Cheese Biscuits

I love the biscuits at Red Lobster, you know the ones. I could fill up on just those, but we haven't had a Red Lobster here in years. So I make the biscuits at home. You've probably seen the mix at Sam's, or Walmart but its not the same. This recipe is sooo close, and DELICIOUS!

Cheese Bicuits

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1 cup buttermilk ( I cup milk, 1 tablespoon vinegar, pop into the microwave for 30 seconds, instant buttermilk!)
• 1/2 cup salted butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese ( I just use whatever cheese I have on hand. Today was Cheddar Monterey blend)
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 
  
• FOR THE TOPPING
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. 
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, garlic powder, salt and cayenne pepper, if using.
3. In a large glass measuring cup or another bowl, whisk together buttermilk and butter. Pour mixture over dry ingredients and stir using a rubber spatula just until moist. Gently fold in cheese.
4. Using a 1/4-cup measuring cup, scoop the batter evenly onto the prepared baking sheet. Place into oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown.
5. For the topping, whisk together butter, parsley and garlic powder in a small bowl. Working one at a time, brush the tops of the biscuits with the butter mixture.
6. Serve immediately.

Apologies

I'm horrible at this blogging thing. I always think of tons of things to post about..and then just never get around to it.

We never got around to any Thanksgiving crafts, I just wasn't feeling it. Thankfully D is only 2, so he doesn't know lol. We had a great Thanksgiving tho. Tons of food, lots of laughter. Mom got the Pie Face game, so we had a blast with that. I got all the leftover turkey bones, and I'm currently cooking down some stock in the crock pot. It smells amazing! I also had some leftover cranberries from the Sangria I made *it was DELICIOUS! and I'm still drinking on it*, I just cooked them down a little and tossed them into the dehydrator to make craisins. * I used 7 oz cranberries, 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar and cooked on medium high about 10 minutes, until they all "popped", drained and placed on tray. I did put them on the leather tray* I also poured the cooking liquid into the dehydrator to see if I could make fruit leather with it. I had some apples that were starting to look a little rough so I cut those up and tossed them in to dry as well. *Sorry but it all got eaten and I never took pictures lol*

I'll be making a few batches of waffles for the freezer, as well as donuts sometime this week too. I love that mom has all these gadgets *dehydrator, waffle maker and donut pan are all hers* so I can borrow them since I don't have room in this tiny apartment to store stuff like that.

I just threw together a test batch of donuts, and I'll post the recipe either later today, or sometime tomorrow.

Donuts with Vanilla Glaze

A few nights ago I made Beef Enchiladas for dinner. Scott has always said he doesn't like enchiladas, or tamales and we finally realized its because he doesn't like the red sauce, so I found Green Enchilada sauce, and he loves it. He got home late from work, and I had just pulled them out of the oven. He devoured the rest of the pan!


Enchiladas :
2 cans green enchilada sauce *or red* (In my mom's case, you could also just top with queso!)
2 cups beef broth
salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon flour
1 tablespoon oil

1 lb ground beef (or sliced steak, chicken, shrimp, any meat or even no meat!)
1 small onion, diced small
lg can green chilies
1 tsp salt
Next time I will add in a tablespoon or so of taco seasoning.
shredded cheese  (You could also just use a liquid queso)
*You could also use beans, green onions, peppers*

corn tortillas *I didn't count how many I used...just grabbed and it happened to be 1 to many for my 9x9 pan* From the picture I think it looks like 9 tortillas.
1/2 cup oil for frying



Tons of shredded cheese for topping.

Optional toppings : green onions, avocado, sour cream, hot sauce.

Make a light roux with your oil and flour. Add in sauce, broth and seasonings. Simmer for about 20 minutes while you get all the other steps ready.

Saute onions, toss in ground beef and brown. Add in green chilies and seasoning. Set aside while you get your tortillas ready.

Heat up your 1/2 cup oil in a small skillet. Fry the tortillas on each side, just til soft. About 30 seconds a side. I left mine in a little too long and some got soggy. You don't want soggy enchiladas!
Let drain.

Heat oven to 350*. Put a little sauce in the bottom of your baking dish.
Dip each tortilla into the sauce, lay flat and top with meat, cheese. Roll up and place in baking dish. The tighter they fit into your pan, the better they will hold together. Top with sauce, and TONS of cheese.

