Beer Bread Wonderland

Never have I ever met a bread with such versatility as I did when I made this little gem. Literally, so many different things you can do with it and this will NOT be the last post on this delicious concoction.

I have no idea how to make bread. I’m intimidated by it, I’m not a 40’s housewife and it’s just too big of an endeavor for me to embark on. Sorry.

So, I found a recipe for this stuff and went for it. The recipes for this stuff are pretty universal. There’s no big differences in them besides the additions, flair and of course, beer. Some vary on amounts of sugar, which makes sense.

So let’s cook some bread.

Start with a six pack of your favorite craft beer. You only need one for the bread, but you’ll need something to do while it bakes, right?

This beer, is not my favorite craft beer. It’s a beer that a friend of ours left behind from a party we had. It’s disgusting. No offence to Sam Adams, the man knows what he’s doing, usually, but this hoppy brew was just not for me. At all.

However, it made some delicious bread. I figured by the taste of it, how much sugar to use, so I’d suggest drinking at least a bottle before you start, so you can make a fair judgment of the other ingredients. It’s only fair.

SO, follow this general recipe and twerk, I mean tweak, it to fit your taste and burr.

From the windows, to the walls, let’s make some drunk bread.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups of flour
1/3 cup of sugar
1tbsp of baking powder
1/2tsp of salt
1 12oz bottle of beer
3tbsp of butter, melted

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat the oven to 350, my oven sucks, hence the slightly charred bread. Don’t judge, it was tasty!

Mix dry ingredients, add beer, throw into a greased loaf pan and cover with the butter and bake for about 60 minutes!

I read you can use soda in place of beer, but, pardon my French, but fucking ew. You wanna shovel that crap into your poor kids, that’s on you, but you won’t even catch me cooking with that crap. /endrant

You can freeze the cooked loaf, I’m sure it’ll stay good for a while!

Vanilla Granola & Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

The other day we made a trip to Sprouts, because they have like, THE best sales, EVER and a ton of bulk product.

 

I got my hands on some delicious, organic, vanilla granola. Think of it as the honey bunches part of Honey Bunches of Oats. Just vanilla granola and some almond slivers. Yum.

 

The other day, my Boo asked me to bake some cookies and so I tried something new and threw the granola in, where I’d usually throw in oatmeal or whatever else. And, of course, chocolate chips.

 

You’ve gotta have chocolate chips.

 

 

INGREDIENTS:

1c margarine/butter, softended
1c granulated sugar
1c brown sugar
2 eggs
1tsp vanilla extract
2c all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1tsp baking soda
1tsp salt
2 – 3 cups of granola, depending on what kind, how dense and so on
1c chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Cream butter and sugars until smooth; beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine and blend thoroughly flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt; beat into creamed mixture. Stir in granola and chocolate chips.

Bake at 375 for 7-9 minutes.

 

Enjoy!

Freezer Taco Chicken

Last week, I celebrated my sons birthday with a pool party “Fiesta” in which I cooked a bunch of chicken up to make some tacos with!

I had to feed about 30 people and wanted the most cost effective way of getting enough chicken to feed them all, as well as have some leftovers, hopefully!

Thanks to the amazing prices at Smart & Final I was able to get chicken for under $1 a pound… .79/lb I think, to be exact.

The leg quarters were huge and exactly what I needed.

I decided to bake the chicken, skin on, seasoned to death and it came out incredible!

Seasoned with just chili powder, garlic powder, dried onion, oregano, pepper and some tomato bullion and covered with foil while it cooks. I like to make my own taco seasoning, because the stuff in the pouch has too much sodium, things that AREN’T even seasonings in it and (I know sodium is salt) but it TASTES like you’re eating tomato salt, not food. Not a fan. The tomato bullion that I use for Spanish rice, has enough salt in it to taste, but not over power.

Enjoy!

Southern Style Biscuits & Pork Sausage Gravy

It’s not your milkshake that brings all the boys to the yard, it’s your biscuits!

This is another one of my top posts. The original can be found here. It was also one of my first recipes I put up. It has evolved, a smidge, the photo was deplorable, my gravy was chicken and my biscuits came from a can! I had a few minutes to kill during my morning coffee. Shazam! We have a re-blog.

