Category Archives: Food

Pioneer Women’s Pork Shoulder

After seeing Pioneer Womens’ Slow cooked Pork shoulder I had to try it…

 

Ingredients:

A 5-7 pound Pork Shoulder Roast
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1/4 cup brown sugar
3-4 peeled garlic cloves
1 onion quartered
1-2 Tablespoons salt
ground black pepper
2 Tablespoons white wine vinegar
1-2 tablespoons olive oil

Blend all ingredients except the Pork shoulder (duh!) Rub this blended mush all over the Pork.

Place in Dutch Oven and cover every part of the Pork with the mush. Stuff into every nook and cranny. Add a couple cups of water and cook at 300 degrees for several hours turning once every hour. After 6-7 hours crank up the heat remove lid, turn roast fat side up for 15-20 minutes. Let rest 20 minutes before shredding. Serve with limes and tortillas.

 

I put this in the oven early on a Sunday morning. I left it in while we were at church so I didn’t turn it during those couple of hours. When we got home I cranked up the heat and let it cook for the last 20 minutes. We let it sit while we chopped up all the extras we decided to have with it. We shredded it and served it with tortillas and all these toppings. Yummy. We served 6 for the first go around and the rest of the meat lasted us for lunches and snacks for a few days.

I will make this again for sure!

Fruit Pizza

 

I found this simple recipe for Fruit Pizza on Bernideen’s Tea Blog and decided to make it for a get-together we were invited to. I’ll give you the original recipe and also give you some options that I decided to try.

 

The mix, the sticky dough in the pan, the baked dough and the cool whip with pudding mixed in…

Ingredients:

1 pkg. Yellow Cake Mix
1/4 Cup Water
2 eggs
1/4 Cup butter
1/4 Cup brown sugar
1/2 Cup chopped nuts
I large carton of Cool Whip
Assorted Fruit pieces

Mix together cake mix, water, eggs, butter, sugar and nuts until stiff. I think because my cake mix was a variety with pudding in it the dough was sticky and not real stiff but it was still spreadable. Spread into a buttered and floured pan. You can use 2 round pans or I used a large rectangular pan. I also sprayed the pan with the baking spray with flour in it. (lazy) Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes but watch carefully because it might bake faster and you want it to be golden brown not dark brown :0)

Cool completely and then spread with coolwhip and cover with fruit of your choice. I used blueberries, blackberries, and peaches that were frozen and peaches that were fresh.

 

Instead of using straight cool whip I mixed the cool whip with a box of instant vanilla pudding to make it stiffer. Next time I think I’ll first make the pudding according to the package instructions and fold it into the cool whip or whip cream and see how that works…

 

You can make this look a lot prettier and arrange the fruit more creatively. Enjoy the possibilities…

 

Thanks Bernideen for this fun, easy recipe!

I auto posted this for Saturday morning because Dear and I got up bright and early to hit the road from Seattle to Camarillo today. I’ll be brain dead for at least a couple days after we arrive late Saturday night. Hope you all have wonderful summer weekend!

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site and have replaced my photos with black and grey boxes of ugliness. I’m slowly deleting those boxes from my blog and trying to update so many posts, very frustrating.

 

Easy Ground Beef Stroganoff

 

I started making this easy meal years ago when my kids were little. They still enjoy it as adults. It’s a great meal in a pinch. Easy to have all the ingredients handy. The original recipe is from The Better Homes and Garden New Cook Book (1970 version). I made it easier than their recipe and something my kids would eat and like.

1 lb. hamburger
1 medium onion diced
1 clove garlic minced
1- 10-1/2 oz. can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1/2 Cup Sour cream
2 tablespoon Catsup
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
Noodles – Cooked in salted boiling water

Saute onions in a little olive oil till they are soft. Add meat and garlic and cook till meat is done. Combine remaining ingredients except sour cream and noodles and add to meat.  Heat through. Then mix in sour cream and heat but do not boil.

Serve over noodles. I mix the noodles and the meat mixture all together in the pot.

 

Enjoy with something green!

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage on their site and have replaced my photos with black and grey boxes of ugliness. I’m slowly deleting those boxes from my blog and trying to update so many posts, very frustrating.

Slow Cooked Brisket

Barbecue Brisket

This is a great recipe for a crowd!