Cook about 20 minutes or until bubbly and lightly browned. Serve with toppings of your choice.

Happy Holidays!

Kay

Power Cooker

I've mentioned my pressure cooker in a post before, and since it came to my rescue this morning, I thought it was time it got its own post!

I'm making Chicken Chili for dinner tonight, which requires Chicken stock..no problem we always keep tons of homemade in the freezer....except we ran out and I never noticed. YIKES! We never keep the can stuff in the house, and I didn't keep the car today. Time to rethink dinner, but I've already got all the chili fixings prepped so what do I do with it all? Thankfully I've got a 10 lb bag of leg quarters sitting in the fridge waiting to be bagged up, so I can start more stock but it'll take HOURS on the stove to get a good delicious stock. Here is where the pressure cooker comes in. I just tossed a few quarters into it, some carrots and seasoning and put it on highest pressure setting, and set it for 30 minutes. I'll stir it once that 30 is done, and reset it for another 30 and it should be pretty good by then. *I did start some of the stove, and I'll taste test tonight and see which tastes better*

I really wish I would have had this pressure cooker when D was a newborn. You can make all sorts of meals in it, it takes so little time, and its a 1 pot cleanup! Last week I made a small batch of pinto beans in it, if I had read the directions correctly the first time I would have noticed it said to turn the pressure up, and it probably would have been done after the first 30 minutes but I didn't notice so my beans took about an hour total, but they were still delicious and done in time for my lunch, I didn't even have to soak them! We make a yummy  dish called Bacon  Braised Pork pretty often in the pressure cooker too. I'll share that recipe next time I make it (probably next week). I've read you can also make yogurt (I always do mine in the crockpot, but I'm interested in trying it), cakes and can your fruit/veggies. You can make rice and "slow cook" with the one I have too. I have only tried out the slow cook method once, and my food was cooked in about 3 hours instead of the 6 the recipe called for in a slow cooker.


This is the cooker my entire family has, my parents loved theirs so much they bought us all one!

Uninspired

Sorry I've been slacking on my posts. I've felt so unmotivated lately. I've read many articles that I've thought, "Oh! I could post about that..." but then I sit down at the computer to blog, and nothing comes to me.  We've had a bit of a stressful few weeks, my van died on us so we've been dealing with that. Thankfully we have a second vehicle, but using it requires me to take S to work, which is sometimes an issue because D isn't always sleeping through the night so I have just been taking S back to work after his lunch break so we can take care of whatever we need to in the afternoon, but that interferes with nap time so it can be an issue either way.

I haven't really been cooking anything new or exciting recently. I am cooking Shrimp and Grits, and Baked Mahi for dinner.  I made a big batch of pancakes for the freezer earlier this week, and about to start on a batch of waffles for the freezer as well. I came across this recipe for Sugar Cookies   and I think we may try them today as well.

These suckers are HUGE!!

**Editing to add, I'm eating one of these cookies right now. Its huge, and delicious!!* 2nd edit - after getting through the whole cookie I find its a bit salty, and a little heavy on the baking soda taste. I will be making another batch tomorrow and cutting back on both ingredients. *


I'm starting to make a list of November crafts for D to work on. Lots of Thanksgiving/Fall ideas. I'll try to make sure to get pictures so I've got stuff to post about this month!


Happy November!
Kay

Halloween Festivities

Over the weekend we went out to the pumpkin patch for trick or treating. D finally let me put his Wilson costume on him! He'd freak out every time I tried. He looked adorable, and only 1 person knew who he was supposed to be LOL. He did great using his manners, and I was super proud of him. He's not very fond of the candy (win for mommy!) unless it's chocolate.

We finally got around to doing a few Halloween crafts Monday while S took a day off from work, last night a local church had fall fest, so we took D in case they switch trick or treating to Friday due to predicted bad weather. We've got a wedding tomorrow night, so unless its over early we wouldn't be able to make it out. 

 I love this fabric so we got some to make a bag for his candy. We sewed up the sides and made a bag and then just used an embroidery hoop to hold the bag open, also creating a handle. It worked out well because he's not so good at holding the bag open just yet, and everyone commented on how cute and smart it was!

