Classic Lasagna

Classic lasagna is a fairly simple concept--you stack up some noodles with spaghetti sauce, maybe some meat or veggies, and some cheese, and you bake it. Everyone has their own little twist on it though. Some people don't pre-boil their noodles, and some do. Some people use beef, some use sausage, and some use mushrooms or eggplant. That's why everyone loves lasagna--it can be so easily tailored to suit your tastes. This is what I do when I make lasagna.

Amaretto Bundt Cake

My mom used to make this cake fairly often. It's simple because it starts with boxed cake mix and also doesn't require frosting. It's also incredibly delicious if, like me, you love amaretto. Mom always used yellow cake and vanilla pudding mix, but I think it's just as good (and maybe better, actually) with chocolate cake and chocolate pudding mix. The recipe is the same either way, so feel free to experiment. I bet that a pineapple cake would be delicious with this recipe actually. I suppose you could also use other types of alcohol, too. You could make a screwdriver cake with orange cake mix and vodka or maybe a strawberry margarita cake with strawberry cake, a bit of lime juice, and tequila. If you give it a try, let me know how it works out.

Braided White Bread

Working in a coffee shop, you get to know your regular customers. You get to actually like some of them, too, to the point that you actually enjoy making their drinks and talking to them when they come in. On my first day of work at the coffee shop, my boss introduced me to a lovely couple who came in for a cup of coffee or two pretty much every afternoon. They're big into baking (and are generally super awesome people, too), so we hit it off pretty well. They're baking speciality is bread. Lots and lots of bread. Every now and then they'd bring some in to the shop for us to try out, and oh my. There really is nothing like fresh, homemade bread.

Jambalaya Grits

I don't know where my mom found this recipe. I just know that it's amazing. She started making this probably sometime when I was in high school, so even though it's not one of those "childhood favorite" kind of foods, it's still one of my ultimate comfort foods.

If you haven't gathered this by now, I love grits. Growing up in the south will do that to you. If you don't like grits, it's probably because you've only ever had the bland kind they serve with breakfast at restaurants. Grits need lots of salt and lots of love to make them delicious. Jambalaya grits are special because they get even more love. They get chicken. And sausage. And ham. And mozzarella cheese. Oh my. I always make this as a dinner, but I suppose it would be just as delicious as a breakfast or brunch item. Be warned though; this recipe does make a decent bit of food, so make sure you're hungry--you'll want to eat all of it. I promise.

Snickerdoodles

This has never happened before, but for some strange reason, this season I'm somehow associating football with cookies. I'm not sure why that is, but on Sunday we'll make it halfway through whatever one o'clock game we're watching and I'll get the irresistible urge to bake cookies. It's so weird, but who am I to say no to baking cookies?

Football also makes me want true fall weather so badly that I'll do anything I can to emulate that fall feeling. In this case, that means I'm making the quintessential fall cookie--snickerdoodles! Justin, however, insists that snickerdoodles are a winter cookie because that's the only time he ever got them as a kid, but I told him he's crazy. They're coated in cinnamon; they're a fall cookie.

Frosted Sugar Cookies

Justin's mom makes the most amazing frosted sugar cookies every Christmas. You know those sugar cookies that you can buy in every grocery store in the country? They're basically the homemade version of those but better because they're just a pinch less sweet. (I think that the store-bought ones can taste like just sugar sometimes, whereas these actually have some flavor beyond that.)

Salsa

Justin's major weakness is chips and salsa. If he has them, he will eat them. Quickly. He gets sad when we come home with a brand new jar of salsa and he has to wait for it to get cold before he can eat it. I'm not kidding.

I had always wanted to try making homemade salsa. However, chopping up all those tomatoes and what not seemed like a lot of work. I convinced myself to give it a try once, and the flavor was super weak. I don't know if I just had a bad recipe or bad tomatoes or what, but I thought that homemade salsa would just forever be out of my reach. Then came Pioneer Woman to the rescue. Although everything she makes looks fantastic, I try to avoid making a lot of it because of the ridiculous amount of butter and heavy cream that goes into everything she makes. Oh, the calories. How bad could salsa be though? There's no butter or cream anywhere in sight, so it should be okay.

