The Best Beef Stroganoff

While I was in the Navy, we used to have this at least twice, if not three times a month.  Although the recipe calls for sliced steak, I would imagine that using ground beef (hamburger) would be just fine.

Ingredients

1.5 lb sliced steak
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion
10 oz mushrooms
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
2 cups beef broth
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
2/3 cup sour cream
1 package of flat noodles

Salt and pepper

Stuff you will need

Skillet
Cutting board
Sharp Knife
Large pot

Directions

Add enough water to the pot to boil the noodles.  Follow the instructions on the package for the noodles.

I used a 14 inch cast iron skillet.  I started by adding the oil and frying the steak.  Don't over cook it.  Just two or three minutes.  Remove from the pan.

Add the remainder of the oil and fry the onions and mushrooms.  Remove from the pan.

Now your going to make a rue with the flour and butter.  Don't over cook the rue.  Add the broth, about a 1/2 cup at a time and continue to stir till smooth.  Add the mustard and the sour cream.  Stir until smooth.

Add the beef and vegetables.  Stir together.

If you timed it correctly, the noodles and the beef mixture will be all done at the same time.  Serve immediately.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!

Dumplings

When my brother's and I were younger, mum used to make chicken soup with dumplings.  Because my brother enjoyed dumplings so MUCH, mum would make him a pot of dumplings all for himself.

Oh and my boss said that these dumplings were delicious!

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon margarine
1/2 cup milk

Stuff you will need

Mixing bowl
Fork or pastry cutter

Directions

Stir together flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in medium size bowl. Cut in butter until crumbly. Stir in milk to make a soft dough.

Drop by spoonfuls into boiling stew. Cover and simmer 15 minutes without lifting lid.

Enjoy.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome.

Mum's Vanilla Fudge

I was approached by one of the guys at work.

He was really looking for someone that could make him some vanilla fudge.

I was able to fix his sweet tooth.

Ingredients

3 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar (icing sugar)
1/2 cup butter
3 tablespoons milk
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 pinch salt

Stuff you will need

Heavy sauce pan
Heavy spoon that can withstand heat
Crisco
9 x 5 inch baking pan
or 8 x 8 silicon pan (I've got one from Canadian Tire)

Directions

Grease a 9 x 5 inch pan.

In a 3 quart saucepan, using very low heat, mix together confectioners sugar, butter, milk, vanilla, and salt until mixture is creamy.

I tried using a wire whisk.  Oh my.  Learn from my fail.  The wire whisk got all plugged up.

Pour into a greased 9 x 5 inch pan. Refrigerate until firm, then cut into squares. 

Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Click on the picture (below) to see the video.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!

Chicken Meatballs

A few weeks ago, Tonya had gone to the store and she seen these "tubes" of what she thought was ground beef.  Only this time, there was 4 tubes for $10.00.

What a deal!  So she bought one package, thinking it's ground beef.  She took two of the tubes out and examined them.  Oh my...  ground chicken.

So I found this recipe.  Obviously not quite the same as ground beef meatballs, but still, quite delicious none the less!

Ingredients

1 pound ground chicken
1 egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmesan
2 tablespoons olive oil (makes meatballs more moist)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
additional seasonings optional!

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Mix all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl.

Makes about 30 meatballs. Place on baking sheet.

Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome!

Keto Pancakes

This recipe hasn't been "proven" yet.  Hopefully this weekend, I will try it and modify this entry.  Perhaps even a video...

Ingredients:

1 & 1/2 Cup Almond Flour
8oz Cream Cheese (softened)
6 Large Eggs
2 Tablespoons Vanilla Extract
1/4 Teaspoon of Baking Powder (optional)
2 Teaspoons Pyure Sweetener (optional)
Butter (I prefer salted butter)

Instructions:
Place the Softened Cream Cheese into a large mixing bowl, or a Food Processor if you want it to be even easier!
Pour the Vanilla Extract on top (Pure Vanilla Extract is best, but you can use Imitation Vanilla Flavor if you have that handy).
Crack the 6 Large Eggs on top of the Cream Cheese.
Blend by hand, or with a hand mixer or stand mixer if you prefer.
After blending the wet and softened ingredients together, slowly add in the Almond Flour as you continue to mix. If you notice the mixture getting thick enough to your liking you don’t have to add all of the almond flour. If it’s not thick enough, just slowly add a little more almond flour while continuing to mix.
Heat a Large Skillet up to about 290* and add enough Butter to coat the bottom of the pan.
Once the butter has been melted and begins to bubble a little slowly pour in the pancake mixture to create the size pancakes that you prefer.
Cook for about 2 minutes on each side, but be careful not to over-cook them.
Plate them and smother with butter, or topping of your choice.

