My 18 year old son picked out this recipe to cook. It's basically ground chicken with spices rolled up in phyllo dough and baked.

We found using the phyllo dough very fiddly and, in the end, it didn't hold up very well to the filling. More layers of phyllo were definitely required. The taste was quite good but too much bother.

We made it again a couple of weeks later using a can of Pillsbury pizza dough. We divided the dough in half and divided the mixture between them. This made for a super simple meal which we all enjoyed even more.

It's certainly not fine dining but it was surprisingly tasty and we all enjoyed it.

Finding a bag of Trader Joe's white chocolate chips in my pantry, I searched for a recipe to use them in. This cookie recipe had great reviews at allrecipes.com so it seemed like a good one to try.

I altered the recipe slightly by lessening the sugar from 2 cups to 1.5 cups. I used white and brown sugar instead of all white. Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly.

The cookies came out of the oven looking very nice. They held their shape and didn't flatten even though I used all butter which had really gotten too soft on the counter.

They have a nice chocolate flavor and a balanced sweetness. They'll never be a favorite because I don't really care for white chocolate (and really don't know why I had a bag of it in the pantry) but they are quite good. Kind of like a fudgy brownie with white chocolate chips.

If you're a fan of white chocolate, I'd highly recommend these. Even if you're not, they're worth a try.

I suppose it's rather silly to review a recipe for whipped cream unless, of course, one does not know how to make it.

I substituted confectioners sugar for granulated sugar because I don't like the grit that granulated sugar can give to whipped cream. Otherwise, a few minutes in the KitchenAid and three simple ingredients makes wonderful whipped cream to put on top of our Easter sundaes.

These are exactly the same recipe as the chicken fajitas from the same cookbook (though not listed together). Although my boys prefer beef, we didn't love these. I usually have great luck with flank steak but this was just too chewy.

When plans fell through for my 14 year old, I offered to bake with him. This is one of his favorite cookbooks - probably because of the pictures - and he picked out this torte.

The cake portion is baked in a jelly roll pan and later cut in three parts horizontally. Simple enough and takes almost no time.

One is supposed to spread raspberry preserves between the layers but none of my boys like preserves of any kind so I used Nutella. Cake, nutella, whipped cream, cake, nutella, whipped cream, cake, cocoa glaze.

There was nothing difficult about this torte though making everything used a number of bowls, pans and utensils. It comes together pretty quickly and looks impressive to those who don't bake.

Snickerdoodles are hard to mess with. Joy gives these a special touch with some added vanilla beans.

These are not our favorite snickerdoodles. We prefer ours with a distinctive crunch. These are crunchy on the perimeter but the center remains soft and chewy. I'm not sure if this center would have hardened if they had been left in the oven longer and I also know that some prefer their snickerdoodles this way.

The cookies are very good - they're just not our personal favorite.

You know those little brownie bites that you see in the stores? These are just like those only without a shelf life of many months.

Tiny little brownie bites, baked in mini muffin tins. They are low fat - calling for only half a stick of butter for 24 brownies. They use simple pantry ingredients and come together in no time at all. I used a Tablespoon cookie scoop to measure them out and they came out great with exactly enough batter for the 24 brownies.

Unlike brownies baked in bar form, these don't require hours to cool before you can eat them. You can bake, cool for just a bit, and pop them in your mouth.

Yum!

Excellent baked pancake!

Each pancake is baked in a cake pan and rises nicely up the sides. These pancakes come out thin with crispy sides and a softer bottom. They are less eggy than other baked pancakes I've tried.

While the pancakes baked, I sauteed apples and bananas to serve on top. YUM!

Be sure to double this recipe if you're feeding more than two or have hearty appetites.

Following the baking instructions goes a long way in making these come out well. I misread the temperature for the oven - these bake at a low temperature of 325 - so I burned the first batch.

These are a lovely oatmeal cookie on the thick side - they don't thin out much during baking. They are crunchy but not brittle.

Delicious with chocolate chips added!

Delicious marinade! Used it for steak tips which were grilled and they were tasty and tender. Made with common pantry ingredients it's easy to pull together in a two cup measuring cup.

I used red winer vinegar in place of the balsamic as I didn't have any good quality balsamic and other reviews stated the vinegar flavor was pronounced.

A delicious marinade/sauce is made with whiskey, apple cider, cider vinegar and seasonings. After a couple of hours marinating the chops are briefly fried before the reserved sauce is added to the pan. The sauce decreases to a glossy, sticky substance that coats the chops nicely when they are added back to the pan.

