Saturday, November 29, 2014

Crockpot Sausage Dip


We had another chance to use our crockpot! This is not from Pinterest. However, I'm sure you can find it.  I discovered this delicious dip a few years ago on a mission trip to Jackson, Mississippi. The pastor's mother lives in Mississippi and one of the nights we would go to her house for a fantastic dinner. Every time I went on the trip she always made this mouthwatering dip and I always, always devoured it; I was never hungry for dinner, which was perfectly fine with me because my stomach was filled with this delicious dip. I swear she adds a splash of love to this dip because it's addictive. It's been awhile since I've made the dip and I can't imagine why, but I'm glad it is once again in my stomach. I hope y'all enjoy it as much as I do!

Ingredients
16 oz Jimmy Dean sausage
12 oz cream cheese, softened
Can of Rotel tomatoes

Directions
Crockpot: Low
Heat cream cheese in crockpot.
 In a medium sauce pan, brown sausage until no longer pink-break it up into small pieces.

Drain the grease.

Add the browned sausage and Rotel to the cream cheese mixture.

Stir to combine. 

TATER RATER
Suggestions: If you don't like your dip to be thick, add a splash of milk!

Personally, I like to eat with Fritos Scoops, but tortilla chips work perfectly fine.

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Sweet Potato Casserole

I normally post on Friday or Saturday, but with Thanksgiving just around the corner I figured why not! I love Thanksgiving. Mainly because of the food, but I do love the company. My family's Thanksgiving is always welcome to friends. My mom likes to think of it as an orphan Thanksgiving. Both sides of my family, even my brother and his wife, live in California. So, we invite friends over who have family other places as well. For the past few years the same people have sat around our table and shared thanksgiving together. I am thankful for all the people that love us and want to be in our company. We love having everyone to share Thanksgiving memories with. 

On to the glorious dish- I made this last year for Thanksgiving and everyone loved it. I will most likely make it for the holiday this year. Tonight we had an event for Diamond Sweethearts, "friendsgiving", where I brought this delicious dish. I assume everyone liked it since it was practically all gone. Luckily, there was a little left for Tater to eat so she could do her rating. She ate it cold and was even pleased with that; so if its good cold, you know that it will be amazing warm. Other than stuffing, sweet potato casserole is my favorite Thanksgiving dish. But lets be real, every thanksgiving dish is my favorite. This recipe is from Ruth Chris Steakhouse. Now you know this will be a good recipe; I promise it won't disappoint



Like 90% of the time, I forgot to take a picture of the finished product and I'm beating myself up about it because it looked so amazing. So, I got this picture off where I originally found the recipe.


Ingredients
3 c mashed sweet potatoes
1 c sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs- well beaten
1 stick (1/2 c) of butter, melted 

Crumble:
1 c brown sugar
1/3 c flour
1 c chopped pecans
1/3 stick of butter- MELTED
**I don't use marshmellows, but
If you're a marshmellow lover get a bag of marshmellows
put as much on as desired, but don't go too crazy!

Directions
Oven: 350
For the crust: melt the butter then combine all ingredients. Set aside.
In a mixing bowl, combine mashed sweet potatoes, sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs and MELTED butter. Mix well. Then, pour mixture into buttered baking dish. **Sprinkle the crumble evenly over the sweet potato mixture. Bake for 30 minutes. Allow to set at least 30 minutes before serving.
Serves 6

TATER RATER
 

Suggestion: Double the recipe! 

**For you marshmellow lovers- add marshmallow fluff evenly over mixture, then sprinkle the crumble over the top of sweet potato mixture. 

Saturday, November 22, 2014

Taylor's Tomato Basil Soup

This is a simple twist to a classic soup; the twist is basil if you couldn't tell. I am not a big fan of tomato soup, but my boyfriend insisted that I make some. Obviously I did and it was pretty good! I recommend making a grilled cheese. We did and it was a great choice. If you're in the mood for soup and sandwich this recipe is perfect. Enjoy!
                           
Ingredients
Can of Campbell’s tomato soup
(I recommend family size can)
Heavy whipping cream
Basil (to taste)

Directions
Stove: Low
Pour can of tomato soup into pot
Stir in half of the heavy whipping cream or how ever much you please.
Add basil.
-First time I tried this recipe, I added too much basil-
-So, I recommend a few leaves (3-4) cut into small bits-
Constantly stir soup until hot.

