Sangria!

J & I are going camping this coming week with another couple and we're slim on cash. I hate beer and liquor is so expensive so I decided to make a Sangria to take with us so I and S can have something to drink with the guys. I got the recipe from here and it had many great reviews. I cant wait to try it.


Ingredients:
1 Bottle of red wine (I used Barefoot Merlot b/c Merlot is sweeter)
1 Lemon cut into wedges
1 Orange cut into wedges
1 Lime cut into wedges
2 Tbsp sugar
Splash of orange juice or lemonade (I used OJ NO PULP)
1 Cup of raspberries (I used fresh & will add some blackberries)
1 Small can of diced pineapples (with juice)
4 Cups ginger ale

I poured the Merlot into a pitcher and cut up the orange, lemon, lime, and I added an apple (Golden Del.) Make sure to get as many of the seeds out as you can, you don't want to choke on those bad boys. Major party foul. Add pineapple & juice. Then add the 2 Tbs. of sugar. Mix and chill in the refrigerator. The longer you can let it sit the better :)

Before serving add the ginger ale and berries. Serve over ice if prefer ed.

Delish Porkchops

I always make these when we have pork chops. We love this. It's so simple, easy, and takes no time at all.


Ingredients: -Plus your chops



Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spoon mixture over shops (both sides). Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 15-20mins. Uncover, and bake for about 5-10 more mins.



Serve with your favorite sides. We served it with Lima beans & the blue box mac-n-cheese!

Homemade Strawberry Shortcake

J & I went to his grandma's house the other day and her son had brought back a heap full of fresh picked strawberries. Of course, she gave us a heap. They were Delicious! I pondered on what to make with the ingredients I had on hand. I found this recipe for an old fashion type of shortcake. I read many mixed reviews on it and decided to give it a try. Boy am I glad I did.

Ingredients:
(For the glaze) Chop up strawberries and put in container with 1/2 cup of strawberries. Set aside in the fridge for later.

For The shortcake:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder (Reviews said to cut down to 2Tbsp)
2 tablespoons white sugar (Reviews said to up the sugar to 1/2 cup)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup shortening (I used butter)
1 egg
2/3 cup milk


Directions:
First, preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Grease & flour one 8" round cake pan.

Next mix the dry ingredients: the flour, baking powder, 2 tablespoons white sugar and the salt. Once mixed together place the shortening(or butter) and cut into ingredients. I used a fork but you can use a pastry blender. Blend until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Make a well in the center and add the beaten egg and milk. Stir until just combined.
Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool partially in pan on wire rack. You can slice partially cooled cake in half, making two layers. Place half of the strawberries on one layer and top with the other layer. Top with remaining strawberries and cover with the whipped cream. I just made the cake and sprinkled it with a little powder sugar and sliced as we ate it and topped with strawberries & ice cream.

Chocolaty Cherries Jubilee Cheesecake

Wow, it's been awhile eh? Ive not blogged anything Ive cooked recently for some unknown reason. I thought to myself since I've never done a cheesecake I'll blog about the one I recently was asked to make. My mother saw this recipe in a magazine ( I think it was Women's First) and asked if I would make it for Mothers Day. I said sure I like a challenge and my mom wanted it so off I went to the store to gather the ingredients.

Ingredients:

10 Chocolate wafer cookies (I only found them at Ingles)

1 cup granulated sugar, divided

1/4 cup melted butter

1 envelope (.25g) unflavored gelatin. (I used Knox)

3 Tbs. Cherry-flavored Liqueur (I didn't have any so I used some grenadine & cherry syrup)

10 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted & divided (I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chips)

3 pkgs. (8oz each) Cream cheese, at room temp.

1/2 cup sour cream

1 container(8oz) Cool Whip

1 can (21oz.) Cherry pie filling, drained.

1 8" well greased spring form pan

I forgot to lay out the cream cheese when I got home from the store. So to help move the room temp. along I cut up the cream cheese so the surface area wasn't so large :) Oops

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 Degreed F. In food processor, pulse cookies until they're fine crumbs. The directions said about 20 cookies. Once crumbs are formed stir in 1/2 cup of sugar and the melted butter. Press into the bottom of a WELL GREASED 8" spring form pan. (I totally forgot to grease the pan... and yea it stuck like crazy. I was so nervous about making it turn out right) Bake for 12minutes and let cool.