At the fall fest, D got to play some games, trunk or treat, and RIDE A PONY! He loved it, I thought for sure he'd freak out *he wouldn't pet the animals in the petting zoo* but he did great. He was excited to tell my parents about it last night.

This has to be the cutest donkey ever!

Unfortunately my van decided to bite the dust on the way home last night, so we get to spend our weekend trying to see if its worth fixing it or not. Our best friend is having a super small wedding tomorrow night and asked me to take pictures, so we've got a pretty busy weekend. 

Please remember to use caution when trick or treating this weekend. People in cars don't seem to pay much attention to children walking, and remember if your littles have allergies to look out for those TEAL PUMPKINS! 


                                            Have a safe and Happy Halloween! 
                                                            *Save some candy for me!!!*
                                                                             Kay

Lunch Date

Years ago, I worked on a food truck making wraps. I loved it. I have a history of working in  food establishments that made wraps and sandwiches, so I'm pretty good at rolling them up if I do say so myself!  My mom's best friend was in visiting from Texas this week, and requested Shrimp Wraps so I went over yesterday and made lunch for us.

A few weeks ago, my parents bought 50 lbs of shrimp and mom and I cleaned it all and put it all in the freezer to be able to use over the next few months. It took us all day to get it all cleaned and bagged up, and we ended up with 21 lbs of shrimp and many bags of shells for stock. 

I started with 2 lbs of shrimp, seasoned them up with some Cajun spice blend and sauteed them in a little olive oil. I also made a remoulade sauce, which is a french condiment normally served with seafood. I didn't measure anything for my sauce, you just taste as you go. I served this in a spinach wrap, I love the flavored wraps, they add an extra layer of flavor. 

We had lettuce, cherry tomatoes and avocado in our wraps as well. 

Remoulade : Mayo, Ketchup, Spicy Mustard, chives, green onions, and parsley and cayenne. Some people put horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, capers, hot sauce. It's a very simple and flavorful sauce. And that's saying something because I hate ketchup and mustard! 

J made us some yummy fruit salad to go with our wraps. Crushed Pineapple, sliced peaches, mandarin oranges, sliced strawberries and bananas. The "sauce" is peach pie filling. Top with whipped cream and it's so good. You can use any fruit you want.

Hurricane Patricia

Living in Southern Louisiana, we are all to familiar with hurricanes. While Patricia will not be a direct impact for us (I'm hearing it should be bringing some needed rain, but hopefully not too much) I was thinking about hurricane preparedness this morning while reading about it. Mexico is bracing for a VERY STRONG storm. It's the strongest storm ever recorded with winds over 200 mph. Definitely keep the people of Mexico in your thoughts as they ride this out.

Hurricane season runs from June 1st through November 30th. Thankfully we haven't been impacted by anything major since Isaac in 2012. My family has never left for a hurricane, and hopefully we never have to. We aren't in what is considered a "flood zone", and we don't really get many tornados in these parts. Normally when a storm is coming, the stores run out of water, bread, gas and batteries. Power can be out for days (in horribly hit areas, WEEKS even.) It's very important to prepare because you just never really know how bad it will be.


Ready.gov  has tons of information on how to prepare for a storm. *It also gives tips on other natural disasters as well if you aren't in a hurricane prone area*. We live in an apartment complex, so with the exception of removing any items we may have on our balcony, we don't need to prepare the outside area of our home. However, its VERY important to secure things that could become projectiles. The wind with a hurricane can be unreal! *See comment above about TWO HUNDRED MILE AN HOUR WINDS!!!* This also means removing any tree limbs that aren't in good shape, they could fall on your house, car or get swept up in the wind. A generator is a great idea to be able to have a fan available, and keep your fridge going. Once the power goes out, you have no idea how long its out for, and you are likely to lose everything in your fridge/freezer if you don't prepare.

We are a few hours away from New Orleans, so Katrina didn't really get us like she did them. She was a devastating storm for that area, as they are already below sea level. There are still areas that haven't bounced back. Hurricanes are no joke, and you can't stop them. But you can prepare.


Thankfully our season is almost over, and we haven't had any storms. Mexico won't be that lucky this year. Here's hoping they are heading all the warnings they can and getting to saftey.


Stay safe! 

Kay