Beef and barley stew

Growing up this was a regular meal we loved and still love today! This is a great cold weather meal, but we eat it in the summer time too. It's easy and Something you can just throw in the crockpot, or make ahead of time and freeze. Don't forget to make a batch of home made cornbread or biscuits to go with it, yumm!!



Ingredients:
1 cup pearl barley
1 medium onion, sliced thinly
3 ribs of celery
Carrots, peeled and sliced
1 lb meat (we use stewed roast, cubed)
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp sea salt
7 cups of beef stock/broth


Put everything in the crock pot and let it cook all day on low!

Or place all ingredients, accept stock, in a freezer bag. Freeze and cook later! Just add the 7 cups of beef stock when you are ready to cook it!

Home made pinto beans

My husband loves my pinto beans! It's a super cheap meal, and super easy! I prefer cooking it with the crockpot, but I also have a quick stove top version for a last minute meal. I recently created a good seasoning to give the beans a lot of flavor, I've included that recipe at the bottom!

Ingredients:

1 bag(small) dried pinto beans

Bean seasoning mix (recipe below)

1 package of bacon, cooked and diced into bits(optional)

Directions:

Wash and soak your beans overnight

Rinse your beans, place in your crockpot.

add seasoning mix(all of it, recipe below)cover beans with water.

Cook on low 6-8hours, add additional water if beans start drying out (you want to keep them completely covered in liquid)

Now about the bacon. I've made it without and it tastes great! But it also tastes great with the bacon and my husband prefers it that way. You can cook your bacon bits in a pan and add it to the beans from the start(grease and all if you want) but the bacon will get pretty mushy by the end of the day. So I like to add it about 1 hour before we are ready to eat. So it's up to you, and either way tastes good! You can also use leftover ham instead of bacon, or we have even used turkey sausage and it also tastes good! Just add it about 1hour before your ready to eat and make sure it's cooked Before adding it. We serve our beans with cornbread and home made sweet potato fries! 

See prior post for my sweet cornbread recipe. It's pretty tasty! 

Enjoy!

Directions for bean seasoning mix

2 Teaspoons onion powder

1 Teaspoons paprika

1 Teaspoons ground cumin

2 Teaspoons sea salt

1 Teaspoons ground black pepper

1 Teaspoons oregano

1 Teaspoons minced garlic

Mix together and store in a air tight container or use right away. This equals 1 packet of season and you want to use all this in one pot of beans. I will work the measurements out to make a batch in bulk and update you with those measurements. you can add extra to taste if you want, but this measurement was plenty for us :)

If you do not want to use the crockpot, and you forgot to soak your beans(I do this all the time) then I do have a quick stove top recipe. It's all the same ingredients and measurements.

Rinse your beans and add to a pot, cover with Plenty of water. Boil beans on Med-high heat for a good 30minutes, watch beans so they don't dry out and add more water as the beans absorb a lot of the water. Reduce heat to Med-low heat and simmer. Add more water if necessary, add seasoning and cooked bacon bits. Simmer until beans are cooked (about a hour or so) serve! 

Pesto calzone pizza

Recently my sister in law shared a yummy recipe for quick home made pizzas using basil pesto as the sauce. They were wonderful! So while making yummy home made calzone pizzas over the weekend I decided to try out my own pesto version. It was absolutely AMAZING! Here is the recipe! Feel free to change it to suit your taste!


Pesto calzone pizza

Ingredients:
Original Basil pesto
Rhodes dinner rolls(frozen and set out two-three hours Pryor to rise and thaw)
Garlic salt (1/4 tsp)
Mozzarella cheese (optional)
Fetta cheese (I used sun dried tomato fetta)
Shredded asiago cheese
Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Canadian bacon (optional, but really yummy)
Mushrooms (optional)
Tomato, diced (optional)
A few spinach leaves(also optional)
One egg, beaten


Any extra toppings you wish

First, set out your rolls on a cookie sheet, cover with a towel and let them thaw or rise for about two hours. I set mine out while I was cooking breakfast so they would be ready for lunch.


Pre-heat your oven to 350.

