How to make a beef pot roast in a Crock Pot!

Here’s how I make my roast in a crockpot (otherwise known as a slow cooker)…with a short disclaimer. I typically would be using 1 lb of carrots and about 4-5 potatoes cut up in the Crock Pot with my roast. This particular time; though, I used a full 2 lbs of carrots and did the potatoes on the stove to make mashed potatoes. You may also add an onion, cut into wedges or pearl onions-we just don’t care for chunks of onion in our food.

So let’s get started.
In my previous post, you saw how I peel my carrots (and potatoes are done the same way), so we’ll start with my already peeled carrots:

Cut once, and lined up for the next cut.

Each carrot is cut into thirds. I do this because I’m going to be cooking this low and slow for a long time, and I don’t want mushy little carrot coins when the roast is done cooking! You can do any shape you’d like, really, I just find this easier than making a million cuts. Just remember the smaller the piece of food, the faster it cooks, and the larger it is, the longer it will take to cook.

My 2 lbs of carrots in the crock pot.

I mix up a spice blend, b/c I like to rub it into the roast before searing. *Note: That was the closest recipe I could find to what I use for a spice rub. Searing is entirely optional, by the way. It’s something I do, lots of people don’t and if you don’t want to, you can just skip the whole searing section of this post.

The roast after the spices have been rubbed on:

Next, I put a touch of olive oil (or regular oil is fine, too) in a pan and turn it on medium-high heat. Once the pan is hot, but not quite smoking, I put the roast in the pan, and sear the roast for 30 seconds on each side. Just long enough to get a nice brown coat on it.

The roast in the crock pot with the carrots (this would be the time to add those onions and potatoes-cut into quarters):

Next, I simply add enough beef broth and water to cover the roast and veggies (2-3 cups of broth, 2-3 cups of water), and add whatever spices sound good (onion powder, garlic powder, seasoning salt, pepper, Italian seasoning  a touch of cayenne):

And put the lid on, turning the Crock Pot on low. It will cook for 10 to 12 hours on low. You can usually go ahead and eat it in 8 if you need to, but the longer you cook it the more tender it will become.

There is no need to stir…that’s the beauty of a slow cooker!

Once the roast is done, you can take out your carrots (and onions and potatoes) and put them in separate bowls:

Take your roast out and put it on a platter:

Now would be the time to use the broth/juices in the crock pot to make gravy if that is your desire. I’m sorry I don’t have a tutorial on the gravy just yet, but it’s coming.

And finally, serve to your happy family!

Mom’s Best Cake Recipe and Picture Tutorial

I have no idea where Mom found this recipe, but she had it as long as I can remember, and I haven’t found the same recipe anywhere online by the same name or ingredients…so you’re just going to have to trust me on this one. It is named Best Cake for a reason. Not only is it very tasty and incredibly moist, but it is one of the easiest cake recipes I’ve ever seen (that doesn’t include a boxed mix)!

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, cake baking isn’t my specialty. Cake decorating? No problem. Cupcakes I can do, but most non-box-mix cakes just fall on me-terribly! This one is almost flawlessly executed every time…and it’s even helped me place at a church cooking contest, so I can assure you it is worth the tiny bit of effort it takes to prepare it!

First, the recipe:
Mom’s Best Cake

2 c. flour
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking soda
2 c. crushed pineapple (juice and all)
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. plus 1/4 c. pecans, chopped (save the 1/4 c. for decoration)
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9×13 pan (metal or glass will work). Mix all ingredients together, pour into pan. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes. (Cake will turn from white cake-colored batter to a chocolate cake color during baking, this is normal.)

Frosting:
2 1/2 c. confectioner’s sugar
1 stick butter or margarine, softened (shortening will work, too)
1 8oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
Cream butter and cream cheese together, add vanilla and confectioner’s sugar. Mix well until creamy-about 2 minutes.
Ice the cake in pan while still warm. Sprinkle pecans over the top for decoration. (Note: if you don’t like super-sweet cream cheese icing, try using 2 packages of cream cheese, and leave the rest of the ingredient amounts the same.)

