Baptism BBQ Ribs

Coated eight racks of baby back ribs perfectly.

Two 6oz bottles Grill Mates Maple BBQ rub

Two 6oz bottles Grill Mates Applewood rub 

One shot glass full onion powder

One and a half shot glass full garlic powder

Mix well

Open rib packages, cut into portions. We did not rinse or wipe them at all. Dip all sides into rub mixture, it will stick in a thick coating.  Layer rib portions into foil pans. Refrigerate at least 24 hours.

Boil portions in 75% beer and 25% water, with liberal amounts of quartered onion and jalapeños halved lengthwise. Boil four hours, adding water as necessary. Grill immediately or refrigerate for up to 12 hours. Grill and apply bbq glaze of Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey Bbq Sauce. 

Peach Cobbler

The BEST Peach Cobbler!  (Adapted from Southern Living Recipe)

Do not let this order of elements throw you.  YES... add the butter first to the 13x9 baking dish (I use a foil pan).  NO... you do not mix in the butter with the crust, you place the melted butter and then LEAVE IT ALONE!  And YES... add the butter first, then the crust mix and do NOT stir together, and then spoon on the peach mixture, and do not mix together.  It is weird!  I was certain I was screwing this up. No.  It's heaven! I wavered from the Southern Living recipe a bit so here is what I did, and will do forever!

Peach Mixture:
8 Peaches, ripe but not over-ripe.  (give or take, depends on size)
1 cup Sugar
1 Tbsp Lemon Juice
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
Dash Nutmeg
1 Tsp Vanilla (GOOD vanilla!  Call me if you don't know what this is!)

Crust Mixture:
1/2 cup Butter, melted  (1 Stick).  This does not go in the mixture, it is melted and goes into the 13x9 by itself
In a medium size bowl mix: 
1 cup Flour
1 cup Sugar
1 Tbsp Baking Powder
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
Dash Nutmeg
Dash Salt
1 cup Milk

Start with the peaches.  Peel them.  Only a fool does this with a knife as I have seen on some recipe sites.  Rookies!  Slip the skins.  Wash them well, and bring a pot of water to a boil.  Insert 4 peaches at a time and leave them in the boiling water for about 45 seconds or so. Remove them onto a paper towel or a paper plate.  Cool slightly and then with your fingers just pull apart the skin. It will slip right off.  On a cutting board, slice the peaches in half and remove the pits, remove any pit remaining inside the middle of the fruit and slice the peaches into smaller sections.  When they are all pitted and sliced, I like to give them a final rinse in a colander to make sure no hard parts of the pits are remaining.  

Rinse the pot of the boiling peel water out, wash and dry, and use the same pot for the peach mixture.  Add sliced peaches, 1 cup Sugar, 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice, 1/2 Tsp Cinnamon, and a dash of Nutmeg.  Heat and stir until all the sugar is dissolved.  Do not overcook, leave the peach mixture in the pot and remove from heat.  Stir in 1 tsp of Vanilla to the peach mixture.  

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Prepare the crust mixture.  In a medium bowl, combine 1 cup Sugar, 1 cup Flour, 1 Tbsp Baking Powder, 1/2 Tsp Cinnamon, Dash Nutmeg, Dash salt, and 1 cup milk.  Whisk together until combined but do not overmix.

Assemble the cobbler.

Melt the 1/2 cup (one stick) butter, and put in the bottom of a 13x9 baking dish or foil pan.  Spread it around and the LEAVE IT ALONE.  Then place the crust mixture on top of the butter, as evenly as possible but do NOT mix it.  It will look weird. It's ok.

Last, spoon the peach mixture onto the crust mixture, again you are NOT mixing, just spooning it on top evenly over the whole 13x9. 

Bake 40-45 minutes and get a good golden brown top before removing it.  The crust makes its way to the top because of the rising of the baking powder (SCIENCE!!) and results in a crust that has absorbed the delicious peachy syrup in the process. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.  The cobbler stays fresh for days, if covered.  Easy!

You have now, rightly, made a perfectly healthy fruit into a decadent dessert as it should be. Carry on!

Chicken and Stuffing Bake

Chicken and Stuffing Bake

NOTE: Made this again and had only one box of stuffing.  Worked fine.  Reduce the chicken broth on top to one can.

Got chicken?  Got a couple boxes of stuffing mix?  You got dinner.

This was absolutely yummy and Trent loved it, a must-do in the two week rotation.  Best Part:  It goes together easily and uses up food that you probably have in your pantry and freezer.

