Six Sisters Monte Cristo Sliders

 I saw an Instagram post for THESE sliders and thought they looked delicious- even if the ingredients sounded like they should not go together... 

When I served it for dinner, the initial results were mixed, ha. My middle could not gag down cheese and jam in the same bite. My youngest picked off the parts she liked and just ate that. However, I continued to make it (ha!) and now people eat it willingly, on occasion. It is now a favorite dinner for my youngest. So, thanks, family, for trying something new taht looked bizarrely tasty to me! 

Ingredients: 

12 Hawaiian rolls (I actually get them from Sam's so I use a pack of 16)
1/2 cup raspberry jam

1/2 lb deli turkey (I buy sliced!)

1/2 lb deli ham (again, pre-sliced)

6 slices Swiss cheese

1/2 cup butter melted - divided! 

1 egg, beaten

1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce

1 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 Tbsp mayonnaise

Powdered sugar for garnish

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325*

Spray a baking sheet with nonstick cooking spray. 

Slice rolls horizontally, keeping them as connected as possible. Put the bottom in the baking pan.
Spread jam on the open bottom half of the rolls. 

Layer turkey, ham and cheese over the jam. I start with whole slices and then cut halves to make sure the whole thing is covered in all three.

Whisk together 1/4 cup melted butter, egg, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and mayo. Spread that mixture on the top of the open rolls. Place the roll tops on the meat and cheese, to make sandwiches.
Brush remaining 1/4 cup melted butter on top of the rolls.

Bake 15-20 mins, or until the cheese is melty.

Remove from oven, sprinkle the tops with powdered sugar and cut into individual servings.

I usually don't use all of the egg-mustard mix. I have put the rest in the fridge, but I don't ever make a second batch soon enough to use open egg... 

 

Zucchini Banana Oat Bread

ETA: I will only make this in two of my smaller loaf pans, ever. lol. 

I tried this recipe six years ago and pinned it to my "tried and approved" board. Today I made it again and shared it with a friend. It is SO yummy! You can find the original post HERE. 

From the comments, someone suggested adding in chocolate chips, so today one loaf had none and the other two loaves had maybe 2/3 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

The loaves are very short, splitting the batter into three pans. I might try using just two, larger bread pans... I don't know how much that would effect the baking time. But for three loaves that are less than 2 inches tall, it baked 40 minutes in my oven.

I am linking it here and copying over the recipe because the original post is eight years old and I don't want it to disappear. Also, I refer to this blog way more often than I look at Pinterest for food ideas. I get too distracted on Pinterest! And this is a keeper! 

Zucchini Banana Oat Bread
from Amanda Rettke at I Am Baker.

INGREDIENTS

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup oats
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup canola oil
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 3 cups shredded zucchini
  
  INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Heat oven to 350°F and prepare loaf pans. (I used three small loaf pans.)

  2. In large bowl add flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and oats. Stir together.

  3. In a smaller bowl combine sugar, eggs, oil, vanilla, and mashed banana.
     Pour sugar mixture into the flour mixture and stir by hand. Add in zucchini and mix until well incorporated.

  4. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until bread pulls away from sides of pan and an inserted toothpick is removed clean.

Oatmeal Pancakes

Original Variation Base Batch	Buttermilk Variation Base Batch
1 cup rolled oats 3 tbsp brown sugar 1/2 cup dry milk powder 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 2 large eggs 1/4 cup olive oil 1 1/2 cups water 2 tsp vanilla	1 cup rolled oats 3 tbsp brown sugar 2 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour 2 large eggs 1/4 cup olive oil 2 cups buttermilk 2 tsp vanilla
Makes about 12 five inch pancakes

Original Variation 1 1/2 Batch	Buttermilk Variation 1 1/2 Batch
1 1/2 cup rolled oats 4 1/2 tbsp brown sugar 3/4 cup dry milk powder 3 3/4 tsp baking powder 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 3/4 tsp salt 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour 3 large eggs 1/3 cup olive oil 2 1/4 cups water 3 tsp vanilla	1 1/2 cup rolled oats 4 1/2 tbsp brown sugar 3 3/4 tsp baking powder 1 1/2 tsp baking soda 3/4 tsp salt 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour 3 large eggs 1/3 cup olive oil 3 cups buttermilk 2 tsp vanilla
Makes about 17 five inch pancakes

Put the rolled oats into food processor or blender with the brown sugar and process everything into a relatively fine powder. Should look mostly like flour when you are done. If there is room, add the rest of the dry ingredients in and blend everything together. If not, combine the ground oats/brown sugar in a bowl with the rest of the dry ingredients and whisk everything together to fully combine.

