Hot Chocolate on a Stick

Meredith
I originally stumbled upon this recipe for Hot Chocolate on a Stick and shot Laura an email saying I might make these as gifts this year for the office folks. She took it a step further and found a blogger (Foodie with Family) who’d made the recipe AND added homemade marshmallows. AND then convinced me to blog the whole thing. So here goes!

The fudge making itself- VERY easy. And very tasty. I snuck in a teaspoon of coffee extract at the very last stage, but to be honest I didn’t notice it in the end product. The marshmallow making - I definitely had my doubts. I’d never worked with plain old Knox gelatin before nor had I even used the whisk attachment on my stand mixer. Turns out that whisk attachment made the marshmallows for me! Once I poured the mixture into my pan to set, I swirled in some red and green food coloring to make the marshmallows a little festive.

Fast forward to the next night and the assembly of these things. Step one went just fine and I cut the fudge into 36 cubes (using a ruler of course) and arranged on top of little squares of Christmas cards I’d cut. The marshmallow cutting went just fine too – I’m still finding powdered sugar in random places in my kitchen though. Then I stuck the lollipop stick in, yadda yadda yadda...

All in all the assembly and packing wasn’t a huge deal. It’s just that there were 36 of them. To be stuck, packaged and tagged. And ribboned. And I started the whole process at 8pm- which means because I’m slightly particular about presentation, I was finally done around midnight. The fun part was handing them out the next few days and hearing the oohs and ahhs.

It wasn’t until late Sunday night after Christmas when I was all snowed in and cozy that I got to actually TASTE the Hot Chocolate on a Stick. So good. Just really really good. Now why didn’t I save myself more than one??

Laura
Don’t let Meredith fool you! She still has some left over. Moving right along...

These treats were easy to make and so much fun to give away. I really loved the idea of giving away a little something to people that I might not have normally given a gift to. I didn’t swirl any food coloring in my marshmallows. The hot chocolate was really easy to make... easy like fudge. The marshmallows were surprisingly a non-issue. I was scared of the gelatin. So much so that I had decided that I might just buy marshmallows for this recipe instead. Ever the boss, Meredith put the kabosh on that quickly. Don’t tell her, but I'm glad she did.

Lots of people asked for the recipe. That’s always a nice compliment. And honestly, it felt good giving away something so unique that I made. It was different enough to set itself apart from all the cookies, etc that go around this time of year.

"Healthified" Thai Shrimp and Quinoa Curry

Laura
Mmmmmm quinoa. Where has this healthy, little seed been all my life? The quinoa was the star of this Healthified Thai Shrimp and Quinoa Curry dish. The shrimp was good but I wanted it to be a bit spicier. In my opinion, the coconut milk made the shrimp too mellow. I'd be interested in making more Thai dishes but I don't know that I'd make these shrimps again. I will say, that the dish was very filling. I'm attributing that to the quinoa. Over all, I was neither impressed nor repelled by the dish. It was just... eh.

Meredith

I tend to agree with Laura on this dish. The quinoa was delicious. I’d never made or had it before. Very very filling dish, but just lacked any flavor. More spices or a marinade on the shrimp would have definitely gone a long way. I’d make something similar again, but I wouldn’t bother with this as the recipe is written.

Asian Pork Roast

Meredith
Ohhh Asian Pork Roast! Where did you go wrong? Could it have been the instructions to brown the meat after I just rubbed raw garlic on you? Could it have been the use of cloves? Whatever happened, I wasn’t a fan. Most of my roast was dry - I suppose I overcooked it. The onions sweetened to the point of tasting like apples. The whole thing was just not very good. I ate the leftovers throughout the week, but omitted the onions and went light on any sauce. There have got to be better recipes for Asian pork than this. Recipe was was Taste of Home and can be found here.

Laura
Asian Pork Roast sounds delicious, right? Okay, maybe it was a little weird that it smelled like pumpkin pie while it was cooking. I’m assuming that was the ginger and cloves that made it smell that way. Fine, it tasted like someone accidentally seasoned the pork with pumpkin pie spice. There. I said it. Not my favorite dish. Also, mine didn’t cut as pretty as the picture did. My pork shredded. So, what I wound up with was shredded pumpkin pie pork over peas and rice. And those are onions on the top of the pork. They had a weird texture, too. I'm not making this again. I should have allowed the last reviewer of the recipe to be a warning. Lesson learned.

Tuna Casserole

Laura

Let me tell you how this tuna casserole blog came to be...

I was cleaning out my pantry. I had some things that I'm sure I got because they were on sale and I never managed to use them. For example, cream of celery soup. I don’t even LIKE celery. Add that to the cans of tuna and the 1 1/2 bags of egg noodles that I had and I had myself a tuna casserole. 

I’ve never made tuna casserole. I had one experience eating it as a kid and I didn’t like it. It seems comforting though, like mac and cheese is. I mentioned thinking about making it and soon, Meredith was helping me find recipes that we might make.

That being said, I wound up making a hybrid of two recipes. The base of the tuna casserole, I made using this Cheesy Tuna Casserole recipe. Then for the topping, I used this Light and Hearty Tuna Casserole recipe. The only changes I made were to the base recipe: I added the aforementioned cream of celery soup and I accidentally left out the frozen peas.

Would I make it again? Sure. I’d maybe like to find a tasty but healthier recipe to use. I have a whole year to find out. I figure that's the next time I’ll be cleaning out my pantry...

