[More] Random Recipes

Posted on February 20, 2012 by Kelly

Sometimes, I get behind on posting recipes that I make. The ones that I blog about first are generally the best ones – because really, I’m sure you’d all rather hear about something that was delicious rather than something that was not so good, I know I’d much rather write about the delicious ones! Often when I make a bunch of new recipes in a week, there are at least a few that are just kind of ”meh.” Not great, but not bad either. These are basically recipes that I’m glad I made, and they satisfied whatever craving I had, but I’d probably not ever make again – at least not the exact recipe. Instead of writing a whole post about each recipe, I thought I’d just do a mini-review of each one and throw them together in one post.

Here I am again with a few recipes that weren’t entirely a bust, but weren’t my favorite either.

Spinach Artichoke Pasta

I found this recipe on Pinterest (which seems to be my recipe source of choice these days) and you can find it here.

It wasn’t bad, but I guess I’m just not as big of a fan of spinach and artichoke as I thought I was. The sauce itself was actually pretty good, and really you can’t go wrong with pasta, just too heavy on the veggies for me I guess. That being said, if you love spinach and artichokes, you would love this! Oh, and it isn’t all that difficult to make really either. You just have to make the sauce and then add in everything else once its cooked. It makes a very large portion too, so there will definitely be leftovers…..well, unless you are feeding 6-8 people…..or maybe just 4 really hungry veggie lovers.

Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie

Looks delicious, right? I wish it looked as good on the inside as it did on the outside! This is another Pinterest recipe, and you can find it here.

I should have known something wasn’t quite right when the dough was pretty dry putting it into the skillet to cook. The directions say to cook it for 35-45 minutes. Now, I know that our oven is not the best, so I almost always assume that it will be cooking for the longer amount of time. The photo above is after it had been cooked for 45 minutes. I looks like it is done one the outside, and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean….or so I thought. I waited a few minutes for it to cool, and then I cut into it realized the middle was still very much dough. So, I put it back into the oven for another five minutes. The time came and went, and it didn’t look any more done than before. Five more minutes. At this point I’m afraid that the outside is going to burn so I take it out and let it sit for a few minutes, hoping that maybe it will continue cooking a little bit as it sits there in the hot pan. After a while, I cut into it again. It still wasn’t completely done, but definitely better than it was before. I didn’t want to put it back in the oven at this point, so I just ate some of the more done outside, and left the middle.

I was definitely disappointed with how this recipe turned out. I know that my oven temperature sometimes is off, but could it really have been THAT off? What else could I have done wrong? Maybe you’ll have better luck with this recipe than I did, because it really would be delicious if it didn’t frustrate me so much!