Combine the eggs and olive oil together and whisk to combine. Put in the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together. The ground up oats will prevent the flour from forming gluten, so you can whisk the batter together pretty well, but don't overdo it. When everything looks good and combined, stop mixing. Let the batter sit for 15 minutes before beginning to cook.

Heat up your preferred pancake pan to your desired temp and use a 1/3 cup measuring cup to produce pancakes that are roughly 5 inches round. Add bananas or blueberries while they are cooking in pan, not into the batter directly. Cook them as you like them.

If the batter seems a little thin still, add more all purpose flour a tbsp at a time until it is the right consistency.

Good tip: spray your oil into your pan, then use a paper towel to rub it all over the pan. That will create a smooth oil surface for your pancake to cook evenly on.

Avocado Toast

I know, I know, suuuper late jumping on this particular bandwagon. The thing is, even tho I like avocado, it also makes me gag, haha. My mom often slices up an avocado and puts the slices on bread for lunch. But I can't just take a bite of avocado... So in recent weeks I looked up what's so great about the super trendy "avocado toast".

I liked THIS LINK best, and I read somewhere that pomegranate goes great on avocado toast, and I do love pomegranate! So here's what I've been doing:

I use a stick blender to puree a whole avocado, plus a pinch of salt, some lime juice (maybe a tablespoon?) and some dried cilantro (roughly a tablespoon of that too). Then I store that in a container in the fridge. I like it better on toasted wheat bread for sure, but whatever is in the house works. I butter the toast, then sprinkle a tiny pinch of salt over both slices. I hold the black pepper grinder several inches above the toast and use two turns. Then I spread the avocado all over the bread. I sprinkle a bit of red pepper flakes over that (the photo has too much red pepper, haha!) and then some pomegranate seeds all over that! YUM! The mix makes at least 6 slices of toast. It's healthy, quick and yummy! Yeay for that!!

2 slices toast
butter
1 avocado
lime juice
cilantro
salt
black pepper
red pepper flakes
pomegranate seeds

Country Gravy

1 lb ground sausage
1 tbsp olive oil
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
4 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 tsp seasoning salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil

Heat a 12-inch Skillet (preferably cast iron) over medium high heat with one tbsp of olive oil. Add the 1 lb of ground sausage to the pan and and break it up into small crumbles as it cooks. Brown the sausage until about 50% of the crumbles has crispy bits. Take the sausage out of a pan and put it in a bowl off to the side to be added back into the gravy later.

Lower the heat to medium and add the one tbsp of butter and 2 tbsp of olive oil back into the hot skillet. Once the butter and oil have melted and heated up, add the 4 tbsp of flour to the pan and whisk until it is combined. Cook the flour roux for about 1 minute then whisk in the 1 1/2 cups of chicken stock slowly. Stir the mixture with the whisk until it is smooth (no lumps) and thickened. Whisk in the 1 cup of milk until it is completely combined and the gravy starts to thicken again. Add all of the seasonings at once and whisk until combined.

As soon as everything is combined in the pan, and the gravy is the desired thickness, remove from the heat and serve.

Potato Leek Soup & Brown Bread

Burt's Potato Leek Soup

3 Big Leeks (all of the white part and as much of the green part you think is edible)
3 lbs of potatoes (russet) cut into bite size chunks
1 onion minced
6 cups chicken broth or stock
1/4 cup butter for sweating, sauteing the leeks and onions
1/4 cup butter into the soup after the potatoes and stock are added
2 tbsp of minced garlic
Salt, Pepper (didn't measure these. Use until you think it's enough)
about 1/2 tsp each of Rubbed Sage, Celery Seed, Onion powder, ground thyme
2 to 3 tbsp of dried chopped chives
1 cup of half & half

Put the butter into a soup pot on med high, melt it, throw in the leeks, onion, garlic, salt and pepper and sweat/saute them until they break down and get soft. Takes about 10 to 15 mins.

