Today's Breakfast

Fresh garden veggies.... great stuff!

So, this morning I fixed veggies sauteed in butter and a hard fried egg fried in the same butter, doctored up after frying, of course.

Sauteed Veggies and Doctored up Fried Egg

1 small to medium sized green tomato
1 small onion
1 medium button mushroom

1 egg
Tomato-Basil Feta Cheese
Sprouts
Salsa  (spicy hot or any type you like) heated in micro-wave until hot.

Salt
Pepper

Slice all the veggies to bite size pieces and saute in melted butter in a skillet. Push over to the side and break an egg into the skillet, break the yolk, and cook until it's done.

Transfer the cooked goodies to your plate making sure the egg lies flat. Now....to doctor up the egg. Sprinkle some of the Feta cheese on one half the egg, add some sprouts, and fold the bare half of the egg to cover. I kinda pressed it down a little bit so it would stay and not flop back open. (STAY egg, STAY! Good egg.) Now, pour the heated salsa over the egg. Salt and pepper all to taste and enjoy!

Hubby pretty much turned up his nose at my breakfast, but then he likes toast for breakfast or waffles or pancakes.

Don't forget the cup of coffee or tea!!  :)

Fresh from the Garden Summertime Cucumber Salad

We tried a garden again down here in the hard clay. It turned out not too badly this time. Although the weeds and grass are slowly taking over now and the deer in the area have now found it. They seem to like the squash leaves, the pepper leaves and the canteloup really well. One of them must not like the actual peppers, found a big bite out of one and the chunck taken out was on the ground along with the pepper. So I cleaned the pepper and our dog, Jackson, got that one. He loves peppers.

So, anyway, we had lotsa cucumbers. They do like to hide beneath those leaves. Salad time...

1 medium cucumber, peeled, sliced lengthwise in quarters, then the quarters sliced.
1/2 onion chopped
1 medium red tomato chopped to small bite size pieces
salt and pepper to taste
dill weed
pomegranite infused red wine vinegar

Mix them all together and taste. Don't make your salad swim in the vinegar, just use enough to coat everything after you stir it all up and then maybe add a little more for good measure. If you need more salt, add it, etc. Cover the bowl and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours before eating. Overnight would be good. Stir to re-mix it all before serving. Hubby liked this pretty well. Happy Chowing Down!!  :)

Garlic Sweet Potato Chips

I tried this really neat recipe I found online, I may have pinned it to Pinterest, too. I will try it again. One statement here, do NOT walk away from the kitchen when these are in the oven. The instructions say 400 degrees, 25 to 30 minutes. I walked away with the timer set at 25 minutes so I could cook them longer if I needed to. There were a few that were still soft and the others were .... I'll call them blackened. Yeah, that's what they were, blackened. Unplanned blackened. LOL Though I had my doubts to begin with for these, the ones that weren't too bad really did tasted good.

Garlic Sweet Potato Chips
by Amie Valpone in Healthy Recipes, 2 Feb 2013  Serves 4

2 large sweet potatoes sliced 1/16 of an inch thick
1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

In a large bowl combine all ingredients: gently toss to combine. Transfer chips to baking sheet.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes at 400 degrees or until crisp. Cool for 20 minutes. Serve.

I put my chips on 2 cookie sheets. I think my next batch will turn out much better, not blackened. I will try it again.

Mush Buns!!!

I have SOOOOO been looking for this recipe on the internet... have not found it. It may be out there someplace, but I haven't found it. My  grandmother would make these when she drove up to visit us in Illinois from Florida when I was a little girl and I could hardly wait for her to make them. I LOVED them. In the 1977 she told me the recipe and I wrote it down and when I made it, it just didn't seem like it was going to turn our correctly, what with the 1 cup of water and 1 cup of corn meal, and maybe other things that weren't quite right. LOL Mind you, I didn't try making them right away, it was YEARS until I was brave enough to do that and by then she was no longer here to where I could ask her what I did wrong.