I'd cook the chops just a bit longer next time before removing them from the pan but otherwise the recipe was wonderful. The sauce had lots of flavor and the chops were very moist.

Very simple, very wonderful recipe!

Essentially a green bean stir fry with garlic and red pepper flakes. Everyone in my family loved them and we'll eat green beans this way again very soon.

I saw this recipe in the All Recipes magazine while waiting for the doctor. I saved it in my phone to try someday and today was that day.

Although there were a number of flavors - honey, brown sugar, Thai garlic ginger sauce - we didn't find any of them contributed to making the chicken sweet, spicy or sticky. I even added some cornstarch to thicken up the sauce and it still didn't cling to the chicken.

This didn't taste bad in any way but it was under whelming and I wouldn't make it again.

Very simple recipe that requires only almonds, water, sugar, egg white and cinnamon. I've been making these for years to give away at Christmas and they are a huge hit.

Beware - they are quite addictive!

A neighbor dropped off a beautiful basket of strawberries that she picked this morning so I decided to make strawberry shortcake.

This recipe has all three necessary parts of this quintessential summer dessert.

1. Strawberries - after being cut up, a portion is mashed while the rest are left sliced. They macerated on the counter while the rest of the dish came together.

2. Whipped Cream - I had some shelf stable cream from Trader Joe's. I put it in the freezer to cool it before whipping it. Sadly, I left it in there too long and it froze. I was able to thaw it AND keep it cool at the same time and it whipped up fine.

3. Biscuits - These biscuits are made with baking powder, half and half, and an egg. Eggs are an unusual addition to biscuits but they came together easily - even in the heat of a summer kitchen - and rose beautifully in the oven. The tops are nice and brown due to being brushed with cream and sprinkled with sugar. These are seriously the best dessert biscuits I have ever had. They are a bit sweet and a little crisp on the top but nice and flaky in the middle.

This recipe required many dishes but came together easily and relatively quickly.

Delicious!!

And, because my ridiculous boys don't like berries they ate the biscuits with whipped cream in the middle and homemade hot chocolate sauce on the top.

The woman behind the fish counter offered me a free bag of mussels today while I was buying fish. Who could resist?

A quick search on EYB turned up this recipe from one of my most used cookbooks. I assembled everything only to realize I didn't have any five-spice powder.

It turns out it didn't matter. There was so much flavor from the aromatics, soy sauce and oyster sauce that we didn't miss the spice.

My boys have never had mussels before and both were willing to try them. The middle boy really enjoyed them and ate a bunch. The youngest liked them more once my husband suggested he could put sriracha on them.

I can't wait to have these again.

My 18 yo son asked if he could cook dinner and asked for suggestions. As he's not much of a cook, I pulled some easy cookbooks off the shelf. He chose this recipe despite it containing ingredients he had never eaten before.

Although he needed a little help - basically convincing him to get ingredients together before he started cooking - he was able to pull of this super simple recipe in a short amount of time.

The result was a tasty noodle bowl we all enjoyed and a proud son.

Filled with amazing flavors! This is a super simple weeknight dinner that tastes like you've spent a ton of time cooking.

Turkey tenderloins are browned and then simmered in a wonderful sauce of orange juice, lime juice, chipotle in adobo, brown sugar and molasses. After the turkey is cooked, the sauce is reduced to a syrupy consistency.

This was spicy and citrusy and delicious. It was great served over white rice - plenty of sauce.

There are numerous links to this recipe online but none to the official website so I won't link them. If you want to cook this recipe, however, it's easy to fine.

This recipe was a little more involved than I had bargained for but that was completely my own fault for not reading the recipe all the way through before starting.

First of all, the recipe calls for pumpkin pie spice which I refuse to buy on principle. This meant I had to look up a recipe for pumpkin pie spice so I'd get the ratios correct. Later, I realized that the recipe called for melted and cooled butter as well as separated eggs with beaten egg whites. None of these were problematic on their own but while trying to fry bacon and get the rest of the recipe together, they threw me for a loop.

After I made the first 12 pancakes and they were rather flat, I took another look at the recipe and realized I left out the baking powder. I then added half the amount called for to the rest of the recipe.

Even with all these little problems, the pancakes were delicious. They had a nice, moist fruity flavor. The pumpkin lovers loved them while the haters were not so fond. We added chocolate chips to the pancakes because pumpkin and chocolate go so well together.

Yummy!

