Chocolate Blackberry Cobbler for 2!

I left my big container of Swiss Miss at my boyfriend's house, so this weekend I have no constant source of chocolate. OH, WAIT! There's something up my sleeve . . .

BLACKBERRIES & CHOCOLATE CHIPS!!

What does that mean? COBBLER.

You will need:

• 6 oz. blackberries, washed and dried
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 butter, melted
• 1/2 cup milk

Preheat the oven to 375 and grease a small baking dish, around 6x6.

Combine flour and sugar in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Next pour the melted butter over the mixture. Next add the milk and whisk until the batter is smooth.

Pour the batter into the greased baking dish. Place the blackberries evenly over the batter followed by the chocolate chips.

Bake for 40-45 minutes or until you can poke it with a tooth pick and no batter comes off on it.




A sweet and tart treat that is tasty enough to trick me into eating fruit - WONDERFUL! This recipe makes enough for 2-3 people OR 1 chocolate obsessed person with a sweet tooth that don't give a DAMN.

Love,

Liz

Candied Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies, Y'all!

I missed my stepfather's birthday this year. Yeah, I know - I'm the worst. But trust me, I have an excellent excuse. I had his birthday saved in my old phone on the calendar, but it got lost when my stepfather gave me a new phone for Christmas. So, if you think about it . . . it's really all his fault. To make up for it, I decided to make him a treat because he's almost sixty and can pretty much buy anything he actually wants.


You will need:
Cookie Dough:

• 2 1/4 cup flour
• 1 TSP baking soda
• 1 TSP salt
• 2 sticks of soft butter
• 1 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 TSP vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs
• 2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

 Candied Pecans:

• 1 cup pecans, whole or chopped
• 2 TBSP brown sugar
• 2 TBSP butter

Preheat your oven to 375.

Get a large bowl and mix up the white sugar, brown sugar, butter, and vanilla extract until it's creamy. Add the eggs in one at a time and make sure you mix them in all the way. Otherwise, you could get scrumptious chunks of cooked egg in your cookies.

In a small bowl, combine salt, flour, and baking soda. Spill some of the flour mixture into the sugar mixture and mix it real well. Continue adding the flour mixture a little bit at a time making sure it's incorporated completely it has become some tasty-delicious cookie dough.







Next add the chocolate chips and we can move on to the star of this cookie show!

THE CANDIED PECANS.

This is so serious y'all. Pecans are a big deal in the South, but they're just as tasty up here in the slowly-thawing North.

Get a small frying pan, preferably, set it on medium and start melting that butter. Drop in one pecan at a time until the butter starts sizzling, then dump in the rest of the nuts and brown sugar. Use a spatula to mix it all around in the pan and really get those pecans coated in the butter and sugar.

Let them simmer for 5-8 minutes on medium and then remove it from heat completely. I left mine on the stove and the sugar caramelized onto the bottom of the pan, womp, womp.

Stir the candied pecans into the cookie dough. Roll the cookie dough into about the size of a golf ball and set up nine on a cookie sheet. Make sure they're spread evenly apart, unless you like twin cookies. Bake them for 9-12 minutes. I made three pans worth of cookies, nine each which makes twenty-seven cookies all together.

I don't know if my stepfather likes them. I haven't heard from him since I gave him the cookies so I assume his mouth is too jammed full to speak.

BBQ Meatloaf Done Right

I love meatloaf! A long time ago, my Mama gave me her recipe for BBQ Meatloaf. She actually took an original Martha Stewart recipe and made it much much better with her Mama powers.

As a testament to my love for the loaf of meat, I've revamped an old post of a classic favorite. I added a little bit of my own twist on the recipe. So, get 'cher tummies rumblin' because here we go!

You will need:

• 1 lb. ground sirloin
• 1 egg
• 1 1/4 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce
• 4 slices of white or wheat bread, diced
• 1 tsp. of Grey Poupon Mustard
• 1/2 medium onion diced
• 1 tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. red pepper flakes (optional)
• 1 tbsp. honey

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Place your bread bits in a medium sized mixing bowl, as seen above. Next add your ground sirloin, onions, egg, and brown sugar. If you want your meatloaf with a kick, add the red pepper flakes now or sprinkle some on after it's done.



Wash your hands because you're about to be wrist deep in raw meat. The best way to mix all the ingredients together is with your bare hands. I know it's gross, but grow up. Thoroughly mix 1 cup of BBQ sauce and Grey Poupon mustard into the meat with a spoon.

Take all the meat out of the mixing bowl and form it into a loaf shape on a greased baking pan. I don't like putting meatloaf in a loaf pan, you might as well be cooking your loaf in a bucket of grease. Moving on, in a small mixing bowl, combine the extra BBQ sauce and honey to make a tasty glaze. Pour the glaze  over the length of the meatloaf. Pop it in the oven for 50 minutes.

Yum! See? And all the grease leaked out. I suggest a side salad and some scalloped potatoes on the side of this meaty treat. Don't forget! The leftovers make fantastic sandwiches!

Love,

Liz

Dr. Pepper Pulled Pork

Put on your britches and get out your slow cooker, bitches. It's time for some BBQ. Dr. Pepper stizzyle.

Ridiculous. Anyways, Dr. Pepper More than Mesquite Marinade is a wonderful, highly recommended, but not necessary ingredient. I happen to find it at a local gift shop that happen to have a HUGE variety of BBQ and hot sauces. Very handy for Father's Day. However, it might not be as easy for someone in say . . . Botswana to find any Dr. Pepper Marinade in just any old store. I found a few online stores that carry it including right here at saucenspice.com.

