kalamansi's Reviews
94 recipes reviewed. Showing 1 to 50Sort by: Book Title 
| Date | Rating | Recipe Title
Weelicious: 140 Fast, Fresh, and Easy Recipes
By Catherine McCord
William Morrow Cookbooks - 2012
Tasty, very tender, and very easy. This recipe will definitely become part of our family's dinner rotation. It does makes a lot of broth; you have to drain your pork very well or else your soft taco gets soggy. Next time I make this, I'll use medium or hot salsa rather than mild.
useful (0)
My favorite mac and cheese recipe is from The Best Recipe. This isn't as creamy, but it's a good compromise for speed and ease, and beats boxed by a mile. The recipe calls for 1.5 cups of shredded three-cheese blend; when I first made this, I had some finely shredded blend which included Monterey Jack, which is pretty mild. I measured it but didn't pack it, and was disappointed with the results. I could tell that the recipe had potential, though, so the next time, I used sharp cheddar and packed it, and that batch turned out much better. Maybe a weight equivalent of the volume of shredded cheese would have been helpful.
useful (0)
We had some leftover rice from Chinese takeout and I thought I could put it to use with this recipe. These cheese-filled rice balls looked fine in the picture, but once I started making them, the combination of cold rice and bits of cheese sticks just gave me the squicks.
useful (0)
Other recipes I've found for graham crackers advise rolling the dough to a thickness of 1/8"; these are rolled out to 1/4" and still turn out crisp. I dust them with cinnamon sugar and my family likes them a lot. We made small bags of these as party favors for my daughter's birthday.
useful (0)
Website: Washington Post
useful (0)
Website: Veggie and the Beast
My family likes these chocolatey muffins; I wish I'd known about this recipe last fall when I needed to make something vegan and allergy-friendly for my son's class. The muffins I've made so far haven't been vegan; I used butter instead of coconut oil. A few observations:
1) A 14.5-oz can of black beans has a little bit more than enough for two batches of muffins, so you may as well make a double batch.
2) The recipe is written as a one-bowl (food processor or blender) recipe, but I would rather add a bowl to the procedure. It's easier for me to clean a food processor or blender that had runny liquids in it rather than a thick batter, plus it's easier to use my 1/4-cup muffin scoop out of a wide mixing bowl rather than a narrow appliance bowl or pitcher.
3) For one batch, I mixed in all of the chocolate chips into the batter rather than reserving a few for sprinkling on top. For the other batch, I sprinkled the chips on top and they really did make a nice difference in the muffins' appearance; they look more dessert-like.
useful (0)
The VB6 Cookbook: More than 350 Recipes for Healthy Vegan Meals All Day and Delicious Flexitarian Dinners at Night
By Mark Bittman
Clarkson Potter - 2014
useful (0)
Smitten Kitchen Every Day: Triumphant and Unfussy New Favorites
By Deb Perelman
Knopf - 2017
useful (0)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
useful (0)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
These are delicious, but they taste so good and rich that they cross the line from granola bar to cookie. I like that the recipe can take a higher proportion of mix-ins than other granola bar recipes I've tried.
useful (0)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
useful (0)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
I made these because I had to improvise; I had planned to use a different brownie recipe but had forgotten to get chocolate squares. I did have good quality cocoa, though, and picked this recipe instead. A happy accident! Everyone loved these. I swapped in whole wheat flour for about half of the all-purpose flour and they were still rich and fudgy. I used chocolate chips instead of nuts for my stir-in.
useful (1)
Website: Smitten Kitchen
useful (0)
Simply in Season: Tenth Anniversary Edition (World Community Cookbook)
By Mary Beth Lind, Cathleen Hockman-Wert
Herald Press - 2015
useful (0)
useful (0)
useful (0)
Sesame Street Let's Cook!
