theculinarycanary

 Recipe Review: Bow Tie Pasta with Baby Kale & Sun-Dried Tomatoes For today's recipe review we're looking at Joanna Gaines' Bowtie Pasta with Baby Kale and Sundried Tomatoes .  I stumbled upon this recipe when puttering around the internet and saw an article on Kitchn about it.  It sounded interesting, so I followed the link from their article to the Magnolia website and decided to give it a try. My family is pretty big on pasta, so I figured that we'd probably love this cheesy dish as well.   My husband was the architect of this particular meal, and he said it came together really quickly and with little effort.  According to him, the slowest part was waiting for the water to boil.  We had to make a small substitution because *someone*  (cough...cough...me) used all of our heavy cream to make ice cream this morning.  We had about a quart cup left, while the recipe calls for two cups.  We used whole milk, and...

  Recipe Review: Italian Marinated Green Beans My family eats a lot of vegetables, so I try to change it up sometimes so we don't get bored with the same ol' things.  Green beans in particular, we often just pan sear them until they're caramelized and slightly blackened. If we're feeling fancy, we might throw on some type of seasoning other than salt and pepper. So when I saw this recipe for a different way of prepping green beans that is also supposed to be really easy, I was excited to try it.  I agree that the preparation was fairly easy.  Admittedly, it was a little more involved than my usual "throw 'em in a pan" method. But I didn't find it to be very difficult, and it has the advantage of being something you can (must) do in advance. So, you can prepare the beans the night before and then let them do their thing overnight.   So, how were they? Opinions on that were mixed within my family. I actually enjoyed them quite a bit....

 Recipe Review: Pork and Peanut Dragon Noodles from Budget Bytes Welcome to another recipe review! Today we're reviewing Pork and Peanut Dragon Noodles from Budget Bytes. Both of my kids are really growing to love cooking, and now that they're off school for the summer I'm having them take turns planning and preparing meals.  My older son has really vibed with this particular recipe.  He's chosen it three times already when it's been his turn. The recipe is well written with directions that are easy enough for a novice teen cook to follow.  It turns out spicy and full of salty, umami flavors.   My son and I have a minor debate each time he cooks this, because I have to remind him that we need some veggies with the meal. He wants to keep his veg completely separate from the noodles, like a salad or a side of steamed broccoli.  I always suggest maybe adding something in to the stir fry itself to take advantage of the ...

 Mike's Special Spice Cake Frosting     I'm guessing I'm not the only one who has a relative or two who cooks mostly "by feel".  My dad is like this, and he has taught me a lot about cooking through the years.  I've been cooking on my own for a long (long) time now but I still sometimes call him to ask a question about something. Today, I did that to ask him how he makes his special frosting that he only ever makes when he makes a spice cake.  I was inspired when I was digging around in the deep freezer and found a small apple spice cake that I had apparently baked and frozen a few months ago.  I have no memory of doing this, but there it was, wrapped up tight and labeled in my handwriting.  So, I thought I'd try my hand at my Dad's magic spice cake frosting for the first time in my adult life. It's similar to a regular American buttercream, but it has a special texture and flavor due to some added ingredients.  Le...

Recipe Review: Soy Citrus Tofu I was first drawn to this recipe for Soy Citrus Tofu when I saw the beautiful photos of it on Instagram.  I followed the photos to a blog I'd never seen before, and I actually found several more recipes with beautiful pictures that looked really interesting.  We decided to make this tofu dish last night and were unfortunately disappointed by the results. As you can see from my pictures, it didn't turn out as pretty as the original recipe. This was not a huge shock because nothing I cook is ever as attractive as I want it to be.  My husband is the one who actually did the cooking this time, and he made a couple of small changes. First, we added a bunch of chopped bok choy to make it more veggie-packed.  This actually worked well, adding some nice green color and a pleasant crunchy texture.   The chef also decided to cut the tofu into cubes (don't ask me why) even though the recipe gives really good instructions on slicing the t...

Cookbook Review:  Ready, Set, Eat by Dawn Perry  I'm a huge fan of cookbooks for recipe inspiration. So many ideas in one place, there's usually going to be at least a few worth trying in any given cookbook. It's always so fun to page through a new one, marking all the recipes that look interesting so I can try them later. With today's cookbook, "Ready, Set, Eat"  by Dawn Perry, I had little post-it flags sticking up out of at least half of the pages by the time I was done.  This book has a lot of really good instruction and advice for people who are unsure of where to start in the kitchen.  It starts off with a handy guide to which ingredients to stock up on. The author includes helpful instructions for preparing many kitchen basics and ways to turn those basics into meals or jazz them up a little bit.    Overall I would say that this book will be more appealing to novice cooks.  Many of the recipes are things that more experienced cook won't req...