Because Caaaarbs...

Oh internet, why do you do this to me?  Easy No Knead Bread...Artisan Bread....I want to eat all of the carbs...

It's 'da bomb!

I have been wanting to do a bacon bomb for quite a while now.  Just never took the time to do one.  Until now!  This is a fairly simple process, and you can put whatever you want in one.  I have a pound of hamburger thawed, and about 2/3 of a pound of ground pork that is begging for something spectacular....So I decided to do a Smoky Applewood bomb with cheese!

It's a cold day, great for soup!

I don't think the temperature here has gotten over 50 degrees today, and it's been cloudy all day.  The weather is supposed to really turn icky tomorrow.  My husband has been out hunting all day and he finally got one!!!  Don't worry, no pictures this year, although we will be processing it when he gets home.  I wanted something warm, but wasn't exactly sure what.  So I threw together a quick pot of Potato Soup!  Cheater style...chop up some bacon and brown it up

Then toss in about a half a bag of potatoes o'brian and let them brown up a bit and thaw

After it's browned up add about a tablespoon of chicken soup base.

The cube up about 8 oz of Velveeta, I just happened to have the queso blanco open so that is what I used.

And pour some milk on it and let the cheese melt, and the milk warm up, but don't let it scald!  Taste it and add some fresh cracked black pepper to taste!

Pair it with some bread and you have a meal!

Enjoy!!

It'll kill you!

Looking back over the years I fondly remember a professor I had my senior year of college.  He was my Residential and Commercial Construction/Auto CAD teacher, and almost every day like clockwork, we as a class learned about something new that could kill you, from faulty buildings, to lightning, to radiation...and my favorite, Cast Iron pans.  Cast iron pans are heavy, but he didn't mean that getting beaned upside the head would do you in, it was the fact that the metal expanded, trapped food particles in the voids when it cools and then allowed those particles to rot before releasing them the next time you used your pan.  I believe that day we were discussing the properties of metals used in construction... This has not stopped me from using my various cast iron pans.  I LOVE my cast iron pans!!!  The more I use my pans for various dishes, the better I get at using them!!!  And having a cast iron scraper (or two) has made the total difference in how often I use them!!!

Front and back of a scraper, love this thing!

Last night I found a recipe for fried apple pies...of course I decided to use my small round cast iron skillet.

And they turned out soooooo good!!!

So this morning I got out some leftover meats and made up some breakfast bowls.  Start by baking your tater tots, or crispy crowns, or regular hashbrowns.  If you ever have leftover french fries from a restaurant, you can rough cut those up and throw them in the oven for this breakfast too.  I found tater tots in the freezer, so that's what I decided to use!  While those are baking chop up whatever meats you want to use.  I had some delicious ham from our neighbor, and some sausage links leftover.  There are two pans, because I didn't want sausage, and he didn't want garlic or basil.

 

You don't want to start warming the meat in your skillet(s) until your potatoes are almost done.  You can put whatever extras in that you want, mushrooms, onions, peppers, other veggies.  Sky is the limit, whatever you taste buds are wishing for!  Once the meat is warm and a bit browned, then push it off to the side and add your eggs.  He likes his yolks runny, I'm a scrambled or fried over hard girl.

While the eggs are cooking the tots should be done.  Divide them into the bowls (or one bowl if you are flying solo) and top with a cheese of your choice,  his is cheese slices, mine is an italian mix.

Once the eggs are done add them to the bowl, top with the meat/veggies, and of course more cheese!

Then dig in and enjoy!

Pizza snack attack!

Nothing gets me hungrier than looking at Pinterest   Hours can be wasted looking, searching and pinning.  Today's snack comes from Pinterest   I'm not sure exactly who the original recipe comes from.  There are many floating around out there.  I have a board for just about everything!  I do shamelessly pin my own blog posts to Pinterest....so follow me. :0)

As I'm sure you can guess from the title, I made pizza something, pizza bites to be exact.  Super simple, something the DH or kids if you have them can help with!  And seriously this can be a full meal.  Any type of stuffing can be used.  After eating these my DH even said, you know, you could even do a cheeseburger stuffing...That will be happening later this week!!!  He's so smart!  I will blog that later!

