Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Easy Trick to Cutting a Bell Pepper

Anyone watch Chuck Hughes' show Chuck's Day Off?! It is amazeballz! I recently watched an episode where he diced up a bell pepper. Big whoop right? Well it turns out I have been doing it all wrong! 


Lop off the top and bottom


Cut down a side


Slice through all the membranes and completely remove all the guts of the bell pepper in one whole chunk. Pretty slick, huh?!


Slice and dice as you see fit

For those of you smarty pants that already figured this method out...quit laughing!

For the rest of you, try this ASAP soooo much easier than cleaning up all those pesky seeds.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Hot Apple Cinnamon Cider

My Brother-in-Law made this cider at a family get together at my Aunt's cabin in Ruidoso, NM. The hubby immediately fell in love with it as it contained a powerful kick of his favorite spice CINNAMON! I swear he is obsessed check out a list of his favorite goodies on this post if you don't believe me. As every good wifey knows when your honey expresses interests in someone else's dish you better get that recipe!




Ingredients:
  • 1 gallon of your favorite apple juice
  • 1 lb bag of Brach's cinnamon hard candy (you can use another cinnamon hard candy like red hots)
  • ~3 cinnamon sticks
  • pinch of cloves
Instructions:

Add all of your ingredients to a large pot over medium-med high heat. Make sure to stir frequently to keep the candies from sticking to the bottom of the pot. Once the candy has dissolved you are ready to serve. Be aware the cinnamon flavor deepens as it sits so if you love cinnamon leave it in if not remove the sticks and cloves.

Saturday, January 19, 2013

Lemon Bundt Cake

"There is a hole in this cake". Every time I see a bundt cake I think of the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. My latest bundt sighting occurred at the in-laws. I then proceeded to recite the scene from MBFGW to my Mother-in-Law. Chick flicks didn't really make it to movie night with raising a boy so I have taken it upon myself to catch her up. Real selfless of me to veg on the couch watching girly feel good movies dontchya think?!

This lemon bundt cake was such a delightful treat and the citrus glaze has such a bright amazing tang to it. 



Cake Ingredients:
  • 1 pkg yellow cake mix
  • 2/3 C vegetable oil
  • zest of 1/4 of a lemon
  • 2/3 C hot water
  • 4 eggs
Cake Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bundt pan and then lightly dust with flour. Mix all of the ingredients until well blended. Place in center of oven and bake for ~ 40 minutes until lightly browned.
Let cool 10 minutes.

Glaze Ingredients:
  • 1 C sifted confectioners' sugar 
  • 4 T fresh lemon juice 
  • 3 t lemon zest
Glaze Instructions:

Combine ingredients until smooth. Remove cake from pan and drizzle glaze on top. Slice and enjoy! 

**This recipe is adapted from the “The Cake Mix Doctor” by Anne Byrn.**

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cookies

Matt has graduated! Woo Hoo!! My hubby officially has Bachelor degrees in Political Science and Psychology. He is currently applying to Clinical Psychology Doctoral Programs (PsyD) all over the U.S., it will be a fun adventure. In the meantime my new semester has started and Hubby has gone a little stir crazy. The other night I came home to these magnificent chocolate chip pumpkin cookies.



He used his Momma's recipe and man oh man are they good!
Ingredients:
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 C vegetable oil
  • 1 (16 oz) can pumpkin
  • 2 tsp milk
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 2 C sugar
  • 4 C flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 4 tsp cinnamon
  • 1 (12 oz) pkg chocolate chips (we prefer the larger chips)
Instructions:

Combine sugar and oil. Stir in pumpkin, milk, vanilla, and eggs. Blend well. Sift flour with dry ingredients and add to creamed mixture. Fold in chocolate chips. Drop by teaspoon or small ice cream scoop onto cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake at 375 degrees for ten minutes or until done. Makes ~ 6 dozen cookies.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Game Day Chili

My dad came in town from AZ to give my baby brother ("baby" meaning gigantic younger brother that towers over me) a new car!

