Kit’s Margarita Recipe

Have you ever had margarita from scratch? I am talking real lemon and lime juice not a mix out of a bottle? If you have never had one from scratch, you are in for a treat! We have found it is best to make “the mix” a few days ahead of time, if you can hold for a week it is even better.

“The Mix”:

½ cup of fresh squeezed lime juice

½ cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice

¼ cup of white sugar

Place "the mix" ingredients in a glass container, I use a clean jar. Shake until sugar is dissolved and store in the refrigerator for up to a week.

When ready to drink Margaritas combine:

1 cup of Tequila

1 cup of Triple Sec

Mix

Serve over two cups of crushed ice

**If you like your Margaritas frozen pour all ingredients into a blender and blend until frozen.

Serve in a glass with either sugar or salt on the rim.

There are 4,001,892 ways to cook a potato

I am not sure about everyone else, but I feel like I have gained ten pounds just writing all the recipes this week. How about we lighten up with Scalloped Potatoes? I know you hear Scalloped Potatoes, the last thing you have in mind is light and healthy. 
Like most recipes this calls for salt, I do not add salt to my recipes. Most of the time you do not notice the difference, we get enough salt in our diets from processed foods. When my husband and I got married. I noticed that every time we ate, he loaded his food with salt and pepper even before tasting it. I figured he was going to salt his food before tasting it, there was no reason to add the salt. Over the years, he has given up this mind-set and now tastes before salting. That being said if you would like to add salt to this recipe please add ¼ teaspoon.

This recipe was passed out at a Weight Watchers meeting: 

Scalloped Potatoes

Makes 4 servings

2 large baking potatoes, thinly sliced

2 onions, thinly sliced

¼ cup of minced parsley, fresh

3 Tablespoons of all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon of black pepper

¼ teaspoon salt (try using garlic powder instead of salt!)

2 cups of hot skim milk

1/3 cup of shredded reduced fat cheddar cheese ( I always used more)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 10” X 6” baking pan with nonstick cooking spray

Layer one-third of potatoes and onions in the bottom of the pan. Sprinkle evenly with half of the parsley and flour. Repeat the layering once more, ending with the potatoes and onions. Sprinkle evenly with pepper and salt (garlic)

Pour the milk over the top and sprinkle with the cheese. Bake until the potatoes are tender and the top is browned, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

If you make this recipe with salt, here are the nutritional values per serving:

Calories 215, total fat 2g, Saturated fat 1g

Cholesterol 9mg, Sodium 284 mg,

Total Carbohydrate 38g, Dietary Fiber 4g,

Protein 11g, Calcium 267mg

Stew or Soup? You Decide...

My parents were born in raised in Kentucky, my husband’s in Texas. Here lies the base to an eighteen-year long debate over is it stew or soup.

Growing up when mom made stew it was a thick gravy sauce, with beef, potatoes, peas and a single bay leaf that always managed to end up in some ones bowl. Mom served it with bread and butter.

My husband grew up with stew that was broth based, beef, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and one onion. He eats it with crackers.

Can you see where the debate comes from?

My loving husband states it is because he is from the south and they put tomatoes in everything. I have been deemed a Yankee. Well I hate to break this to my husband, but his father's side of the family was not even American's during the Civil War! When the namesake did immigrate to America, he went to Kentucky. Therefore, if I am a Yankee, he is too!

I will leave each of you to decide which label you would like to classify this recipe, in our house it is called "Oh, that’s good!" 

If you have a picky eater like mine. Try a ladle full with only a small bit of broth and top with shredded cheddar jack cheese.

Paddy's Beef Stew (Soup)

1 ½ to 2 lbs of beef stew meat or roast cut into 2 inch pieces

1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped

3 carrots sliced

4 large potatoes, chopped to bite size pieces

2 large (28-30 oz) cans of whole tomatoes

Ground pepper

1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil

In soup pot, add oil and brown stew meat (personally, I add crushed garlic or garlic powder to the meat at this point.) Add enough water to cover meat, cover pot and let simmer until meat is tender. (If you have meat tenderizer go ahead and sprinkle some in) Simmer until almost all of the water has evaporated from pot, usually takes 1 ½ hours.

Add potatoes, onion and carrots.  Crush tomatoes while adding to pot along with the juice.

Cover pot and simmer until vegetables are done, season with pepper to taste.

Crock-pot version – Yes, you can make stew in a crock-pot!

Place meat tenderizer, stew meat, pepper, (garlic,) onion and enough water to reach almost halfway of crock-pot. Set to highest setting, replace lid and let simmer for 6 hours.

After six hours, water should be mostly gone. Place carrots and potatoes in a microwavable dish (I prefer an 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup) cover with water and microwave on high for ten minutes. The vegetables should fork tender but not completely cooked. Add tomatoes, potatoes and carrots to crock-pot and let cook for an hour on high temperature.