Chicken Creole

I haven't always been a big fan of chicken Creole. It's very tomato-y, and as I've talked about before, I didn't really like tomatoes much until fairly recently. When I was a kid, the tomato chunks in chicken Creole are what turned me off, but now that I'm over it, I really enjoy this dish. It's still not my favorite Cajun-style dish, but it's definitely worth making once in a while.

Grilled Three-Cheese & Rosemary Sandwiches

Justin and I love grilled cheese. First of all, who doesn't like cheese? It's pretty spectacular. Then it's also just so easy to make. Slap some butter and cheese on some bread and toss it in a hot pan. Voila, dinner. Tangent alert: I don't like it when people make "grilled cheese" with meat on it. That's not grilled cheese. That's a grilled sandwich with cheese on it. That's a poor man's panini. I'm sure it's still freaking delicious, but it's not grilled cheese. I can make an allowance for veggies I suppose, but even that's a little iffy to me; you're still verging on grilled sandwich territory there.

Sorry about that. I get really passionate about my grilled cheese. Anyway, in my book, you really can't beat the childhood favorite grilled cheese, white bread with Kraft singles. However, sometimes we like to pretend to be adults and fancy it up a bit. That's where this grilled cheese sandwich comes in. It still has the American cheese in there to give it that classic, gooey creaminess, but it also adds sharp cheddar for a little bite and Swiss cheese for a rich nuttiness. The rosemary butter gives it a hint of freshness. While this will never be my absolute favorite grilled cheese, it's a good alternative for when I want to feel a bit more sophisticated. My one major tip for this sandwich is to put the American cheese in the center of the other two slices. Being harder cheeses, they'll take a bit longer to melt, so having each of them right up against the bread should help with that a bit.

Chopped Challenge #4: CajuMex Burritos

Last night it was Justin's turn to cook for yet another Chopped challenge. This time I gave him orzo (my favorite type of pasta), mozzarella cheese, andouille sausage, and taco seasoning. He turned those ingredients into a delicious, over-stuffed burrito with both Cajun and Mexican influences--andouille and shrimp provided the Cajun aspect, while the taco seasoning and chorizo covered the Mexican side of things. The combination was really quite yummy. I look forward to making this again sometime, though I might try to lighten it up somehow.

Tiramisu

We were having one of Justin's coworkers over for dinner, for which I made my mom's spaghetti and meatballs. I wanted to make something Italian for dessert to go with it, and what's a better choice than tiramisu? It's really great for a dinner party or other special occasion because it seems fancy but is actually really easy to make at home, aside from the part where I had to drive all over town looking for ladyfingers. Additionally, for the best flavor you should make it the day before, also freeing up time to spend cooking the rest of your meal the day of.

Blueberry Drop Scones

In my pastry-making days at the coffee shop, I made a lot of scones. The dough involved a decent bit of work, with all the frozen butter grating and dough rolling and whatnot. People really seemed to prefer our other pastries though, so a lot of times we'd end up having to throw some of the scones out, aka let the other employees fight over who got to take them home. I honestly think that was one of their favorite parts of the job--what did Leslie bake that I can take home today?

All that changed one day when for whatever reason--I can't remember if I was just being lazy or what--I decided that instead of rolling out the dough and then filling it with goodies before folding it up and cutting it into wedges, I would just mix the goodies directly into the dough and drop it by large spoonfuls onto the pan. I know that I had made drop biscuits a few times around then, so I'm assuming that's where the idea came from. I tried it out, and customers couldn't get enough of these scones. None of the flavors changed. We used the exact same recipe to make them; we basically just changed their shape, and people went crazy for them. It was so weird. They are slightly fluffier, I suppose, because the dough isn't rolled, but that's about the only difference. I only made scones this way after that point. I even made a double batch of these the morning of our wedding as breakfast for everyone who was helping us decorate.

Mom's Meatballs

Spaghetti needs meatballs. There's just something classic and wonderful about that pairing; it's one of the ultimate comfort foods. I confess that I have made my mom's spaghetti sauce without making the meatballs before, but it's always just a little sad without them.