What's the best thing you've cooked/baked lately?

According to my kid, it was the pasta primavera I made the other day. Or it might have been the cupcakes I made last weekend. 

I cook and bake a lot, so I get plenty of chances to mess up though.

Today I want to make a pound cake. But I want to cut the recipe in half, so I am trying to figure out how long to bake it. We are going for a girl's day at the beach tomorrow and one of us is bringing cut up fruit, so for our sweet I thought it might be nice to have cubed pound cake to eat with it. Finger food is best for nibbling all day. 

We eat a lot of chicken so I'm always pleased to find a good new recipe. Last week I marinated chicken breasts in mustard, a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar. After a few hours I roasted them surrounded by garlic bulbs, tomatoes, onions, peppers (or whatever veg you prefer, all in large chunks or whole) and a glass of white wine. 40 mins or so until the chicken was cooked and the wine had mixed with the thicker mustard and made a lovely creamy sauce. It was very tasty!

I made the Pioneer Woman's Chicken Tortilla Soup about a month ago and then again a couple of weeks ago and I think I'll be making it this week too   

It's really good  

One of the few things I like at panera is the cinnamon crunch scones...would you share the recipe? I would love to try to make them at home.

So, why have you all posted w/o recipes. Bunch if rule breakers

I did the recipe.....it's just that I'm not one for much measuring and weighing 

I've been lazy ( and busy ) so I've just fed the family all normal grilled stuff. But I did make this awesome smoothie yesterday

1 banana
1/2 peach
1 1/2 cups unsweetened coconut milk
2 tsp powdered peanut butter

I didn't make this, my kids did based on my request for a seafood dinner for Mother's Day and I am keeping the recipe. The really funny thing is DD didn't notice that it came from a BBC website so amounts are listed in grams and mL so they had to do conversions before shopping.

Special Prawn Pasta

200g linguine or spaghetti 
25g butter
200g raw peeled prawns
1 garlic clove, crushed
100 ml white wine*
squeeze lemon juice**
small handfull flatleaf parsley, chopped

Cook pasta according to package.

Heat a small knob of the butter in a frying pan. When it starts to sizzle, add the prawns and fry 1 minute. Add the garlic and sizzle for 1 minute more, splash in the wine and bring to a boil. Swirl in the rest of the butter, season with salt and pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, then stir in chopped parsley.

When the pasta is cooked, drain and toss with the prawns. Makes 2 servings.

* If you don't drink wine the best substitutes would be fish stock, clam juice or vegetable stock.
**I know my kids squeezed in a whole lemon and doubled everything else.

This is our new favourite side dish- wild rice with carmelized sweet potatoes. I add in whatever extra veggies I need to use up and usually skip the pumpkin seeds. I usually toss in some mini portobello as well. The sauce for it is just delicious.

iowagirleats.com/2014/10/15/caramelized-sweet-potato-kale-fried-wild-rice/

(Sorry, it's not letting me link on my phone for some reason.)

I made it last night with tandoori kebabs with a mango chutney raita and BBQ zucchini. I think it's my perfect meal and I could eat it every day.

It came from this website: apeekintomyparadise.com/2014/11/panera-bread-copycat-cinnamon-chip-scones-recipe.html

Holy cow, ashley! That looks amazing!

All of the food sounds delicious, ladies. I made a chicken piccata this week that my kids really liked. I served it with a light tossed salad and crusty ciabatta.

Lemon Chicken Piccata

Recently I've been making a veggie tofu stirfry that even my 25 year old meat loving DS likes and will eat-DH loves it too. As most of you know DH and I changed to a vegan diet last year.  I've noticed how much quality ingredients can make a huge difference, so I buy most of my produce at Whole Foods. I just made up this dish but I also use a bottle of Trader Joe's Green Curry sauce. So the vegetables I use are
onions, red pepper, broccoli, carrots, and really thin, tender asparagus. The tofu I buy is the 365 (Whole Foods brand) extra firm tofu. The trick to using tofu is I open it first, drain out the water and then lay it on several layers of paper towels, lay some more on top and then place something heavy on top of that.

Then I get busy chopping up and prepping my veggies. I chop the onion, the red pepper and slice the carrots. I slice the asparagus and cut up the broccoli. I do this all by hand with my chef's knife, so it takes awhile, but I don't mind. By now the tofu is also ready. The paper towels are soaked because the water has really been drained out of it. I slice the tofu in half horizontally and then cut it into cubes.

I take out my heavy, stainless steel tall skillet on the right hand of the stove (I'll do my veggies in this one) and then a lighter skillet for the left hand of the stove (the tofu goes in this one). Olive oil goes in both (I know coconut oil is also healthy but I tried it and I can taste the coconut on the foods-yuck). Anyway, olive oil works just fine for me on my stove so I start cooking the tofu (on the left)  and the onions, the red pepper and the asparagus on the right side. I stir the entire time and then add the carrots and pretty soon the broccoli. It's hard to cook and stir with both hands on two different skillets at the same time, so that's why I've already taken the lid off of the Trader Joe's Green Curry Sauce. When the veggies are ready (I like them tender crisp, never soggy) I pour in the Green Curry Sauce, give it a quick stir and then turn add the tofu. I turn off the heat and dinner is ready!

Oh, I totally forgot-before I even started cooking I started the rice cooker with Jasmine Brown Rice to cook. The wonderful smell fills the house.

Debbie in MD.

Baking? Probably the Bet You Can't Eat Just One cinnamon rolls from Taste of Home that I made for DD's office staff.
My grandsons would probably say the Vanilla Bean Ice Cream I made on Monday. 

As as far as cooking, I think the best thing I've made lately is the Panang Chicken Curry I made last week. My 11 year old grandson ate THREE helpings and he told me he doesn't like spicy!! Ha! Little did he realize, it was HOT!

I don't, sorry. I've been kind of winging it. It's taken me 3-4 tries to get it where I really liked it last week. I plan to try to recreate it Tuesday and will be writing it down. I'm finally ready to try it on friends. I'll let you know how it goes and post the recipe once I've got one.