Now for the tutorial:

If you didn’t buy already chopped pecans (which I typically do, but not this time), then you are going to need to chop the pecans into small pieces. That’ll take them from this:

To this:

Then it’s time to grease and flour the pan. Start with some shortening or margarine in the pan:

Wrap your fingers in a paper towel like I do, or just use your fingers to spread the shortening around the pan evenly. Be sure to cover the bottom, sides, and corners well.

Once you’ve done this, grab some flour and toss it into the pan:

Pick up the pan and gently tap it on one side, angling the pan so that the entire bottom of the pan is covered in flour. (The flour will stick to the shortening.) Once the bottom is covered, tilt the pan on one of its’ sides (do this over the sink or a trashcan to avoid a mess) and contine tapping and tilting until you’ve covered the entire inside of the pan with flour. Tap the non-sticking remaining flour into a garbage can, and you’re done with the greasing and flouring. Your pan should look something like this:

Measure out your pineapple, being sure to include the juices. To accomplish this, I spoon the pineapple and juice into the measuring container. This recipe will use almost all of a 15 oz. can of crushed pineapple, but not quite-so do measure it:

Measure the remaining ingredients (careful to reserve 1/4 cup of the pecans for decoration later) and throw them all in the bowl. Order does not matter in this cake, I promise!

Mix until thoroughly combined. Batter will be thinner than a cake mix usually is, so don’t panic. It should look something like this:

Pour the batter into the pan, and it should level itself out pretty nicely b/c of its’ thin nature:

Put the pan in the oven and bake the cake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees. The cake will darken during baking, so don’t panic. It’s not burnt, really:

While the cake is baking, you want to be sure to set out the cream cheese and butter/margarine on the counter to soften. I usually just toss them both in the mixer to soften:

Once the cake is out of the oven, you may begin creaming the butter and cream cheese together:

Then add in your vanilla and confectioner’s sugar:

Mix until creamy…about 2 minutes should do it. Then it’ll look like this:

While the cake is still warm, spoon the icing onto the cake and spread with a spatula:

Be sure to get the icing to the edges of the pan:

For a final touch, sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of chopped pecans over the cake in a random pattern. Serve warm or cold…either way is good, but nothing beats that first warm piece of Mom’s Best Cake!

How to Make a Baked Potato!

To some, this is the simplest thing in the world…anyone can bake a potato, right? Well, not so much. When I was in my first apartment, trying to teach myself to cook for the first time…I was completely and totally lost on such a simple thing. And I didn’t have internet at home to just pop on and figure it out. In this day and age, though, most anyone can get to a library at least to learn about such things, and I thought I’d post a very short tutorial on this simple procedure. This method was adapted from the way several steakhouse-type restaurants make them, so if your potatoes at home never taste as good as the ones at the steakhouse, try this!

First, you wash the potato, and place it on a paper towel:

Wrap the potato in the paper towel to dry it:
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Place a half-pat of butter (about 1 teaspoon’s worth) on the potato and put the potato on a square of foil, discarding the paper towel.
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Use your fingers to rub the butter all around the potato till it is fully coated, and sprinkle sea salt on it if you’d like:

Fold the foil towards you, over the potato:

Pull the ends of the foil in towards the center of the potato, and roll the potato until it is covered by the foil:

Form the foil tightly around the potato:

Now bake it at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour, OR 400 degrees for 45 minutes, OR 300 for 90 minutes. And now you can enjoy your baked potato topped with whatever you’d like! I personally am a fan of the broccoli, cheese sauce, and bacon bits approach, but a potato is good with just about anything on top!

What to do with a whole pork loin…

There are several options for dealing with a whole pork loin, but there are 3 ways that are my favorites.

Preparation One: Trim fat, use a rub on it, cook it whole, low and slow in the oven. (325 degrees for about two hours for a 5 lb loin)

BTW, my roast rub is much simpler: garlic powder, onion soup mix or onion powder mixed with beef boullion, salt, pepper, italian seasoning…but I don’t use a specific recipe, thus the link above to another popular rub recipe.