Grab one of your rolls and roll it out (this will be your pizza dough)

Grab a spoon and spread some of the pesto all over the "dough".
Sprinkle a little garlic over the pesto
Now place a few spinach leaves on
Next, add the Canadian bacon(or whatever other topping you choose)
Then add a couple mushrooms
Now sprinkle a little of each cheese over top....oh yeah, starting to look pretty tasty now!
Lastly. I added a few diced tomatoes.

Now fold over the dough and pinch the sides together to seal it shut. Take a fork and press down around the ends, this just helps pinch it closed so it stays sealed while baking...And it makes it look pretty!

Now take your egg and beat it, then wash over the top of the calzone, and sprinkle a little basil(or oregano)and garlic salt over top and place into heated oven. Bake for 10-15minutes or until nice and golden brown on top. Enjoy the yumminess!!!

BLT Grilled Cheese

On my menu board today for lunch were grilled cheese sandwiches, per my daughters request. She said "mommy you NEVER EVER make us grilled cheese anymore!". So I decided to be nice and put in on the menu. The reason why I shy away from making grilled cheese is because I simply do not like to eat them. So, naturally I don't think to put it on the menu until one of my little ones asks me to. 

I decided if I was going to make grilled cheese I would at least make them taste good. So naturally the first thing that popped into my head was bacon. Why? Because, obviously, bacon can make anything taste delicious! So this morning I searched my refrigerator to gather all my ingredients so I would have it all ready for lunch. I noticed I had a few tomatoes I needed to use before they went bad, I also had just a handful of asiago cheese and fetta cheese left from my pizza making last week that needed to get used. That's when he light bulb went off and I decided  to pile all of these random ingredients onto my grilled cheese. The end result ended up tasting wonderful! I mostly wanted to post this here so I could remember how to make it, and of course, to share it with you all. So here is my recipe for what I call a BLT grilled cheese, even though it doesn't have lettuce in it, so really I guess it's just a BT grilled cheese. Either way, Enjoy! 

Here are all the ingredients I used! Feel free to change it up and use whatever you have in the fridge! 

Okay, lets get started. First open a pack of bacon, cut it in half

Next, grab a skillet and fry your bacon on medium heat until done. Then set it to the side. Let it cool a few seconds before inhaling it while your cooking the rest of the food.

After your bacon is finished, pour out the bacon grease to re use the pan for the sandwiches. I didn't wash my pan so it left a little of the grease leftovers

Next, take your bread and butter one side of each slice

Next, flip over one piece and add a little tomato to the not buttered side

Then throw on all your cheese..mmmm 

And add a little bacon

Then a few mushrooms...

And for fun how about we throw in a little basil pesto to the other slice of bread(on the not buttered side) 

Now put the other slice of bread on top, both butter sides will be facing the outside

toss it in the skillet(make sure the heat is on low to give the middle of the sandwich time to heat without burning the outside) 

Let it sizzle for a few minutes. Go ahead, grab a couple slices of bacon and eat it while your waiting(there is a reason I cooked the whole pack) and then gently lift the sandwhich up to check to see if the bread has browned, once it is golden brown carefully flip it over without dumping everything out into the pan

After you flip it, take your spatula and smash the sandwich down. This helps melt everything and hold it all together. Feel free to grab a couple more pieces of bacon and eat them while you wait. When both sides are golden brown and your cheese is melted then its done

Viola!! There you have it. A delicious, cheesy, bacony(is that a word?) piece of goodness.  I served mine with fruit because a good serving of fruit makes anything look a little more healthy. This was amazing and I am completely stuffed! I'm drinking regular pink lemonade in the pic, but I wish I had made the very berry. Maybe for snack time later! I have the recipe posted to this blog as well. 

This would also be really good with guacamole and cheddar cheese instead of the pesto and fancy cheese...that may be my next sandwhich to make! 

My mind is forever changed about the grilled cheese sandwich. It's became one of my very favorite things to eat for lunch!!! I made the kids a more simple version of this, I basically just did bread, cheese and bacon. They loved it and asked for seconds. 

Here are the list of Ingredients I used:

1 pack of bacon
2 slices or Amish rye bread
A couple slices of Roma tomato
Fetta cheese
Shredded cheddar cheese
Shredded Asiago cheese

hand full of mushrooms (optional) 

Tbs of real butter, softened
Basil pesto (optional)