Category Archives: Recipes

Favorite Cornbread

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Veronica

With three different cornbread recipes on my blog already, you might think I was cornbread crazed since I’m adding another. Well, I guess maybe I am. Growing up, we practically lived off of beans and cornbread during the winter months. Plain pinto beans with no spices save salt, and whole wheat cornbread that was dry, not sweet at all, and was perfect for absorbing copious amounts of salty butter. It might not sound particularly tasty, but we loved it. I think it was the magic of butter, which we surprisingly were allowed to consume without limits since Grandpa deemed it a healthy fat and Mom learned all her health-nut ways from him. So we loved our beans and butter, er, cornbread.

This cornbread is the antithesis of the cornbread I was raised on, and truth be told, the first time I made it I was completely aghast that Mel dared to call it cornbread. This wasn’t cornbread, this was cake. And her whipped honey butter? The frosting!

But everyone (I brought it for a chili day at work) loooved it. I didn’t bring the honey butter the first year and at first, some were disappointed, but after tasting it said, “This doesn’t even need butter!” It really doesn’t. It practically melts in your mouth, it is so soft and moist. I noticed when I brought the honey butter last year they barely touched it. The cornbread is perfect on its own but if you really think you need some sweet butter, go to Mel’s blog for her unique recipe, which includes marshmallow fluff and is very good.

Anyway, after making this for others for two years and taking little tastes, I finally made it just for us for the first time last week when the temps were cooler and I wanted something to go with some ham & bean soup. I have to say, I’m a convert. Sorry, Mom. This is definitely my new favorite and I have to tell you, Dennis is gaga for this stuff and he would never eat any of my cornbread before, not even Jiffy mix, which is similar to this, just not as soft. The Lighter Northern Cornbread recipe on my blog is also crazy good, but it’s lower in fat and sugar so it’s not quite as melt-in-your mouth. If you’re looking for some full fat goodness, I gotcha covered.

Favorite Cornbread

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 ½ cups (6 ¼ oz) all-purpose flour
½ cup (3 oz) corn meal
2/3 cup (5 oz) granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 ¼ cups milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray an 8×8 baking dish with oil; set aside. Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl, make a well and add oil, butter, eggs, and milk into the center. Stir well until mixed (batter will be runny – don’t be alarmed!). Pour into prepared pan and bake for 35 minutes. This doubles perfectly for a 9X13-inch pan, but will have to be baked longer (start checking after 45 minutes-I can’t remember how long it took when I doubled it in previous years).

Recipe source: Mel’s Kitchen Cafe

25 Comments

Posted in Bread and tagged baking, best, cornbread, light, melt-in-your-mouth, moist, northern, sweet, tender, winter. Bookmark the permalink.

Basic Buttermilk Biscuits & Sausage Gravy

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Veronica

Happy Monday, my Cornicopi-cats! :) Today I was just going to share my basic recipe for buttermilk biscuits, but I figured you can’t have biscuits without sausage gravy. OK, so you can, you can have them plain, with butter, with jam, with honey, but once in a while you gotta get your sausage gravy on. Is it a custom where you live to eat biscuits smothered in sausage or country gravy? If not, you must try it, at least once. This is straight up comfort food for me.

I make my biscuits two ways, depending on how much time I want to spend on them. The first way includes a little bit of folding the dough over and then cutting into rounds. This yields a taller, layered biscuit. The second way is just dropping the dough onto a baking sheet, then patting it into place with floured hands. Either way, they are soft and so tender–some seriously good eatin’.

Basic Buttermilk Biscuits

Makes 8-10 biscuits
Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening
¾ cup cold buttermilk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line a cookie sheet with parchment.

Measure the dry ingredients into a food processor or bowl and pulse once to combine. Pulse or cut in the butter and shortening until fats are the size of peas. Dump the contents into a bowl and stir in the buttermilk until dough is moistened. You can pulse to combine in the food processor, but it is too easy to overwork the dough so I like to stir it in by hand. At this point you can either 1) drop the dough in mounds the size of your choice onto prepared baking sheet. With floured hands, pat the tops and sides of the dough until they take on more of a shaped appearance.

