Papa’s Sweet Potato Casserole

~ lk529 ~ 5 Comments

An absolute must have on the Thanksgiving table is Papa’s Sweet Potato Casserole. This recipe originated from Stuart’s grandfather. I have to admit that I have changed the recipe to decrease the amount of sugar.

The first time I made this casserole I substituted real pureed sweet potato in place of canned yams at my mother-in-laws recommendation. I looked at the recipe and the large quantity of sugar in the casserole frightened me, so I halved it. Even still it was way to sweet for my family members. Since then I’ve decreased the sugar even more and even reduced the amount of heavy cream. I must confess, every time I make this it turns out a little bit differently. Using fresh sweet potatoes means that I might not have the exact amount of puree once I pull it out of the food processor so I eyeball the heavy cream until the mixture reaches the perfect color.

On Thanksgiving I never have enough SPC! I even double the recipe allowing me to make one version with pecans and one version without. (My dad is allergic to nuts) To save on kitchen counter space, I make the casserole filling on Wednesday leaving only the topping to make and add right before putting in the oven Thursday.

Papa’s Sweet Potato Casserole

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 sweet potatoes
  • 1/2 – 3/4 C heavy cream
  • 1 1/2 stick butter, divided use
  • 1/2 C sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/8 tsp nutmeg
  • 3 eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 C brown sugar
  • 1/2 C flour
  • chopped pecans (optional)

Steps:

  1. Prick potatoes with a fork and bake at 400 degrees F for 60 minutes until soft.
  2. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F.
  3. Peel potatoes when they are cool enough to handle.
  4. In a food processor puree sweet potatoes with heavy cream (you may need to do this in batches).
  5. In a large bowl, combine potatoes, 1 stick melted butter, sugar, vanilla, spices, and eggs. Pour into a casserole dish.
  6. Make the topping: combine brown sugar, flour, and 1/2 stick melted butter. If using pecans add to this mixture as well. Cover casserole with topping and bake 30-40 minutes, until it no longer jiggles.

Sweet Potato Casserole Sweet Potato Casserole 2

Slow Cooker Green Bean Casserole

~ lk529 ~ Leave a comment

Green Bean Casserole has always been my favorite side dish at Thanksgiving. I love the bright green that it brings to a plate of otherwise brown and white. The best part are the French’s Fried Onions that cover the top of the casserole.

We have always used the recipe on the can of Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom Soup, substituting frozen green beans instead of canned. Using frozen yields a brighter green and a fresher taste and last year I converted my brother-in-law, a true GBC lover, into using frozen from now on.

For the blog this year, I decided to make Thanksgiving side dishes leading up to Turkey day. But, with the exception of Sweet Potato Casserole, none of these recipes are ones that I’d made before. I thought it’d be fun, for blog purposes, to mix things up a little bit. (It was also fun to eat Thanksgiving favorites a month or two before the big day!)

When I experimented with this particular recipe I used fresh picked green beans from my husband’s aunt’s farm in Alabama! Because the beans are cooked in a slow cooker for 6 hours I highly recommend using fresh beans for this. Canned beans would become very mushy; frozen might work okay.

Slow Cooker Green Bean Casserole

Ingredients:

  • 3 tbsp butter
  • 8 oz white mushrooms, sliced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 tsp dried thyme
  • 1/4 C flour
  • 1 1/4 C chicken broth
  • 1 1/4 C heavy cream
  • 2 lb green beans, trimmed and cut
  • 1-2 C French’s friend onions, divided

Steps:

  1. In a large skillet saute mushrooms in butter until mushrooms are golden and all liquid is evaporated. Season with garlic, thyme, and S+P.
  2. Add flour and ground onions, cook for a minute. Whisking, add in broth and cream. Bring mixture to a boil and simmer for 10 minutes.
  3. Place green beans in slow cooker. Cover with cream of mushroom soup (that’s what you made in steps 1 & 2!). Cook on LOW 5-6 hours.
  4. Transfer cooked casserole into a casserole dish. Mix in extra French’s onions if desired. Top casserole with more fried onions. Place casserole under the broiler for 3-5 minutes until onions are extra crispy and casserole is bubbly.

*This recipe is modified from Christin at http://spicysouthernkitchen.com/slow-cooker-green-bean-casserole/*

Green Bean Casserole

Bake Sale Brownie Bites

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Recently I donated brownies to a fundraiser bake sale at work. I don’t have a spectacular recipe for you today, but I do have a fun bake sale trick to share.

I didn’t want to simply present boring (yet delicious) brownies, I wanted something special. I recruited my best baking bud, Kate, and we came up with a fun idea.

We baked the brownies in a 9×13” pan for 16-18 minutes, allowed them to cool and used little cookie cutters to create Fall Brownie Bites. I put four shapes to each Ziploc snack bag.

