Fried Ice Cream Cake

Nothing goes along with you southwestern meal more than fried ice cream.

So in my quest to have all the flavor with out actually frying ice cream;

I'm making Fried Ice Cream Cake.

Oh yeah....

Fried Ice Cream Cake!

Let's gather our ingredients and get started.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon of salt

3 cups of Corn Flakes (crushed)

1 quart vanilla ice cream~I prefer French Vanilla Ice cream.(Soften to room temperature)

1~8 ounce tub of frozen whipped topping(Cool Whip)

3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

Honey for the drizzling.

Direction:

1. Heat butter, sugar, and salt over medium heat.Stirring continually being careful not to burn your sugar. Heat until mixture reaches a bubbling state.

2. Add corn flakes to mixture. Stirring until corn flakes are slightly caramelized.

3. Layer half your corn flake mixture in bottom of baking dish. Pat down to "set" your flakes.

4. Mix together ice cream,  whip topping, and cinnamon.

5. Pour into your baking dish.

6. Top with remaining corn flake mixture.

7. Freeze for 4-5 hours.

Drizzle with honey and serve.

Black Bean Salad

Black Bean Salad is the perfect combination of  color, taste and quick.

 It is also a great side dish to compliment most any southwestern meal.

I'll be serving mine up to compliment our taco night.

Let's get started and gather our ingredients.

Ingredients:

1 each red, green and yellow bell pepper(chopped)

1 can whole kernel corn (drained)

1/2 cup chopped red onion

1 clove garlic(minced)

1 teaspoon fresh cilantro(chopped)

4-5 tablespoons red wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon lime juice 

1 can of Black Beans(rinsed and drained)

ground black pepper

salt 

lettuce leaves

Directions:

1. Combine peppers, corn, onion, garlic, and cilantro in a large bowl.

2. Add vinegar, oil, and lime juice. Toss to coat.

3. Add black beans and toss gently. 

4. Season with pepper and salt.

You're ready to serve up on crisp lettuce leaves with you tortilla chips.

That's it!

Enjoy!

Ravioli Bake

Smack dab in the middle of the work week and after school commitments are so often the trap that we so easily will fall into. Compromising, ourselves we run through the drive-thru, pick the pizza, or maybe we open the beloved can of spagehettio's. 

Yes..everyone is fed

but

 making this the norm will make a family extremely unsatisfied.

I'd like to share my middle of the week Go-To.

Ravioli Bake!

You can also do yourself a Quick Ravioli right on top of the stove.

Quick Ravioli

Ingredients: 

2 bags of frozen ravioli~They are usually found in your freezer section of the grocery store 

                                     near the frozen breads. As a norm, they come beef or cheese filled.

                                     My family loves the cheese filled. I use a pound of sausage in 

                                     my cheesy raviolis but if I'm using the beef raviolis I omit the sausage.

1 pound sausage~Jimmy Dean makes a pretty good Italian flavor that goes great.

2 cans of spaghetti sauce~24 ounce

bag of grated cheese or block of cheese, grated~About any cheese work just fine.

Seasoning~use what you have on hand~I give it a bit of black pepper, a little more garlic powder,

                                     a little basil, a dash of parsley.

Directions:

1. Cook frozen ravioli according to directions on package and drain.

2. Brown Sausage.

3. In a large pot, put your spaghetti sauce in pot bring to a simmer while adding your browned

                                      sausage, seasonings. 

4. Add raviolis to sauce.

5. Stir-in 1/3 of your cheese.

6. Top with remaining cheese immediately before serving.

Ravioli Bake

Ingredients:

Ravioli~cooked in sauce or leftover quick ravioli.

1 can diced tomatoes

small can of sliced mushroom

small onion diced

green pepper

pepperoni

Mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. In a 9 X 13 casserole dish, place ravioli and can of tomatoes.

2. Saute onion, green pepper, and mushrooms.

3. Stir sauteed vegetables,pepperoni, and 1/3 cheese evenly through ravioli.

4. Bake at 350 degrees covered with tin foil for about 20 minutes.

       Uncover for 5-10 minutes giving it that nice browned look.

5. Cover with cheese.

Oh Yum...it's a crowd pleaser.

