The Great American Taste Test ~ Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits

About a month ago I stumbled upon an opportunity that was too good to pass up. If I agreed to participate in an event called The Great American Taste Test I would receive a complimentary copy of Ron Douglas's new book America's Most Wanted Recipes: Delicious Recipes from Your Family's Favorite Restaurants.

You're probably saying, "Yeah, so?" But what you may not realize is that America's Most Wanted Recipescontains over 200 recipes from 57 of America's most popular restaurants including The Cheesecake Factory, KFC, Olive Garden, P.F. Chang's, Outback Steakhouse and Red Lobster. Yes, Red Lobster. Cheddar biscuits anyone? Yeah, I thought so.

While I hated to be predictable, we chose to taste test Douglas's copycat recipe for Red Lobster's cheddar biscuits. The Red Lobster closest to our house is about 25 miles away, and aside from the "teeny weeny shrimpies" you can get on your salad, the cheddar biscuits are our favorite, and if we could make them at home, well that would be bliss.

I was able to grab some Sunday while out covering a story for the newspaper, and when I got home my husband was in kitchen heaven. I may fancy myself a writer but he's the best cook in our house, and we all know it. He spent A LOT of time devouring this cookbook to decide which recipes we would try first, and while we knew we would taste test the biscuits, we also knew we would round out our meal with more from the book.

The recipe for cheddar biscuits is obscenely simple. Cory is a fan of baking mix, but much to his chagrin can never get the flavor to spread throughout the batch. Truth be told, that while he is a fantastic cook, his biscuits are usually a little ummm, hard, and not really of the melt-in-your-mouth variety. But by adding a little shredded cheese, milk and butter, wow! And I do mean wow!!! Even our picky five-year-old declared them wonderful and the only difference between the two versions was that the originals were a little more "melty" but the flavor was ALL there.

In addition to the Red Lobster biscuits we also made (but without the "real" versions on hand) Boston Market's meat loaf and Applebee's bacon-green onion mashed potatoes, both items we have enjoyed in the past at their respective restaurants.

The meat loaf was acceptable, and truth-be-told I am picky about my meat loaf, so I am not easy to please, but the bacon-green onion mashed potatoes were simply divine. I highly recommend them, and again very easy to make. Just ask my husband.

Unfortunately in our haste to get our eatin' on, I didn't take the time to really evaluate my pictures before consuming our, ummm, my husband's hard work. Therefore I didn't know they were all blurry. (Maybe I was shaking with anticipation?) But here is a glance of Cory's work. Again, those biscuits, tell me your mouth is not watering.

We have big plans for America's Most Wanted Recipes. Many recipes are marked to try in the very near future, including KFC's original recipe chicken, Hard Rock Cafe's pulled pork and Cracker Barrel's cherry-chocolate cobbler, to name a few. I promise to report on all of them, unless my fingers become too large to hit one key at a time, or I never wake from the food coma. But at least I'll have a smile on my face. Bon Appetit!!!