Keto Creme Brulee

Keto Creme Brulee

4 egg yolks
2 cups of heavy cream
1 tablespoon of Swerve granulated sweetener

1-2 teaspoons of Swerve granulated sweetener for the topping of each serving

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. In a bowl; mix the egg yolks, heavy cream, and Swerve together with a whisk.

Divide into containers -- the original recipe said that the mixture made 4 servings... but that seemed a bit much for us. Additionally, I bought a creme brulee set with the torch from Bed Bath and Beyond for $20 -- if you do that though -- make sure you get the butane from them when you buy it because it didn't come with the set. Anyway -- our mixture became 7 servings -- we had the 4 vessels that came with the set -- and 3 from frozen creme brulee that I had gotten previously from H-E-B.

Place your containers in an oven-safe casserole dish with sides. Pour in about 1-2 cups boiling water until it's about 1/2 way up the sides of your creme brulee servings. Bake for 30 minutes or until it's set. Ours were a little jiggly when we pulled them from the oven.

I immediately took them out of the water bath, placed them on a sheet tray, and put them into the refrigerator. When we ate them last night - I wished that they had been able to have more time in the fridge because I love the cold custard underneath the warm sugar.

Before serving - sprinkle the top with 1-2 teaspoons of Swerve and use your torch to brown them OR if needed place your oven rack as close to the top as you can and use the broiler to brown the sugar. If you use your broiler -- watch it the entire time because it can burn really quickly.

I served mine with two sliced strawberries as seen in the picture -- but you could put some whipped cream on it as well.Pin It Now!

New Years Day Black-Eyed Peas

New Years Day Black-Eyed Peas

1 lb dry peas

2 smoked ham hocks

Rendered grease from 4 slices of bacon

6.5 cups chicken stock

1/2 small white onion chopped (could also use green onion here)

Pepper - grind to taste (1/2 tsp)

Salt (add after cooking to taste) - broth and ham hocks will add quite a bit of salt, so not much is needed

Put all ingredients into the instant pot and set to manual and high for 30 min. Be sure to account for about 20 extra minutes to your total cooking time - 10 for the pressure to come up and 10 for the release. 

Serve hot and add a garnish of chow-chow on the side if you like to add that. 

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New Years Day Greens

New Years Day Greens

Rendered grease from 4 slices of bacon

1 bag chopped turnip greens

1 bag chopped mustard greens

1 bag chopped collard greens

2 smoked ham hocks

10 cups chicken stock

Salt and Pepper to taste

1 turnip - cut into 3/4” chunks

Heat bacon grease in the bottom of a large stock pot - when hot, add one bag of the greens and cook until wilted.  Add the next bags of greens and wilt.  Add the final bag of greens - by this point, you may need to go ahead and add the cover to help wilt the greens.  Once wilted, add your broth and 2 ham hocks.  Bring the greens to a boil and then turn down the heat to med-low and simmer for 4 hours minimum.  Serve piping hot with cornbread and hot pepper sauce.

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Texas Trash Dip

Texas Trash Dip

1 (8 oz) block of Cream Cheese (softened)
1 cup Sour Cream
2 cans Smooth Style Refried Beans
1 can Mild Rotel (if you want more spice - use any Rotel)
1 can chopped Green Chilis
2 cups Cheddar Jack Cheese (may need more)

I used my stand mixer to mix everything to make it easier -- but any sort of mixer would be fine.

Mix together all ingredients except for the cheese. Spread into a 13x9 inch pan, evenly. Cover with cheese. Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted and everything is warm.

Serve with Tortilla Chips or Frito Scoops.

We had this yesterday, and everything was gone except a few tortilla chips -- I was amazed!Pin It Now!

Crockpot Christmas Candy

Crockpot Christmas Candy

16 ounces Salted Peanuts
16 ounces Unsalted Peanuts
16 ounces Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
16 ounces Milk Chocolate Chips
(2) 10-ounce bags Peanut Butter Chips
(2) Packages of White Almond Bark

Place all in a crockpot on low for around 90 minutes -- but I'd check it after an hour, and then every 10 minutes or so until 90 minutes is up to make sure the chocolate doesn't burn.

Then use a medium cookie scoop to make clusters of uniform size. Place the mounds of candy on wax paper to cool until they are solid.

