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Do you have too many pins on Pinterest and not enough time to try them all? Don't worry — the Page Two editors of ksl.com will try them out and give you the low- down. Here's what we're sampling this week:
Smorgastarta (or, a sandwich cake for you Americans)
Ever heard of a sandwich cake? Not a sweet dessert cake covered in fondant made to look like a sandwich — an actual sandwich in cake form, called a smorgastarta?
Paninihappy.com explains: “It’s a Swedish sandwich cake with layers of bread separating creamy fillings. … If you run a Google image search you’ll be amazed at the wide range of incredibly creative smorgastartas out there.” I am not brave nor talented enough to have tried making it myself, but my aunt made one at a party recently and, I have to say, it was really quite good. It was basically an inside-out sandwich with cream cheese, deli meat, carrots, cucumbers, lettuce, other sandwich goodies and of course homemade bread.
The original recipe comes from saveur.com, but there are a million ways to modify it. Because of the difficulty and amount of time to make this, and because I didn’t make it myself, my verdict is somewhat mixed. Final grade: B
Mock chicken fried rice
I had an entire head of cauliflower in my fridge when I saw the pin for mock chicken fried rice. Why did I pin it, you ask? Because instead of rice, the recipe calls for cauliflower.
As it’s explained before the recipe on nutmetnotebook.com, “It looks just like chicken fried rice but this ‘mock’ version uses grated cauliflower instead of rice to keep it low-carb. Does it taste like rice? No — of course not. Is it delicious? Yes — it is!” I’m sure a lot of people were skeptical on this — I was a little bit too, but I thought, how bad could it be? It’s just veggie stir-fry. Which is really what this recipe could have been called and nobody would have been the wiser.
The food blogger was right: It was delicious. Her stir-fry sauce was one of the best I’ve had in a while. However, this would have been better as a side-dish rather than the main course. Since it was also kind of labor- intensive (and since I’m not a carb-counter or terribly concerned about rice in my diet), I probably won’t make this again. All in all, it was a refreshing break from the norm, but I wasn’t fully won over. Final grade: B-
Slow cooker macaroni and cheese
If you are a connoisseur of macaroni and cheese, as I am, you couldn’t see the pin and not take a closer look. It promises the ease of boxed mac-n-cheese with the unsurpassed flavors of homemade.
Pinned from momswithcrockpots.com, the recipe by Karen McCormick is basic yet scrumptious. While it did require the same amount of prep work as the boxed variety (you have to cook the noodles first), it was still much easier than making a cheese sauce over the stove, which you have to continually watch so it doesn’t burn.
In the end, the results were spectacular. I’m a bit embarrassed to admit that my husband and I ate the entire thing. And it was soooo worth it — creamy, saucy, delectable. Final grade: A+
Slow cooker orange chicken Let’s keep the Asian cuisine and the slow cooker theme going. With this pin, I learned about reading blog comments before I make a recipe. Luckily, I read them during — not after. That’s what helped me salvage this before it made it to the table.
The recipe for slow cooker orange chicken came from team-t- adventures.blogspot.com, and the comments are very mixed. Some say it’s yummy and others say it tastes like orange soup (well, yeah, when one of the main ingredients is orange juice concentrate, I guess that’s to be expected). I read the comments after I had everything prepped and into the crock pot, and then decided to do a little tinkering. Thanks to several suggestions, I added ginger (a lot) and soy sauce and steamed some veggies to mix in later.
I think it saved the day, and with some more tinkering, I may make this again some time because it was so easy. This recipe alone, however, I will not make again. Final grade: C
Homemade seasoning mixes
If you’re (literally) sick of all the junk that goes into packaged foods, you’ve probably pinned quite a few make-your-own seasoning mix recipes. They are not only incredibly simple to put together, they’re made from things you likely already have in your kitchen. But the big bonus, of course, is that they’re made without the unhealthy additives of pre-made mixes like MSG. Oh yeah, and they’re cheap.
I recently made mixes for fajita seasoning from busycooks.about.com, taco seasoning from 5dollardinners.com and ranch dressing from heavenlyhomemakers.com.
They were all fantastic. In fact, the fajita seasoning was hands-down the best I’ve ever had. My only complaint was that the ranch dressing was pretty salty, but I tempered that by adding a little more of the other ingredients and the second batch was much better. Final grade: A-
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