Hi, May I Help You?

If ya'll didn't know, I'm from that city called Kansas City (MISSOURI NOT KANSAS) a.k.a Barbeque Capital of the World!!!  Home to the not so world champion Royals and Chiefs, home to the jheri curl, and also home all the fountains you want.  As you can see, I'm proud of where I'm from.

Tuesday I made some yummy baked barbeque chicken in the oven and we had it for dinner again today, but I needed some more bbq sauce, but didn't have any on the shelves.

Since I'm an improviser by nature, I got to mixing!  What can I say?  I am my mother's child.  I think I've unlocked the world famous Gates BBQ recipe with this one!

I took some:  ketchup
                      Louisiana Hot Sauce
                      Colgin Liquid Smoke
                      honey
                      black pepper
                      Durkee Kansas City Style Seasoning Salt
                      Rendezvous Famous Seasoning

I'm not much of a measurer (I know that's not a word) but I just add the amount that I think should go in according to how much I want to taste that particular flavor.  For me, I added more liquid smoke and hot sauce and not a lot of seasoning salt.

Anyways, this little homemade bbq sauce was the business!  I'm telling you, it tasted just like Gates; I was back home in just one bite!


What recipes have you concocted on the fly to make up for what you didn't have?
                    

Recipe: Shrimp Etoufee

There's just something about traveling and seeing friends and family that brings out my love of eating.  I mean, I really have an emotional affair with my food, and weeks later I'm still thinking and dreaming about it...if it was that good.

This past weekend I had the distinct pleasure of visiting a very good friend of mine named, Tawanna.  The last time I saw her, I was a Maid of Honor at her wedding 15 months ago.  We were long overdue for a visit, and I needed to see her new baby, which you can get a peek at in this post.

Tawanna can COOK!  Too bad she doesn't have a blog because she'd be super good at it, and she'd have a lot of useful stuff to share.  Anywho....she made me a great dish that can be used for brunch, lunch, or even dinner.  I love recipes that can do double duty.  Enjoy!

Ingredients
6-8 slices Bacon
2-3 servings Grits
Shrimp
Flour
Water
Onion
2 tbsp butter
Parsley
Onion Powder
Garlic Powder
Pepper

1.  Prepare 2-3 servings of grits depending upon how many people you want to feed.  Follow the directions on the box.  Once it is done, place it to the side.

2.  Cook 6-8 slices of bacon, and save the grease.  If you like bacon, this is the part of the recipe where you can add more.  Crumble your bacon into small pieces, and put it aside.  (You can saute some onions in the grease for added flavor if you would like)

3.  Now you will make a brown gravy using your bacon grease.  Once again, in my opinion you can never have too much gravy, and making it typically is not an exact science.  Here's what you want to do though: there should be a thin layer of hot bacon grease coating the bottom of the skillet.  Spoon in about 3 spoonfuls of flour and stir it around until it becomes dark brown and pasty.  Next add about 2 cups of warm/hot water and continue to stir until thick and smooth and set it aside.

4.  Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and saute your shrimp in the butter.  Season the shrimp with parsley, garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper.  Once the shrimp are cooked all the way through, add them to the gravy.

5.  Here's the fun part!  Scoop the grits into a bowl and then scoop some gravy and shrimp on top of the grits.  Sprinkle the crumbled bacon on top to your liking and enjoy!

***If you don't like grits, feel free to substitute with rice.

I can't wait to make this for the hubsters and my mom!

Let me know if you try it!

What do you like to do with your family and friends?

You can also find this recipe and many more on OrgJunkie!

Simple Fruit Dip Recipe

The season of football, shorter days, and chilled air is upon us, which means that many of us will be spending more time inside.  I love to snack any time of the year, but especially when I'm just hanging out at home, however, sometimes the simplest things get me hung up.  I'm perfectly fine with making a four-course meal, but I somehow get hung up on making....apple crisps!!!  

This past Friday, I made an old time favorite, which is a fruit dip that consists of 2-4 ingredients and 1 dish!!!

**WARNING: This stuff is addictive!  Make at your own risk!

Philadelphia Cream Cheese (or any cream cheese)

Marshmallow Puff

1-2 tbsp brown sugar (optional)

1 tsp vanilla extract (optional)

Whip all the ingredients together.  Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.  Serve with apples, strawberries, and any other good dipping fruits.  Enjoy!

