Tag Archives: food

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Touchdown Poppers

It is football season here in the US and that means appetizers and game food galore!  We don’t really keep up with sports in our home, but we still enjoy game food every now and then.  I remember once upon a time I used to sit and watch the game, but these days family time is just too precious.  Reason # 293847923847384 that I love my husband – he agrees!  I know this is a rare quality!  He puts me and our son first and any free moment he gets, he’s with us.  So football obsession doesn’t exist in our home, thank God.

On with the recipe!
This is a twist on jalepeno poppers.  Although I LOVE a good jalepeno poppers and I’m pretty sure I make the best ones, sometimes its tedious.  Cleaning out the peppers, mixing the cream cheese, stuffing them, breading them, etc.  I thought..hmm..why not stuff them in bread?!  This is like a jalepeno pepper and a kolache had a baby.  DELICIOUS!

What you need:

BACON!!! (cooked)

Crescent rolls

Cream Cheese

Jalapeno

First things first you have to POP open that can of rolls and unroll the dough.  Place it on a greased cookie sheet.

Put a little bit of cream cheese in the center of each triangle and then top with bacon and jalapeno.  We got a really strong batch from the farmer’s market so I only put two slivers in.

Next roll up the rolls and make sure to seal around the cheese so it doesn’t ooze out.  You could add in some mozzarella if you want it more cheesy.

See how innocent they look?

Cook it like normal, until it’s golden brown.  I think it’s at 350 degrees.
I pulled them out and brushed the top with butter and garlic powder and put them back in to make them more golden.

Be careful when you bite in, the inside is even hotter than the outside!  The cheese will scald your tongue!!

You could easily make this vegetarian, but since the bacon does so much for the flavor perhaps add something to the cream cheese.  I bet it would be good with a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Emeril essence.  Or whatever your heart desires!

Enjoy!  And stay tuned for the Easy Peasy Apple Cake!

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Steak Snobs

This Labor Day weekend we did a whole lot of nothing.  We were all in need of some rest and so that’s exactly what we did.  Even my son who promptly gets up at 7:30 each day decided to sleep in and give us a break.  The other thing we love to do is eat and boy, did we eat!  This was our meal to kick off the weekend:

That’s steak, shrimp, and asparagus you see there.  The steak recipe you’ll have to pry from my cold dead fingers because it’s a family secret and by family secret I mean only my husband and I know it.  My son won’t even get to know it until he fully understands the meaning of keeping secrets.  All I can say is, it’s AMAZING and you’ll have to just patiently wait for an invite to enjoy this steak.  Yea we’re a little snobby about our steak.  We never go anywhere to eat steak because we’re usually displeased.  We frown upon those that only season with salt and pepper…what the heck?!  (Do you see the salt and pepper sitting in time out in the picture?)  There’s a smorgasbord of wonderful spices and you settled on salt and pepper?!  Step out of the bland food bubble and go on a spicy adventure! 

I suppose I can tell you how I made the asparagus….olive oil, garlic salt, pepper.  Nothing fancy, but the garlic salt really goes well with the flavor of the asparagus.  That’s not just salt and pepper…there’s a third thing there.

The shrimp…salt, pepper, turmeric, cumin-coriander, red chili powder, and Slap Ya Mama Cajun seasoning.  Sometimes I throw in cumin seeds, but I didn’t this time.  You could do these on the grill or in the oven or stove top.

Wash it all down with an ice cold beer!!

How do you guys prepare your steaks?  Is it fair for me to ask since I won’t tell you how I make mine? 🙂

More recipes coming this week:

Jalapeno Popper Crecents

Easy Peasy Apple Cake

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Caramel Marshmallow Popcorn

Oh My GOD.  How many of you buy a bag of marshmallows for s’mores or some recipe and end up with some leftover, and then it just sits there getting stale and you have no idea what else to use them in?!  This happens all the time.  Jayesh always looks pointedly at me when he sees a clipped bag of marshmallows in the back of the fridge.  Well now I’ve found a delicious use for them!

Almost always I have to have popcorn while watching a movie.  It reminds me of my weekly trips to the cinema with my mother.  We used to share a soda and a bag of popcorn with extra butter.  It was our thing.  Also reminds me of my grandfather-he LOVED popcorn.  He’d always ask me to pop a bag, especially when his throat was itchy from a cold.  He said he liked the way they scratched his throat on the way down.

So I’ve got a lot of fond memories tied up to these delicious little kernels.  Now I always like to top my popcorn with something other than butter.  I use pepper, red pepper, garlic powder, garlic chutney, etc.  I also like to dip them in salsa or sour cream.  Usually I like it savory, but every once in a while I have a sweet tooth and like to add caramel or something of the sort.  So here’s what you need.

