Double Recipe Test: Nutella French Toast and Nutella Hot Chocolate

Nutella's a big Pinterest favorite, for obvious reasons. I'm a huge fan of Nutella, and have tried a couple of pinned recipes recently.

First, this Nutella French Toast recipe from The Kitchen Life of a Navy Wife.

Second, Nutella Hot Chocolate from The Hungry Housewife.

I didn't make these to serve together - that would be way too much.

For the french toast, I used frozen defrosted raspberries - winter in Alaska means no good fresh strawberries. It was a very easy variation on regular old french toast. Just make a Nutella sandwich before you dip the bread into the egg mixture.  I used the whole grain "white" style bread.

And of course, it was delicious. It was extremely sweet, though - the kind of breakfast where you're hungry again in an hour. I think it would be far better as a dessert, perhaps as part of a brunch buffet. Here's what mine looked like.

The Nutella cocoa recipe is also very easy. Just whisk together Nutella, a tablespoon of cocoa powder, skim milk, and a pinch of salt. Heat on the stove top. The original recipe includes homemade whipped cream, but I skipped that part.

In case you were wondering what a cup of cocoa looks like:

It was good. Of course. But I don't think it was a whole lot better than stovetop cocoa made with cocoa powder/sugar/milk, especially if you spice it up your standard stovetop recipe with some cinnamon, pinch of cayenne, etc.

Verdict: I'd call these successful, but I still think the best use for Nutella is spread on a warm crepe or piece of good French bread.

Bacon and Egg Cups

This easy breakfast recipe for bacon and eggs in a cupcake pan from Fat Girl Trapped In a Skinny Body looked good. Like one of those "why didn't I think of that!" recipes that becomes the new go-to. The pancakes in a cupcake tin recipe I reviewed a while back worked wonderfully, so I thought this was a sure thing.

It's very easy indeed, just beat some eggs with milk, and pour them into the bacon-adorned cupcake tin. Top with cheese and bake.

Here's how mine looked before baking. 

And right after they came out of the oven. The tops looked overdone while the bacon still seemed mushy.

And sure enough, the eggs were undercooked and the bacon was overcooked. There's a suggestion in the comments to pre-cook the bacon. But at that point, it just seems easier to make scrambled eggs and bacon. And look at the cupcake tin - it's a mess! I hate scrubbing those things.

Verdict: Not worth the hassle. Maybe if you're set on these for a brunch dish, you could play around with pre-cooking and either lining or greasing the tins. But I wash my hands of this recipe.

"Great-Grandma's" Pasta Sauce

Apparently, spaghetti sauce is controversial. TableForTwo posted a recipe for Great Grandma's Pasta Sauce, which earned her lots of pins and lots of cranky comments about what is and isn't authentic.

Here's the image that's all over Pinterest:

Dried oregano, garlic powder... Mario Batali it ain't. But I thought it might taste OK, so I gave it a try. It's a pretty basic recipe - saute meat and garlic, add tomato stuff, simmer forever.

I followed it pretty closely, except that I threw in some mushrooms and chopped bell pepper to up the veggie content a bit.

It came out looking pretty good.

The taste, though, was just OK. It was quite sweet, and had a bit of a canned tomato flavor to it. I think I'll stick to my standby Cook's Illustrated recipe for a tomato-based pasta sauce.

Verdict: Not terrible, but there are better recipes out there.

Loaded Sweet Potatoes

Pinch of Yum (great spot for healthy recipes) has a recipe for Healthy Mexican Sweet Potato Skins that gets pinned a lot as "loaded sweet potatoes."

It's not super quick for a weeknight, but it's not too complicated either. Skillet roast some corn, then mix with beans and set aside. Saute some onions. Mix the corn, beans and onions with a bit of cilantro, the flesh of baked sweet potatoes, and some cream cheese, sour cream, and chipotles. Put it back in the sweet potato skin, top with a little shredded cheese, and bake till warmed and melty.

I followed the recipe as written, except I put powdered chipotles in with the roasting corn, rather than adding chipotles in adobo later.

They came out looking pretty decent. (The one on the right has a cablanca goat cheese topping, because my littlest guy was still nursing with a cow's dairy allergy, so I had to avoid the cheddar).

It was a very delicious, hearty meal! The 3-year old loved it, the sweetness of the sweet potatoes is a great way to get veggies in kids. It takes a little more effort than some of the "easy weeknight" recipes, but I think it's worth it because it's a solid one-dish meal.

Verdict: Tasty and healthy, a great vegetarian meal.