This dinner came together in no time at all. The spice rub was made with ingredients I always have in my pantry. I also had a can of chipotles in the pantry and sour cream in the fridge.

I broiled the chicken instead of grilling because it was too cold and snowy outside. The spice rub was delicious! The chicken breasts were juicy and the chipotle cream was wonderful.

We all enjoyed this very simple dinner much more than we would have predicted.

Disappointing!

It's a very basic recipe but I figured it was worth a shot. In the end, the rice was just too crunchy (brown rice) and had very little flavor.

When asked what he wanted for his birthday cake, my husband quickly responded with Snickers Pie. Apparently he had this at our neighbor's Christmas Eve party and had been planning to request it for his birthday.

I did a quick Google search and then called my neighbor to confirm this was the same recipe that my husband had eaten. I must confess that this is not something I would have normally made. It is basically a mixture of peanut butter, confectioners sugar, Cool Whip and chopped up snickers bars poured into an Oreo cookie shell.

This may have been the first time in my life I've ever bought Cool Whip. The recipe was very easy to make. I let it sit in the fridge over night to cool. I wish that the filling had hardened some but I guess refrigerated Cool Whip stays pretty soft. Nevertheless, it cut easily.

The boys all LOVED the pie - including the birthday boy. I found it cloyingly sweet and didn't care for the too mushy texture. I feel the need to give it 4 stars as everyone but me seems to love this darn pie. In fact, the recipe makes enough for 2 pies so we have plenty for tomorrow as well. I don't need another piece.

Cooks Illustrated claims to have perfected the snickerdoodle recipe. Typically, I make the recipe from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion which I consider my cookie Bible. That recipe does not use cream of tartar which is common to most snickerdoodle recipes.

This recipe uses cream of tartar and baking powder as leaveners which is supposed to make the cookies rise in the oven and then fall leaving cracks on the top of the cookies. These cookies are also bigger than the ones I typically make - a Tablespoon scoop rather than a teaspoon scoop.

CI claims that these cookies will be chewy in the middle and crisp on the edges. I found them to be crisp throughout which is how I prefer snickerdoodles anyway.

In the end, I found this recipe produced very nice snickerdoodles which were identical to the ones I always make (though larger in size). The cookies were delicious but they weren't as described in the recipe.

It's easy to make an expensive roast taste delicious. It's much more difficult to take a cheap roast and cook it so that it's moist and tender.

Eye of Round roasts are always marked down at my supermarket. I've never known quite how to cook them so they don't turn into leather. This method has you salt the roast for 24 hours prior to cooking (actual time was more like 19 hours). The roast is then cooked in a very low oven and finally finished in the oven with the residual heat after the oven is turned off.

At the end of the appointed time, I had a wonderfully cooked roast that was pink, juicy and tender.

I have no idea why I had a hankering for Sloppy Joes. I can't remember the last time I had them but decided it was time to make them from scratch.

This recipe is delicious. It's not overly sweet or tangy. It's delicious with a nice tomato flavor. It's got just a bit of a kick to it due to the Mexican chili powder I used and the teeny bit of hot sauce.

My husband liked it so much he ate the extra with chips as though it was dip.

Very easy, one pot meal. Lots of flavor - just a bit of spice. The sauce covered the ziti really well and the chicken stayed moist.

Next time I'd add the broccoli closer to the end as I like my veggies with more crunch.

These are two stage bars. First an oatmeal, sugar, corn syrup base is baked. Then melted chocolate is poured over this cooled base and nuts are sprinkled on top.

My issues all came after the bars were finished. Even in a non- stick pan that was well greased, these bars did not want to come out of the pan. Cutting through the hardened chocolate and the very chewy oatmeal base was very difficult.

These bars should definitely have been baked on an aluminum foil sleeve parchment paper. I just about ruined my favorite jelly roll pan trying to get these out.

The bars themselves are very rich - not crunchy at all. The base is moist and chewy and very, very sweet. I'd probably like them more if I hadn't had to wrestle with them.

A fantastic week night meal that is much more than the sum of its parts.

A delicious sauce is made with orange juice, zest, garlic, soy, sesame oil, red pepper flakes and honey. Then the sliced flank steak is cooked in part of the sauce until it evaporates and the meat caramelizes. The meat is then removed from the pan and the snap peas are added along with the rest of the sauce. Finally, the meat is added back with the veggies.

We served this over white rice and there was just the right amount of sauce left over to spoon over the rice. There was just the right amount of spice and lots of flavor.

Everyone enjoyed this and asked for it to be cooked again.