Lesson learned: line the baking pan with parchment paper! Because I opted for the fudgy brownie version, and the layer of brownie batter was super thin, spraying the pan with non-stick spray wasn’t good enough. Good thing I wasn’t looking for perfect brownie squares!

Tip discovered: Because our brownies didn’t fall out of the pan nicely there were many more scraps of brownie that didn’t fit into a cookie cutter shape. Thankfully my preference of fudgy brownies over cakey brownies allowed us to squish the left over pieces together, salvaging 5 extra bags of brownie bites!

Bake Sale Brownie Bites

CIC: Gingerbread Spice & Onion

~ lk529 ~ 16 Comments

CIC-header

This month Jutta challenged us with combining gingerbread spice and onion into one dish.

Gingerbread Spice & Onion

I found myself more stumped than I thought I’d be. I considered going in a sweet direction by caramelizing the onions and putting them in a muffin. But I wasn’t sure how the texture would work out. I considered making a warm and hearty soup or stew. And then I decided on a savory bread pudding and mixing in the spice with the custard. But I was really hesitant – I’ve never had bread pudding before and for some reason I fear I won’t like the texture. Maybe I’ll get over this someday and give it a try. So, bread pudding without the eggy custard is essentially a dressing (or stuffing). That would be a perfect fit with Thanksgiving fast approaching.

I procrastinated on making my dish for weeks, blaming allergies that turned into a head cold that turned into a cough. (Which also explains the lack of posts lately) Turns out procrastination isn’t all bad. I was then handed a beautiful, perfect solution to November’s Crazy Ingredient Challenge.

Red Onion Jam Grilled Cheese

Sunday morning after church I turned on Food Network and caught the end of Southern at Heart, Food Network’s newest star Damaris Phillips’ beautiful show. She was making an onion jam with ginger and coriander. Perfect! I substituted the spices for Gingerbread Spice and used red onion instead of Vidalia to add a beautiful holiday color. This jam is perfectly sweet and an excellent accompaniment to your holiday cheese platter. You could even add it to a grilled cheese sandwich or any sandwich for that matter!

Red Onion Jam

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 tbsp butter
  • 1 red onion, thinly sliced
  • zest of 1 lemon
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/4 C brown sugar, divided
  • 1/4 tsp gingerbread spice

Steps:

  1. Saute onions in butter with salt and lemon zest until onions are translucent. Stir in gingerbread spice. Add 1/8 C brown sugar and lemon juice. Cook 10 minutes until liquid has evaporated. Stirring occasionally.
  2. Add a little less than 1/4 C water to onions and cook another 10 minutes. Stirring occasionally.
  3. Repeat step 2 three more times. (A total of 40 minutes)
  4. Stir in remaining 1/8 C brown sugar until melted.

Red Onion Jam

To see the other blogs that participated in this month’s challenge click the link below:

Copy Cat: Steak ‘n’ Shake Frisco Melt

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Today is National Fast Food Day. I’m not sure who comes up with these random days and better yet, why fast food needs to be celebrated. With the attempted health push in America this one seems particularly out of place. That being said, I am a very guilty connoisseur of fast food establishments – we have Chick-fil-A at least once a week. And I have a love for McDonald’s, although I don’t indulge in it quite as often.

My absolute favorite road trip stop is Steak ‘n’ Shake. I am addicted to their Frisco Melt. Two super thin patties topped with melted cheese on grilled toast with their magical Frisco sauce. I always order extra sauce on the side for dunking my fries. I found a Copy Cat recipe on Pinterest and very happily recreated it.

Even though burgers are my favorite food I haven’t mastered the art of making one at home. This patty-making mystery alluded me in this attempt too. My patties were not Steak ‘n’ Shake thin, they were more mini slider size. Which also decreased the amount of cheese I needed! I followed the recipe’s steps of forming the ground beef into a golf ball and then pressing them flat. But pressing burgers flat means losing all of the juice and therefore flavor! Next time I’ll form the meat into thin disks instead. But it’s the magic sauce that’s important, and my recreation was pretty darn close. I couldn’t find Russian dressing at my store so I substituted with Catalina dressing; the 2:1 ratio needed to be adjusted slightly.

Copy Cat: Steak ‘n’ Shake Frisco Melt

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 4 slices American cheese
  • 4 slices Swiss cheese
  • 8 slices white bread
  • butter for spreading
  • 2 tbsp Thousand Island dressing
  • 1 tbsp + 2 tsp Catalina dressing

Steps:

  1. Divide ground beef into 8 patties. Cook in a very hot skillet. Note: Add butter to the pan if your fat % is low.
  2. After flipping the meat place the cheese on top of each patty. Each sandwich will get one patty covered in Swiss and one patty covered in American. Note: Swiss takes longer to melt so apply first.
  3. Spread butter on each slice of bread and toast either under the broiler, in a toaster oven, or in a clean skillet.
  4. Assemble sandwiches by spread both pieces of bread (non buttered side) with Friso sauce, one patty each of American and Swiss.

