Pampered Chef Thread: New Season's Best Recipes: Critiques

The Big Enchilada.....
Mine didnt look like the picture, but I used black beans instead of corn, and green enchilada sauce instead of red. It tasted very good. I was a bit runnier than I would have preferred, but good flavors. We liked it and I would do it again. I used the green sauce because that was what I had , so I would try it again with red next time. The green sauce on top wasnt visually appealing

At our meeting last night we had the pasta carbonara--big hit; fajita bites--another big hit; orange blossoms--was it just me, or did this make TONS of dirty dishes, but tastes great, I had leftover cream cheese mixture (1 prep cup) and will use it for a fruit dip with the kids; caramel pretzel bites--pretty good; and lava cake--very sweet but great. I LOVE the new SB with pictures, and think these are the best overall recipes any of our SB's have had in 5 years.

My daughter made the Pasta Carbonara on Monday night and it was great. She's 17 and enjoys cooking and I love that I can just hand her a recipe, she can follow it and it turns out just like the picture. I liked the flavor and loved that there is no egg in it like in the original version. Also, we only use turkey bacon in our house so having a recipe actually call for it is nice.

I did the Orange Blossoms for our meeting a week ago and also had lots of cream cheese topping left over. I spread it on a bagel and ate it. Yum!

Another teammate did the Chicken Parmesan Soup and I loved it! Can't wait for it to get colder around here so I can make it more often.

Someone also made the pizza with the sandwich bread as the crust. It was really good. I'm looking forward to trying the Fajita Bites since they have gotten such a good review from so many of you.

Shari in TX

Finally was able to make the "Easy Pasta Carbonara" tonight. We really liked it.
I used 5 oz of the cream cheese, instead of 4. And I used a 2% low-fat Evap Milk instead of FF. I knew that some of you had problems with it being really runny, so I thought a smidge more fat, and more cheese would help.

I had to add a few twists of salt from my salt-grinder...since my turkey bacon was only 80mg of sodium, vs the recommended 130 mg they mention in the cooks note. The little bit of salt helped give it a bit more flavor.

In the last few minutes of cooking- after adding the cheeses and peas, the instructions say to let it stand for 5 minutes with the lid ON. It did, with the burner off. It didn't do much thickening and was still kind of runny, that's for sure. So I stirred it some, to incorporate the cream cheese more, put the heat on LOW, and then left the lid OFF. After 3-5 minutes, stirred a few times, it thickened more, and it wasn't as runny then. When we served it up, it was a nice alfredo-like sauce...and tasted great with some fresh bread to soak up the leftover sauce.

All-in-all, with a few SIMPLE changes (leave lid off at the end), I think this is definitely a do-over. It wasn't "enough" for a dinner meal....we heated up some leftover meat we had, but a light-meal, or a side dish for sure. Even my pickier eater ate it (except the peas...he picked around those).

My family really liked the fajita bites. Thought they could be a little spicier. I would add more of the chili lime powder next time.
Also, I substituted little baby peppers cut in half instead of the bigger peppers.

Our team had a recipe night a week ago and we made the Hot & Cheesy Bruschetta Dip, Chicken Fajita Bites,Chicken Parmesan Soup, German Chocolate Lava Cake, and Orange Blossom Cakes. I was so ful after that! With that said, They were all delicious. the Bruschetta Dip could use artichokes, the Fajita Bites are now my September go to demo dish with the Parm Soup for October shows. I dont care for coconut and I LOVED the German Choc Lava Cake. The Cosmo drink mix was delcious, but the Appletini one was just so-so.

I made this tonight, using Chicken instead of Pork. DELICIOUS. Everyone in the family (including my picky eaters) loved it. The wontons were a big hit too. I didn't have Apple Jelly, so I used some homemade Peach Preserves that I had. Peach, Apricot, any of those would work. Made a delicious sauce, with the Korean BBQ Sauce.

Wontons as a 'base' made it tricky to eat....kept falling off my fork But it was very good. And I love the low calorie/fat counts.

Quote by gailz2

At our meeting last night we had the pasta carbonara--big hit; fajita bites--another big hit; orange blossoms--was it just me, or did this make TONS of dirty dishes, but tastes great, I had leftover cream cheese mixture (1 prep cup) and will use it for a fruit dip with the kids; caramel pretzel bites--pretty good; and lava cake--very sweet but great. I LOVE the new SB with pictures, and think these are the best overall recipes any of our SB's have had in 5 years.

