have a trifle dish and wasn't about to buy one for something I wasn't sure I even sure I would like. So when we were browsing the shelves of Bed, Bath, and Beyond to register for our wedding, I somewhat sheepishly added a trifle dish.  Secretly, I think, I hoped that being a grown married woman would encourage me to make fancy desserts, like trifles. Well being a grownup married woman didn't have much to do with it, but hosting my first book club in our first house sure inspired me. That, and having a 10 pound box of fresh Michigan blueberries in the fridge. It was easier than anticipated and certainly a crowd-pleaser.  It's rare when you have a group of women that every one goes up for seconds!  But I will admit I was slightly disappointed in my first adv...

This recipe was a find years ago, but I never remembered to take a picture for the blog until this last time.  It combines two delicious things into one.  As the name indicates, it is a combination of taco salad and pasta salad.  I will admit, I was skeptical at first.  First off, I'm not a fan of French or Western dressings (which this recipe uses), however it does work with the other ingredients. I've played with a few different ingredients, but the nice thing about both tacos and pasta salads is that you can add anything you'd like.  Besides the basics (taco meat, lettuce, pasta), I use cheese, black beans, and tomatoes.  You can do corn, any kind of peppers, or other types of beans.  This practically begs  for black olives, but I hate them so... no. Important:   We ate this the very first time without the crushed fritos.  We decided we wouldn't make it again.  Then we ate the leftovers with  the crushed chips and i...

I had my cousins over for an annual party, and needed some appetizer ideas.  Of course I was browsing Pinterest, and I had stored away a little beauty of Buffalo Chicken Pinwheels.  As if the name weren't enough to convince me it was delicious, the author's admission that it was her, more than her husband, that enjoyed going to the dive bar food places really sold me.  Jeff loves burgers and wraps and all that, but hands down, I am the driving force for beer and wings.  Judge all you'd like, but man oh man, nothing tastes better. So I pulled my ingredients together and read the directions.  The only issue is that it only made a handful of pinwheels, and that just was not going to cut it.  I decided to use the ingredients in a different way and make a pizza instead of rolling the dough. It's the same general concept, but more flatbread and less dough pinwheels.  We found it almost a little too sweet, with the mozzarella and green onions.  I ...

Salad from the top view You may have noticed that I love Southwestern American food.  I love Mexican food, but I think I like the Tex Mex better.  It has a lot of spice and flavor and cheese.  The best way to do this, in my opinion, is salads.  They taste so fresh but have so much more flavor than your every day salad. Last month, we had a potluck at work.  Potluck at my work is code for snacks and desserts, but usually no real food.  I had a recipe in my To-Do List Pinterest board, and decided it was perfect for a more substantial aspect of the potluck.  The recipe made way more salad than I anticipated, but it was no problem!  The recipe was a hit, and I even sent the bit of leftovers home with people because they loved it so much. Here's the catch.  The recipe for the dressing wasn't very good, in my opinion.  Some people really liked it, but I wouldn't do it again.  I'll include it here because some people loved it. ...

Couldn't even wait to take a picture! My favorite way to find a new recipe isn't actually Pinterest.  I prefer accidentally discovering a food I love (by eating it of course) and then asking someone for the recipe.  This past summer, at my cousin's birthday party, her roommate brought out a chocolate cake.  Me and chocolate are besties, so of course I took a piece.  After the first bite, I decided I had discovered my new favorite chocolate cake! This cake is luscious.  Decadent.  Sinful.  Devil's Food Cake, you naive child, you haven't tasted sinful yet. There is so much chocolate, but it is balanced out by enough moisture that it never becomes cloying and overdone.  It's just delicious.  Every bite is worth the calories.  I will admit I have only made it once because we had company in town and I wanted something to wow the crowd.  Simply making it for Jeff and I, or even a small party, feels too gluttonous.  After all...

Believe it or not, folks, this was not  a Pinterest find.  I know, shock and awe.  You see, while I spend many hours browsing Pinterest, Jeff reads articles and browses pictures of ridiculous people and cats.  He sends me so many links that I ignore half of them, but I was lucky I looked at this one.  It was a Buzzfeed article on the best one-bowl cakes. I had offered to make cupcakes for a friend's baby shower, and I knew she wanted chocolate, so when I stumbled on this Buzzfeed article, I made sure to pin it for later.  The original recipe only made 12 cupcakes, which is just ridiculous to me.  Who eats only 12 cupcakes?!  Silly. These were a hit at the baby shower and the few leftovers I had went quickly.  I will admit that I did not eat one.  There were fantastic cake pops at the shower as well, and I hit those hard.  So, personally, I cannot vouch for these cupcakes.  However, based on how fast they went, I will gues...