Or 2) dump dough onto a floured surface and lightly flour the top. Knead a few times (careful, don’t knead more than ten turns) and roll out to 1” thick. Using a 2 ½” biscuit cutter or glass, cut out rounds going straight up and down without twisting the cutter, place on baking sheet, and brush tops with beaten egg if desired (this will make the tops golden but doesn’t change the flavor). Bake for 10-12 minutes. Serve warm with butter, jelly, or…

Suzie’s Sausage Gravy

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 lb. good quality sausage roll, like Bob Evans
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups milk
salt and black pepper to taste
Prepared biscuits

Crumble and cook sausage in large skillet over medium heat until browned. Stir in flour until dissolved. Gradually stir in milk. Cook gravy until thick and bubbly. Season with salt and pepper. Serve hot over biscuits. Refrigerate leftovers.

30 Comments

Posted in Bread, Breakfast and tagged baking, best buttermilk biscuits, cut, drop, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth, pillow soft, quick, soft, tender. Bookmark the permalink.

Oatmeal Candy

Posted on September 19, 2012 by Veronica

I have already shared Grandma’s original recipe from 1890 for her oatmeal candy in her writing, but I have to share my updated version that I submitted to the fair. The original is good, like caramel with oatmeal in it, but with a little cinnamon and vanilla, it reminds me of a candy version of oatmeal cookies!

Like most old recipes, this one is simple. There are a lot of candies I’d consider better, but I love these for their old-timey-ness. They even taste old-timey and are truly delicious. If you are nostalgic for the days of yore, try these out.

Oatmeal Candy

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

½ cup salted butter
1 cup light corn syrup
2 ½ cups light brown sugar
2 cups quick-cooking oats (uncooked)
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar, for rolling

Bring butter and corn syrup to a boil in a large saucepan. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar, oats, flour, and cinnamon, and mix well. Return to heat and turn burner to medium heat. Cook slowly, stirring often, until mixture comes to softball stage, 240F. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour into a 9″x13” buttered dish and cool completely, about 4 hours or more. Cut into squares, roll in powdered sugar, sprinkle with a little cinnamon, and wrap in waxed paper.

Veronica’s Notes: Butter was likely salted during the time this recipe originated, as it acts as a preservative, so that’s what I used. I used corn syrup, and though I’m not sure that’s what is meant by “white syrup,” it seems to work quite well. And while I know from personal research that quick-cooking oats did not exist until the 20s, I thought rolled oats to be too chewy and took the liberty of updating the recipe with quick-cooking oats, and adding in some cinnamon and vanilla. Those were probably expensive or maybe less common during the time Dennis’ great-great-grandmother was making this candy, but I hope I’m doing her proud with these additions since they are easily accessible now and add a nice flavor.

32 Comments

Posted in Candy and tagged 1800's, candy, heritage recipes, oatmeal candy, old-fashioned. Bookmark the permalink.

Kansas State Fair 2012 part 3: You Miss Every Shot You Don’t Take

Posted on September 12, 2012 by Veronica

*Update: You can now get my updated recipe that I submitted to the fair here.

So that you won’t have to endure reading this whole blog to find out whether I won or lost, I’ll tell you right now. I got a ribbon. :) Read on if you’d like to hear the whole story.

Wayne Gretzky is famously quoted as saying, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

That is really good life advice, and though I do miss a lot of shots because I’m too scared to take them, I can proudly say I would have made Gretzky proud with the way I put myself out there for the state fair competitions this year! Well, either proud, or at least impressed by my audacity. ;)

From my snot sauce cookies, to my un-risen bread (not to be confused with the risen dead, though almost as horrifying from a baker’s perspective), to my burnt up and crust-fallen-off pies, I took a lot of chances this year and really set myself up for a lot of criticism, which I will be reading come this Sunday when I get my judging papers. But as with the short loaf of bread that won third place, you just never know what the judges will think or how your entry will compare to others, and sometimes you just gotta take the shot and put yourself out there, ready to be disappointed & embarrassed, so that when you succeed, it’s even sweeter.

