The Birthday Boy's Bourbon Country Style Ribs

Tony loves meat.  I mean he really loves meat.  I think if he were pressed to answer,  pork would come first, beef second and then everything else just because. 

I knew for his birthday he would want some meat.  As luck would have it I found some very reasonably priced boneless country style ribs when I was shopping.  Lucky Tony!

I made the marinade the night before and added the meat to it in the morning.  Once we tasted it I realized this marinade would be perfect for just about any meat that is being grilled. 

Can't wait to try it on some pork chops and chicken thighs! And I think this long weekend is just the time to try!

Bourbon Marinaded Country Style Ribs

Ingredients

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tbs molasses
• 2/3 cup bourbon
• 1 cup soy sauce
• 4 cloves garlic
• 3 pounds country style pork ribs

Directions

1.   Combine brown sugar, molasses, bourbon, soy sauce, and garlic in a food processor or blender to mince garlic with other ingredients. Pour over ribs, and marinate for several hours in the refrigerator.
2. Preheat an outdoor grill for medium heat, and lightly oil grate.
3. Place ribs on grate, and cook ribs until cooked to your liking.  When finished, the internal temperature of the ribs should be 160 degrees F (70 degrees C) when taken with a meat thermometer.
   
   
   

 

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

So I am staring down the barrel of another birthday, Tony's this time, and I realize that I never got to post the strawberry cake that I made last month for my birthday!!!  And that's a real shame because it was so good.  Luckily the northern part of the country is coming into strawberry season and I am posting this for you just in time.

Now, I made this cake twice.  The first time I made it as a one layer cake in a sheet pan and it turned out perfect.  We ate it all though before I could get a single picture of it!  So being the good blogger that I am I made it again.  I made a 2 layer cake this time.  And I had high hopes for this one.  It was going to be beautiful and as light and fluffy as the first one.  It was close but not exactly the same.  I use whole eggs in this one and should have used the 6 egg whites like I did in the first one...lesson learned.

I really would have made another one for the perfect pic but I got the worse sore on the end of my tongue from all of the stinkin' strawberries I had eaten that I couldn't face another one...LOL!!!  But now that my tongue is all healed I want one and I want one bad!!!

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting (from Confections of a Foodie Bride)

Ingredients

• For the strawberry puree:
• 24 oz very ripe strawberries, hulled (or no-sugar-added frozen strawberries)
• 1-2 tsp sugar (optional)
• For the cake:
• 1/4 cup milk, at room temperature
• 6 large egg whites, room temperature (4 whole eggs can be substituted, but it will not be as pink or as light and fluffy!  I recommend the egg whites)
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cup cake flour, sifted
• 1 3/4 cup sugar
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), at room temp

Instructions

1. If frozen strawberries in whatever form (sliced, whole, etc) and in whatever container/bag you have them in. Pour into a fine strainer placed over a bowl and let sit. Lightly toss the strawberries occasionally to remove any pockets of excess liquid. Reserve the liquid for another use or discard.
2. If using fresh strawberries, just hull, slice and toss with a teaspoon or two of sugar and cover. Let them sit at room temperature for a couple of hours, until nice and juicy.
3. Place strawberries in a food processor or blender and puree.
4. Reserve 3/4 cup puree for the cake.
5. Use leftover puree to fill the cake or fold into the frosting, if desired. It's also fabulous spooned over ice cream... and eaten straight with a spoon.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 8- or 9-inch pans, or muffin pan, or 13"X9" pan: spray inside with baking spray with flour (or use some sort of grease/flour combination).
7. In small bowl, combine puree, milk, egg, vanilla and mix with fork until well blended. In bowl of stand mixer, add sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix to combine. Continue beating at slow speed and add butter. Mix until combined and resembling moist crumbs.
8. Add wet ingredients and beat at medium speed for about 1 minute or until full and evenly combined. Stop mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl and hand beat for 30 more seconds.
9. Note: The batter will not get any pinker in the oven so if you're disappointed in the color from your berries, maybe consider adding a drop or two of pink or red food coloring.
10. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and smooth tops.
11. Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (time will vary)I found that it was about 40 minutes for the 13X9 pan and it would be about 20-25 for the cupcakes. Let cakes rest in pan for about 10 minutes and turn out onto wire racks. Let cakes cool completely (about 2 hours).
12. To make the frosting use your favorite cream cheese frosting or this one. 
13. Once the frosting is made I added some of the leftover puree to it.  But not too much or it will become too thin.  If you wanted more pink (we avoid red dye) add some red dye to the frosting now.
14. Frost your cake and enjoy!!!

