Beef Stew and Mexican Cornbread

Sorry, no pictures at the moment. I am having technical difficulties....

Beef Stew

I got this recipe off my friend Grace's blog . I finally brought my slow cooker home yesterday and got a chance to make this. SOOO good! The beef just falls apart, it's so tender!

Ingredients:

• 3 pounds cubed beef stew meat
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup baby carrots (I used 2 regular carrots and cut them up)
• 4 large potatoes, cubed (I used 3)
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley (didn't use this)
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 cups boiling water
• 1 (1 ounce) package dry onion soup mix
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 onions, sliced (I used 1 big onion, I think 3 onions may have been too much for our taste)
• 1/4 cup red wine
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

Directions:

• Place meat in a large plastic bag. (I didn't do all the meat at once, it was easier to cook that way)
• Combine 1/4 cup flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt; pour into the bag with the meat, and shake to coat.
• Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
• Add stew meat, and cook until evenly browned on the outside.
• Transfer to a slow cooker along with the carrots, potatoes, parsley, and pepper.
• In a small bowl, stir together 2 cups of boiling water and dry soup mix; pour into the slow cooker.
• In the same skillet, melt butter and saute onions until softened; remove to the slow cooker.
• Pour red wine into the skillet, and stir to loosen browned bits of food on the bottom.
• Remove from heat, and pour into the slow cooker.
• Cover, and cook on High for 30 minutes.
• Reduce heat to Low, and cook for 6 hours or until meat is fork tender.
• In a small bowl or cup, mix together 2 tablespoons flour with 1/4 cup warm water.
• Stir into stew, and cook uncovered for 15 minutes, or until thickened.

Mexican Cornbread

This I got off my fav recipe site, allrecipes.com. I really wanted cornbread with the stew, and thought mexican cornbread might be good with it. While it came out really good, I think next time I'd just make regular cornbread with the stew (or just leave out the chilis)

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, melted (I used 6 T.)
• 1 cup white sugar (I used 1/3 c.)
• 4 eggs
• 1 (15 ounce) can cream-style corn
• 1/2 (4 ounce) can chopped green chile peppers, drained
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese (didnt use this)
• 1/2 cup shredded Cheddar cheese (used 1c of cheddar since i had a whole block of it)
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup yellow cornmeal
• 4 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
• In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar.
• Beat in eggs one at a time.
• Blend in cream corn, chiles, Monterey Jack and Cheddar cheese.
• In a separate bowl, stir together flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt.
• Add flour mixture to corn mixture; stir until smooth.
• Pour batter into prepared pan.
• Bake in preheated oven for 1 hour, until a toothpick inserted into center of the pan comes out clean.
  

Buffalo chicken dip

Jake and I love this dip. It can be found on the Frank's Red Hot website . We've made it a few times to bring to different events and it's always a crowd pleaser, that is if you like buffalo chicken!

Ingredients:

• 2 c. shredded chicken (I use the can of chicken, like a can of tuna...but its chicken)
• 1/2 c. blue cheese dressing
• 1/2 c. franks red hot
• 1/2 c. blue cheese crumbles
• 1 8oz package cream cheese (I use fat free)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• Place cream cheese in oven safe dish (the dish you will use for the dip). Place it in the microwave for 1 minute to soften.
• Mix together the chicken, dressing, red hot, and blue cheese crumbles.
• Mix this into the dish with the cream cheese
• Bake 20 minutes or until everything is melted

I like to eat this with crackers (Sociables are my favorite)

Banana pudding (GF)

This is the best picture I could get for some reason, sorry!

I believe this is the "Southern way" of making banana pudding. This is how my mom makes it and I love it.

Ingredients:

• 1 box (the small regular size) instant vanilla pudding
• 1 1/2 c. milk
• 1 container cool whip, thawed
• bananas (personal taste as to how many, I used four)
  
• vanilla wafers (I used the gluten free ones I made, see post below) (Personal taste as to how many)
  

Directions:

• Whisk together the pudding and milk
• Stir in the cool whip
• cut bananas into little slices into pudding
• mix in vanilla wafers. Note: If using regular boxed vanilla wafers, leave as is. If using the GF recipe below, I broke them into smaller pieces.
  

