White Chocolate, Butterscotch Heaven

I am going to pat myself on the back right now because I really am an excellent cookie maker.  I don't know if many of you have tried the famous "Buffo's Chocolate Chip Cookies" that I came up with, but they are good.  They are so good that a cookie company in Salt Lake City featured them on their menu as cookie of the day.  I also think I'm pretty good because I'm not a big cookie eater.  I became so good at making cookies because every person around me loves cookies.  They're easy to make and delicious according to my family and friends, so I just keep coming up with more and more cookie recipes.  This recipe is my husband's favorite by far.  He doesn't really enjoy milk chocolate, but he loves white chocolate, so this cookie is for him.

Ingredients
1 cup sugar
1 cup firmly packed Brown sugar
1/2 cup butter softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs

1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. almond extract
3 cups flour
1/2 bag butterscotch chips
1/2 bag white chocolate chips
(Sometimes for an extra treat I will add 1/2 cup of shredded coconut to the recipe which just makes it even more heavenly.  It's totally optional though.)

Directions
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.
In a mixer combine together sugars, butter, shortening, and vanilla until creamy.
Add eggs and almond extract and beat until fluffy.
Add all the dry ingredients, and mix until the dough is tacky, but doesn't stick to your fingers.  You want it semi sticky but not so much that it doesn't stay together or form a ball without coming off your fingers.  (If it is too sticky add a little more flour a spoonful at a time until you get it to the tacky stage.)
Add the chips and mix on low until well combined.

On a cookie sheet lay down pastry paper and lightly spray with Pam, or grease a cookie sheet.  To make the balls for the cookies, I just get a spoon and scoop a little bit up and make a ball about 1 inch high and 1 1/2 inches wide.  If you want your cookies to look perfectly round and pretty use a cookie scoop.  I like mine to look like just scoops of dough with rough edges and what not, but you do what you want.  Place about 2 inches a part on your cookie sheet and bake for 8 minutes or until they are just slightly turning golden on top.

Southern Biscuits and Gravy

I'm kind of a cool aunt.  Maybe it's just the fact that I don't have kids that all of my niece's and nephew's love to stay overnight with Dave and me, but maybe it's because I'm just really cool.  Either way, my go to recipe for every time my niece Maddie spends the night is Biscuits and Gravy.  She absolutely loves my recipe, and my Biscuits and Gravy were the first she had ever had.  This blew me away since she lived in Oklahoma, and I'm sure they make better than I do.  I'm no southern cook, so I'm sure you kind find much better recipes by Paula Deen or someone that lives in South, but for now I'm content using mine.  Who knows, in a year I may end up somewhere in the south for my husbands Medical school, and then I will give you a recipe that knocks your socks off!  I think this one will come really close though!  ;)

To start off, I just want you to know that this recipe is the easiest recipe on the planet.  There is no way you can screw up biscuits and anything with butter and cream or milk is going to turn out great.  The recipe for gravy is very simple, and not your regular gravy it's specifically for biscuits and gravy, so don't use it for your Sunday dinner roast.  I'll stop chibber-chabbering now and give you the goods....

***Specifically for my reader Liz, I have come up with a recipe that is really LOW in saturated fat, so if you would like the differences let me know and I will email them to you.  I will try to do this for most of my recipes from now on.  Thanks for reading my friend!!***

Ingredients

For the Biscuits

3 cups Flour

2 Tbs. Sugar

1/2 tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 tsp. Salt

1/2 cup Vegetable shortening

1 1/4 cups Chilled Butter Milk

1 Tbs. Butter (melted to spread on top after baking)

For the Gravy
1 lb. ground Pork Sausage (I use either maple or sage flavored, and SAVE THE GREASE!)
1/4 cup chopped Onion
6 Tbs. Flour
3 cups Whole Milk
1 cup Half and Half (you can use all whole milk if you would like, I just like my gravy really creamy and thick)
1/2 tsp. Poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp. dried Parsley
dash of Nutmeg (optional)
1/4 tsp. Salt
Dash of Worcestershire
Pinch of Cayenne Pepper
3 Tbs. Sausage grease

Directions

Buttermilk Biscuits

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. In a large bowl mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cayenne pepper. Cut in shortening with a pastry blender or two forks until crumbly. Gradually add milk, stirring just until dry ingredients are moistened. Dough should be sticky. Do not overwork dough.

Flour your hands and turn out the dough onto a lightly-floured surface and gently fold it over on itself 2 or 3 times. Shape into a 3/4” thick round. If you use a rolling pin, be sure to flour it first to keep the dough from sticking to the pin. 

