Pinterest recipe trials

I've been on pinterest for awhile now, collecting lots of super yummy looking recipes (the point of pinterest is that it's based on pictures!), however until recently I hadn't taken the time to try any!

I'm currently on a crock pot kick...throwing ingredients into it sometime in the morning (when I have some time) and then having dinner ready in the evening.  I love the ease of it!  So I've recently tried making a few crock pot meals that I found, plus I also made a dessert recently.  Here are my experiences with them.

1) Slow cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

My absolute favorite Indian food is Chicken Tikka Masala.  It's full of complex flavors of a wide variety of spices in a creamy tomato-yogurt sauce.  I had to try this one!  The ingredient list is pretty long, but most of it is spices that I already had on hand.  The exception was the garam masala, which our local grocery store didn't have!  It was a little frustrating to look through their spices to no avail, then to ask for help hoping someone who worked there would know if they carry it or not.  Alas, they took me to the spice aisle and looked along side me (not helpful!) and then suggested I use "Indian curry seasoning".  (sigh)  I ended up finding it at Walmart of all places, and just for under $3 too!

I made this recipe exactly as written, using only 1 tsp of cayenne pepper to make it "mild".  I put the word in quotes because it came out rather spicy still!  While I like spicy, I didn't want to overpower things for Evan or John.  So the first thing I'd suggest changing about this, if you don't want it too spicy, is to cut back on the cayenne even more, and maybe also cut back on the cumin.  It came out very cumin-heavy in flavor in my opinion.  I would think maybe a bit more cinnamon would be nice as well.  In the end, I cut in some more yogurt to the leftovers to help tame down the spice.  I can't say it tastes exactly like the restaurants, but it was addictive enough that John and I ate through our servings pretty fast!  Unfortunately it was too much (spice or complexity of flavors...hard to say) for Evan so he just ate plain rice.

Here it is mixed in with some rice already.  (This is the only one I made so far that I thought to take a photo of.)

2) Crock pot pineapple chicken with sweet potatoes and carrots

I found this recipe to use some ingredients I had on hand.  I had everything except the sweet potatoes, so that's how I made it.  I'd consider making it again with the sweet potatoes, but it didn't come out near as thick and sticky as the photo made it seem like it would.  In fact, it was rather runny and liquidy.  I served it with rice, so the rice soaked up most of the liquid okay, but I was expecting something more like a sweet and sour sauce thickness.  The flavor was pretty good though, but of the four recipes I am listing here, this was my least favorite.

3) Moroccan Chicken Tagine (crock pot recipe)

I came across this recipe when I was looking for chicken dishes to cook in the crock pot to use up some ingredients I had on hand (which is when I made #2 above).  I had pretty much everything for this one though too, so I made this the next day.  The only thing I didn't have was fresh cilantro, so I used dried.  Fresh cilantro would have been better for sure, so if I make it again I'll try to get some beforehand.  I made couscous to serve with it.  It was pretty good.  Complex flavors and a good mix of textures with the beans and chicken and apricot pieces.  I'd make it again, but I don't know if John was as keen on this one (he wasn't so keen on #2 either).

4) "Cracker Barrel" fried apples

I was in need of a gluten- and dairy-free dessert for a recent dinner party, so I decided to give this recipe a try.  It turned out really good, but I overcooked the apples.  The recipe says to cook them in the pan until they are fork tender, but not mushy.  Well, let's just say I was multi-tasking, and didn't pay super close attention to them so the first time I decided to check them they were already very tender (probably after just 5 minutes).  Then after I made the sauce, I poured it into a baking dish and left them in the oven on low for a few more hours to keep them warm until it was dessert time.  So between the overcooking initially and the extra baking time, they were very soft.  The flavor was great, but the texture was off.  I'll definitely want to make sure I watch them more closely in the pan next time and then avoid the extra baking time.