Delicious Pork Roast

Pork roast...what more can you say.  It is one of my husbands favorites and I enjoy making it. Why? Its a crockpot recipe.  I ADORE crockpot recipes.  Means I dont have to much work.

I use a cast iron dutch oven to create a nice dark sear on the outside of the roast and the smells alone are enough to make your mouth water and its not even fully cooked yet. 

Everytime my husband eats this, he makes food noises.  When someone makes food noises, you know you've done a good job.

Without further ado, here is my recipes for Crock Pot Pork Roast.

Ingredients:

1 Pork shoulder roast

2 tbs minced garlic

salt

garlic powder

pepper

1 medium yellow onion

1 package button mushrooms

1 carton chicken stock or broth

1 envelope french onion soup mix

Directions:

1. Season your roast on all sides with the salt, pepper, garlic powder.  Every shoulder roast i've had has had a netting on it, just leave it on.

2. In a cast iron dutch oven, or a skillet sear the roast on all sides, nice and dark brown.

3. Place roast in the crockpot, and in the same skillet, add the onion and garlic. You are kind of deglazing the pan in a way.

4. Add these to the crockpot and dump in the chicken stock or broth.  Mix in the french onion soup mix and dump in the cleaned mushrooms.

5. Cook on low for 8-10 hours or high on 4-6 hours.

I usually serve this with mashed potatoes and gravy, buttered dinner rolls and some kind of green vegetable. I've done asparagus, brussel sprouts, spinach. Really anything.

Pumpkin Streusel Pie

Now that it is the holidays, the baking begins...I should've posted this when it was closer to Thanksgiving because that is when I do the majority of my pie baking.  All well.

I normally make regular pumpkin and then pecan pie; mostly because I do anything to make my husband happy.  The secret to a mans heart is truly through his stomach.  At least for my mans heart it is.

So this year my mother asked me to try and make a pumpkin streusel pie, so I did.  To quote my husband, it was "*bleeping* epic".  So that coming from a bunch of farmers, I'll take that as a win.

So to begin, the pie is a basic pumpkin pie, and we all know I am all about shortcuts.  I used Libby's recipe from the back of her pumpkin pie mix can.

Ingredients:

Filling

 

1 -can Libbys Pumpkin Pie mix
1 -5 fl. oz can of evaporate milk
2 eggs
1 deep dish pie crust

 

Streusel Topping

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp granulated sugar
2 Tbsp packed light-brown sugar
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
4 Tbsp unsalted butter, cold and diced into 1/2-inch cubes
1/3 cup chopped pecans 

 

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. Prepare pie filling according to Libbys can.

3. Place pie crusts on a cookie sheet for easy moving, and fill pie crusts, but not all the way to the top, keep in mind that you have to place the streusel topping on top.

4. Place pies in the oven for 15 minutes, while this is going on mix together all your streusel toppings with your fingers.

5. When the 15 min is up, without opening the oven, reduce temperature to 350 and continue to cook for 30 min.

6. After 30 min, place streusel over top and continue cooking another 30 minutes or until knife comes out clean. 

Voila, a deliciously epic pumpkin streusel pie that is sure to be a hit at all your holiday parties!

Scalloped Potatoes and Ham

Well hey there,

Scalloped potatoes and ham was something my husband specifically asked for. And let me tell you hes the guy that when you ask him what he wants for dinner, he says "food", drives me insane. So when he actually says he wants something, I make it.  I made a huge ham on sunday and had so much left over.

So without further ado, here is the recipe.


1/4 cup of butter
1 cup of onion
2 cups of whole milk
1 tbs of minced garlic
Salt and pepper
Onion powder
4-5 medium potatoes
2 tbs flour
2 1/4 cups of shredded cheese

1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan, add onions and cook until soft.
2. Add the flour and stir in, add garlic, milk, salt and pepper and onion power. Cook until bubbling and sauce thickens
3. Remove from heat and stir in 2 cups of shredded cheese, I used mozzerella because thats what I had in my fridge.

Garlic Dill Pickles

So all of you know of my husbands love for pickled eggs. I have already shared that delicious recipe with you, now I am going to share my pickles with you...or rather the recipe that I used and eyeballed.

I love pickles, I dont know if it is the salt, the vinegar, whatever it is, I love it.  I attempted to make pickles before but the recipe that I had used either never turned out, or I just messed it up that bad. I finally found a recipe to try through Pinterest.  I tried it, and low and behold they were amazing. Keep in mind, when I give you a recipe for something like this, I usually am just eyeballing the ingredients.  However, I will give you the amounts they say to use.

The recipe is by Donalyn Ketchum, she gets the credit for the recipe, I just used it.  Here is the link for the recipe that used, http://thecreeksidecook.com/refrigerator-garlic-dill-pickles/.