It’s a classic, it’s easy and although a bit time consuming, refrigerates well and is absolutely to die for. For me, it’s a fat kid dream, realized. I love it, it doesn’t love me and I’ll live with that. (You CAN make it without buttermilk- in the gravy- using only milk, and cut calories/fat-ahem-flavor like a mother, I’ve done it, the boys don’t know the difference. Heh…)

Say it with me now… “Buttermilk.”

It’s a fat chef’s right hand man, when it comes to creamy sauces, down home food and that special flavor you can’t get from anything like it. Buttermilk. It makes your biscuits fluffy, your pancakes like grandma use to make and your sauces creamier than creamy and richer than rich. You’re going to use quite a bit in this recipe, but like I said, you CAN use milk only, there are also variations, like my brothers, which is made from evaporated milk and regular milk. The biscuits, are all the same, it’s the buttermilk that makes them good... In the gravy, you can also use turkey or chicken sausage. We do. It doesn’t render much fat for gravy purposes, but a little butter or some extra bacon grease should do the trick. (Yes, I keep it in my fridge, it’s perfect for anything you’d sauté in butter or oil, in sparse amounts.)

Now, let’s make breakfast!

Gravy-

INGREDIENTS:

1lb Breakfast sausage, use pork for the full fat kid experience, use turkey or sausage if you plan on feeding somebody with clean arteries.
Buttermilk about 2 cups
Milk about 2 cups
3tbs All purpose flour
Salt
Pepper

DIRECTIONS:

Cook the sausage in a large sauce pan on medium while breaking it into small pieces. Once the sausage is cooked add the flour, using a whisk to make sure all the sausage is coated in flour. (There are also some who like to remove their sausage from the pan and add it later once the gravy has thickened. Not I, no… Not I. I prefer that whole fried sausage feel, seriously.) Let that cook on medium for about 4 or 5 minutes until it starts getting darker brown and you can tell the flour is starting to cook. Then, start adding the buttermilk, slowly, whisking thoroughly and quickly until it becomes thick and aaaalmost paste-like, but don’t let it burn! Then start whisking in the milk. You can add a little at a time to make sure the butter milk and milk get fully incorporated into each other and that the gravy will thicken up properly. (IF you happen to burn the gravy while you’re cooking, resist the urge to scrap the shit out of the bottom of the pan. Let it stay there, and yes, burn, while keeping that bottom later as thin as possible. You want your food to cook evenly, but that bottom is a lost cause. It’ll turn your gravy gritty.) Once you’re sure everything is mixed and going well, add the rest of the milk, about 4 cups total, and bring to a boil. Keep whisking, making sure to keep the sides and the bottom of the pan clean and free from gravy buildup. (Unless you already effed up, of course. You little culinary failure, you.)

It takes a while to cook, depending on how much gravy you’re making. The amount of buttermilk and milk also depend on how much you are making as well. The amount of liquid does reduce as it thickens, of course, but not drastically. I usually end up with enough for my Fiance, myself and the baby to eat to our hearts content as well as having leftovers for a couple of days. The time it takes is also relevant to how thick you like your gravy too, mine takes about 45 minutes to an hour to fully cook. And I’ll admit, that the gravy up there is a little thin. Gravy retains heat like crazy, so when you think it’s cool enough to pile up on your biscuits, it ends up being a waterfall of creamy sausage speckled bombtasticness.

Biscuits-

Ingredients:

2 c all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups very cold fat-free buttermilk
1 tablespoon canola oil

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 450°. Combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and baking soda in a large bowl and give it a stir with a whisk. Place butter in a microwave-safe bowl. Microwave at HIGH for 30 seconds to 1 minute or until completely melted. Add cold buttermilk, stirring until butter forms small clumps. Add oil, stirring to combine. (You can use all butter, I usually do.) Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture; stir with a rubber spatula until just mixed and batter pulls away from sides of bowl. (Batter will be very wet.) Drop batter in mounds of 2 heaping table spoonfuls onto a baking sheet. Bake at 450° for 11 minutes or until golden.

Wait until your gravy is close to done to pop the biscuits in the oven. You can turn off the heat and cover your gravy while you bake since it will help thicken the gravy to let it stand for a while. Once your biscuits are done, split them in half, cover them in gravy and…. You know what to do next!

