Food

The Oh My Goodness Make you Cry Burger

2013-06-17T22:30:41Z

If I hadn't loved my husband enough to marry him (almost) eight years ago, the only convincing I would need is this burger.

My husband grills the best and I mean best burgers. You would be hard pressed to find a better burger and I have had a lot of delicious restaurant burgers.

So gentlemen, pay attention, this burger (and this husband) is a winner.

What you'll need:

One pound ground beef (we actually use venison)

1/2 pound ground sausage. The Jimmy Dean is great

1 egg

1 cup bread crumbs

A dash mesquite seasoning

1 tbsp dried onions

1 tbsp dried or fresh minced garlic

1 tbsp worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp Dale's Steak Sauce

1 tbsp dry Ranch mix or this blend of herbs and spices

Dump everything in a bowl and mix it together with your hands. Yes. Your hands.

Then patty them out. But the secret is don't pack them too tight and then flatten. Make a flat patty to begin with. This is the secret for a super juicy burger.

My husband cooks these on a charcoal grill. But I have also seen him cook them on a griddle or George Forman. Cook 3-4 minutes on each side until you see juices "flowing."

Voila!

We topped ours with onion straws, bbq sauce, avacoado and blue cheese. I like them "fancy."

Jason's Amazin' Onion Straws

2013-06-16T16:44:46Z

There is something so extraordinarily good about living in the south. It's the produce. I think the heat and humidity make for more flavorful produce.

Have you ever had a Vidalia onion? Seriously! While true Vidalia onion onions come from Vidalia, GA there is a farmer down the road from me who also grows amazing Vidalia onions. They can be procured seven days a week at our local farmer's market.

Saturday night Jason got a hankering for onion straws. So he loaded our big boy into the car and headed for the Farmer's Market.

He came home with two, gorgeous onions and an idea. The results were life changing!

What you'll:

1 large Vidalia onion or sweet onion cut into circles.

1 cup milk and 1 tbsp lemon juice mixed or 1 cup butter milk

2 cups flour

2 tbsp seasoning salt (here is my favorite blend)

1 quart oil in a shallow pan or cast iron skillet

Soak the onions in the milk. I mean soak them. You want them good and saturated!

Heat up your oil until you can place the end of a wooden spoon in the bottom and bubbles form. (Or 375 degrees for those of you who want to use a thermometer.)

Combine your flour and seasoning salt. Dredge your milk soaked onions through the flour.

Then place them in the oil. They will cook for about 3-4 minutes. You will know they are done because they will be the most gorgeous golden brown color you have EVER seen.

My new favorite cooking oil

2013-06-16T16:29:20Z

As you already know- I love to cook. I mean I have a cooking blog.

I love to experiment with new recipes and new ingredients.

I recently read about the health benefits of cooking with Safflower oil. A study conducted by reserachers at Ohio State University determined that 1 2/3 tsp. of safflower oil can help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease in women.

Now I am not drinking the Kool-Aid here, but I thought I would give it a try.

Even if you're not trying it for the health benefits, Safflower oil makes for a great cooking oil. It is low in saturated fats, it has a high smoking point so it's great for cooking in a skillet and it doesn't have a strong odor if you use it for frying.

What's your favorite cooking oil?

A case for leftovers

2013-06-05T14:44:55Z

I talk a lot on here about cooking with leftovers and reusing leftovers. I can say, I HEART Leftovers!

Confession time, I have, in the past, struggled with leftovers. I grew up in a very frugal home. Leftovers were the law and we ate them.

I realized when my husband and I committed to a frugal lifestyle, I had to make myself suck it up. I had to make myself cook enough for dinner and lunch the next day. And then one day it clicked.

I realized that by simply doubling our dinner recipes my husband and I could save us serious cash.

How much cash are we talking? Answer: Around $6,000 a year

To put this in perspective, the average cost of lunch at a nearby drive through is $ 7. That means if just one person in your household brown bags it in favor of hitting up the burger joint that is $1,820 annually. I can think of a lot of ways to spend that money. Can’t you?

I also read recently that Americans throw away $165 billion in food annually. This makes my stomach turn when I think about all the hungry children in the world. The article I read went on to state that the average household throws away around $2,275 annually in food.

Add that to the $1,820 you’re spending on lunch and that amount adds up fast.

Click here for my recipes that use "leftovers."

Apple Pie Crisp Crumble

2013-06-05T14:11:17Z

Confession. This was supposed to be an apple pizza. You know the beautiful kind with a buttery crust and caramel drizzeld on top? But then when I went to serve the pizza, it fell apart.

When life gives you broken dessert pizza, make apple crumble!

I really love apples. I love them in fall and in summer. I love their color, the way they smell, and the way they look so pretty in the bowl. I love the crunch and the juice and the variety. I could go on and on, but I won’t.

I purchased a big bag of Pink Lady Apples a few weeks back. The sweet/tart combination was like heaven.

As much as I love just biting into a crisp apple, I love baking with them even more. I wanted to try a new recipe. What about an open face pie? Yes, please.

What you'll need:

Pastry pie crust from the cooler section or a homemade pie crust rolled flat

2 tbsp butter for the crust, melted

2/3 cups sugar

3 TBS flour

1 tsp cinnamon

3 apples pealed and diced

Topping:

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup old-fashioned oats

1/4 cup butter, melted

Optional: Caramel sauce to drizzle

Preheat your oven to 350.

