Lemony Lemon Bars

The frequently pinned image for this recipe, for Lemony Lemon Brownies, leads to the aggregator site ZipList, but it looks like it came originally from BeckyCharms.

It's a simple recipe: mix dry ingredients into wet ingredients, bake 25 min. Make a glaze from powered sugar, lemon zest, and lemon juice.

I made these when the neighbors came over for dinner. So that made 3 adults, 3 little boys, and one baby.

They turned out a little floppy:

But really, really delicious. They are actually VERY lemony. Everyone loved them, kids and grownups.

They're definitely a plate-and-fork dessert the way they came out - not very brownie-like in texture. The ones I made don't look at all like the ones in the picture, and I followed the recipe to T, including the kind of flour.

I'm not sure what you could do to make them a bit drier and more dense. But I probably won't tinker too much. Sprinkle some blueberries and a bit of whipped cream, and they're a great dessert just how they are.

Verdict: Lemony deliciousness, and super easy.

Double Recipe Test: Homemade Marinara and Pepperoni Pull-Apart Bread

Pull-apart or "monkey" bread is a very popular pin. Usually it's a sweet variety, with cinnamon sugar, butter, and/or fruit. I liked the looks of this savory version from Confections of a Foodie Bride, where the bread is stuffed with cheese and pepperoni, and dipped in marinara.

Basically, you assemble some garlic butter, some pizza dough, cubes of mozzarella, and turkey pepperoni. Assemble into little balls, each coated with garlic butter. Bake in a bundt pan.

I happen to have a springform bundt pan, which was perfect. I decided to make all the little balls first, then coat them with butter all at once, because the recipe said that it gets difficult to seal them once your hands get all buttery.

The recipe also said to use about 2/3 oz. of dough per ball. I got out my scale and measured. It turned out to be bigger than the "marble-size" described, but I thought I would go with the weight instead of size. It didn't make nearly as many as described. The recipe said 48 balls, and I ended up with around 30. That should have been my first clue.

It all fit into the bundt pan just fine, though, and baked up nicely.

I also made a marinara sauce for dipping. I'm not a huge fan of canned pasta sauce, so I used this recipe for Giada's Homemade Marinara. It's based on the Food Network lady's recipe, but I found it pinned from Marble and Mud.

It's a very easy recipe. Finely chop and saute aromatics, add crushed tomatoes and herbs, simmer. Mine came together just fine. I ended up tossing it in the blender because my "finely chopped" was...not so fine. I just reheated it a bit after blending and it all worked out.  This pic is before blending. It would be perfectly fine as a pasta sauce at this consistency, but it needed a little smoothing out for dipping.

Dinner came together pretty well, the boys were all totally excited by the idea of pull-apart bread.

There was a problem, though. The same problem that plagued cupcake pizzas: a too-large dough-to-filling ratio. They ended up being very bready. Pizza dough dipped in marinara sauce isn't exactly a stellar dinner.

(Yes, that is a plastic tablecloth cover and a tumbler of wine. What?)

I think that the dough balls were too big at 2/3 oz. But if they were much smaller, I don't see how you could get them to seal correctly. I don't think I'll try this again, it's a fun concept, but I couldn't get it to turn out. The marinara was good, though, a nice go-to recipe.

Split verdict: Marinara = yum. Pull-apart bread = too doughy.

Beehive Bread

There are quite a few beehive bread pins on Pinterest, I pinned this one from disneyfamily.com (warning: this site plays extremely annoying and difficult-to-silence audio ads).

It's a sweet, orange-flavored yeast-bread formed into twisted ropes and would around a greased bowl for baking.

Here's the key instruction:

Divide dough into 16 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a rope about 24 inches long. Twist two ropes together and wind around foil covered bowl from the bottom. Repeat with remaining pieces, pinching ends together until bowl is covered and resembles a beehive.

Twist any remaining ropes into smaller beehives and set on tray with larger bread. Let bread rise for 20 minutes. 

 I decided this would be a perfect Easter brunch bread, and picked out a variety of bowls to try.