Preparation Two: As a pork roast, often in combination with a beef roast, b/c they flavor each other nicely. Pretty much the same rub as above. I like to sear and then dry roast mine, but you can add a couple cups of broth or soup to the pan or toss the whole roast and veggies in a crockpot with liquid. Of course flavor with what sounds good. When making pork roast, I often go with the above mentioned spices plus celery seed, a touch of sage, parsley, and thyme.

Beef and pork roast, rubbed, seared and ready for the oven:

Preparation Three: Boneless pork chops! I typically do these on the griddle or grill for a fast cooking method that gets dinner on the table quickly.

I’m going to get some more pictures together for each of these methods later, but for now, I’ll show you how to break it down for Prep Two and Prep Three:

Whole Pork Loin trimmed and cut in half for a roast:

The other half sliced into thick-cut pork chops:

I put these chops on freezer paper on a cookie sheet to freeze them individually (so they don’t stick together when frozen), then once they were solidly frozen, I tossed them in a freezer bag, labeled them and put them back in the freezer for another day:

Please don’t be intimidated with a whole pork loin, it’s really quite easy and very versatile. 10 minutes of prep and you’ve got the makings of several meals already!

How to make Biscuits and Sausage Gravy…Part Two:Sausage Gravy!

As mentioned in the Biscuit Post, Sausage Gravy is not only one of my favorite things to make, but one of the few things I learned directly from my mother. Most sausage gravy recipes are pretty much the same, with slight variations here and there, but the most obvious difference between the flavor of different sausage gravies is not in the spices used, the method of preparation, or anything like that, but in the sausage used to make it. The sausage used makes such a difference in flavor, b/c different sausage companies use various spices in their sausage to make it their own. Even my own sausage gravy varies from location to location because the best sausage rolls are usually locally-produced and therefore aren’t available country-wide.

When I lived in Missouri, the best sausage EVER was Oldham’s…I have relatives that live in other parts of the country and still go to Missouri with an empty ice chest just to bring back loads of that stuff. Nothing compares…nothing. And with that particular brand, the key to awesome sausage gravy was mixing the hot sausage with the medium sausage-and the result was perfection.

Now that I’m in Ohio, this is Bob Evan’s country, and I have to say, while overall I’m not a huge Bob Evan’s Restaurant fan, their Biscuits and Gravy can’t be beat in this area of the country! So, when trying to replicate their lovely breakfast dish, I now use Bob Evan’s original sausage. When we move somewhere else, I’ll have to find a new local company to love, b/c I’ve never been a fan of Jimmy Dean’s flavor (or price) and Odom’s Tennessee Pride pretty much makes me sick. So it’s like a new adventure to find the sausage that is best in YOUR area and use it for making sausage gravy!

Sausage gravy is fairly simple if you just understand the concept of a roux-based gravy. A roux is when you mix hot fat (in this case sausage fat, bacon fat, butter, or oil) with flour-in equal amounts, mix it up, cook it a little, and then add liquid (in this case milk) to it, bring to a boil stirring constantly (to keep it from sticking) and then when it reaches a boil, the roux will magically make your gravy thicken. So, knowing this is how it works, let’s get started.

First we need to cook our sausage. I just put it in the pan over medium heat and break it up with a metal spatula (metal b/c it breaks it up better) as it cooks. Partially cooked sausage breaks up more easily than raw sausage, so this is why I use this method. Some prefer to break it up with their hands, and that’s fine, too:

After you’ve broken it up into crumbles, it will look something like this:

Continue breaking it up during cooking, and cook until it is no longer pink-this picture is almost done:

Once the sausage is no longer pink, it is essentially done, and you can push the sausage to one side of the pan (or some people like to remove it completely from the pan, but if you do this, leave the fat from the sausage in the pan), and tilt the pan allow the grease to drain to the opposite side as the sausage:

Estimate the amount of sausage fat in the pan…if you are using a particularly lean sausage (like Bob Evans) you may not have enough grease to make a roux. You’ll need approximately two whole Tablespoons of fat to make it work. If you have too much fat, drain off what you don’t need. If you don’t have enough/any grease, you can add a Tablespoon of bacon grease, butter, or cooking oil if you are really desperate. Just make sure you have at least two tablespoons of the grease, and add an equal amount (2 tablespoons) of flour to the fat. Reduce heat to low.