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Bite-Sized S'Mores

Bite-Sized S'Mores

48 Pretzel Chips
2 Hershey's Bars (broken into 24 pieces)
96 mini marshmallows (4 per pretzel)

- Lay out 24 pretzel chips (I only used the whole ones, not broken pieces)

- Preheat broiler to high -- I moved my rack down a little bit because I burned my first attempt.

- Place 4 marshmallows on each pretzel, and stick it in the oven for 2-3 minutes (watch them because you want to make sure the marshmallows & pretzels don't burn -- ask me how I know.)

- Place a Hershey chocolate piece on each pretzel on top of the marshmallows. Place back in the oven for 1-2 minutes so the chocolate will melt. We turned off our broiler for this step and just used the residual heat.

- Place a second pretzel chip on top of the chocolate.

- Enjoy them all warm or put them in the fridge to chill.

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Crock Pot Turkey Breast

Crock Pot Turkey Breast

1 Turkey Breast Roast
1 stick butter
1 package of dry onion soup mix

I season the meat with salt, pepper, and a sprinkling of garlic powder before putting it in the crockpot. 

Put it all in the crockpot for about 6-8 hours and... trust me, you will be the family hero! We serve it with some roasted broccoli and stove-top stuffing. It's an amazingly quick and easy dinner!

** Note -- Leave the turkey breast the way it is in the photo below, it makes life much easier and allows for even cooking.

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Italian Ricotta Cookies

Italian Ricotta Cookies

Cookies:

2 sticks of softened butter

1 ¾ cups sugar

15 oz Ricotta Cheese

2 large eggs

2 tablespoons vanilla

4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

Glaze:

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

4-5 tablespoons milk

Sprinkles

Instructions:

Cream the butter and sugar together until well combined. Add in the ricotta, eggs, and vanilla and mix until well combined. In a separate bowl, mix your flour, baking powder, and baking soda together – mix well before adding it to the wet ingredients. Add about ½ cup of the flour into the wet mixture, and mix until combined. Repeat, until all of the flour is mixed into the wet ingredients. The original recipe says to use a small cookie scoop to make balls roughly 1 teaspoon in size. I used my medium sized scoop so they are slightly larger. The 1 tsp size baking time is 8-10 minutes, and for my larger ones it’s about 15 minutes – I have a gas oven which tends to need a little more time than electric ovens. You want the cookies to just barely be brown on the bottom… just lightly brown. 

After they are all cool, mix your ingredients for the glaze. Use a cookie rack, and dip the tops of each cookie in the glaze – then top them with sprinkles. Work quickly, and sprinkle after glazing because it dries really quickly. Enjoy!

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Christmas Punch

Christmas Punch

1 bag fresh cranberries (frozen)
1 container frozen limeade concentrate
2 liters ginger ale
64 oz cranberry apple juice
1 bottle of sparkling apple cranberry cider

Mix all together. We used our punch decanter rather than the punch bowl I used last year. The entire thing was gone by the end of the day - with just 6 people in the house. If you're making for a larger group, I'd double or triple everything. The cranberries are really festive, and help keep everything cool.
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Grandmother's Sugar Cookies

Grandmother's Sugar Cookies

** This dough has to chill overnight

2 1/4 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon milk

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder. Cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, vanilla, and milk. Add sifted dry ingredients a little bit at a time -- I added a 1/2 cup at a time. Beat well, and refrigerate overnight. Working in small batches, roll and cut into desired shapes on a lightly floured board. I put mine back in the refrigerator between rolling batches and while cookies were baking. Sprinkle with sugar if you aren't planning on frosting them. Bake at 375 for 12 minutes. If baking 2 sheets of cookies -- switch the baking position about 1/2 way through the cooking time. Cool on cooling racks until room temperature.

** I almost always double the recipes for the cookies and frosting

Frosting:

1 unbeaten egg white
7/8 cup sugar
1 tablespoon water
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Cook in a double boiler for 7 minutes. Beat constantly. It is best to have 2 people working to frost the cookies because the frosting gets harder to work with as it cools. It may take up to over night to have the frosting set -- we placed ours under a fan for 4 hours and they were ready to stack in a cookie tin.

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Chocolate Chip Scones

Chocolate Chip Scones

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt, heaping
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pats
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups (12 ounces) mini chocolate chips
Demerara (or other coarse) sugar, for topping (I left this off because I didn't have it)

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Put the flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder in your stand mixer -- stir to combine. Add in the small butter pieces, and give it a mix until combined. You won't see the butter much at this point - it will just mix and coat the flour. Put the chocolate chips in the mixer at this point. (I didn't do this until the end the first time, and I would have been happier with the way they mixed in if they had been put in at this point) In a small bowl: mix your heavy cream, eggs, and vanilla. Save 2 tablespoons of this mixture to use as an egg wash before baking. Add this to the mixer and mix until combined and it starts to be a dough.