 

Brown Sugar

Butter

Marshmallows

Popcorn (popped)

The brown sugar and butter should be 1:1 ratio.  Melt those in the microwave and mix.  Add in some marshmallows and microwave a little at a time and keep stirring.  The marshmallows inflate and make it hard to mix if you do a long period of time.  Pour this mix over your popcorn and ENJOY!!!

 

Does anyone else dress their popcorn, how do you do it?

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Shake your Kombucha

 

For a few months now, my husband and I have been drinking Kombucha.  What’s that you ask?!  It’s a magical elixir!  It’s basically a dose of good bacteria to make things right in your body.  It detoxifies, balances, and makes you feel so so good.  There’s claims that the guy who made GT’s Kombucha, gave it to his mother who had breast cancer and it helped her fight it.  Who knows if these claims are true or not.  I’m not saying it will cure cancer.  My friend told me she had been drinking it through her pregnancy and she swears by it.  So I thought we’d give it a shot.  First we shared a bottle once a week and now we have a whole bottle once a week.  I read a lot of reviews about this stuff, and mostly people complained about the smell and flavor, but honestly I don’t really notice anything.  It smells like vinegar and tastes like whatever flavor it is.  I like the berry ones and the ginger one.  There’s bacteria colonies floating around in it so you shouldn’t shake it violently and it is effervescent.  I suppose if you’re a finicky eater you probably won’t enjoy this stuff, but I like it.  I’ll try anything a couple of times.  I’ve noticed I have more energy, I feel cleaner from the inside, and I’m super regulated.  I feel the balance.  If anybody is a raw foodist, then you can drink this, it’s totally raw.  I’ve heard of the pasteurized kind, but that makes no sense to me.  Pasteurizing kills the bacteria, so I don’t see how that would be effective.

The drink contains probiotics and powerful antioxidants.  I’ve also noticed my skin has a glow through the week. It’s low in calories and sugar and is great as part of a cleanse.

So don’t be a pansy!  Just put your big girl underpants on and take a swig, you’ll feel amazing!

 

Read more about it here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha

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Sunday Short Stack

I love Sunday breakfast with my hunny!!  We kept it classic and just did pancakes and bacon.  I’m pretty picky about pancakes-they have to be fluffy and light.  I’ve got the perfect recipe for the fluffiest pancakes ever!  I’ve been making them this way for years and have never had a bad batch.

What you need:

3/4 cup milk

2 tablespoons white vinegar

1 cup all purpose flour

2 tablespoons white sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

2 tablespoons butter, melted

I don’t know many people who just have buttermilk on hand.  So here’s how you make it = mix the milk and white vinegar together and let sit for 5 minutes, voila!  You have buttermilk!

During that 5 minutes, mix your dry ingredients together.

Once the milk is done transforming, mix in the egg and butter.  Then mix together the wet and the dry ingredients.  It should be a thick consistency.

Heat the stove to somewhere between medium and low heat.  Nice and slow is the trick with pancakes.  I see some people crank the heat up and the outside of the pancake cooks too fast so it doesn’t have a chance to get fluffy.

Once you pour your batter on the skillet, just wait for the bubbles to appear.  Once you see those flip the pancake over and leave it alone.  Don’t move it around, don’t lift it up, and for Pete’s sake don’t tap the top of it with your spatula!

(FYI – my batter is thicker so you won’t see as many bubbles as you would with a thinner batter, but this picture below shows the bubbles as they start to appear.)

 

Just watch the sides of the pancake, the whole thing will lift and when you see the sides looking done, place it in a dish.  Look at mine…see how thick and fluffy!!

Patience is key here.  When the pancake cooks slow it allows all the gas to release and fluff up the pancake.  What you end up with is light airy goodness!

Sometimes I add a little vanilla and cinnamon, or white chocolate and strawberries.  This is the standard pancake and you can add anything you like to it.  Blueberries, chocolate chips, nuts, anything!

Don’t forget your bacon!  We just seasoned ours with black pepper and red pepper flakes.  We makes ours in the oven to cut down on the mess.  We set the oven to 350 degrees and make a little foil basket in a cookie sheet to catch the grease.  If you like your bacon crispy but soft too, this is a great way to make it.  We just stick them in before we make pancakes and they’re done by the time we’re done.  Once you pull the bacon off just let the foil basket sit there and cool off.  Once the grease hardens crumple up the foil and toss it!  Easy peasy!