Pinterest Tested January Week 1, 2015

Pinterest Tested is back! I wanted to do more Pinterest Tested posts in 2014, but it got so crazy busy that there wasn’t much time to try out all the pinned recipes on Pinterest. Fortunately, I’m getting back into the groove and will try to keep Pinterest Tested a regular post for the new year.

Pinterest Tested January Week 1

 Sweet ‘n’ Hot Glazed Salmon @allrecipes

Since I loved the 3-ingredients apricot glazed chicken recipe we tried out last year, I decided to give this Sweet ‘n’ Hot Glazed Salmon recipe a try. It’s been pinned over 1,000 times and has a 4 1/2 star ratings on allrecipes. Unlike the very simple chicken recipe, this has 9 ingredients, including the salmon.

The main sauce ingredients are apricot nectar, dried apricots, honey, and soy sauce. As you can see from the picture, it creates a nice thick and sticky glaze. I love thick glazes…don’t you? Anyway, the only spice omitted from the recipe was cinnamon because I don’t care for it in savory dishes. Plus, to simplify the cooking process, I chose not to flip and baste the fillets. Instead, I poured all of the sauce over the fillets and let the fillets broil in it.

Overall, this recipe was a success. Out of the six of us, the only complaint was from my oldest son, who didn’t care for the chopped dried apricots. The only change that would make this recipe even better is to use apricot preserves, which would eliminate the need to buy apricot nectar and dried apricots.

---

Grilled Pesto Chicken Sandwich @A Bountiful Love

I’ve been on a mission to find more recipes that use pesto, so this super easy Grilled Pesto Chicken Sandwich was a great recipe to try. It’s a simple recipe that uses ingredients that most have on-hand or can easily get.

For this recipe, I made two changes. The first was to use store-bought pesto instead of homemade. The second was to use mayonnaise to brown the Texas toast instead of butter.

Overall feedback from the family – 3 liked the sandwich, 2 said it was “ok”, and 1 didn’t like it. Basically, the three youngest people in the family didn’t do backflips for this sandwich. Will I make this again? Yes, but will change the cheese and add some greens to jazz it up a bit. The only part of this recipe that shouldn’t be skipped is the thick bread because it balances out the chicken slices and pesto.

---

 Honey Soy Drumstick, Thighs, or Wings @Alexandra’s Kitchen

Everything about the title of this recipe appealed to me. Honey and soy?! Heck yeah! Now, this recipe has been pinned over 20,000 times and has some mixed reviews. Most of the reviews are positive, but there were reviews about the sauce not thickening after an hour in the oven.

I followed this recipe exactly and had no issues with the sauce. My sauce thickened and left a sticky glaze in the pan. My tip to avoid a thin sauce, make sure the chicken is fully defrosted. Any water added to the sauce will prevent the sauce from thickening. Also, if using chicken thighs, the fat from the thighs will thin the sauce too. FYI, the skin on the chicken will get really dark and look burnt, but I promise it isn’t. If you don’t want the skin to get too dark, place a foil over the chicken and remove it for the last 15 minutes of cook time.

Fair warning, if you hate doing dishes, this may not be a recipe for you. There will be a burnt crust on your glass baking dish that will require a bit of elbow grease to remove. I let my pan soak overnight and used my trusty steel wool pad to get my pan nice and clean.

Everyone in the family loved this recipe and reminds me of Shoyu Chicken, but with the gooey sauce. Yum! Will definitely make this again.

---

Those were the three recipes tested for the first Pinterest Tested post of the year. What new recipes have you tried from Pinterest to start the new year?