Om nom nom these sliders were a fantastic find on Pinterest.  We were planning on having friends over for a Bears game and I immediately thought of sliders.  Luckily, I had this little beauty stashed on my Pinterest boards! See, I'm picky.  Any time the ingredients involve Velveeta, I'm out.  Done, moving on.  I realized how ridiculous it is for the woman who eats box macaroni and cheese, but I don't care.  Velveeta is gross.  Therefore, when I read recipe sliders, I usually abandon them because they incorporate some level of velveeta.  This recipe uses real cheese but still uses the oven.  The last thing I wanted to do with friends over was stand outside on the balcony and grill, so the oven was a must. As you can see in the picture, we had a plethora of condiments for the sliders.  We tried bacon, onions, ketchup, mustard, bbq sauce... it was all good, but I wasn't too wild about them.  Then, with the leftovers, we tried pi...

For the Independence Day, I brought that Blueberry Buckle from the previous post, but I felt like a copout.  But it's a holiday!  I wanted something a little more... festive.  So I started searching Pinterest (of course), and I came across this picture: Well pinwheels are pretty easy!  So I gathered my ingredients and got to work.  These can be altered for whatever colors you want or whatever season.  At Christmas, I've sprinkled 1/2 tsp of cinnamon in the red dough for a bit of a bite.  You can play however you'd like. **Just be aware that these cookies need to rest in the fridge for roughly 5 hours.  You can make them in advance and just slice and bake when your guests come (or when you're hungry), but they will need at least 5 hours for cooling. Pinwheel Cookies:  4th of July Version Cutting the dough Adapted from here 1 cup of butter (2 sticks), room temperature 1-1/3 cup sugar 2 eggs 2 tsp vanilla extract 3 cups flour...

This blueberry cake is addicting, and it is unfortunately easy to make.  You're not a big baker?  Well, dear, I've found a recipe that you can throw together that will make everyone think you're a whiz.  This delectable treat was first brought to my attention at a family party by a family friend.  She mentioned that she got the recipe from a morning news show, but to be honest, I wasn't really listening and so I'm vague on the details. If you recognize this recipe, feel free to tell me in the comments section.  I don't want to be accused of stealing someone's recipe. I brought this to our 4th of July party yesterday, and it was a huge hit.  No one ever believes how stupidly easy it is too... yum! Blueberry Cake I got so carried away I forgot to take a picture! So I stole this one... which is exactly how it looks 1 tall can of pineapple (I prefer crushed, but you can use any style) 3 cups of blueberries (1 pint = about 2 cups) 3/4 cup sugar 1 b...

Every year, my aunt hosts Easter at her house, and it's a giant potluck brunch.  There's always more food than any one person should eat (doesn't stop us though).  We all come equipped with tupperwear so we can take leftovers home and eat for days.  As such, I like to experiment with new things because I know it will get eaten. One year, I tried out some new cake decorating... Chocolate cake, white butter cream icing -- 2010 Another year, I did some Easter-inspired sugar cookies.  This was particularly awesome because we were going out of town and I didn't even get to eat a single cookie! This year, my aunt asked me to bring cupcakes.  Well I just haven't been much in a cake-decorating mood lately.  In fact, I don't think I've decorated a cake or cupcake since February.  I'm dissatisfied with my frosting since it doesn't taste as delicious as the professional bakers.  Silly reason, but nonetheless, I am on the quest for the perfect f...

I stole this one from Budget Savy Diva Mine never turn out quite as evenly brown. Now, I always thought southwestern egg rolls sounded disgusting when I saw them on the menu at restaurants.  Come on, stop mixing cultures together, that's just weird. WRONG.  It's delicious. When I finally tried these for the first time two years ago at Rock Bottom Brewery, I was hooked.  Spicy, flavorful, and delicious.  I craved them all the time, but they're kind of a pricey appetizer because you really don't get many of them.  So when I saw this one on Pinterest, I jumped right on it.  Not to mention, because these are baked (not fried, like traditional egg rolls), there's really nothing wrong with these... honestly, folks, it's another accidental healthy recipe from yours truly. You know how much I try to avoid that.  But this was so delicious, even I couldn't stop eating them once I realized they were healthy.  Besides, it still has an avocado ranch...

