Monday, June 29, 2015

Country Style Baked Beans


Baked Beans are always better if they are made the day ahead of serving and can be slow roasted in the oven, crockpot or dutchoven. And until I moved to South Carolina, I didn't realize there were so many styles of baked beans... Southern style, Country style, Boston baked, Deep Dish or just plain original. Today, we chose Country Style which starts out with left over country ham, salt pork or maple cured bacon, you choose. This recipe is from the pantry, it is a combination of three or four other recipes that I have played with and twiked through the years.




  • 3 cans white navy or pinto beans, drained not rinsed
  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 1/2 cup maple syrup
  • 1 1/2 cup chicken stock
  • 1/4 cup molasses
  • 1 large red onion diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, diced
  • 1/2 cup diced red pepper
  • 1 tablespoon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 cup diced country ham, uncooked salt pork or bacon 
  • 1 c brown sugar

  • Lightly saute' meat, onion, garlic and red pepper in 1/2 cup chicken stock and maple syrup. Then Place all ingredients in crockpot or Dutch oven, cover and cook for 8 to 10 hours on low. Stir a few times, if possible.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Hawaiian Chicken Kabobs


Our Family loves to grill and we spend most of our summer evenings and weekends trying and creating new recipes and ideas. Today our Super Saturday Blog Hop is all about HAWAIIAN KABOBS and we are featuring a new recipe we came up with using chicken. Our Challenge ingredient was to use Lawry's Hawaiian Marinade and actually this was the first time we had ever used this marinade at the pantry. We were really impressed, but found it to be a little to much on the savory side, we were expecting a little sweeter tasting sauce. 

Step #1 - Rinse, pat dry one pound (about 8 small pieces) of chicken breasts and cover with one full bottle of Lawry's Hawaiian Marinade. Cover, chill and let chicken marinade in sauce for at least two hours. (We let ours set for about 4 hours)

Step #2 - Turn grill on to heat on medium and pull Chicken breasts out of the marinade. Discard extra liquid, we don't use this liquid for glazing and grilling because it is filled with raw meat juices. 

Step#3 - While grill is heating up, cut chicken and assorted favorite grilling veggies into bite sized chunks or 1 x 3 inch strips and place on bamboo skewers (remember to soak your skewers). We used red pepper, mushrooms and onions. These also would have been good with fresh grilled pineapple chunks. 

Step#4 - Place Kabobs on grill and cook for about 5 - 6 minutes on each side, brushing every two minutes with more glazing sauce. For our glazing sauce, we used a marinade of 1 cup Larwy's Hawaiian Marinade, 1 teaspoon Worchestershire sauce and 1 tablespoon honey. 

Step #5 - We served our Kabobs hot over Sweet Peas & Rice.

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

TWD: "Baking With Julia" - Savory Puffs

I have been trying to come up with a fun and easy treat to take to share with the girls for lunch at camp tomorrow. Plus I am craving my mother's chicken salad. So making "Savory Puffs" was a great way to combine both.

Cream Puffs... Are the world's most temperamental pastry next to meringue and divinity candy! And even though they can be time consuming, I make them often using this recipe and they always turn out perfect. :)

We really like to serve ours filled with my mother's Chicken Salad. You can find that recipe here...

CREAM PUFFS & CHICKEN SALAD








Tuesday, June 9, 2015

TWD: "Baking Chez Moi" - Chocolate Cherry Brownies

So the big question of the day... When you cook or bake, are you a methodical baker/cook or a spontaneous one? Do you spend days drooling, thinking and planning out the excuation of your recipes or do you spontaneously say "that sounds good" and make it on the spot?
Today for our "Tuesday's with Dorie" challenge the recipe was Chocolate Cherry Brownies. And like most of the recipes on Tuesday, I spontaneously find myself drooling over the recipe challenge of the day. I have learned through the years that if I spend to much time in thought about a certain recipe then chances are I will talk myself out of it. Most often, I see, I drool and then I conquer a recipe all in a matter of minutes. So I guess, I am a spontaneous baker, except when I am in French Chef mode and then I linger, I compare and I savor both the art and the flavors of my french dishes.

Thursday, June 4, 2015

Wild Berry Trifle (deconstructed)

Foregoing our "Throwback Thursday" to currently say Happy Birthday to two more of my kids for the year. We celebrated tonight with family dinner, serving yummy, creamy chicken enchiladas and deconstructed wild berry trifle. My son is not a big dessert eater and he requested Strawberry Trifle for is birthday cake this year. 

This a Thrify Thursday style recipe because we used everything from our pantry...


The Cake Base - We made yellow tea cakes using a Betty Crocker Yellow Cake mix as directed.
The Cream Pudding - We made two boxes of Vanilla Pudding according to directions on the box.
The Strawberry Sauce - We used a bottle of Strawberry Ice Cream Topping
The Whipped Cream - We whipped our own cream using heavy whipping cream, sugar and vanilla.
The Wild Berries - Blueberries, Raspberries, Strawberries, Blackberries, Frozen or Fresh is the best

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

TWD: "Baking With Julia" - Friut Focaccia




I really REALLY like Focaccia Bread, just about anyway you want to make. But my two favorites that stand out above the rest are Roasted Tomato & Basil and Pineapple Apricot.

 Today for our "Tuesday's with Dorie" our challenge was to make Fruit Focaccia. I loved this recipe found on page 196 in her cook book "Baking With Julia", it was easy to make and tasted wonderful. even though it recommends that you let your dough set for at least 24 hours I baked mine after about four.



Yesterday, while I was shopping for fresh veggies, I came acrossed a new brand ( at least to me) of flour and a "white"
coconut. So... Being really excited to split open my new treats... My fruit focaccia today is made with dried cranberries and fresh "white" coconut.