Adapted from a Life it in the Lofthouse recipe, but I made changes.  I'm glad I did!  

Chicken Breast, about three large ones (a quart freezer bag size, that is how we package it and freeze it.  Buy 40 lbs at a time on the Albertson's sales and freeze it.)
2 tsp olive oil
2 regular size cans of cream of chicken soup, 10.5 oz each
1 cup milk
Frozen broccoli, I used 2 steamfresh bags I had in the freezer.
2 packages stove top stuffing mix, any flavor
2 regular size cans of Swanson chicken broth or stock 14.5 oz each

Thaw chicken, thaw or rinse broccoli to remove any excess moisture like ice crystals, etc.

Cut chicken into small 1/2 inch pieces.  Heat olive oil in a large skillet and fry the chicken lightly.  I did it all together, not in batches.  You don't want it to be cooked through, just about halfway cooked through.

Place chicken into a deep 13x9 dish, add the thawed broccoli on top of the chicken.  In a small bowl, mix the cream of chicken soup with 1 cup of milk.  Place the soup mixture on top of the chicken and broccoli.  Spread it over the chicken and broccoli evenly but I did not stir it up, it was just in a layer.  Place both boxes of stuffing mix on top of that in another layer.  Make sure to distribute the seasonings that always fall to the bottom :)

Punch holes in the broth cans with a can opener and sprinkle one can over half the stuffing mix and the other can over the other half.Get as much of the stuffing mix sprinkled with the broth as possible.  Cover with foil and bake at 375 for at least 1-1/2 hours.  Make sure chicken is cooked through, and the layers of liquid are boiling underneath the stuffing.  Remove from oven and let set for five to ten minutes before serving.  Makes a lot...feeds a family for two meals.

Mexican Stuffed Bell Peppers

From:  From Valerie's Kitchen

6-8 Bell Peppers (use eight and take dinner to your neighbors.  The filling here makes a lot)

1 to 1.25 pounds spicy sausage (Spicy Pork or Italian works well)

2 Tbsp (or one packet) taco seasoning

1/2 cup diced onion

1 Tbsp minced garlic

1 can (14.5 oz) fire roasted diced tomatoes (like RoTel)

1.5 cups cooked white rice (any cooked rice.  Use leftover rice if you have it, even fried rice from last night's chinese take out!)

1 can (4 oz) diced green chile, I didn't drain it

1 cup frozen corn (I used 1 can of corn, drained)

1 can black beans (15 oz).  Drained and Rinsed

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper  (I used one pizza packet from dominoes!)

1.5 to 2 cups shredded cheese (divided)

Toppings if you like:  Sour cream, cilantro, onion, tomato

Preheat oven to 400.

Slice tops off of peppers, remove seeds and ribs, place into a baking dish and add 1" of water.  Bake 20 minutes until slightly tender.Remove peppers and pour off water. Return peppers to baking dish.

While the peppers are in the oven, make the filling.  Brown sausage, drain fat if necessary.  Add onion and garlic and cook to soft.  Reduce heat and add taco seasoning, tomatoes, tomato sauce, beans, rice, chiles, corn, crushed red pepper, and 1 cup of cheese.  Cook to combined and cheese melted.

Fill peppers with sausage mixture.  Turn oven down to 375.  Cover with foil and bake 25-30 minutes or until peppers are tender and filling is heated through.  Remove foil, Add remaining cheese to top, bake another 5 minutes uncovered to melt cheese.  Serve!

Comments:  SO DELICIOUS!  Leftovers heat up very well.  Also, I can't see why you couldn't make these ahead of time and reheat.  Kids will frown at the bell pepper "container" but they will like the filling.  Do yourself a favor and remove the bell pepper and give the kid a tortilla and ranch for dipping... it will work, trust me!

Bake that Bacon!

I'm sure everyone on earth knew this, and I had heard it several times but finally had opportunity to try making bacon in the oven as opposed to fried on the stove.  It is wonderfully easy, less messy, and much less smoky to bake it.  Turns out flat and perfect.  Use thicker bacon, the thin just doesn't stand up as well to any type of cooking, really.

Fit a cookie rack on a jelly roll pan.  Place bacon on the rack so it is sitting above the base of the pan, so air can get to the top and bottom of the bacon.  Try not to stretch it out.  Do NOT preheat your oven, I repeat:  NO PREHEATING.  Place the bacon in the baking sheets on the oven rack (I use two sheets fitted with racks for one pound of bacon),  If you are using two baking sheets, place one on each oven rack.  Close the oven door and turn oven on to 400 degrees.  Bake bacon for 16-20 minutes, watching it close after about 15 minutes to make sure it doesn't burn.  My top rack cooks the bacon faster so it should have come out at about the 16 minute mark, it got a tad crispy, and then the bottom rack took a bit longer, I had to extend that slightly over the 20 minute mark, I just checked it each minute.

