Grilled Romaine Salad

My husband and I have seen grilled lettuce recipies before and have always wanted to try one. We found this one in this months Family Circle Magazine.  It's a recipe from Guy Fierri. My picture doesn't do the salad justice but try it.  It's incredible!

First dice up 1/2 lb bacon and 3/4 cup red onion.

The recipe said put the skillet on high but I thought that was too much and turned it down.  using 1 T olive oil add the bacon and onion to the skillet and cook until bacon is crisp.  Remove bacon and onion,  and most of the grease. set bacon and onion aside, return pan to stovetop. 

The dressing.  In hot skillet add 1 Tsp olive oil and 1/2 cup Basalmic vinegar.  Cook 2-3 minutes until reduced.  Remove pan from heat to cool slightly.

Slice 2 Romain Lettuce hearts in 1/2. Trim end off but leave enough so the 1/2 head stays intact.  Brush with olive oil.  Heat up grill to high.  Place lettuce cut side down and cook breifly till grill marks appear......

Spoon dressing over grilled lettuce.  Top with bacon onion crispies, and top with crumbled blue cheese.    This takes salad to a new level!  Can't wait to find more grilled greens recipies

The bacon and onion cooked together makes a gread baked potato topping too!

Homemade Raised Glazed Donuts

As soon as I saw the post on one of my favorite websites.... www.grocerybudget101.com , I knew I had to try it.  I've made donuts before but not ones that had yeast in them.  The recipe and instruction for making the glazed donuts seemed easy enough to follow.  I made them this morning and they are really good!

They are actually pretty simple to make and don't take very long.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

2 T warm water

3/4 cup warm milk

2 1/2 T melted butter

1 egg

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp salt

2 3/4 cup flour

1 tsp vanilla

Mix the yeast, 1 cup of the flour and the sugar together and set aside.  Combine butter, water, milk, and egg in a mixer. ( Hello, my lovely Kitchen Aid).  Blend in flour, yeast, and sugar mixture.  Blend well (about 3 minutes)  Add vanilla, salt, and remaining flour.  The dough should be very soft but not sticky.  cover dough and let rise till double in size. 

 This is the point where I usually get impatient with yeast recipies....  I pre heated the oven to 200 then shut it off.  Placed a pan of boiling water on the rack and placed my dough in the oven to rise.  It's called a moist rising method.  She explains it in the original recipe.    It really works.  Cut the rising time by alot.

Once the dough has risen turn it on to a floured board and roll it out to 1/2 inch thick.  Cut with a donut cutter.  I don't have one so I used two different sized buscit cutters.  I also cut some into bars when i got tired of re-rolling the dough.  It seemed to get more tough the more I handled the dough.

Let the donuts rest for about 15 minutes while you heat up the oil.  Fry in batches for about 60 seconds per side.  I used pwderd sugar and a little hot water to make a glaze and flavored it with vanilla.  We also tried to make a chocolate and a butterscotch glaze but they didn't turn out that great. 

It's a great recipe that I plan to make again.

The Elvis Cookie Sandwich

Oh yes,  sounds weird, but it is really tasty!

A friend at work found a picture of one and showed it to me.   I decided to try to find a recipe. I actually found the recipe her picture came from......  The answer came from   Dudefoods.com

The cookie is like a banana peanut butter cookie with bacon in it.  by themselves, the cookie is really good.  But when you build the sandwich with fresh peanut butter, banana and bacon slices, it takes on a whole new kind of food. 

The cookie recipe is very simple.....

6 strips of bacon cooked crisp and crumbled

1 egg

1/2 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract

3 mashed bananas

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Mix it all up in your mixer and drop on to cookie sheets and bake for 15 minutes at 350.

The recipe makes a TON of cookies  

To make the sandwich take two cookies and spread them with peanut butter, add fresh banana slices and strips of bacon.   It sounds so weird I know you'll just have to try it.  Even if you don't like the sandwich the cookies are really good.