Whenever he is in UT we have family bonding time over good food at his buddy Yaz's house. They became friends flying F-16s in the Air Force and have remained so ever since. 

Usually my dad is the cook but Yaz whipped out the big guns for this visit and hit a home run with Cooks Illustrated's Our Favorite Chili.
Doesn't that look AMAZING?! 
You remember a fore mentioned "baby" brother?
 
Yeah he thought it was pretty dang good too.
This was his fourth bowl...
I only had one.
Next time I vote he gets his own pot.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Guest Blogger: Lisa from Letting It All Hangout


 Hey everyone! My friend Lisa from Letting It All Hangout has graciously agreed to share one of her yummy recipes with us. She is a fellow wife and momma to not only two puppydawgs but also two of the cutest lil munchkins you could ever meet!

Psole Recipe:
I have to say my husband (who is Mexican) is pretty picky when it comes to Mexican food because he grew up on his grandma's cooking and she's an excellent cook! So when I was given this amazing recipe for the yummy soup, Psole, I jumped at the opportunity to see how good it was. Turns out this is such an easy recipe and tastes amazing!!! The best part is that it makes enough for leftovers!

What you'll need:

Serving 4-6 people

Prep Time: 30-45 mins             Cook Time: 1-2 hours

1 family pack of porkchops (bone in or boneless both work)/ if you don't like pork chicken also works with this recipe
1 15oz or 8oz can of tomato sauce
2 chicken bullion cubes
2 garlic cloves minced or garlic powder works great too
6-8 anahiem peppers
1 dried red pepper
1 medium can of Hominy
1 Bay leaf


1. Brown your meat, then cube your meat and put into crock pot or a big pan. Add a little bit of water enough to cook the meat until tender. Add 1 chicken bullion cube, the bay leaf and 1 clove of garlic into the pan to help flavor the meat.

2. While the meat is cooking, roast your peppers. I don't have a grill or a special pan I just turn on my oven to a low broil and put the peppers on the top rack until they the skin starts to look brown, then I rotate to get that affect over the entire pepper. It doesn't have to be 100% brown but roasted. Once I get the look I want I take the peppers out and put them in cold water and remove the top lay of the pepper. I just use my fingers and runthem over the peppers you'll notice the skin will start to peel off a little bit.

3. Once the peppers are skinned then cut the top off and de-seed it if you don't want it too spicy. Keep the seeds for a little more kick. Put all the peppers into a blender. Next add in the tomato sauce, other garlic, and chicken bullion cube. Add the dried red pepper and blend all together. (The dried red pepper also adds a kick to the soup if you need it a little less spicy I wouldn't add it in.)

4. Once the meat is cooked add the sauce you made in the blender to the pan. Then add the can of hominy. Mix and cook on low-medium heat for about an hour-2 hours depending on how long you want to wait.

That's it!  This is really one of the easiest meals I have ever made.

To really make it good you'll also want to add the toppings.

It's traditionally served with chopped up cabbage or lettuce and a combination of diced onions and cilantro. Add both of those on top of the soup and it tastes even better!

The best part about Mexican cooking is that the spiciness is really in your hands. This recipe above gives it just enough of a kick that you're not sweating as you eat it.  So I encourage you to really play with it and fine tune it to your liking.

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Do you like your bacon crispy?

I love Love LOVE bacon. Who doesn't?

Growing up bacon was a bit of a bone of contention in our house. 
 Crispy vs Soft.
 I am Team Crispy all the way none of that limp fatty stuff for me!

An unfortunate side effect of being Team Crispy is shrinkage. I have never been able to get a crispy strip of bacon without it coming out half the size of the piece I started with. 
Until, I met my father-in-law who introduced me to this lil beauty.

As you can see Titan knows that the Power Crisp means bacon.

 He is so sweet to selflessly give up his free time to come supervise my bacon making skills.

I really did have every intention of taking a shot of the crispy bacon on a plate so you could clearly see the lack of shrinkage but between the Power Crisp and the plate the pieces disappeared. 
Hubby or Puppy?