1 (5-pound) brisket
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks celery, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup chili sauce
1 cup water
1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1 (10-ounce) bottle of beer
Fresh parsley

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Wash and dry the brisket, cutting away most of visible fat.
Sprinkle the brisket with salt, pepper and paprika.
Place the brisket, fat side up, in a heavy baking pan. Surround with the onions, celery and garlic.
Pour chili sauce on top of the brisket.
Slowly pour the water into the pan around the brisket. Sprinkle with the parsley.

Bake, uncovered, for 1 hour. Remove from oven and pour the beer over the brisket.
Do this slowly so it doesn’t wash off the chili sauce.
Cover the brisket and cook 3 hours longer or until tender.
Cool to room temperature. Place in refrigerator.
Remove any accumulated fat from the top.
Slice and reheat in the sauce.
Garnish with a sprinkling of fresh minced parsley.

Yield: 10 servings.

This recipe is from That’s My Home Free Recipes – Cattleman’s Barbecue Sauce

We served ours after baking it for 5 hours without refrigerating it. We cut it across the grain and shred it before serving also. We served it along with BBQ Sauce.

We also provided Potato Rolls for anyone who wanted to make it into a BBQ Sandwich. Yummy!

This is my big turkey roaster I cooked 2 – 5# briskets in here and all the extras fit in around them well for the baking time.

So the next party you have invite a crowd and let them bring the extras to go with the brisket. It will make for an easy breezy fun party for the hostess and guests!

May I Recommend…

There’s a wonderful new food blog that was started by Lovella from What Matters Most. It’s a group effort from Mennonite and other gals who post wonderful recipes to share with bloggy world.

The blog is called Mennonite Girls can Cook.

Check it out, you won’t be disappointed. Just look at those images at the top of this post that come from this site. Yummy!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

Pasta Salad ~ Take One

Dear and I are going to be helping cater a rehearsal dinner for 70 people so I decided to start experimenting with Pasta Salad.

The ingredients I chose this time are Farfalle pasta, persian cucumbers, grape tomatoes, fresh basil, red onion, Perlini (small little round fresh mozzarella balls, and Wish Bone Robusto Italian Dressing.

Here’s what the Perlini look like in their container. And here’s what they look like drained and ready to be mixed in with the rest of the chopped ingredients.

I boiled the Farfalle in generously salted water, then rinsed and cooled them off while I prepared the rest of the ingredients.

All the ingredients mixed together.

 

The salad in a pretty bowl.

 

We tried it last night for dinner and it’s a keeper. Anyone free tonight because there’s way too much for us to eat. That’s the problem with experiments…

Scroll on down for the Italian Wedding Cookie Recipe…

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

Smashed Potatos are Good!

 

We had some very interesting guests for dinner last night and we wanted to feed them something special so I decided to try Pioneer Woman Cooks’ Smashed Potato recipe she shared this week. To go with the potatos we had a marinated flank steak and a Fiesta Salad. Here’s my attempt with the smashed potatoes.

 

First boil red potatos in salted water till you can pierce them with a fork. Then put them on a olive oiled sheet pan and smash them with a potato masher. Mine look different from Pioneer woman’s because she had the older fashioned potato masher.

 

After smashing them brush them with olive oil and salt them with Kosher salt liberally. Sprinkle pepper on them and a finely minced herb of your choice. Pioneer Woman and I used rosemary. Then stick them in a 450 degree oven for 20-25 minutes.

They were delicious and even the little rabbit really enjoyed them. He mostly went for the rosemary.

 

Then because these were very special guests we served a fresh strawberry pie for dessert. Yum…

It was fun to change identities during the evening. Even the beloved stuffed dog got a new face.

My guests were my niece Michelle (the Lion), her husband Ryan (the Bear) and my great nephew Jack (the Rabbit).

Do try these potatos, you won’t be disappointed. You can boil the potatos ahead of time then get them ready to pop in the oven 20 or so minutes out from serving time. Oh and because we are big fans of garlic I’ll add garlic next time.

Have a wonderful day!

Photobucket is holding all my photos I stored with them from 2007-2015 hostage. They have blacked out all those photos on my blog posts. OH BOTHER! I’m slowly cleaning up my posts.

