Grilled Potato Bundles & Ribeye with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce

One of my picks this month for Sweet as Pie was Grilled Potato Bundles from Pioneer Woman. I was really excited about this recipe since I am a potato lover. We also had Grilled Ribeye Steak with Onion-Blue Cheese Sauce.  Mom is a huge blue cheese lover. When her sisters come to town the eat blue cheese dip by the pound. So I thought mom would love to make these with me. Mikita and I headed down to mom's house.

Grandma's, heck yeah!

First we chopped potatoes and onions. Mom decided that we should add some zucchini to the packets. This was a good idea. Since only three of us were eating, we only made enough for four packets.

We seasoned each packet with paprika, parsley, salt, and pepper. Two tabs of butter and some "heavy cream." I put that in quotes because my only job was to bring the cream. And silly me left it in the fridge. Thanks to the internet, I found that you can substitute heavy cream in recipes by using 1/4 cup melted butter mixed with 3/4 cup milk.

We sealed the foil packets and put on the grill for 30 mins. The recipe says to put on the hottest part of the grill. Mom was in charge of the grill. Remember this later.

While that was cooking we started on the ribeye (which wasn't a ribeye it was a tri trip steak). We seasoned the steak with salt and pepper and rubbed some butter on it. Then onto the grill it went.

While everything grilled we started on the sauce. We sauteed onions in butter.

When the onions are caramelized add 1 cup cream. About this time I felt a bump at my leg. I look down to find Mikita sitting by my leg and looking at up me. I was more then a little surprised be cause she had been in her play pen. Guess that is no good anymore.

After the cream has reduced by about half, add a 1/2 cup of blue cheese until melted.

As you can see the potato packets ended up a little burnt. I think this was probably a problem with how high the grill was set. The steak was a little burnt on the outside also. The steak wasn't bad, but I'm not a blue cheese fan. Mom liked it and said next time she would add more blue cheese. The non-burned part of the potato packets was good. Needed more cream then what we put probably, and maybe some more seasoning. I hate recipes that say "to taste." I like more concrete amounts to start off with. I can adjust later.

I won't make the steak again, though mom will. I am already planning on trying the potatoes again with Travis. Hopefully his grilling skills are a little better then mom's.

Butterscotch Peanut Butter Bars

It was my turn to pick a recipe for Sweet as Pie and I picked Butterscotch Peanut Butter Bars. We were also having some friends over for a cook out and I thought this would be a great dessert.

I even had a helper for this one. Mikita is getting so big at 12 weeks.

First cream 1 stick butter, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/2 cup of white sugar, and 1/2 cup of peanut butter.

This little device is amazing. It makes adding things like peanut butter a breeze. Nothing left in the measuring cup.

Next, mix in your egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla. In a separate bowl sift 1 cup flour, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. After you have sifted the dry ingredients, mix in 1/2 cup of quick cooking oatmeal.

Then mix in the sifted flour mixture.

 Pour the stiff batter into a 9x13 greased pan. The recipe calls for greasing with butter but I am a Crisco girl.

Sprinkle 1 cup of butterscotch chips on top.

Bake the brownies at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes.

Next make the peanut butter glaze. Whip 1 cup confectioner's sugar, 4 tablespoons, and 1/4 cup of peanut butter. Pour the glaze onto the warm brownies.

Everyone but me loved these. My guests even took half the brownies home. It was too sweet for me. I had some non-glazed brownie and I liked that. I think I will try these again, only use a chocolate glaze instead of a peanut butter glaze. Who doesn't love chocolate and peanut butter?

Fence Week 2

So we finished building the fence. It was a lot of work. Travis' brother came down to help, my brother started a new job. So it was us and our parents. We picked up the auger Friday afternoon. We got four holes dug in four hours. Things were not looking good. The auger got stuck several times. Travis and I were nervous that the fence was not going to be finished over the weekend.

Saturday went much better. We started on the other side of the house were the soil wasn't as bad. We managed to work from 9 am until 8 pm and got all of the holes dug and all of the posts in the ground.

Man were we tired Saturday night. Sunday it was just us and Travis' brother. We started putting up pickets.

We thought putting up the pickets would be quick. We had the rails up by noon and figured the pickets would be up quickly. We had a nail gun and it was going well. We had the three long sides up and were working on the fourth side when the coupler on the nail gun blew out. We had to switch to screwing the pickets into the rails. That really slowed us down.

As it was getting dark we started on the 8 foot gate. We ended up finishing the gate with flashlights at 10 pm. We were so sore and mad that the fence wasn't finished. We still had to finish the small gate, the corners, and redo the large gate. Monday was not an option to do anything. We couldn't move we were so tired. Plus the auger had to be back by 8 am.

We did finish the gate. Travis spent his days off finish the corners and the small gate. We redid the big gate. Everything done in time for Mikita to arrive. It was a lot of work but we are really excited with our fence. Plus it only took three trips to Lowe's to finish!

Fence Building Day 1 & 2

In preparation of getting Mikita in a few weeks, we decided to fence in the back yard.

We can't let this cute get lost can we?

