Recent Food Items

The successes and failures:

Oatmeal Chippers (Farm Journal, Homemade Cookies)
Same-ole, Same-ole. This was my oven test. After the date bars, I figured I should go back to the tried and true. They didn't turn out like previous batches, but I've made this recipe so many times that I figured it would be hard to fail. I cooked them twice as long as the recipe calls for (15 minutes) and I turned up the oven temperature after almost every batch.
Verdict - very successful (If I didn't have such a strong sense of how they should be, I would think they are just right. I'm pretty sure we will choke them down.)

Fresh spinach, fresh ricotta and leftover rice - used in Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone - Spinach & Rice Gratin
The instructions say bake at 400F for 25 minutes until brown and puffy. I baked it at (who knows!) for 30 minutes and it turned neither brown, nor puffy. But, the recipe doesn't have any eggs in it, and everything is cooked on the stovetop before you put it in the oven, so we ate it as is. It was very good. The spinach was fantastic and we have enough leftovers for two lunches each.
Served with a quick spicy tomato sauce
Verdict - wildly successful (We had it re-heated in the oven for lunch and it was just as good. The taste reminds me of lasagna.)

Homemade granola (Mom style) with dried apricots and dates - put almost everything in the food processor because I needed to chop up the oats a little. I found some Rolled Oats (called Aplastados here), but they were imported from Spain and were very expensive, so I didn't buy them. I also included some puffed amaranth.
Verdict - very successful (I must make more today)

Chicken Thigh Stew - a riff on a Cooking Light recipe
The recipe is for a basic stew with chicken, potatoes, onions and carrots. I threw in some fresh, shelled peas just as we were about to sit down for lunch. And, I waited, and waited, and waited for them to turn green. 15 MINUTES later, they were hard as rocks. The peas were neither bright green nor brown/green, but we were starving, so we picked around the crunchy peas and ate the rest with some warm tortillas.
Verdict - stew: good, peas: bad

Jamaica (or Agua de Jamaica)
I actually used a recipe to make this sort-of-tea of hibiscus flowers. Diana Kennedy has a recipe, which I followed and not surprisingly, it turned out much better than my ‘throw everything into the pot and see what happens’ method.
Verdict - GONE! I made it last night and we drank the last of the 8 cups with our lunch!

I've made a few other things, but these are the highlights (or lowlights).