Banana-Pecan Muffins

Anyone who doesn't have old-mushy bananas in their kitchen probably: 1) doesn't like bananas, 2) goes to the store every day just to buy 1 banana or 3) is lying.  Well I frequently have old bananas (insert joke here).  I either put them into a smoothie or make muffins.

Is it just me, or is there some nationwide banana conspiracy to get you to buy more bananas?  Yeah, they're cheap, but we all end up throwing them away because they are disgusting when they're mushy!  And don't even get me started on those banana stands!  They may hasten the aging of the bananas by 10 minutes, but they are hardly worth the space on the counter or the $10.00 I shelled out for ours!  That is $10 my kids are never going to see in their inheritance.  At least one of them will get the banana hanger, which I'm sure will appease them.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick) softened
1 cup sugar.  I used 1/2 cup Truvia instead
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas (which I'm sure you gathered from my rant above)
1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped pecans (walnuts would be good too)

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Either coat a 12 cup muffin tin with cooking spray, or use cupcake papers.

2.  In large bowl, beat butter and sugar until creamy.  Add eggs and beat until light and fluffy. 

3.  In a separate bowl, mash bananas with fork and add into sugar, butter and egg mixture, stir.

4.  Stir in flour, baking soda and cinnamon, mixing just enough to moisten.  Add pecans.

5.  Spoon batter into muffin cups (really, was this necessary for me to put in here?  Of course you're going to put the batter into the muffin cups, WE'RE MAKING MUFFINS HERE PEOPLE!  What else would you do with the batter?  If you're that incompetent that you didn't know that, you probably shouldn't be around sharp objects either!)

6.  Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

These are fine to be frozen too and then you can have 1 anytime you want!  Take that banana farmers!

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Donna's Stuffed Peppers

This original recipe is from my mother-in-law Donna. I kept hearing about her "famous" stuffed peppers from my husband so I asked for the recipe. He must have been such a good little eater because I know when I was a kid faced with the dinner choice of stuffed peppers...I was not so receptive to the idea. What a picky little brat I was! But now that I'm older and wiser, this is one of my favorite dishes. The only thing I really changed was that she uses hamburger meat and I used Italian sausage instead, I think it has a little more flavor, plus I'm not a big red-meat fan. This recipe is delicious and produces a lot of leftovers so it's great to make on a Sunday and eat all week long!

Ingredients:

- 3 peppers, cut lengthwise and seeded
- 16 oz. of Italian sausage
- 1 medium-sized onion
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 cup rice
- 1 large can of tomato sauce
- 1 ½ cups shredded mozzarella

1. Start the rice by following your favorite boxed-rice recipe. Mine says add 1 cup rice with 2 ¼ cups water in a medium pan and when it starts boiling, lower the heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for 20 minutes.

2. In a medium sauté pan, add Italian sausage and onions. Cook until the sausage has almost lost its pink color and then add in the garlic. Cook until sausage is finished and put the sausage mixture in a large bowl.

3. Once you have halved and seeded the peppers, add them to a large pot of boiling water. Boil for about 5 minutes and then place the peppers in a casserole dish cut-side up.

4. Once the rice is finished, add the cooked rice to the bowl with the sausage mixture. Add 1 ½ cups of the tomato sauce and ½ cup of the mozzarella cheese and mix.

5. Spoon the mixture into the open peppers. If there is any leftover mixture, add it to the bottom of the pan. Take remaining tomato sauce from the can and pour it all around the peppers in the bottom of the pan.

6. Bake for 40 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Take the peppers out and sprinkle the remaining mozzarella cheese on top. Place back in the oven for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is fully melted.

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Moist Whole chicken

Here is a great way to cook a whole chicken.  It is super moist and couldn't be much easier. Put it in the Slow Cooker and let it cook for 8-10 hours.  The smell of the chicken when I walked in the door from work was heavenly.  Sadie (below) was also the recipient of some of the chicken in her dish that night!  

INGREDIENTS:

Whole chicken
1 Whole Lemon
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 small-medium onion
Olive oil
Black Pepper
1 cup chicken broth

Remove the gizzards from the chicken, rinse and pat dry
Cut lemon in quarters
Peel and cut onion in quarters

Place (I mean shove) lemon and onion quarters and fresh rosemary into the cavity of the chicken.  

Place the chicken in your slow cooker and drizzle olive oil over the chicken.  Sprinkle with black pepper and parsley.  Pour 1 cup (or so) of chicken broth in the bottom of the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours.  Enjoy and don't forget your doggie!

