BACON CHEESEBURGER PIE

Hearty meat pie with beef and bacon, topped of with shredded cheddar cheese.

INGREDIENTS
1 unbaked pie crust
1 pound ground beef
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup real bacon bits
1/3 cup bread crumbs
1/4 cup ketchup
2 Tbsp barbeque sauce
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp ground pepper
1 large egg
1/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese (or your favorite cheese)

INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Cook ground beef and onion in a large skillet till meat is brown. Drain off any fat. Add garlic and cook 30 seconds.
Stir in bacon, bread crumbs, ketchup, BBQ sauce, 

Worcestershire sauce, and pepper. Heat through and spread in the bottom of the pie crust.

Whisk together the egg and milk in a small bowl; pour over the meat mixture.

Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes or till crust is light brown.
Sprinkle cheese over the top and bake 3-5 minutes more or till cheese melts. Serve hot.

If desired, garnish with chopped tomatoes, diced pickles, green onions, thousand island dressing, or sour cream.

Peasant Bread

<<Insert picture>> 

Ran across this no knead bread recipe

Ingredients

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons of salt/sugar/yeast

2 cups luke warm water

Stuff you will need

Mixing bowl

Tea Towel

Spatula

2 forks

2 x oven safe 1 quart bowl

Directions

Mix the dry ingredients together.

Add the water and use the spatula to mix and create the wet dough.  Luke warm water is between 98 and 105 F.

Cover with a tea towel and let rise for 90 to 120 minutes.  Should be doubled in size.

Using 2 forks, pull dough away from sides of the bowl and then use the forks to split the dough in half.  Transfer the dough to butter the 2 x 1 quart sauce bowl and let rise for 30 minutes uncovered.  Heat the oven to 425 F.

Bake 35 min.

Let cool 20 min before slicing.  Slice and slather butter onto the warm bread.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome.

Rum Balls

 

Rum balls are a delightful and easy-to-make treat, especially popular during the holiday season. Here's a simple recipe for you:

Ingredients:

• 2 cups finely crushed chocolate wafer cookies
• 1 cup finely chopped nuts (I prefer pecans)
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar (powdered sugar)
• 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup dark rum
• 3 tablespoons light corn syrup
• Additional confectioners' sugar or cocoa powder for rolling

Instructions:

1. Crush Cookies:

   • Use a food processor or place cookies in a sealed plastic bag and crush them with a rolling pin until you have fine crumbs.

2. Combine Dry Ingredients:

   • In a large bowl, combine the crushed cookies, chopped nuts, confectioners' sugar, and cocoa powder. Mix well.

3. Add Wet Ingredients:

   • Pour in the rum and corn syrup. Mix until the mixture comes together and forms a dough-like consistency.

4. Shape into Balls:

   • Take small portions of the mixture and roll them into bite-sized balls using your hands. The size is up to you, but they are typically around 1 inch in diameter.

5. Coat in Sugar or Cocoa:

   • Roll the formed balls in additional confectioners' sugar or cocoa powder to coat them evenly. This not only adds a nice finish but also prevents them from sticking together.

6. Chill:

   • Place the rum balls on a baking sheet or in an airtight container and refrigerate for at least a few hours or overnight. This allows the flavors to meld, and the texture to set.

7. Serve:

   • Once chilled and firm, your rum balls are ready to be served. Enjoy them as a delightful treat or share them as a homemade gift.

Remember, the amount of rum can be adjusted to suit your taste, and you can also experiment with different types of nuts or cookies for a unique flavor. Enjoy your delicious homemade rum balls!

Christmas Crack

Christmas Crack is a popular holiday treat that typically consists of a layer of crackers coated with a toffee-like caramel and topped with chocolate. Here's a basic recipe for Christmas Crack:

Ingredients

1 sleeve of saltine crackers (about 40-50 crackers)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 cup brown sugar, packed

2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup chopped nuts (pecans or almonds work well)

Optional: Sea salt for sprinkling

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or aluminum foil, making sure it extends over the edges for easy removal.

Arrange the saltine crackers in a single layer on the baking sheet, covering the entire surface.

In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and stir continuously until the mixture comes to a boil. Allow it to boil for about 3-5 minutes, stirring constantly, until it thickens and becomes a caramel-like consistency.

Pour the caramel mixture over the saltine crackers, spreading it evenly with a spatula.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 5-7 minutes, or until the caramel layer is bubbly and golden.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and immediately sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the hot caramel layer. Allow the chocolate to soften for a few minutes, and then use a spatula to spread it evenly over the caramel.

Sprinkle chopped nuts over the chocolate layer. If desired, add a pinch of sea salt for extra flavor.

Allow the Christmas Crack to cool completely at room temperature. You can speed up the process by placing it in the refrigerator for a quicker set.

Once fully cooled and set, break the Christmas Crack into pieces.

Enjoy your delicious Christmas Crack! Feel free to customize the recipe by adding festive sprinkles, crushed candy canes, or any other toppings you like.

Roasted Tomato Soup

Shout out to Tricia Lunn for this recipe

 Roasted Tomato Soup

This is a poor man's soup that tastes expensive. Serve with crusty bread I like a baguette style and grated parm cheese.

