Amazing Dinner

I made the most amazing dinner from Pioneer Woman this weekend.

I started with the Grilled Ribeye with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce.

Ingredients
•2 whole Ribeye Steaks
•2 Tablespoons Butter
•Salt
•Pepper
•4 Tablespoons Butter
•1 whole Very Large Yellow Onion, Sliced
•1 cup Heavy Cream
•½ cups Crumbled Blue Cheese

Preparation Instructions
Salt and pepper both sides of the steaks. Grill in 2 tablespoons butter until medium rare.

Saute onions in 4 tablespoons butter over high heat. Cook for 5 to 7 minutes, or until dark and caramelized. Reduce heat to simmer and pour in cream. Cook for 3 to 5 minutes, or until reduced by half. Stir in blue cheese until melted. Serve steaks on generous portion of sauce.

Then Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients
•5 pounds Russet Or Yukon Gold Potatoes
•¾ cups Butter
•1 package (8 Oz.) Cream Cheese, Softened*
•½ cups (to 3/4 Cups) Half-and-Half
•½ teaspoons (to 1 Teaspoon) Lawry's Seasoned Salt
•½ teaspoons (to 1 Teaspoon) Black Pepper

Preparation Instructions
Peel and cut the potatoes into pieces that are generally the same size. Bring a large pot of water to a simmer and add the potatoes. Bring to a boil and cook for 30 to 35 minutes. When they’re cooked through, the fork should easily slide into the potatoes with no resistance, and the potatoes should almost, but not totally, fall apart.
Drain the potatoes in a large colander. When the potatoes have finished draining, place them back into the dry pot and put the pot on the stove. Mash the potatoes over low heat, allowing all the steam to escape, before adding in all the other ingredients.
Turn off the stove and add 1 ½ sticks of butter, an 8-ounce package of cream cheese and about ½ cup of half-and-half. Mash, mash, mash! Next, add about ½ teaspoon of Lawry’s Seasoning Salt and ½ a teaspoon of black pepper.
Stir well and place in a medium-sized baking dish. Throw a few pats of butter over the top of the potatoes and place them in a 350-degree oven and heat until butter is melted and potatoes are warmed through.
Note: When making this dish a day or two in advance, take it out of the fridge about 2 to 3 hours before serving time. Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 20 to 30 minutes or until warmed through.

and finally Texas Sheet Cake

Ingredients
FOR THE CAKE:
•2 cups Flour
•2 cups Sugar
•¼ teaspoons Salt
•4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa
•2 sticks Butter
•1 cup Boiling Water
•½ cups Buttermilk
•2 whole Beaten Eggs
•1 teaspoon Baking Soda
•1 teaspoon Vanilla
_____
FOR FROSTING:
•½ cups Finely Chopped Pecans
•1-¾ stick Butter
•4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa
•6 Tablespoons Milk
•1 teaspoon Vanilla
•1 pound (minus 1/2 Cup) Powdered Sugar

Preparation Instructions
In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add cocoa. Stir together.
Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat. Pour over flour mixture, and stir lightly to cool.

In a measuring cup, pour the buttermilk and add beaten eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.

While cake is baking, make the icing. Chop pecans finely. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat. Add the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Stir together. Add the pecans, stir together, and pour over warm cake.


Thank you Pioneer Woman!

Cupid Crunch

3 c. salted peanuts
16 oz. bag of nibblers
15 oz. dried cranberries
12 oz. box of corn and rice cereal
8.9 oz. box of toasted oat cereal
2 (16 oz.) packages of vanilla flavored candy coating, melted
1 c. pink sanding sugar

Combine the first 5 ingredients in a large container. Pour melted white candy over the toy and gently stir to coat. Spoon mixture onto wax paper, sprinkle with sanding sugar. Cool completely.

This recipe is from the Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Magazine and it is delicious.

Pancake Muffins

1 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbs sugar
2/3 c milk
1 egg
2 tbs syrup
2 tbs melted butter
1/2 c milk chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar in a medium bowl. Sift together with a wire whisk. In another bowl, stir milk, egg, maple syrup and melted butter until just combined. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with a spoon until combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Reserve a few chips to sprinkle on the tops. Bake for 8-9 minutes.