Throw in the potatoes, toss them around and get everything nice and mixed up. Pour in the 6 cups of chicken broth, all of the herbs/spices and the rest of the butter. Bring to a quick slight boil, reduce the heat and simmer until the potatoes are soft and all fall aparty. (it's a technical term)

At this point you can use a potato masher to kind of mash it all and leave chunks of everything or pull out the stick blender and blend until nice and smooth.

For the final touch pour in the half & half (or heavy cream if you want), stir it all up, add more salt and pepper if it needs it, then serve it up. Enjoy!

And the delicious molasses brown bread recipe came from Mel's Kitchen Cafe and can be found HERE.

I am posting Mel's full recipe here just in case her website goes away.

INGREDIENTS:

2 1/2 cups warm water (about 110 degrees)

1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast

1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon unsulphured molasses

2 tablespoons unsweetened, natural cocoa powder

3 tablespoons oil (see note)

1/3 cup honey

2 teaspoons salt

3 tablespoons vital wheat gluten (optional – see note)

3 cups white whole wheat flour

3-4 cups all-purpose flour

2-3 tablespoons butter, melted

Old-fashioned oats for sprinkling

DIRECTIONS:

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with the dough hook (or in a large bowl with a wooden spoon if powering through this by hand), combine the water, yeast, molasses, cocoa powder, oil, honey, salt, gluten (if using), and 2 cups of the whole wheat flour. Mix until combined.

With the mixer running, slowly add the rest of the whole wheat flour. Start adding the white flour gradually until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. Knead for 5-7 minutes (about 10-15 if kneading by hand). The dough should be soft and slightly tacky but shouldn’t leave a lot of residue on your fingers if you grab a piece.

Turn the dough into a large, lightly greased bowl, cover with greased plastic wrap or a light towel, and let rise until doubled, 1-2 hours.

Lightly punch down the dough and divide into three equal pieces. Form into tight oval loaves and place on parchment-lined or lightly greased baking sheets (I fit two loaves on one large, rimmed 11X17-inch baking sheet and the third loaf on another baking sheet). Lightly cover with greased plastic wrap or a light towel and let rise until puffy and doubled in size. Optional: right before baking, using a very sharp razor, knife or bread-slashing lame (I use this one from King Arthur Flour), cut three deep slashes in the top of each loaf.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Bake the loaves for 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and lightly brush with about a tablespoon of butter. Sprinkle with the oats and bake for another 5-7 minutes.

NOTES:

I’ve used all sorts of different oil making this bread: olive, avocado, melted coconut. You could also use canola or vegetable oil.

The vital wheat gluten is optional but I highly recommend it if you want a really soft, light, chewy loaf of bread. Another alternative is to use bread flour in place of the white flour (and omit the gluten). Also, if you don’t have wheat flour, you can make this with 100% white flour. I haven’t tried making this with all whole wheat flour – if you experiment, I’d suggest increasing the kneading time by a few minutes to really develop that gluten and get a soft, light loaf.

The oats in the recipe are more for looks – and they tend to fall off while slicing but I like the look and texture of them so I’ve kept them along for the ride. You could easily omit them if they’re not really you’re thing.

This recipe transitions very well to rolls (about 12-14) or any size of loaves.

Bagels!!!!

6 cups bread flour
2 cups warm water
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp yeast
1/4 cup olive oil
4 tbsp dry milk powder
1/4 cup potato flakes
1 1/2 tbsp salt
1 tbsp dough enhancer
2 eggs

Egg wash:
1 egg
2 tbsp water

Breadmaker version:
Put all of the dry ingredients, oil, and eggs into the breadmaker set on a dough only cycle. Put the yeast and the sugar into the two cups of warm water (110 degrees), stir to thoroughly combine and let sit for about 10 minutes or until the yeast water is bubbly. Pour into the breadmaker and let go through the dough cycle. At the end of the cycle, pull out the dough, knead a few more times and form the dough into a big round and smooth dough ball. Pull the dough into a big bowl (punch bowl size at least) with a couple of tablespoons of oil. Turn over the dough to completely to coat with the oil, cover with plastic wrap or a clean dish towel and let rise until it is about 2 1/2 times it's size or fills the bowl. Should be between 60 to 90 minutes total.