Liberally flour your surface and press out the dough to about 3/4 inch thick -- I didn't really measure this - I just pressed the dough out in a circle until it was about as thick as I wanted the scones to be. They don't rise or spread much at all so what you see is what you're going to get. You can also crowd this recipe entirely on one pan -- I used a small round biscuit cutter for these, but you could use any shape you'd like.

Once you have all the dough cut, brush with the remaining egg & cream mixture. Place in the oven and bake for 20 minutes or until lightly browned on the top. They are best served warm, but we ate on them for several days - I packed them for breakfasts "to go" and sent them off to work with John.

You could freeze the unbaked dough on a cookie sheet until they are firm, then pack them away for use as you need them. Just bake directly from the freezer and add about 5 minutes to the original baking time.

**These would be outstanding with cinnamon chips instead of chocolate... or any baking chip you'd like to use. It's a great basic scone dough that you can add in any flavor you'd like - dried fruit would be great too.Pin It Now!

Prune Cake

Let me start off by saying that I know this sounds weird, but it's a childhood favorite of my mother's. You could easily leave the prunes out and have a nice spice cake... which is what I'd do if I made it for myself.

Prune Cake
Courtesy of: Meme

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 cups flour
3 beaten eggs
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp allspice
1 cup chopped prunes
1 cup chopped pecans

Icing:
2 eggs
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup prune juice (you could sub in orange juice or something else in lieu of the prunes)
2 tbsp flour
1 cup sugar
1 cup pecans

Cream the butter and sugar together with a mixer, I used my stand mixer for this because the batter is a tad bit thick. Add the buttermilk and eggs and mix until smooth.

In another mixing bowl - combine the flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, baking powder, and allspice. Begin slowly mixing the dry ingredients in small amounts into the wet ingredients. Mix until combined. Add in the chopped prunes and pecans at the end.

You can bake this as a round cake, but for this time around my Mom was traveling with it to visit my Grandmother - so I baked it in a 13x9 pan so that it was easier to travel with and we didn't have to worry about the layers shifting.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour. There wasn't a baking time on the original recipe, so I wanted to make sure it wasn't overdone. Always easier to check on it and put it back in for a little longer than to over bake it.

Once it is done let it cool. It is a warm icing, so it doesn't have to be completely cooled before you finish it.

When you are ready to frost it -- mix all the icing ingredients together and boil on the stove until it thickens. It is pretty thick when it is done. I start mine slow and add more heat gradually to make sure that the eggs don't scramble.

Enjoy!Pin It Now!

Microwave Pecan Pralines

Microwave Pecan Pralines
Courtesy of: Meme

1 box of light brown sugar
1/2 pint of heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 cups pecan halves
Wax paper

In a large microwave safe bowl, mix the brown sugar with the whipping cream until smooth. Microwave for 9 minutes, then leave it for 1 minute. Add butter and vanilla -- it will bubble like crazy. Finally, stir in pecans. Stir until slightly thickened, and then drop onto wax paper. Once completely cooled, store them in an air-tight container.Pin It Now!

Green Bean Bundles

Green Bean Bundles
Courtesy of Jen Bettis

4 cans whole green beans
8 slices bacon, cut in half so that you have 16 short pieces (We actually quartered the bacon and got 32)
1 cup brown sugar
1 clove minced garlic
1/2 stick butter, melted

Divide green beans into 32 bundles - our bundles had about 8 green beans a piece. Wrap each bundle with a piece of bacon and secure with a toothpick. Place in baking dish. Combine sugar, garlic, and butter and pour over bundles. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until bacon reaches desired "doneness".Pin It Now!

Memaw's Cheese Ball

 
Memaw's Cheese Ball
Courtesy of John's grandmother

2 – 8oz. packages of cream cheese
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon chopped pimento
1 tablespoon chopped bell pepper
1 teaspoon chopped onion
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon lemon juice
dash cayenne pepper
dash salt

Mix all ingredients thoroughly and roll into chopped pecan pieces (approximately 2 cups).

Chill for an hour or so in the refridgerator before serving, and serve with your favorite crackers.Pin It Now!

