Here's My Breakfast Pie!! (sang to the tune of Cherry Pie)

Hubbers loves this recipe, I love this recipe, friends love this recipe... and it's easy as pie!

I introduce you to Breakfast Pie! Breakfast Pie is a product of playing "cookbook roulette." (Cookbook Roulette is what happens when you throw all the cookbooks in the floor and randomly pick recipes because you don't really know what you want for supper.)

Here is this heavenly concoction. People, friends... fasten your seatbelts.

You'll need:

1 can of evaporated milk (NOT CONDENSED MILK)
5 eggs
3 cups of shredded hashbrowns (thawed if they were frozen)
1lb of sausage (I used Country Sage)
2 cups of cheddar cheese shredded
2 pie crusts, the rolled kind from the refrigerated section

*optional ingredients
1 half bell pepper, diced
1 half onioin, diced

Lay you out a pie crust in that awesome round pan. 

Brown up that sausage

If using the optional ingredients, dice up that onion and bell pepper

Get them hashbrowns. 

Now, for whatever reason, I don't have pictures. Oh, technology. But you'll want to beat those 5 eggs with the evaporated milk. Then, when the sausage is brown, layer that in the pie crust, then dice the onions, then layer the hash browns on that. Next, put on the cheese, pour the egg and milk concoction, and put that other pie crust on. Bake for 25 minutes at 400. 

Boom! Slice that girl open. 

Can. You. See. The. Goodness?

Hubbers gave this one a Thumbs Up. This is one of those great ratings that you don't just win at the Oscar's. Just saying. You may want to write this one down in the history books. 

Serve this up with some salsa for an extra kick. 

Guys, seriously, try this one. It's awesome!

Love as always, 

Courtney 

Chicken Fried Rice... Minus the Chinese Take Out.

Hubbers LOVES this recipe. Adores it. I try to make plenty for leftovers and that usually doesn't happen because he and my "brother in law" (Jeremy's best friend/brother, best man at our wedding) destroy it before the plates even hit the table.

You'll need:
1 can of carrots
1 can of peas
1 cup of rice
3 chicken breast
1 bottle of soy sauce
*eggs, scrambled
*green onion, diced
*zest of two oranges
*juice of two oranges

(**Means optional ingredients)

First things first, boil your rice. That's one cup rice, two cups water. Pour the rice and water in together, and bring it to a hard boil. Once it's boiling, cut the heat off, stir it, then put a lid on it. Let the steam work from there. This takes about 20 minutes. 

In the meantime, cook that chicken in the skillet. (I only used a few strips of chicken for a smaller amount. I like less chicken, you may add more.)

Next, combine all of your ingredients together. The peas should be drained as should the carrots. The chicken, once done, should be diced. Stir it all together so it looks like it does in the picture above. *If using optional ingredients, now is when you'd add the green onion, scrambled egg, and orange zest.*

Go ahead and heat up that skillet, wok, pan, what have you. I have an electric skillet that works wonders for this. 

Use max heat if using an electric skillet. 

It's not fried if there's no butter ya'll! Use about 2 tablespoons of butter to drop in that skillet. Paula Deen would use more, but we're not trying to lube up our arteries here. 

Throw that beautiful mess into the skillet once the butter has melted and sizzled. At this point we'll add the soy sauce, as much as you like (you won't use the whole bottle, hopefully. Taste it along the way. I like mine a little salty.) **If you're using the optional ingredients, add the orange juice here.

It's done when the excess juice and sauce have cooked into the rice. Enjoy this bit, kids, cause everyone is digging it!

Love as always, 

Courtney 

A Dessert For My Soul....Tastes Like A Million Bucks!

Before I can tell you about this pie, let me tell you why it is so near and dear to my heart.

The oldest lady in that picture? That's my MawMaw Berry. In this picture we were celebrating her 90th birthday. Due to Alzheimer's, she barely knew who most of us were unless we "introduced" ourselves. It was hard to see her like this as she was always the one to cook for the family, talk, laugh with everyone, fret to the extreme over Y2K and dote like crazy on her grandbabies. This woman was blessed with these beautiful, old, wrinkly hands that cooked us the best food in the whole world. This picture was taken February 2012.

In June 2012, just three short weeks before Jeremy and I got married, MawMaw Berry was reunited with her husband Woodrow Berry in Heaven. She lived a long and blessed life and she blessed many others. At her funeral, my mother, stepfathers, aunt, uncle, MawMaw, PawPaw, brother, sister, and cousins did our best to eat the food provided by the church, but all it did was stir up memories of when MawMaw Berry could still stand to cook.

We remembered dumplins and fried chicken and fresh butterbeans and boiled shrimp and cornbread muffins and greens and gravy... but we mostly remembered her Millionaire Pie. She didn't write down the recipe, she didn't tell anyone exactly how it was made. We had already lost our grandmother, great grandmother, mother... and now losing her recipes just added to the heartache.

Being the cookly wife that I am and using my MawMaw Berry as inspiration, I made a bold statement at that funeral dinner. "I'm gonna make that Millionaire Pie. It may not be as good, but I'm gonna make it."

This month, MawMaw Berry would have been 91 years old. Therefore, I celebrated her memory by making her pie. It's incredible how simple it was. I found this recipe off Pinterest, but it is incredibly similar to what I had from MawMaw Berry.

You'll need:
1 carton (8oz) of cool whip from the freezer section
1 (10oz) can of crushed pineapple
1 can (14oz) of Eagle Brand condensed milk
3 Tbs. of lemon juice
3/4 cup of crushed pecans (or as many pecans as you like.)
2 Graham Cracker pie crusts.