Gluten Free vanilla wafers

My brother has Celiac Disease, which means he cannot eat anything containing gluten. He loves banana pudding (which has vanilla wafers in it), so I made these instead of the boxed kind. They are pretty good...just kind of difficult to get off the baking sheet (hence the crumbling in the picture above)

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 1/3 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. shortening (I used I can't believe its not butter spray...just poured it in)
• 1 egg
• 1 t. vanilla
• 1/8 t. salt
• 1 1/2 c. gluten free baking flour
• 1 1/2 t. baking powder
• 1 T. water

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 325
  
• Mix together first 6 ingredients
• Sift in flour and baking poweder
• Add the 1 T. water and mix
• The batter is somewhat liquidy, so I just kind of pour spoonfuls on the baking sheet. I tried to do them in about 1 inch circles. The cookies spread out instead of up when baking.
• Bake about 10-15 minutes or until the edges start browning.
  

A metal spatula might work better to get the cookies off the sheet.

Meatloaf

Meatloaf...it's an interesting thing. Smush a bunch of beef together and put it in a loaf pan and cook. Whatever. Its good. I had a terrible craving for meatloaf with brown gravy...so I made some. It's not the best meatloaf, and I will probably try to make it different next time, but it was edible!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 lbs ground beef (or whatever meat you want to use)
• 1/2 small onion, chopped
• 1 egg (I used egg beaters)
• 3/4 c. italian bread crumbs
• 1/4 c. worchestershire sauce
• 1/4 c. ketchup
• salt
• pepper
• garlic powder
  

Gravy:

• 1 c. mushrooms, cut
• about 2 Tbl onion, chopped
• 1 c beef broth
• butter
  
• water
• corn starch
  

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
• mix together all the ingredients for the loaf.
• Put it into a loaf pan
• place loaf in oven on top of a cookie sheet (so the bottom doesn't burn)
  
• Cook until the juices don't run red

Gravy:

• heat butter in saucepan
• mix in mushrooms and onions
• cook until tender
• add beef broth and let simmer for 5 minutes
• mix together water and cornstarch
• add this to the beef broth mixture to thicken gravy.
  

Stuffed mushrooms

I love mushrooms, as long as they're cooked. This is my parents recipe, kind of altered.

Ingredients:

• mushrooms
• breadcrumbs
• shredded cheese (this time I used asiago...sometimes I use parmegian)
• minced garlic or garlic powder
• italian seasonings
• butter or olive oil

Directions:

• wash the mushrooms
• pop the stem out and scrape some of the insides out (put aside in bowl)
• take the stems and chop them up (i use my mini chopper)
• put them in a bowl and add breadcrumbs, garlic, seasonings and cheese.
• in a skillet, put a little butter or olive oil. Do this over medium heat.
  
• put the breadcrumb mixture in skillet and cook until it becomes a little gummy.
• Place the mushroom caps upside down on a cookie sheet and fill with the stuffing.
• Cook at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.
  

Chocolate Mexican Wedding Cookies

These were not my choice to make. I asked someone at work what kind of cookie they wanted and this is what they came up with. These cookies have pecans in them, and i hate any kind of nut in my baked cookies....but I complied and made them anyway :) They are a little dry, and kind of sweet at the same time. Because of my not liking nuts in food, I don't like them much....but if you're a fan of nuts, you might enjoy them!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/3 cup confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup ground pecans (I bought chopped pecans and smushed them up with my rolling pin)
  
• 1/2 cup German sweet chocolate, grated (I used semi-sweet chocolate)
  
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 cup German sweet chocolate, grated (again, semi sweet)
  

Directions:

• In a large bowl, cream the butter and 1/3 cup confectioner's sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract.

• In a separate bowl, combine the flour, ground pecans, 1/2 cup ground chocolate, cinnamon and salt; mix well.

• Gradually add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture.

• Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill 1 to 2 hours, or until firm.

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (180 degrees C).

• Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls 1 inch apart on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 15 to 18 minutes, or until the cookies are firm to the touch. Cool 1 minute on the baking sheet, then transfer to a wire rack.

• For the coating, sift 1/2 cup of the confectioner's sugar and 1/4 cup of the ground cocoa into a shallow bowl. While cookies are still warm, roll them in the coating.