Go to recipes

Go to recipes…everyone has at least one. I have a couple as well as my husband.  Some are based off of childhood favorites while others are of my own creation.

There is one in particular that my husband absolutely loves. I found it in one of those little cookbooks put together by a family and my mom bought it for me. (I have a love of cookbooks) it’s called Supper on a Bread Slice. When I first read it, it made me tilt my head and ?? as it was different. But one day on a whim I made it and over the years I’ve tweaked it to the way we like it.

The great thing about this recipe is that it is easily expandable, it’s great for leftovers and you can easily change it up but putting different vegetables in it. We’ve tried many variations but the one we like the best is below:

1 loaf of French bread (wheat French bread is our favorite for this)

1 pound of ground beef

1 small can of sliced olives, drained

1 green bell pepper diced

1 red bell pepper diced

6-10 white button mushrooms sliced

1 egg

1 T yellow mustard

5 oz evaporated milk

1 1/2 cup shredded Colby Jack cheese

Salt and pepper to taste

Pre heat oven to 350. Brown ground beef with salt and pepper (can use ground turkey instead if you want). Add vegetables and cook until bell peppers are slightly tender. Drain grease and put back into pan to stay warm.

In a bowl, add the egg, mustard and evaporated milk and whisk until combined. (I know you are probably looking at the screen like O.o but trust me…the sauce really does work with this even as unusual as it is.) Add the egg mixture to the beef and vegetable and mix well. You want to be careful and make sure that the meat mixture is not over a hot burner. You don’t want the egg in the sauce to scramble.

Take the French bread and slice it open lengthwise. Then cut each half into pieces. (I recommend to cut the bread into the serving sizes you want because it’s a pain and messy to cut after it’s done.) Place bread on a cookie sheet crust sides down and spoon the mixture evenly over the bread. Top the pieces with the shredded cheese and bake for 20 minutes.

It is so yummy! As I said as strange as the sauce is it works really well. If you decide you try it with firmer vegetables like broccoli, I recommend staggering the vegetables when you add them to the beef. After all you don’t want your mushrooms to be completely soggy and limp but your broccoli barely done.

If you try this recipe…I would love to hear what variation you came up with and what you thought about it. I’ll post more of our go to recipes soon.

What Was Paula Deen Thinking?

So I survived Easter and I didn't kill anyone. Bonus! I did want to strangle a cousin and their wife for being incredibly rude but that's a story for another day.

The baked french toast turned out pretty good if I say so myself. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of it. I did play with the recipe slightly. The egg mixture I did the same except for adding an 1/8t of clove. It was the topping that I made a major adjustment on. Instead of 2 sticks of butter I only used one. And trust me it really didn't need that other stick. (But it is a Paula Deen recipe and we all know of her love for butter) I also took out the corn syrup. And I only spread it on 2/3 of the pan. I left a portion without the pecan topping as my grandma is diabetic and really shouldn't have all that brown sugar.

A couple of things I learned from this recipe...

• make sure your french bread gets stale. It helps soak up the egg/milk mixture.
• be careful about the overlapping in the pan. It looked pretty but it was a pain in the butt to cut.
• the topping wasn't as crumbly as I thought it would be so it is a bit messy to spread out. And add the pecans AFTER combining the brown sugar and butter. It's easier to mix that way.

But all in all the recipe got thumbs up from everyone. It was sweet but not overly so. You didn't need syrup on the pieces that had the pecan topping. It's definitely one I'm going to try again.

Now my mom made a different Paula Deen breakfast casserole with potato chips, ham, cheese, egg soaked bread and bananas. yes you heard me right...BANANAS. Once you picked out the bananas it wasn't bad. But yeah with them in it...it was a bit strange. But that's Paula for ya.

Hand Me Down Recipes

Do you have any hand me down recipes? You those that seem to get passed down from generation to generation? I have a few of those in my family passed down from my grandma. I think one of the best things about them are the stories that my grandma and mom told me in regards to those recipes.

You see...my grandma grew up very poor in the mountains of Northern California. So every recipe comes with a story about how resourceful or in my grandma's case how conniving she was. Hey this is a woman at the age of 7 would pour warm water down snake holes and wait by with an axe so she could chop their heads off in order to sell the rattles. See what I mean?

One of the recipes that I absolutely adore are stove top ribs. It's a quick and easy recipe and the ingredients are fairly inexpensive. It's easy to make a little or a lot of. Throughout the years I've adjusted and tweaked the recipe to suit both my and my husband's taste. Every friend I have made this for have loved it as well. My poor husband never has a chance at the leftovers. MINE! I do not share them. 

Since I don't have children, I don't have anyone to pass these recipes down to along with the stories so I'm going to share it with you.

Stove Top Ribs

1 - 2 pounds of Country style pork ribs (I prefer boneless. You can use beef if you really wanted but the sauce is more suited to pork ribs.)

1 29 oz can of tomato sauce

1 T of mustard

1/2 t of Worcestershire sauce

1/2 t Mexican oregano

Maple syrup to taste

Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the ribs into large bite size pieces, liberally season them with salt and pepper (lemon pepper is a nice little variation to use as well). Cooke them over medium heat until 3/4ths of the way done.

While meat is cooking, combine the tomato sauce, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, and seasonings in a large bowl. Give it a good whisk to combine. Now comes the syrup. Add as little or as much as you want. I do suggest to add it in small quantities. I make mine slightly on the sweet side because I find the seasonings as it cooks will balance it out.

Take a dutch oven with a lid. After draining the grease from the ribs, add them and the sauce in the dutch oven. Cover and let simmer for a minimum of one hour, stirring occasionally. This will allow the ribs to braise in the sauce and literally become melt in your mouth tender. The longer you let it simmer the more tender they will be and the thicker the sauce will become.

Traditional we serve it with either mashed or baked potatoes and a side of vegetables along with biscuits. I always spoon extra sauce onto my potatoes. So yummy!

Guess what I'm making for dinner tonight?