Pizza Balls

Exactly!!

I was inspired to make these when a friend took us to their favorite pizza place.  You could choose any 1 or 2 toppings to put in them and they came 6 in a basket. We would drizzle ranch on them.  My kids loved them!! But they could eat a ton of them....  So guess what???  I figured out how to make them.

I tried it with refrigerater pizza dough the other night and they were good.  Today I decided to use my own homemade pizza dough.  It's dirt cheap to make and tastes great!

Whichever way you decide to try to make them start with a bunch of dough cut into golf ball sized chunks....

Have your pizza toppings ready, garlic, cheese, pepperoni, onions, whatever you like.  Keep it to 1 or 2 plus the cheese.

Flatten your little ball of dough add your toppings and cheese. Wrap up the little guys and pinch to seal. Make sure they are sealed well.

Sounds simple but ther is a little bit of a trick to it.  If you get the dough too thin and don't seal it all the way your toppings will come out of it while it bakes.

Keep the rest of the dough covered while you work so it doesn't dry out.

If you are making some with different flavors be sure to mark them. I put a little green onion on the one with onions in it.

Bake at 450 for about 10 minutes.  Serve hot with ranch dressing to dip with.

I Baked most of mine for only about 4 minutes, cooled then froze. 

 The kids can bake them from frozen for an after school snack, or a quick lunch.

Using my pizza dough recipe I made 36 pizza balls.

Bread Machine Pizza Dough

I have used this recipe for Pizza and Calzones.  It's an easy recipe that comes out great every time.  I love using my bread machine for just the dough cycle.

1 Cup plus 2 Tabelspoons water
2 Tabelspoons olive oil
2Tabelspoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups flour
2 Teaspoons granulated yeast

Place ingredients in order listed in your bread machine. set machine to dough cycle.

When the dough cycle is complete, take the dough out of machine and place in well greased bowl, and roll the dough around so the whole ball is coated in oil.  cover and let rise in warm place for about 1/2 hour.

Knead the risen dough lightly.

At this point shape the dough how ever you want. Family size pizza, Mini Pizza's, or make calzones.  For a crispy crust par bake the dough before adding pizza toppings.  You could also par bake the crust and freeze for later use.   

This particular batch as a specific use.  I'm going to make PIZZA BALLS!!

No Fuss Meatloaf

Everyone hat their favorite meatloaf recipe.

Here's mine!

2 lbs ground beef
2 eggs
1 envelope italian salad dressing mix
2 Cup Bread crumbs

I use my Kitchen aid mixer for this.  No more messy hands and the seasonings get mixed throughout the meat.  Just throw it all in and turn it on....    Shape into a  small casserole dish. (2 lbs won't fit in a loaf pan)   Bake at 350 for 1 hour or until cooked through.

This is a great tastinig simple meatloaf.  I can take the meat out to thaw before work and throw everything together pretty fast.   Serve with twice baked potao casserole  and a green salad for a fantastic comfort food family meal. 

If doing "Freezer Cooking" line casserole dish with Saran wrap and freeze. Once its solid pull out of cassrole dish and wrap to freeze. To cook, unwrap and thaw in cassrole dish.  Bake as directed above

Twice Baked Potato Casserole

Sitting around the fooball field at practice one night I was told about this easy side dish

Boil enough potatos for your family. I always throw in a couple of extra.    If you chunk them before boiling the cooking time is only about 20 min. Drain potatoes.

Hello Kitchen Aid mixer......

Place potatoes in mixer, skins and all

Add  1/4 cup butter

         1/2 cup sour cream

         enough milk to make mashed potao consistancy

Then Load them up with shredded cheddar cheese, crumbled bacon, garlic, onions.  

Just picture a fully loaded baked potato all mixed together.  Place it in a casserole dish and bake until heated through and top is nice and browned.   This dish can easily be made ahead and baked later.