ENJOY!

Happy Thanksgiving!

With Black Friday over, my family home safe, I’m taking a little time to enjoy a much needed glass of wine and some peace and quiet. However, I’ve had a few of my friends ask what I made for my very first Thanksgiving in our own home… So, I figured, this would be a better way to give everybody the run down!

As we sat there, quietly enjoying the dinner I literally slaved over, (with LOVE, of course) we started talking about what we remember of Thanksgiving as children. Family, food, lots more family, more food… But also, we remembered being hurried around to this house, then this one, then over there to say hi, even into adulthood, having to deal with split families and long distance travels.

It was nice to just sit down whenever dinner was ready, and eat our food, our way. I was excited to cook my food, in my kitchen, with nobody in my way, listening to my music, drinking my bottle of wine, cleaning up behind myself as I went and running the damn thing like clock work. It was a beautiful thing, it was a beautiful Thanksgiving and I couldn’t be happier that I spent it with the two most wonderful boys on the planet!

Enjoy the run through of our dinner and I hope it looks as delicious as it was… Food photographs worse than Andy Dick sometimes…

This turkey was incredible! I’d never cooked a turkey before and I laughed when it came out so good, because the week before I was actually asking my bff how to cook a turkey! She goes, “Um, put it in the oven, turn it on and baste it, Sarah!” I went, “Where do I buy a turkey baster?” I’m a gem. 

I took some butter and smashed it with some black pepper, a little salt, a few cloves of roasted garlic (threw some in while the oven was pre-heating, it doesn’t have to be a FEAT for some roast garlic!) and rubbed it between the skin and the meat of the beasts and legs. (That last part sounded FILTHY!)

I used the rest to rub on the outside of the bird and finished with more black pepper and some thyme and stuffed some extra garlic cloves under the skin as well!

Juicy, tender, dare I say? Perfect?

 

Mashed potatoes are easy. I love the skins on, so there they are, all mixed in there with some cream cheese, a couple cloves of roasted garlic leftover from the turkey, butter and LOAD of black pepper, maybe a pinch of salt to taste.

They’re not good FOR you, but oh my fuck, they were amazing.

Creamy, chunky, filling.

Perfection, again.

I used a bean masher instead of a beater, because, I kid you not, my electric beater is from the 60’s and I was afraid it couldn’t handle the job. I need a serious electronics update in my kitchen. Stat.

I JUST threw away my 60’s blender too. It was HUGE.

My Nana hoards, I enable.

It’s a sickness.

Every woman needs to know how to make her man some gravy, so I won’t take long in this department.

Turkey drippings, made into gravy. Flour, not corn starch.

Easy, peasy.

Again, a TON of black pepper, because the only thing KFC CAN do right, is make gravy extra peppery and delicious.

Mine followed suite nicely!

 

 

 

 

This was my biggest challenge. I refuse to pay out the ass for fried onion strings after last years green bean casserole cost us $11 to make and tasted like everybody elses. “No more!” I say.

This bitch, is completely homemade.

Fresh green beans, halved. My delicious recipe for Cream of Onion & Celery soup, found here, omitting the celery and obviously the black rice. You could make cream of mushroom, but I hate them. So I went with onion. Should have done turkey or something else. It was delicious, but a bit on the onion-y side.

And finally, some homemade French’s onions. Simply, onions dredged in flour and fried to a crisp in oil.

NOT anywhere near healthy, but so delicious I fried up an extra onion for us to snack on and Mo ate them all!

 

This is always good.

Tried and true Mac n’ Cheese.

The recipe can be found here.

It’s a great freezer meal, great for a pot luck, any holiday get together where food is required!

It’s a homemade sauce starting as a roux with some Velveeta and parmesan added. Topped with panko, Ritz and herbs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Where’s the stuffing?” You ask… I ruined it. There. Are you happy?

Last, but not least…. And actually made, first… Mama made pie!

I’ve never tried making one, because honestly, I’m not that big of a fan. Give me a cookie, or fro-yo. I’m straight. A pie is like cake to me. It’s like, what’s the point? If I’m going to eat something like that, it better be bomb, elaborate and have layers and secret caverns.

I almost bought a pie. Then I went, “If I’m frying fucking thread sized onions to TOP a dish, I’m NOT pussing out a buying a pie.” So… I didn’t.