   

Grandma Dorothy's Sliced Apple Pie

My Grandma Dorothy loved what she called a sliced apple pie. This is the first pie I learned to make and I believe it is the perfect pie for young child or a beginning cook to start with. 

It is almost to simple to call a recipe.

I've got all these leftover apples I purchased for our apple bobbing so I''m going to start with washing and peeling my apples. 

If your apples are small, you may need about 10 apple; if they are large 6-8 apples.

I'm baking my pie in a 9 inch pie pan. You will want enough apple so that they are quite heaped up before you put you pie in the oven because your apples will bake down a lot.

Preheat oven 400 degrees

Ingredients:

8-12 apples 

1 pie shell uncooked

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine

Cinnamon

All-spice

Directions:

1. I start by putting a bit(1/4 cup) of brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon in the bottom of my pie shell.

Grandma Dorothy would put cinnamon sugar instead of regular cinnamon and all-spice. You can really use whatever you like.

2. Slice apples directly into pie shell. Thin discs is what you really want.

3. Drop dollops of butter all along with you sliced apples.

4. Sprinkle cinnamon and all-spice across top of apples.
5. Cover with brown sugar and dollops of butter.

6. Place in preheated oven for about 45 minutes. You'll know when it's right when your crust is golden and your pie is browned.

The pie looks a little dry on top but should be moist throughout. 

Best topped with vanilla ice cream.

Flaky 2- Crust Pie Shell

It is the season to make pie!

Here we are heading into the true baking season. 

We will all be lusting after that piece of pie that proclaims the season of thankfulness.

Many convenient options are at hand when purchasing ready made pie crust 

but there is something honest and true about making your own pie crust.

It is also extremely inexpensive in comparison to purchasing crust.

 For about $.10 you can make a 2-crust pie shell.

Don't be intimidated.

A good FLAKY pie crust is quite easy!

There are a few cooking utensils that will help your pie crust come along better.

In all truth my mother nor grandmother owned a bread board but it is something that

I find necessary. You will surely need a rolling pin. I have a small collection that I

own just because I have a hang-up for rolling pins but the one I have always used is

the one I purchased  in my teens for a couple of bucks.

As you get started determine what size pie crust you need and if your crust is cooked before 

you filling goes in.

9 inch pie shell

Ingredients:

2 Cups All-purpose flour(sifted)

1 teaspoon salt

2/3 to 3/4 Shortening (if using animal shortening~Lard~use lesser)

                                 (if using vegetable shortening~Crisco~use larger)

1/3 Cup ice water

8 inch pie

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup All-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 Cup shortening

1/4 Cup ice water

Directions:
1. Combine salt & flour
2. Cut-in shortening. You can do this a couple of ways. Some folks use a kitchen utensil to do this but I prefer to use my hands. I believe you will come out with a better result, by hand. Basically, this is a method to combine your flour and your shortening but you don't  really want it mixed or stirred. After adding your shortening you will work it and the flour through you hand until all of your mixture as a close consistency of cornmeal.

3. Add your water. This is where it can be a tad touchy. The suggestion that was given to me was to add your water by the tablespoon but that is extremely tedious, so I pour my water in very slowly while I'm stirring with a fork. It is very possible you will not use all the water humidity will play into this very much.

Your dough is right when it follows your fork around the bowl and will stick together alot like play-do.
Divide in half.
4. Flour your board and your rolling pin.

5. Roll-out dough. Roll in a X. cross-wize...Don't press just roll.

When you have reached about a 5 inch circle flip over and roll. until you get to the size you need.
You can measure using the pie plate. when you have about 2 inches more than your plate you're in good shape.
6. Fold dough in half.

Then half again.

Place in pie plate.
Unfold.

7.  Flute edges. You do whatever you like at this point. I like a fluted edge.

My mama would always press indents with a fork.

8. If your pie crust needs to be already baked you will need to prick it to release air bubbles. This should keep it from rising underneath you crust and making a bubble.  Honestly, I have forgot to do this and it came out fine but best practice is to prick your crust.

Make pricks all the way around the edge and the bottom.

Congratulation!

You've made yourself a pie crust.