I tried a new recipe today for breakfast and it was very good. I may try a few more varations but this is a good start.

It's Love Month

February is my favorite month. Love Day is just around the corner and the girls at work are already asking about my Love Day brownies. They are wondering if I will still be bringing them in since Love Day is on the weekend? Of course I will, it's not Love Day without them.

I have decorated my house with jars and jars of conversation hearts and nothing could make me happier. Is it the fact that January, the drabbest month, is finally behind us, that spring is just around the corner or that I am reminded of all the things that I love?

To try something new for this Love Month, I borrowed an idea from Becky Higgins. You can check out her blog at www.beckyhiggins.com My husband and I writing each other love notes every day. I know is sounds kind of corny but it is very exciting. Try it it's fun!

Very Chocolatey Cake

We had a birthday at work this week and I wanted to bring my very famous chocolate cake. This cake is so good that a friend of mine will do work around the house for me if I bake him this chocolate cake. But I was ready to amp it up a bit. The only way to improve a chocolate cake is to add more chocolate, right? This recipe is so easy, moist and chocolatey. Try it you'll love it.

1 pkg of Devil's food cake mix
1 (5.9 oz) pkg of instant chocolate pudding mix
1 c. sour cream
1 c. vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. of milk (This is the 1st amp up. This was water.)
1 tsp. of vanilla
2 c. of mini semisweet chocolate chips (This is the 2nd amp up.)

In a large bowl, mix together the cake, pudding, sour cream, oil, eggs, milk and vanilla. Stir in the chocolate chips. Pour into either a bundt pan or two 9 inch round cake pans. Bake on 350 for 45 minutes. Be careful not to over bake. Cool cake in the pan for at least an hour.

I'm still working on the frosting. The Hubbs says it needs a really good butter cream icing but not my peanut butter cream icing because the peanut butter takes away from the chocolate flavor. Is that possible? If you try it let me know what you think.

Julie and Julia - Post Viewing

I had the girls over Wednesday to watch Julie and Julia.

The Dinner...So as usual the preparation began early. Tuesday night I was attempting to make my first ever Creme Brulee. It is one of our favorite desserts and I thought I would give it a try. I mean I had the torch and everything (thanks Hubby). My timing was perfect, I constantly stirred but never brought the liquid to a boil. I reached the most crucial point of the preparation and there was no separation (that's a good thing). It looked perfect and smelled wonderful. I say looked because as I waited and waited for the Creme Brulee to set, it never did. Instead of Creme Brulee we ended up with Creme Brulee Soup. With no time left to prepare a backup dessert, I stopped on the way home Wednesday to pick up some Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches. On the upside, the rest of the dinner was delightful. The Mediterranean Pita's turned out perfectly and introduced me to a new sandwich topping. The pita's consisted of a pita with hummus spread over it, topped with tiny hamburgers, red onion, parsley and drizzled with olive oil. The hummus made the pita. I loved it so much that I had it on a chicken sandwich the next day (equally as good). With the pitas I served a simple Mediterranean lettuce salad. Yum-O.

The Movie...I like the book more then the movie but to be fair I usually do. However, Meryl Streep nailed the part of Julia. She immersed herself in the role as no other actress could have done. There, of course, were some disappointments from the movie. For those of you who read the book you will be able to appreciate what I am about to say. After the movie was over, we were discussing the lack of one of our favorite scenes from the book...bitch rice. How is it possible that that scene made it to the cutting room floor and the chicken meltdown made it...

The Wine...we had three delicious wines, of which, I can remember the names of none and the bottles have already made it to recycling :( We had a Zin, a Cab and a Merlot.

Julie and Julia

I'm planning a dinner with some of my best girlfriends this week. We are going to watch Julie and Julia. A movie based on a book that we have all read. So while planning I got to thinking about how my friends and I don't really like French cooking. How perfect would a French menu have been for this evening of fun? On the menu instead is Mediterranean. We are having Mediterranean Beef Pitas with a Mediterranean side salad and Catalan Creme Brulee for desert. Yum! Stay Tuned movie and food review to follow.