Using a 2-inch biscuit cutter, or a 1/4 cup measuring cup, cut out the biscuits pressing straight down (avoid the temptation to twist the cutter as twisting keeps the biscuits from rising). Dip the cutter in flour between cuttings to keep the dough from sticking to the cutter. Place biscuits on the baking sheet so that they just touch (for crunchy sides, leave space in between). Reshape scrap dough and continue cutting. Remember to handle the dough as little as possible.  (I just eyeball my biscuits most of the time.  If you don't have a biscuit cutter just flour your 1/4 cup measuring cup and push down through the dough.  If you don't care how pretty they are you can also just grab a handful about the size of 3/4 of a small baseball and plop it onto your baking sheet.  It just depends on how pretty you want your biscuits.)

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly golden brown on top. Turn the baking sheet around halfway through baking.

Brush the tops of the biscuits with melted butter when they come out.

Sausage Gravy 

Preheat a BIG saucepan over medium high heat (put a few drops of water in the pan – when they evaporate, you know the pan is ready). Crumble the sausage into the pan and let it brown for a minute or two, then turn down to medium heat. Continue cooking, breaking up the sausage into smaller pieces, until no pink remains.   Stir in the onions and cook until they are transparent. 

Remove sausage with a slotted spatula or spoon, leaving the drippings in the pan. If less than 3 tbsp of drippings remain, add enough butter to equal about 3 tbsp of drippings. Add the cooked sausage back to the pan on medium heat, and sprinkle the flour over the sausage. Stir in the flour and cook for about 7 minutes, until the mixture starts bubbling and turns slightly golden brown. 

Stir in poultry seasoning, nutmeg, Worcestershire sauce, Cayenne, Parsley, and salt – cook for 2 minutes to soak in those flavors. Slowly add the milk and half and half.  Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until thickened (about 15 minutes). Be patient, it will thicken!  Once it's thickened you can add more salt or pepper for your taste.  Enjoy!!

Slow Cooker Shredded Pork

I always get asked how to make my shredded pork.  It is my main dish that I take to people in my ward if I am making dinner for them.  I make it 1. because it's so easy and 2. it's delicious!  This is the perfect recipe if you want to impress anyone with your mad cooking skills!  It's just about the easiest recipe in the world, and is fail proof.  It will come out delicious anytime! 





Ingredients
15 oz. Tomato Sauce
2 Tbs. Chili Powder
3 Tbs. Brown Sugar
2 tsp. ground Coriander
1 tsp. ground Cumin
3 lb. Pork Shoulder or Butt (trim the excess fat)
5 Garlic cloves minced
salt and pepper
2 yellow Onions diced
1/4 cup Lime Juice


Directions
Combine the tomato sauce, chili powder, brown sugar, coriander and cumin in the base of your slow cooker. Stir to combine and distribute the spices evenly.

Sprinkle the pork with salt and pepper and place it in the slow cooker. Using tongs, turn the pork to coat it evenly in the sauce. Add in the garlic and onions, stir again. Place the lid on the slow cooker and cook until the pork is tender and beginning to fall apart, on low 8 to 10 hours.  (This step is a must!  Do not cook it on high because you will not get the same results.  This recipe has to be done LOW and SLOW!)

I serve mine over some crunchy and thick rolls, or just plain with a little BBQ sauce.  You do it however you like!  Hope you enjoy it!

Zucchini Supper

For those of you who grow a garden, you know how much zucchini your plants yield every year.  I always am wondering what to make with it other then the usual desserts I do.  I went out to my garden last night and saw all of my fresh goodies, and put this recipe together.  We had it as our vegetable with some grilled chicken and fresh lemonade.  It was delicious!

Ingredients
5 medium zucchini
4 T.extra virgin olive oil
4 medium tomatoes
a handful of basil leaves, torn
1/2 a lemon squeezed
salt and pepper to taste

Directions
Wash and cut the Zucchini into thick strips.  I normally cut mine about the thickness of a french fry.

Heat the zucchini and your oil in a saute pan for about 5 minutes, until the zucchini starts to soften a bit.  Wash and roughly cut your tomatoes. Dump your tomatoes into the zucchini and oil along with your torn basil leaves.  Squeeze your 1/2 of a lemon on top making sure to catch the seeds with your hands.
Cover the pan and let simmer for about 12 minutes until the zucchini are completely soft and the tomatoes have made a good sloshy sauce.
The colors should be bright.  You don't want your zucchini yielding a brown color to it at all.  You want this dish to look really vibrant.  :) 

I use this as a side dish and serve it with a meaty side.  It's a great way to use all of your fresh veggies out of your garden.  Enjoy!

