Valentine's Day 2012

I know it's not Valentine's Day anymore, but a post about it is better late than never, right? We had a great Valentine's Day this year. We were able to celebrate as a family and enjoy a meal together! With the heifers calving that does not happen much this time of year! Hubby is also busy loading out hogs and getting the barn ready for new ones. There's always something to do on the farm!

 Holly and I made a heart shaped pizza, using my homemade pizza recipe. I let her help me spread the sauce and add the toppings. She had a blast and it was great to spend the time together! I think that she will like cooking as much as me!

Holly and I got flowers at school from Daddy. She loved it! I got her from daycare so that she could see them. I wish I would have had my camera. The look on her face was priceless. She was trying to smell them and smiled when I told her they were from Daddy. She is such a Daddy's girl!

 
I also made cupcakes for Holly to take for treats to daycare and some for us at home. As you can see I did not get a chance to decorate them. Holly took off with my red frosting before I could use it! (It showed up a few days later, although I don't actually know where it was. I swear I looked everywhere for it!)

We bought David this picture. He is a very proud farmer and I thought this would be a nice tribute to that. I bought the picture online at Old West Cedar Mill.

I hope that all of you had a great Valentine's Day and got to celebrate with your loved ones!

Miscellaneous Monday: A Favorite for Monday

I just wanted to share with you one of my favorite songs this morning. Everyone needs a feel good song on a Monday morning! Enjoy your week!




Linking up to miscellany monday over at lowercase letters!

S'mores Bars

I am definitely a summer gal and I love everything that comes with summer. I especially like summer foods. Nothing beats a juicy burger off the grill with a tall glass of lemonade and fresh sweet corn. I even like cooking hot dogs over the campfire. And I LOVE s'mores over the campfire! I recently found a recipe for s'mores bars on Pinterest that I thought I would try and they were delish! I can now have s'mores year round, even during a blizzard (given I have electricity)! If you like s'mores as much as I do, you need to make these! You can find the original recipe here.

You need:
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 king-sized milk chocolate bars (I used 4 regular sized bars because that is what I had)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (not melted marshmallows)
Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Add in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt and mix at a low speed until combined. Divide the dough in half and press one half into the bottom of your pan. I used my handy Baker's Roller. It made it real easy and left a nice ridge on the edge.

Put your chocolate bars on top. The original recipe says that two king size bars will fit about perfectly in the pan. I had regular bars so that is what I used.

Spread the marshmallow cream on top of the chocolate.

Spread the other half of the dough on top. I flattened pieces with my hands and pieced them together to make a top crust. It worked for me best this way.

Bake at 350 for 30-35 minutes.

Cool before cutting, if you can wait! Don't these just look fabulous?

Linking up my new favorite remind me of summer treat to Made From Scratch Tuesdays with From Mess Hall to Bistro!

Jalapeno Stuffed Burgers

We are about to fill our freezer with beef next week! Ooh, yummy! In order to get ready for this, we cook as much beef as we can to make room! I have been making a lot of beef dishes lately. Now, however, all I have left is ground beef. I don't really want to heat up the kitchen with outside temperatures so hot, so I have been enjoying being able to use my grill! Since we have been eating a lot of burgers, I have been thinking of how to make the mundane burger a little more interesting. So last night I added a jalapeno popper in the middle! A jalapeno stuffed burger with a side of homemade onion rings! Perfect for the hubby who loves jalapeno poppers! And perfect for me since I love onion rings!


I started out by cooking my jalapeno poppers. I cook them first so that they aren't undercooked when the burgers are done.

Then I got my burgers ready. I added some salt and pepper to the ground beef and mixed it all up with my hands.

Then I shaped the patties. Again, I just used my hands and I made the patties kind of thin since I would be doubling them up and adding a middle!

I put a popper on the two thin patties that I made.

Then I covered them with another thin patty and sealed the edges. 

I made two jalapeno popper stuffed patties, one regular, and one mini burger for Holly. 

