Homemade Hamburger Buns

If you're up for the challenge, I highly recommend making your own hamburger buns. They aren't like your typically store bought buns. Honestly I like both store bought and homemade. The homemade buns are pretty heavy & yeasty. I know that doesn't sound appetizing (at all) but that's as far as my adjective vocabulary is taking me this evening. It's basically like eating a condensed yeast roll from Luby's or Picadilly (or MCL for you Midwest folks).

Ingredients
2 packages active dry yeast
1 cup plus 2 tbs warm water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 tsp salt
3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

Directions
1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Add oil and sugar; let stand for 5 minutes. Add egg, salt and flour to form a soft dough.

2. Turn onto floured surface; knead until smooth and elastic (about 3-5 minutes). Do not let rise. Divide into 12 pieces (6 if you like bigger buns); shape each into a ball. Place 3 inches apart on greased baking sheet.

3. Cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Smoosh slightly and bake at 425 degrees for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Remove from sheet to cool on wire racks.

4. Slice them in half and serve with a big 'ole juicy hamburger patty.

**Note, my buns never turned golden brown, but I knew they were done because I grabbed one straight out of the oven and ate it:).

Peanut Butter Pie with Pretzel Crust

I made this beauty for my dad's 62nd birthday.  I found the recipe here.

Ingredients:

CRUST

2 cups broken salted pretzel sticks

1/4 cup brown sugar

6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

FILLING

1 cup creamy peanut butter

1-8 oz pkg. reduced fat cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 cups heavy cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

TOPPING

Handful of dry roasted peanuts, chopped

1 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

2 Tbsp creamy peanut butter

Directions:

1. To make the crust, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Using a food processor, finely grind the pretzels, and 1/4 cup brown sugar. Transfer to a bowl, then stir in the melted butter.
2. Press evenly over the bottom and up the sides of a 9-inch pie pan. Bake until light brown around the edges, about 18 minutes. Let cool on a rack.
3. To make the filling, beat together 1 cup peanut butter, cream cheese and brown sugar in large bowl with an electric mixer on medium, until well combined.
4. Whip the heavy cream on medium-high until soft peaks form. Stir 1/3 of the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture to lighten it up. Use a rubber spatula to gently fold in the remaining whipped cream until thoroughly combined. Spoon mixture into pie shell and smooth to edges of pie.
5. To top, sprinkle with chopped peanuts. Put chocolate and peanut butter in a microwave-safe bowl and heat in 30 second increments at 50% power, stirring after each. Continue until the chocolate is melted and smooth.
6. Transfer to a resealable plastic bag and snip a tiny bit off the corner. Hold the bag over the pie and drizzle the melted chocolate in a zig-zag pattern. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Ma – the Meatloaf!

Any Wedding Crasher friends out there?! **crickets** My dear friend Kelly passed along her mom’s meatloaf recipe and it was delicious!

I made a lot of meals over the weekend including Ms. Ann’s Meatloaf. I didn’t follow the recipe in its entirety because I didn’t have a green pepper and I totally forgot the cheese. Instead of baking as a loaf I divided the meatloaf into muffin pans then froze the little minis for later consumption.

*Original Recipe
Ingredients
1 lb. ground beef
1 egg
¼ cup oatmeal (instant is fine)
¼ cup onions
¼ cup green pepper
1/3 cup cheese
a squirt or 2 of BBQ sauce
¼ (or more ☺) cup brown sugar

Directions
Mush ingredients together very well. “When you think you’ve mushed enough, mush some more ☺”

Pat into baking dish until it’s about 1 ½ in. thick, and not touching the sides of the dish.

Pour1/4 in. of water onto the sides of the meat.

Drizzle ketchup all over the top of the meat so that you can't see the top.

Cook at 350 for 1 hour. “It will always be done after an hour.”

Thanks Kelly! If anyone is interested in the freezer method, just let me know.

Wanted – Freezer Recipes

Hello Dear Friends. Due to lack of organization around my household, I’ve eaten way too many hotdogs and sandwiches for the past few weeks. For the month of September I’m going to try and be a little better about meal planning especially on nights that we are on the go. I would love to have a few meals stashed away in the freezer for those evenings when preparing a decent meal just isn’t possible.

The catch is…Ben isn’t really a frozen food/casserole person so I need to be a little creative. Does anyone have any yummy recipes that are freezer worthy?!

Thanks for your help! I can't look at another hotdog.

Ms. Erma's Rolls

Why is bread so stinkin' good?! This recipe comes straight from Ms. Erma Hudson's kitchen in Dubach, LA. Ben's Aunt Debbie makes them every Thanksgiving and for some reason I just had to have 'em. If you like the chicken minis at Chick-fil-A, then you will love these rolls. They are very similar.

This looks like a lot of butter and maybe it is, but I couldn't resist. Repeat, couldn't resist.

Ingredients
1 env. granulated yeast
1 c. warm water
3 c. sifted flour
1 egg
1 tsp. salt
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. cooking oil
melted butter

Directions
Mix yeast and warm water. Let stand for 5 minutes. Place sifted flour in large mixing bowl. At the end of 5 minutes, blend yeast/warm water mixture on medium speed at 20 seconds only. Turn off and add egg, salt, sugar, and oil. Blend for 10 seconds. Pour liquid into flour and mix well. Be sure all flour is mixed in.

Cover and set aside for dough to rise. This will take approximately 2 hours, depending on warmth of kitchen. When dough has risen sufficiently (double in bulk), flour a smooth surface, table top or bar; dump dough onto it. Don't be afraid to get flour on your hands, flour them generously; work dough until no sticky surface appears. Flour rolling pin and roll dough to about 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with floured cutter, dip roll into melted butter and place in buttered pan. Set rolls close together and they will rise high. Makes about 1 1/2 dozen. Again, let rise in warm place 45 min to hour. Bake in preheated oven at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Be sure rolls are brown on top, so inside will be well done.

Greek Salad

My mom and I created this salad years ago (we were trying to remember how we came up with the idea the other day!) and we still make it ALL the time! It is a go to salad that we never get tired of and everyone loves! It is great as an entree or to accompany pasta or grilled meat or fish. I promise you, that if you make it once, you will never buy salad dressing again!!!!

Salad:

1 head Romaine Lettuce, chopped

2-3 Plum tomotoes, diced (or a bunch of cherry tomatoes, quartered)

1 cucumber, peeled and diced

1/2 green bell pepper, diced

1/4 c. pitted kalamata olives, quartered

1/2 c. crumbled feta cheese

Dressing:

the juice of one lemon

1/4 c. olive oil

1 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. Cavender's Greek seasoning

Mix dressing ingredients together and pour over all the salad ingredients in a salad bowl.

Toss and serve!

Bacon Wrapped Stuffed Shrimp

Richard and Janine made these awesome shrimp last night.  They were pretty time consuming, but well worth it!

Ready to eat!

Basically all you do is, cut open the shrimp, add cream cheese and jalapeno to the shrimp.  Use center cut bacon to wrap each shrimp.  The secret ingredient is chicken rotisserie seasoning.  Sprinkle the shrimp with the seasoning.  Grill until done.  DELICIOUS!