Grandma’s Banana Pudding from scratch….there just aint’ nothin’ like this out there that tastes so good!  This is the most requested food dish that family members ask me to bring to holiday get-togethers and any other time I can.  My grandmother made some of the best treats ever and this ranks #1 on my list.  I’m republishing this due to it’s popularity so enjoy and check out her other recipes if you get a chance.

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 heaping  Tbsp. Flour…and I mean heaping!
• 1/2 cup sugar or a little more;)
• 2 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• butter
• vanilla
• Vanilla Wafers (save some to crumble for the top)
• Bananas

DIRECTIONS:

In a saucepan, mix flour & sugar then add eggs and mix well.  Start your burner and slowly add milk; a little at a time stirring constantly.  Continue stirring until it has thickened.  After thick, add butter and vanilla to taste.  I would say about 1 Tbsp of butter maybe.  I double this recipe to make a bunch so it’s hard for me to give you accurate measurements.  Not too much vanilla either or it will taste almost chocolatey.  Maybe a 1/4 tsp??  Again, not sure.  Just taste it.

You’ll want to layer your wafer cookies and bananas for a pretty presentation.  I don’t do this though..I throw in a bowl..LOL.  I refrigerate mine over night because I like it VERY cold but you should refrigerate it for a few hours.

Ingredients…..

Here’s all the good stuff cooking in the saucepan……

While you’re cooking the the stuff in the pot, you can slice your bananas and layer your wafers & bananas. Don’t forget to keep stirring your pudding though.

Once your pudding is done, add the butter and vanilla.  Remember, I double my recipe so that’s why there is more in my pudding!

Now that it’s done, you pour into your dish with your wafers and bananas.

This is where the extra wafers come in.  Crush them up and sprinkle on top.

Sprinkle and Viola!

Remember to refrigerate….once nice and cold, sit back and enjoy!!!

In my goal to be fit, not only am I working out to the Your Shape Wii Game, I’m also eating things healthier when I can.  Trying to find healthy substitutions to replace the easy accessible junk food can prove to be difficult at times.  I realized that trying to find prepackaged healthy food was the real problem. I needed to discover ways to create healthy snacks “from scratch”.  So instead of buying granola bar type snacks, I decided to make my own version. Since granola seems to be an ingredients that’s hard to come by around here, I chose to use oatmeal as a substitute but you could use granola (and I recommend you do) to make this recipe.

Do you know what real creamed corn is?  I’m sure you’ve eaten it from the can but making creamed corn from scratch, well, it’s just better.  I thought it was interesting to learn that the cream is actually inside the kernels so in order for you to get it out, you have to put a little work into creaming that corn.  The only drawback to making it from scratch is that it takes a whole bunch of cobs (at least 2 cobs per person) to make a good amount to the feed the family so unless you’re feeding only 4-6 folks, I would probably just buy the can…unless you are out to impress;)

This recipe is the first of three that will end up as a complete dinner.  Enjoy and if you have ever shucked and creamed your corn, I’d love to hear your recipes and stories!

INGREDIENTS

• * 6 slices bacon
• * 8 large cobs fresh corn, preferably white, shucked and cleaned
• * Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper

DIRECTIONS

In a large skillet, (seasoned cast iron does well here) cook the bacon over medium-high heat until crisp. Turn off the heat and transfer the bacon to a paper towel lined plate. Reserve the drippings in the pan.

On a cutting board, cut the stalk ends of the corn cobs to make a flat surface; stand them up and shave the corn from the cobs with a sharp chef’s knife. Return the skillet to medium-low heat, and add the corn kernels. With the back of the knife, firmly scrape the cobs over a shallow plate to extract as much liquid (milk) as possible and add it to the skillet.

Season corn lightly with salt and pepper and cook until broken down and creamy, about 30 to 45 minutes, stirring often; add water if the pan gets too dry.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Note: Crisp bacon can be crumbled over the creamed corn when serving or reserved for another use. If you have bacon drippings on hand, use 1/4 cup for this recipe.