Excellent! Full of flavor and just the right amount of spice. Plenty hot but not so hot as to make my middle son break out in a sweat. The beef was very tender.

The whole meal comes together in the time it takes to make a pot of rice. A perfect week night meal.

It takes longer to preheat the oven than it does to make these biscuits.

The secret ingredient is .... mayonnaise. Really. While this does not make for a flaky biscuit, it does make moist and tender ones that are very good to serve with a meal.

The dough for these biscuits is very sticky and is dropped onto parchment paper. I used my muffin scoop and greased it well and it worked perfectly to scoop out 12 lovely biscuits.

If you're already got your hands full with other dishes in a meal, these biscuits are easy and delicious.

Excellent! Sliced potatoes are simmered on the stove top with onions, spices, chicken stock and cream until the potatoes are fork tender. Only then are the potatoes put in a gratin dish, covered with cheese and put in the oven.

I made this in my small Dutch oven which meant it was a one pot dish. Cooking on the stove top sped up the process and ensured the potatoes were cooked through and tender before putting them in the oven to get brown and bubbly. This makes for a much quicker side dish.

These were loved by one and all.

What a great idea for preserving some of the bounty from the garden!

Sea salt and chopped rosemary leaves are mixed and then baked in a low oven to dry the leaves and prevent the salt from clumping. The rosemary infused salt is then stored in half pint canning jars which are perfect for gift giving or adding to one's spice shelf.

This will be perfect rubbed over roasted or grilled chicken.

This dish has so many ingredients in it to add flavor to the chicken. Unfortunately, although the chicken was very good, none of the flavors stood out for us. I didn't taste any ginger, cilantro, or jalapeno in the finished dish. We were disappointed that there was no heat.

I took the advice of reviewers on EYB and cooked the chicken for only 30 minutes - even then it may have been a bit over cooked. That being said, the chicken stayed very moist and we all enjoyed it.

This is an exceedingly simple recipe for refried beans.

Canned beans are pureed in the food processor. They are then added to a pan in which diced slab bacon has been rendered. In addition to the bacon there are onions, garlic and spices. The beans thickened in the pan while the rest of dinner was cooked.

The beans had a very pronounced bacon flavor and, while they were quite good, I was the only person in the family who liked them. It would have been good to know ahead of time that no one cares for refried beans.

These have to be the easiest biscuits ever.

Remembering that I had some heavy cream in the fridge that needed to be used up, I did a quick search for cream biscuits. The dough comes together in about 2 minutes - including gathering ingredients and measuring flour. Basically, the cream is added to the dry ingredients. This is mixed and then kneaded for 30 seconds before patting out the dough to be cut.

20 minutes total time gave us delicious, surprisingly flaky biscuits for dinner.

We have a friend who, despite all odds, is celebrating his birthday today. Jim LOVES whoopie pies more than anything so it seemed fitting I shoudl bake some for his birthday.

These Pumpkin whoopie pies seemed like the perfect thing for a mid October baking session. They are flavored with molasses, cloves, ginger and cinnamon and are a beautiful orange color once baked. They are a bit more moist than chocolate whoopie pies and I would recommend baking on parchment paper.

I chose to make the more typical shortening and fluff filling as opposed the the cream cheese filling as I didn't want to have to refrigerate them. I substituted maple extract for vanilla to complete the fall flavors.

Perfect fall dessert!

This pound cake is baked in a bundt pan. It is very rich - as all pound cakes are - and wonderfully moist but not at all heavy. The pumpkin flavor and spices are subtle but noticeable which made the cake a hit with the pumpkin fans and non-fans in my family.

This was so easy to make that I'll be sure to make it again.

King Arthur Flour never disappoints. I got a new pizzelle maker for Christmas and knew that this would be my go-to resource for recipes.

The dough itself is super simple to make using only a bowl and a spoon. I used vanilla extract because my children aren't fond of anise. To form the pizzelles I used my Tablespoon cookie scoop.

This pizzelle maker is super fast - 30 seconds per batch - so I had to work fast. In less than 15 minutes I had 30 beautiful pizzelles. They are thin, crispy and delicious.

I'll have to work on my technique to get the dough in just the right place on the plates but I don't really care if the cookies are perfectly shaped for my family.

I'll have to try this again before I'm certain of the rating. This dough just seemed too loose and oily to me. It rose nicely but it was still too oily.

It was able to be rolled out easily and made a nice calzone dough but I prefer a dough that doesn't have quite as much oil.