Buttermilk Waffles

As I was making my waffle recipe for breakfast this morning, it hit me that I have never shared it on my blog.  So for all of you who love breakfast food as much as I do, and especially just like a good. homemade, buttery, waffle recipe, here it is.

Ingredients

1 stick butter, melted

2 cups flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp salt

3 large eggs

2 cups buttermilk

1 tsp vanilla

 

Directions

Preheat waffle iron.  Beat eggs until fluffy.  Beat in everything else just until smooth.  Spoon into the waffle iron, making every part is covered and then bake until golden brown.

Fiesta Lime Rice with Grilled Chicken

My sweet friend Kenna is an amazing cook.  She sends me her yummy recipes all the time.  She made this for dinner this week and sent it to me, and I must admit that it is awesome!  I wasn't feeling to creative this week, and kind of stuck to some of my same recipes for dinner, so I didn't have anything new to post.  I'm glad Kenna helped me out and sent me this delicious recipe!  I added a little pan grilled chicken breast dressed with sea salt and freshly squeezed lime, and it turned out amazing!  Kenna and I both have to thank Gina for her "Skinny" recipes.  To check out her website click here.  (Just so you know I adjusted the recipe quite a bit to fit my own liking, and I added what I did in parenthesis to the side of each ingredient.) 


Ingredients
1 1/2 cups cooked long grain white rice (I used jasmine rice when I made this recipe.)
3/4 cup cooked black beans, rinsed and drained (I used beans out of the can)
3/4 cup cooked corn (I just used corn out of the can)
1 large tomato diced (used 1 roma and 1 large yellow)
1 large scallion diced (I used an onion)
2-4 Tbs. chopped fresh Cilantro (I used 2 Tbs. because Dave doesn't like too much cilantro)
1 Tbs. freshly squeezed lime (I used 2 Tbs. just because I love really LIMEY rice)
salt to taste
(and then I added 2 chicken breasts and grilled them like I said, with lime juice and sea salt.  I just grilled them in my cast iron skillet.  I grilled one on 4 minutes each side.  Then I just placed them sliced on top of the finished rice.)

Directions
Heat up the corn and beans in a saucepan over medium heat until hot.  Make sure your rice is hot.  In a large bowl, combine hot rice, heated corn, heated beans, tomato, scallion, cilantro, lime juice and salt if needed. Toss and serve.

If you're using the chicken, just fan out your slices on top of the rice and serve as the main dish.

Oven-Baked BBQ Chicken Thighs

I love BBQ chicken.  If you don't have a grill though, I have a delicious recipe for you so you can still enjoy the numminess of BBQ.  You can use a bottle of BBQ sauce, but I think making BBQ sauce is so easy and so much cheaper than buying it, that I prefer to make my own for this recipe.  I have a BBQ sauce recipe on this website, but I use a little bit of a different one for this recipe.  I love experimenting with new BBQ sauce, and this is the one that I have come up with for the oven baked BBQ chicken thighs.

Ingredients

12 Bone-in, skin on, Chicken thighs

4 T. water

3 T. Ketchup

3 T. Brown sugar

2 T. Vinegar

1 T. Lemon juice

2 T. Worcestershire

1 tsp. Sea Salt

1 tsp. Spicy Mustard

1/4 tsp. Chili powder

Directions

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Bring all ingredients, minus the chicken, to a slow boil in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly.

Place chicken in a baking dish that is covered with aluminum foil, shiny side up (so your chicken is on top of the shiny side).  Pour 3/4 of your BBQ sauce over chicken making sure to get everywhere.  (I normally use my hands and slather my chicken under the skin, in the all the crevices, everywhere!)  Cover chicken with aluminum foil, and bake at 500 degrees for 15 minutes.  Remove chicken and dump the remaining sauce on the chicken.  Reduce oven temp. to 300 and continue baking for 1 hour.  At the 30 min. mark stir the chicken.  

When the chicken is finished remove aluminum foil on top of the dish, stir, and let sit for 15 minutes before eating.

I serve mine with corn on the cob and watermelon.  :)  Enjoy!

p.s. If you don't want to use a homemade BBQ sauce, I recommend using Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce.  Just get the biggest bottle you can at your supermarket and dump it on top of your chicken.  :)