Turn on the oven to 400 and position two racks in the center part of the oven. The racks should have enough space between them to allow the bagels on the lower rack to bake without touching the upper rack. Punch down the dough, put back on the counter and roll it into a long log. Using a kitchen scale, cut off 4 or 5 oz portions. 4 oz dough balls will give you about 18 bagels. 5 oz dough balls will give you about 15 bagels.

Form each portion into a small dough ball and then flatten out into a dough disk on the counter. Using your finger, punch a hole into the middle of the disk then widen the hole by spinning the disk in between your two fingers.

Lay the formed bagels onto parchment lined half sheet pans. Allow them to rest and relax (raise) another 10 minutes.

Once all of the bagels have been formed, start dropping them into boiling salted water (2 tbsp salt to 3 qts of water) 3 or 4 at a time depending on the size of your pot, starting with the first bagel formed working until the last. Drop the bagels into the boiling water one at a time. Let them boil on one side for 1.5 minutes (90 seconds), turn them over and allow them to boil on the other side for another 1.5 minutes.

After a total of 3 minutes of boiling, place the bagels back onto the baking sheets and brush them with the egg wash when they have mostly dried off. They dry off fairly quickly so it won't take long. After all of the bagels have taken their boiling bath and been brushed with the egg wash, put both pans into the oven and bake for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, rotate the pans back to front, move the pan on the upper rack to the lower rack and move the pan on the lower rack to the upper one. Bake for another 10 minutes then rotate in the same manner. Rotation of the pans will ensure even baking/browning. Bake for an additional 5 minutes then pull them out. They should have a honey/golden color to them. Place the bagels on a dish towel or tea towel on the kitchen counter to cool. Once cooled, bag them up and leave on the counter or place in the freezer. Do not put them in the fridge as it will only dry them out!

Slow Cooker Italian Beef Sandwiches

Last Sunday's dinner came from here.
My husband (and son!) made buns using the same bread recipe as you find here but this time split into 4oz balls, which made 11 buns, that were about 4 inches in diameter.

Then, he followed the recipe for the meat, other than adding about a Tbsp of red wine vinegar and a Tbsp of Worcestershire sauce.

We ate while the buns were still warm, piling on the meat, a slice of provolone cheese and a side dish of cooked mixed vegetables! It was a yummy meal!

The only changes we would make is let the buns cool, and probably toast them so the meat au jus didn't soak thru quite so quickly.

Harvey Family Bread Recipe

Plain Old Eatin Bread
Makes two medium sized loaves (3"x7" or 5"x9" loaf pans)

3 Cups White Bread Flour
2 Cup Whole Wheat Flour (stone ground from the store is good, home ground in your own wheat grinder or Blendtec blender is better. Home ground is also WAY cheaper than buying stone ground whole wheat flour from the store)
2 Cups warm water (about 110 degrees)
1 tbsp. yeast (instant dry)
1/4 cup sugar
3 tsp salt
1/2 cup oil (I use olive oil)
3 tbsp. powered milk
1 tbsp. dough enhancer
1/4 cup gluten
4 tbsp. honey

Start by getting the water into a 4 cup measuring cup. Add the sugar and yeast and whisk to combine. Set a timer for 10 mins and let the yeast get bubbly/foamy. If using a bread maker, put all of the rest of ingredient into the bread maker and set it to the dough only setting. When the timer goes off, add the water to the breadmaker and let it go though it's mixing and kneading cycle. At the end of the mixing/kneading cycle, spray the top of the dough ball with oil so it won't dry out as it goes though the rise cycle.

If using a regular mixer with a dough hook, put in all of the dry ingredient first, mix to combine for a little bit until they are all incorporated together, then add the oil, honey, and yeast/water last. Turn on the mixer and let it go until the dough forms a smooth ball. It should look like a smooth ball that is only slightly sticky after about 10 to 15 minutes of kneading on the medium speed. Once the kneading is done, put the dough in a really good size glass or plastic punch bowl. Put in a about 2 tbsp. of oil and turn the dough ball over in the oil to coat. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put in a 200 degree oven to rise. When you put the bowl in turn off the heat and leave the door closed. Let the dough rise til doubled in size. Should take about 40 to 60 minutes.

