I may have mentioned recently that my brother-in-law is a wizard in the kitchen. His latest “new” dish was served at Thanksgiving and of course I HAD to have the recipe. And I so HAD to share it with y’all.

Texas Caviar

2 cans “Bush’s” black eyed peas. Microwave 2 mins. Drain.

Add 1 (16 oz.) of “Ken’s Steakhouse” regular Italian dressing and let cool.

Add the following:

1 1/2 cups chopped white onions

1 1/2 cups chopped green bell peppers (you can use red/orange/yellow for more color)

1 cup chopped green onions

1 deseeded and chopped jalapeno pepper

1 small jar of drained pimentos

1 tbsp minced fresh garlic

Mix all together – let marinate in fridge 1-3 days.

Serve with Tostito Scoops.

Note: Some of the dressing can be drained prior to serving if desired. Publix also has all the ingredients already chopped up in the produce section (my choice).

What new dish did you discover this Thanksgiving? I would love to have the recipe!!

Once again last week’s attempt at a culinary delight from my kitchen was a bust. I’m ready to give up and just go back to our menu of frozen pizzas and sandwiches. I feel as though I am wasting a good part of our ‘food budget’ with experiments that never quite make it to our dinner plates. What was wrong with the last dish? Well, it had a great flavor but the biscuits (aka dumplings) just were really gooey and I just can’t stomach biscuits that are not done. Plus the little bit I ate gave me an aggravating case of acid reflux (which I am not generally prone to).

So that is my rant about cooking. The result of my recent failures found me succumbing to buying Pillsbury’s Most Requested Recipes magazine for casseroles and slow cooker meals while waiting in the checkout lane of the grocery store – where I was purchasing rolls for sandwiches.

So this weeks recipe that I am going to give a try is:

Sausage Ravioli Casserole

INGREDIENTS:

DIRECTIONS:

 Wish me luck. But more than luck….how about if you leave one of your favorite ‘tried and true’ recipes in the comment section or leave me a link to it. We can’t live on frozen pizzas and sandwiches – honestly we can’t – we have been doing it for years and it is getting old.

31 Days of Autumn ~ Day 30

Well there is not much I can say about last week’s recipe, Smothered Steak, except ~ ICK. Although it was edible, it was bland, bland, bland. A couple of things contributed to the failure of this recipe:

• lack of seasoning
• the broth would not thicken up no matter how much flour and water I stirred in, so the gravy was thin and tasteless
• the green beans – ewwwww – don’t ever use frozen green beans for ANYTHING! Nasty, nasty, nasty. I ended up picking out every last single bean in the pot before serving it.

So there you go. Last week’s recipe was a bust. But I am looking forward to this weekend’s culinary delight. Since we just baked a box cake (Funfetti) this week, I will be making a slow cooker meal instead of a dessert.

Chicken and Dumplings

 I don’t usually make dumplings like this (I usually use Bisquick) but I will give this one a go. Be sure to check back next week to hear how it turned out.

31 Days of Autumn ~ Day 23

Proof that, yes indeed, the leaves do change here in sunny Florida!!!

I am so proud of myself. Perhaps this Fall Into Cooking meme is just what I needed to discover my latent culinary talents!! I made last week’s recipe ~ Pumpkin Dump Cake ~ and I love it!!! I have never been one of those people that had ‘a dish’. You know what I am talking about. It seems as though every family get together we have, everyone is asked to bring their ‘signature’ dish. Miss Lisa’s is homemade cheesecake, Miss Sally’s is coleslaw, Miss Anna’s is her famous oatmeal cake. Mine is ~ well there is no mine ~ until now. I have found my holiday signature dish! No kidding. It is easy and fabulous.

This week’s recipe is one that I found over at Full Bellies, Happy Kids:

  SMOTHERED STEAK

Serves: 4

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon pepper
4 eye-of-round steaks (about 4 ounces each), all visible fat discarded
2 teaspoons canola or corn oil
8 ounces sliced button mushrooms
1/2 medium onion, thinly sliced
1 cup fat-free, no-salt-added beef broth
2 tablespoons imitation bacon bits
2 teaspoons soy sauce (lowest sodium available)
1 teaspoon molasses
1 cup frozen green beans

1. In a shallow bowl or plate, stir together the flour and pepper. Coat the steaks on both sides with the mixture, shaking off the excess.
2. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add the oil and swirl to coat the bottom. Cook the steaks for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until browned. Transfer to a plate.
3. In the same skillet, cook the mushrooms and onion for 2 to 3 minutes, or until the onion is tender-crisp, scraping to dislodge any browned bits and stirring occasionally. Stir in the broth, bacon bits, soy sauce, and molasses. Add the steaks. Bring to a simmer, still on medium high. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, for 35 to 40 minutes, or until the steaks are almost tender. Stir in the green beans. Simmer for 6 to 8 minutes, or until the steaks are tender and the beans are cooked through.

Slow-Cooker Method: After browning the steaks and cooking the mushrooms and onion, put all the ingredients except the green beans in a slow cooker. Cook on low for 4 to 6 hours, adding the green beans for the last hour of cooking, or on high for 2 to 3 hours, adding the green beans for the last 30 minutes of cooking.

I’m going to do the Slow-Cooker Method. Check in next week to see how it turns out.