I bought cheesecake, pudding, heavy cream, a pie shell and a Hershey bar, and made a pie!

Heavy cream obvi get’s beaten into whip cream with a beater, it takes about 10 minutes, so calm your titties and wait it out. It’s worth it. Oh, and don’t forget the powdered sugar or you just have stiff milk. Ew. My pie? Not ew. Savvy?

So, there’s my turkey day!

I hope everybody’s day was as wonderful as mine was, I hope you all actually took time to thank those you are thankful for and stop to appreciate that in your life which deserves appreciation. I’ve been working on my “30 Days of Thanks” post and can’t wait to get it up… Although I feel like it will be a rambling rant of more or less 30 things I’m thankful for, ranging anywhere from my own flesh and blood to my new leather leggings. lol

Good night!

Baked Broccoli Chicken Supreme

It’s finally getting chilly here in Scottsdale, which means some winter dishes have been in the works! I made this little feast up after finding some black rice that I mentioned in this post where I added it to some yummy home made cream of onion and celery soup, which was another DE-licious winter meal!

This one is pretty simple. It’s dinner in a dish. Easy, peasy. I like to keep chicken in the freezer, shredded in large chunks, for anything. It’s handy, it’s cheap and it takes a lot of steps out of preparing dinner. I also like to keep cooked rice and cream of something or other soup in the freezer, to add to dishes too. So with a little prep work ahead of time, this dish takes five minutes for prep and about 30 to bake.

INGREDIENTS:

The amounts are going to vary based on your dish size. I made a tiny one, because I wasn’t sure how it was going to work out. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the amounts. Like I said, I’m WAY behind on recipes. Sorry!

Black Rice, cooked
Broccoli, steamed, al dente
Chicken, cooked and shredded, seasoned with salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme
Cream of onion/celery soup, IF you have to use the canned, dump it into a bowl, add a little milk and whisk until creamy
1 Box of stuffing, prepared
Mozzarella and parmesan cheese to layer with, if you want it a little cheesy.

 

DIRECTIONS:

Bake this bad boy at about 350, till it’s bubbly, golden and ready!

Yep.

It’s that simple!

Enjoy!

 

Old Fashioned Oatmeal Cookies

I’m trying to watch the first season of Walking Dead, and write recipes for cookies. Zombies and treats, yay, Friday! Haha….

I’ve searched and I’ve searched for an oatmeal cookie recipe that I actually liked, one that used real oats, not powdery quick oats, and one that my son would like, without being too sweet.

Couldn’t find it, so I made it up.

It uses very little flour, little sugar and is essentially a baked, flavored, cereal. Which is perfect because everybody eats them for breakfast sometimes, especially the baby… He says, “Cookie?” Yes, you can have a cookie. You can have anything you want with that face… Smh.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are obviously, only a slight difference in my three types of cookies. One are plain, one have chocolate chips and the others have chocolate and peanut butter chips. They all bake the same.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 Cup all purpose flour
1/2 Tsp baking soda
1 Tsp Cinnamon
3/4 Cup brown sugar, packed
3 Cups of whole oats
1 Tsp Salt
1/2 Cup mix in’s of your choice
3/4 Cup butter, softened or melted
1 Tsp vanilla
1 Egg
A splash of milk, trust me.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix dry ingredients… Mix wet ingredients… Combine.

Bake at 350 until brown at the edges but SOFT in the center. It’s better to be on the soft side, when they’re hard, they’re like granola. Which might not be bad, if that’s what you’re going for! I like them soft in the center though, especially the chocolate chip ones!

Enjoy!

Roasted Garlic & Herb Biscuits

 

Biscuits!

These are to die for, just sayin’.

Let’s get to them biscuits!

INGREDIENTS:

Baking mix, any kind, but I like buttermilk
1 head of garlic, roasted then mashed into a paste
Rosemary, thyme, cayenne, parmesan (grated or shredded)

DIRECTIONS:

Prepare the biscuits according to the box, mix in the garlic paste very well. Grease a cookie sheet and plop large tablespoon size balls onto the sheet. Sprinkle with the last 4 ingredients and bake! Easy peasy!

 

 

Enjoy!

