Anne Can Cook

On my last trip to the Twin Cities, I bought a container of fresh jalapenos. I promptly brought it home and said, "Ok, so now what do I do with all these jalapenos?"
Enter this simple recipe from Cooks.com.
Of course, I did things slightly differently. I just used one chicken breast, which I vigorously poked with a fork in an attempt to mimic a meat perforater. The whole point of that process is to allow the marinade to get down into the meat so that it flavors it throughout out. At least, I'm pretty sure that's how Alton Brown explained on "Good Eats" that one time.
Anyway, it totally worked. Instead of grilling the chicken (which I'm sure would also be good), I baked it at 350F for about 30 minutes. I also baked some of the jalapenos, because I like them.
The flavor of the marinade made it into the whole of the chicken, with the wine being the primarily flavor. The jalapenos gave the whole thing a nice after-burn, but it wasn't too spicy. Well, the baked jalapenos were pretty spicy, but I like that. You may feel differently.
I cheated and served ate this with some Knorr Rice Sides Spanish Rice. I've sort of gotten away from that sort of thing, but I can't deny how convenient they are. They also taste perfectly decent.

In other news, I also tried my hand at homemade pop tarts yesterday morning. I used Smitten Kitchen's blog post as a guide. Again, I cheated and used store bought pie crust. I regret it. The store bought stuff wasn't awful, but it wasn't good either. It had that distinctive Pillsbury taste (you know what I mean?) which is strange considering it was store brand. The texture was fine, but the taste distracted from the filling, except for the tarts I had rolled extra thin. I'm not sure how that might differ using SK's dough, but for store bought, the thinner the better.
I ended up with a dozen small (about 3" x 3") pop tarts. I did 6 with blackberry preserves, and 6 with Nutella. The Nutella ones turned out better, and were also incredibly sinful.

I think I'm going to try my hand at homemade ginger ale this week. I had some really good unfiltered Jasmine Tea Ginger Ale when I was in the Cities last week, and I've been itching to try to duplicate it.

I have been bad about updating again, but with reason this time--I haven't really done any cooking! For shame!
I have been too lazy/tired/absorbed by the internet to really put forth an effort. Therefore, I've had copious amounts of Pasta-Roni lately.

I'm going to try and get back into the groove. It's so easy to fall out of it.

I did make a decent stir fry last week. I say decent because it had good components and bad components. The good: The chicken. I don't know what I did to make it so tender and flavorful, but it rocked hard. The broccoli was also good, but broccoli is always good in a stir fry.
My biggest issue was the noodles I tried to pan fry. I didn't boil them long enough, and so they got crusty and weird and hard and awful. I also burned the zucchini waiting for the noodles to boil, so they were mostly bitter.

You would think, after making so many stir fries, one would cease to screw them up. Apparently that isn't true.

I also (and you can laugh here since there's no technical skill involved) made some kickass spaghetti recently. I used the suggestion off the back of Penzeys pasta sprinkle. I boiled the spaghetti, drained it, and tossed it with a little olive oil, pasta sprinkle, and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Balsamic vinegar! I love balsamic vinegar! I also gave it a good sprinkle of parmesan cheese, because that's how I roll. It was some of the best spaghetti I've had.

Anyway, I promise I'll do some legitimate cooking this week and not eat just pasta-roni.

And a note on the Nutella cookies--I think they may need a little more flour than the recipe calls for. They got a little sticky as they sat.

I love Nutella and recently bought a jar. I got to thinking that Nutella cookies would be completely delicious. They are. Here is the recipe I used:

1/2 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. Nutella
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1/4 c. honey
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 2/3 c. flour

Preheat oven to 375F. In a large mixing bowl, beat together butter and Nutella. Add sugar, honey, baking soda, and baking powder. Beat until incorporated. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until incorporated. Gradually beat in the flour until it is all mixed in evenly.

On a cookie sheet, spoon dough into quarter-sized drops, two inches apart. The dough is mousse-y and spreads out quite a bit while baking. Therefore, I found it more effective to bake the cookies in half dozen batches instead of dozen batches. Bake for 7-9 minutes. Remove from oven and let sit for 1-2 minutes on baking sheet before moving to a cooling rack.

The cookies are thin, rich, and addictive. The Nutella translates to cookies very nicely.

ETA 12/26: Added more flour. The original recipe didn't call for enough and the cookies got sticky as they sat.