Such is the case with Grandma Joy’s Oatmeal Candy. I did learn a lesson this year (make that many lessons), which is READ THE RULES VERY CLOSELY. I scanned the information about the Heritage Recipes Contest, gathered that they were looking for old recipes that had been passed down in families since at least 1950, got excited and stopped reading. I made Grandma Joy’s Oatmeal Candy recipe, which has been in Dennis’ family since 1890, put six of the candies on a white paper plate, following the requirements for the baked goods contests, and sealed it in a Ziploc bag, ready to submit it for judging.

It wasn’t until 1 AM the day I was to enter the contest that I read the rules and information more closely. To my chagrin, I discovered that not only were they looking for “recipes suitable for family or community dinners” but they wanted you to include an entire aesthetic set-up with props.

Since there were only about five hours left before I needed to get up in order to get to the fair on time to turn in my entries, and I was already sleep-deprived, I decided I wasn’t going to enter it after all. How could I? Candy isn’t served at a dinner, is it? And what in the world would I use for props? I had no idea, and no time to figure it out.

I was crushed. This was the contest I was most excited to enter and that mattered most to me, because the recipe was special and I’d actually harbored fond dreams of presenting Grandma Joy with a ribbon for her recipe. But I underestimated the power of my hope. I do know after almost thirty-two years (yikes) of living with myself, that my hope has great strength and is very hard to kill, if not impossible. If I want something bad enough, that hope inside me will rise up even after I mentally decide against trying for it, and force me to find a way to make it happen.

So only a few minutes after telling Dennis I wasn’t going to enter the Heritage Recipes Contest, and should probably just opt out of the pie contest too, that hope forced me to find a way to make it happen. Maybe candy isn’t usually served with dinner, but I oculd see the judges accepting it because at a big dinner, it might be passed out afterward. On my second wind, I hustled to the kitchen and piled the candies on a Blue Willow plate because although the plate is new, the pattern has been popular since the 1800s so I thought it would be suitable as a prop. I searched desperately for any picture of Grandma Joy that I could frame and place beside the plate but couldn’t find one that had the right old-timey feel. I did find several copies that my Mom made of an old photo of my Great Grandma Millner (her Grandma) and in a crazy act of desperation, I cut one down to fit a frame and stuffed it in there to set beside the plate. Well, I never said anything about the woman in the photo being the Grandmother mentioned in my history write-up. So it wasn’t even a lie. I mean, I can’t help it if they just happen to assume the woman in the photo was the one who gave me the recipe, simply because she’s sitting right next to it.

I then experimented with using dried roses and potpourri to round out the setting but it just looked terribly wrong and in the end, decided to use ingredients in the recipe as part of the props–oatmeal in a measuring cup, and powdered sugar and cinnamon in little dishes. I knew it wasn’t the best, but I thought it was passable.

As I set up my presentation later that day next to the other ladies and gentlemen that entered, oh how unprepared I felt. This was the first entry I saw and that unfailing hope nearly died on the spot.

Now this lady was prepared. Miniature cast iron stove with miniature baked Zwieback rolls in miniature foil baking pans and the regular sized ones in front, with a gorgeous display with sunflowers, wheat, miniature enamelware used as backings for old family photos, and a sign over the top!

And here’s my sad presentation by comparison.

I didn’t even have a place mat. I knew I was doomed. But still…my hope was there. Small, but alive.

I was watching the pie judging nearby and would get up and check on the Heritage Recipes contest judging from time to time. I happened to get up just as they were reading and tasting mine…

It went fairly quick. They each took a bite of the candy and set it down, reading the history about it and the recipe. I felt even deeper that it would not place. There were so many attractive entries…

I got caught up with talking to one of the other ladies that entered the contest and almost missed it when they announced I won third place! The microphone was so quiet it would have been easier to hear her without it and I moved forward, catching only that they liked my presentation and the taste and history, and mostly how unique it was.