My sister-in-law found the recipe in her cook book, written in my grandma's hand, and gave it to me today and I HAD to post it here, AFTER I typed it and saved it into my computer in case I lost the paper. :) I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I was a kid. I am gonna have to buy me some white corn meal now. YES!!! :)

Mush Buns

1 qt boiling water 1 scant C white corn meal

1 tsp salt ½ C sugar

1 C shortening 1 pk yeast dissolved in warm water

1 C flour

Add corn meal to boiling water and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and add salt, sugar, and shortening. Let cool and add the dissolved yeast and flour. Let rise then add more flour to make dough stiff enough to knead, but not too stiff. Knead until it does not stick to hands using more flour when necessary. Let rise in greased mixing bowl, covered and placed in warm area until doubled.

Punch down, roll dough out to ¼ inch thickness, cut with large cutter and let rise on greased cookie sheet. Making sure the buns do not touch, bake in 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes or until nice and brown.

Cheater's Guide to Italian Cream Soda

Any of you like cream soda? I do. Go to the store and get a can/carton of cream soda and it is just plain good. One day at a restaurant I tried Italian cream soda. WOA! Now that stuff is GOODER than good!

When I got home I looked up recipes for making it. It isn't hard, but unless you have different flavored syrups and keep cream handy in the fridge, like me, you aren't going to make it too often.

The other day I got to thinkin', which doesn't always turn out well, but this time I think it did. I've been buying seltzer water: it doesn't have any sugar, no fake sugar, no salt, no flavor, just carbonated water. And I have been buying the flavored creamers for my coffee, not the fake creamers, the ones with cream and milk in them. What if..... so I tried it. I put some of my flavored creamer, I think it was the cinnamon one, in a glass and added the seltzer water, stirred gently till well mixed, and it was ... good. A cheat, maybe, but hey! It worked!

So... grab some of your favorite flavored coffee creamers with the real cream and milk in it, add it to some seltzer water to taste, and you're got a fairly decent cream soda!

SALSA!!!

I like salsa. I like mine better than the store bought, but that is just me. LOL I do not put cilantro in my salsa since I don't like it and I don't use hot peppers, either. Call me non-adventurous in the food realm. But, anyone can doctor up a recipe to their liking, I do. LOL

Salsa
1 tomato, peeled or unpeeled
1/2 onion
2 tomatillos
2-3 cloves garlic (to your liking)
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp oregeno
1/2 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp basil
1/2 red pepper
1/2 yellow pepper

Now, chop it all up real fine. I started using the knife to chop it and thought... nah... and I grabbed my food chopper and it got it MUCH finer. Mix it up and dip in with your chips. Hope you like it!  :)

Steak and Brat Stew

Yep... sounds a little... mmmm.. but it's good. IIIIIIII thought so, anyway! Mom and hubby both ate all of theirs and according to Denny if he eats it, it's good. LOL  oh yeah, there are things he takes a few bites of and that's it. Done.

No exact amounts on most things in the recipe; we all know we all change the recipes anyway, and besides, I don't necessarily measure things when I cook.

Steak and Brat Stew

• Steak, cut into bite size chunks
• 1 brat, style of your choice, cut into bite size chunks
• 1 medium onion, cut into chunks
• 1/2 green pepper cut into chunks
• flour for gravy later
• frozen biscuits
• frozen veggies, I used a bag of Santa-Fe Medley
• bay leaf
• salt
• Italian seasoning
• broth

Brown the steak and brat in a dutch oven/soup pot. Add the onions and peppers and broth. I used frozen beef broth and pork broth. Add your seasonings, cover and simmer for two or three hours. About half hour before you plan to serve, add the frozen veggies and bring it up to a boil. Once it starts boiling, drop around 7 or so frozen biscuits into the mixture, cover and cook about ten minutes, uncover and cook ten minutes more.

Once the biscuits are finished mix some flour with milk and pour into your mixture and stir until thickened and cook a little more till the flour is all cooked in well. Now, take it to the table and serve.

I didn't know if the frozen biscuits would work, but I tried it and they worked just fine. I am sooooo glad cause I'm gettin' spoiled with frozen biscuits. My biscuits from scratch are... well... not good. LOL 

Enjoy!!

Steak and Potato Soup

I made some steak and potato soup for lunch today and hubby thought it was great. So did I, and I was thrilled. LOL  No exact proportions to the ingredients, I just toss. lol  I didn't make a whole lot, enough for four servings. I used left over steak and cut off the fatty stuff (cringing, don't like fat) and cut the pieces of steak into small pieces. I also used pork broth I had in the freezer from when I had made a pork roast. I save the broths when I cook meat. I read an article in a magazine about keeping the broth when you cook veggies, too, and think I will do that, too. After cooking the meat I pour the juice into a plastic bowl, put a lid on it and stick it in the fridge. The fat rises to the top and I take that off, rinse it in cold water, and put it into a plastic bag and stick it in the freezer. Beef fat, tallow, can be used to make candles. They are soft so I put them into containers to stay in there. Pork fat, lard, for pies and biscuits.