Now that I'm hosting a small group, I need more appetizer/sharing type recipes.  Do you have any?  Post links and share below!

No Fail Homemade Peach Cobbler

A peach cobbler I made for the hubster's birthday two years ago.

Yep, it's about that time!  I'm not talking about the holidays, I'm talking about my husband's birthday.  Just about every year for the past 11 years, I've made him a peach cobbler for his special day.  

As I mentioned before, I have a no-fail recipe from my mother, but it does require a lot of work.  I promise if you follow my steps, then you will have a delectable cobbler with just enough sweetness in every bite, the dough will be flaky and crispy all the way through, and it will be juicy without being soupy.  If you decide to share it, everyone will be raving about it for years to come, and you'll start to get special requests to, "make that cobbler."  Trust me, I know from experience.  Enjoy!

Ingredients

Peach Mixture Ingredients

2- 29 oz. cans of peaches (My mom loves her DelMonte peaches)

3/4 cup sugar

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp salt

2-3 tbsp flour

3 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 stick of butter melted

1/3 cup Real Lemon Juice

Dough Ingredients

3 cups flour

3 tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup Butter Flavored Crisco

5 tbp cool water mixed with 1 egg

Prep time = 1 hour   Cook time = 1 hour

1.  Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and place your rolling pin in the freezer.

2.  Begin to make your dough by combining all the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Then add the Butter Flavored Crisco.  If you want a buttery flaky taste, it must be butter flavored.  Lightly mix the Crisco in with the dry ingredients, making sure to break it apart.  

3.  Add the already mixed egg and water mixture to the bowl.  Use your hands to mix the ingredients and mold it into a large ball.  ***Don't mess with the dough too much, or it will become tough and hard to work with.  It should take you no more than 3-4 minutes working with your hands to mix and form the dough.

4.  Cover your mixing bowl and place in the refrigerator for the time being.

5.  Pour half of the juice off of ONE of the cans of peaches; keep all of the juice in the other can.  Dump the peaches into another large mixing bowl.

6.  Add the rest of the ingredients for the peach mixture.  When you're done, stir everything together and set it to the side.

7.  Grease a 9"X12" pan (I use glass) and coat it with flour.

8.  Flour your countertops with a layer of flour, and flour your rolling pin fresh from the freezer with plenty of flour.

9.  Get your dough and split it in two sections and place one section on your floured countertop; this is going to be the bottom layer of your peach cobbler.

10.  Roll out the dough, flouring the rolling pin in between as needed.  Remember not to roll it out too thin or too thick.

11.  Lift the sheet of dough into your 9"X12" pan.  It's okay if it breaks apart.  Just pick up the pieces and press them together in the dish.  Please be sure to press the dough into the sides of your dish as well.

12.  Pour half of your peach mixture on top of the dough in the pan.

13.  Get 3/4 of the other half of your dough and begin to roll it out.  Remember to keep flouring your countertop and rolling pin.

14.  Place the layer on top of the peach mixture and then pour the remaining peach mixture on top of the layer of dough.

15.  Roll the remaining dough out and you can create a lattice design on top or make shapes like I did above.  The sky is the limit, so you can do whatever suits your fancy.  

16.  Place the cobbler in the oven and bake for one hour or until the dough is brown and crispy and the peach mixture is bubbly.

17.  Serve by itself or with vanilla bean ice cream!

Minny's Famous Caramel Cake

By now I'm sure everyone has heard of The Help movie which was released this past Wednesday, August 10, which came in at the number two spot for this weekend's box office sales.  Click here for my review of the movie.

I thoroughly enjoy food, probably a little too much, because I get super involved with my food.  Who doesn't enjoy a great meal that not only tastes good, but also makes you feel good???

In the book and movie, The Help, maid, Minny Jackson, is known all throughout Jackson, MS, for her cooking, especially her caramel cake and the infamous chocolate pie!  I truly enjoyed reading about her masterpieces and my mouth watered each time the author described her cooking.

Although my specialty is a no-fail homemade peach cobbler, I can also throw down on a caramel cake.