Everyone somehow knew it was me that had won despite no one there knowing my name, perhaps by the look of pure shock on my face, and they all turned to me, clapping. If I had been alone, I would have been jumping up and down. But knowing that almost-thirty-two-year-old women are generally more collected and mature, I smiled and nodded and celebrated with the second and first place contestants. Then I proceeded to exclaim “I can’t believe it, Dennis!” at random intervals throughout the remainder of the day. So much for acting my age.

I went back later to see how they had put the winning entries on display and ran into Jane, the first place winner with her beautiful Zwieback. We took pictures of each other in front of our displays and she sent this one to me by email:

I know I don’t look excited here but I was pretty exhausted by that point, only having had a couple hours of sleep.

She also sent me a picture of the second place entry, which I failed to catch somehow! These are kolaches. a Czeck pastry (I actually have a recipe for them here, though my fillings aren’t the best):

And here’s Jane with her blue ribbon winner!

So there you have it. I nearly opted out of a contest that I ended up placing in! And if I hadn’t entered, I wouldn’t have met Jane, which I count as one of the best things abut my fair experience this year-the ladies I met. There are definitely times when I regret my decisions, but as for this one, I’m just so happy I went through with it. I can’t wait to give Grandma her ribbon! :)

If you’ve missed the previous entries in my 2012 State Fair series, you can check them out here:

2012 State Fair part 1: Murphy’s Law

2012 State Fair part 2: How I fared at the fair

39 Comments

Posted in Candy, KS State Fair and tagged 2012, candy, kansas state fair, oatmeal candy, old-fashioned, taking chances. Bookmark the permalink.

Raspberry Almond Fudge Cookies

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Veronica

My good blogger buddy, Jenna, is having a baby girl in October and I rounded a bunch of her other blogger buddies together to throw her a virtual celebration. After all, we are scattered across the United States, and meeting for a real baby shower is out of the question. So we’re doing the next best thing, and boy have we all got some treats for you, Miss Jenna!

Being the crazy cake lady, you’d probably assume that I’d be the one to supply the cake. Well, surprise, no cake from this corner today! There are three reasons for this:

1) After scanning Jenna’s blog to verify my recollection, there is a distinct lacking of cake to be found, so I thought maybe a different type of sweet was in order.

2) I’m a terrible procrastinator and though I invited the other guests three months ago, I only got around to making my recipe for the shower recently.

3) Because of my procrastination, I had to make something that served double-duty and could serve as both a treat for her shower and could be submitted as one of my entries into the fair, since it’s crunch time and fair baking is pretty much the only baking I’m doing right now.

Thankfully, I was able to come up with a solution! I actually first made her something else that didn’t turn out like I’d hoped, so when I realized that the cookies I was entering into the fair for the “Special Chocolate Cookies” category would be perfect with a raspberry glaze, and the pink color would also make them baby shower-suitable, I rejoiced.

I have won three ribbons for my almond fudge cookies in the last two years and this year I wanted to change them up and enter them into a new category. Since they are flourless, they are super fudgy and mostly consist of toasted almonds and chocolate. I thought adding a raspberry element would be a perfect compliment to the almond/chocolate flavors and I’m so pleased with how they turned out. The original recipe is really good. But this is even better-absolute heaven! Super chocolatey with chunks of Ghirardelli Dark & Raspberry chocolate squares throughout, the raspberry almond flavor is enhanced further by raspberry and almond extracts, and a raspberry glaze with almond garnish. I love these and Jenna, I hope you love them too!

I suspect my first creation, which involved lemon and raspberry and poppy seeds, might have been more up Jenna’s alley if it had turned out as good as it did in my imagination, and I also feel guilty for not being the cake maker for this shower since it’s pretty much understood that I’m the cake supplier for all special occasions. However, Jenna did jokingly beseech her readers to mail her some chocolate to satisfy a craving a while back. Well, these cookies are definitely chocolatey and the bonus of making them instead of a cake is that I can ship them! Be looking for them in two days, Jenna–I mailed you some this morning. Enjoy!

Raspberry Almond Fudge Cookies

Plan ahead: the cookie batter needs to be refrigerated overnight so make it the night before you plan to bake them.