At this point, you can add salt and pepper to the flour, and mix it together with the grease until it forms a paste. I didn’t get a good picture of my roux, but I found a picture for you, just click the link to see what it should look like. It is okay if it is even a little more thick than that-more paste-like…it’ll turn out either way. Now you have a decision to make. The longer you cook the roux (remember your pan has been reduced to low), the darker it will get and the more flavorful your gravy will be…but the darker it gets, the less thickening power it will have. About one minute is just about right for most people to cook their roux before adding liquids. Don’t forget to keep stirring constantly, and you can allow the sausage to be coated in the roux during this time.

Once you are ready to add the can of evaporated milk and can of water (you can use regular milk without water, but we don’t buy whole milk, and the more fat in the milk, the better your gravy will be, so I often use evaporated for this), go ahead and pour it in the pan, bringing the heat back to  medium and never stopping your stirring/whisking for anything at this point.

Continue stirring with a spoon or whisk, making sure to get all the way to the bottom so the roux cannot attach itself to the pan, b/c if it does…it’ll burn to the bottom of the pan, give your gravy a burnt flavor, and won’t be able to thicken the gravy like it should. So KEEP STIRRING.

Once the gravy comes to a full boil, it will be pretty much as thick as it is going to get, and you can turn off the heat, but don’t stop stirring until it has cooled enough to stop bubbling. As your gravy thickens, you’ll note that not only does it become thicker and more gravy-like, it will darken and become uniform in color. That’s a good way to know you’ve succeeded.
Congratulations, your gravy is done!

Now simply crack open a biscuit (or crumble it if you wish) and pour that yummy sausage gravy over it and enjoy!

Sausage Gravy over Biscuits:

Jess’s Sausage Gravy Recipe:

INGREDIENTS:
1 lb bulk pork sausage (local brand)
Fat to make 2 Tablespoons (sausage grease, bacon grease, butter, or oil)
2 Tablespoons flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 Can of Evaporated Milk plus one can of water OR 3 Cups Milk

DIRECTIONS:
Crumble and cook sausage over medium heat in a skillet with high sides (cast iron and non-stick work best). Continue breaking up the sausage with your spatula as it cooks. Cook until sausage is brown and has no traces of pink. Once the sausage is done, move it to one side of the skillet with spatula. Reduce heat to low. Tilt the pan slightly, and add or remove fat until you have 2 Tablespoons of fat left. Add 2 Tablespoons of flour, salt and pepper, and mix with a whisk until pasty. Using the whisk, mix the sausage back in and cook for approximately one minute, stirring constantly, scraping the bottom of the pan thoroughly to keep roux from sticking. Add milk and water (or just milk if not using evaporated). Continue stirring with whisk, kick the heat back up to medium, and heat gravy to boiling. Do not stop stirring for anything, and be sure to keep it from sticking to the bottom of your pan while it comes to a boil. Once boiling, remove from heat and continue stirring until it stops bubbling. Serve over biscuits. Makes approximately 4 cups (enough for 4-6 people). Recipe can be doubled if using a pan large enough.

How to make incredible homemade orange rolls!

Around here, we love orange rolls. Cinnamon rolls are good, but orange rolls are the best! So for church today (I make the snacks for between services), I made orange rolls and took some pics for you along with the recipe.