Near the end of the rise cycle, take out two loaf pans and spray with oil. When the dough is done rising, punch down and remove from breadmaker or bowl and knead gently on a clean work surface to redistribute the bubbles in the dough. You can flour the work surface if you like, but I have found it unnecessary. Turn on your oven on (or back on) to 200 degrees and get 4 cups of water boiling in microwave safe container in your microwave. Put an empty 8 x 11 casserole dish in the oven on the lowest rack and let it heat up with the oven.

Divide the dough in half. If you have a kitchen scale, each half of the dough should weigh about 12 to 16 ounces each. Form each half of the dough in a loaf looking log and put into each of the oiled loaf pans. If the oven is at temp, put both pans on the middle rack of the oven and pour the boiling water into the empty casserole dish. Close the oven door, TURN OFF THE OVEN, and let the bread proof for 20 minutes for 3x7 loaf pans or 45 minutes for 5x9 loaf pans. (Note: Don't spray the loaves with oil. The crust forms much better if the top of the bread dries out a bit)

At the end of the proofing time, pull the bread out, set on the counter, cover with a clean dish towel and let rise for another 20 minutes on the counter covered with a clean dish towel. Feel free to slash the top of the bread. I like to do three diagonal slashes across the top or one long slash down the middle. You don't have to slash, but if you do, be sure that your cut is no more than 1/2 inch deep.

Heat your oven to 400 degrees for non convection or the equivalent for convection. Leave the pan of water in the oven and let it heat up too. After the final 20 minute rise is done, put the bread in the oven for 12 minutes, turn and cook for another 13 minutes. The crust should be a dark caramel brown when it is done and smell amazing. At the end of the second cook time, take the bread out of the oven and remove from the bread pans immediately. Place them on cooling racks and let cool for about 60 to 90 minutes. Each loaf on the top will seem very hard, but the crust will soften as the bread cools and is bagged up. Bag up and put in the freezer (they freeze fantastically) or keep on the counter. I wouldn't recommended putting them in the fridge as it will dry the loaves out and make them go stale faster. I would also recommend not slicing them until you are ready to eat them. Each loaf should make about 13 1/2 inch slices.

One final note. I have noticed that while a lot of store bought bread will mold if left on the counter too long, I have not had any bread made from this recipe mold ever. It will also take a couple of weeks as least before the bread actually starts to go stale. In our house, it doesn't of course last that long.

French Toast Muffins - Take 1

Yesterday I found this gem on pinterest: French Toast Muffins! Sounded good to me!! My daughter has been asking for French Toast lately and this sounded quicker than making traditional French Toast for breakfast. I don't know if it was quicker, but it was very tasty!!

So here it is, about to go into the fridge until later when we can eat...

 And here it is, being eaten!

If you paid attention to the title of this post you can probably expect we had some issues...

First of all, I adjusted the recipe from the get-go. I only put in 1/2 TBSP vanilla because that seemed like a ton of vanilla to me!

Secondly, the crumble was not so much crumble as it was...cookie dough consistency? seriously. but it was very yummy as 'dough'! I just put little dollop fork fuls around the muffins.

Finally, the cooking problem... We baked it the 25 minutes and all that egg that seeped out around the muffin cups was still very wet. Hmm... I am notorious for over cooking scrambled eggs to make sure my kids are not eating raw egg...I wasn't excited about eating what was definitely still raw egg... We added I think 10 minutes, and then my husband suggested the broiler. We may have also adjusted it to 375* or 400* for those extra 10 minutes...
When we pulled them out they were at least double in size. By the time the pan made it to the table they had sunk in like little craters....
You can see they didn't all come out very well. The insides were less "done" than I would have liked but! they were soooooo yummy I didn't mind the slightly gooey texture at all! My husband and I didn't add syrup- it was perfectly sweet and very tasty!!

Our plan for Round 2? Decrease the milk by at least half. Maybe one less egg...

...maybe bake the crumble recipe into cookies? *grin 

Dinner was a hit!