Grill until they are done. I had them on for about 4-5 minutes on each side. I wanted to make sure that they were done and the cream cheese in the popper melted! Serve with topping of your choice! Hubby really likes cheese, lettuce, and tomato. He dipped the burgers in my homemade ranch dressing, too!

Now, for the onion rings. I really don't do anything special for this. But I will tell you that using vidalia onions is what we do since they are a sweeter onion. I also salt the onion rings as they come out of the fryer to bring out more flavor. They taste better this way!

Do you have any interesting burger recipes that I could try? I'd love more suggestions!


Linking up to Hunk Of Meat Monday with Beyer Beware!

Homemade Pizza

Pizza is one of our favorites around here. Holly devours it. Hubby will eat half of it. Remember how much I loved Gino's in Chicago? I seriously could eat it everyday! My homemade pizza probably isn't as good as Gino's (I guess it depends on who you ask!), but it is still delicious with its homemade crust and mounds of toppings. I baked one of these up last night for supper and it was a hit!

Homemade Pizza Crust
1 1/2 cups flour
2 TBSP sugar
1 package quick rise yeast
1/2 tsp salt
1 TBSP melted butter
2/3 cup warm water

First, mix together the flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in a small bowl.

Add the melted butter and the warm water. I use tap water that has been running on the hottest setting for about a minute.

Mix with a fork to form a soft, sticky dough. Sometimes I add more flour.

Cover and let rise until double.

Roll out on a greased and floured surface. I love my Pampered Chef Baker's Roller. It is the best!

Roll the ends and press down to make a crust.You could stuff the crust at this point with cheese. We've done it before and it is scrumptious! Just use string cheese cut in half.

Prick the crust all over so it doesn't bubble up too bad. The Baker's Roller has a prick in the handle to use.

Bake for about 5-10 minutes at 425 degrees until it starts to brown. You want to see little brown spots like this.

Add your favorite toppings! We love pepperoni!

And our homemade Italian sausage! I usually add mushrooms too but didn't have any.

First add the sauce. Add as much or as little as you like.

Then the pepperoni.

Then the sausage. Mmm.......

And don't forget the cheese! I love the mix of mozzarella and cheddar!

Bake until the cheese starts to brown like this. Maybe about 20 minutes. It depends on how many toppings you have.

Once it is out of the oven, let is cool for about 10 minutes before you eat. We ate ours with salad topped with homemade ranch dressing!

The best thing about pizza is that you can adjust the toppings to your taste and experiment with different kinds of toppings. The possibilities are endless!


Linking up to these great parties today!

Hunk of Meat Monday at Beyer Beware

2 Maids a Baking at Two Maids a Milking













Made From Scratch Tuesday at From Mess Hall to Bistro

Bacon Wrapped Chicken

My husband will eat anything as long it has bacon (well, almost anything!). I really like chicken but I don't cook with it often because of my bountiful supply of beef and pork. I came up with this recipe after eating something similar at a conference once. I thought it would be a great addition to my collection of dinners since it includes chicken and bacon. It is one of our favorite dishes to eat now!

Bacon Wrapped Chicken
3-4 chicken breasts
9-12 slices bacon
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup sour cream
salt and pepper, to taste
chopped onion, to taste
1 small can mushrooms, drained


Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees and greasing a casserole dish. Then wrap each chicken breast in 3-4 strips of bacon. Secure with a toothpick. Place wrapped chicken breasts in the casserole dish. For extra bacon, you can lay strips of bacon in the bottom of the dish and then put the wrapped chicken on top.

Put the canned mushrooms on top. I use canned because that is what I usually have in the cupboard, but I am sure you could substitute fresh if you want.

Stir the cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, salt, pepper, and onion together in a small bowl to make the sauce.

Smother the wrapped chicken breasts with the sauce mixture.

Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for about an hour. While this cooks, I make the rice to go with it.

Cool slightly to let the sauce thicken a bit. Serve over rice. The rice is especially good with the sauce on it!

Happy cooking! Linking up to Hunk of Meat Monday with Beyer Beware!