Alrighty then, enough chat, onto the recipe.

Refrigerator Garlic Dill Pickles by Donalyn Ketchum.

Ingredients

• 2 quarts of water
• 1 cup white or cider vinegar
• ½ cup pickling salt
• About 3 to 4 pounds of cucumbers - small pickling cukes are best
• 8 large heads of dill, or more if they are smaller
• 8 medium garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
• 1 tablespoon mustard seed
• 4 pinches red pepper flake
• about 20 black peppercorns

Instructions

1. This will make about 4 quarts of pickles, so you need 4 1 quart jars with lids, or more if they are smaller. Canning jars aren't necessary, but they do need a lid. Wash in hot soapy water and rinse well [or run through the dishwasher].
2. Measure the water, vinegar and salt into a 3 quart sauce pan and set over high heat - you want the salt to dissolve and the mixture to come to a full boil.
3. Meanwhile, make sure your cucumbers are good and clean. Cut them however you like - the smaller the pieces, the more that will fit in a jar. I like spears, because they are pretty to serve, though if I end up with a lot of odd sized cucumbers, chunks may work better.
4. In the bottom of each jar, place 1 large head of dill, or several smaller ones. You can also put in some of the fronds and stems. Then put 1 garlic clove in the bottom.
5. Fill each jar with cucumbers - for spears, it might be easier to lay the jar on its side. You can really cram them in there tightly, but leave a good inch of headspace at the top, so that the brine will be able to cover the pickles.
6. Top the cucumbers in the jars with another clove of garlic, as well as another large head of dill. You can just leave it at that, or for a little more complexity of flavor, add a scant teaspoon of mustard seed, a pinch of red pepper flake and 5 peppercorns to each jar.
7. Carefully fill each jar with the boiling water/vinegar/salt mixture, making sure to get the cucumbers completely covered.
8. Screw on the lids.
9. Leave the jars out in the counter for 2 or 3 days, and then store in the refrigerator for at least two weeks before opening them.
10. They will keep well for several months at least, so long as you keep them refrigerated. [Naturally, if anything looks or smells funky, discard them, but honestly, that happens very rarely.

That is the recipe that I used, doctoring it up to my use.  Such as I used two 1/2 Gallon mason jars instead of the 4 quart jars.  However, I did everything the same, though I did eyeball most of the ingredients.

This is how mine turned out.

ENJOY!!! LET ME KNOW HOW THEY TURNED OUT!!

Italian Beef

Good evening,

For those who know me, I am a huge fan of crockpot meals. They are quick and easy, perfect for busy weeknights when the hubby doesnt get home tkll 7:30 pm.

A friend from work gave me this recipe and it was the most amazing homemade italian beef i've ever had. Although, you cannot beat Portillo's.


So onto the recipe!

Crockpot Italian Beef

1 rump roast
1 packet of McCormick Au Jus Gravy
2 cloves of garlic
1 Beef Buillon cube
1 jar of pepporcini's
Italian shaker seasoning
1/2 cup water


1. Stab the roast all over with a knife. Cover in italian seasoning, place in crockpot.
2. Mix Au jus packet with 1/2 cup of water and dump into the crockpot. (Do not follow packet instructions.)
3. Drop one beef buillon cube and the 2 cloves of garlic into the crockpot.
4. Dump half the jar of pepperoncini juice into the crockpot along with half of the peppers (this gives jt a great flavor)
5. Let cook on low all day and shred witha fork before serving.

I serve this on french rolls with italian cheese and peppers.

I've paired it with chips or frenchfries. Tonight however, because I do have some of this heaven in a crockpot; I am serving it with baked beans and deviles eggs.  It is really up to you, this is just delicious stuff. ENJOY!!

Before :

After:

Doctored Up Manwich

Here's a recipe for busy moms or busy wives like me. When you've been running around all day, the last thing you want to do is come home and slave over a hot stove making dinner.  So if your life me and decide that you want something quick, yet taste good as well heres a good one.

Although, as you read farther, you will notice that there is very littlw measuremments.  This was the kind of recipe where I gathered some ingredients I alread had on hand and eyeballed it.

Doctored Up Manwich

Ingredients

1 lb ground beef

1 can Manwich

BBQ sauce

Green pepper

Onion

Jalapeño

Seasoning

Directions

1. Brown ground beef and drain of remaining fat.

2. Dice up onion, jalapeño, and green pepper while meat is browning. 

3. When fat is drained off, throw in veggies and stir. 

4. Add 3/4 of the can of Manwich and maybe a 1/4 cup of BBQ sauce....any kind you have will be good.
5. Add seasoning, (I used, salt, pepper, garlic powder, oregano, and Weber gourmet burger seasoning)

6. Let simmer on stove for about 20 minutes.

I served this on some hamburger buns with some leftover macaroni salad that I had on hand. Like I said busy wife. 