 

Strawberry Muffins

So April was a really busy month for us here.

We had a 5K run that both the girls did...

We had BMX races...

Friends that we visited...

We went fishing...

And finally we went strawberry picking and that's what this post is about!  Strawberries...

And we picked a lot of strawberries.  I made cake (post to come on that one), strawberry puree for ice cream and finally I made strawberry muffins.

I made strawberry muffins many, many times.  You know why?  The recipe that I found was awesome.  Simple, no mixer and all ingredients that you have on hand...

Strawberry Muffins (Taste of Home)

preheat oven to 375°

Ingredients

• 1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup fat-free plain yogurt (I used papaya flavored yogurt because that's what I had on hand and it was delicious so use what you have...)
• 1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/4 cups coarsely chopped fresh or frozen unsweetened strawberries

Directions

• In a small bowl, combine the first four ingredients. In another bowl, whisk the eggs, yogurt, butter and vanilla. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened. Fold in strawberries.
• Fill muffin cups coated with cooking spray or lined with paper liners two-thirds full. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm. Yield: 1 dozen.

These were good.  I mean really, really good.  So good that I made them for a friends birthday and I frosted them with cream cheese frosting.  Everyone liked them...

Pecan Pie Muffins

And trust me on this.  They taste just like pecan pie.  Maybe not as ooey and gooey as pecan pie but the flavor is still there…And these are good.  Very, very, very good!

I had been looking for a simple recipe to make.  Something with minimal time invested, few ingredients and no mixer required.  I stumbled across these somehow and baked them up that day.  With only 5 ingredients how could I resist right?  Sadly they were gone that night…might have to double the next time!

Pecan Pie Muffins (Tastykitchen.com)
Ingredients:

• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• ⅔ cups melted and cooled butter
• 2 whole eggs, beaten

Directions:
Preheat oven 350 F.
Grease your muffin pan (whatever size) really, really well, or use the silicone cups. I grease my muffin cups with Crisco or lard. and it still wasn’t enough.  I had some stickage trouble.  Next time I will grease them with lard but also spray them with cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, stir together brown sugar, flour and pecans. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and eggs together until smooth. Stir into the dry ingredients just until combined. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups.
Cups should be about 2/3 full. I was able to fill 8 muffin cups.
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. Cool on wire racks when done.
Option: when you take them out of the oven, place a slice of butter on top and eat warm. You may also use walnuts instead of pecans.

Oven Fried Chicken

I absolutely love fried chicken.  Now I’m not talking any fast food place fried chicken.  I mean good ole fashioned homemade, buttermilk marinated and breaded fried chicken. 
But sadly due to time and the fact that fried chicken instantly seems to attach itself to my already ample booty I try to stay away from it.  Luckily for us I have found a pretty decent oven fried chicken recipe that is quick and easy. 
Everyone loves “fried” chicken nights here now and these are as simple to make as store bought shake and bake chicken.

Oven Fried Chicken

Ingredients

• Enough chicken legs to feed your family
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon sage
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon or less cayenne pepper
• 1/2 cup butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F (230 degrees C).
2. Mix flour, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, paprika, sage, cayenne and pepper together in a bag. Add chicken parts in a bag and shake until well coated.
3. Melt butter/margarine in a 9x13 inch baking dish in the preheated oven. Place chicken in the baking dish skin side down and bake for 20 minutes. Turn pieces and bake another 20 minutes until tender and juices run clear.