From Scratch Pollo Rojo Enchiladas

*Everybody asks where I got this recipe, because it’s authentic, complicated and delicious. To be honest, I stole the IDEA from my brothers ex girlfriend. She use to make this with only canned chicken and frozen chile. She would deep fry the tortillas and didn’t add anything to the sauce or attempt to jazz it up at all, so I “fixed” her recipe!

I’m not going to lie, these bad boys can be A LOT of work. But if you buy extra of everything, you can assemble a couple and pop them in the freezer for later! To reheat, bake at 400F until cooked and melted thoroughly. The rice and beans can be prepared and frozen too, making this almost way too easy later for a dinner party, ahem, FIESTA!

  Mmmmmm, right? This was almost the first meal I ever ruined. I almost burned it, the tortillas, the chicken and the sauce while preparing everything to put it all together! Thankfully, it actually turned out delicious and my BFF finally sampled my cooking and absolutely LOVED it!

I use a 9x11 casserole dish, so all the ingredients are measured for that size!

TORTILLAS:

I use yellow corn tortillas. Like I said I don’t roll, I layer, so I need to crisp my tortillas up so they don’t turn to mush. Like I said before, the original recipe was to fry them in oil. It was a HUGE mess and was disgustingly unhealthy. So, I bake them in the oven now! Use your casserole dish and layer the tortillas so the bottom of the dish is covered, with no gaps. Sometimes it helps to break the tortillas into pieces later to fit properly, so count for extra tortilla “patches”. Count how many tortillas you have and multiply by 3. Bake the tortillas until pliable, but crispy. Keep your eye on them though, they burn quickly. Mine charred while I was trying to wrangle toddlers and cook chicken and sauce at the same time…

CHICKEN:

3-4 lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes, cumin, thyme, granulated garlic

I cook the chicken first. In a large pot with just enough water to almost cover the chicken, this works on chicken right out of the freezer, like I’ve said before, I rarely defrost meat. Season the chicken with a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, cumin, thyme and garlic, fresh or granulated, but not garlic salt. Cook the chicken on medium high, covered, for about 15 minutes. Uncover, reduce the heat and flip the chicken. Continue cooking, uncovered, until all the liquid is absorbed and the chicken is browned. Don’t be afraid of burning the chicken, I know it sounds counterproductive, but since you’re shredding it, searing it a little bit just adds more flavor. I chop the chicken, so I don’t have to wait for it to cool, you can shred if that’s your thing, it all turns out the same.

SAUCE:

14 sundried red chile pods
2 red bell peppers, chopped
1/2 large white onion
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp cumin
38 oz water
2/3 tsp salt
2 cloves garlic, minced, you can used granulated garlic. Just use about 1/2 the amount as fresh.
1/2 tsp oregano
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp unbleached flour

Remove stems and seeds from chile pods and rinse. Soak pods in lukewarm water for about 3 minutes or until they’re soft. In a sauce pan, simmer the water and the pods for about 20 minutes on low heat. Meanwhile, chop the onion and bell peppers into to pieces and sauté in a large skillet with a drizzle of olive oil, until semi soft and maybe a little seared. Remove from heat, once cool, blend in food processor until smooth and set aside in a bowl. Once the pods are cooked and soft, place them in the food processor with half of the cooking liquid, salt, garlic and oregano. Process until smooth and add to the other puree. Using the same skillet from the onion and bell peppers, heat oil over medium heat, add flour and stir until golden brown. Remove from heat, add blended chile mixture to roux and whisk until any lumps dissolve. Return to heat and slowly combine remaining cooking liquid until your desired sauce consistency is reached. Continue cooking on very low heat, covered, for a few minutes.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Grate about a pound of colby jack cheese. I use Joseph Farms because it’s humanely raised, fed an all natural, vegetarian diet and the cows are free to roam and reproduce. All gravy in my opinion. 

Moooooving on. <---- Get it?

Layer the tortillas allotted for the bottom of the dish, then use a little over half the chicken to make the next layer. Cover with cheese. Next, using a ladle, add the chile sauce, enough to cover the bottom layer. Repeat using the next batch of tortillas, the rest of your chicken, some cheese, and a good helping of sauce. Next, use the rest of your tortillas, broken up a bit for effect, and layer on top, cover with remaining sauce, THEN cheese.