Meredith
I grew up eating tuna casserole maybe weekly. I love the stuff. But it wasn’t until I was in my first apartment and asked my mother how to make it, did I find out that she HATED tuna casserole. My mom recently told me that she hasn’t made tuna casserole since I left home. My poor dad.



I loosely followed this recipe from Food.People.Want. with modifications, of course. I started by sauteing crimini mushrooms with garlic, onions, the celery and green (instead of red) peppers. To that I added the cream of celery soup, milk, mayonnaise, some cheese and the tuna. Finally I folded in cooked egg noodles and poured the mixture into my casserole dish. I used the same topping Laura did: panko breadcrumbs, butter, paprika and Italian seasoning – over top of more cheese though. This was a really good bowl of food and it just got better as the week went on. Next time I’ll have my dad over and I’ll try and remember the peas!

Steak San Marco . . . Polo!

Laura
Where has Steak San Marco been all my life? Super easy and really delicious. I’m definitely making this again.  It felt comforting and rustic. I put it over rice but next time, I’d put it over pasta. (Note to Meredith: Egg noodles are not to be considered pasta.)

I didn’t change a single thing since the recipe was so easy and straight-forward.  This is the perfect way to make something delicious using items that you probably already have in your pantry.

Meredith
One of my favorite dishes that my grandmother makes is Steak San Marco. One day I said to her how much I would LOVE her recipe. She was beyond excited to give it to me. So she went to her desk and hand wrote it on a little piece of stationery that I tucked it away in a binder when I got home. When I was finally ready to make the dish, I Googled “Steak San Marco” to see if it was an actual thing or just something my grandmother had given a name to. Well wouldn’t you know it – her handwritten recipe was COPIED WORD FOR WORD from cooks.com!!! So much for being a family dish! Oh well, it’s super delicious and almost guiltily easy to make.

STEAK SAN MARCO

• 2 lb. chuck meat in cubes
• 1 env. onion soup mix
• 1 can (1 lb.) Italian tomatoes
• 1 tsp. oregano
• Ground pepper
• Garlic powder
• 2 tbsp. cooking oil
• 2 tbsp. wine vinegar

In a large saucepan arrange meat. Cover with dry soup and mix. Add tomatoes, sprinkle with oregano, garlic powder, pepper, oil and vinegar. Simmer 2 1/2 hours. Serve over rice.

Enchiladas Especiales Tacuba Style

Meredith
Working our way down our “bucket list” of Sunday dinners, we reach enchiladas – on precisely the same week that Laura decides she wants to cook something “more involved.” And so here we have Rick Bayless’ Enchiladas Especiales. These chicken enchiladas are covered in a cream sauce that’s a vibrant green from roasted poblanos and fresh spinach. While there were quite a few steps, none of them seemed difficult. I like spending time in the kitchen anyway. The result was one amazing dinner. The enchiladas were rich and cheesy and chickeny – As good as I could get in any Mexican restaurant.

Laura
Let me just say that this is the best dish of food I've eaten in a while!  I don't think that I'll ever be able to eat enchiladas in a restaurant after this.  They were DE-LI-CIOUS!  The poblano peppers gave the green sauce just a little bit of kick in the background.  And there's spinach!  While the enchiladas were "involved" as far as steps went, it wasn't like we had to do some weird cooking method or anything.  They were easy and straight-forward.

So, if you're looking to wow your guests with a dish that tastes like you spent all afternoon in the kitchen, make this dish.  The best part is that you can make the enchiladas ahead of time, clean up your dishes (you'll have a few), then throw them in the oven as your guests arrive.  Your kitchen will be clean and you'll be relaxing knowing that deliciousness awaits.

Stuffed Pork Chops

It was one of those weeks where we started with an idea and went off in search of our own recipes.

Meredith
I tackled Emeril Lagasse’s Homemade Andouille-Stuffed, Bacon-Wrapped Double-Cut Pork Chops with Awesome Ham Hock Gravy. Four kinds of pig on one plate? Yep- I went there! Firstly, I did NOT make my own andouille sausage. Other than that, I think I followed the recipe to a T. A couple of things: the stuffing to me was lacking in flavor. The andouille seemed wasted and superfluous; the cornbread stayed grainy; it just wasn’t very interesting. Next, the amount of bacon I was supposed to wrap these chops in? WOW. My saute pan was a pool of bacon fat and I had to pour most of it out before I went into the oven. About half the bacon would have been plenty rich. BUT the star of the show - The Ham Hock Gravy - OH MAN was that ever a winner! Absolutely delicious. I probably won’t bother with much else of this recipe again, but I’ll need to find places to put this gravy in the future.

Laura
Well, the recipe I used was supposed to be an easier version of the one Meredith used, but honestly, whoever wrote it neglected to reread it.  (Yeah, this is the part where Meredith tells me that if I read the recipe more than once, I might have noticed it.)  Moving right along . . .

The pork chops were really good.  They were actually better the second time around.  I find that happens a lot.  I always seem to enjoy food the next day so much more.  My only issue was that there was way too much bacon on the pork chops.  I'm not convinced if the bacon was used to flavor or to hide the messy stuffing job.  Look, I'm the only person on the planet that thinks that while bacon does have it's place in my life (BLTs, with eggs, maybe even on the occasional burger), I don't think it needs to be EVERYWHERE.  This might be one of those times.  I feel like everywhere I look, a baconista (just watch that word catch on) is putting bacon in cupcakes or some other similarly inappropriate place.  Wait, I was talking about pork chops, wasn't I?

The end result was very good.  I enjoyed the pork chop.  I'm glad we made them but I'm still not over the bacon!