Slice tomatoes in half, I use a mix of tomatoe variety depending what is on sale or what is kicking around. Let's say 6 big tomatoes and a generious handful of cherry.

1 small red onion sliced into 4 quarters. 1 stick of celery and 4 cloves of garlic. Lightly coat all in olive oil, season with salt/pepper and roast in oven until soft and toasty.

Add to soup pot, add 2 boxes chicken broth and fresh basil (you can remove basil if unwanted) bring to a simmer for 10 minutes, blend with immersion blender and season to your liking.

Tricia posted this to Facebook. I seen it and thought, hey, I've got to make this. This is my variation on the Roasted Tomato Soup

Ingredients

20 Cherry tomatoes

6 large tomatoes

1 red onion

2 peppers, yellow and red

2 celery sticks

1 package basil

2 yellow onions

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon parsley

1 teaspoon rosemary

1 teaspoon paprika

Salt and pepper

1 small can tomato paste

1 box 900 ml chicken stock

Olive Oil

Stuff you will need

Cutting board with sharp knife

Dutch oven

Stirring spoon

Cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

Immersion Blender

Directions

Pre-heat the oven to 350 F.

Start by cutting the cherry tomatoes in 1/2 and laying them, cut side up on the cookie sheet.

Cut the larger tomatoes in 1/4 and cut out the tough area where the stem would attach to the vine.

Cut the red onion into 1/4 and separate some of the sections.

Cut the peppers in chunks. The celery, cut into smaller pieces as I found the strands from the celery will clog the immersion blender.

Drizzle olive oil all over this. I used about 1/4, to 1/3 cup of olive oil. Salt, Pepper, rosemary, and paprika. It should look a bit like this.

After an hour, it will look like this

In the dutch oven, turn the heat to medium and give a long squeezer of olive oil. About 1/4 cup or so. Add the roughly chopped onion. Add some salt to sweat the onions. Once the onions are starting to get translucent, about 5 to 6 minutes, add the basil. If you are using fresh basil, remove the stems. Add the parsley and garlic.

Continue to cook the items in the dutch oven till fragrant. Should be another 5 to 6 minutes.

Add the oven roasted veggies and tomato paste.

Stir that all up. Then add the chicken stock. Bring this to a gentle boil.

Get out your immersion blender and go to town on this soup.

I did find that leaving the celery stocks long, like I did in these pictures, the blender got plugged up from the celery strings. I could of used my Ninja counter top blender. But then I would of needed another pot to transfer the hot soup to. If you use a counter top blender, only load it 50% at a time. Otherwise, it could froth over and you got boiling liquid splashing over you.

As I had seen in some other videos, they added some heavy cream to finish off the soup.

Serve hot with crusty bread rolls, or a baguette.

Comments and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome.

Christmas Cake

This cake seems to have a "bad wrap". Most people avoid this cake, or are drawn to it like flies to ....

I asked Chat GPT for a recipe and this is what I got. I did put my variations at the bottom.

Ingredients:

For the Fruit Mix:

• 500g mixed dried fruits (such as raisins, currants, sultanas, chopped dates, and candied peel)
• 150ml brandy, or orange juice (for soaking the fruits)
• Zest and juice of 1 orange
• Zest and juice of 1 lemon

For the Cake:

• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 250g light brown sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 300g all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• A pinch of salt

Optional:

• 100g chopped nuts (such as almonds or walnuts)

For Decoration:

• Marzipan
• Icing sugar for dusting

Instructions:

1. Preparing the Fruit Mix:

• Place the mixed dried fruits in a bowl.
• Pour the brandy or orange juice over the fruits.
• Add the zest and juice of the orange and lemon.
• Mix well and let it soak overnight, or for at least a few hours.

2. Making the Cake:

• Preheat your oven to 150°C (300°F).
• 
  
• Grease and line a deep round cake tin (about 20cm/8 inches in diameter) with parchment paper.
• 
  
• In a large bowl, cream together the softened butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy.
• 
  
• Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and add the vanilla extract.
• In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt.
• 
  
• Gradually fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until well combined.
• 
  
• Fold in the soaked fruit mix and chopped nuts if using.
• 
  
• Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and smooth the top with a spatula.
• 
  
• Bake in the preheated oven for about 2 to 2.5 hours or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean.

3. Decorating the Cake:

• Allow the cake to cool completely before decorating.
• 
  
• Roll out the marzipan and cover the top and sides of the cake.
• 
  
• You can also add additional decorations like holly leaves or festive shapes.
• 
  
• Dust with icing sugar for a snowy effect.

4. Serving:

• Once decorated, the Christmas cake can be stored in an airtight container. It often tastes even better if you let it mature for a few days before serving.

Enjoy your delicious homemade Christmas cake!

Now, there was a few variations that I did for this Christmas Cake.

1.  I used Kraken Rum

2.  I used Maraschino Cherries, Raisins and dried Cranberries

3.  My oven reset to 325 F as it's a convection oven

4.  I used loaf pans vice a round pan

5.  I baked it for 1 hour, it looked fine, knife came out clean

6.  No marzipan or icing sugar for decorating the cake

7.  No air tight container, it's under my glass cake tray