Cover loosely with tin foil, or use tooth picks to keep foil from falling into cheese. Place in the oven, preheated from the tortilla baking, to 300F, and wait about 20 minutes. Uncover and cook until brown and bubbly!

YES…. There’s more. How do you think the rice and beans got there? And no, they’re not boxed or canned.

BEANS:

I use an entire package of pinto beans when I make beans, because I freeze them in batches to refry later, use in soups or chili, or whatever else I need beans for! However, I did not know that the average gringa, doesn’t know how to refry beans, or what the secret is… It’s REALLY not that hard. Here we go….

Rinse your beans. Yea, I said it. The beans might be dirty, they need a good washing. Wash those beans. Next, in your crock pot, soak the beans over night. If you still have a lid on your crock pot in the morning, good luck, otherwise, if you’re like me, remove half the beans for later or get a bigger crock pot. An entire package of beans is A LOT of beans. Cover the beans with water and cook on medium, all day. Check after a couple of hours to see if beans are squishable yet. Once the beans are cooked, remove from the crock pot, portion out the amount you need for dinner, and freeze the rest!

In a medium sauce pan, over medium low heat, simmer the beans with enough liquid to cover the beans. Using a bean masher, mash the beans, until desired consistency is reached. Salt to taste, do NOT forget this part, they’re an ugly mess with no salt.

SPANISH RICE:

2 cups of white rice. You can use brown, I think it tastes fine, but it’s not as authentic.
3 cups of water
1 cup hot salsa, I use Herdez brand red salsa.
1 heaping tbsp of Knorr Tomato bullion
2 tbsp of stick butter or 2 tbsp of olive oil

In a large skillet, heat the butter or oil over medium/high heat. Add the rice and cook until it starts to get a nice golden brown color to it. Add the water, salsa and bullion. Stir and mix together until it starts to boil, cover and reduce heat to simmer until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is cooked. Just add more water if it absorbs before the rice is cooked…. Obviously.

You can freeze the beans, the enchiladas and the rice, once cooked and cooled. But, if you’re going to freeze the rice, I suggest cooking it, al dente, then letting it cool and dry out for about an hour, then portion it out to freeze it. To re-heat, just refrigerate until thawed, and either microwave with a little extra water or back in a sauce pan with some water until the rice is tender!

Well, that is it. That is all there is to this wonderfully simple meal. Haha! This is why I say assemble before hand and freeze any part you can! Even the enchilada sauce, when cooked in large batches, can be frozen in little portioned containers!

I hope you give this a try! The work is well worth it, and honestly, we’re all, mostly, Mom’s here, life is a lot of work, if you don’t do most of that work in the kitchen, your life will be more work elsewhere. Healthy food makes for healthy families and when you put effort into a meal like this, the person you’re cooking for, notices and appreciates. And yes, after a meal like this I do the dishes and clean up. I don’t share chores in this house, and ladies, neither should you.

Now get up and get in the kitchen!

Cinnamon Streusel Banana Bread

I had to post this in addition to my original banana bread because, it’s amazing. I made a loaf for the house and my lovey asked me to make a few for his bosses too! Needless to say, it’s a big hit!

There is no big difference from my original banana bread recipe which can be found here, except that about a half table spoon of cinnamon is added in with the sugar.

The difference is in the topping. Which is too easy.

Take about 3/4 of a cup of brown sugar and mix in another table spoon or 2 so of cinnamon. If your brown sugar isn’t so fresh or was left open and is hard as a rock, microwave a chunk for about 30 seconds. It will get soft and you can crumble it by hand. But be sure to go through it carefully and remove all the really tiny hard pieces. When the sugar gets older it forms tiny sugary rocks that can actually chip a tooth if you’re mid-munch.

Sprinkle the mixture over the banana bread before it goes in the oven. Take a toothpick and swirl the topping into the top of the batter.

The bread, with the topping, will take a little bit longer than an hour to cook. Just keep an eye on it after about an hour and fifteen minutes, until a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf, comes out clean.

This bread also freezes incredibly well!

Enjoy!