TATER RATER
-I think it's because I put in too much basil-


Saturday, November 15, 2014

Crockpot French Onion Soup

Leslie, my roommate, and I have been saying that we need a crockpot. So, we finally got one! We searched through Pinterest and found a French Onion Soup from Cookie Monster CookingI've never been a fan of french onion soup, but Leslie is, so I figured I would try it out. The process takes quite some time. So if you have the day free, I'd try this out. It is worth the time, the onions caramelize so well. This recipe also makes a large amount of soup. We ended up freezing the majority of the soup.
We weren't able to follow the directions completely since we didn't have oven-safe bowl, so the way I executed the end is a little different. If you have an oven-safe bowl, I would go check out the original recipe. 


- I forgot to take a picture, so here is the picture from where I got the recipe-

Ingredients
6 tbs unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 large yellow onions, thinly sliced
8 cups low sodium beef broth
1 bay leaf
2 cloves garlic, minced
¾ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
Parmesan cheese
Loaf of french bread
freshly shredded gruyere cheese
(we used plain swiss cheese)

Directions
Crockpot: high
Add in the butter chunks and then put on the cover. 
Once the butter is melted, add in the sliced onions. 
Mix to combine. Put on the cover and let cook for about 1 hour.
After the first hour, give the onions a good stir. 
Place a double layer of paper towels under the lid (this will help absorb some of the moisture - you’ll want to replace this layer about 2 to 3 times during the cooking process). 
Continue to cook on high for about 5 to 6 additional hours, 
stirring the onions about every 35 to 45 minutes.
You want the onions to be a caramel color. 
Towards the end, you may need to stir them more often so you don’t burn them
Discard the paper towels. Turn down the crockpot to low. 
Add in the broth, bay leaf, garlic, salt and pepper. 
Cover and cook for 1 hour. 
Discard the bay leaf and then taste and adjust with additional salt/pepper if needed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is where you would use the oven safe bowls, but since we don't have any here is what we did:
 Put the oven on broil.
As the oven is heating up:
 cut the loaf in half, add butter, parmesan cheese, and gruyere cheese (or swiss)
heat for about a minute, keep checking on the bread so it doesn't burn. 

-Instead of placing cubes of bread in the soup, I dipped the bread into the soup. Just as delicious-

TATER RATER

Suggestions: Depending on your broth, you’ll need to adjust the amount of salt to your taste, so just taste and adjust as needed. You can always add more salt later, so start with a lower amount and go from there. 
I love cheese, so I also sprinkled parmesan cheese into the soup. Highly recommended

Friday, November 7, 2014

Game Day Sliders

 Happy November! It's a new month and I missed posting last week, so I am making it up with this delicious recipe. If you're looking for something to eat while cheering on your favorite team, "Eat 'em up cats!", try these awesome sliders! My recipe is a little different from the original; I've taken away the mayo (I do not like mayo one bit, kinda makes me gag) and added worcestershire sauce, which was one of the most brilliant ideas ever. If you're not like me and enjoy mayo, go check out the recipe from Normal Cooking! This recipe worked perfect for me, a college student, since I did not have to grill the burgers. Plus, I love Kings Hawaiian Sweet Rolls!



Ingredients

1 lb of ground beef
1 pkg of onion soup mix
½ cup of shredded cheese
¼ teaspoon of garlic powder
½ teaspoon of black pepper
Worcestershire sauce
1 pkg of kings Hawaiian sweet rolls (12-count)
-any type of mini hamburger buns will work too- 
3 slices of American cheese

Directions

Oven: 350
In a medium size bowl, mix raw beef, shredded cheese, pepper, onion mix,
garlic powder, and a couple of drops of Worcestershire sauce
Flatten hamburger mix in a 9x13 pan to form a thin layer (1/4 thick) bake for approximately 20 minutes- meat will shrink into smaller size. Remove, cut into 12 quarters. Top with sliced cheese - I usually fold the cheese and break apart to make smaller squares.
Put back into oven and cook for another 5 min. so the cheese can melt a bit.
Remove and place on buns.
(The original recipe has you place these in foil, if you want to try that head over to Normal Cooking)

TATER RATER


Suggestions: add avocado or pickles or condiments or all of 'em!