Jessica’s Incredible Ooey-Gooey Orange Rolls

1 loaf frozen bread dough, thawed OR 1/2 Grandmother Bread Recipe, just after the first rise. You can add another 1/3 c. sugar to the bread recipe as you make it or leave it as is. I add the sugar, unless I’m making the other 1/2 of the recipe into regular sandwich bread.
Filling:
2 TBL plus 2 tsp. butter, softened
4 TBL sugar
2 tsp. orange juice (I use Simply Orange)
1 tsp. orange extract OR grated orange peel

Orange Glaze:
1 c. confectioner’s sugar
2 TBL orange juice
1/4 tsp. orange extract or grated orange peel

Roll one loaf of bread dough into approximately a 9×6 rectangle on a lightly floured surface. Let the dough rest (leave it alone) while you mix up the FILLING. Just use a fork to combine filling ingredients and spoon the filling onto the dough, spreading the filling out to touch 3 sides, leaving the long edge closest to you free of filling. This is to help it stick when you roll it later. Once filling is spread out evenly, begin to roll the dough towards you, jelly-roll style. Once dough has become a long cylinder, pinch the edges of dough together. Slice dough in 3/4 inch increments. Grease a 9×9 square pan and place the rolls inside, touching each other. Cover with plastic wrap or towel and let rise in a warm location for 45 minutes or until doubled in size. Alternatively, you can now put them in the fridge to rise overnight instead of letting them rise in a warm place.
Once ready to bake, set temperature on oven to 350 and bake for 18-22 minutes or until lightly browned. While baking, mix up the glaze. Once they are out of the oven, glaze immediately. You can pour or spoon the glaze over the rolls. Serve warm or cooled, your choice. Enjoy!

Grandmother Bread Recipe after first rise:

Orange Filling:

Grandmother bread, once punched down…see how shiny it is? This dough will still be slightly sticky at this point, and that’s okay:

Once kneaded a few times, it loses it’s shine, b/c of the floured surface:

The Grandmother bread recipe, now split in half. You could put one of these in a loaf pan to make sandwich bread or you can freeze the other loaf for use later or whatever:

Rolled into a 9×6-it’s never perfect, no worries!

With the orange filling spread on it:

Rolled into a log:

Sliced up nicely:

Orange rolls in greased pan:

Risen rolls after an overnight rise in the fridge:

Whisked up glaze:

Ooey-Gooey Orange Rolls, fresh outta the oven:

I made a double recipe of this-using one whole Grandmother Bread recipe b/c I was cooking for a crowd. Sometimes I make 1 loaf into orange rolls, and one loaf into cinnamon rolls on the same day.

What to do with leftover ham?

Ahhh…the hustle and bustle of the holidays may’ve subsided for now, but the busyness in your fridge probably hasn’t. I, for one, hate dealing with leftovers. I like the idea of using up everything we have and not wasting a thing, but I don’t exactly like eating leftovers. Don’t get me wrong, there are a few things I will eat leftovers of, like chili, stew, turkey dinner, and ham dinner, but you can only eat so many meals of high-carbs without becoming slow and lethargic, so something has to be done with those holiday leftovers.

This post will be dedicated to a few of my favorite ideas for using up that holiday ham this year.

Obviously, (as evidenced by my blog counter,) everyone thinks of ham and beans. This is a great idea, especially using the hambone up as well.

Next, I like to cut up (dice) some of the ham and use it in my macaroni and cheese.

Another option would be ham sandwiches, another popular choice. Especially with homemade rolls or homemade bread, yum!

When that gets too familiar, try grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, possibly paired with some tomato soup. A great way to make these is to grill the ham in a skillet, butter one side of each slice of bread, keep your skillet or griddle on medium heat, and place the bread buttered-side down in the hot skillet. Squeeze some mustard on one side of the bread, and add one slice of cheese to each piece of bread. (Velveeta works nicely, too). Then put your warm ham slices on top of half of the bread slices, and make sandwiches. Grill till lightly brown on both sides of sandwiches. Cut in half and serve.
The mustard really adds something to a grilled ham sandwich.

Another option, as with any leftover meat, is to make it into a casserole or other one-pot meal:http://food.yahoo.com/recipes/taste-of-home/114765/hurry-up-ham-n-noodles

This one looks pretty good, how about ham ‘n noodles?

