Sausage Cream Cheese Dip

I am so tired, really tired. I think that the move has finally caught up with me or should I say us because BCakes is pretty cranky himself. Working, un-packing, getting everything settled, living regular daily life and all that that entails has finally worn me plum out. (I must say though I love having our own home!)

So what do I do when I am barely making it through the day? Cook something simple simple simple for supper. This recipe is simple but oh so good. Now I am not normally a fan of cheese dip with sausage but this one rocks. I'm not sure if it's the cream cheese versus velveeta but even the hubs said he likes this one over velveeta cheese dip anyday. It's good.


Sausage Cream Cheese Dip
recipe from a co-worker

1 lb pan sausage (we used spicy venison)
1 - 8 oz block cream cheese
1 can Rotel, drained
2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup heavy cream

Brown the sausage over medium heat until cook through. Drain and set aside for a second.

In a medium saucepan melt together cream cheese, cheddar, rotel and heavy cream. This doesn't take any time at all if you have a gas range, you have to watch it.

Stir in sausage to cheese mixture and cook on low for a minute or two.

Eat it up with some tortilla chips.

It's really thick and like I said above super easy. It certainly could feed a crowd or just one really hungry hubby.

Once again, Enjoy,

Just Lemon Pie

Last Thanksgiving my husbands Granny made a Lemon Chess Pie that was heavenly. I asked for the recipe but haven't been given it yet. (sad face) It was creamy and sweet with a hint of lemon, mmm, amazing. This pie has crossed my mind so many times since then and I'm not to ashamed to admit. I loved this pie. I want to get my hand on the recipe for this pie. So if you know of a Lemon Chess Pie recipe that's more like chess pie with a hint of lemon instead of just lemon pie please send it my way. Okay now that that tangent is over on with this show.

My Nanny is down from Idaho for a few weeks visiting all my aunts, aka her daughters, and I invited her over to the see the new house and eat dinner with BCakes and I. It was lovely seeing her and letting her see and taste my cooking, I truly love cooking for people. To me food is how I show I care. The menu I prepared for her was Honey Glazed Chicken, Mashed Sweet Potatoes and Roasted Asparagus (I forgot to take pictures of all that, I'm sorry) and for dessert I served what was supposed to be an attempt at Lemon Chess Pie, it ended up being just like a lemon meringue pie hence the name Just Lemon Pie.

This recipe came from a little cookbook made years ago by a group of women right here in Magnolia, Texas. They create them almost every year for a fundraising event. My Grandma Lolly is one of the above said ladies. These books are chaulked full of yummy local favorites and family recipes alike and although this pie is not the exact pie I was looking for it is acutally very good. To me it tasted exactly like a lemon meringue pie only without so much meringue. It is certainly worth trying if not for the flavor then because it is so easy to make.


Just Lemon Pie

1 cup granulated sugar
4 Tablespoons butter
rind and juice of 2 large lemons
4 eggs, separated
1 pie crust, baked

Preheat the oven to 350.

Put sugar and butter into a bowl and cream until the mixture is a bit airy. Add the egg yolks into the butter mixture and mix in. Add the lemon rind and juice and again beat in. (It will look a little curdled not to worry.)

In a seprate bowl, with clean and dry beaters, mix the egg whites until stiff and then lightly fold into the butter mixture.

Pour into the baked pie shell and bake at 350 until set, about 30 minutes give or take a few.


Like I said above it is a really good pie. In the words of Nathan, my pre-teen cousin, "I would eat it again if someone put it down in front of me". Love him!

Enjoy,

Cheesy Sausage and Potato Casserole‏

Saturday night was a blast! It was my girlfriends annual joint birthday party, Maggie and Nessa, and it was so much fun. I did not take pictures (duh!) and even if I had I wouln't be posting them on this post. What happens at the birthday party stays at the birthday party, lol. Anyhow, the point I am getting to is that I am a firm believer in eating before you go drinking. Some people are and some people aren't, I find that it saves me from a Jack-in-Box drive through mishap at 1 or 2 a.m. in the morning. (Now to anyone who is thinking that I drive while intoxicated you are wrong, my husband does not drink, not a sip, ever!, so he would have been the above said driver in the above said scenerio. Just saying.)

I knew I wanted and truly needed something simple and quick to make for supper. My older brother was over because he was taking advantage of the designated driver and my couch that night. So I also knew that I had two men to feed. Enter Cheesy Sausage and Potato Casserole. (Of course we used venison pan sausage as we have just picked up this years batch from the processors.) This recipe was found over at Lisa's blog The Cutting Edge of Ordinary on yet another amazing culinary blog adventure.


Cheesy Sausage and Potato Casserole‏
adapted from Cheesy Kielbasa and Potato Casserole‏

‏1 pound of breakfast sausage
1 bag (20 ounces) frozen shredded hash brown potatoes, thawed
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese, plus extra for the top
1 cup sour cream
1 medium onion, chopped
2 small cans mushrooms, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 and lightly spray a 9x13 inch baking pan with cooking spray.

In a skillet brown the sausage. Add the chopped onions and cook with sausage until the onions cook clear. Add the mushrooms and cook until warmed. Transfer to a large bowl.

To the bowl add in the cheese, sour cream, hashbrowns and salt and pepper and stir gently to combine. Spread into the greased pan.

Bake about 25 minutes, then top with some cheese and cook for another 15 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.



You can tell from the pictures that the cheese on top looked a bit crisp and it was hence the fact that I put on the recipe to put the cheese on top for the last 15 minutes. This is one that I am going to keep playing with perhaps add a can of cream of something next time. Despite my want to play around with it the recipe itself was very good and I would gladly eat it if it were served the exact same way.

