Amazing!

Last week I made this recipe from Tasty Kitchen. Diced potatoes and sweet potatoes coated in a glaze and baked. It was good.

The only problem was it wasn’t so good to my cookie sheets. I sprayed the cookie sheets (my old ones that I don’t really use for baking anymore) with cooking spray but I may have had the potatoes in the oven a tad too long and I ended up with burn spots all over the pans.

I scraped, I soaked, I washed and I scrubbed…nothing was working. I had come to terms with my cookie sheets being ‘worn and seasoned’ – mostly because I have newer nicer cookie sheets in the cabinets I can use for cookies. But being my typical Type A 'Monica' self, it still bothered me a bit.

Then I made my discovery!

(Picture from http://www.armhammer.com/)

I had baking soda out on the counter from a baking project (I’ll post more on that later this week); as I was getting ready to put it away I saw a statement on the box, “cleans all surfaces and items” and then it listed a variety of things, one was pots. Why not cookie sheets? I’ve already tried everything else it’s not like it could make the cookie sheets worse, right?

So I sprinkled baking soda all over the cookie sheets. I let them sit for a bit (there was a tad bit of water on the cookie sheets from another failed try at scrubbing but not enough to fully dissolve all the baking soda). I used the scraper side of my dishwashing brush and sure enough all the burn marks were coming off!

I was so happy…I know that’s a little sad, but really it was a highlight of my day. And now, I’m pretty convinced baking soda can solve just about any dilemma. At least it will be one of the first things I try from now on.

Maybe some of you already knew this wonderful baking soda secret, but just in case there is anyone else out there like me that had only used baking soda for, well, baking; I wanted to share the news.

Dinner with a Tropical Twist

A while back I asked the fiancé to go through a few of my cookbooks and mark recipes that he thought sounded good. One of them was Mango Chipotle Pot Roast from Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Slow Cooker Recipes. It is a gluten-free recipe which would made it perfect for dinner Friday night since my parents were coming over.

I also remembered a recipe I’d wanted to try from an old Whole Foods magazine; Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread). I thought the coconut would go well with the mango and thus started a meal inspired by a semi-tropical theme.

Mandarin Orange Spinach Salad
Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread)
Mango Chipotle Pot Roast
Brown Rice (to go with the pot roast and because not everyone could have the rolls since they definitely were not gluten-free)
Hawaiian Crispies (for dessert)

Details, reviews, pictures, thoughts and recipes are listed below if any of the above menu items catch your interest.

Clearly I’m still infatuated with spinach, I’m not sure this would even qualify as a recipe since it’s so incredibly simple, but it was very good.

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Mandarin Orange Spinach Salad

Spinach
Mandarin oranges
Sliced almonds
Poppy seed dressing

Place spinach in bowl(s), top with mandarin oranges, sliced almonds and poppy seed dressing.
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Aside from the Pioneer Woman’s cinnamon rolls, I’ve never made any type of bread/dinner roll. It actually wasn’t that hard at all. The majority of the time is spent waiting on the dough to rise. The rolls turned out very well. They didn’t taste as coconut-y as I thought they would, it was more a hint of coconut, they were still good though.

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Pan de Coco (Coconut Bread)

From Whole Foods magazine March/April 2009
The recipe is also online and can be found here: http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/recipes/2253

I would note that I did two things different from the recipe. One, I used Light Coconut Milk; it worked fine, but I wonder if regular coconut milk would have provided a stronger coconut flavor to the rolls. Two, I used sweetened coconut because I couldn’t find unsweetened.
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The pot roast was pretty good and pretty simple since everything went into the crock pot in the morning and just cooked all day. I will say though, I’m not a fan of recipes that have you place hot vegetables and juices into the blender. As the recipe instructed, I covered the blender with a towel but it still exploded hot liquid all over my arm and the kitchen.

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Mango Chipotle Pot Roast

If you like slow cooker recipes, check out Sandra’s book.
Make according to recipe in book; serve with brown rice.
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Since everything else was a bit tropical I wanted to keep the theme going for dessert, so I went over to Tasty Kitchen and searched for some recipes. Actually, originally I was going to try to spice up the rice that went with the pot roast so I entered rice into the search field and Hawaiian Crispies was one of the results.

If you haven’t checked out Tasty Kitchen you definitely should, it’s a lot of fun. It’s not just an online resource with TONS of recipes, but it’s also a community of people that enjoy cooking and sharing. If you sign-up, let me know and I’ll add you to my friend list. I made a few minor adjustments to the recipe (noted below) and it turned out great; my mom LOVED them.

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Hawaiian Crispies

The recipe can be found here. Although, I did make a couple of changes to the version I made Friday night.

First, I halved the recipe. Second, I added a little bit of coconut milk in with the melted butter and marshmallow mixture, not a lot, I’d guess maybe about a teaspoon at most. Third, I didn’t cover the top completely with candy melts, I thought that might be a little too much sweetness, so I just drizzled some on top and then topped with shredded coconut.
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Hope you enjoy!