By Sesame Workshop, Susan McQuillan
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2015
We made the large chewy option rather than the small crisp version and they turned out great.
useful (0)
Sesame Street "B" is for Baking: 50 Yummy Dishes to Make Together
By Sesame Workshop
Wiley - 2011
These were good, moist biscuits that kept well. If I were to make them in the summer, I would use fresh herbs rather than dried. Also, the recipe didn't indicate to do this, but I drained the chopped tomatoes before adding them to the dough; I thought that watery tomatoes would make the dough runny. My yield was 11 biscuits, but I used heaping 1/4-cupfuls rather than exact 1/4-cupfuls.
useful (0)
useful (0)
This recipe uses flour, cornmeal and sweetener (honey) like Northern-style cornbread, but I liked that it was crisper and denser than other Northern-style recipes I've tried. There's a bit of an editing error; step 2 directs the baker to whisk dry ingredients together, including sugar, but there's no sugar in the ingredient list, only honey! I included the honey in the wet-ingredients mix and proceeded with the recipe. We made the variation with cheese and it was a great side for our dinner.
useful (0)
Perfect Recipes for Having People Over
By Pam Anderson
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2005
useful (0)
Perfect One-Dish Dinners: All You Need for Easy Get-Togethers
By Pam Anderson, Judd Pilossof
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt - 2010
We don't eat beef very often, but I'm glad we broke our chicken streak with this stew. This was a great dish for a cold December night. It was rich and meaty, and the orange zest and juice added brightness and kept it from being too heavy. The chickpeas were the starch in this stew, but when I make this again, I'll add some cubed potato as well.
useful (0)
useful (0)
Parents Need to Eat Too: Nap-Friendly Recipes, One-Handed Meals, and Time-Saving Kitchen Tricks for New Parents
By Debbie Koenig
William Morrow Paperbacks - 2012
useful (0)
useful (0)
useful (0)
This granola bar recipe was too sweet for my taste. Also, I'm not sure if the bars didn't hold together well because of the honey or because I didn't press the mixture firmly enough into the pan.
useful (0)
No-Churn Ice Cream: Over 100 Simply Delicious No-Machine Frozen Treats
By Leslie Bilderback
St. Martin's Griffin - 2015
useful (0)
New Ways to Enjoy Chicken (Nitty gritty cookbooks)
By Stanley Wolf
Bristol Pub Enterprises - 1983
The "pastry" concept in this recipe is reminiscent of Yorkshore pudding: pour a light egg batter over seasoned browned chicken and bake. The batter puffs around the chicken and develops a nice crisp crust. Tarragon isn't an herb I use much but it works well here.
useful (1)
The New England Cookbook: 350 Recipies from Town and Country, Land and Sea, Hearth and Home
By Brooke Dojny
Harvard Common Press - 1999
useful (0)
useful (0)
The mocha-flavored "pudding" in the middle really makes this dish. The cake is easy to put together from pantry and fridge staples, and doubles well too; one batch fits an 8"-9" square pan, while two batches fit a 9x13 pan nicely.
useful (0)
useful (0)
Website: My Recipes
This was a wonderful recipe that tasted deceptively richer than you would think from looking at the ingredients (only 2.5 Tbsp butter!). The crust that developed during baking was reminiscent of cheese. My mandoline was a must; when I used just my knife, my potato slices were too thick and were still hard by the end of cooking time.
useful (1)
More-With-Less Cookbook
By Doris Janzen Longacre
Herald Pr - 2000
I used the option for a mix of whole wheat (white whole wheat) and bread flour, rather than using only all-purpose flour. This was indeed pretty easy, and rose into an attractive shape, but it wasn't a baguette. The crust was tender, with no shatter, and the texture was soft with small holes, rather than slightly chewy with large holes. I will make this again, just with adjusted expectations.
useful (1)
Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home: Fast and Easy Recipes for Any Day
By Moosewood Collective
Simon & Schuster - 1994
useful (0)
Memories of Philippine Kitchens
By Amy Besa, Romy Dorotan
"Stewart, Tabori and Chang" - 2006
This is the first time I've made adobo with coconut milk. I had only had a coconut milk-based adobo once before and thought it was too rich, but in this recipe the coconut milk and the vinegar were well-balanced. There was surprisingly little chicken fat that I had to skim off too, compared with my family's adobo recipe. My favorite part of adobo is the sabaw (sauce or gravy); it should be so good that you're happy to have just that with rice, no meat necessary. The Besa-Dorotan recipe passes that test with flying colors.
useful (0)
Website: Martha Stewart
useful (0)
Website: Martha Stewart
This recipe originally ran in Everyday Food, 9/2006. If you are looking for a giant chocolate chip cookie recipe, don't make this one. Use Martha Stewart's/Everyday Food's Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe instead (http://www.marthastewart.com/313548/ultimate-chocolate-chip-cookies). The dough spread quite a bit so the cookies were flat, and I think the 375F temperature was too high and they came out a little scorched even at the low end of the time estimate.