Frisco Melt

Pumpkin Spice Latte

~ lk529 ~ Leave a comment

Pumpkin Spice Latte ecardI would be willing to bet that Starbucks’ earnings increase in the fall. With pumpkin spice lattes and pumpkin Frappuccinos on the menu, everyone gets the craving for fancy coffee beverages. (My personal favorite is the Gingerbread Latte)

But with fame comes imitation, and there are countless Pumpkin Latte recipes floating around the internet. I settled on this version because I had everything on hand!

I whipped up some heavy cream with a little bit of powdered sugar to present a gourmet mugful of PSL.

Pumpkin Spice Latte

Ingredients:

  • 1 C milk
  • 1 tbsp pumpkin puree
  • 1 tbsp sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/2 C brewed coffee

Steps:

  1. Heat milk, pumpkin, and sugar until hot but not boiling.
  2. Remove milk from heat and add in vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, and coffee.
  3. Top with whipped cream and pumpkin pie spice. (Optional)

*This recipe is modified from Joanne at http://www.inspiredtaste.net/8419/pumpkin-spice-latte-at-home-recipe/*

PSL

Chicken Tortilla Soup

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Now that the weather is getting cooler I thought it’s time for another soup recipe. And this Chicken Tortilla Soup fits in nicely with Mexican Monday!

I made the chicken stock on Sunday so that my weeknight prep time would be shorter. If you want to shred your chicken instead of cubing it, it’s best to do while it’s hot out of the poaching liquid. Because I cooked the chicken/stock the night before I simply cubed it before adding it to the soup Monday evening. Even though my prep time was much shorter, the soup cook time was longer than the original recipe declared, I left the soup on the stove for about an hour and a half. But with soup, the longer it stews the better!

I also left the heat factor out of the soup because I was making this for childhood taste buds. I provided hot sauce on the table for the adults to flavor our soups.

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Ingredients for stock:

  • 3 large chicken breasts
  • 8 C water
  • 2 cloves garlic, crushed and peeled
  • 4 bay leaves
  • 2 tsp oregano
  • 1/2 onion, left whole
  • 1 jalapeno, left whole
  • 1 tsp pepper

Ingredients for soup:

  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 onion, diced
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 can corn, drained
  • 1 can diced roasted tomatoes
  • 1/4 C cilantro (I used 2 ice cubes)

Steps:

  1. Make stock by combining all ingredients in a large stock pot. Bring to a boil until chicken is cooked through, about 20 minutes. Remove chicken and shred/cube. Strain and reserve the broth.
  2. In a large pot over medium-high heat saute onion and bell pepper in olive oil. When translucent add in garlic until fragrant. Stir in spices. Pour in the chicken broth. Bring to a gentle simmer and add in the cooked chicken, beans, corn, tomatoes, and cilantro. Allow soup to cook for at least 20 minutes for the flavors to combine and chicken to be warmed through.
  3. Serve with shredded cheese and tortilla chips for garnish.

*This recipe is modified from Patricia at http://www.patriciaspatticakes.com/2013/10/spicy-chicken-tortilla-soup.html*

Chicken Tortilla Soup 2

Chicken Tortilla Soup 1

Buffalo Chicken Dip

~ lk529 ~ Leave a comment

Last week we were invited to a friend’s surprise birthday party. I knew I was going to bring something edible to the table, but had to decide on what that was going to be. I thought about doing my Corn and Black-Eyed Pea Dip but as it’s fall decided to go with something heartier.

I decided to do some recon on the birthday girl’s Pinterest boards and saw that she had posted a Buffalo Chicken Dip. I stopped searching there and decided on this recipe.

Every Christmas Eve my brother’s fiance’s family has a party. My future sister-in-law makes this dip every year and it’s a crowd favorite. Two years ago for Christmas she gave me a fantastic cooking gift basket filled with Giada DeLaurentiis products as well as a recipe box, including her Buffalo Chicken Dip.

Unfortunately this food post does not have a photograph to accompany it as I forgot to snap a picture before the party. We were running late and it completely slipped my mind. Next time I make it I’ll add it to this post.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Ingredients:

  • Approx 3 lb chicken, cooked and shredded (Kelli boils hers, I baked mine)
  • 12 oz hot sauce (Kelli uses Crystal and so did I)
  • 16 oz cream cheese
  • 16 oz blue cheese dressing (I used Ranch)
  • 8 oz shredded cheddar cheese

Steps:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine cream cheese and dressing. Stir until the mixture is smooth and cream cheese is melted.
  3. In a large bowl combine cooked chicken, hot sauce, and the cream cheese mixture. Pour into a casserole dish.
  4. Cover the casserole with the shredded cheese.
  5. Bake for 30 minutes until the mixture is bubbly and cheese is golden.