Remove when the bacon edges are starting to get golden, keep in mind it will still continue to cook as it cools so don't overbake it.  Also, remove the bacon immediately to plates lined with paper towels, don't let it sit on the rack in the pan because the grease in the pan will have enough heat to continue actively cooking and the strips will burn.  Then, of course, scrape the fat drippings into a jar so you can make soft ginger cookies with it later.  Mmm.  Bacon. 

THE Chocolate Icing

I've found it.  A chocolate icing that should be applied to the cake or brownies when they come out of the oven, warm.  It will work on sheet cakes or brownies.  I have not, however, found a favorite cake or brownie recipe that is family tested and Trent approved.  Came close with the mayonnaise cake, black magic cake, and texas sheet cake, but for some reason or other, we both had critiques of each recipe.  We shall continue the search.  But, this icing is TDF.

Start the recipe so it coincides with the cake/brownies coming out of the oven.  Brownies/cake should be frosted as soon as it is removed from the oven, CAREFULLY!  You will tear apart a hot cake so go slow and easy.  Plop the icing on and spread, carefully, carefully.

1 stick butter

4 Tbsp Cocoa powder

6 Tbsp milk

1 lb powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter in saucepan on low heat (not microwave).  Add cocoa and milk to the saucepan, Stir/whip until mixture is combined and just bubbles,  Remove from heat immediately. At this point, if necessary, transfer cocoa mixture to a bowl to accomodate the sugar.  Beat in powdered sugar and then vanilla.  (If your saucepan is big enough, simply mix it in the saucepan!)

Spread icing carefully onto brownies/cake within ten minutes of being removed from the oven.  This is a careful process, maybe let the cake/brownie sit for a few minutes and then spread the icing.  CAREFULLY!  

Did I say that enough?  It is hot and will tear.  Plop it in several areas onto the cake and let it warm a bit, then distribute the icing around.

Beef Stroganoff

I just ate the rest of the leftovers from Trent making this last week and WOW!  GOOD! He says this is blog-worthy, I agree!  From Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman cooking show. 
This is in the weekly rotation, for sure.  A yummy way to stretch one sirloin steak into several servings.

Beef Stroganoff

1 lb petite sirloin steak, cubed
Salt
Olive Oil
2 lbs fresh mushrooms, halved (less if you don't care for that much mushroom!)
1 large onion, chopped
1 cup carrots, chopped
1/2 cup cooking Brandy
2 cups beef stock or beef broth (beef stock is better)
2 Tbsp Corn Starch and 3 Tbsp beef stock to make a slurry
1/4 to 1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard or any brown or seasoned mustard (not honey mustard, though.)
1 package dry egg noodles
Water to boil the noodles
Melted butter, a few tablespoons should do it


Start the water to boil the package of egg noodles.  Salt the water with 1 tsp salt.

Salt the cubed beef to taste, maybe a 1/2 teaspoon for 1 pound of steak.

Heat olive oil to very hot in a skillet, but not to smoking.  Brown the cubed beef in batches until just browned, do not cook through.  Set aside on a paper plate.

To the skillet, add onion and carrots and saute to soften (a few minutes) then add mushrooms and cook through (this doesn't take long.  Another few minutes).

Add the brandy and the 2 cups beef stock to the skillet with the onion, carrot, mushroom mixture.  Allow to simmer and reduce a bit, just to thicken slightly.

Make a slurry in a small bowl or glass with the cornstarch and the 3 Tbsp beef stock. You can add more stock if you'd like, if you need to thin the slurry a bit.  This is used to thicken the sauce.

Add the slurry to the skillet, and cook to thicken.  When the sauce coats a spoon, add the beef back into the skillet and and continue to cook until the beef is done.  Reduce heat to low and add the sour cream and mustard.

Cook the noodles as you are making the stroganoff, it takes about 8 minutes to cook the noodles.  Don't be afraid to remove the sauce from the heat if it is over-thickening.  Put a lid on it and just let it sit for a few, no big whoop.

Drain the egg noodles and rinse in cold water to stop the cooking process. Toss the egg noodles in a few Tbsp melted butter.  Serve!   

This is GOOD STUFF!  You can forego the brandy if you wish, just skip it or substitute in some more beef stock.  But it is really good with that brandy flavor in there!