Roll your piecrust flat onto a baking sheet or pizza pan. Brush with a little butter and set aside.

In a large bowl combine your flour, sugar and cinnamon. Add in your apples and toss.

Place the apples on the piecrust, making sure the apples don’t overlap too much.

In your same bowl you just used combine your flour, brown sugar, oats, and melted butter. Mix well. The butter shouldn’t saturate the other ingredients, just get it wet enough to work with.

Sprinkle the topping over the apples, distrusting evenly.

Bake for about 30 minutes at 350. Drizzle with caramel sauce if you really want to. And believe me, you will really want to.

Ham and Cheese Muffins

2013-06-05T13:58:58Z

At Easter I made a ham. I made an entire ham for three people and one baby boy to consume. When Easter was over we had ham coming out of our ears. I really thought we would be eating ham forever.

I made a quiche, I made a pizza and I made cheesy ham muffins. And I STILL had ham left over. Thank goodness for our deep freezer.

I think of all the things I made the cheesy ham muffins were the favorite. To make a whole meal out of this I paired the muffins with with some roasted green beans and a fresh fruit salad. Delicious!

What you'll need:

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup milk (I used 2 %)

1 egg, beaten well

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups cubed ham (great if you have any in the freezer left over from Easter)

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

2-3 scallions, diced

Preheat your oven to 350 and line two muffin pans.

Combine the first seven ingredients. Mix thoroughly.

Fold in your ham, cheese and scallions

Pour into muffin pans, filling each cup 3/4

Bake for 20 minutes at 350.

How I fill cup cakes

2013-05-20T14:06:18Z

What's better than a cup cake? A filled cup cake!

Here is my technique for filling cupcakes.

Click here for the recipe for these cupcakes!

Banana Nutella Smoothie- Three Ingredients

2013-05-16T00:07:44Z

I love bananas and I love, love, love Nutella.
And I'm not alone.

I also love smoothies because you can drink them with one hand while doing 100 other things like the loading the dishwasher, feeding a baby of sending an email. And since those things occupy a fair amount of my time, they're perfect!

And since I love bananas and nutella I decided to combine them into a beverage.

What you'll need:

1 frozen banana

two heaping spoonfuls of Greek yogurt (I like plain Chobani)

and two heaping spoonfuls of Nutella.

Throw them in the blender and blend, blend, blend away!

What's your favorite smoothe blend?

Put Chuck to Work, Getting all the Bang for Your Ground Beef

2013-05-08T13:00:00Z

Let's face it meat is expensive. Remember when you could get ground beef for $.99 a pound? Yeah, neither do I. What's a good price for ground beef? Who knows anymore?

Personally I could go months without meat, but my husband I think would wander into the woods to find a wild animal to kill with his bare hands after about three days.

SO many recipes call for a pound of ground beef. Ummm…. Not so fast. Let’s say we go halvsies on this one.

Yes, I am talking about stretching that beef as far as it will go and not noticing the difference.

“But I will notice.”

No you won’t. My husband doesn’t and I have been pulling this fast one over on him for years now.

And no, there won’t be a big hole in your dish where the meat used to be because we are substituting for vegetables and other things that will make the meal tasty.

So let’s say you luck out and get a sale on ground beef, it can happen. Or let’s say you don’t and you pay full price. You still want to maximize those dollars, right?

If I come home from the store with 2.5 pounds of ground chuck, or turkey or even venison I want to make it last. Here is a menu and all of these meals can easily be frozen.

Monday: Cook Once, Eat Twice Lasagna Casserole (I use 1 lb ground beef for two lasagnas.)

Tuesday: Cheesy Corn Bread

Wednesday: Mushroom Baked Ziti

Thursday: Meatball Sliders with Pineapple Sauce

Friday: Pizza Pot Pie

How do you stretch ground beef?

One Pork Roast, Five Dinners

2013-05-01T17:00:00Z

Just the other day I was flipping through the sales pages I got in the mail. Our local paper is kind enough to produce a free section on Wednesday that includes a local article or two, some sales flyers and a few coupons.

I always thumb through the grocery sales fliers and see who has what on sale. I am a loyal customer to my favorite store, but if a competitor down the road has better meat prices on week, I am there.

One day I saw Boston Butt for $1.29 a pound. So one eight pound Boston Butt (pork shoulder) cost me $10.32. Perfect. All I had to do was look at my pantry and the rest of the sales planner and plan an entire week’s worth of meals around one pork shoulder. This easier than you think.

Pork, the other white meat. I just thought, “what would I do with a chicken?” Then I did it with the pork.

So I broke it down like this:

Monday: Pineapple Pulled Pork Sliders, with Asian coleslaw

Tuesday: Pork tacos with homemade salsa and homemade tortillas

Wednesday: BBQ Pulled Pork Pizza

Thursday: Pork “fried” rice

Friday: BBQ Pork Pies (This recipe uses chicken but sub for pork)

The total for all of these recipes was around $40 (that includes the roast) and each recipe included lunch leftovers for the next day.

That breaks down to six servings per meal at around $1.33 per serving.

How do you like to use leftovers?