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 cup raw, unsalted almonds
½ pound semisweet chocolate
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 eggs
1/3 cup sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon almond extract
¼ teaspoon raspberry extract
6 Ghirardelli Dark & Raspberry Chocolate Squares, chopped

Glaze
½ cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon heavy cream
1 ½ teaspoons raspberry extract
1/8 teaspoon almond extract

Sliced almonds, for garnish

Lay almonds on a microwave-safe plate and toast in microwave in 30-second intervals on high, stirring in between, 3-5 times until nuts are fragrant. Cool to room temperature. In a food processor, grind nuts until very fine, almost like flour. Set aside.

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler; remove from heat and set aside. Beat the eggs with an electric mixer on highest speed, gradually adding the sugar and salt. Continue beating until ribbons form; about 10 minutes. Fold in the chocolate-butter mixture. Gently add the ground almonds and then fold in the chopped dark & raspberry bar. Cover and refrigerate overnight or 8 hours.

Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Use a cookie scoop to form the dough into 1-inch balls. Place on the baking sheet about 2 inches apart and immediately place in the oven. Bake until the center of the cookies are no longer wet-looking, 10-14 minutes. Allow to cool one minute on sheet before removing to rack.

To make the glaze, stir the powdered sugar, cream, and extracts together until smooth. Add additional cream to thin, if necessary. Drizzle over cooled cookies and immediately sprinkle with sliced almonds.

Check out the other virtual shower bloggers!

4 Little Fergusons (Midwest USA): 11 Lessons To Determine If You Are Ready For Parenthood

A Little Lunch (Eufaula, OK): Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice Scones

City Songbird (Greensboro, NC): Merry Christmas, Alice!

Eats Well With Others (New York, NY): Peanut Butter and Honey Ice Cream

Hunting for Bliss (Bozeman, MT): Garam Masala Deviled Eggs

Pinking Shears & Broccoli Spears (Newark, DE): Making Food Good For Your Baby

Sydney Shares (Eugene, OR): Baby BLTs

That’s Some Good Cookin’ (Salt Lake City, UT): Cheesecake Cookie Bars

The Pajama Chef (Bloomington, IN): Iced Tea with Ginger-Mint Simple Syrup

Two Dogs In The Kitchen (Sterling, MI): Spicy Asian Meatballs

Veronica’s Cornucopia (Wichita, KS): Raspberry Almond Fudge Cookies

Very Culinary (Sacramento, CA): Toasted Orzo and Chickpea Salad

Words on Wendhurst: A Gift For Jenna and Alice

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Posted in Cookies. Bookmark the permalink.

Triple Lemon Cake

Posted on August 27, 2012 by Veronica

This is my youngest sister, Lacey, blowing out a tealight candle on her birthday in 2009. We never remember birthday candles for some reason. My poor nephew (her son, Owen) had to blow out a lighter on his birthday over the weekend-lol. Also, you can see how old this pic is from the caramels in the corner–they are from one of the batches I made during my caramel-extravaganza.

Anyway, this cake is another oldie but goodie! I also made this back in my MySpace days and never got around to posting it because I made it in the winter and wanted to wait until summer to share it. I’m seasonal like that. (?) Anyway, three years later and with summer about to fizzle out, I figured I’d better get on it!

I made this for Lacey’s birthday, who is a December baby along with Danielle & Dennis. December is quite the month for celebration in my family. Anyway, Lacey loved the Lemony Orange Cake I made for my Dad’s birthday that year, and asked for a lemon cake for her birthday too. Everyone loved it! This is a seriously moist, lemony cake and for our lemon-loving family, it was perfect.

Triple Lemon Cake

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

Cake:
1 box lemon cake mix
1 pkg. lemon jello
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water
4 eggs
Glaze:
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
juice of 2 lemons

Preheat oven to 325F. Mix all ingredients together until well blended. Bake in greased and floured 9×13 pan for 45 minutes.

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, whisk together the glaze ingredients. While the cake is still hot, prick top of cake all over with fork and spread with the glaze. Cool completely.