Jalapeño Popper Chicken

Hello my fellow Americans,

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!

On this joyous occasion, I have recieved seceral requests for the recipe for the Jalaleño Popper Chicken. Which consequently was AMAZING!

Even my husband, who is not a big chicken lover (more of a red meat guy), said "this is some of the best damn chicken i've ever had" which is a win for me. Afterall, the way to a mans heart is through his stomach.

Lets begin, as always, with preheating the oven to 400 degrees.

Spray a 8x11 glass baking dish with nonstick cooking spray ( or whatever dish/pan you are going to use.

Ingredients:

3 large chicken breasts (I used tyson)

2 packages cream cheese, softened

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 package cooked, crumbled bacon

1 Jalapeño, diced

2 cups Panko breadcrumbs

3 tablepsoons of vegetable oil

2 eggs

Taco seasoning

Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. In a skillet combine bread crumbs and vegetable oil on medium to high heat, your goal is to brown them. Dump them in a bowl and mix them with the taco seasoning. 

2. In a shallow dish, whisk the eggs together with salt and pepper. These will be your dredge station.

3. In a bowl, combine softened cream cheese, shredded cheese, crumbled bacon, diced jalapeño.

-On a side note, slice jalapeño in half and remove all seeds and membrane (the white stuff) if you do not want it to taste hot. 

4. Butterfly the chicken open and stuff with the cream cheese mixture. You can hold the ends together with a toothpick if needed but they held together pretty well for me.

5. Dredge in the egg and then roll in the breadcrumbs, place in the baking dish.

6. Bake in the oven for 40 minutes or until the chicken is cooked thouroughly, no pink. This all depends on your oven. 

I usually serve with a side of boxed rice-a-roni and some sort of vegetable. It is very filling and it is great left overs. I had extra cream cheese mixture so I stuffed a few burgers with it, we are grilling them today. 

HAVE A GREAT 4TH OF JULY AND PLEASE COMMENT WITH HOW IT GOES!!! 

Cheap Easy Fried Ice Cream

You know how you go to a Mexican restaurant and have amazing food because lets face it what Mexican food isn't amazing. Our favorite restaurant is Jalepenos, its great, we try to eat there on special occasions to make it seem even better! I love their chicken chimichangas with some guacamole and sour cream. To die for.

Back to the initial point, after you ate the deliciois meal and at this point you probably need to pop the button of your jeans to feel comfortable but dessert still sounds enticing? Yeah, we all know how that feels. Well my husband and I's go to dessert is sopapillas with fried ice cream. Yes, FRIED ice cream.

Well the correct way to do it is to roll ice cream into a ball then roll it in cinnamon and sugar, corn flakes and freeze completley before frying ina  fryer. However, because I am supremely lazy when I decide I want ice cream....thats too much work.  I geniously came up with a cheap easy hack for fried ice cream.

I scoop some ice cream into a bowl...which happend to be the cheap container of chocolate revel from the grocery store.

Crush some frosted flakes into the bowl and sprinkle with cinnamom and sugar and voila!!! Fried ice cream.

Enjoy! I apologize for the sloppy looking bowl....I dug in before I took a picture

Monkey Bread

Hello my people,

I woke up this morning craving some ooey gooey deliciousness and I had 3 cans of buttermilk biscuits I wasn't using so I though why the heck not. My husband was playing on the floor with a pile of Legos...yes I know he's a child but he is so much fun. So I decided that my biscuits needed to be made into Monkey Bread, the delicacy that my mother taught me to make. It's easy, it's simple, and it's the most delicious morning bread you will ever put in your mouth....yes I just said that.

To start this heaven, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. I always preheat the oven before I start anything because I am impatient and hate waiting for anything.

Now for this recipe, typically my mother would use a bunt pan (the cake pan with a hole in it), but sadly I do not own one of those yet, and the dollar store didn't even have one...I mean come on, but its whatever.  I just used a 9x9 square casserole dish and it worked out just fine.

Now ingredients:

3 can buttermilk biscuits (I used Pillsbury)

2 sticks butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons of cinnamon (b/c I LOVE cinnamon)

Assembly of the ooey gooey deliciousness is easy.

First generously butter your bunt pan...or whatever pan you decided to use.

In a mixing bowl, add the 1cup sugar and the 2 tablespoons of cinnamon.

Open your cans of biscuits and cut each biscuit into four smaller pieces and toss in the sugar mixture.

Randomly toss the pieces into the buttered dish, there really isn't any specific way to lay the biscuits in the pan.

In a saucepan on the stove on a low/medium heat, melt the butter and add 1/2 cup of the remaining sugar mixture as well as the 1/2 cup of brown sugar. Once fully combined, raise the heat and bring to a boil, make sure you are stirring often so that you don't burn it.