I couldn't really tell you whether or not this is the perfect apple pie but I can tell you that it's awfully good. This is the first recipe for apple pie I ever tried and I've been making it for years. It has just the right amount of sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for our tastes.

These no bake squares have a peanut butter, graham cracker, butter, confectioner's sugar base and a chocolate topping. The base is pressed into a pan and the melted chocolate is poured over the top.

Although it came together quickly, once the chocolate hard hardened, the bars were a mess when I tried to cut them to take them out of the pan. The peanut butter base was simply too crumbly and fell apart. Perhaps I didn't have enough peanut butter but I used my scale to be sure to have the correct amount.

I wouldn't make these again.

After buying a bag of peanut butter chips on a whim, I decided to bake some chocolate cookies with peanut butter chips.

This recipe is wonderful. Nice chocolate flavor. Plenty of peanut butter chips. A perfect marriage of chocolate and peanut butter.

Needing to bake something for a middle school potluck dessert using only ingredients in my pantry proved difficult. Thankfully, I had all the ingredients for these peanut butter blondies on hand.

Basically, a peanut butter bar cookie, these are made with peanut butter, butter, flour, eggs, and chocolate chips. They're spread in a 9x13 pan and baked.

Although I checked the blondies at the short end of the baking time, they would probably have been better had they been baked about 5 minutes less. Nonetheless, they have good peanut butter flavor and were super easy to make. They should go over well with the middle school crowd.

Next time, I'd make these in a smaller pan to get thicker blondies as that's my personal preference.

Asparagus coated in parmesan and panko roasted in the oven. Delightful! The recipe instructs one to poke holes in the asparagus, sprinkle with salt, and leave to drain on paper towels. At the end of the 30 minutes I didn't see any moisture on the paper towels so I'd skip this step in the future. These are so good they just might convince that person who thinks they don't like asparagus to give them a try.

These are very good buttermilk pancakes. The recipe comes together quickly and is enough for 16 good sized pancakes.

As usual, I did not have buttermilk in the house and used sour milk. The pancakes don't rise as much as my boys prefer and they were a little more floppy than they like but they tasted delicious.

There's not much to say that hasn't been said.

I cut the butter and oil in half which worked out fine. I also used low fat sour cream and lite mayonnaise and the dip was plenty rich.

If you're going to be in the kitchen anyway and can watch the onions for 30 minutes, there's just no reason to use onion dip from an envelope.

My mother made orzo rice pilaf at least weekly while I was growing up. I was pretty shocked when I searched eatyourbooks to find that none of my cookbooks had a recipe for rice pilaf that included orzo as I thought it was pretty standard.

This recipe from food.com is much like my mother would make pilaf. I followed the recipe exactly except for subbing butter for margarine and cutting the amount in half. A full stick of butter would have made very greasy rice. The recipe does not call for any spices so is pretty bland and benefits from the addition of some salt and pepper.

The recipe was only marginally more work than using the Near East pilaf in a box and had no mystery ingredients in it. We all liked it very much and I'm sure to be making this often.

And the perfect brownie search continues ...

I thought these brownies held real promise - a mix between a fudgy and cakey brownie. I baked them in a 9x9 pan instead of the 13x9 pan called for because I know I like my brownies thick.

This recipe calls for dutch process cocoa and I guess I can now officially say, after many tries, I don't care for dutch process cocoa. The chocolate is too "dark" tasting for my boys and the brownies are just not sweet enough tasting for me. They're also missing that nice shiny crust on top.

They taste fine - in fact, I'm sure others would love them. They're chocolatey and moist. Fudgy and cakey. They're just not what I'm looking for.

I imagine this peanut brittle is very good but I've now burned the sugar base two times. The first time was completely my fault as I left the room while the sugar was boiling. The second time, I should have trusted my instincts more than the thermometer as by the time the sugar reached 135 it was too dark.

I'll try again another time making sure to remove the sugar from the heat when the thermometer approaches 130.

Edited to add: The third time was the charm. I took the sugar off the heat once it was just a little lighter than peanut brittle ought to be (the vanilla makes it a bit darker). The peanut brittle was delicious and I successfully made three batches to give away as gifts.

I'm keeping my review at 3 stars because the peanut brittle is good but the recipe itself is faulty. If you keep cooking to 135 you will definitely burn the sugar.

Perfect combination of chocolate and coffee flavor!

I made these cookies for my coffee loving middle son. The cookies get the coffee flavor from espresso and the chocolate flavor from cocoa and chocolate chips. The cookie is moist and chewy with great mocha flavor.