Another one I would try, cheese ‘n ham scallop:
http://southernfood.about.com/od/hamcasserolerecipes/r/bl50610l.htm

An oft-overlooked idea is a nice ham ‘n cheese quiche-we would make this one, sans onions, b/c we don’t like ‘em:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ham-N-Cheese-Quiche/Detail.aspx
Ham or bacon quiche is often the only kind of quiche you can get a man to eat. The meatiness of it all helps him think of it as “manly food”, so if you’ve ever considered a quiche, but weren’t sure how hubby would react, try one like this, and either serve it as is-name and all, or just rename it to “Ham ‘n Cheese Egg Pie”, and the stigma is gone.

How ’bout a simple chicken cordon bleu? It takes more effort to say the name than make the dish, I promise!
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Cordon-Bleu-I/Detail.aspx

Don’t forget easy things like ham omelets, or just a simple slice of ham with eggs and toast, either!

Along the breakfast lines, there’s also things like a Ham Breakfast Braid:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Ham-Breakfast-Braid/Detail.aspx

Throw some ham in your broccoli cheese soup to make it heartier, too!

There’s also baked beans, which benefit nicely from some ham instead of bacon, and don’t forget breakfast burritos or breakfast sandwiches (like at McDonalds). Ham also makes a nice pizza topping, as you’ll see in my previous post about homemade pizza!

Still got leftover ham? How about dicing it into tiny pieces and toss it in your potato salad, macaroni salad, pea salad, etc.?

And here’s just one more recipe I plan to try this year, which uses up leftover mashed potatoes, too:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Easter-Leftovers-Casserole/Detail.aspx

Even with all these fabulous ideas, you are bound to get sick of ham after a couple of days, so be sure to freeze some of the ham in small baggies. Dice some small and put in a baggie, rough chop some larger and put in a baggie (like for casseroles and one pot dishes), Slice some and put 2-4 slices in each baggie (for sandwiches or breakfasts), use a biscuit cutter and make ham rounds and put in baggies (like for McDonald’s breakfast sandwiches at home), and be sure to keep that ham bone for ham and beans! Also, use a sharpie to label the ham baggies, so you know what you are thawing!

Enjoy those leftovers till you can’t be creative anymore, and then just toss them in the freezer for a nice quick meal at a later date. May your leftovers be as yummy as that very first holiday meal this year!

Simple Homemade Granola Recipe

Tonight I realized I hadn’t prepared anything for church tomorrow, and didn’t have much time to make anything, either. Every Sunday, I make something homemade and yummy for that awkward time between services. We are a small church, newly started, and because of that, they hadn’t instituted any kind of “coffee hour” or “snack time” between Sunday School and Church, so I volunteered to get it started. I usually make doughnuts or coffee cake, cinnamon rolls or streudel, but this time I got all busy with Christmas stuff that I plum forgot. Thankfully, I have a great recipe from the old www.hillbillyhousewife.com, that I’ve affectionately named “Maggie’s Homemade Granola”. I like this granola recipe because it’s easy, fast, tasty, and cheap. Well, that and it doesn’t have all kinds of nuts and honey and other typical ingredients in granola, so it’s more allergen-friendly than most granolas. Without further ado, here’s Maggie’s granola recipe:

1/2 c. margarine (1 stick)
1 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. water
1/4 tsp. salt
4 cups rolled oats
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. dried fruit (optional, but I use Craisins-dried cranberries)
1/2 c. nuts or seeds (optional, I usually skip)

In a large 4 qt. saucepan, melt the margarine, sugar, and water together. Simmer 2-3 minutes. Take off of heat and add the oatmeal, cinnamon, and salt. Stir up the granola making sure that every piece of oatmeal is coated in brown sugary goodness. Put the granola on a large sided cookie sheet and bake at 375 for 10 minutes. It should be a nice golden brown. Allow to cool on cookie sheet. Once cooled, you can break the granola apart with spoon or your (clean) fingers, and place in a clean coffee can or jar. If adding optional nuts and/or fruit, you can mix those in just before placing granola in its container.