Recipe courtesy of Food Network’s 5 Ingredient Fix

Well, I must say that I should have put on my big girl panties before reading the feedback.  I knew there was going to be criticism and all but geez.  There were a lot of great compliments too and I appreciate all of it, just wasn’t quite prepared to hear some of it I guess.  I know that this is MY blog and it needs to make me happy first but since I respect my readers, I want you to love it too.  I also know that I can’t please everyone but I will definitely try to incorporate as much of what you requested into this blog to make it better.

With that said, let’s get started with some of the basics that I read and were common.

PRINTING

Yes, I do have a way to print.  When you click on a post, there is a small printer icon there.  It will print the post without the pictures.  I’m working on a new way to do this but this gets the job done.  Here’s a screenshot so you can see it where it’s at.

RECIPES

There seems to be much confusion about where to find my recipes so let me show you.  When you hover your mouse over the “Recipes” name in the nav bar under my header, you have 3 options.

1. Recipes
2. Submit a Recipe
3. Recipe Ebooks

YES, you can click on Recipes to go to my recipe index.

I am working on a new recipe index that includes pictures.  I’ve received tons of feedback on this and many of you have requested a thumbnail or something to click on to view the recipe.  Will work on it!

GIVEAWAY RULES and POLICIES

I have written a post about this but you can find my standard giveaway rules and blog policies under the “About” link in the nav bar.

SEARCH, ARCHIVES, and CATEGORIES

You can find all of these in my sidebar.  Each one is a tab.

Two things I will work on are:

• Gallery Pictures
• Recipe Photo Index

I’ll end this for now but will follow up later with more feedback from you guys.  Like I said, I appreciate all the feedback I received and I’m grateful for you taking the time to fill out the survey.

I’m sorry I’ve been MIA lately but things will resume back to normal soon.  I appreciate your patience during this time off.

Have a great weekend!
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Gardening is not just flowers anymore.

I actually had a great recipe that I was going to post but after getting my pictures onto the computer, I realized that I forgot to take the final picture!! Gah! What was I thinking.  So now I’m gonna talk about my process for the recipe I created and the cost of it for the Velveeta Challenge.

As I mentioned before, when I think of casserole recipes, I think of fast, family friendly, and low-cost so I kept all those things in mind when creating my recipe.  The hardest challenge for me was coming up with something that was original but I finally just told myself to do it and don’t think about other recipes.  You’d be surprised at how you can use Velveeta..in fact, did you know that you can even use it to make fudge?  Yep!  You can!!

Anyways, after several days, I created my Shrimp Stroganoff Casserole.  With only 6 ingredients, it really is super easy and fast to boot!  As many of you know, I’m not a fancy schmancy cook so I didn’t go all crazy and add extra spices or such to pile on the ingredients.  I kept is simple, I kept it real.

For a family of four, this would actually be less than $10 bucks but since the casserole will serve 8, it’s under $20–$17.24 to be exact!

I had planned on buying the ingredients separate but I don’t go to town very often and bought all my groceries at once so you’ll see this recipe’s ingredients highlighted on the receipt.

There are 6 ingredients as you can see.  Prices are as followed:

$1.92 for Broccoli

$1.12 for Sour Cream

$1.14 for Egg Noodles

$4.84 for Velveeta Cheese

$1.08 for Cream of Shrimp

$7.14 for Shrimp

$17.24 Total Cost of 6 ingredients that serves 8.

I did have some trouble finding the Cream of Shrimp so if you can’t find it, you can always substitute with Cream of Mushroom or even Cream of Chicken.  The broccoli was fresh and the shrimp was not on sale so it’s a good deal!

You have to wait to see the recipe in full but I hope that you will enjoy it as much as we did!  And if you do think it’s a winner, I hope that on October 30th, you will all vote for my recipe!

Consider subscribing because I’ll have some AWESOME giveaways for you thanks to some wonderful sponsors!

Until then……………………..

P.S. Check out my exciting news over at my personal blog!

Make this super easy & cool Key Lime Pie for summer and let it melt in your mouth!  This recipe actually calls for 6 miniature graham cracker pie shells but since I didn’t have those, I just used a regular single graham cracker shell.  It worked out the same so no biggie.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 Key Limes
• 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 6 miniature graham cracker pie shells or in my case, 1 regular size graham cracker shell

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325′.  Grate 1 teaspoon lime zest into mixing bowl.  Squeeze 3 tablespoons juice into same mixing bowl.  Add cream cheese and beat till creamy.  Stir in sugar and egg, beating till fluffy.  Evenly divide mixture between pie shells or, in my case, pour all into 1 regular shell.  Bake 30 minutes, or till knfe inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool slightly, then refrigerate until ready to serve.  Garnish with additional lime zest. 