So you know I gotta share it here! We made kabobs and flat bread, the kids loved assembling them and they even loved eating it!

We started by thawing two steaks and three chicken breasts.
We marinated the chicken for about three hours, with just:

• 1/4 cup olive oil  
• 1 tbsp granulated garlic
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp lime juice

We quartered and boiled some "new harvest" red potatoes, and sprinkled them with seasoning salt and olive oil. Then we chopped up half a white onion, a package of button mushrooms, one zucchini and one corn cob. Then we set it all out and let everyone assemble their own kabobs. My husband made a few extras to use up stuff including a steak and potato only skewer, and we still ended up with two chicken-only skewers to cook the leftover chicken.

When we were done making the kabobs, and they were lined up on the cookie sheet at the top of this picture, he drizzled them all with olive oil and a sprinkling of seasoning salt. Then they all hung out on the grill til they were done! (the steaks were quite rare....)

While the kabobs were grilling, we also made THIS flatbread recipe. I added about 1/2 tbsp of dried basil to the mix, and since we have a jar of yeast, rather than packets, we used 3 tsp of yeast as our guessed amount. We pinched off blobs of dough and then rolled it very thin. We brushed the electric griddle with olive oil and threw the dough on sort of like a pancake, flipped it once and that was that!

This is my plate, to give you an idea! (a potato fell off from the middle...) My husband pushed the contents of his skewers onto his flatbread, and ate it sort of like a taco, and my kids discovered they could deal with the mushrooms better if it was with the flatbread.

The chicken was amazing! The flatbread was amazing! The potatoes were fabulous! The zucchini was rather bland, and the corn wasn't great, but the meal was a hit! We have leftovers and definitely plan to make it again!

More like a SPLAT

..than a flop... haha.
So, my husband was helping me plan out our menu so that I could get the grocery shopping done, and suggested we start putting at least one recipe each round that comes from a cookbook we have taking up space. brilliant! :) So last week we tried this recipe...

Which came from this book...

It was very simple to put together, as everything I've ever seen from Pampered Chef is. My can of chicken is more than 10 oz...maybe it was 15? I used 1 tsp of lemon juice rather than zest, and the bell peppers I had were frozen slices of red, yellow and green, and everything we had didn't quite total 1/2 a cup, so we had all three kinds in our mixture. Then I ran in to a snag...
I don't own a pizza pan, or any round pan!
...and neither do the two friends I called, haha!
So, I ended up doing sort of half circles on the rectangular pans I do have, like this...

and it was a hit! It was a light meal, perfect for spring or summer. It was really good- everyone of us enjoyed it. I'm pretty sure my kids have never raved about anything I've made as much as they did this, haha.
Not so great as left overs- crescent rolls don't reheat very well.

But the story behind the title?
As I was rotating the pans in the oven, because the two rectangle pans didn't fit very well,
one pan was resting on the stove and started slipping....
and in my attempt to shove it back on and save it...
I flipped it over.
and it looked like this:

That was not happy.

Blueberry Bran Muffins

This spring my maternal grandmother, and last of my four grandparents, passed away. Fortunately, four years ago she had the foresight to give each of her children and grandchildren a small photo album STUFFED full of her recipes, as a Christmas gift. She wrote a lot of the recipes herself on 4x6 cards, and my aunt and cousin (that I know of- maybe others helped too) wrote some of them. Copies were made so that each recipe didn't have to be handwritten twenty-something times, but its really cool to have Grandmom's recipes in Grandmom's handwriting. *grin

This recipe for bran muffins is one such recipe. I knew it made "like a million" muffins, which meant I could make one batch and freeze it, providing warm breakfasts for a few months to come.

This batch actually made 67 muffins, which is really a ton, LOL. They are sooo yummy straight out of the oven! And they're almost as good reheated in the microwave, straight from the freezer!

Ingredients & Instructions

2 cups Kellogg's All Bran cereal

2 cups boiling water 

Mix these together in small bowl and set aside.

In a very large bowl mix

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 generous cup Shortening (I used margarine because I discovered my shortening was rancid)

5 cups Flour

1 1/2 tsp Salt

4 tsp Baking Soda

4 Eggs

1 qt Buttermilk* (well shaken)

Then add small bowl of soaked All Bran and mix well.

