Weekend Cooking- A Whirlwind Weekend's Worth of Cooking

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I'm not entirely sure what came over me last weekend, but I started cooking and couldn't stop. My husband had a long week, he was out Monday through Thursday for work events and didn't get a home cooked meal all week.

So Friday night I made an old standby- Rachael Ray's Italian Mac and Cheese. This is the one dish I make to bring to friends or for a potluck dinner. It has Italian sausage in it (hence the name), and it goes a long way so you have leftovers for at least another meal. I added a baguette from Maison Kayser (voted best baguette in NYC) and The Pioneer Woman's Salad Bar Salad with Creamy Dressing and we had a delightful meal.

My husband likes something sweet for breakfast and I found this recipe for Pumpkin Poppers from hwescott.blogspot.com on Pinterest, which worked for Trish's Pin It & Do It Challenge. They are really more like pumpkin muffins, but they were so easy to make and my husband loved them, as did my younger son. I didn't have ground cloves, so I used pumpkin pie spice in place of all of the spices. I'd like to try this next time using the spices described in the original pin to taste the difference.

Pumpkin Poppers

I had half of a can of pumpkin left over, so it was another batch of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies that I made. My younger son brought them to work to share with his coworkers and he said they went quickly and got lots of praise.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies

For dinner on Saturday, I made Giada's Tomato and Pancetta Soup to go with the leftover mac and cheese. I do not like tomato soup at all, but my husband does, so I made it. To my surprise, I loved this soup! I used a can of crushed tomatoes instead of the diced tomatoes because we prefer a smoother rather than chunky soup.

I saw Giada make this on The Today Show, and I'm glad I did. The smoky flavor of the pancetta and adding rye bread croutons really took the soup to another level. I even made a misstep in the cooking process (forgetting to crisp up the rye bread before adding the liquid), but I managed to recover. Next time I make it, I will do it correctly and can't wait to taste it then. The pin came from kahakaikitchen.blogpsot.com

For Sunday football, I made Better Than Taco Bell Pizza, which I had first made a few weeks back. The recipe called for too much chili powder, which overwhelmed the dish. I cut it back from 2 tablespoons to 1/2 teaspoon and it was still too much. I have to tinker with this one, but it is worth it because other than the chili powder, it is so tasty.

Dinner was a new favorite, Slow Cooker Balsamic Shredded Beef, served over mashed potatoes. I made Roasted Garlic Mushrooms to go with it, and this time the mushrooms tasted a little soggy; I was not happy with this batch. For dessert, my husband asked for Apple Crisp, so I went back to our old family standby from Betty Crocker.

I posted my whirlwind weekend cooking on Facebook, and all my friends asked for recipes, so I put together a Pinterest board and shared them. That is one of the great things about Pinterest; I can share one link for all of these with anyone who wants them.

By Sunday evening my feet hurt, my back hurt and I was exhausted. But, I did add two new pins for Pin It & Do It, bringing me up to eight pins and making me officially Pin Obsessed. This was a fun challenge, I hope to participate again in the next one.

Here is the link to the October Food Board pin with my weekend's cooking.