Southwest Sausage Strata

Ingredients

- 4 Corn Tortillas (6-inch)
- 1 pkg. Jimmy Dean® Hearty Hot Sausage Crumbles
- 4 Eggs
- 1/2 Cup milk
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 Cup (4 ounces) shredding Mexican cheese blend, divided

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 F. Arrange tortillas on the bottom of a greased 8 or 9-inch baking dish. Sprinkle with sausage.
2. Beat eggs, milk and cumin in medium bowl with a wire whisk until well blended. Stir in 1/2 cup cheese.
3. Pour egg mixture over corn tortillas.
4. Bake 30 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean. Top with remaining 1/2 cut cheese. Bake until cheese is melted. Let stand 5 minutes before cutting into 4 quares to serve. Top with tomato and green onion, if desired.

Yield:

4 servings (1 square each)

Source

White Bread and Dinner Rolls with a Bread Machine

This recipe is a work in progress :)  The loaf I made today has a little after taste that I think is because of too much salt?  Or possibly too much yeast?  I will change my recipe here as I tweak it, but you can find the original recipe here.  The bread and dinner rolls use the same dough, but have different cooking methods, which I will include below. 

Never mind my broiler pan top doubling as a cooling rack.  All of my racks are in storage, and this is all I have. One day I'll have my kitchen back :)   


Dough
1 c water  + 1 T warm water
1 large egg (room temp and scrambled)
4 T vegetable oil
3-1/4 c bread flour
1/4 c White Sugar
1 t Salt
1-1/2 t instant yeast

2 T melted butter for rolls

For bread:  Add everything to bread machine and follow the 2 lb white bread settings.

For Dinner rolls: Add everything to the bread machine and go through the kneeding process.  Once finished, remove from the machine and separate into 12 equal rolls and brush with butter.  Bake in a 350 degree oven until golden brown.  I just want to add, it was the recipe calling these dinner rolls, but they came out more like dense hamburger buns, so you may want to cut it to 24 rolls.  And if you are looking for the light and fluffy rolls, these are not it.     

Slow Cooker Pork Shoulder

I think Jeremy would be a happy man if this was in the fridge everyday.  So easy to make and just as versatile as ground beef.  I love it.  This is how I always season it because we both love it spicy, you don't need to use this seasoning.  This feezes so well, I make it in big batches and freeze 4-5 servings in ziplock bags, for dinner or for Jer to pull out for lunch for the week. 

3-5 lbs pork shoulder or pork butt (boneless is much easier to work with)   
2 cloves of garlic- minced 
Spicy Montreal chicken seasoning 
Red pepper flakes
Chicken or Vegetable broth- enough to cover pork 

Trim the fat from the pork, and remove the bone if you bought bone-in.  I usually cube the pork into big chunks so it's easier to serve at the end.  Add pork to the slow cooker, add the garlic and generously season pork with the seasonings.  Cover pork will broth.  Cook on low for at least 8 hours.  When finished, remove from the broth and shred with 2 forks.  (I always skim the fat and freeze the broth for the next time)

Serving sugggestions
-Pork carnitas
-Pulled pork sandwiches
-Pork burritos, tacos, enchiladas, or quesadillas
-Enchilada casserole with pulled pork instead of ground beef or chicken
-Add bbq sauce instead of the broth and have bbq pulled pork
-Or eat like Jeremy does, on 2 pieces of bread and a piece of pepper jack cheese

Cheesy Cheesy Mac n Cheese

I love mac n cheese.  I have not met a mac n cheese that I didn't like (except maybe that crud made with powdered cheese.)  This recipe is so easy I may not even buy the shells anymore 

2c uncooked macaroni (I used Cavatappi, which looks like long curly elbow mac)
12oz Velveeta cheese-cubed
1/3c milk
1/8t fresh ground pepper

-Cook pasta and drain well
-Return to pot, add cheese, milk and pepper
-Stir constantly over low heat until cheese is melted


This is really really cheesy, so if you don't want really really cheesy, add another half cup of  noodles or add one of the variations below, which will soak up some of the extra cheese.   