Biscuits & Chicken Sausage Gravy

** An updated version of this recipe, complete with homemade biscuits, is available here.**


I’ve been on a mission to “One Up” my brothers gravy recipe for years. His always seemed too complicated, even for gravy from scratch. So I’ve worked away on this one for a long time, perfected it and am finally, sharing it. It’s not easy, but every other weekend or when we have friends over in the mornings, it’s great to have. It even makes amazing leftovers, unlike most breakfasts, so it’s not wasteful to make a bunch. Make it on Sunday and keep it in the fridge for the week. It’s easy to reheat and my fiance absolutely loves it when he’s in a hurry. I pop a plate in the microwave and he’s got a quick bite of a breakfast I worked really hard on and put a lot of love into! Can’t beat that!

If you’ve ever made a gravy before you know that once you start cooking it, you can’t walk away. So yes, this is yet another dish of mine that makes you a slave to the stove, but is also, so very worth it.
So, let’s get started.

Ingredients:
1 Pkg Breakfast sausage, I use Isernio’s brand because it’s all natural, tastes amazing and it’s chicken, not pork. If you like pork sausage, they make a great one too. Find it here.
3 Tbs All purpose flour
Reduced fat butter milk
Regular milk
Pepper
1 Pkg Grands Flakey Layers Biscuits

Directions:
Cook the sausage in a large sauce pan, on medium while breaking it into small pieces. Chicken sausage really doesn’t render a lot of fat for the purposes of making a gravy, so if you find the pan is dry add a couple of table spoons of butter to the sausage after it’s browned. It doesn’t take much butter so don’t go overboard, but if you use the pork sausage, no butter is needed! It’s biscuits and gravy, so it’s not HEALTHY but we can try to make it less-bad-for-you. Once the sausage is cooked add the flour, using a whisk to make sure all the sausage is coated in flour. Let that cook on medium for about 4 or 5 minutes until it starts getting darker brown and you can tell the flour is starting to cook.

Then, just like when you make the sauce for MacNCheese, start adding the buttermilk, slowly. About a cup and a half, whisking until it becomes REALLY thick, but don’t let it burn! Then start whisking in the milk. You can add a little at a time to make sure the butter milk and milk get fully incorporated into each other and that the gravy will thicken up properly. Once you’re sure everything is mixed and going well, add the rest of the milk, about 4 cups total, and bring to a boil. Keep whisking, making sure to keep the sides and the bottom of the pan clean and free from gravy buildup. That will make for some icky stringy surprises later if you’re not careful!

It takes a while to cook, depending on how much gravy you’re making. The amount of buttermilk and milk also depend on how much you are making as well. The amount of liquid you add will be close to the amount of gravy you end up with as it does reduce, but not drastically. I usually end up with enough for Mo and I and the baby to eat to our hearts content as well as having leftovers for a couple of days. The time it takes is also relevant to how thick you like your gravy too, mine takes about 45 minutes to an hour to fully cook.
Once your gravy is close to done, pop the biscuits in the oven. You can turn off the heat and cover your gravy while you bake since it will help thicken the gravy to let it stand for a while. Once your biscuits are browned, split them in half, cover them in gravy and…. You know what to do next!

Let me know how yours turns out or if you have questions, something went wrong, or if you just have comments! It’s great that some of you have emailed to let me know how things have turned out for you, I love it!

Classic Banana Bread

I thought this would be an appropriate recipe for my first post, and I’ll tell you why. I made this last night for the first time in a couple of months and in less than 24 hours, we managed to eat an entire loaf! As I sit here, typing this, I’m finishing the laaaast slice…. And it’s delicious. (Since I procrastinated and typed instead of eating my bread, my toddler has inevitably finished it for me. You snooze, you loose I guess!)
So here is the recipe! Enjoy!
Ingredients:
3 or 4 VERY ripe bananas (you’re going to be mashing these by hand, so you want soft bananas!)
1/3 Cup melted butter
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
1 Egg, beaten
1 Tsp vanilla extract
1 Tsp baking soda
1 1/2 Cup all purpose flour
Pinch of salt
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350F. Smash bananas in a large bowl with a fork until all the chunks are good and smashed. Mix (with the same fork, if you want, but not with a beater) the melted butter into the mashed bananas, then add the sugar, beaten egg and vanilla. Mix well. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt in and mix. Add the flour last and mix well. Pour mixture into a buttered (oiled, sprayed, whatever your preference) 4x8in loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Remove from pan, cool on a rack and slice to serve!