Don’t forget to join in and leave your name with Mr. Linky!!

Much to my amazement, I did make last week’s recipe Zesty Slow Cooking Barbeque Chicken. It was awesome!!!! The best barbeque I have ever had ~ and I’m a Georgia girl and I KNOW barbeque. I did change it up a little bit once it was all cooked. I added an additional 1/4 cup of brown sugar (I like my barbeque sweet) and I thickened it up as it was a bit too saucy for me. Here is the end result:

I served it with my homemade barbeque beans and Bisquick biscuits. Do you know I am the only one in my family who ate it??????? I live with some gourmet challenged individuals.

The recipe for this week is one I found over at Abiding Branch:

Pumpkin Dump Cake

Ingredients:

3 eggs
1 large can evaporated milk
1 16oz can pumpkin
1 ½ cups sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla

1 box yellow cake mix
Pecans
2 sticks of margarine

Directions:

Mix the above (except the cake mix, pecans, margarine) and pour into an ungreased 9×13 inch pan. Sprinkle 1 box yellow cake mix over the top. Melt 2 sticks of margarine and pour over top. Sprinkle with pecans. Bake one hour at 350 degrees. Serve warm with cool whip or ice cream.

31 Days of Autumn ~ Day 9

I don’t know about you, but there is something about this Scarecrow’s expression that just cracks me up when paired with how his (her) hands are positioned. Like he (she) could be saying “You just won’t believe the crazy human that snapped my photo today thinking that I was ‘all that’.”

Today’s recipe is from All Recipes. I was searching for something that would incorporate what I already had. For me, that would be the bag of frozen skinless chicken breasts that I bought thinking I would just cook one up for lunch every now and then with a veggie. We know how that did not work out (grin) as I still have the unopened bag in my freezer and it is ‘best used by December 2008′.

What I like most about All Recipes is that you can print them off to the size of an index card – for those of you that have recipe boxes – which I do not (gasp). Honestly, do you not believe me when I say…..I do not ordinarily cook.

Here is the recipe that I am going to try this weekend:

Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken Barbecue

Ingredients:

6 frozen skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1 (12 ox) bottle BBQ sauce

1/2 cup Italian salad dressing

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

Place chicken in a slow cooker. In a bowl, mix the barbeque sauce, Italian salad dressing, brown sugar, and Worcestershire sauce. pour over the chicken.

Cover, and cook 3 to 4 hours on High or 6 to 8 hours on Low.

I am ashamed to say that I cannot give you a critique on last week’s recipe. The ingredients are still sitting in my cupboard. So much for motivation. However, my intent is to make it this afternoon. Just as soon as I get back from taking Marbles to the groomers and Snicker’s back from the vets (stitch removal day).

As many of you know I am not much of a cook. Yet when the weather starts to cool and the pumpkins start making their way out of the garden and onto the front porch stoop, I get some waves of domesticity. This is especially true when I sit down and read a seasonal Southern Living magazine and find about twenty recipes that I would like to give a try at creating.

And that is where I got this idea of ‘Fall Into Cooking’. I am creating this weekly meme as a motivational tool for me to try new autumn inspired recipes and to become familiar with how a kitchen actually operates. Every Thursday I will post a ‘make your eyes water and your mouth drool’ recipe that I will try over the weekend. Then the following Thursday I will do a review of my culinary attempt and post a new ‘got to try’ recipe.

I will be including a Mister Linky in my post for those of you that would like to participate and join fellow bloggers in creating new fall delights from your kitchen.

This week’s ‘just have to give it a try’ recipe is one I found in the September issue of Southern Living magazine.

Spiced Pomegranate Sipper

Yield

Makes about 8 cups

Ingredients

• 1  (2 1/2-inch-long) cinnamon stick
• 5  whole cloves
• 5  thin fresh ginger slices
• 2  (16-oz.) bottles refrigerated 100% pomegranate juice
• 4  cups  white grape juice
• 1/2  cup  pineapple juice
• Garnishes: pineapple chunks, orange rind curls

Preparation

1. Cook cinnamon stick, cloves, and ginger in a Dutch oven over medium heat, stirring constantly, 2 to 3 minutes or until cinnamon is fragrant.

2. Gradually stir in juices. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer 15 minutes. Pour mixture through a wire-mesh strainer into a heat-proof pitcher; discard solids. Serve warm. Garnish, if desired.

Note: For testing purposes only, we used POM Wonderful 100% Pomegranate Juice and Welch’s 100% White Grape Juice.

Tipsy Hot Spiced Pomegranate Sipper: Prepare recipe as directed. Stir in 1 1/4 cups almond liqueur just before serving. Makes 9 1/4 cups.

Cold Spiced Pomegranate Sipper: Prepare recipe as directed. Let stand 30 minutes. Cover and chill 2 hours. Store in refrigerator up to 2 days. Stir and serve over ice. Prep: 10 min., Cook: 25 min., Stand: 30 min., Chill: 2 hr.

Fizzy Spiced Pomegranate Sipper: Prepare Cold Spiced Pomegranate Sipper as directed. Stir in 1 (33.8-oz.) bottle ginger ale just before serving. Makes 16 cups.

Now all I need to do is buy a log cabin and light the logs in the fireplace. Oh, and let’s not forget the good book to go along with it.

What new recipe are you going to try this week?