Once brought to a boil, pour in a layer over the biscuit's and put in the oven at 350 for 30 minutes or until the top is crispy and the biscuit's look done.

Once done,  let sit for 5 or more minutes and then cover with a plate and flip over and you have the ooey gooey deliciousness that is perfect for a lazy sunday morning.







Pecan Pie

Todays weather forecast: crappy with a chance of snow and sleet.  So today is a great day for hibernation and baking.  What better to bake than a delicious pecan pie...mostly because I already have the ingredients and it's one of my husbands favorites.

I've only made pecan pie once before, it turned out to be a hit.  Which made me happy because according to my husband, it's very easy to mess up a pecan pie.  Even though the consistency was "off", apparently it was good.  Don't panic, it was simple to make.

I used a recipe that has been around for years and years. I do love old recipes that have never changed and continued to be good.  Although, I did attempt to change the recipe after reading a few others. I used melted butter last time and softened butter this time, we will see if that caused the odd consistency or if it just needed a tad more baking time.



(please ignore my crappy cookie sheet, it was still warm from the oven)

Alright, let's begin, as always, with the ingredients:



1 pie deep dish pie shell (I just did already frozen)

3 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1/2 cup Dark Karo corn syrup

1 stick of butter...softened until updated otherwise

1 cup chopped pecans

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Now that we have that out of the way, lets begin.

First, place your pie shell on a cookie sheet for easy transfer from the oven.

Then beat the eggs in a mixer till light a fluffy

Add the sugar, a beat again.

Then add the butter, corn syrup, salt, and vanilla.

Add the pecans and fold in a with a spatula and pour into the pie shell.

Bake the pecan pie starting at 350 degrees for ten minutes.

Then WITHOUT opening the oven, reduce the temperature to 325 degrees and bake for 30 min more...however, I have found that I still needed to bake my pie for at least 15 more minutes.

A knife should come out pretty clean when inserted in the middle and the middle should jiggle slightly like Jello, If you're middle is still liquidy after the 30 min, go ahead and continue baking. 

Let the pie rest and cool completely before serving, this could take a few hours so plan accordingly if you are deciding to wow a party or guests.

GOOD LUCK and let me know how it turns out!! :)





Pickled Eggs

Well, I decided to dive into blogging. Mostly because of my interests on Pinterest and my inane habit of photographing my attempts at recipes.

For my first blog post, I decided to post one thing that has made my husband happy...pickled eggs.

I find them gross but my husband begged me to make them since our good friends used to make them all the time.  So after researching and deliberating, I agreed...not that I deny him anything anyways.

With all of that being said, here's how to make pickled eggs of deliciousness.

First figure out what size jar you are going to be using, so that you know how many eggs you need. I used a 1/2 gallon mason jar I found in a six pack in the canning section of walmart.  This jar fit 14 eggs and all the crunchy goodies that go in with them.

When you narrow that down, boil your eggs. For those who don't know how, place all your eggs in a medium sized pan and cover the eggs with water. Oh and here's a life hack, toss some baking soda in the pan, it will make the peeling easier.   Bring to a boil and boil for 12 minutes....I dont know why 12 minutes is the magic number, but it is.  Once the magic 12 minutes is up, removed the pan and place under running cold water and peel. 

Now here is all the goodness that gets put in the jar:

14 eggs

1 banana pepper--sliced

1 jalepeno--sliced

1 Tbs crushed red pepper

3 Tbs black peppercorn

3 Tbs mustard seed

1/2 large red onion

3 cloves garlic--sliced

bunch of dill (I eyeballed this to my liking)

salt and pepper  

The only directions that I give is that remove the jalepeno seeds if you do not want any spice to your eggs.  Otherwise, I just roughly sliced everything and tossed it in the jar.  They are there for flavor...or if you're my husband, for eating. 

My husband and I discovered that if you poke the eggs with a toothpick, it will add more flavor over time, so I do recommend doing so before adding the brine.

Now for the brine, this recipe was given to me by our good friends, who got it from her mother. So why mess with something that is tried and true.  BEWARE, this will smell up your kitchen, my husband goes running as soon as the stove turns on.

For the 1/2 gallon mason jar, the measurements I used were:

3 cups water

3 cups vinegar

1/4 cup pickling salt

Bring all of this to a boil, once boiling, remove from stove and pour into the jar. MAKE SURE THE EGGS ARE COVERED. This is very important for health reasons.  Seal the jar tightly, let sit on the counter to cool a bit, and then put in the fridge. 

My advice is to wait at LEAST two weeks for maximum enjoyment and keep refrigerated.

On a side note, I would not recommend using the same brine twice....but in case that you are dead set on doing so, make sure that you re-boil the liquid to kill off anything that has the potential of being a bad day for Osmosis Jones.