Recipe Reviews #77 (Blogging Friends Special!)

~ Hunida

You may have already guessed by now but, if you couldn’t tell, I’m just a liiiittle bit food-obsessed. It only makes sense that I follow some awesome home chefs, here on WordPress, doesn’t it?! I found three dairy-free recipes, right on my Reader, and I needed to share them with you ASAP.

Smoked Sausage & Vegetables

Recipe found on In Dianes Kitchen
My Rating: 4 out of 5

My Review

If you aren’t already following Diane, you should be! She is constantly posting family-friendly recipes you’ll want to try. She is super supportive and so sweet, too. ❤

I almost always include a smoked sausage dinner in our weekly menu, they are one of my favorites and are ready-to-eat so quickly. The tomato sauce over everything was different and I quite liked it. It had a nice, simple flavor. Diane mentioned serving it over rice, which we didn’t do the first time, and regretted. When we reheated and served it over fettuccine pasta, it was 10x better.

Ingredients You’ll Need

  • 13 oz. smoked sausage
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 1 tsp dry minced or 2 cloves fresh garlic
  • 1 small onion, sliced
  • 4 cups frozen broccoli
  • 1 large red bell pepper, sliced (optional)
  • 8 oz. tomato sauce
  • salt to taste
  • pepper to taste

Easy Homemade Chili

Recipe found on BigAndPinkyToes
My Rating: 4.5 out of 5

My Review

I follow Lacey for her weekly fun, family updates; she doesn’t solely post recipes on her blog but, once in awhile… the blogosphere gets lucky. 🙂

I’m always looking for new chili recipes, even after we try a really good one, to one day, find the best one out there. There are some with way too little and there are some with just way too much. If you’re looking for that homemade flavor with no-frills… I’m telling you, this chili is it! Boyfriend tweaked a few things here and there (details below) but, oh my, this was yummy. Beefy, beany, semi-tomatoey… perfection.

Ingredients You’ll Need

  • 1-2 lbs ground meat
  • 2 cups cooked kidney beans or lentils
  • 1 28 oz can of diced tomatoes (we added about 1/4 can of tomato sauce, too, for more broth)
  • 1 small onion chopped
  • 3 cloves garlic minced (we added one smashed garlic clove)
  • 1 Tbsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
  • 1 dash cayenne pepper (we didn’t realize we were out of cayenne pepper so we used red pepper flakes)

Ants In A Tree (Ma Yi Shang Shu)

Recipe found on Stephanie Ying’s blog, recipe we followed from Going My Wayz
My Rating: 3 out of 5

My Review

Stephanie recently started a new series (that I’m obsessed with) on her blog called, Food With My Dude, where she shares her and her husband’s cooking process for some of their dinners. I had never heard of “Ants In A Tree” before and the name scared me but, their pictures left me drooling.

There was a little spicy kick in the sauce that I highly appreciated. The pork cooked well and didn’t dry out. Boyfriend made a few changes (thanks to Stephanie’s suggestion), and it was the exact right amount of salty. My biggest complaint is there wasn’t enough sauce to completely cover my noodles, even after already doubling the recipe. Maybe because rice noodles soak it in faster than mung bean noodles do? I was also craving some type of veggie!!

Ingredients You’ll Need

  • 4 1/2 ounces mung bean noodles (we used thin stick rice noodles)
  • 2 ounces soy sauce (we used low-sodium)
  • 1 tablespoon rice wine
  • 1 tablespoon sambal chili paste
  • 1 teaspoon cornstarch
  • 10 ounces (1 package) ground pork
  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 4 green onions, chopped, divided
  • 1/2 cup chicken broth (we used No Salt Added)

Published by Hunida

55 thoughts on “Recipe Reviews #77 (Blogging Friends Special!)”

  2. Ooh yummy! I really should follow some more food bloggers hehe! But I love reading your recipe reviews Hunida, and I love how you’re shouting out fellow bloggers here too! This is such a fun series because it means you get to create so many fun new dishes… I really need to experiment more! Thanks for sharing ❤️❤️❤️

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    1. It’s hard to follow them all because I’m constantly hungry LOL. I’m so happy you enjoy these recipe reviews, Jennie. 🙂 It was fun using other bloggers’ recipes for a week & I love trying new dishes all the time! ❤ Thanks for reading!!

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  7. As if your recipe reviews weren’t fun enough already, they just got even MORE fun!!!!

    That first one from Diane is REALLY interesting! On first glance you would think “Just tomato sauce???” but then you think about how salty and smokey and flavorful the smoked sausage is so I can see how it would totally flavor-up the tomato sauce! I must try it immediately! We have all the ingredients in the house. (Claps hands with glee)

    Chili!!! Yes! I could eat chili every day so I, too, am always looking for a new chili recipe to try.

    I have to tell you two chili-related things. May I?

    #1. My manager at an old job always made his own chili for his family for Christmas Eve. It was a family tradition. I got to join them one year and was curious to see a 1/2 of a peanut butter sandwich next to his bowl of chili. He explained that was from when he was a boy and refused to eat anything other than peanut butter. LOL Anyway, he also made his yummy chili (the secret ingredient is brown sugar) every year for our Halloween Potluck at work. Well, the poor guy. He took the train and subway to get to our Downtown Los Angeles office. One year he got off the subway and was coming up the second and last escalator of the subway station when he DROPPED the crockpot full of chili. All over the escalator. Luckilly he also had a put the extra chili in a small tupperware container and that was just enough for him to share with his favorite assistant, ME. Our other co-workers were out of luck that year.

