10 Best Recipes From My Quarantine Kitchen.

    If there's one thing I've been doing a lot more of while staying home, it's cooking and baking! I've loved both of these things for many years, but never in my life have I eaten this much at home and tried to rely as much as possible on my own culinary skills. Today I'm rounding up my 10 favorite recipes that I've made over the past two months! There's a mix of dinners and desserts- but one theme here is that most of these are comfort food items. With all the stress going on in the world, I've craved comfort food more than ever. Some of these recipes might not be the healthiest... but at least they're homemade right? 😉

    The photo below is of my very first cheesecake, which I baked a few weeks ago. The irony of me sharing this photos is this is probably the worst thing that I made in the past two months, haha! I labored over it one Saturday morning, and when it was finally ready to eat I was so proud that I made my roommate Abigail take my picture with it. Turns out that it was nice looking on the outside but didn't taste good in the slightest. You will most definitely not find the recipe for it in today's post. Oh well! 

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10 Best Recipes from My Quarantine Kitchen:

• Pappasito's Dupe Queso from CopyKat- I went to visit my friend Ciera in Houston back in 2018, and the highlight meal of that trip was when she took me to Pappasito's, which is a Texas only Tex-Mex chain. Everything at Pappasito's was great, but their queso was unbelievable. I've literally been dreaming about it since. This copycat recipe for it isn't quite as amazing as the real deal, but it is pretty great! And it's very easy to make.

• Beef Empanadas from Delish - These were tasty and fairly easy. I did add cilantro to the beef mixture because I love it, and it was a nice addition. These are also oven baked, which I think makes them slightly better for you than fried empanadas. While they were delicious right out of the oven, one thing to note is they didn't make for as good leftovers!

• Chrissy Teigen's Mac n Cheese from Cravings - This recipe is not new to me- it's been my go-to for mac n cheese for the past few years, and it never lets me down. Chrissy Teigen sure knows what she's doing with this! Since it is one of my favorite comfort foods, of course I've made it twice since March. It's delicious with or without the homemade bread crumbs (but they do make it even better). 

• Sheet Pan Nachos from The Thrifty Pineapple - Loved finding this easy and fun recipe from Angela, one of my favorite bloggers! You can also add or omit different things to the nachos as you wish. I'm planning to make a couple trays of this once it's safe enough for my dinner club to resume meeting. 

• Chicken Pot Pie from The Pioneer Woman - OH MY GOSH was this good!! Probably the best new dinner recipe I've tried in quarantine. Talk about comfort food bliss. I didn't however follow The Pioneer Woman's crust recipe, I used the one below! 

• Mama's Pie Crust from Callie's Little Hot Biscuit - I've now used this both as a dessert crust and also a chicken pie crust, and I can verify this is the best of the best. I don't think I can go back to pre-made crusts now! Not when this is so easy and so tasty. 

• Chocolate Chess Pie from Callie's Little Hot Biscuit - A delicious and classic Southern dessert recipe! I made it with the Callie's pie crust recipe and some homemade whipped cream and it was quite the treat. Heads up though- it is SUPER sweet. 

• Strawberry Cream Cheese Muffins from Mom on Timeout -  One of my new favorite breakfast recipes! I just made these again a few days ago and they're awesome- but here's an important note. You must use cake flour for them as the recipe directs! This most recent time I used all purpose flour and it just wasn't the same. 

• DoubleTree Hotel Cookies - My favorite dessert recipe from quarantine! I was SO excited when DoubleTree Hotels put out their secret cookie recipe. These cookies are insane! I've had them when I've stayed at DoubleTrees before, and I've been lucky in Charlottesville to have the chance to eat them a lot as we often have work events at the local hotel here. This recipe is super easy and makes a delicious cookie!

• No-Bake Icebox Cake from Southern Belle in Training - And finally, a recipe from my blog! I shared my mom's incredible No-Bake Icebox Cake recipe a few years ago on Southern Belle in Training. This "cake" is incredibly easy and tastes out of this world. It's not the prettiest dessert aesthetically, but it sure makes up for that in deliciousness. So glad my mom has passed on this recipe to me! I make this several times each summer, but I had to break it out a little early while at home.

Some of my favorite cookbooks:

     God Bless,

     xoxo Annaliese