Pulled Pork using a charcoal BBQ

OK, yesterday I pulled a double wammie.

I did a Burnt End BBQ'ed Roast and then I did a pulled pork at the same time.  Thankfully the BBQ is big enough to pull that off.

Ingredients

Picnic Pork Butt
Spices
BBQ sauce
Brown Sugar - optional

Stuff you will need

Charcoal BBQ
Tongs
Tin Foil (aluminium foil if you prefer)
Sharp Knife
Cutting board
2 x forks
Tin Foil tray - shallow i.e. the sides are not high

Directions

Set up your BBQ for off set cooking.  That means putting all the charcoal on one side as you will be cooking on the other.

Spice up your pork which ever way you desire.  I guess if your a purist, use salt, pepper and garlic.

Once the BBQ is at temperature, put the pork in the BBQ, close the lid and walk away for an hour, or if you got a temperature probe, till it reaches 160 F.

Wrap your pork in heavy gauge tin foil.  I found this stuff at the Dollar Store, it's called BBQ Tin Foil.  Cost me $2.00 for 50 feet.

Put the pork back on the BBQ for another hour, or till the internal temp hits about 190 F.  Honestly I wasn't too worried that it wasn't cooked all the way though.  The BBQ was at about 400 F.  I figured the pork was really done (it was).

Slice the pork with the grain.  Now, use 2 forks to pull the grains apart.  Or you could hold the pork with your hand and using 1 fork, just pull the strands off.

Put the shredded pork into a mixing bowl.  You can add Brown Sugar (about a 1/2 cup), but you may find this makes it too sweet, depending on the BBQ sauce that you use.  Mix it all up, making sure all the pork is covered with BBQ sauce.

Put everything on a shallow tin foil tray and back into the BBQ for one last hour.  This is going to hit it once again with the smoke.

You can opt to just have the pulled pork with cole slaw or what ever other favorite side dish you like.  I personally had the pulled pork on a sliced crusty bread with some mayo on it.  Oh so good!

Click on the picture to take you to the YouTube video I made.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!

Burnt Ends Roast Beef

So Tonya runs across this post on Facebook.  It's about this roast that is cooked on the BBQ, but it's all burnt ends.  

WHAT?!  

This can't be true.  

But it is!

Your gonna regret finding this recipe, as you will never want to have a roast any other way.

Ingredients

1 x inexpensive roast
Spice to taste
Your favorite BBQ sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar (optional)

Stuff you will need

BBQ
Heavy weight Tin Foil
Tongs
Temperature probe
Mixing bowl
Disposable tin foil pan
Patience

Directions

This recipe can be modified for any BBQ, smoker, or grill.

Spice up your inexpensive roast.  This roast is going to be cooked low and slow, so if you got a cut of roast that is normally tough, this recipe is going to "fix" that.

Set up your BBQ so that it's like an off set smoker.  i.e. charcoal on one side and the meat will go on the other side.

The timings are approximate.  If it's a smaller roast, you may not want to have it "smoking" as long.  Obviously, if you got a monster roast, your gonna need more time.

Once your BBQ is up to temperature, put the roast on the grill.  It's going to be in there for no less than 1 hour.  Or until the internal temperature hits 160 F.

Wrap the roast in tin foil and put it back in the BBQ for another hour, or until the internal temperature hits 190 F. 

Take the roast off the BBQ and let rest for 10 minutes.  There is a lot of drippings inside the tin foil.  Lets allow some of those drippings to be re-absorbed by the roast.

Cut up your roast into large bite size pieces.  Put the cut up roast into the mixing bowl.  Add your BBQ sauce and ensure every piece gets covered.  Now, in the video below, you will see that I've added brown sugar.  The brown sugar will glaze up.  This is NOT required to be added.  The BBQ sauce will already have a lot of sugar to start with.  So if your on a diet, just watch your portion size.

Pour everything into the the tin foil pan.  I found that the disposable tin foil pans from the Dollar Store are great.  You would like to make sure that the pan is large enough so that the roast pieces gets equal exposure to the smoke and heat.  So your not getting a cookie sheet, but something about 1/2 that size.

In this video, the only tin foil pan that I had went missing (from the last burnt end BBQ'ed roast), so I improvised and put a layer of tin foil in this tin foil pan that has holes in it.