    #2 There used to be a restaurant in L.A. called Chili My Soul. Just a small little place. You walked in and had a choice of like 10 different chilis every day, ranging from a heat scale of 1 to 10. There were white chicken chilis and pork chilis and ground beef chilis and steak chilies and vegetarian chilis You name it. You could get samples of them before you decided on which one(s) you wanted. There were toppings to choose from as well. Then one year the owner died and none of his kids wanted to take over so that was the end of Chili My Soul. The entire city of Los Angeles was went through a period of mourning.

    Anyway! I think I have all the stuff in the house to try Lacey’s chili this week, too!!!!

    Unfortunately I don’t have any of the ingredients to try Stephanie’s recipe, but it sounds delicious so I will one day. I definitely want to check out her Food With My Dude series! How fun!

    Thanks for sharing your blogger friends and their tasty recipes. I’m always looking for new meals to make for me and my Mom.

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    1. Lol yay!! So happy you thought this was an even more fun post than usual. 😀 I thought the same about Diane’s recipe but it really did work– I highly recommend adding rice or pasta underneath when you make it!!

      Thank you for sharing your chili stories, I am always open to hearing any stories you got!! 😀

      I’m curious about the PB Sandwich, too. Did he dip it into the chili?! I totally pictured him dropping that chili, that’s something for a comedy film, my gosh!! How lucky that he ended up having a little just to share with you!! ❤ That was so sweet of him. I NEED to find a recipe with brown sugar in it now…

      Let me know if you try Lacey's chili, it was really good! 🙂 & You're going to love Stephanie's Food With My Dude series!

      It truly makes me so happy that you actually cook a lot of the meals we make! ❤ ❤

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      1. Yah, I’m leaning towards rice for Diane’s recipe.

        Thanks for tolerating my stories. LOL And no, he ate the sandwich separately. It was just a tradition to have both for the same meal. Something to do with him growing up super poor, I think. Unfortunately he died very suddenly a long time ago so i can’t ask him to tell me the story again. And man…his chili was THE BEST. I had to stop comparing other chilis to his and just accept other chilis on their own because that brown sugar is not a common ingredient so other chilis are simply not going to taste like his, ever.

        But the world is full of delicious chilis, thank God, and I’m here to try them all!!! I’ll be sure to report back to you and Lacey when I make her recipe. I decided to make it on Sunday or Monday so I can have it for lunch all next week if Mom doesn’t like it.

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        1. Good idea!!

          I love your stories, Jinjer 😀 you may always share them with me!!

          I am so sorry that the man passed away. I was going to ask if you could ask him for the recipe but, at least you always will remember him & best chili you ever had!

          You are right though. The world is full of so many different delicious chilis. I’m still sad the spot in Cali closed down. 😦

          I hope you & your mom both like the chili!!

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  8. Hunida, my friend, you are awesome. I love your recipe reviews, but doing a post with recipes from fellow bloggers is such a fun idea. I sure appreciate you including mine🍽 Thank you❤️
    And just like usual after reading your blog…. I’m hungry!

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  9. I will definitely have to try some of these recipes! Diane’s recipe looks so yummy, and I absolutely love smoked sausage in any dish.Thank you for mentioning my dish; you’re so sweet! ♡ Although, I’ll have to make the chili for myself since someone [cough, cough, Stephen] doesn’t like kidney beans — which is such a shame, uhg. Ironically, we made our noodles for dinner and I would like to include more veggies in the dish, maybe start with the standard broccoli and carrot first so the taste isn’t altered as much? You’ve given me some more ideas. Thanks for sharing, and I hope your day is lovely!

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    1. I hope you enjoy the other recipes if you do try them, Stephanie! 🙂 In Lacey’s recipe, she said you can use lentils instead of kidney beans if Stephen would prefer those! I really enjoyed your noodle dish. ❤ It was super flavorful but YES, broccoli & carrot would both be super satisfying in there. 🙂

      Thank you for stopping by! I hope your day is lovely, too! ❤

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      Reply

        1. No worries! WordPress is so annoying about the comments. They don’t keep track of them well at all & not to mention, I am human, & they freakin’ throw me into spam ALL day.

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  10. Ah I love these recipes, thank you SO much for sharing them. Everytime I read these kind of posts, I feel more inspired to cook and try new things, more often than not I’m too lazy to do so haha, so thank you for this ❤ ❤

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  14. Pingback: Journal Entry #273 – Hunida's Blog

    1. You totally could use crumbled tofu instead of the pork! Green onions are the same as scallions or spring onions. 🙂 & yes, we actually used Rice Vinegar with no problems. I hope you like it if you try it, Chrissie!

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  18. Pingback: Week in Review 9/13/19 – BigAndPinkyToes

      1. Yah, Diane makes a lot of yummy stuff! I’m on day 3 of that chili and my eyes are still rolling back in my head. How long is meat good for that has been thawed, cooked, leftovers frozen and then thawed and heated up in chili? LOL

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