30-Minute Meals: Coconut Shrimp Curry

Mel's Kitchen Cafe has a big list of 30-minute meals (39 of them, in fact). This is the first in a series testing them.

The image I see pinned all the time is this one:

I made the Coconut Shrimp Curry, pictured here from Mel's.

The recipe is really simple. Just saute aromatics (onion, garlic, ginger, etc.), add canned tomatoes and cook for a few minutes. Add coconut milk and some shrimp you've marinated. Cook till the shrimp are done, add some cilantro, serve over rice.

I followed the recipe pretty much as written, though I added some red bell pepper and broccoli. It looked like this:

I served it over brown rice.

It was fantastic. Good enough for company, and extremely easy. It's going to be a weeknight go-to, for sure. I did use full-fat coconut milk, so I'm sure that part of the appeal was the delicious fat content. But I think it would still be pretty darned good with the reduced fat coconut milk.

It's also a nice kid-friendly curry - not too spicy (you can vary that, obviously), but very flavorful.

Verdict: Mel's is 1 for 1 with me!

Update: I tried this with light coconut milk, and it wasn't NEARLY as good. Use the full fat stuff.

Double Recipe Test: Creamy Avocado Pasta, and Honey Mustard Greek Yogurt Dressing

I was slightly skeptical of this recipe for creamy avocado pasta from the health and lifestyle site Greatist. It just seemed a little TOO easy, and the picture wasn't totally appetizing. But avocados are a favorite around here, so I gave it a try.

It didn't seem like a full dinner on its own, so I added a substantial salad with this honey mustard Greek yogurt dressing/sauce from The Hungry Runner blog. I pinned this image:

The pasta recipe is incredibly easy. Just toss some avocado, basil, lemon, garlic, olive oil, and salt in the blender or food processor. Process till smooth, and toss with cooked pasta.

I followed the recipe as written, and used Barilla Plus multi-grain pasta. This is how the sauce looked.

The dressing is also a snap. Whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, Greek yogurt and honey.

Dinner came together in about 15-20 minutes!

It was delicious, too. The pasta is AMAZING. This is definitely my new go-to. Creamy, lemony, and fantastic. My husband actually couldn't even identify the avocado flavor. It tastes like a rich pesto. Love it.

The dressing was pretty good too, though it definitely had that Greek yogurt taste. I might try regular plain yogurt next time, or half and half regular yogurt and mayo. It was still better than bottled dressings, and a nice change from standard vinaigrette french dressing.

Altogether, this was a great success - popular with even the littlest eaters.

Verdict: A perfect healthy, quick weeknight dinner.

Double Recipe Test: Cupcake Pizzas and Pizza Dough

This is a meta-Pinterest blog post. This recipe for cupcake pizzas is from a food and craft blog called All My Great Ideas Are Really From Pinterest.

The pin I used had a caption saying that cupcake tins would work as well as muffin tins. The recipe calls for Pillsbury refrigerated pizza dough, and just "pizza sauce."

I wanted to do a homemade dough so I could use partly whole wheat flour. So I used the dough recipe from this Pizza Hut Personal Pizzas from cdkitchen. It gets pinned a lot too.

The cupcake pizza recipe was pretty obvious: layer dough, sauce, cheese, toppings, and bake.

The dough recipe was also easy: mix ingredients, knead, divide into portions, let rise in the pan, top and bake.  I deviated a bit from the recipe, but nothing to major. I used half whole wheat flour and I skipped the powdered milk. I also skipped the NINE OUNCES of oil. That's just waaaaay too much.

Anyway, I used cupcake tins, and here's what my risen dough looked like:

The recipe made a LOT of dough. Perhaps more than I needed? This is how they looked topped:

As you can see, I worked in some veggies. I used Classico fire-roasted tomato pizza sauce and regular old mozzarella. At this point, I was getting concerned about the dough-to-topping ratio. They came out of the oven looking like this:

You can see the problem: They look like dough muffins topped with a bit of cheese. Breaking one open confirmed it.

I guess if you used the more-than-a-cup of oil that the dough recipe called for, or bigger muffin or cake tins, or just a smaller amount of dough per cup, this might taste good. But this version was way too bread-y, and didn't really seem like a satisfying dinner. It was like eating a half loaf of bread with a little tomato sauce and cheese. The guys were not pleased.


I don't think I'll be making these again. They don't offer any improvement over plain old round pizza in a pizza pan.


Verdict: Pizza night should be a treat, and these aren't really all that special.