Recipe Round Up ~ Sandwiches

Italian Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Sauteed Zucchini

I saw Rachel Ray make something similar to this and I didn’t write down the ingredients but played it by ear to recreate something similar.

 

For the sandwich I used fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and basil. Any bread you like will probably be fine. I used a white farmers bread.  I cut the crusts off. I layered cheese, fresh tomatoes and fresh basil on a slice of bread then topped it with another slice. I heated a large frying pan with olive oil dipped each sandwich in the egg and milk mixture and then set the egg coated sandwich in the pan.

 

When browned on one side I flipped it over and browned the other side. Rachel Ray served something similar (she used sun-dried tomatoes and cut her bread in circles) and served it with some sauteed zucchini. Here’s how I made my zucchini.

 

Cut zucchini, drop into pan heated with olive oil. Salt and pepper well. Cut a bunch of scallions and add them to the zucchini. Grate or press a couple cloves of garlic over the zucchini. When the zucchini is done add some grated Parmesan on top. (I think Rachel Ray added some chopped parsley to the dish also).

Enjoy! For more Sandwich recipes head over to Dorothy’s at Field Stone Cottage.

For my Calzone Recipe that I posted earlier this year click here.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

ABC Wednesday ~ M is for…

 M is for Mariachis, Mexican Food, and Margaritas.

Mariachi is a type of musical group, originally from Cocula, Jalisco, Mexico. Usually a mariachi consists of at least three violins, two trumpets, one Mexican guitar, one vihuela (a high-pitched, five-string guitar) and one guitarrón (a small-scaled acoustic bass). They dress in silver studded charro outfits with wide-brimmed hats. The original Mariachi were Mexican street musicians or buskers. Many mariachis are professional entertainers doing paid gigs in the mainstream entertainment industry. Professionals are normally skilled at more than one instrument, and they also sing.

 

Some of our Mexican Restaurants in Southern California have Mariachis strolling around the restaurant taking requests for songs to play and sing.

This Mariachi group played at my nephews wedding

I was born and raised in the East Los Angeles area of Southern California. The Mexican culture (these days if you are politically correct called “Hispanic” not “Mexican”) was all around me. We celebrated Mexican holidays at my elementary school, took field trips to Olvera Street in Los Angeles where the culture was further introduced to us. I have always enjoyed Mexican Food. There isn’t a Mexican restaurant in the Southern California area that calls itself Hispanic that I know of. They still all refer to themselves as Mexican restaurants.

 

Our favorite Mexican Restaurant in the Camarillo Area is El Tecolate. In Mexico El Tecolote means the Owl. Mexican Restaurants always serve chips and salsa at your table when you arrive. Sometimes we order guacamole to go with the chips too. Guacamole is a dip made with mashed avocados and other ingredients.

They have decorated the restaurant with many different types of owl “art”. This is just a fraction of the Owls you’ll see inside.

 

They serve your typical Mexican food here and other interesting dishes that are unique to this restaurant.

This is an open tamale

Carnitas (slow cooked pork) is another Mexican favorite. So yummy…

There are some Mexican restaurants that still hand make their tortillas. The restaurant where this Mexican lady is making tortillas is in Venice Beach, California (a district of Los Angeles).

 And last but not least I leave you with a Margarita which is a classic Mexican Tequila and lime drink! You can have the double, I’m fine with the single.

We prefer ours on the rocks. A lot of people like the blended variety that gives you a brain freeze on your first sip. Muchas Gracias for visiting my M post mi amigos y amigas.

For more ABC Wednesday visit Mrs. Nesbitt.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and they have blacked them all out. I’m slowly working at restoring my posts without their help. Such a tiresome bother!

Decor-a-Tea ~ More Pink…

This is a follow-up to my Pink Tea collage with some larger photos. I’ve posted these before in 2007 but wanted to re-post them for the Decor-a-Tea theme.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage. I’m working on updating my blog posts very slowly.

 

 

 

 

 

My next Decor-a -Tea post will be Blue!

Oops! Sorry ladies I just read LaTeaDah’s weekly themes a little more carefully and see that my tea tables could have waited till May. I’ll share my Vintage Blue tea table then and my Tea for One in that week, too. Now to follow the directions and stop jumping the gun! 🙂

For more tea posts visit our Gracious Hostess LaTeDah.