old favorites!

I have a request....
Can we all post links or suggest our favorite "go to" recipes from the blog?? I sometimes look at the most recent and I don't know where to go back and find old favorites.

I'll start. I made THIS the other day for a BBQ with friends and it was a hit. I remember craving it in Grenada and Julie brought a huge bowl over to share :)
 Cowboy Cavier or as my mom calls it, Texas Cavier which also fits!
 SOooo Yummy. You'll love it! For an added kick, we add a few squirts of Italian salad dressing.






Another favorite is THIS fresh summer dessert. I know you'll all want to run and make this. It's delish!
Blueberry Peach Cobbler:




Pretty sure we made this a dozen times last summer.

Okay, so what are your favorite past recipes!?! Do share....

strawberry spinach salad

A summer favorite! You can add to this salad and try different variations depending on what you like :)

* spinach

* sliced strawberrys

* avocado (still yummy if your avocado isn't quite ripe)

* red onions

* blue cheese (or feta)

* toasted chopped walnuts

 

Top with Briana's blush vinegarette dressing (strawberry on the front) or another red vinaigrette dressing.

Rosemary-Balsamic Pork Tenderloin.

I can not say enough good things about this recipe. My family absolutely LOVES it. The flavors are perfect and it makes an excellent Sunday Dinner. Perfect to impress any dinner guests!

I got this recipe from Our Best Bites cookbook. Click on the link to check out their food blog. I absolutely LOVE their site.

Rosemary-Balsamic Pork Tenderloin:

4-5 Cloves garlic, finale minced
1 tsp Crushed Rosemary
1 tsp Kosher salt
1/4 tsp Black Pepper
1 1/2 tsp Balsamic Vinegar
2 tsp Olive Oil

1. Combine garlic, rosemary, salt, and pepper. Massage the seasonings all over the pork loin.

2. Whisk together the Balsamic Vinegar and Olive Oil.

3. Place the seasoned pork loin in a zip-top bag and add the oil and vinegar combination. Seal the bag and refrigerate for 4-10 hours. Cook according to Instructions.

Preheat Oven 400 degrees F. Place loin in a foil-lined baking dish. put in oven and bake until the internal temperature of the loin is 160 degrees F. Approximately 20-25 minutes.

* I always marinate this the night before, it comes out perfect all the time.

I also pair this dish with this side. Also from Our Best Bites. Below is the recipe.

Garlic-Rosemary Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

Garlic-Rosemary Roasted Fingerling Potatoes

www.ourbestbites.com

1 1/2 lb. fingerling (or other very small potatoes), washed; try and pick the potatoes that are as bite-sized as possible

2 1/2 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil

2 1/2 Tbsp. coarse-grain or Dijon mustard

2 1/2 Tbsp. chopped fresh Rosemary (be sure and strip the needles from the stem before chopping them)

About 5 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed

Coarsely-ground black pepper

Kosher salt

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While the water is heating, combine olive oil, minced garlic, rosemary, mustard, and some black pepper. Set aside. When the water is boiling, add the potatoes and boil for about 10 minutes or until they are easily pierced with a fork. Drain, return the potatoes to the pan, and then toss with the mustard mixture.

Now...this is where the beauty of this recipe comes in. You can either do all of this ahead of time and then refrigerate the potatoes until you're ready to finish them off or you can do it all at once. Either way, you're not going to spend more than 30 minutes making these beauties and they're so elegant that you could seriously serve them at the fanciest dinner party. So...if you're making these right now, preheat your oven to 425 and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. If you're saving them (for up to 6 hours), line the baking sheet and spread the potatoes out evenly and then cover them with plastic wrap and refrigerate them until you're ready to bake them.

When you're ready to bake these guys, sprinkle with Kosher salt. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the skins are browning and sizzling. For fancy presentation, place the roasted potatoes on a platter, scrape those delicious bits off the foil sprinkle them over the potatoes, and then garnish with a few sprigs of rosemary.



*I hope you all enjoy it as much as we do! For a vegetable you can add asparagus!