Strawberry Lemon Quick Bread

I’ve said it before a million times that I am so blessed to live in Florida in the winter time…summer time not so much, and this year doubly so.  With our mild temperatures all of our food crops did amazingly well.  I found that I had an abundance of things that I love.  Two of them being lemons and strawberries.
This year the strawberry and lemon crops have been so plentiful that I had so many lemons and strawberries that I just had no way of getting them used up unless I made something with them.  I searched high and low for a recipe for that used both strawberries and lemons. Weird huh?  Not many out there.  So I adapted a strawberry bread recipe from Union Street Eats and it turned out perfect!

Strawberry and Lemon Quick Bread (adapted from Union Street Eats)
Preheat oven to 375F

Grease and flour a 9X5 inch bread pan

Ingredients:
2 Cups fresh strawberries, roughly chopped
1 1/2 Cups all-purpose flour
zest of one lemon
3/4 Cup granulated sugar
1/4 Cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 Cup vegetable oil
1/4 Cup fresh squeezed lemon juice
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

• Place chopped strawberries in a large strainer or colander and sprinkle with a couple of Tbsp of sugar.  Let sit for about 15 minutes
• In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, lemon zest, both sugars, cinnamon, baking soda and salt
• In a separate bowl whisk together eggs, vanilla, oil and lemon juice.
• Stir in the strawberries.
• Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until combined.  Do not over-mix.
• Pour batter into prepared loaf pan.  Bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the loaf comes out clean.
• Remove from oven and let cool before removing from pan.

**This is a moist and delicious bread.  It was gone in no time and I’m looking for another sale on strawberries to make it again!
I also want to give a quick shout out to the folks at The Food Channel.  They featured my blog in “Thing We Love”  So honored…Head on over and check them out.  They have some great stuff on their site (besides me!! LOL)

Black Bean and Goat Cheese Pizza

Last week one day I put a post on Facebook saying that I was making a black bean and goat cheese pizza.  Having never tried it before I added the comment at the end…”How could that not be good right?”  To those of you who responded that there was no way it could be good, you’re just plain crazy.

This ended up being an absolutely delicious pizza and we all were fighting for the leftovers the next day. 
I pretty much followed the same recipe that I use when I make black bean and goat cheese quesadillas the only real change being the pizza crust instead of tortillas.

Goat Cheese and Black Bean Pizza
Preheat oven to 500F (I use a pizza stone on the bottom shelf and cook my pizzas on a cookie sheet directly on the stone.)
1 package of store bought pizza dough or your own recipe (I make a bread machine dough that we love).  Stretched as shaped on a pan.  We use a cookie sheet pan and make rectangular pizzas.
Black Bean Topping
2 Tbs. olive oil
1 lg yellow onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, minced
24-oz. can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 tsp. ground cumin
1 Tbsp. chili powder
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 cup water 
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 jalapeno, chopped or sliced if desired
4 oz. or more goat cheese, crumbled
Directions
In a medium skillet, heat the oil over medium heat until hot. Add the onion and garlic and sauté, stirring, until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the beans, cumin, chili powder, oregano and 1/2 cup water and cook, stirring occasionally, until almost all the water has evaporated, 5 to 7 minutes. Take the pan off the heat. With the back of a fork, break up the beans to make a chunky mash. Stir in half of the cilantro and season with salt and pepper.
Spread the black bean mixture over the pizza dough and crumble the goat cheese and dab on top, sprinkle with jalapeno.
Cook until hot and bubbly and the pizza crust is browned to your liking (should be about 20 minutes but keep an eye on it.  My oven is funky at 500F.  Sprinkle with cilantro and serve.