useful (0)
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter: What You Should and Shouldn't Cook from Scratch -- Over 120 Recipes for the Best Homemade Foods
By Jennifer Reese
Free Press - 2011
I feel a little silly reviewing a recipe for popcorn of all things, but stovetop popcorn has been my favorite new/rediscovered thing of late. After I made it, I wondered why I wasted my time with microwave popcorn during the past 20+ years. When we made stovetop popcorn when I was growing up, there were always some kernels burnt to the bottom of the pan, but I use a nonstick pot now and haven't had any problems. Using a glass lid provides additional entertainment. I've always found the smell of microwave popcorn artificial and overwhelming; stovetop that you've seasoned yourself is much more fresh and delicious. On my electric range, the whole process took about six minutes, including measuring and heating the oil--just a minute or two more than microwave popcorn. Also, there were hardly any unpopped kernels, which my microwave popcorn bags always had plenty of, despite manufacturers' claims to the contrary.
useful (3)
useful (0)
I wasn't sure what this recipe would be like, since the bread has only one rising and there isn't any sugar for the yeast to feed on. It's pretty much as Reese describes: "hard, chewy crust and the texture of a peasant loaf," but because I'm not very patient yet at letting my bread rise, even the taller of my loaves (dough had risen just to the top of the pan) is a little small for lunch-size sandwiches, unless I make two little ones. Lesson learned: the dough has to rise as high as you want it before baking, because it doesn't rise much more in the oven. Also, my kitchen is on the chilly side year round and my bread took three hours to rise rather than two, and it might have been even longer had I not turned my oven on warm and let the loaves sit on top. Still, this recipe was dead easy--easier than no-knead bread and less time--plus it made a lot, and the bread made a great accompaniment with dinner.
useful (0)
useful (0)
Website: The Kitchn
I was in search of a cake pops recipe that started with cake and frosting from scratch rather than cake mix and canned frosting. I mechanized the process where possible (e.g. using a mixer, first with the paddle and then the dough hook) to combine the cake crumbs and frosting) but of course most of the labor is in shaping and dipping the pops. I was expecting to make about 50 pops, which is Bakerella's yield from a 9x13 cake, but my yield from two 9" rounds was 117 cake balls; I used a tablespoon cookie scoop. (Someone in the recipe's comment thread posted a yield of 54 pops, so your mileage may vary. Widely.) Because I had so many pops, I melted another 12 oz of chocolate chips, and then had enough chocolate left over to dip odds and ends such as mini pretzels. I used 1/3 of a cake of paraffin with each 12 oz of chocolate too (one paraffin cake=1/4 pound); that's the proportion that my husband's family's recipe for buckeyes has for chocolate coating. The recipe says refrigerating the dipped pops will lead to weeping chocolate, but I haven't found that to be the case. (Our dipped buckeyes don't weep either; maybe the wax helps?) Anyway, there's uncooked cream cheese in the pops, so I didn't want to leave them out at room temperature for too long, much less outdoors in the mid-80s for a Labor Day weekend picnic.
The recipe posted links to Bakerella's and Pioneer Woman's cake pops recipes. Bakerella prefers to put her pops stick-side down in a stand, and the Kitchn prefers putting the pops head down on a pan. Pioneer Woman likes to lay hers flat; I took that option because that fit best in my freezer.
The pops were good--definitely a treat, but not overly sweet. I would keep some milk nearby for a chaser after eating a couple, though! Our guests, both children and adults, enjoyed them.
useful (0)
Website: The Kitchn
I love making these biscuits because I don't have to take out the pastry blender or food processor. The biscuits are very tender, and you have to be careful not to pat the dough too thick or the middles won't be cooked through by the time the bottoms are brown. The instructions say to cut the dough into eight biscuits but those are a little too generously sized for my family, so I cut twelve instead. I've done substitutions such as swapping in 1/4 c. whole spelt flour and mix-ins such as lots of shredded cheese and they've turned out great. The instructions also say to bake for 15 minutes at 425F but they're done at eight minutes in my oven.
useful (0)
King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking: Delicious Recipes Using Nutritious Whole Grains
By King Arthur Flour
Countryman - 2006
useful (0)
useful (0)
I made this as standard and mini cupcakes/muffins for better portion control with my kids. They taste great and I don't think anyone would know that all the flour was whole grain. They didn't rise very high, but I think that's because I mixed the batter manually with a spoon instead of a mixer because I didn't want to wake up my sleeping kids.
useful (2)
useful (0)
Website: King Arthur Flour
useful (0)