Southwestern BBQ Chicken Salad

Southwestern BBQ Chicken Salad

2 large chicken breasts, cooked and shredded

1 cup BBQ sauce

1/2 head Romaine lettuce, chopped

1/2 head Iceberg lettuce, chopped

1 can corn, drained

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

1 bunch green onions, chopped

1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped

4 Roma tomatoes, diced

2 Haas avocados, diced

shredded cheese, Mexican blend or cheddar

crispy tortilla strips

Stir shredded chicken in with the BBQ sauce until well coated. Of course you can use less or more sauce, it’s up to you! I like quite a bit since I love the smoky flavor of BBQ sauce in a salad. Toss together the lettuce, cilantro, corn, beans, and chopped veggies. Top with shredded chicken, cheese and crispy tortilla strips. Drizzle ranch or cilantro lime dressing over salad and enjoy!

*to make crispy tortilla strips simply slice about 10 corn tortillas in narrow strips and place on cookie sheet. Spray with vegetable oil cooking spray and sprinkle generously with salt. Place under the broiler and let bake until crispy and brown around the edges.*

*** This recipe comes from The Sisters Cafe, a fabulous cooking blog that I love and visit all the time. Everything on the site is good!

This is one of my favorites from that site.

Homemade Mint Oreos

Lauren A. wanted the recipe to the homemade mint oreos that were on my blog last week.  Here you go Lauren!  Hope you enjoy them and that you're doing well!  These were yummy and really easy to make, I had the cookies made, put together, and everything cleaned up within an hour.   My adaptations are in RED.

The orginial recipe can be found here...

http://www.confessionsofacookbookqueen.com/2011/03/shamrock-mint-oreos.html



INGREDIENTS


Cookies:
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softenend
1 large egg
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

Filling:
1/2 envelope (1 teaspoon plus heaping 1/4 teaspoon) unflavored gelatin
2 tablespoons cold water
1/2 cup shortening (I used butter instead)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon mint extract
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Green food coloring


Preheat oven to 325. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

For the cookies:
In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the sugar and butter. Add the egg, water and vanilla and beat until smooth. Beat in the flour and cocoa until well combined; the dough will be very stiff.

Roll the dough into 1 inch balls, about the size of a walnut. Place the balls on prepared baking sheets and flatten each to about 1/8 inch with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar. (I just used my hand to flatten the cookies, and I didn't add any extra sugar.)

Bake cookies for 18 minutes. If cookies begin to look too dark or you smell scorching chocolate, remove baking pans from oven immediately. Cool completely on a wire rack.

For the filling:
To make the filling, soften the gelatin in a cup containing 2 tablespoons of cold water, then place the cup in a larger dish of hot water and leave it until the gelatin is completely dissolved and the liquid is transparent. Remove the gelatin from the hot water and let it cool until it's room temperature but hasn't begun to set.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the shortening, then beat in the vanilla and mint extract. Add the powdered sugar, a little at a time, beating until mixture is creamy. Beat in the gelatin.If the mixture seems to dry, add a couple teaspoons of hot water and beat until it is the right consistency. Add green food coloring, a few drops at a time, until desired color is achieved.

Sandwich the cookies, placing a small ball of filling on top of a cookie, and flattening it with another cookie top.  (I stored my cookies in the fridge so the icing would stay firm.  I'm not sure if this was because I used butter instead of shortening, or because it's just too hot here in Grenada!)

If you want to make plain Oreos, omit the mint extract and green coloring.

Dinner Idea

We had a great dinner tonight and it was so easy. I just have to share.

- BBQ Chicken (4 frozen chicken breast, bbq sauce on top, cover, bake at 300*)
- Dill Red Potatoes (chop red potatoes, boil, add butter, garlic salt and dill)
- Corn

Normally, I try to have a green veggie at dinner but it didn't happen today. For some reason all the flavors were just perfect together and we all loved the meal. It helps that it was super duper easy to prepare! This would be heavenly if you could grill the chicken on a bbq with corn on the cob. Yum!

Wheat Crunch

This is a snack I had all the time as a kid. We could buy it in all different flavors: ranch, salted, bbq, salt and vinegar. We recently got a whole bunch of wheat and I'm trying out different recipes with it. My kids and I loved snacking on this one in particular:

- Boil whole wheat grain (not cracked or ground) for about 45 minutes until soft. They are now called "wheat berries." I've heard you can use these as yogurt toppings or add it to ground beef to make it go farther.

- Take your wheat berries and toast them under the broiler in the oven until firm and crunchy. I did this on a cookie sheet. Season as desired.

I tried to just salt the toasted wheat but it wouldn't stick. So, I added butter then salt. It was so good! It tasted a lot like popcorn. Next, I want to try salt and vinegar. I'm sure you could easily add seasoning salt or ranch seasoning. Let me know what you try!