Here's my recipe:

1.  Boil one small can of sweetened condensed milk for four hours in a large stock pot on the stove.  You don't have to watch it boil, but definitely don't leave the house with it on the stove.  Let it cool down for about an hour.

2.  Use Betty Crocker's SuperMoist Yellow Cake Mix.  Evenly divide your cake batter into two shallow round cake dishes.  (Feel free to make a homemade pound cake for an even richer taste; I just try to keep it as simple and inexpensive as possible.)  Let your cake cool down completely.

3.  Open the can of sweetened condensed milk and begin to icing the cake.  You will not need the entire can, but remember to be generous with the icing.  You can use the remaining caramel to make caramel apples or some other delectable treat.

4.  Serve with a smile!

What are some of your favorite recipes?

Couponing Meets Menu Planning

That's right ladies and gents....she's back!  I interviewed Jereka, the Coupon Queen, in the post titled: Couponing for Jesus, where she gave us some basic instructions, best places to find coupons, and her reasons for couponing.

Today we'll be showing you how we developed a dinner menu plan for a week, and we found coupons and grocery store sales to match.  You can save more money if you develop your menu plan around the coupons and sales that are out there, but I'm kind of a spoiled princess when it comes to my food, so we did it the other way around.

This week we've had temps in the upper 90s and even over 100 degrees, so we designed a menu to accommodate not turning on the oven so we didn't have to heat our houses any further.  I could have picked meals that didn't require the stove top either, but like I said, no matter the temperature, I'm still a spoiled princess (my men are spoiled too) when it comes to my food.

Here's our menu:

Monday- Gourmet Chicken Salad with pecans, dried cranberries, celery, and a diced apple & Chips

Tuesday- Blackened Tilapia, rice, and mixed veggies

Wednesday- Chicken Caesar Salad with homemade garlic toast

Thursday- Pepper Steak, mashed potatoes, and corn

Friday- Breakfast for Dinner (pancakes, bacon, eggs, cream of wheat)

If you would like any of these recipes, please e-mail me at tianna.mae@gmail.com

There's enough food to have "Clean the Refrigerator Out" meals for Saturday and Sunday.  I know ya'll have heard about cleaning the refrigerator out; you either eat what's leftover or freeze it!

Also, if you'd like to save the maximum amount of money you should consider going to more than one store.  However, due to extreme allergies, heat, and church, we went to one store called: Hilander, which is in the Kroger family.

Here are the stats on our Couponing Meets Menu Planning Adventure:

• I saved approx 13% off of my grocery bill for this past week's dinner menu using coupons and sale ads
• I paid about $11.67/meal for these wonderful heat friendly gourmet style meals, which of course is way less than eating at a restaurant
• Per person, I only spent $3.89!  Wow!
• I only used 5 coupons, and I was able to take advantage of at least 10 sale promotions going on at the store

I saved more money than I ever have just by having a list (menu plan), using coupons, and going to the store with the best sales on the items I needed.  Here are a few couponing etiquette tips.

• If you have a coupon that you are not going to use, leave it on the shelf by the item that it is for.  Someone will surely be blessed by your generosity.
• Don't be so eager to use your coupons.  Oftentimes, a store may be having a sale on a different brand than your coupon, and it's cheaper to just use the sale price for that item.  You've hit a jackpot if you can match a coupon to the store sale, but it's not always possible.
• Only buy what you are going to use, unless you plan to give away some items.  Now, if you have some coupons that allow you to get an item for FREE, then by all means, get as many as you can.  
• Make sure you know the store's coupon policy.  Many stores are modifying their policies due to shoppers coming in and wiping out their inventory
• When your BFF comes to your town and finds the bread store and tells you that they have $.75 gourmet bread, take heed!

I'm obviously still very green at this couponing thing, and I know I'll get better and save more and more money.  Jereka and I will definitely keep you updated on our couponing adventures.

Do you coupon?  What tips do you have?  

