Roasted Brussel Sprouts

I never in my life thought I'd like brussel sprouts.  Until I made these I don't think I'd ever even tried one.  they just seemed awful.  Of course my mind was changed after watching a cooking show.  I think it was a Paula Dean show.  Anyway, I decided to give it a whirl......  Oh my, they are sooo good!

It all starts with a bowl of these little cabbage things....

Just wash, cut the stems off and split in two.  If they are large I might quarter them.  Do try to get mostly the same size sprouts though so they all cook the same.  Either all big ones or all little ones.

A drizzle of olive oil..... not to soak, just to coat.

Then spread them out on a cookie sheet and sprinkle with kosher salt and lots of black pepper. Mince up about 3 cloves of garlic and sprinkle it on.

Preheat the oven to 400.

Bake them for about 20 minutes until dark brown and crisp.

They turn out almost french fried!

20 lbs of ground beef.

Gotta love the case prices at Sam's club.  Right now ground beef is about 3.00 per pound at the grocery store. at Sam's club today the by the case price was $2.20 per pound. I should mention that I didn't know how many pounds came in a case.  To my suprise it was 80 POUNDS!!!  You definately need some friends to go in on this one with you.  Here's what I did with 20 Pounds of ground beef.

The ground beef at Sam's club comes in 10 lb rolls. Yes, I had 8 of them in my kitchen. Luckly it's not all mine.

First thing I did was make little slits in the plastic so I had 10 equal pieces.  then I cut through the plastic so i has 2 lb increments.  There are 5 of us so I usually use 2 lbs of ground beef when I cook taco's or make meatloaf, so I figured why not just make them all 2 lb pkgs......

The best way to make space in your freezeris to freeze flat.  Ground beef thaws nice and even that way too!  I put each 2 lb piece in 1 lg freezer Ziplock back and flattened it.  I froze them flat in the freezer untill solid then I could stand them up on end to store them.

I ended up with 10 freezer bags of ground beef.  Some of it I will eventually make a batch of meatballs out of for the freezer. When I make burgers to barbeque I won't use the whole 2 lbs so I will cook up what I don't use and store in the freezer for adding to casseroles or making quick spaghetti.  I discovered having  cooked bround beef ready to go really pays off when you forgot to take something out of the freezer for dinner and you are short on time.  $44.00 worth of ground beef boken up into 10 freezer pkgs that should yield 13 family meals.  That's $3.30 in meat for each meal for a family of 5.  Not too shabby!

25 lbs. of Chicken

I've actually been looking forward to this post.  I'm pretty proud of savvy deal.  Did you know that Sam's club sells meat at case prices? If you have a large or extra freezer, it's really worth it. I don't, so I conspired with my mother in law to get this great deal.  Their boneless skinless chicken breasts were $1.97 a lb today in their big pkgs. Work out to about 12-13.00 per pkg with about 10-12 breasts in each one.  If you buy it by the case it's $1.66 per lb.  A case consists of 8 lg pkgs.  I asked the meat guy there to make me a case as close to 50 lbs as possible. He came in at 49.77 lbs.  $82.00 for 50 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts. Split that with my mother in law, roughly $40 a piece.  It took me almost 2 hours but I have about 12-13 meals in the freezer, for about $40.00.  Here's how I broke it all down.

My 25 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts

I took it 1 pkg at a time......

I took each breast and cleaned it (cut off all the yucky white stuff). Then I tried to match up equal sized breasts to keep whole.  I took the smaller ones and sliced them up for either stir fry or fajitas.

I flash froze them on a cookie sheet so I could store them in a large ziplock bag for easy use.

I Should get about 3 meals out of this bag!



I took the whole chicken breasts and packed then in packs of 5. Makes sense since there are 5 of us....

I discovered 1/2 way through that if I turn the breast over it's super easy to separate the little extra piece on the breast and use them for chicken tenders.....

I can fit 2 pkgs in 1 lg ziplock freezer bag. I made 7 meal size pgks of breasts.

 I wish I had thought of that little trick of cutting off the tenders at the beginning of the whole process.  I ended up with 36 chicken tenders flash frozen.



I can use the chicken tenders for kebabs, skillet meals, or just make chicken strips.... Hopefully it will be 3 meals worth. 

The end result...... 13 meals worth of meat for about $40.00. about $3.00 per meal for a family of 5.









Waffle Iron Brownies

There is a little bit of a story behind this recipe.  My waffle iron was given to me by my husband on my birthday the night he proposed.  For basically the sole purpose of making these brownies.  It wasn't untill I had kids that I ever made a waffle in my waffle iron.  The recipe that came with the waffle iron was from my mother in law.  I'm not exactly sure where it came from but OH, MY these are so good.  Not like a traditional brownie but not like a cake either.

1/2 Cup Shortening
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/4 cup flour              
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs beaten
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt

4 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa             
                                             

Mix flour, baking powder, cinnamon,salt and cocoa together and set aside.
blend shortening and brown sugar.  Add the milk, eggs, and vanilla.  Once combined add the dry ingredients, stir till it's all nice and creamy.   Drop by heaping tablespoons on to HOT greased wafffle iron.  I use a cookie scoop.  Close lid and bake untill steam stops comming from waffle iron.  Remove using two forks.  It can be a little tricky till you get the hang of it.  Every waffle iron cooks a little differently.  You want them soft but firm at the same time.  Cool on wire racks. Store in airtight container.