You will also seen in the video (below) that I didn't mix the cut up roast in a mixing bowl.  Again, a lot of my recipes, are ONLY a guideline.  Make this anyways you want.  Make it YOUR recipe.

Enough talking...  back into the BBQ for another hour.  Not covered.  You want that smoke to "hit it" one last time.

So this is the end results...  oh my...  try not to eat it all in one sitting.  

Try, if you can, to save a few pieces and take them to work to share with your co-workers.  If you can, put it in the microwave to warm the pieces up before serving them.

Prep time, 10 minutes
1 hour in the BBQ "naked"
1 hour in the BBQ wrapped in heavy tin foil
10 minutes rest
10 minutes prep 
1 hour in the BBQ "naked" on the open tray

This will amount to 4 to 5 minutes of eating.  Then it's GONE!

Click on the picture below to see the video.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!

The Best Tempura Batter

This recipe is a work in progress.  No pictures or video yet.  I was cheating while I am on my Keto Way Of Eating.  So it may be some time before any of my own pictures, or a video gets made.  

I've tried it and I can confirm, this is the BEST tempura batter I've ever run across.

The secret is to double fry.  

I was looking to batter the chicken wings we were going to have.  There is this pack of chicken wings you can get from Wal-Mart.  It's got about 26 or 27 pieces.  I used a Wok and Crisco lard.  First fry is about 8 minutes total, turning once to make sure all the batter got fried.  

The second fry was about 6 minutes, again, turning 1/2 way though, to make sure everything was golden brown.

I used a temperature probe stuck into the largest piece to ensure it was over 160 F.

I had the wings with my home made sweet and sour sauce.  Click  >>HERE<<   to see that recipe.

Oh, and cause I was cheating.  Later on, when I was having a few glasses of wine, watching a movie, I got hungry, I went back to the fridge and got the remainder of the wings.  Although the wings were cold, that batter was just as crunchy as when it came out of the 2nd fry.

Ingredients

3⁄4 cup cornstarch
1⁄4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon pepper
1⁄2 cup water
1 egg

Stuff you will need

Large Mixing Bowl
Whisk

Directions

In the mixing bowl, add the first 5 ingredients and whisk together.

Lightly beat the egg and add both water and egg to the dry ingredients.  Whisk till smooth.

This batter is enough for 4 cups vegetables, 1 pound of cut up meat, or a pound of chicken wings.

When I was frying up the chicken wings.  I did them in batches of 8 pieces at a time.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome.

Bagels using Fathead Pizza Dough

Jeff at work found this recipe.

Ingredients
2 1/2 cup Mozzarella cheese - shredded
1 1/2 cup Almond flour
1 tbsp baking powder
2 oz Cream cheese
2 large Egg - beaten
Sesame seeds - optional

Directions
Heat the oven to 400 F. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Stir together almond flour and baking powder. Set aside.

Combine the shredded mozzarella and cream cheese in a large bowl. Microwave for 2 minutes, stirring halfway through. Stir again at the end until well incorporated.

Stir the flour mixture and eggs into the melted cheese mixture. Working quickly while the cheese is still hot, knead with your hands until a dough forms. The dough will be very sticky, but keep kneading and squeezing through your fingers for a few minutes. If the dough becomes hard before fully mixed, is too difficult to mix, or is still sticky after a couple minutes, you can microwave/reheat for 15-20 seconds to soften it. In that case, wash your hands and knead again.

It's very important for the dough to be completely uniform before proceeding to the next step. You shouldn't have pieces of cheese separate from areas of almond flour.

To make it easier to mix the dough, you can use a food processor with a dough attachment instead of kneading by hand.

Divide the dough into 6 parts. Form/roll a long log with each part, then press the ends together to make a bagel shape on the lined baking sheet. 

Repeat with the remaining dough. If using sesame seeds, sprinkle them over the bagels and gently press into the dough.

Bake for 10-14 minutes, until the bagels are firm and golden.

Original recipe located at:  https://www.wholesomeyum.com/recipes/low-carb-bagels-with-almond-flour-keto-gluten-free-5-ingredients/

The best recipe for homemade Barbecue (BBQ) sauce

The quantities are approximate

A bottle of ketchup 22 oz.
4 oz. apple cider vinegar
4 oz. apple juice
4 oz. brown sugar
1 T. black pepper
1 T. chili powder
1/4 t. cumin powder
2 T Worcestershire sauce
1 T yellow mustard
1 bottle Kraft's Original BBQ sauce
1 t. paprika
1/2 t. onion powder
1/2 t. garlic powder
2 T Memphis Belle BBQ Rub (or equivalent) like Rendezvous Seasoning
1 t. Accent

Orginally found at: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-best-recipe-for-homemade-Barbecue-BBQ-sauce/answer/Shelby-Sherman-2

Home Made dog biscuits w/glaze

I was looking to see if I couldn't make Max, our Bernese Mountain Dog, some home made dog biscuits.