Moving on, the slow cooker is a very important tool for any amateur chef. It's great for those days when you got a lot of errands to do and need a lot of food later on. It's great for roasts, chicken, rice, potatoes, soups, stews, chili, really anything. You can throw all your ingredients into it and let it cook for at least 3 hours, longer if you want it more delicious. Personally, I like to start a dish at about 4 AM (bed time) so it can simmer at least 12 hours. Plus, they're cheap. So there's really no reason for you not to have one.

For this recipe, you will need:

• 3-5 lb. pork butt roast, size really depends on the size of your crock pot or slow cooker and amount of people you're serving
• 14 oz. bottle Dr. Pepper More than Mesquite Marinade
• 24 oz. bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
• 1/2 cup spicy mustard
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 green bell pepper, sliced
• 1 large white onion, sliced
• 2 limes
• 1 clove garlic, diced
• salt
• pepper

Wash off the pork roast and place it on a plate with a paper towel underneath to absorb the extra run off. Season the roast with salt and pepper. Transfer the roast into the slow cooker. Cover it with half the bottle of Dr. Pepper More than Mesquite Marinade, half the bottle of BBQ sauce, the green peppers and onions.



Pop the top on the slow cooker, crank it to Low Heat and leave it alone for hours upon hours. Like I said, I'll leave that sucker in there half a day, I don't even care. But if you're in a hurry, wait about 4 hours until checking how tender the roast is. It's incredibly important to leave the top on at all times and not to fuss with the temperature or anything else until the pivotal moment. Once the urge is upon you to definitively surmise that the roast is tender enough, the sauce should be gently bubbling and the vegetables should appear wilted and soggy.

Now, transfer the roast onto a pan or clean plate. At this point I usually throw away the juices and vegetables in the pot. I find that the onions and peppers completely absorb the taste of the sauces and offers no yum factor. But if you think you'd like them, be my guest.

Return the pork roast to the slow cooker. Grab 2 forks and sort of use them to rip apart the roast like a hermit crab digging into the sand. Strange analogy, I know, but it's the only thing I could think of that came close enough. If it doesn't start to rip up so easily, don't worry.

Dump the rest of the Dr. Pepper, BBQ sauce, spicy mustard, brown sugar, and diced garlic. Take the limes and roll them with the palms of your hands on your counter or any flat surface. This loosens up the juices in the limes. Cut them in half and squeeze upside down onto the roast, assuming that you've kept up with washing your hands during this episode.

Keep the slow cooker on low, let it simmer for a few more hours. After about 3 hours, start ripping it up again. Continue to rip apart the pork and let it cook for about an hour. You'll know when it's ready because you'll have eaten most of it just through "tastes", but as a general guide: the more you pull apart the pork, the more the sauces can seep into the meat and penetrate the porky flavors.

Serve it on a nice toasted bun with a slice of Colby Jack cheese and some pasta salad (my new favorite side!).

Next week, shallots and why you'll never bother with red onions again. Ever.

Love,

Liz

Bo-Nanny Banana Bread

 It's pretty hard to keep banana bread around in my house. Either my friends visit and eat it, someone finds outs I made it and asks me to bring them some, or hell, I've eaten a whole loaf in less than 24 hours.

This is my Mamma's recipe which is my Nanny's recipe, but this time its all me. My Nanny likes hers plain, my Mamma likes chocolate chips in her banana bread, but I love walnuts . . . in everything. And lately, since my affair with Fried Bananagins, brown sugar is a new favorite ingredient. I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do. And I THOROUGHLY do.

You will need:

• 1 3/4 cups sifted flour
• 2 tsps baking powder
• 1/4 tsps baking soda
• 1 1/2 tsps salt
• 1/3 cup butter (room temperature)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mashed ripe bananas (2-3 bananas)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (plus a handful for the finish!)
• 1 1/2 tbsp brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350.

In a small bowl, combine sifted flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix together butter and sugar until soft and fluffy in a medium sized bowl. Next add eggs, mix well. Alternately add flour mixture then bananas then walnuts to the butter and sugar. Mix thoroughly after each addition.

Sprinkle the top of the banana bread with walnuts and brown sugar.

Pour into a well- greased loaf pan. Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes. Before the last 10 minutes, I like to pull the pan out of the oven and put a little extra brown sugar on top.

Please, for your own sake, wait like 15 minutes before you cut into this piece of fantastic. Then, slather on a pad of butter and wait for the addiction to settle in.

 

Love,

Liz

Fried Bananagains

I. Love. Fried Bananagains. I Love Fried. Fried Bananagains.

That's a song I sing because it's true. I love fried bananas.

Bananas are a terrific source of Potassium. Potassium is good for dexterity. Dexterity is useful when performing things like surgery or when you type on the computer all day like a nerd.

This is my new favorite dessert. Since I'm broke and I don't want to get fat again, I've substituted chocolate as my main sugar intake for this addictive treat.

You will need:

• bananas
• brown sugar
• butter
• possibly some pecans or walnuts

Cut one banana into quarters, longways. Heat up a small frying pan.

Then put in a pad of butter and wait for it to sizzle a little. Sprinkle some brown sugar into the butter and next place the bananas in pan, preferably flat side down.

After a minute or so, check to see if the under side is brown, then flip the bananas. Cook until brown on each side.

I like to top mine with whipped cream, and nuts. Sooo yummy.

Enjoy!

Love,

Liz