Recipe source: Barbara J., a MySpace friend

Since this blog relates to Lacey, I just had to share these two photos of her that I took at Owen’s party (she is his mama, that’s why he’s so cute :)). She’s so purty. :)

She cuts her own hair and did a funky style this time, making it short on one side and long on the other. She makes it work. I also love her earrings–it’s hard to tell but nails and skeleton keys are hanging off them.

21 Comments

Posted in Cake & Frosting and tagged baking, summer, triple lemon cake. Bookmark the permalink.

Southern Shrimp & Cheese Grits

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Veronica

Honestly I never intended to share this recipe, not because it’s not good (it’s amazeballs), but because when I made it, I was a MySpace blogger and the friend I got it from had already posted it on her own MySpace blog. We had the same group of foodie friends that all read each others blogs, so it seemed redundant to repost the recipe. Now I wish I had, as I now forget exactly how I did it. I like to give very specific measurements & instructions, but Cheryl gave measurements like, “a mess of shrimp.” You could never tell she’s from the south, right? :) I kept the instructions in her voice, but did change a few things for clarity.

To give you an idea of how good this dish is, Dennis, who refuses to eat shrimp, ate an entire plate and enjoyed it. He has only eaten shrimp in my presence on one other occasion (on this pizza, which is also amazeballs, if I do say so myself) and he told me he would never do it again unless it was these shrimp ‘n grits. I think that qualifies this as life-changing. :)

Southern Shrimp & Cheese Grits

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

5 slices of bacon
1 mess of fresh shrimp (I used a bag of frozen shrimp, thawed)
4-8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
3 scallions, chopped
3 garlic gloves
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
Fresh cracked pepper
Salt
2 tablespoons flour (for roux)
A few slices of ham

2 cups of coarse home-style grits, plus ingredients called for on box
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, plus more for garnish

Start off by frying your bacon. While that’s going, clean and peel your fresh shrimp and set them aside.

Remove the bacon from the pan and set it aside. Drain all but 2-3 tablespoons of bacon grease from the pan, and add your mushrooms. Saute for a few minutes until starting to soften, then add the shrimp, scallions, garlic, and red pepper flakes, if using.

While that cooks, in another pot start your grits by the directions given on the bag. Cook until thick, stirring constantly (nobody likes lumpy grits-lol). Stir in the cheese, and set aside.

Meanwhile lets gets back to the Shrimp! After shrimp is done (it will turn pink), season with salt and pepper, then take it out and set it aside. Now we are starting on the roux (gravy). In the same pan add your flour then add your water and stir till thickened. I do this using a wire whisk or wooden spoon. Season with salt and pepper.

Dice up your ham and break up your cooked bacon. I guess my mixture was watery (I remember adding the mushrooms to the skillet at the same time as the shrimp, and I think that prevented the water from them evaporating) and I drained it and added the ham, cooked bacon, and red pepper flakes while it was in the colander. If you follow these updated instructions, hopefully you won’t have to drain yours.

Add your grits to a plate, put your sautéed shrimp & mushrooms, ham, mushrooms, on top of grits then spoon gravy on top and top with shredded cheddar cheese. Enjoy!

Recipe source: Cheryl D.

31 Comments

Posted in Meats, My Favorites, Seafood. Bookmark the permalink.

Savory Oatmeal

Posted on August 21, 2012 by Veronica

I’ve seen this newfangled idea of savory oats around on several blogs, but it was Faith’s gorgeous pictures that finally convinced me I had to try it.

If you’re like me, you’re thinking, “For all that is good and holy, why would you ruin the opportunity to have a SWEET breakfast?! Oats are perfect for sweet-ification!”

It totally went against every sweet-tooth instinct I have to make them this way, but I have to tell you it was really a delicious breakfast and so much more filling and satisfying than my usual additions (most often a mashed banana with peanut butter and some honey, or sometimes applesauce with cinnamon and brown sugar). Faith compared oats to grits, and that’s what made it click for me. If you can eat shrimp and cheese grits (drool), why not bacon and eggs with your oatmeal?