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"Give me chicken damn it"

Cheese Blondue Schedule of posts...

Hi everyone,

As we continue to post recipes and more and more readers come on board, we thought we should let you know when our posts are scheduled.

Every Thursday and Sunday new recipes are posted @ 5:00 am EST.  However at any time, you can check back to see older posts in case you have missed one!

Also, please feel free to leave comments about our recipes you've tried, or suggestions for future meals.

Thanks and as always, enjoy

Julie and Corinne,
Cheese Blondue

Yummy Pork Chops

This recipe was originally given to me by an old friend, probably 20 years ago.  I think the original title was Smothered Pork Chops.  It quickly became one of my children's favorite dishes and they dubbed it "Yummy Pork Chops".  In fact, Corinne used to want to just drink the gravy and probably did when I wasn't looking. Yes, she has a problem. 

The secret to cooking any pork is to sloooooooowwwwwww cook it at a low temp. This will produce pork chops so tender, you do not need a knife!  If your oven doesn't have the capability to be programmed to come on during the day, then I suggest making it when you have at least 5 hours to cook this dish.

Hopefully you can get past the fact that when preparing this dish, it resembles vomit. By now you're probably closing out this page because of the vomit comment, aren't you?  Please don't, you will not be sorry.  That is unless you hate this recipe then you'll tell all your friends about this wacko who cooks vomit chops!

Ingredients:

4 boneless Pork Chops (preferably 1 Inch thick)
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup (or so) seasoned bread crumbs
2 Tablespoons milk
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
1 can French Onion Soup
1/4 Cup Parmesan Cheese
Olive Oil for frying
 (If using more pork chops, then double the soup to create more gravy)

1.   Rinse pork chops and cut off fat

2.   Break eggs in bowl, add a little milk…whisk with fork

3.   With bread crumbs in bowl, dip chops in egg mixture, then bread crumbs.

4.   In skillet, heat enough oil to cover bottom over medium heat

5.   Fry pork chops until brown (about 2 minutes per side). Note, they will not be cooked through..

6.   Place pork chops in baking dish

   7.   Mix soups and Parmesan cheese together, pour over pork chops COVER



See...what did I tell you..vomit, right?

8.  Cover and Bake @ 225 degrees for 5 hours

9.  Serve with Mashed potatoes or noodles



Honest, it tastes way better than it looks. 

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Fragrant Fried Rice

I whip this dish together about once every two weeks because I usually have all of the ingredients in my house and if not, I substitute other various vegetables I have on hand. PLUS - my all-time favorite kitchen gadget is my rice maker (thanks to whoever got us that for our wedding!). It makes that sticky rice that you get at asian restaurants...its amazing! I highly recommend it, I think it was less than $20 bucks too so it was a good deal. So the trick is to put the sticky rice in a saute pan with a little vegetable oil, cumin, and soy sauce and it gets all crispy like at a hibachi restaurant. Mmmm so good!

Ingredients:
- 1 cup cooked rice (I like to use jasmine rice)
- 1/2 cup chopped broccoli
- 1/2 cup frozen mixed vegetables
- 1 T. olive oil
- 2 T. chopped cilantro
- 1 t. cumin
- 1 T. vegetable oil
- 4 T. soy sauce

Optional: Usually I just have this as a meatless dish, but sometimes I add some shredded chicken in with the fried rice. Also, if you like eggs in your fried rice, you could add 1 or 2 in with the vegetables while they are cooking.

1. Cut broccoli up and put it in a saute pan with about 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. Cook for a few minutes and then add the mixed frozen vegetables. When frozen vegetables are cooked, add about 2 Tablespoons of the soy sauce and cook for another minute or two.

2. Transfer vegetables to a bowl. In the same pan, add the vegetable oil and the cumin. Immediately add the cooked rice...this give the rice its "fragrance". The rice needs to cook like this for about 4 minutes...it gets crispy on the bottom like fried rice. So yummy!

3. Add the other 2 Tablespoons of soy sauce (or more) to the rice and then flip it over to get crisp on the other side.

4. When rice is crispy, add it to the vegetables and mix all together. Serve with some chicken if you have it. And with crispy rice noodles on top. Enjoy!

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Stuffed Pork Chops

A nearby grocery store had a similar dish in their prepared foods section and after trying it one day, I said "I can make that!" and I came up with this recipe for stuffed pork chops. This one has fall flavors with the cranberries and apples, but you could substitute other ingredients with the same base of the prepared stuffing. To make it easy on myself, I buy pork chops that have already been butterflied open so I can just put the stuffing mixture right in.