Have you bought lard in the stores lately? It has hydrogenated oil in it! I was going to buy lard to get away from the hydrogenated junk and low and behold, there it was in the can of lard! That's why I have REAL lard in my freezer in a bag.

Steak and Potato Soup

• Cubed left over steak left 
• Pork broth to fill pan 3/4 full
• Chopped onion
• Chopped red pepper
• White potatoes, peeled or unpeeled, cubed (I used three med sized potatoes)
• Seasonings: salt, pepper, basil, sage, oregano, thyme, celery salt, garlic, rosemary

Throw it all into the pan and cook it till the potatoes are tender. 

We didn't have any leftover soup today. YAYAYAAYAYAAYA  LOL

New Year Soup!

Only because it's the first soup I made in the new year and had to give it a name so hubby would think I got it from a cook book. :::: eyeroll :::: It DID turn out good, even if I didn't get it from a cook book. I won't give exact amounts for the ingredients because I don't know the exact amounts for the ingredients. I don't actually measure, I toss in stuff. Besides, we all know you're gonna change the ingredients anyway. LOL

New Year Soup

• pork broth (I used the broth I saved from roast pork)
• cooked pork, chopped (I used the left over pork from the roast)
• green beans, frozen or fresh
• smoked sausage slices (Johnsonville or other brand works fine)
• onions chopped
• sweet corn, frozen or fresh
• collard greens, frozen or fresh, chopped into small pieces and don't need a lot of this
• cabbage, cut bite sized 
• red pepper chunks
• green pepper chunks
• tomato sauce (I used the small can because I didn't make the normal size big pan of soup)
• salt and pepper
• sage, basil, oregano, rosemary, celery salt, garlic, touch of lavender blossoms, parsley

Toss it all into a pan and cook it up. You may need to add extra water as it cooks. Let it cook for a few hours to blend it. Put it away and heat it up the next day for the BEST flavor, of course, but if you can't wait, go for eating the day you cook it. LOL 

Sugar Free Chocolate Covered Pretzels

This is a trial. A REAL trial and error thing. And I'm trying it right now.

I wanted to make chocolate covered pretzels for Mom, she loves them. She's diabetic, sooooo... I figured I'll just melt some Baker's unsweetened chocolate and add Sugar Twin to it. That's what I'm doing now. Adding Sugar Twin, stirring, tasting, adding, stirring, tasting... I think I went wrong when I used THREE squares of chocolate. What do I know!? I never use the stuff! LOL oh... don't use three squares of chocolate. I think one will work fine. I'm also melting it in a glass bowl in the microwave, which is pretty cool, actually.

Time to go stir some more.

OUCH!  It was hot and it burnt my finger.  Added more Sugar Twin and stuck it back into the microwave for 30 seconds again. I've been heating it at 30 second intervals and stirring so the sweetener will dissolve into the chocolate and not be grainy. All the recipes I found on line have you melting chocolate chips and dipping the pretzel into that. Where is the sense of adventure in that! Besides... the chocolate chips have sugar in them. :)

Ok... gotta go get my STUFF outa the microwave again. Stirred, looking good, stuck it back in for 30 seconds. Sounds redundant, huh, doing it over and over again.  Yep...   Still a little grainy and I am not sticking my finger in there to taste it again. Well, yeah! You gotta wash your finger each time or use a clean spoon each time. geeez... Gotta teach the kids that, too, ya know! lol

Why did I think I could do this!? I can't even make fudge! ROFLOL

Ok, ready or not, let the dipping begin!  WAAAY too much chocolate....  I wonder if this stuff is actually going to set up on the pretzels or if the pretzels will be turning into a drippy, chocolate mess. Only time will tell. I do believe that next time I do this, I will search for a sugar free chocolate bar that is sweetened with a sweetener other than sorbitol (it works like Ex-lax), melt it in the microwave and dip those pretzels in that. Yeah... I think I'll do that.