May 2014 Cooking Challenge

May was another good month for trying new recipes. We also enjoyed many nights eating outside in the nicer weather, so you might spy a new surface under some of the plates. 

Here are the recipes we tried in no particular order. 

First up - Baked Chicken Nuggets and Roasted Broccoli with Lemon and Almonds. The chicken is coated with panko bread crumbs, which I'd never used at home before. We all really liked them, and we've gone through almost the whole box since this recipe!  The broccoli was good in texture, but a little too lemony. If I make it again, I will cut the lemon at least in half. 


For Mother's Day breakfast, I left a recipe on the counter for Mike and the kids to make me.  It was the delicious Banana-Chocolate French Toast from Cooking Light, and it was the perfect way to start Mother's Day! 

Mike made this great Caesar Salad for us one warm night and it was perfect. The kids didn't care for the dressing, but he and I really liked it and he's made another batch since then!  Another new ingredient went into this recipe - anchovy paste. I can't say for sure if I like anchovies, but I can tell you that the flavor of this dressing was perfect! After much searching, I found this recipe on a discussion thread - it is the third response on this page - from Kathy T. 

I had a small group from my quilting bee here in the middle of the month, so Double Berry Tarts were the perfect recipe to make - there were 5 of us, then Mike and the kids ate the remaining three that night. This took a little prep time to make, but it wasn't a hard recipe at all and would be great when you want each person to have their own dessert. 

On another warm night, I made Happy Heart Macaroni, a reader recipe from Cooking Light.  This was tasty, but a little bland for me. I think I might add some shrimp or chicken next time I make this.  The kids weren't crazy about it - I think they spied the spinach in it! I found the recipe here, but hers looks quite different from mine - you can see that she made some adjustments to the recipe. 

One soccer practice night, Mike left these in the oven for us and we arrived home to a warm dinner of Pesto Oven Fried Chicken.  The kids really liked these, and I thought they were just okay. I would try the same idea again, but with homemade pesto (once the basil in my garden starts to go crazy), and I would try boneless chicken, cause I just don't like messing with the bones. I couldn't find the recipe for this on online, but it is pretty simple - chicken, pesto, and seasoned bread crumbs and it cooks in a 400 degree oven for 50 minutes. 

Next up was a beef dinner (we don't have too many of those in our house) - Swanson Beef and Broccoli. This was just okay, and I probably won't hang on to the recipe. I couldn't find this one online either, but did find a lot of other Swanson recipes that call for beef broth and broccoli that look pretty tasty! 

The last two recipes weren't captured in a picture - first up was garlic-lemon pork, which was lick-your-plate good! Mine actually looked pretty close to the picture on the recipe page.  This also came from the Everyday Food magazine, published by Martha Stewart's company, but sadly no longer in circulation. 

The final recipe was Helen's Lemon Bundt cake, which I got from my friend Kathy. I am not sure who Helen is, but she makes a mean bundt cake!  I made this for a cookoff at work, and not only did I miss getting a picture of it, but I also missed getting a piece of it! I think that means I will need to make it again for us to devour! It is close to this recipe, but has a glaze instead of icing on the top. The glaze is made with sugar and lemonade concentrate. 

So, another great month in the kitchen, and we're continuing to work our way through all the recipes in the cabinet.  Hope you've seen something that looks yummy that you want to try! 

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