Lime zest…..

Throw in all the goodies and mix!!!

Nice and fluffy! Pour into shells:)

When you cook this, it will get big in the oven and then fall after you’ve taken it out to cool.  It looks similar to the Buttermilk Pie.

VIOLA!!!! Now just eat it up…..SURE IS GOOD…YUMMY TO THE TUMMY!

This Pecan Bread recipe is over 100 years old.  It used to be served to all the cowhands that worked along the Pecos River!  For those of you who don’t read my personal blog, you may not know that I cooked for a ranch once upon a time.  I’ve also done some dutch oven cookin’ too!

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 cup milk
• 2 cups chopped pecans
• 1/4 cup melted lard
• 1 egg

DIRECTIONS:

Combine all ingredients and stir well.  Pour into a greased 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan.  Bake at 350′ for 1 hour.  Turn out and cool on rack.  Keeps well when wrapped tightly.

It don’t get much easier than this folks!
 

This is about a 30 minute meal and I LOVE fast! I’m always making casserole type dishes because I have a family of 5 to feed and meals like this make it a breeze.

The first ingredient you’ll notice is the crescent rolls. I also used these in my Cream Cheese Danish the other day and have found many more uses for them!! I did have to make some substitutions in the recipe because I only had a certain kind of the ingredient called for. The recipe calls for Taco seasoning but I only had chili seasoning which seemed to be just fine. It also calls for Mexican Velveeta but I only regular. Never-the-less, it was GOOD, FAST, and EASY!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 pounds ground beef, browned
• 1 (10-ounce) can Ro-Tel tomatoes, OR 1 (16-ounce) jar of hot sauce
• 1 envelope taco seasoning
• 2 (8-count) refrigerated crescent rolls
• 1 (8-ounce) box Mexican Velveeta, sliced

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 400′.  Combine browned ground beef with Ro-Tel tomatoes, taco seasoning, and cheese; just kind of make sure the cheese is somewhat melted and set aside.  For a crust by pressing 1 can crescent rolls into bottom of lightly greased 9×13 pan.  Layer beef mixture on top of crust and place other can of crescent rolls on top.  Bake 15-20 minutes.  Serves 8:)

Combine the good stuff!

Pour onto crescent rolls in baking dish.

Cover with other can of crescent rolls!

VIOLA!

Serve with lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, and perhaps even olives!! I hate olives though;)

Yummy to the tummy!

This Chocolate Trifle is to die for!!!  SOOOOOOO, delicious and such an easy recipe!  5 minutes with 5-ingredients!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1/2 store-bought chocolate cake
• 1/2 cup Kahlua (or any strong coffee)
• 2-3 (4-pack) packages snack size chocolate pudding
• 1 (12-ounce) carton frozen whipped topping, thawed
• 1/2 (8-ounce) package Heath toffee bits

DIRECTIONS:

Break cake into chunks, and layer 1/2 into a trifle dish.  Pour 1/2 the coffee over this, then 1/2 the coffee over this, then  1/2 the whipped topping, then 1/2 of the toffee bits.  Layer again.  That’s it!

Note:  You can get chocolate cake at many supermarket bakeries.  But if you can’t find it, this can be done with pound cake, bought brownies or Twinkies, or even frozen cakes.  You can make your own cake and pudding, but it will take a tad longer.

Catfish fillets are my one of my faves and I love them crunchy!  Enjoy this seafood recipe!

INGREDIENTS:

• 2/3 cup crushed cornflakes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 4 (4-ounce) catfish fillets
• 2 egg whites, slightly beaten

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 450′.  Mix together cornflakes, salt, an pepper in a shallow bowl.  Rinse fillets; pat dry.  Dip fillets in egg whites, then coat with crumb mixture.  Place fillets in a baking pan lined with foil and sprayed with nonstick spray.  Bake about 10 minutes, or until fish flake easily when tested with a fork.