Cover recipe- Martha Stewart Living, Simple Layer Cake with Vanilla Frosting: May 2013

I always look forward to my Martha Stewart Living magazine’s monthly arrival. The gardening tips, household goodies, DIY crafts and seasonal recipes are a big draw for me. I must admit that I rarely cook from it, but I definitely read it and look at it for its “pretty” factor.

This month’s issue is celebrating Spring with fast, fresh meals, flowers and parties. There is a rather beautiful food and entertaining section in this issue. I’ve clipped the following recipes to make: Creamy Chicken with Bacon and Corn, Baked Risotto with Herbs and Lemon, Cotija and Corn Tacos with Lime and Mango, Blueberry Fool, Rhubarb Fizz and Green Goddess Salad Dressing. The cake on the cover is their Simple Layer Cake with Vanilla Frosting. It was dubbed as “Sweet of the Month.” They describe it as an easy, all-purpose yellow cake that takes just a bit longer than a packaged mix. “An instant test kitchen favorite,” they say. Read my notes below to see what I thought of this recipe…

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Cover recipe- Food Network Magazine, Chicken-Mango Tacos: May 2012

I have a confession. When it comes to magazines, I’m a bit of a hoarder – especially food magazines. Very often, I find myself drooling over each recipe, creating a to-do list that gets longer with each page that I turn. Just as often, this list tends to get lost among the copious piles of kindergarten artwork and junk mail that line my kitchen island.

While attempting to manage some sort of organization the other day, I came across this  Food Network Magazine that I’d kept lying around for over a year. The cover shot of delicious looking tacos filled perfectly with an assortment of fillings drew me in right away.

This issue has a handy pullout with 50 different variations to choose from. There were so many wonderful flavor combinations, but I decided to go with the Chicken-Mango Tacos. I love pairing sweet, juicy fruit with grilled meat, and these tacos used a Mango salsa that sounded so flavorful with red onion, jalapeno and fresh squeezed lime juice. Read my notes below to see what I thought of this recipe.

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Cover Recipe- Bon Appetit, Pimiento Mac and Cheese: March 2011

When it comes to mac and cheese, you’re either a blue box person or you’re not.  And, well, I am not.  I grew up on the homemade stuff and once you spend your entire childhood eating a cheese sauce that is made from actual melted cheese and not some kind of strangely fluorescent powder, you just can’t ever go back.

You can understand, then, why I took it as a personal challenge to sway my boyfriend’s blue box-loving heart when he informed me (on Valentine’s Day, mind you) that he preferred the “just add hot water” version to mine. For. Shame.

It was then and there that I vowed to leave no mac and cheese recipe unturned until I found the one that would change his mind.  Recently, I was going through my old cooking magazines when I rediscovered the March 2011 issue of Bon Appetit, with a Pimiento Mac and Cheese on it’s cover that they claimed was “hands down the tastiest version [they've] ever made”. My heart immediately started racing as I thought, “Could this really be the one?” Read my notes below to see what I thought of this recipe.

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Cover Recipe- Everyday Food Light, Salmon Burgers with Yogurt-Dill Sauce: Copyright 2011

I have a fairly extensive collection of cookbooks. I love to collect them, but to be honest, I don’t always cook from a lot of them. In fact, probably 90% of them sit on the shelves, only to be brought out once every year or so. But I do have a small group of cookbooks that are my go-tos. The ones that I will always pull out when I need some dinner inspiration or a no-fail recipe. I’m hoping to add Everyday Food: Light to that mix.

I first fell in love with Everyday Food: Great Food Fast many years ago and have cooked many, many recipes from it. And since I’m trying to shed the last of the baby weight, I thought I’d give the Light version a try.

I have to admit – I was drawn to the cover with this Salmon Burger with Yogurt-Dill Sauce before I even knew what it was. When I opened up the book and found out it was fish, I was actually pleasantly surprised. I have been trying to incorporate more fish into our meals, and I knew this would be a great way to change up burger night. Read my notes below to see what I thought of this recipe.

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Cover recipe- Breakfast for Dinner, Chicken & Biscuit Waffles: Copyright 2013

Breakfast foods are some of my favorite foods…pancakes, French toast, waffles, omelets, frittata, muffins, pastries, oatmeal, or good old turkey bacon and eggs with toast. I love how much variety there is, and I love that breakfast can go sweet or savory and is still perfectly acceptable first thing in the morning. Eating breakfast for breakfast is great, but eating breakfast for dinner always feels like a treat, which is why Breakfast for Dinner by Lindsay Landis and Taylor Hackbarth is completely fabulous.

The book is divided into chapters for main dishes, sides and starters, and drinks and desserts. They do a wonderful job of putting a fresh new spin on breakfast classics, like Frittata Florentine, Goat Cheese Monte Cristos, and Chocolate Brownie Waffles with Blackberry Sauce. Another thing I love is how they take a typical breakfast ingredient, for example cornflakes, and make it into a dinner-type meal that incorporates the breakfast food, like Cornflake-Crusted Chicken Tenders…or how a breakfast food is worked into a typical dinner meal, like Bacon Fried Rice. Breakfast ingredients also get beautifully remade into appetizers (like Nova Lox Bruschetta) and desserts (like Vietnamese Iced Coffee Pops and Doughnut Fudge Sundaes). The book is full of fantastic dishes and I decided to start with the Chicken and Biscuit Waffles. Sounds like a pretty good place to start, right? Read my notes below to see what I thought of this recipe.

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