Sugar and Spiced Nuts

~ lk529 ~ 3 Comments

Have you ever been to a carnival or amusement park and had the purple paper cone filled with candied nuts? For my husband, it’s a not-to-be-missed treat.

We spent our first anniversary at Universal Studios, where I conquered my fear of rollercoasters. I have a slight obsession with Harry Potter and was so excited to step into Hogwarts and shop the streets of Hogsmeade. I highly recommend a trip… or two! (We went again the following year for my birthday http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Omfiz0c1I0) I could go fly with Harry on The Forbidden Journey all day. Stuart’s favorite ride is still The Incredible Hulk.

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Sorry, I got a little carried away there. Before we left the park on our last day, Stuart was determined to find these magical candied almonds. We finally found them in Seuss Landing.

This recipe for sugar and spiced nuts isn’t an exact replica, but they are delicious. Like Stuart said, “It’s like Christmas in my mouth!”

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Sugar and Spiced Nuts

Ingredients:

  • 1 C almonds
  • 1 C walnuts
  • 1/2 C sugar
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/8 tsp nutmeg
  • 1 egg white
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Steps:

  1. In a bowl, combine sugar, salt, and spices.
  2. In a separate bowl whisk together egg white, 1 tbsp water, and vanilla until it foams.
  3. Toss nuts in the egg white mixture. Strain nuts and toss in the sugar mixture. (I forgot to strain the nuts, they still turned out great, but instead of individual nuts they turned out more like balls of candied nuts.)
  4. Spread nuts on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake at 300 degrees for 15 minutes. Toss and roast another 15 minutes.

*This recipe is modified from Kristi at http://www.30poundsofapples.com/2012/09/sugar-n-spiced-pecans/*

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And here’s a bonus recipe idea – I reserved 1/8 C of the sugar and we sprinkled it over buttered bagels before putting them in the toaster oven.

Coffee Ice Cream

~ lk529 ~ Leave a comment

I’m not really much of a coffee drinker. I do not rely on it to get me moving in the morning, and I’ve done my best to not become addicted. So far, so good.

Coffee ice cream is one of my favorite flavors and I’ve been wanting to try making my own for quite some time now. And then we went to Hawaii, and we came back with a lot of Kona Coffee. I just knew I had to make my ice cream with the world’s best coffee.

But I had to wait. I had to wait until Stuart finished “this crap coffee so I can open the good stuff.” But it finally happened, that “crap coffee” was gone and a perfect bag of Onouli coffee grounds was opened.

This recipe does require the use of an ice cream maker. I borrowed my friend’s KitchenAid attachment. So… if you want to see more ice cream recipes on Sew You Think You Can Cook feel free to send one my way! 😉

When it came time to strain the custard I ran into a slight problem. Without a cheese cloth I thought I’d use a coffee filter, but the custard was just too thick. So I just went with a mesh strainer. It was able to catch most of the coffee grounds, but not all of them so there are flecks of coffee deliciousness throughout the ice cream. As coffee grounds are edible, I left them in my frozen treat; they provide a little texture to each bite. Stuart really enjoyed the addition of the coffee grounds. If you don’t want the texture, I might suggest straining the custard before letting to cool completely in the fridge. I don’t know if that would help, but my engineering brain thinks it would.

Coffee Ice Cream

Ingredients:

  • 1 1/2 C whole milk
  • 1 1/2 C heavy cream
  • 3/4 C sugar, divided
  • 1/2 C coffee grounds
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
  • 4 large egg yolks

Steps:

  1. In a saucepan over medium heat combine the milk, cream, coffee, 1/2 C sugar, salt, and vanilla. Heat, stirring occasionally, to 175 degrees.
  2. Meanwhile, whisk together the egg yolks and remaining 1/4 C sugar.
  3. Temper the egg yolks by whisking in 1/4 C of the hot milk mixture. Add 1/4 C at a time until you’ve added 1 C of cream. Continuously whisking. You can now pour the yolks into the milk mixture. Whisk until the custard reaches 185 degrees, without bubbling.
  4. Set a bowl over top a larger bowl of ice water. Pour the custard into the iced bowl. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  5. Cover custard and put in the refrigerator for 4-24 hours.
  6. Strain the cooled custard through a cheesecloth to remove the coffee grounds.
  7. Follow your ice cream maker’s instructions to churn the custard into a beautiful homemade ice cream.

*This recipe was adapted from Christina at http://sweetpeaskitchen.com/2013/05/mocha-chip-ice-cream/*

Coffee Ice Cream 2Coffee Ice Cream 1Coffee Ice Cream 3 Coffee Ice Cream 4