So, recently, I realized that I spend a lot of money on eating out.  Shocker, right?  Isn’t that the first thing they tell you to look at when you’re building a budget – your eating out habits?

Well, it doesn’t really seem like that much when you’re doing it, you know? It just seems like a dinner here, a lunch there…and then at the end of the month, it adds up.

So, I bought this book called Restaurant Recipes.  It’s really cool, it tells you how to make all kinds of recipes that you eat in lots of different restaurants, like Applebees, Olive Garden, Cheesecake Factory, etc.  Even some that I never get to go to, being in California, like Black Eyed Pea and Cracker Barrel.  Holla, southern cooking.

Well, having also recently see Julie/Julia not once but TWICE, I also decided that it would be a pretty cool idea to blog my way through making the recipes out of the restaurant recipes book.  I mean, I’m actually starting out at an advantage, right?  She started from scratch, I already have a (fairly) popular blog.   Of course, I’m starting out at a *disadvantage* being that I don’t cook.  *shrug*  Give a little, take a little.

So, here we go with my first attempt.  Alice Springs Chicken, from (arguably) my favorite chain restaurant, Outback Steakhouse.  Let’s be real, I’m a carnivore.  That vegetarian stuff is great for my mom, but I need meat!  And Outback is certainly the place for that…

The Alice Springs chicken is my favorite item on their menu, followed closely by the Cyclone Chicken, but I actually think they might have gotten rid of that?  I’m not sure, it’s been a while since I looked at the menu, I’ve been in a honey-mustardy mood lately.

Making it was not nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be.  I always get nervous when I’m cooking chicken, that it’s not going to get cooked all the way through (did I tell you I was an amateur or what!), but this piece turned out great!

The honey mustard, mushrooms, and MMMMMMcheese (that’s how I refer to cheese sometimes, when it’s particularly good…) was spot on, exactly like Outback.  I gotta say, it pretty much tasted the same!

Well, that was my first foray into trying restaurant recipes.  It was easy, delicious, and about a third of what it costs at Outback.  I’m sold.  I’m seriously considering starring in a movie in my head while I cook and blog my way through this whole thing!

CLICK HERE to check out the book.  Seriously.  It’s rad.  And make sure you comment me when you try out the recipes, too!