Add 4 cups dry All Bran and 1 can drained blueberries. Fold in carefully and scoop mixture into sprayed muffin tin. Bake at 375* for 20 mins.

The notes say to call my mother if you have any questions on the recipe. That made me laugh!

* My parents never bought buttermilk, ever. When a recipe calls for it, my mom would sour the milk by putting the required baking soda into the milk, as soon as she started the recipe so it had time to turn sour. My husband follows Alton Brown's advice on just about everything, and he sours milk with apple cider vinegar. So when I made these, I poured my quart of milk and added 4 tbsp of the vinegar and let it sit while I mixed everything else together. It works just fine!

Its like pizza...

A few years ago, my kids and I were camping with my parents. {By camping, I mean in a 7-person camp trailer with a fridge, stove, etc. just so you aren't picturing us cooking over a firepit. *giggle.} One of the meals my mom had planned was biscuit pizzas, which is simply flattening out a canned biscuit, spreading tomato sauce mixed with Italian spices over it, adding pepperoni or ground beef or browned sausage and then sprinkling cheese on it, and baking it. That night I am sure we had either ground beef or sausage to work with, which was too time consuming to make that particular night. So to eliminate the meat idea, but still feed people a quick dinner, I suggested this twist-
Bake the biscuits topped with cheese, and dip it in the spiced and herbed tomato sauce!

This works nicely for a summertime lunch too!

Blueberry Muffins from Scratch!

This was my yummy Mother's Day Breakfast!

They look like bran muffins, but they're not. Its just dark from the blueberry pie filling they used! *grin

Like many things my husband makes (if there's a recipe involved) it comes from Alton Brown. Its in Good Eats 2: The Middle Years for those who wonder. If you want to look it up online the episode it comes from is "The Muffin Man Method". The substitutions involved came from the fact of that's what we had on hand.

And here's the recipe...

7 oz sugar

1/2 cup veg oil

1 large egg

1 cup plain yogurt (he used vanilla because that's what was in the house)

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp orange zest (he forgot this part)

12 1/2 oz all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 heavy pinch kosher salt (regular old salt in this case)

8 oz fresh blueberries (used about a half a can of blueberry pie filling. Worked really well too!)

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and set aside.

In another large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, egg and yogurt. Add the dry ingredients reserving 1 tablespoon of the dry ingredients and toss with the blueberries. Stir mixture for a count of 10. Add 1 cup blueberries to mixture and stir 3 more times. Reserve the 1/2 cup of blueberries.

Using a #20 ice cream scoop, add the mixture to greased muffin pans. Sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup of berries on top of muffins and press down lightly. Place into the oven and increase the temperature to 400 degrees. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating pan halfway through. Remove from oven and turn out, upside down on tea towel to cool completely. Serve immediately or store in airtight container for 2 to 3 days.

The link to the original recipe on the Food Network's website can be found HERE!

White Chicken Pizza

Tonight I tried a couple recipes from THIS site once again.
First I used their pizza crust recipe, and then I made the one titled "White Pizza with Chicken". To get to both recipes, click on step 2 and then choose Pizza for your Theme. Both recipes will be listed there.

I only needed 3 cups of flour, and I think stuff like that depends on the humidity level and whatever is in the air. So I did one cup wheat flour, then scooped about 3/4 cup wheat flour into the measuring cup, and topped it off with all-purpose flour, and the third cup was also all-purpose. I kneaded it right inside my bowl, instead of turning it out onto a floured counter. I also rolled it right on to my stone instead of rolling it out on the counter. I really don't like cleaning up, LOL!

Then, in following the pizza recipe, I spread the garlic butter all over the dough, and then baked it about 5 minutes, hoping it might set more, making it easier to spread the ricotta.
I did not mix the ricotta, parmesan and spices because when I complained about making lasagna, that seemed to be my biggest "error". Everyone else just tosses in this and that. So! I spread the ricotta, then sprinkled the parm, then sprinkled the spices.
I decided to use a can of chicken chunks for a couple of reasons...its quicker and easier, plus its cheaper to buy a can of chicken than to buy chicken breasts. So I drained the can, rinsed the chicken and crumpled it up? to make it lots of tiny shredded bits. I only used about half the 13oz can. Then I sprinkled on some mozzarella, and I didn't use anywhere near 3 cups worth! I had a package of 2 cups moz, that we'd already used some from, and I didn't use half of what was in the package. This is what it looked like ready to go in the oven...

and here it is, ready to eat!