See what I’m saying? Same dealio, yo. Except now I feel bad for tempting you with that that picture of the shrimp and grits without a recipe. Guess I should finally get that one posted too…three years late. **UPDATE: you can find the recipe for Southern Shrimp ‘n Cheese Grits here.**

In the meantime, please enjoy some savory oats! This will definitely stick to your ribs and keep you satisfied until lunchtime.

Savory Oatmeal

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

1 tablespoon olive oil
4 slices turkey bacon, diced
1 small-medium onion, diced
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 cup water
1 pinch sea salt
1 pinch black pepper
2 oz sharp cheddar, diced or shredded
2 fried eggs (for topping)

Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat; add the bacon and cook until crisp, about 2 to 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Transfer the bacon to a small bowl and set aside. Add the onion to the oil, adding more oil if needed, and cook until softened and just starting to turn brown, about 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in the oats, water, salt, and pepper; bring to a boil then turn heat down to low and simmer until the oats are tender, about 5 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the bacon and cheese. Transfer to a bowl and top with a fried egg and more black pepper.

Recipe source: slightly adapted from An Edible Mosaic

17 Comments

Posted in Breakfast and tagged Breakfast, filling, oats, savory oatmeal. Bookmark the permalink.

Cheeseburger Salad

Posted on August 15, 2012 by Veronica

Usually when I want to enjoy a cheeseburger in salad form, I make a hamburger salad and just top it with some shredded cheddar. But I knew I had to try this Pampered Chef version when PW featured it a while back. So glad I did because it’s so much better than my old stand-by! I love how the sauce is mixed into the meat so that you don’t need dressing. Saucy, flavorful meat, crisp lettuce, pickles & onions, juicy tomatoes, cheddar cheese–this salad just can’t be beat!

OK, now Pampered Chef and PW get all crazy and actually turn hamburger buns into croutons by baking them. So cute, right? But grizzle, puh-lease! I may be crazy in certain ways, like adding way too much butter and sugar to my desserts to where they are literally swimming in evil, but I’m not the kind of crazy that likes to bake my own croutons in the summer for a simple salad. If I’m turning on my oven, it’s for something sweet, not for croutons. If you’re not my kind of crazy, you might want to just go to the original recipe for the crouton instructions. As for me, Texas Toast croutons suit my salad just fine.

But, truth be told, this is the way I prefer to eat my cheeseburger salad:

Sans croutons. I mean, the reason I like to turn hamburgers and cheeseburgers into salad is to get away from the bread because it gets in my way, and I like the veggies way more than the bread. Plus, I get enough carbs from sugar. :)

Cheeseburger Salad

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

2 lbs. ground beef
1 ¼ cups ketchup
3 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
2 small red onions, one sliced into rings, the other diced
8 dill pickle spears, sliced
4 Roma tomatoes, quartered and sliced
8 oz. cheddar cheese, shredded
16 cups chopped Romaine lettuce (about 2 heads)
Texas Toast croutons (optional)

Cook the ground beef in a large skillet over medium heat. Remove from heat, drain the fat, and stir in the ketchup, mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Add the diced onions and pickles (you can set some aside for garnish if you like). and stir to combine. Put 2 cups of lettuce on each plate, then divide the burger mixture between them. Top with cheese, tomato, onions and pickles if you set some aside, and croutons if desired.

Makes 8 servings.

Recipe source: adapted from The Pampered Chef

19 Comments

Posted in Main Dishes, My Favorites, Salads and tagged cheeseburger, cheeseburger salad, easy, fall, protein style, salad, spring, summer, winter. Bookmark the permalink.

Lemon-Basil Peach Dumplings

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Veronica

So this recipe is totally crazy. Just wanted to warn you before you got too involved and the list of ingredients sent you reeling. I’m just going to put it out there. Right here and now.

This recipe has two whole sticks of butter in it. And 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Both are poured/sprinkled over only sixteen itty bitty peach “dumplings” which are really only slices of peach wrapped in crescent roll dough. And you know what else I poured over the top along with the butter and sugar? Sprite. Yup.