Variations:
Add browned ground beef
Add a can of tuna or chicken
Add  peas or lima beans   

Seasoned Red Potatoes

This has become Jeremy's favorite side dish. Super easy, and can be changed to fit almost anyone's taste.

2-3 red potatoes per person
Olive oil
Chili powder

-Slice the potatoes into bite size pieces, and place into a ziplock bag.
-Coat with olive oil and then add chili powder, squish around the bag to thoroughly coat the potatoes with the oil and chili powder.
-Let sit for a few hours to marinate
-When ready to bake, make a 'pouch' from tinfoil and empty the Ziploc bag into the pouch.
-Sprinkle a little more chili onto the potatoes and cover with tinfoil.
-Bake at 450 until potatoes are tender.

Notes:
-I will sometimes bake without the cover, but this tends to brown the potatoes well before they are done.
-You can boil the potatoes first until fork tender
-You can change out the seasoning, just make sure the olive oil will not destroy the taste the seasoning brings to the potatoes

Baked Shrimp

A few weeks ago I bought some soup/au graton bowls. They really are the cutest little things. They reminded me of some of my Grandmas dishes when I was a child. And because I am sentimental like that, I had to have them, along with a matching square casserole dish, and also a huge oval dish. Yes, I need help, I have a collection of casserole dishes! Is it a bad thing that I have one cupboard dedicated to just casserole dishes? Never mind, don't answer that, in my world you can never have enough casserole dishes.

Okay, that was a slight tangent I wasn't really expecting. Anyway, I wanted to use my cute little dishes. I am not a big soup eater, so off to the internet I went. I found this recipe for Baked Shrimp with Lemon Garlic Crumbs. And since I am lazy, I made a few short cuts. The recipe that follows is for one serving but can be easily doubled.

Baked Shrimp
6 ounces of raw shrimp, thawed, deveined and peeled (I buy mine this way)
1 T Butter, melted (I used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter)
Bread crumbs (I used McCormick's Italian Herb & Cheese Crusting Blend)
Lemon juice (You all know I used the stuff that comes in the plastic lemon)

-Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
-Melt the butter and use a brush to coat the dish
-Combine the remaining butter with enough breadcrumbs to cover the top of the dish.
-Layer the shrimp in the bottom of the casserole
-Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice on each shrimp
-Layer on the bread crumbs
-Bake for 15 minutes, or until the shrimp are opaque.

Using the crusting blend made this a really easy and fast recipe. In fact, the prep was so fast that I was ready to put the dish in the oven before it was done preheating! To make it an even faster meal, you can use the already cooked shrimp, and just put it in the oven long enough to heat through. I think next time I will try to add some crab meat and/or parmesan cheese. Yum!

Snickerdoodles

I got this recipes from recipezaar.com. I did chill the pans, and the dough, but by the time I was finished rolling the dough, it was probably a moot point. I also rolled all the cookies in the cinnamon and sugar, then went back and rolled them all again to really get them coated. My cookies were big, I only got 24 cookies out of this batch, and the centers were a little doughy, so next time, I will try to divide the dough into 36. Next time I will also add a little vanilla or almond extract to change up the flavor a little bit.

1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
2 3/4 cups flour
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon

-Preheat oven to 350°F.
-Mix butter, 1 1/2 cups sugar and eggs thoroughly in a large bowl.
-Combine flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.
-Blend dry ingredients into butter mixture.
-Chill dough, and chill an ungreased cookie sheet for about 10-15 minutes in the fridge.
-Meanwhile, mix 3 tablespoons sugar, and 3 teaspoons cinnamon in a small bowl.
-Scoop 1" globs of dough into the sugar/ cinnamon mixture.
-Coat by gently rolling balls of dough in the sugar mixture.
-Place on chilled ungreased cookie sheet, and bake 10 minutes.
-Remove from pan immediately.