Picture Perfect Cooking

What a great gift!  Thanks, Dad!

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I have never been a huge fan of pimento cheese.  Ok, that is not quite right…I have never been a fan of store-bought pimento cheese.  My co-worker found the original recipe in the May 2010 issue of Southern Living magazine and adapted it to her taste.  I must say she has good taste!  This is creamy and cheesy, and the pecans are a wonderful crunchy surprise.  We ate this as sandwiches, with crackers and with veggies as a dip.  It is so good!  Try this on a hot summer day and I promise you will never buy pimento cheese in the store again!

1 1/2 cups mayonnaise (I used light.)

4 oz chopped pimento peppers, drained

1 tsp Worcestshire sauce

1/4 tsp ground red pepper

1 cup chopped toasted pecans

8 oz block sharp cheddar cheese, finely grated

8 oz block mild cheddar cheese, largely grated

Note: If you can, shred your own cheese.  It makes a big difference in the texture and flavor.  The pre-shredded cheeses have ingredients to prevent clumping and that messes with the final product.

Toast the pecans in a 350 degree oven for 5-8 minutes to bring out the oil and flavor in the nuts. (I just set the oven to preheat to 350 and put the nuts in the oven while it is doing this.  That is usually enough time to toast them, but not burn them.)

Shred the cheeses, using different sides of the grater for different textures.

Combine all of the ingredients together and refrigerate up to 1 week. It won’t last that long though!

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Last week, I used orange marmalade in the BBQ meatball recipe.  Of course, I had to buy a whole jar just for the half cup I needed for the meatballs, so I tried to come up with a way to use the rest of the jar.  I had planned on cooking a pork loin in the crock later that week and I had an idea that I could use the marmalade on that.  It worked great!  It was so easy and really good.  You can see from the photos of the finished product below that the orange flavor really soaked into the meat, but it was not over-powering at all.

4 lb pork loin

1 cup orange marmalade

1 cup orange juice

seasoning salt & black pepper to taste

Sprinkle the roasts with the seasoning salt and black pepper on both sides.

Pour the orange juice in to the bottom of your slow cooker.

Place the roasts in the cooker and spread the marmalade on the roasts to cover the tops of them.

Cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.  The meat will be so tender that it will try to fall apart when you are taking it out.  Yum, yum!

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This recipe is an oldie (for me) but goodie!  A lady that used to work in the office down the hall from me made this recipe regularly for pot lucks and parties.  I got it from her in 1997 and have made it many times myself, but as I was looking through my recipe book, I realized that it had been a long time since I had used it.  The name is a little misleading…these really aren’t barbecued, but they are baked in a delicious sauce that looks like barbecue sauce.  If you want more of the barbecue flavor, I think you could add a little liquid smoke to the sauce and it would help with that.  These are pretty good as is though!

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1 egg white

1 lb lean ground beef

2 tbsp seasoned dry bread crumbs

1/2 tsp dried minced garlic

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup jellied cranberry sauce

1/2 cup orange marmalade

3 tbsp ketchup

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp Worcestshire sauce

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine onion, egg white, beef, bread crumbs, minced garlic and salt together in a bowl.  Form mixture into 2 inch meatballs and place in a single layer in a 13×9” baking dish.

Bake for 10 minutes.  While the meatballs are cooking, combine the remaining ingredients to prepare the sauce.

Pour the sauce over the meatballs and continue cooking for an additional twenty minutes or until the meatballs are cooked through.  These are great with noodles or dirty rice.  They are also good served with roasted potatoes and salad or as meatball hoagies.

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I am amazed at the amount of strawberries I have picked off of 28 plants!  So amazed that I planted 25 more so there will be enough to eat and freeze next year.  This is a quick and easy recipe that is great for a warm weather gathering.  You can roll out the cookie dough into a circle and cut it into wedges so it really looks like pizza slices or, do like I did, and roll it into a rectangle and cut it into little squares.  You will end up with more pieces by doing the rectangle.

1 package refrigerated sugar cookie dough

8 oz cream cheese, softened (I didn’t have cream cheese so I used Neufchatel instead.)

8 oz non-dairy whipped topping

1/3 cup sugar

4 cups fresh strawberries, sliced

additional 1-2 tbsp sugar

Lay a piece of parchment paper on a cookie sheet.  Roll out the dough into a large rectangle.

Bake for 18-20 minutes until golden brown.  Cool completely before finishing the pizza.

For the topping, combine the cream cheese and sugar.  Beat until smooth and mix in the whipped topping.  Spread over the cooled cookie crust.  Say that 3 times fast!! 🙂

I cut mine into pieces before I put the berries on top.  It seemed easier and prettier that way.

Place the sliced strawberries on each piece and sprinkle a little sugar on them to sweeten.  Enjoy!!

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I think I mentioned on this blog that I like Manwich, and that is true, but sometimes a homemade sloppy Joe is so much better.  This recipe was published in the Louisville Courier-Journal newspaper back in 1998 and I have used it ever since.  Even though it is a recipe from scratch, it is still easy!  This is great on buns with melted cheese, but it also goes great with corn chips or tortilla chips or as tacos…well, you get this picture.  It is really really good and versatile!