The ingredients are simple,
One can (10 each) can biscuits 

Cheese, I used shredded pizza cheese, but you can use any type of cheese (block or shredded)
Toppings to stuff into it, I used pepperoni

Preheat the oven to 425. Smash the biscuit flat, but keep the round shape,  make sure to wash your hands first of course!  Layer the toppings and cheese.  

Fold into a pouch of sorts,

put folded side down into a greased pan.

Then you need an egg, Italian seasoning, garlic powder, and Parmesan cheese.  Of course if you aren't doing pizza bites you change up the seasonings to match what you are making.

Brush with the beaten egg.

Sprinkle the tops with the seasonings.

Bake for 18 minutes

The tops will be brown.

Serve with pizza sauce for dipping, or a different kind of dipping sauce.

Enjoy!  I know we did!!!

It's not your mama's meatloaf

Inspiration strikes again!  Tonight I decided to make Bacon Cheeseburger Meatloaf.  Not a new recipe to me, it's been a while, but I had the energy to make it so here we go!

Start by browning 10 pieces of bacon, if it's thick cut you can use 5.

Then take your beef (or whatever ground meat you want to use) and combine the eggs

bread crumbs

mayo

shredded cheddar cheese

and the Worcestershire sauce

in a big bowl with the salt and pepper.  At this point I realized that I was STILL out of ketchup...so I used BBQ sauce, and omitted the mustard.  Make sure your hands are clean and take any rings off...then mix and mash it all together.  Form it into a loaf shape, spread more BBQ on top

and bake at

for 40 minutes, or so...

Then top it off with the french fried onions!

Cook another 10 minutes, and it's ready to eat!

ENJOY!

Warm and cheesy potatoes? Yes Please!

I always love when people request dishes from me.  My DH asked me to make a twicebaked potato casserole for him to take to work tomorrow.  So of course I said yes!

Baking the potatoes is what takes so long in this recipe.  Of course you could cheat and do it in the microwave, just don’t oil or salt.

Once the potatoes are done, put the to the side to cool...

And cook the bacon

While the bacon is cooking mix up the rest of the ingredients

Cube the potatoes (with or without skin), and crumble the bacon in to a large bowl, dump the cheese mixture in and mix it all up.

Put it in an oven safe dish and bake until everything is melted and bubbly.

Serve warm and enjoy!

Bacon in that recipe? I'm on it!

Any recipe that starts with frying up bacon has me interested. I'll try any recipe once.

I don't remember where I came across the recipe for Bacon, Gruyere and Green Onion Scones, probably on Pinterest. I find a lot of recipe ideas there.  This one seemed fairly simple.  And I'm in the mood to cook! Of course I made more bacon than what the recipe called for, mostly because I would have ended up with 3 random pieces of bacon, and they made for good snacking while I worked in the kitchen.

After getting out the ingredients I would need for this recipe I started grating the cheese and chopping the green onions and put them in bowls for later.


Mix up or sift the dry ingredients together then it's time to cut in the butter. This is best done by hand, I tried to use the mixer, no go...

Once the butter has been cut in, toss the bacon, cheese, green onions and pepper in

Mix it well

Add the buttermilk.

Mix it till it forms a dough and shape it into a round and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so.

My oven doesn't take long to preheat, so I didn't turn it on until the 30 minutes were up.

Roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thick (this was a pain as the dough wanted to stick to the rolling pin...but I managed...) and you can cut it into rounds, or as I decided to do triangles, I don't know why but when I think scones I think triangles...

I don't use parchment paper, I put my scones on my silpat mats...and then brushed them with the heavy cream.  Good thing I made ice cream the other night...I have leftover heavy cream for this!

Into the oven they go for 20-25 minutes watching for that perfect golden brown.

Once they are done you can serve them warm with some honey butter, or whatever you want.  If you make them in advance just warm them up for a few seconds in the microwave.

Warm, flaky, a bit spicy...and totally yummy!  Enjoy!