They are pretty simple.

Ingredients

2 small jars of baby food (any flavour, your dog isn't fussy)
2 cups of whole wheat flour

Glaze

1 Tablespoon of Coconut Oil
1 Tablespoon of Peanut Butter

Stuff you will need

Stand mixer w/dough hook
Mixing bowl
Mixing spoon
Rolling pin
Dog Biscuit cookie cutter, or pizza cutter
Cookie sheet
Parchment paper

Directions

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Mix up the two ingredients, forming a dough ball, using the stand mixer.  

Roll this out on the counter.  (Cooking note:  spread some flour on the counter so that your dough doesn't stick to the counter)  Roll it out so that it's about a 1/4 inch thick.  You know, cookie thickness.

Using your cookie cutter, and honestly, your dog couldn't care less what shape it is, cut out as many cookies as you can.

Put the cut out dough on the parchment paper lined cookie sheet.

Bake at 350 F for 35 minutes.

Glaze, micro wave the coconut oil and peanut butter for about 30 seconds.  Mix together.

Once the cookies, aah, I mean biscuits, are cooled, spread the glaze over the cookies.

Note 1.  I tried mixing this using a pastry cutter.  OMG, what a mess.

Note 2.  I tried mixing this using my hands.  OMG, I had really stick dough caught between my fingers.  Use the stand mixer with the dough hook.

Note 3.  I was using the dog bone cookie cutter.  Yes it's cute.  But honestly, you can roll the entire dough out and cut it up with the pizza cutter in less than a minute.  So much easier.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome!

Figgy Duff (Raisin Pudding).

Figgy Duff (Raisin Pudding).

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1/2 cup butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 cup raisins
Pinch of salt

Combine all dry ingredients then add milk and egg.
Place in bag and cook for 1 1/2 hours with jiggs dinner or
Steam in a steamer pot for 1 1/2 hours

Bourbon Whiskey BBQ Sauce

A friend of mine made this and posted it on Facebook.

Bernard Traverse Hey Mitch I used Crown Royal Maple and and did my onion garlic and added some fresh jalapeño and a tomato in food processor before simmering it in Whiskey

1/2 onion, minced
4 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 cup bourbon whiskey
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 tablespoon salt
2 cups ketchup
1/2 cup tomatoe paste
1/2 cup cider vinegar
2 tablespoons liquid smoke
1/4 cup Worchestershire sauce
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce

In a large skillet over medium heat, combine the onion, garlic and whiskey.  Simmer for 10 minutes, or until the onion is tansucent.  Mix in the ground black pepper, salt, ketchup, tomato paste, vinegar, liquid smoke, Worchestershirt sauce, brown sugar and hot pepper sauce.

Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer for 20 minutes.  Run sauce though a strainer if you prefer a smooth sauce.

Coffee Jerky Marinade

Here is your grocery list for this recipe:

• 2 cups dark roast coffee (brewed) --- no added flavors, i.e. vanilla, hazelnut, etc.
• 1/4 cup Fresh Ground Coffee --- same as above
• 5 Tbsp Liquid Smoke --- I like the Mesquite flavor
• 1/4 cup Ancho chili powder
• 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 Tbsp Smoked Paprika
• 1 Tbsp Cumin
• 2 Tbsp Kosher Salt

And a few things around the kitchen:

• Resealable Bowl --- for spice rub. You should already have one for marinade.
• Measuring cup (1/4 cup)
• Tablespoon

See the original post HERE

Cheddar Cheese Biscuits Keto WOE

Biscuits to go with our chili.

1. 3 cups blanched almond meal/flour
2. 1/4 tsp sea salt + more for sprinkling on top
3. 1/2 tsp baking soda
4. 1/4 cup melted butter
5. 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
6. 1 cup freshly grated cheddar cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large mixing bowl, stir together the almond flour, sea salt, and baking soda.
3. Add melted butter and egg, gently stirring to mix.
4. Fold in cheddar cheese.
5. Use a large spoon to drop 8 balls of biscuit dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet. (Will be about the size of golf balls)
6. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until tops are firm and surface is just beginning to brown.