Combine cool whip, condensed milk, crushed pineapple, lemon juice, and crushed pecans in the mixer (or bowl) and mix well. It should look like the picture above. 

Pour the pie mixture into the two pie crusts..

 And refrigerate for two hours. 

When you finally cut into this heavenly piece of Millionaire Pie, it'll look like this. The longer it sits, the firmer it gets but you really cannot wait longer than two hours to taste this!

It holds together nicely, so long as you keep it refrigerated. 

It was an honor and a blessing to be able to make this pie for you. I feel like I got to spend a little time with my MawMaw Berry today. I can only hope that I'll be half the wife, homemaker, and mother that she was. Enjoy this pie my friends.

Oh, and take a moment to read up on Alzheimer's. Be aware of the dangers, the symptoms, the signs, and the treatments for Alzheimer's. I lost someone to it, but I pray you don't have to. 

Love always, 

Courtney

Easy Garlic Bread From Scratch

I promised you two recipes, here's the first.

This is the easiest garlic bread short of buying it from the freezer section. We've all tasted it, we know the freezer box garlic bread is good, but who doesn't want to just absolutely WOW friends at the dinner party? Besides, this is super easy and completely worth it. I got this from Food.com AND they have a feature that allows you to adjust the portion depending on how much you want to make. I only made one loaf of the artisan bread and that required no refrigeration, but you can use that website to go about it however you like.

Here's What I Did:

3/4 cup lukewarm water
3/8 tablespoon granulated yeast (2 packets)
3/8 tablespoon kosher salt or 3/8 tablespoon other coarse salt
1 5/8 cups flour, unsifted, unbleached, all-purpose (not strong)


I combined it all in my mixer with the dough hook attachment. If you don't have a KitchenAid stand mixer, my heart aches for you. But you can still do this by hand. My instructions include the mixer.

Add the yeast, warm water (straight from the sink worked for me), and salt. Let that sit for about 10 minutes which allows the yeast to work its magic, then add the flour. All at once, then set that mixer to 2 until the dough pulls from the side. 

When you get the dough off the hook, it should look like this. **PRO TIP coat your hands in flour, it keeps the dough from sticking to your fingers.** 

Next, roll that dough into a little ball. You'll want to cover the bowl for about two hours and let it set on the counter to rise. Go check the mail, run errands, handle business, let the dough be. 

Once the dough has risen in size, coat it in flour. I let that sit for a minute as I greased up the pan. The recipe didn't call for it, but it seemed like a good idea. 

Grease up that pan all nice and oily like...

Then manipulate that little ball into a long loaf. It looks tiny now but never fear, my dear, it shall rise. 

Now, this seems silly, but it works. Put that oven to 425 and add a broiler pan (or cake pan) full of water. Trust me, the steam keeps that bread nice and moist. 

As the oven heats, let that dough rise a little more. Coat it in olive oil and cut some slits in it. Mine weren't deep enough, but it made for a crispier crust. Then throw that baby in the oven! The recipe called for 30mins, but my oven only needed 25 and it got a little too brown.

Voila! Artisan bread.

Let it rest, my darling. Now, you could stop here and make a killer BLT... but I'm trying to impress dinner party friends with an Italian menu sooo...

I cut that hunky loaf into baguettes, or bites, or whatever you choose to call them. I covered them in butter and garlic salt, toasted them, then this is what happened...

For the love of all things joyful and true, this was some tasty garlic bread! BOOM!

And there you have it folks, tasty, easy, quick garlic bread. Or just sandwich bread. But my Lawd it was delicious!

Time for Easy Eatin' : Taco Bites!

Taco Bites... these are a flippin' lifesaver. They are easy to make, can be made two different ways, and they're quick. You could use these for a party, for a get together at work, or when you've been working all day and you want something filling with a little indulgence. Besides... it's got the word "taco" in it so it has to be good.

Taco bites are so incredibly easy that you'll be adding this to your weekly or bi-weekly grocery menu. So check it out below, then make them, fry them or bake them, and enjoy!

Ingredients:

1. Grands biscuits (use a pack with 10 biscuits inside. We used a flaky buttery biscuit, but this is your choice.Get them in the cold section of your grocery store.)
2. 1lb of hamburger meat
3. 1 packet of taco seasoning
4. 2 cups of grated cheddar cheese. (just cheat and buy the shredded cheddar at the store. We don't have time to grate our own! 

Procedure:

Gather together your ingredients, then get to work on browning that hamburger meat.

Next, follow the directions for the taco seasoning packet of your choice. Mine called for a half a cup of water, the taco seasoning, then bring that to a boil, stir, and you're done. Set it off to the side and let it cool, because you're about to get your hands dirty!

Pop those biscuits open, butter up a cookie sheet, and plop them down! You want these nice and flat but not too thin.

Add the meat....

...a little cheese... or a ton, as in my household.

Then fold one edge over to meet the other, sealing in the meat in a delicious taco pocket. Now what's next is up to you. 

If you have a fryer, or if you are patient enough to fry these on the stove, go for it! They only need to fry for about five minutes, and turn them so they get a nice golden brown all over!

If you're more health conscious, try baking them for about 15 minutes at 350. 

Let them cool, then serve them up! We added a little salsa and sour cream to the mix since these are so good for dipping. (Yes, in my house we use that much sour cream, so I buy bulk.)

I hope you enjoy this recipe. It is super easy, really fun, and absolutely delicious. Another way to add more bang is to add a little salsa in the browning process. YUM! 

Eat it up, Super Spouses!

Courtney