I liked it just fine, but I think I would bake it at 350 or 375 so that it cooked more evenly throughout. My son ate without complaint or compliment, lol. My daughter told me that it was "good, but please don't make it again." haha!

Pretzelmaker at home!

Pretzelmaker is my very favorite mall food.
THIS is a darn close imitation, and can be made at home!
(which I'm sure is JUST what I need...hahaha!)
I intended to take pictures of the process but um...that didn't happen. Then I didn't get a picture of the finished product either! They were devoured much too quickly! 

These are about to be boiled...!

....I'll add pictures the next time I make it! hee hee!
Until then, here's my husband's tip. We made salted pretzel bites, parmesan pretzel bites and cinnamon/sugar pretzel bites, as per each of our personal orders, lol. The first pan he brushed with butter and salted...but we were on our way out the door and wanted our pretzels to go with us. We put them in brown paper lunch sacks to go. So for the other flavors, he brushed them with butter, put them in the sack and sprinkled the parmesan or the cinnamon/sugar straight into the bag and shook it up! Ready to go and soooo yummy!

Make your own Quiznos!

Once again, friends to the rescue, when it comes to dinner ideas!
A while ago, my friend told me about this idea she'd done for dinner. I asked her to email me the exact instructions, and then we gave it a try this past week. Here's what she said:

Just got some french bread. Cut it in half. Piled one half high with turkey from the deli and the other side I put probably a half pound of Muenster cheese and half pound of provolone. (I know, LOTS of cheese)

Then I had my oven on about 400 or so, maybe 425 and stuck them on the same cookie sheet, like two open faced sandwiches (does that make sense) and toasted them until the cheese looked melted and then I switched it to broil for about 3 minutes, until the cheese starts to bubble.

After it's been out of the oven just long enough I flip the cheese side onto the turkey side, the turkey side will fall apart if you try to flip that.

I got the french bread and deli turkey and deli ham...and I used the shredded cheeses we had in the house - cheddar, mozzarella and parmesan. Here's how mine turned out:

 and then I cut it into 3rds, (only 3 of us home that night) served it with apples (and lettuce...) and there was dinner!

A twist on french toast!

Here is another recipe from THIS website. This one is easy to find, click on step two and every single time I've visited, this is the first recipe shown! Its called Croissant French Toast. The recipe says you can use a loaf of french bread instead of croissants, and that's what I did - mostly because French Bread is cheaper!

So here's the process....

 and the finished product...

the edits...

I added an egg because the first egg cracked somehow inside the box so I hurried and flipped the box over the bowl and think I got about half an egg... so I had 3 and a half, lol. I left out the sauce because I was totally out of berries. *sniff... That extra half an egg had a LOT of batter left over and I really hate to throw away food so I ended up making 9 bread "sandwiches", instead of the four croissants it says. So all the berries went inside the sandwiches! LOL!
Also, if I make it again, I will half the butter/oil they cooked in. Or use a large electric skillet instead of my frying pan. That was waaay too much.

and the mixed reviews....
I thought it was just fine. It would be super tasty with whipped cream, like when I get berry covered waffles at the diner? lol. And I bet it would have been dreamy with the sauce.
Both of my kids told me it smelled "amazing" and "like heavenly deliciousness" but when they started eating, thought the berries were too sour and the sandwiches were yucky. sad!

My husband thought it was a "good different", and pretty much felt exactly how I did about it.
So if you're looking for a new idea, its worth a try! But no one in my family is going to request it often.

Cheesy Bread!

When we have Italian food we like to have cheesy bread on the side. Kinda like they make at pizza places. This is what ours looks like

and here's what we do...
My husband mixes cubed margarine, minced garlic, garlic powder and garlic bread sprinkle (could use garlic salt) and some parmesan cheese.
He spreads that onto halves of a loaf of french bread, then tops it with mozzarella cheese and sticks it under the broiler for a minute or two.