1 lb lean ground beef

2 tbsp. butter

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/2 cup chopped sweet pepper

2 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp Worcestshire sauce

2 tbsp prepared mustard

1 1/2 cups ketchup

salt & pepper to taste

Brown the ground beef in a large pan over medium heat.  Drain the cooked beef on paper towels. Reduce the heat to low-medium. In the same pan, melt the butter with the onion and sweet pepper.  Cook until the vegetables are soft and browning or about 5 minutes.

Add the remaining ingredients to the vegetables and then add the ground beef as well.  Stir to combine.  Cover the pan and cook on low for 15 minutes. Check the pan after 10 minutes because you don’t want it to scorch.

Toast the hamburger buns in a warm oven for about 5 minutes.  Place about 1/4 cup of the sloppy Joe mixture on the bun and add a slice of your favorite cheese.  Mine is provolone.  Cover with the top of the bun and let the cheese soften from the heat of the bun and meat.

Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Exchange sponsored by Le Creuset.

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Let me say first that I am extremely lactose intolerant, but I LOVE ice cream!  This frozen pie mimics the taste and texture of ice cream, but it is friendly to all of us dairy-phobes out there.  It is rich, creamy and oh-so-good!  Try this recipe in the heat of summer and there won’t be any leftovers.  If you want a short cut, use a prepared Oreo crust instead of making one yourself. 

3 tbsp butter, melted

1/3 package Oreo cookies

1 tub (8 oz.) cream cheese spread

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

1/2 cup sugar

2 cups non-dairy whipped topping

1/2 cup caramel ice cream topping

1/2 cup chopped toasted pecans

1/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

For the crust:

Melt the butter in a medium sized bowl and set aside.  Crush the cookies using a food processor or place the cookies in a sealable bag and crush with a rolling pin.

Mix the cookie crumbs with the butter and pour into a pie plate.  Use a piece of wax paper to press the crumbs into the bottom of the plate and up the sides.  Chill the crust in the freezer while you make the filling.

For the filling:

Beat cream cheese spread, peanut butter and sugar with an electric mixer until well blended.  Add whipped topping and mix well.

Spread the caramel topping over the bottom of the crust.  Cover with the cream cheese mixture and freeze for 4 hours or overnight.

Top with nuts before serving.  Melt the chocolate according to package directions and drizzle over the top.

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I am a big fan of shredded pork barbecue, and I always thought that it would difficult to make.  When you see the experts on television, they smoke the meat for hours or days, then shred it and make their own sauce from scratch.  That seemed like a whole lot of work to me, so I just ate other people’s barbecue and did not try to make it myself.

I don’t really remember how I come up with this recipe.  There was probably a similar one printed somewhere that caught my eye and I used that as a starting point.  This is really a cheating recipe since it uses premade sauce, but it doesn’t matter because it is still good.  I have had people I don’t even know come up to me at pot lucks and tell me that this is the best barbecue they have had.  I am not saying that to brag, but to let the home cooks like myself know that they can do this, too!  I promise that it is really easy.

2 lb pork roast

seasoning salt and ground black pepper to taste

1 cup water

1 bottle honey bbq sauce

Sprinkle the roast liberally with the seasoning salt and pepper.  Place the roast in a slow cooker, pour the water over the roast, and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours.

After the roast is done, place it on a cutting board or plate.  Discard the liquid in the cooker.  Shred the roast with two forks and place back in the cooker.  Pour about half of the bottle of bbq sauce over the shredded meat and stir to combine.  Cook on low for another 1-2 hours or until heated through.  Reserve the remaining sauce for dipping.

Come join the fun at the My Baking Addiction and GoodLife Eats Holiday Recipe Swap sponsored by West Bend

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C and I both love strawberries!  I am so glad that we have our own strawberry plants, too.  Right now I am picking a full bowl every other night on just 28 Tribute plants and they are still full of green berries!  I hope to plant more next year so I can have enough to freeze as well. 

The other day, C asked if I could make a strawberry milk shake and I said sure.  I bought the ice cream and searched for a basic recipe online.  I found one that looked good and then tweaked it to suit myself.  I added a lot of extra strawberries, because I really wanted that to be the main flavor and it did not disappoint.  Also, since I used 2% milk and light ice cream, it was not as unhealthy as it could be.  If you used skim milk, it would be even lighter and just as good.  This made two average sized shakes.

1/2 cup milk (I used 2%.)

35 strawberries, hulled and sliced

1 cup vanilla ice cream (I used light.)

1/4 cup sugar (You could get by with less.)

In the container of a blender, combine all ingredients.  Blend until smooth, about 20 seconds.  Pour into a glass and ENJOY!

Let me tell you, I am extremely lactose-intolerant and this was well worth the 2 lactose supplements and anti-acid pill that I had to take to drink it.  If I could, I would have licked the inside of the glass.  It was SO YUMMY!

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