Brown Sugar Cake

Brown Sugar Cake
Courtesy of: SuperChikk


1 pkg yellow cake mix
1 pkg (3 oz size) vanilla instant pudding
4 eggs
2/3 cup sour cream
2/3 cup water
½ cup oil
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup chopped pecans

Heat oven to 350. Beat first 6 ingredients with mixer 3 minutes or until well blended. Add brown sugar and mix well.

The original recipe calls for mixing 1 cup of pecans in with the batter. I just sprinkle the pecans into the bottom of my greased bundt pan, but my cake got stuck in the end... so I might try mixing some into the batter next time and have some on the top.

Pour into 12-cup fluted pan or 10-inch tube pan sprayed with cooking spray. Bake 1 hour or until toothpick comes out clean. (I baked 1 hour, but probably should have gone a bit longer)

Cool in pan 15 minutes. (Mine cooled longer than the 15 minutes, but still had some problems coming out of the pan) Loosen and invert. Cool completely and enjoy!

This is a GREAT cake, and is similar to my chocolate chip bundt cake... I will be making it again and playing with the pecans a bit to see if that helps with my little bit of sticking.Pin It Now!

Feaux Mimosa

Feaux Mimosa
Courtesy of John

Orange Juice (we used orange pineapple)
Sparkling Grape Juice (white or red... we used red)
Ice

Mix 2 parts orange juice with 1 part of the sparkling grape juice... pour over ice into your favorite glass and enjoy! It was a special treat as a part of our first Christmas breakfast as a family.Pin It Now!

Amish Friendship Bread

Amish Friendship Bread

Starter:

1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
3 cups white sugar, divided
3 cups milk

In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Let stand 10 minutes. In a 2 quart container glass, plastic or ceramic container, combine 1 cup flour and 1 cup sugar. Mix thoroughly or flour will lump when milk is added. Slowly stir in 1 cup milk and dissolved yeast mixture. Cover loosely and let stand until bubbly. Consider this day 1 of the 10 day cycle. Leave loosely covered at room temperature.

On days 2 thru 4; stir starter with a spoon. Day 5; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Days 6 thru 9; stir only.

Day 10; stir in 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar and 1 cup milk. Remove 1 cup to make your first bread, give 2 cups to friends along with this recipe, and your favorite Amish Bread recipe. Store the remaining 1 cup starter in a container in the refrigerator, or begin the 10 day process over again (beginning with step 2).

To make bread on Day 10:
To the balance (a little over one cup) of the batter, add the following ingredients and mix well.
1 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla

In a separate bowl combine the following dry ingredients and mix well:
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon (we left this out of ours)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 - (5.1 oz) box instant vanilla pudding
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup nuts

Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients. Mix and pour into two well greased and sugared bread pans. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

** We made banana nut bread by using banana pudding mix instead of the vanilla... and we made the chocolate chocolate chip bread by adding chocolate pudding and chocolate chips to the batter. You can make this in any combination you can think of - use any flavor pudding... and add all sorts of mix-ins! 

Next time we might just add chocolate chips to the version with the vanilla pudding - that would be YUMMY too!Pin It Now!

Cinnamon Pecan Bundt Rolls

Clearly we enjoyed most of this before the picture was taken... it was THAT good!

Cinnamon Pecan Bundt Rolls

Courtesy of the Cypress Family Fellowship Recipe Party 2009

2 cans of big flaky biscuts

1 cup of pecan chips

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

1/2 cup raisins

1 stick of butter, melted

1 package of cream cheese

Take the biscuts and cut them in half. Put a piece of cream cheese in half of each biscut peice and fold it over and pinch the seams closed. Mix sugar, cinnamon, pecans, and raisins. Dip the biscut pieces in the melted butter, then dip into the sugar mixture, and place in a greased bundt pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until all the bread is cooked.

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Sausage Balls

Sausage Balls
Courtesy of the Cypress Family Fellowship Recipe Party 2009

1 pound regular ground sausage
1 pound mild ground sausage
4 cups bisquick
1 pound grated cheddar cheese

Lightly brown meat - do not drain. Add bisquick and cheese to sausage - mix with hands. Form desired size balls of the mixture and place on an ungreased cookie sheat. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-25 minutes. Sausage can be replaced with venison.

When we've made these in the past at our house - we've never browned the sausage before hand - we just mix it all raw and bake until it is all done. You can probably do it either way and be just fine...Pin It Now!