New Recipe Weekend

After three fun-filled weekends in a row (visitor, visitor, skiing) I was really looking forward to the long weekend. I wanted to try out some new recipes, read the magazines that have been piling up, clean my apartment etc. I tried 5 recipes over the weekend; 4 were brand new and 1 was from a friend. Overall, I'd say it was a success and 3 out of the 5 are repeaters.  Unfortunately, I tried 2 recipes for dinner Sunday night and one was OK, the other, didn't work at all. So...back to the drawing board there. And I am seriously going to keep trying to get it right (saving the details for a blog post down the line!) But the other three, delicious!

First success was Pork Tenderloin with Pears and Shallots. Recipe courtesy of Epicurious here. However, I modified it a bit when I couldn't find pear nectar and realized it would be easier to just make my own gravy with a brown gravy mix and the drippings in the pan. It was fabulous and I'm definitely going to make it the "proper" way, though I've looked at 4 different stores and can't find pear nectar, so I think I'll be subbing in a different fruit juice....

The next success = raspberry swirl cheesecake cups. My swirl didn't turn out very well, but they still taste delicious and are individually wrapped in the freezer for a decadent dessert, anytime. Because the swirling was tricky, they aren't super pretty on top, but I promise, they taste great. This was a recipe with a lot of steps and paying attention - however, it was worth it!

And finally, to top the weekend off, Cappuccino Cookies! Recipe here. I've always admired this blog and finally got around to trying one of the recipes, despite bookmarking several of them. These taste like a buttery sugar cookie with a hint of burnt coffee (but in a good way) and little bursts of creamy white chocolate. Yum! There is a lot of butter in them and I worked really hard to cream it with the sugars, but I wish I had beat a little more at that stage. Next time...