August

 When I go back and think, I may not have taken a picture of the dinners I made.  Nope no picture of the Cajun fried rice or the Cajun chicken pasta.  I even tried to remind myself to take a picture of it as my lunch, and even that was a no.  

Guess I'll start with the fried rice since I made that first.  I think it seemed simple enough, and I was almost positive I had all of the ingredients or if not a substitute, as I switched the brown rice out for white.  For the life of me I kept forgetting to look and make sure we had shrimp, but also take it out to defrost.  Our freezer is not that big, but the shrimp was all the way in the back behind baked goods, chicken, berries and a few other things I forgot were in there.  

Shrimp came out and defrosted day of, although I don't think they were deveined so they took a little more prep work once the cooking started.  Side note, my coworker had mentioned making shrimp tacos and I thought 'great! exactly what I should do with the rest of the shrimp', kind of like the picture that did not happen.  So cooked the sausage, cooked the shrimp (to the best of my ability) there's a chance they may have been over cooked. 

Then we get to the cauliflower rice it asks for, I did not check the label when I bought this frozen cauliflower.  I mean, I made sure it was cauliflower (and only cauliflower) but didn't realize that it was a steam bag of cauliflower rice.  I don't know if it makes a difference, but I was a little worried that it might not cook the right way.  If that makes sense? So I was a little cautious, although kind of like the shrimp it stayed in the pan for a while so it may have over cooked.  

Now I have to ask, because I don't recall my mom doing this when she makes fried rice, but maybe she does and I just don't remember, do y'all scramble your eggs in the same pan you have the rice cooking in or do you use a different pan? Both this recipe and the kimchi fried rice recipe I've used say to push the rice to one side and scramble your eggs there with it.  Is this just to avoid making another pan dirty?  Does it give the eggs or rice extra flavor?  It doesn't quite make sense to me.  Someone help me understand.

Luckily the cajun chicken pasta, was just a little easier.  It had a little bit different flare then the rice, but still some good flavor.  It may have come out a little too thin.  I've done a few of these one pot recipes before and letting it simmer for 10-15 minutes always has me concerned.  It can stick to the pan, although she does mention stirring every few minutes, but with opening and closing the lid it could also let out too much heat and not cook enough.  It could have also been that I was anxious and maybe rushing so maybe it didn't come to a rolling boil before I turned it down, or maybe I turned it down too much that it didn't thicken out enough.  

Both Cajun recipes were a success-ish, and I will try and attempt them again. 

Of course I got a picture of the thing I baked, I always do.  So a little like the mini cheesecakes, this too was a bit of a cheat as peach upside down mini cakes which I again used my muffin tin to cook. 

This may have been less of a cautious of what I'm making/don't have the right cookware, and more I have peaches this mini recipe looks yummy and delicious (and maybe a bit easier).  Again I'll probably come back to this and make a big one in my 9x9 pan or I know I've got a slow cooker upside down cake recipe somewhere but the slow cooker is a bit of a pain to clean.  

After the popover incident I was a little hesitant when the first thing to do in this recipe was cut up the butter and put it at the bottom of the pans. It did get better as I read on and wasn't putting it directly in the oven to melt.  My initial thought in this recipe was trying to be clean, so why not use my muffin liners anyway like I did for the cheesecakes.  Well, when you try and fill the bottom of the cups with the peaches it takes up a third of the tin.  Should it, I don't know.  I thought I cut the peaches thin enough, maybe they weren't, either way the muffin liner idea was out the window. 

If you look close I left a couple because the butter and brown sugar were already at the bottom and those are reusable, not the easy throw away kind.  Thinking back, this initial mistake may have been what caused some of the peaches to stay in the pan once they were done.  The cake batter was easy enough to make, although once again can these recipes mention a hand mixer time/speed because even my low speed seems more medium than others and how would the paddle attachment differ from my beaters.  I also do not own a cookie scoop (shocker!) so I ended up using my 1/8 cup which seemed to work fine.  As you can also see the batter did seem to pop out of the tin, which okay maybe it did in hers too but that is also what got me thinking that either my cups were too small or the peaches weren't cut thin enough.  

These were super sweet and tasty.  I do wish they didn't stick to the pan, but I've learned.

*Side note someone brought in pineapple upside down cake to work this week and my boss shared a piece.  It makes me want to attempt my own, so guys be on the look out.  A revamp/updated/new upside down cake may be around the corner.  My juices are rolling.