But here’s the deal. These dumplings are so good and totally worth the butt dimples you will get after the little artery-cloggers work their way through your system and your body decides to skip the digesting part and just add them straight to your butt.

I made this for a cooking challenge on Facebook to make a recipe using fresh peaches, Sprite or 7-Up, and fresh basil. So this is what I came up with, based on a cooky Midwestern recipe for apple dumplings (see it on PW’s blog here).

I still have yet to make the original version, but now I know I have to come fall because you would not believe how good this summery version is. Sweet, yes, but not too sweet, incredibly. And the juicy peach is the star, somehow not overpowered by the lemon & basil*, or all that sugar and butter. When I took them out of the oven, the liquid was pretty sloshy but thickened up and seemed to absorb a little more after 10-15 minutes, making the dumplings crispy with sugar on top and gooey on the bottom, but definitely not soggy, which is what I had feared.

They are best warm, but I served the leftovers (after Dennis and I had our way with a few) at room temperature to my family after a barbecue and they went crazy for them. Even my sister, Danielle, who refuses to eat my (beloved) pumpkin gooey butter cake because it has two sticks of butter in it (light weight!), and generally only takes a few bites of my desserts, not only ate one ( a whole one!) but also took one home with her for later. Miracle!

*The fried basil does add a nice color and the mildest of flavor, which I thought was perfect, but if you’re really hoping for a huge pop of basil, I’d double (or more) what the recipe calls for. Or just make extra to munch on–they are even crispier than potato chips!

Fried basil is so cool-it gets transparent and shatteringly crisp. Would also make a great garnish on soup!

While making these, I admit I cringed the whole time I was pouring and sprinkling sugar over the top. I tried to stop myself several times. How could sixteen little bitty teeny weeny dumplings need that much butter and sugar?! But I had to go with the original measurements in the end, and I’m glad I did. Because they are perfect. Besides, divided between 16 servings, it’s really not too bad and actually lower in fat/sugar than most of the cakes I make. Or at least, that’s what I was telling myself when I helped myself to seconds. >:)

Lemon-Basil Peach Dumplings

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

3 medium fresh peaches
2 (8 oz) cans refrigerated crescent roll dough
1 lemon
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 ½ cups granulated sugar
1 cup Sprite
½ cup fresh basil leaves (not packed)
Coconut or vegetable oil for frying

Fill a pot that is big enough to fit three peaches with water high enough to cover them. Bring to a boil. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice and water to have ready to cool the peaches. When the water is boiling, add the peaches and boil for 1-2 minutes, until the skin is easy to remove. Remove with a slotted spoon and add to ice water. Once they are cool to the touch, take them out to peel off the skins. If the skins don’t peel easily, boil again for a minute.

Preheat oven to 350F. Slice the peeled peaches in half around the pit, separate the halves and remove the pit. Slice each half into thirds. You will only need 16 of the slices so feel free to nibble on two of them as you continue with the recipe.

Butter a 9×13 baking dish. Wrap each peach slice in a crescent roll and place in prepared dish. Grate the zest from the lemon and sprinkle over the dumplings (reserve the lemon), then sprinkle 1 cup of the sugar over the top. Melt the butter and pour over the top, then sprinkle the remaining sugar over. Juice the reserved lemon, then add the juice into the Sprite. Pour over everything, then bake for 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, heat ½ inch of coconut or vegetable oil in a small skillet or saucepan to 360F. If you don’t have a thermometer, you can test it by throwing a basil leaf in. If it is ready it will pop and spatter big time so be ready to cover it with a splatter screen or jump away. When the oil is ready, throw the basil in the hot oil, then IMMEDIATELY cover with the splatter screen. Fry until crisp, then remove to a thick layer of paper towels to drain. Once cool to the touch, about a minute or two, crumble up with your fingers and set aside. The oil makes the basil stick to your fingers so just get as much off as you can.

Remove the dumplings from oven and sprinkle the fried, crushed basil over the top. Serve the dumplings warm with ice cream, spooning the sweet sauce from the pan over the top.