Yummy once more,

BBQ'd Pork Ribs

Ever since I met my Husband he had been telling me about his grilling abilities. When we were dating we always went out to eat or had dinners at either of our parents houses. Even when we moved in together into our old apartment (I've only been moved out of the apartment for a week tomorrow and I am already referring to it like we lived there years ago) we weren't allowed to have a pit, although truth be told it wouldn't have fit anyway, BCakes has an enormous grill. The week before we moved into the new house he got the grilling bug and on the very first day we offically moved in he lit the pit. The result? He wasn't fibbing, the man can grill.

Now I don't know much about grilling and well, I don't even know the recipe, neither does he since he just did a little of this and a little of that, so this post is more of a shareing post and an eyewitness account of what I saw him doing. Bear with me here. (grin)


BBQ'd Pork Ribs

Rack of Pork Ribs, thawed
BBQ Sauce (Sweet Baby Rays Honey BBQ Sauce)
Shaker of BBQ Seasoning Blend

Place thawed ribs into a shallow baking dish and sprinkle on seasoning blend and some BBQ sauce. Set in fridge and let sit overnight.

The next morning fire up the pit, we use charcoal and get the heat up to the optimal temp. for grilling ribs (he hasn't answered the phone yet so I don't even know the correct temp to put here, as soon as I do I will come and edit this).

Once your heat is right place the ribs onto the grill and brown/sear it until the outside it cooked.

Now wrap the ribs in foil, and add some more BBQ sauce in there too, wrap it up and put back on grill, shut the lid and let it cook all day long (around a temp. I will disclose later today).

That's pretty much it. When he took them off the pit that night they were smokey and sweet. The man can cook.


Speaking of the man, when I told him I wanted to take a picture of the ribs for the blog he smiled big and held the plate up. How could I not?


I promise to come back here tonight and put the correct temps and cooking time.

XOXO,

Honey Glazed Curry Chicken

So we're all settled in, for now, there are so many things we still have to purchase but enough about all that, this blog is all about what's going on in the kitchen. On with the show...

This is not the first meal we cooked/enjoyed in the new house. No, infact BCakes BBQ'd some pork ribs on Saturday. It was sooooo good. You guys BCakes hardly ever cooks. (why does he need to, I Love Cooking!) I have heard since first meeting him about his grilling skills but never actually tasted, because our apartment porch was #1 too tiny and #2 grills were not allowed, his skills. (I know, I married him anyhow, risky!) But now that we have a back patio to store his big ol' grill it has been placed, lovenly cleaned and has now grilled for us. I do intend to post his recipe but we have dial-up *gasp* at the new house so I apparently have to upload pictures at work now. Damn Dial-Up, I don't know how long I can survive with it! So be looking for BCakes recipe to be on here soon.

I found this recipe, once again, on the world wide web. Actually let me be more specific it is from Kara's Kitchen Creations, I just recently found her and I must say she is one heck of a cook.

This chicken dish is wonderful even though you have to flour it (despise breading things, it's messy and I have a clean hand complex), poor Baby Cakes never gets fried foods in our house. Anyway back to the chicken, it is soooo yummy and gooey. Every ingredient in this recipe lends something to the dish. Even I cocked my head when I read 1/2 cup lemon juice and the soy sauce yuck but somehow some magic happens while it's baking and it turns out ah-maze-ing!

Go on cook this for dinner tonight and while your at it spend a little time over at Kara's Kitchen.

Oh and almost forgot, BCakes gave this one 2 thumbs up!


Honey Glazed Curry Chicken
adapted from Honey Glazed Chicken

1 stick butter, melted
1 cup flour
2 tsp salt
2 tsp red pepper flakes
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, pounded thin
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup honey
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 Tbsp soy sauce
1 tsp curry powder

Preheat oven to 350°.

Melt butter and pour into a 9x13" pan.

Mix flour, salt, and the red pepper flakes in a shallow dish.

If you choose to, half each chicken breast and then pound it out about an inch or so thick. Coat the chicken in flour mixture, one at a time, dip the chicken into the melted butter and then back into the flour. Make sure to do both sides.

Bake, uncovered, at 350° for about 20 minutes.

Mix remaining ingredients (honey, brown sugar, lemon juice, curry, soy sauce) in a saucepan and heat until bubbleing.

Pour this sauce over the halfway cooked chicken and then continue baking for 30-45 minutes, basting every 15 minutes or so.


We enjoyed this dish, and I do not say enjoyed lightly, along side some mixed veggies as you can see in the picture and BCakes had some french fries, although I did sneak some fries too, as you can once again see in the picture.

Make it!,

Kool-Aid Pie

Because Baby Cakes and I are in the process of moving into our new house I had to find something easy to make and take to Easter this year. It didn't take very long to find something thanks to the wonderful cook over at Mommy's Kitchen. Another lady you must check out if you haven't.

Anyway this pie is creamy, smooth, flavorful and cold. They are great. I made a Strawberry and a Pineapple but my favorite is the Strawberry. There are so many options think of all the diffrent kinds of Kool-Aid.

Strawberry Kool -Aid Pie

1 - 8 ounce tub of Cool Whip Whipped Topping
1 - 14 ounce can of Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 - pack of Kool -Aid (unsweetened)
1 - 9 inch Graham Cracker Pie Crust

Add all the ingredients together and pour into a prepared graham cracker crust. Chill about 2 hours then serve.

I actually froze mine and then the day before I needed it took it out of the freezer.

I took 2 to my husbands Nanny's house and tomorrow I'll be taking 2 my to my parents house. So busy!


Yummy,