Recipe Roulette

Last weeks new years task of sifting through a years worth of old magazines left me with a huge stack or recipes that looked worthy of trying. I have for several years cut recipes out and shoved them in two different notebooks. One for desserts and sweets and the other for random entrees and side dishes. The notebooks are now overflowing with recipes that I have yet to try. I have a bad habit of getting in a cooking rut where I will find a few super yummy things and then cook them over and over again. In order to make room for the gigantic stack of new recipes I need to eliminate some of the old. I am determined to try at least 3 new recipes each week.
So first up in the love it or leave it recipe roulette is...

Caramel Chocolate Chip Bars

the recipe was from duncan hines website, has been in the book for approx. 2 years. Caramel cake mix is not sold at all grocery stores so I just recently ran across it at our local Food Lion.

Recipe is : 2 large eggs
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
6 tbsp. butter softened
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1 caramel cake mix

Mix all ingredients together, stirring in chips last. It becomes a thick cookie dough type batter.

Spread in greased 13x9 pan and bake for 24-27 minutes in preheated 375 degree oven or until toothpick in center comes out clean. Cool completely in pan.

Share a sample with chef's helper, who says "YUMMY, can I have more?" But she is willing to wait when I determine that it would be better with the suggested chocolate frosting added to it.

It was worth the wait after I whip up some homemade chocolate icing and let her lick the spatula.

The finished product.

This recipe although tasty will not be a keeper. It was really the frosting that made it super yummy and it is a standard icing recipe I use all the time, not the store bought icing the actual recipe suggested. The caramel cake mix was somewhat bland, nothing spectacular.

Moving on to new recipe number two...

Hearty Chicken Tortilla Soup

Brown 1 lb of chicken cut in pieces in sauce pot sprayed with vegetable cooking spray.

Add 3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup rice
1 tsp ground cumin
Heat to boil, cover and cook over low heat for 20 minutes.

Stir in 1 can Mexicorn
1 cup salsa
1 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped
2 tbsp lime juice
Heat Through

To make Crisp Tortilla Strips, cut 4 corn tortillas into  thin strips, place on baking sheet, spray with vegetable cooking spray.
Bake in preheated 425 oven for 10 minutes or until golden.





I served with an additional garnish of shredded cheddar cheese.

This recipe was a definite keeper, hubby and I both enjoyed it. It definitely lives up to its name of being a hearty soup. If I was serving more than the two of us, I would most likely make more of the tortilla strips as we both enjoyed dipping those and scooping up the rice and corn with them and finished off all of them. I will be whipping up some more to eat with my leftover soup lunch tomorrow.

All in all not a bad day in the kitchen. One keeper is not bad. The other recipe is good but just not worthy of a spot in the notebook. I'm not sure what recipes are up next, I figure it is safest to do both a dessert and entree in the same day, that way if one totally sucks hopefully the other one makes up for it!