These are so Yummy!

Great with coffee for breakfast.  Use for ice cream sandwiches.  Dust with powdered sugar.  Ha ha or make an ice cream sandwich AND dust it with powdered sugar, then drizzle with chocolate syrup.  YUM! 

They are tasty just plain too.  Good chocolate flavor, not too sweet.  Perfect for that late night snack!

Potato Fans

A parent at soccer practice last week let me look through a cooking magazine.  Big mistake, now I want to try all sorts of things.  I re -created these Potato fans from memory. 

Start with russet potatoes washed
Cut 1/4 inch slice off the bottom edge, so it sits flat.
Place chopsticks or scewers on either side of the potato to guide your knife from not cutting through the potato.  Make cuts every 1/8 inch or so all the way across the potato.  You won't cut through it because of your little sticks stopping the knife.  Rince the potato under water to remove the starch and place them upside down on a microwave safe plate for atout 9 minutes.

Bake in a 400 degree oven until done and skins are slightly crisp.  About 20 - 30 min.

while potatoes are baking bake crumb crusted topping.  I eyeballed it from memory.

1/2 cup softened butter.
1 palmfull of bread crumbs, or crushed croutons
3 cloves of garlic minced
1/3 cup parmesean cheese2 slices cooked crumbled bacon
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese.

the mixture might need more butter depending on howmany ingredients you put in the topping.  You want to be able to mold it on top of the potatos and kinda squish it in between the fans.

Once potatos are done remove from oven and divide topping equally between them.  You might want to let the potatos cool till you can handle them. Smoosh it in top to form a crust.

Place back in the oven and turn it to broil untill they are deep brown.

Definatly going to try these again..  They look like little armadillo's......

Garlic Parmesan Rolls

I love trying new ideas.  These are easy to make and they look so fancy.  I found them at one of my favorite online resources for recipies.  http://www.grocerybudget101.com/  

Here is the original recipe for Garlic Paresan Swirl Biscuits

Mine came out very tasty, light, and flakey.  The kids thought they needed more butter so next time I'll do a little drizzle of butter while they are baking.

Biscuit recipe

2 cups flour

1 T Baking Powder

1  tsp Salt

1 T Sugar

1/4 cup shortening

3/4 cup milk

Mix dry ingredients, then cut in the shortening with a pastry blender or using 2 forks, untill it resembles small crumbs. I get all excited when I get to use my pastry blender.  Mix in the milk to form a soft dough.  do not over mix the dough.

Roll out the dough onto a floured board.  Just like you are making cinnamon rolls.  Top with Garlic filling.

Garlic Filling

1/3 cup melted butter

3 cloves garlic minced

1 T dried parsley

1/3 Cup Parmesean cheese

Roll up lengthwise and slice 1 inch thick.  Place on cookie sheet  with sides touching eachother and bake at 425 for 10-12 minutes, or till golden brown.  I will brush with additional melted butter when they come out ov the over.  Just because we love butter!

Scotch Eggs.......every Easter morning.

A few years ago I was researching heritage recipies for one of the kids school projects.  We discovered Scotch Eggs....  a great way to use up those hard boiled eggs from Easter.  It's become a family tradition to make them every Easter morning for breakfast.  They are a bit labor intensive to make but I only make them once a year.   A breaded sausage encrusted hard boiled egg that's been deep fried.

                                                                              
                                                  
Peel 8 hard boiled eggs
We use 1 lb of  bulk sausage. (Jimmy Dean is our favorite)
Divide sausage into 8 equal portions
Flatten each portion and encase your egg.  It's a little tricky but a dry egg and slightly wet hands work well.  Try to even out the sausage so you don't have thick spots.  Roll the sausage covered egg in bread crumbs.
Once they are all done heat up your oil for deep frying.  Fry them  untill deep brown.
 Serve with Maple Syrup. 



Onion Strings Oh My!

While surfing the internet I came across a recipe for Onion Strings .  Great article and it's an entertaining read.  I often buy buttermilk for recipies so I'm always looking other ways of using it up before it goes bad.  This one is definately a new favorite.  The kids gobbled them up.

Picture these piled up on top of a steak or a great cheesburger. 

They are also great just by the handful....

Peel, then clice 2 yellow onions paper thin.  And I mean Paper thin!!

Separate rings and soak in 2 cups Buttermilk.  Press them in the dish so they are all touching the milk.

Soak for at least 1 hour.

Heat Oil for deep frying to 350 degrees.

In a bowl mix 2 cups flour

1 T salt

1 T cayenne pepper

2 T black pepper

Using Tongs grab some onions and dredge them in the flour mixure.  a fork actually works pretty good because you don't want them to clump together.    Shake off excess flour and plunge into hot oil.  They only take a few minutes to turn golden brown.  Remove and place on paper towels to cool. Repeat with the rest of the onions.  I'm not kidding these things are so good!