This is a GREAT snack, but also a pretty decent cereal. As someone who doesn’t really care for oatmeal and wouldn’t touch grapenuts if I were paid to, I really do promise this is a good cereal. If you have any trouble passing it off on the kiddos as a real cereal in the morning, you can always add chocolate chips, but this is just sweet enough that most kids will gobble it up, especially if you’ve put a sweet dried fruit in it for color.

Homemade Blackberry Jam and Lazy Chocolate Pie

Sometimes I feel like I’m an oxymoron. In one day I may make something totally from scratch and time consuming and also make instant mashed potatoes, lol. I’m just weird like that. I love convenience, but recognize that homemade is better. I think it is because of this that somedays I’m so tired from making something very labor intensive and time consuming that I settle for whatever is the quickest and easiest option for dinner that night. Today was just such a day.

I spent my day today making homemade blackberry jam, canning it, making 2 loaves of wheat bread for a customer,  and making homemade mixes for gifts (which included decorating the bags by hand using scrapbooking supplies). By the time my poor husband came through the door, I realized I made nothing for dessert. Sure, I had cheated and used the crockpot and canned veggies for dinner, so that was ready, but I had to scramble to make instant potatoes and a dessert. Checking the pantry and freezer, I realized I could make a lazy chocolate pie in about 15 minutes, so I went for it.

Lazy Chocolate Pie

1 Pre-formed pie crust or graham cracker crust

2 pkgs. Devils Food pudding mix (or chocolate)

2 2/3 milk

1 carton Cool Whip or other whipped cream

Some Chocolate chips for decorating

Blind-bake crust as per directions, combine pudding mix and milk, beating with whisk for 2 minutes. Pour pudding into cooled crust. Put whip cream on top of pudding, and sprinkle chocolate chips for decoration. Done. Now wasn’t that easy?

Here’s a pic of my blackberry jam:

And finally, a pic of some of my homemade mixes/food items:

Now it’s time for me to go to bed and get ready to do it all over again tomorrow, lol.

Easy Homemade Biscotti Recipe

Okay,  I admit it, I’m a coffee nut, but I hate biscotti. Well, until today that is!

I needed to make some to go in Christmas baskets along with some homemade creamers and other goodies, and my first attempt went really well.  I took one recipe and made it into two kinds. One was Double Chocolate, and the other was Cranberry Almond. I have to say, both are good, but the cranberry is the BEST!

Here’s a pic of the dough, both kinds:

Double Chocolate

Cranberry Almond

And the finished products:
Double Chocolate

Cranberry Almond

Here’s the recipe, with changes below:

Italian Biscotti

12 ounces butter

1 3/4 cups white sugar

6 eggs

1 teaspoon anise extract

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

6 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

8 ounces chopped almonds

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F ( 165 degrees C ).
2. In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together. Add eggs one at a time; beat until fluffy. Stir in the anise and vanilla extracts. Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt; Add them to the egg mixture along with the chopped almonds. Stir with a spoon and as the dough comes together, Knead by hand.
3. Divide the dough into 4 parts. Roll each piece into a log about 15 inches long. Place logs onto cookie sheets, 2 to a sheet, the long way. Flatten the logs out until they are about 3 inches wide with a slight hump going down the middle. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, loaves should be firm. Cut the loaves into diagonal slices 1/2 inch wide, place the slices onto the cookie sheets and return to the oven. Toast on one side, then turn them over to do the other side. This will take about 7 to 10 minutes.

First, I didn’t use anise, I used 2 tsp. vanilla, and 1 tsp. almond extract. I don’t like anise, and vanilla and almond extracts work nicely together.

I split the dough into 2 sections right after the kneading part, one section I used 1/2 pkg. Craisins and 1 of those tiny $1 pkgs. of slivered almonds. The other one I put 4 Tsp. of Cocoa Powder and 1/4 bag of milk chocolate chips. I mixed the ingredients in by hand, pretty much kneading them until they looked pretty, then split each kind into 2 loaves, and proceeded with the recipe as written. Well, I baked them for 5 minutes each side, but other than that followed as written. It was sooooo easy, I really suggest you try it!