As a still-relatively-new cook & baker, I'm on a mission to make 30 new-to-me recipes in 2021. I shared my first five recipes of the year, plus a few holdovers, in mid-January, & now I'm back with five more. I've slowed down my cooking & baking in February, but I expect it to pick back up when my seasonal affective disorder lifts a little bit.
Here we go, recipes five through 10. I have a feeling I'll hit 30 pretty easily... & then keep going!
I bought tahini (pure sesame paste) from Milk Street & was so excited to make these... but I just didn't like them. The dough was so thick & crumbly that it was nearly impossible to form the cookies into any semblance of a ball. The overall texture, too, was just thick & crumbly for my liking – so hard to work that they didn't feel worth the payoff... all because apparently I only used one stick of butter instead of one cup of butter.
Grade: C- for my not-enough-butter version (oops). Maybe I'll try to make them the right way sometime, though!
Mike & I both love crab rangoon, but, like, how often can you feasibly order crab rangoon? Armed with both wonton wrappers & cream cheese, I decided to make a healthier alternative, mixing in some green onions & chili crisp to spice things up a little (instead of sriracha, as recommended by the recipe-maker). They scratch that crab rangoon itch, no crab – or frying – required!
Grade: A-. They'd be better if I had sweet & sour sauce at the ready for them.
I was so freaking excited about this recipe... but wow, this was an absolutely bomb of a dinner attempt. Mike & I both ate one bite & threw the rest into the trash; it was just that bad. I have no idea what happened, or what I might've done wrong, but the sauce, which was supposed to be a "savory, spicy and sweet chili sauce," was too acidic, too sour, almost bitter. Horrifying.
Grade: F, as in what the eff happened here?
8. 15-Minute Spicy Peanut Butter Noodles
My mom used to make spicy peanut noodles when I was a kid, & I thought they were so gross, which now seems inconceivable because this shit is delicious. I used Annie Chun's gluten-free brown rice noodles & this quick sauce recipe, then topped the whole thing with sesame seeds, julienned bell pepper, red pepper flakes... & a couple of crumbled, honey-roasted peanuts because why not?
Grade: A+. I could eat this every day!
I found this recipe in a print issue of Woman's Day & felt very old-fashioned about it, but the recipe is also online, should you want to try it, too. These lil cookie sandwiches are so easy to make - just five ingredients for the cookies themselves & plain ole Concord grape jam between them. We gave them to friends for a Super Bowl Sunday snack swap.
Grade: A+. So easy, so tasty. These are going into the cookies-as-gifts repertoire for sure!
Hamantaschen are the three-colored cookies typically eaten for the Jewish holiday of Purim, which we celebrate... today! I made a ton of hamantaschen this year, for the first time ever, & they were so freaking good, even without butter. I used a bunch of different filling: raspberry, cherry, grape, fig, chocolate chip, Nutella, & caramel.
Grade: These cookies were amazing, & I may make them year-round instead of only at Purim.
There you have it, recipes five through 10, with more to come. So tell me: What have you been making these days? Any favorite recipes to share?
All the best for all your baking endeavors. All the recipes sound delicious and the pics are lip-smacking. I will surely try them out.
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