Happy Friday!  Here's a perfect Friday night snack... or maybe for the Blackhawks game tomorrow! One thing I miss about college is the pizza place we had there.  The pizza itself left a lot  to be desired, but they had cheese sticks that were absolute heaven.  Papa Johns has a poor imitation of it, and it just made me crave the real thing more and more.  When I discovered this recipe on Pinterest, I was so excited I immediately went out for the ingredients. So far, it's been a hit at parties, just as a snack for lunch, and as an appetizer at a big family function.  I think it's my sister's favorite of the Pinterest experiments (that doesn't include chocolate, anyway).  You need some sort of pizza dough, and I would suggest the unbaked version.  I really enjoy the unbaked one from Whole Foods, but your generic Pillsbury-knock off at your local grocery store does just fine too.  You're going to bake the dough before making the cheesy bread,...

This one should be prefaced with the statement, "Don't judge a book by its cover!"  So if you think, "No, I don't like jalapenos, or cream cheese, or crescent rolls, or life," just chill out for a second. I came across these at a party before I had fully embraced the Pinterest lifestyle.  This girl made these and accredited the recipe to Pinterest, which at the time, I didn't understand.  I thought it was just pictures, so I had no idea how she had a recipe.  Oh, the early days... ;) Anyway, I judged them because they weren't deep fried and made with cream cheese.  I don't like cream cheese.  It's... sour.  Ew.  But the temptation of jalapenos called to me, and I decided to snag one.  Oh, thank goodness I did!  It didn't have the usual taste of cream cheese, just a delicious jalapeno creaminess.  Yummmm!  For those of you who don't much care for spicy, these really aren't (much to my disappointment).  The crescent roll...

I hope you all enjoyed your Superbowl, whether it was alone or a party.  I don't know how anyone would enjoy football alone, but then, I don't care about the football.  I tune in for the commercials, and I only like to watch it with other people. And let's be real... I love Beyonce. I was rootin' for the Ravens, so I was thrilled with the final score, but the game itself was nerve wrecking.  I don't like close games, and that blackout killed me.  I like to go to bed about 10, but our apartment wasn't even cleared out until then!  We were all pretty ready for the end of the game at that point. Well, it's a week later and I think I'm finally hungry again.  We had so many snacks for our superbowl party that I thought I was going to explode.  Jeff did make his delicious carne asada, I made some guacamole to go with it.  We bought the phenomenal salsa verde from our local carniceria, but it was too spicy for most. The snacks I made were all fav...

I've had a little internal debate going on over the past two weeks.  I've tried a couple recipes only to discover that we didn't like them.  I wondered if I should post about the failed ones as well.  Well... they weren't failures, we just didn't care for them.  I didn't want this blog to be "Molly & Jeff's amazing cooking lives" because we make "eh" dishes plenty of times, but I also don't want to bore you with recipes that we didn't much like and who wants to try something with that kind of recommendation. So here's my disclaimer:  Sometimes we make lousy food, blah food, or boring food.  I'm not going to post about them because I want this to be a record of recipes I like so I can go back and find delicious things any time I want.  Ta daaaa... problem solved. Now, onto our delicious experiment last weekend... We're hosting the Superbowl party here next weekend, and Jeff didn't want chili or pizza or wi...

Wraps are probably my favorite sandwiches, but this recipe doesn't count as my typical wrap.  It's more of a chicken taco salad pinwheel.  I usually don't like pinwheel sandwiches, but this one is deeeelicious!  You can make these one day ahead of time if necessary or 10 minutes before the party.  The best is a couple of hours before, to let the wraps set. This calls for shredded chicken breast and you can do it however you'd like.  I've cooked boneless, skinless chicken breast and shredded it myself.  You can shred a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from the grocery store (not my favorite option).  You can also use shredded chicken in a can because it's so well mixed with delicious seasonings and fresh flavors.  There is also no fat on that chicken. Again, I'm sorry for the poor quality of the picture.  Still workin on that camera situation! Chicken Taco Wraps Adapted from Homemade by Holman 1.5lbs of shredded chicken Pinch of salt ...