In a microwave safe bowl, combine gelatin and 1/2 cup water; let sit 2 minutes. Then stir in liqueur. Microwave for about 30seconds or until the gelatin is disolved. Once disolved stir in 8oz melted chocolate.

In a bowl ofelectric mixer (I used my KA Mixer, thankgoodness for this invention) on medium speed, beat the cream cheese for about 1 minute. Add remaining sugar and sour cream. Beat another 1 min. Add gelatin/chocolate mixture and beat 1 min.

Pour batter into prepared crust and chill for 4 hours. Top with whipped topping, melted chocolate, and cherries. Cut, serve, and enjoy. I'm glad this was such a hit. Simple & a great dessert. I'm not a fan of cheesecake but this was pretty good. The Ghiradeli chocolate brought out the flavor of the cherries.

Candies!

I've had these candy molds since our wedding when I was naive and thought I could make a bunch for our wedding.. riiight. Needless to say I made some tonight just to see how they would turn out. Great first trial. I think next time Ill find some strawberry filling or raspberry. I had an assortment of chocolate, white chocolate, both, peanut butter, and a mix of all three! Super easy too!

Dinner With What I Had

Well I went to the store to get stuff to stock up our cabinets (ie: cornbread mix, mac n cheese, can goods, etc) Well I forgot to look to see what I wanted to make for dinner before I went to the store so I could get some special ingredients if needed. Needless to say, this is what dinner consisted of (green beans, chicken, spices, and Kraft Blue Box):

This meal turned out pretty well :) It wasn't like I could mess it up or something. I was a bit nervous because I had never made a pouch out of aluminum foil to cook meat in and I have a hug texture thing with my food. Esp, chicken. If it doesn't even look right I refuse to eat it. J could say it tastes amazing and I still wont touch it. I put lemon pepper, a tad of garlic salt and some lemon zest in the pouch and cooked it on 375 for about 45mins. I also put a little bit of brown sugar in our green beans and it was overall a good meal. J approved.

And this was the final meal. Minus the Mac N Cheese, I don't like it to touch anything else lol.

Farmer's Porkchops

Since J and I were off for two days together I wanted to make a meal we had never tried before. We were tired of chicken and beef recipes so we went with pork! I looked and looked through my recipe books and found this great recipe in Paula Dean's "The Lady & Sons Savannah Country Cookbook". I had never made a white sauce before and was terribly intimidated. I don't know why but I was. Any who this turned out to be a great meal & def. added to the list to make again.

Ingredients:

8 medium potatoes (I used red potatoes)
1/2 medium onion (I omitted this, we hate onions)
Salt & pepper, to taste
White sauce (see recipe below)
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp Lawry's Seasoned Salt
8 center-cut pork chops, about 1/2 inch thick (We used 4)
1/3 cup vegetable oil

White Sauce:

8 Tbsp (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 to 2 tsp salt
1/2 to 3/4 tsp pepper
4 cups milk
1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley or chives (optional)

Directions:
Melt butter; remove from heat. Stir in flour; add salt and pepper.
Return to heat and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture is bubbly.
Add milk, 1 cup at a time. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring frequently.
Reduce heat and simmer 1 to 2 minutes, then let stand at least 1 to 2 minutes.
Stir in parsley or chives, if desired, we didn't desire :)

Directions For Meal:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Peel potatoes; slice 1/4 inch thick and cover with cold water. If you are going to use onions slice them into thin slices & then cut the slices in half. Start the white sauce now so it will be cooking and thickening as you prepare the potatoes in the dish.

You can either use a well-greased 15x10 casserole dish or if you don't have one like me I sprayed Pam into a large 13x9 glass bake ware dish. It was pretty full but never bubbled over the top.

Next, drain potatoes and layer them in the bottom of the desired dish. If you're adding onions place 1/2 over the potatoes and then layer more potatoes and then more onions, etc. Once all of the ingredients are in place salt & pepper them to taste.

Once the white sauce is done and has thickened up quite a bit pour the sauce over the potatoes and place in the oven & bake uncovered for 15 minutes. Start the pork chops by dredging them in the flour/season salt mixture. Lightly fry the chops; however, don't cook them all the way. Once the chops have browned place them directly on top of the potato/white sauce mixture and place uncovered in oven for about 45 minutes. Serve & enjoy!