Jazzy Potato Salad Recipe

I love to try new recipes!  Not that my family always enjoys my new food creations, but I do.  Earlier, I told you ladies that I had been invited to my neighbors cook out on July 3rd.  Although, I'm 29, I still struggle with my womanly hospitality duties (i.e. The unwritten rules of when someone invites you over, you should bring a dish).  Before my brain could catch up with my mouth, I said, "Ms. Mary, I can bring the baked beans and potato salad if you want me to."  She obliged and I was locked into doing a bang up job on two barbeque dinner staples.  Ms. Mary's tone turned very serious, and she said, "Now, you make sure you make that potato salad early enough so that the seasonings have time to go all the way through!"  That was a tall order considering it was already 9 p.m. the day before the bbq, and I had church very early the next morning.

I know my baked beans are off the chain, no disputing that.  However, I wanted to try a non-traditional potato salad recipe.  Traditional potato salad usually consists of: potatoes (duh!), eggs, mayonnaise, a dash of mustard, a little bit of sugar, relish, mix and voila.  The recipe I found from my boy Emeril Lagasse (I love him) consists of: potatoes, ranch dressing, salt, pepper, diced red onions, crumbled bacon, eggs, diced celery, and parsley.

So what did everyone think?  The ultra picky 8-year-old, the ultra ultra picky hubsters, and the veteran gave me two thumbs up for the potato salad!

If you can step away from the traditional and take a walk on the wild side, you will be delighted with this recipe.  Check it out here.

What are your favorite summer cookout recipes?

Recipe: Crockpot Fried Chicken

Let me start off by saying that I am really not a fan of crockpot meals.  I know, I know...yes, I am a busy mother who really doesn't have time to cook, and should be concerned with stretching our dollar by making meals that are easy to have for leftovers.  However, my family (and I, to a certain degree) seem to love meals that I have to put time into and stand over the stove for hours to produce a delectable three-courses (sometimes four) that will tantalize our taste buds.

Let's say that this is getting old very fast!  I am also looking for ways to conserve energy, especially in the summer; it just doesn't make sense to heat the entire house up by using the oven or stove top.  Which leads me to my featured recipe.  One of the pastors at my church told me about some crockpot fried chicken that her family loved.  I did a google search and here's the recipe I came to.

Of course I modified it to suit my family's tastes, but I pretty much followed her instructions.  Let me qualify this recipe by saying that if you want crunchy Popeye's style chicken, please go to Popeye's or get out your deep fryer.  However, if you are interested in a "fried-like" taste and texture without the hassle, clean-up, calories, and active time it takes to fry, then crockpot fried chicken may be a solution for you.

1.  Remember to season both sides of the chicken

2 Shakes- Lawry's Seasoning Salt
5 Shakes- Mrs. Dash Garlic and Herb Seasoning
5 Shakes- Mrs. Dash Onion Seasoning
1 Shake-  Cumin
1 Shake-  Pepper
1 Shake-  Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
1/4 cup-   Country Crock Butter

2.  I thoroughly coated both sides of the chicken with Bisquick Pancake Mix or you can use flour.  Next I covered the bowl with foil and placed in the refrigerator for a few minutes.  The longer you let it set in the refrigerator, the more time the flour will have to settle on the chicken and create a crunchy breaded taste.

3.  I prepared my crockpot by using a Reynolds Slow Cook Liner.  This was my first time using a liner, which turned out great.  My only concern is I don't know if the plastic in the liner contains BPA or any other harmful chemicals when heated like this.  Does anyone know?  On the flip side, using the liner means virtually no scrubbing out a big bowl with stuck on food.  YEAH!

4.  I melted down a 1/4 cup of Country Crock Butter.  I wish I had some margarine, oh well!

5.  Next I took the chicken and lined it up in the crockpot to create a single layer (no stacking).  I used chicken thighs, however, I'm sure you can use whatever chicken parts you desire.

6.  I then took the melted butter, and poured it on top of the chicken and put the lid on to let it cook.

7.  I let it cook for about 3.5 hours on High.

What do you know??!!??  I came up with chicken that had a fried-like texture.  The edges were very crunchy, and it was juicy and flavorful.  The only downside I have about this meal is that it was better the first day because it had a slight crunch around the edges and you could really taste the seasonings.  We also had it for leftovers, and of course, it was more soggy and somehow the flavor escaped.  Real deep fried chicken, actually gets a better flavor (in my opinion) the next day because the seasoning has time to go through the chicken to the bone.

Let me know if you ladies try this recipe!  What are your favorite crockpot meals?