YES on the dishes for the Orange Blossom Cakes... I did this for our meeting and yikes... it's very labor intensive. They do taste good though!

Big Enchilada for guests.... had to use an extra tortilla also to cover the middle!

I am gluten free so I made extra filling and had it on the side baked with cheese.

Everyone loved it. Would make again

Salty Sweet Caramel cups. Made them twice with gluten free pretzels. HUGE hit with everyone.

I made this last night, and my family loved it. Again, my picky eater had quite a helping also.

What I did:
When I was cooking the chicken in the RCB, I put some Garlic & Herb rub on the chicken breasts. Probably would have worked also with Italian Seasoning, or Crushed Peppercorn & Garlic (one of my favs). I also added some pressed garlic cloves. Cooked that up, and it gave the chicken some flavor instead of being bland cooked chicken.

I didn't have French Bread, so I made the "Quick & easy homemade yeast bread" from here in the DCB. Used 2-3 slices to make my croutons (YUM!!), and then we had the rest of the bread with our soup.


The only thing I would do differently is not put the croutons on the soup. I'd put the cheese, but leave the croutons off until served, then put them on each serving. I don't care for soggy bread.

My team member had her first show today and made the Big Enchilada. It was only her, her mom, an aunt, and two others, so I had a little bit. It was great! I am definitely going to start offering it as a show recipe. She used bell pepper instead of pablano (and forgot to blot them dry), so I am not sure if that made a difference. We talked about serving it with spanish rice (and I would add black beans to the rice).

Oh, and she used the show presentation cards, and the prep called for chopping the cilantro, but it was not on the ingredient list, so she did not use it.

I personally thought the pasta carbonara was bland, so I added chili lime rub to it and we really liked it...went from ok to yummy. I imagine you could add other rubs as well, that just happens to be one of my favs.

Has anyone made the parmesan thumbprints yet? Any tips?

I've made the Thumbprints twice. The first time my host had whole wheat flour and jarred shredded parmesan...UGH! Luckily, we made them ahead and were able to toss them before anyone came. Last night at our team meeting we did it the right way...I still say grosss. We had about half left over...mainly because everyone thought they'd be great and took two.

I didn't measure the flour, so maybe who did that step packed it. I felt like I was eating a slightly flavored ball of flour. I'm not doing them again unless I'm given some really good tips to tweak them.

I made three desserts for a family lunch today - orange blossom cakes, salty carmel mousse cups and cherry cordial cups.

DH had one of the cherry cordial cups right after I made them and said they were better than his mom's chocolate covered cherries. I did put them in the fridge to set before we left and I think the chocolate at the bottom got too hard (I personally didn't try them because I'm not a cherry fan). Next time I make them I will probably brush the cups with the basting brush to spread the chocolate around more. They were super simple to make since the cups are already made.

Everybody loved the carmel mousse cups. These were simple to make once the cups were assembled - next time I will use more pretzels as some of them didn't form a cup once a squished them in to the MMP. I did forget to put the cool whip in the filling but it didn't make that much of a difference - it probably just would have been a lighter filling.

The orange blossom cakes were easy to make in a sense considering that it's a homemade cake recipe. It did have a lot of steps which used a lot of bowls. My nephew loved them so much he asked if I could make them for his birthday. My sister-in-law loved the glaze that was on the cakes.

All of the recipes would be easy to make more than once batch if you have more than one MMP or brownie pan. They all got rave reviews from everybody who tried them - including my cousin who took home some of the leftovers!

Quote by Daron

Any suggestions for making the fajita bites vegetarian, what would you replace the chicken with?

You could substitute cooked Lentils or Chickpeas (Manual Food Processor) for the chicken. You would need to use veggie cheese in place of cheese and soft tofu with lemon in place of sour cream for vegan.

Quote by Daron

Any suggestions for making the fajita bites vegetarian, what would you replace the chicken with?

I had a show for a vegan friend and she helped me make the fajita bites into a vegan friendly dish. We substituted vegan crumbles (a textured vegetable protein) for the chicken and used the vegan cheese, vegan sour cream & vegan mayo. Even the carnivores at the show liked them!