I was thinking that the larger bowl would be the main bread, and the smaller ones for any extra dough. When I got it all done, though, the dough didn't even cover the larger bowl completely.

It looked great, though. From the front.

The back - not so much. I think in the future I'll try fewer, longer ropes to avoid the awkward joins. 

The problem joins became worse with baking. Again, from the front it looked fine, from the back it was sort of a mess.

  

It tasted fantastic, though. It was perfect for Easter, and my guests ate just about every bite. The kids were huge fans.  It's a sweet, not-particularly-healthful bread, so it's best for a special occasion.

The shaping could be fixed, I think, with thinner ropes. I'll also try smaller bowls to reduce sagging caused by the weight of the dough. Maybe 3 cereal-bowl sized molds instead of the large one.

Verdict: Delicious, and with a little tinkering it could be really pretty too.

Mug Desserts: Skinny Brownie in a Mug

This recipe for a skinny brownie in a mug promises the world: low-calorie! chocolatey deliciousness! super-quick!

I've had good luck in the past with My Happy Place's mug desserts, so my hopes were high for this one.

The brownie uses whole wheat flour and plain yogurt, along with the more traditional ingredients: cocoa, sugar, baking powder, vanilla. Note that there are no eggs or butter. Microwave for a minute.

My brownie came out like this:

It looked decent, but the texture was quite dry and the taste was rather bland. It obviously lacks the richness that full fat provides. You may be able to improve this a bit by either using full-fat yogurt, or by throwing a tbs of butter in there. As it is, it tastes like one of those old-school SnackWells fat-free cookies.

Verdict: Vaguely sweet but cardboard-y. If you want a good mug dessert, you're going to have to make your peace with fat.

Chicken Meatloaf in a Muffin Tin

I was reminded of this recipe for chicken meatloaf in individual servings (from Living a Changed Life) because it recently had a bit of a pin resurgence.

It's basically buffalo chicken meatloaf, complete with bleu cheese and Frank's Red Hot sauce. It uses standard meatloaf binders, oatmeal and milk.

I prefer to use a panade of egg and breadcrumbs in meatloaf, and this recipe didn't change my mind. It came together quickly and easily, but the end result was rather bland and dense. It wasn't popular with the family.

Verdict: Single-serving meatloaf is a good idea, but this just isn't the recipe.

Slow Cooker Ham and Beans

Those simple slow-cooker recipes are irresistible, and get pinned a lot. This ham and beans recipe from Plain Chicken looks so easy: just throw some dried beans in the slow cooker with ham, water, and seasonings.

I made it with the chopped ham option instead of ham bone, hocks, or shanks. I also added some fully-cooked pork sausage I had on hand. We had it with cornbread muffins and salad on the side.

I tasted it before serving, and found it both a bit bland, and strangely bitter. So I added about a cup of pureed sweet potato. That improved things, but it was still met with frowns at the table. Everybody ate it, but nobody really loved it.

Maybe if you used the ham hocks or shanks it would be better. But with the chopped ham, it's just a bland bowl of beans. I don't think I'll go through the effort to find hocks/shanks. Slow cooker recipes are really hit-or-miss, and I think this one's a miss.

Verdict: Pass on this one.

Bacon and Egg Risotto

Bacon: ever popular on Pinterest. This bacon and egg risotto from pepper.ph looked not-exactly-healthy-but-delicious. I had to try it. We could have a salad on the side, right?

It's not a traditional risotto, where you stand at the stove forever and gradually stir liquid into pan-toasted rice. It's sort of like a cross between risotto and fried rice. You saute bacon and aromatics, add stock and cream, then add in cooked rice, peas, and parmesan. Top with a fried egg.

I subbed half-and-half for heavy cream. Because cream, bacon, eggs, cheese.... it's a heavy recipe, for sure. And it worked fine with the half-and-half. In fact, it was delicious.

Oh, and I made the eggs basted instead of sunny-side-up, because my guys prefer less-runny yolks.

Verdict: Very, very tasty, but something to only have every once in a while. This is Paula Deen level of fatty deliciousness.