The Panic of The Lost Pumpkin Bread Recipe

I have a stack of recipes that are loose and unbound. They are either hand written, or printed from the internet and emails. When I want a recipe, I pull out the stack and start shifting through it. I am the only person in the house who can touch the stack. I know exactly where  a recipe should be and they should never get out of “my” order.

Huge panic erupts when I cannot find a recipe. The thought or idea that I have lost or miss placed a recipe is devastating. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I should have a better system for keeping recipes, but I am a procrastinator and a creature of disorganized chaos.

Two weeks ago, I made pumpkin bread. This weekend I went looking for the recipe and it was nowhere to found. I went through the stack of recipes twice and could not find it. My over active imagination started churning with the “what if’s.” What if it got thrown away when my husband cleaned the kitchen? Did Lily, our paper-shredding cat, get her paws on it? Was it mistaken as scratch paper and used by the kids for math homework? Gasp!

Lily, A.K.A. The Paper Shredder

  So panic with setting in, I start pulling cookbooks out of my cabinet and riffling through them. This is one of those recipes, I do not need to read what is on the paper; it is burned in my memory. Though without the paper in my hand, I cannot remember any of it besides canned pumpkin.

 After emptying the cabinet, the recipe is nowhere to found. My kitchen is a disaster, and Lily was stalking recipes that have fallen on the floor. Dejected I sit down at my computer, only to look over at the printer. Yep, sitting on top of the printer is my recipe for pumpkin bread. I placed it there to scan into the computer, in case I ever lost the paper copy.



Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 16 oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie)

3 cups of all purpose flour
3 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cloves

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg (if you have the time, grind it fresh)

1 teaspoon of baking soda

½ teaspoon of baking powder

** Optional you can add either add 1 cup chopped walnuts or pumpkin seeds**

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare two 9X5X3 inch loaf pans by buttering and flouring.

In large bowl beat sugar and oil until blended. Mix in eggs and pumpkin.

In separate bowl sift remaining dry ingredients, and then slowly stir into pumpkin mixture.

Divide batter between the prepared pans, sprinkle with nuts and bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on wire racks.

This recipe can be used to make one dozen pumpkin muffins, prepare tins as above or use cupcake papers. Bake for 20 minutes, insert toothpick to check doneness  

Death by Chocolate Brownies with Kahlua Whipped Cream

Like many families, mine is spread across the country. Several times over the years, there have been emails and phone calls asking if someone had a copy of a recipe. As a result, I decided that I needed to place all of them in a cookbook. After sending a request out to my family asking for their favorite recipes, I did get a few back without having to beg.

 The question I next faced was who should get a copy of the cookbook? Should only the ones who sent me a recipe get the book or should everyone benefit from the few who sent me recipes? I do not want hurt my sisters’ feelings if she was not able to send a recipe. I also had to consider friends who had given me recipes over the years. Do I leave them out because they are not family by law or blood but by absorption? My extended family is just as large as my family, since my husband served our country proudly for twenty years.

The debating back and forth, gave me an excuse for not starting the book. Recently my Aunt Jackie and Uncle Bill came for a weekend visit and I had forgotten to get a cake recipe my aunt, so I posted a note on her Facebook page asking for the recipe. One of my dearest friends, Cheryl, asked for the recipe without even knowing about what was in the cake!  A week later after a trying week of working on the family tree, my adopted Uncle Doug, stated I needed a hobby. I need another hobby as much as I need another hole in my head! However, I let the ideas start to fester and grow, and then decided why I should just limit myself to family or friends. So like many others, I have decided to take the plunge into the world of blogging. I thought I would start with my Death by Chocolate Brownies with Kahula Whipped Cream.

Death by Chocolate Brownies with Kahlua Whipped Cream

Brownie Ingredients:

1 box if Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate brownie mix

1 box of Ghirardelli Double Chocolate brownie mix

1 large box (6 oz) of Jello Brand Chocolate pudding

2 large eggs

1 cup of whole unsalted butter, melted

½ cup heavy whipping cream

¼ cup of Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Prepare a glass 9” X 13” baking dish by spraying  with non-stick cooking spray like Pam or grease with butter.

In mix bowl, stir brownie mixes and pudding together. Add eggs, melted butter, chocolate syrup and whipping cream until thoroughly blended.  Mixture will be thick like chocolate frosting.

Spread evenly in to pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before serving.

I serve brownies topped with Kahlua whipped cream, chocolate syrup and dusted with Hershey’s Coco powder.

Whipped Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

½ cup whipping cream

3 Tablespoons Kahlua Liqueur

2 Tablespoons white sugar.

Place all ingredients in a cold or chilled bowl; I prefer a metal mixing bowl for this. Beat with a hand mixer on high for one minute or until the mixture is stiff and fluffy.

Serve immediately, can be stored for one week in refrigerator.