Ingredients:
- 4 pork chops (butterflied open)
- 1 cup prepared stuffing
- 1/2 cup diced apple
- 2 T. dried cranberries
- 2 T. sliced almonds
- Olive oil

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Start by preparing the stuffing. I use the pre-made mix (Stove Top) and make 1 cup of the stuffing. Once it's finished (it only takes about 5 minutes) I add it to a bowl with the diced apple, cranberries and almonds. Mix together.

3. Place the pork chops on a cutting board and take a handful of the stuffing to place inside. This is slightly messy but suck it up! Make sure you portion out enough to fit in the 4 pork chops.

4. Once the pork chops are stuffed, place them in a medium-high heat pan with a little bit of olive oil. Brown both sides and then finish in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until the pork chop is fully cooked through.

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Goat Cheese Appetizer with Pita Chips

This dish is inspired by a baked goat cheese appetizer I had at a restaurant once. My husband suggested adding the marinara and presto! Paired with some homeade pita chips, it's delish! We sometimes have this for dinner with some wine. I know! It's bad! No veggies or meat...what the hell kind of dinner is that? But it's also great for an appetizer to share...with wine....notice a trend here?

Ingredients:
- 4 oz. log of goat cheese
- 1/2 cup marinara sauce
- 1/4 cup bread crumbs
- 1 T. olive oil

Pita Chips:
- 3 or 4 pita pockets
- 3 T. olive oil
- 2 T. balsamic vinegar
- 1 T. italian spices

1. For the pita chips, cut into bite-sized pieces and place on a cookie sheet. Drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and italian spices. Toss together until everything is coated. Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until crispy.

2. Brown breadcrumbs in a pan with 1 Tablespoon of olive oil. Watch the breadcrumbs so they don't burn! When they are done, place the breadcrumbs on a cutting board and spread them out in a circle.

3. Place the goat cheese log on the breadcrumbs and roll it to coat all over.

4. Pour marinara sauce in a shallow baking dish, place the goat cheese log in the marinara sauce. Bake at 400 for about 10 minutes or until the goat cheese is soft.

5. Serve with pita chips, enjoy!

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Black Bean Soup

This is a great slow cooker recipe and it makes A LOT!  Also, if you want to make it more spicy, feel free to add cumin and hot sauce.  If you need a good "cleaning" of your insides (if you know what I mean), this soup is for you!   Because of all the fresh ingredients, and the black beans and turkey sausage this recipe is very low in calories and a great source of fiber. 

If you don't have a large slow cooker, you can always slow cook it on the stove for many hours on low.  Also if your slow cooker is on the small size, cut the recipe in half. 

I make this up the night before and refrigerate overnight and just turn it on low before work the next morning.  The house smells wonderful when you get home...much better than later in the evening (again, if you know what I mean). 

Ingredients:

1-1/2 cups chopped celery
1-1/2 cups chopped carrots
1 Medium onion, chopped
3-15 oz cans black beans, drained
1-14.5 can crushed tomatoes
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1-32 oz. chicken broth (use less if you like a thicker soup)
1 package Turkey Smoked Sausage, cut in small pieces
1-1/2 t. basil
1/2 t. oregano
1/2 t. chili powder

1.  Combine all ingredients and put into slow cooker.

2.  Cook for 9-10 hours on low/

3.  Serve with rice and sour cream if desired

Pretty veggies!

All ingredients, prior to cooking

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Brownie Cookies

So - I'm not big into baking, but my office was having a cookie contest and damned if I was going to lose! (The prize was a bottle of wine...hence my motivation). So I looked up recipes online but I'm not a huge cookie fan to begin with...I love brownies though so I was on the hunt for something brownie-ish. I came across this recipe which looked very easy and I added in the walnuts for a little something extra. They turned out to be very messy to make, but extremely delicious!

Ingredients:
- 1 package brownie mix (13 x 9 inch pan size)
- 1 cup flour
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used the mini ones)
- 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- Confectioner's sugar

1. Mix together in a large bowl the brownie mix, flour, egg, water and oil. Fold in the chocolate chips and the walnuts.

2. Then spoon about a tablespoon into a shallow dish filled with confectioner's sugar. Roll the mixture around until completely coated and then place on a greased baking sheet.

3. Cook for 8-10 minutes or until completely cooked through. Enjoy with milk...yummy!

Side Note: I did NOT win the office cookie contest...damn overachievers in my office made all these fancy-pants cookies...I majorly underestimated my competition. 

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