The Cooky Book: Jubilee Jumbles

The Recipe: Jubilee Jumbles from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: I subbed butter for shortening and skipped the nuts. To prevent the cookies from being fatally boring, I added coconut and leftover Halloween Smarties.

The Verdict: Big time fail. According to the Cooky Book, these cookies were developed by General Mills in 1955 to celebrate the 75th anniversary of Gold Medal Flour. Someone at General Mills must have secretly resented Gold Medal Flour, because these are not worthy of a celebration. They're a very basic cookie, but are really... off. I think it might be the inclusion of a full cup of sour cream -- they're just too soft and gooey and mushy. My kids like them because of the inclusion of Smarties, but generally these are a total dud.

Roast Beef With winter Vegetables

The Recipe: Roast Beef with Cabbage, Squash, and Carrots from the November 2010 issue of Everyday Food.

The Substitutions: I used acorn squash instead of butternut.

The Verdict: Doesn't this roast look beautiful? Like seriously gorgeous. Oh, how looks can deceive. I have a confession to make: I can't roast meat to save my life. I don't think there's anything wrong with my oven, because my baked goods turn out fine, but I am really bad at judging the size of a cut of meat and adjusting cooking times. Maybe it's because I was a vegetarian until I was 25 and never learned how to cook meat from my mother. Maybe it's because I can never find the exact cut of meat in the grocery store that's called for in a recipe. Maybe I'm just dumb. I don't know.

Anyway, I cooked this sucker (which was only slightly heavier than the cut called for in the recipe, but admittedly thicker and rounder) for about a half hour longer than called for and it was still a bloodbath. Like, really rare. I realize this is not the fault of the recipe, but I do find Martha Stewart recipes often have ridiculously short cooking times. Anyway, it made for a bit of a dinner disaster.

What we were able to eat (at a late hour) was not bad, though. These vegetables were quite tasty, though it was a little heavy on the cabbage. Not a bad recipe. If you know how to cook a roast, that is.

Charmoula Chicken

The Recipe: Charmoula Chicken from the Canadian Living Slow Cooker Collection. Similar (non-crock pot) recipe here.

The Substitutions: nada

The Verdict: Yum! I will admit, this is actually the second time I've made this in the last two weeks. It is really good -- flavourful, without being super spicy or zingy or zesty or whatever makes over flavoured dishes so overwhelming. I served mind with a nice crusty bread, lots of butter and some green beans, but it would also be nice over rice. It is one of those annoying slow cooker recipes that involves browning everything and cooking the onions beforehand (I prefer the dump and plug in variety) and there's no veg in it, so it's not the kind of thing where you can walk in the door at 6 pm and be eating five minutes later. But it's so tasty, none of that matters. Did I say yum?

The Cooky Book: Molasses Jumbles

The Recipe: Molasses Jumbles from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

Substitutions: butter for shortening, per usual. I also went for the suggested lemon version.

The Verdict: I was not particularly looking forward to this recipe. It's one of those weird wartime ration recipes that requires very little butter and no eggs. It also requires a lot of molasses. A lot. As a result, it has that weird flavor that only someone who grew up with wartime rations could love. Or so I thought. While I took one bite and spit the rest of the cookie into the sink, my kids can't get enough of these. Despite there being no spice in it (which makes me think that the alternate version using spices might be much better), my daughter says they taste like Christmas gingerbread, which in turns reminds her of Santa, which makes her feel a sense of delight. My two-year-old son eats them with gay abandon. Maybe I'm raising old souls. Or maybe kids love molasses. Or maybe my kids are weird. Either way, there's no way I'm ever making these horrid little cookies again, but they do get two tiny thumbs up.

Pecan Pie

The Recipe: Lorraine Bracco's Pecan Pie from Martha Stewart.com (online recipe here.

The Substitutions: None really except (gasp!) I bought pre-made pie dough. Sorry, Martha.

The Verdict: I've actually made this pie before, and while I find the amount of corn syrup to be unholy, I'm afraid to try another because it's so good. Not too sweet, enough filling that it doesn't get dry or hard, and really yummy, especially if you add bourbon (which is optional). I really love pecan pie. There's a recipe for one with chocolate chips in the new Everyday Food and I might try that, but there's really no reason to deviate from this one because it's that good. Oh, and apologies for the crap photo, but I didn't remember to take a photo before my extended family dove in and decimated this delicious pie.

Pizza Cupcakes

The Recipe: Mini Deep-Dish Pizzas from the September 2010 Everyday Food.

The Substitutions: I used bottled pizza sauce instead of tomato. I also used Pilsbury pizza dough. Hooray for processed food! (Kidding, kidding)

The Verdict: This is an instant lazy mom's lunchtime favourite. The kids call them Pizza Cupcakes and they love them. Obviously, you can make it way healthier by using homemade pizza dough and non-processed toppings. But when you just feel like squirting some pre-made sauce into a cupcake and topping it with cheese and pepperoni, this is genius.

The Cooky Book: Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

The Recipe: Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies from Betty Crocker's The Cooky Book

The Substitutions: Per usual, I subbed butter in for shortening. I also skipped the raisins (hated in this household), skipped the nuts (not allowed at school) and added in some chocolate chips (so people would actually eat them). Since the recipe required simmering the raisins and then adding the cooking water to the mix, I mixed a little bit of maple syrup into some water and put that it. All of this worked out just fine.

The Verdict: This is the first recipe I've tried from The Cooky Book that seems just like a family favourite. The yield was huge (five dozen, maybe?) so I froze half of them and the fam are still happily eating them up. The spiciness of the cookie actually works pretty well with the chocolate and the dough makes for a nice firm oatmeal cookie -- not too dry and not too moist. These are a classic. If I ever make it all the way through the book, I may just make them again.