After much deliberation, we decided to build this thing ourselves. We have a lot of back yard and would save a lot of money doing it ourselves. So we took two days to dig the corner posts and the post by the house. We knew we would have to hand dig the house posts. Especially since we were digging in my flower bed. We wanted to get the four corners in also so we weren't wasting time squaring up come next week. It was a really good thing we did too.

The first two posts were super easy. Travis and his dad are both perfectionists so they took a while, but they look good.

  

Side one looks really good.

Thom even came up to help.

 The first four holes went well and we ended for the day. We were glad we did them and we found out our plot map was wrong. The fence is twelve feet longer then originally planned.

We debated back and forth on finishing the other two holes on Friday. Travis and I were exhausted and we had a lot of other things to finish before Easter. In the end we decided to go ahead and get them done. That way I could make sure that my measurements were correct. I was going to need to order more supplies anyhow.

Thom thankfully came up again to help. Everything was going great until the last hole.

We hit a wire. We had previously called 811 and they cleared the entire backyard. We knew that was wrong because we knew the internet cable was back there but we had a pretty good idea of where it was since we watched them put it in. Nothing was supposed to be in the few feet of the backyard. Yet we hit what was obviously a phone line.

First we called 811 and they came back out. After they marked the phone line they also marked the internet line. We were less then six inches from hitting it with one of the posts we already had in. That was close. We were told that most likely the phone line was abandoned but we needed to wait until the phone company came out to confirm. We were also told that the line should never have been in our yard and should not have been only seven inches down.

So I then called AT&T. It took a long time to get an actual person. Apparently they only want to talk to their current customers when it comes to issues. I hate phone prompts that lead to seven other layers of phone prompts. I was told that even though I had the box number that the line came from they couldn't tell me if it was live or not. I was assured that someone would be out before eight. Since it was already six we decided to call it a day.

Eight pm rolls around and no tech. I called them back and after seven more prompts I finally talked to someone. I was informed that they were not sending out a tech and would hopefully have one on Saturday. I told them not to bother, I was cutting the line and finishing my hole.

We checked with all of our neighbors and no one has AT&T phone service. So we don't fell bad about cutting the line this week to finish our fence. We ordered the remaining items we need and will pick them up Sunday and finish the corner post Monday morning. Hopefully next weekend will go smoothly and we can finish the fence before Mikita gets here. Only three more weeks until our German Indian puppy arrives!

Whiskey BBQ Sliders

So I am way behind. I have barely cooked. But now all my studying is done (we hope) and I have started a normal life. This started with getting back into Sweet as Pie. This month there were two things I thought I'd try, but I only got around to one of them. I blame the huge amounts of snow and freezing weather. I made these Whiskey BBQ sliders while at mom's one evening before I tutored. Here is how it came together.

First my ingredients. I love Jack so this was exciting for me.

So first I took 2 lbs of beef and mixed it with Worcestershire and salt and pepper. Then I rolled them into 12 patties. I thought this might be too many for the 4 of us but I was very very wrong. In a skillet melt a lot of butter (hey this is a PW recipe). Then put the patties in to brown on both sides.

I was excited that they all fit in the pan.

Remember, just brown. They don't need to be all the way done.

 After the patties are done browning, remove them from the skillet and add a large diced onion.

After the onion, add 1/2 Whiskey. And by whisky I mean Jack Daniels. Because that is whiskey. I didn't have to turn off my flame as PW suggested, I have a flat cook stove. Let that reduce by half and then 2 cups BBQ. I just happened to have Jack. See a theme here. PW says to add jalapenos here. I dislike jalapenos. I would however suggest adding some hot sauce. We didn't and regretted it.

Reduce the heat to low and add the patties. Let the patties finish cooking. Then put the patties (and some sauce) onto slider buns.

Of the 12 sliders, there were only 3 left. And I blame that on my brother eating two hours before I cooked. This was awesome. Needed hot sauce and left a lot of extra sauce. I plan on reusing the sauce and it is currently in the freezer. This will be made a lot in my future, and my mom's.

Pot Roast, Scalloped Potatoes, and Olive Bread

Today is Sunday, and Travis' day off. I have been studying hard all weekend because I have another CPA test Tuesday. There is a football game and a hockey game. Plus we had to put our beloved cat Snickers down on Friday thanks to the rapidly advancing cancer. So I decided to make a real Sunday dinner. On the menu, Pioneer Woman's Olive Cheese Bread and Perfect Pot Roast as well as Mrs. Stoller's Kosher Scalloped Potatoes.  This is a recipe I picked up a long time ago from a friend's mom. She followed a Kosher diet and these are the potatoes she prepared to be eaten with meat dishes. I fell in love with it and can't get enough, though it takes a while to cook. I started this adventure at about 3:45 pm.

First I needed to bake my french bread for the Olive Cheese bread.

Thank goodness for Pillsbury.

While that baked. I started on the roast since it was going to need 3+ hours to cook. First step, finding a lid to the pot I was going to use. There has got to be a better way to figure out which lid goes with which pot. Once I had accomplished this task, I heated the olive oil. I love the smell of olive oil. Is that just me?

On a side note, I love this pepper.

While oil heats, salt and pepper the roast. Mine is 3lbs. Next I was to seer two onions cut in half and 6 to 8 carrots cut into pieces. I cheated. I used 1 cup diced onions and 16 baby carrots. Then I seared the edges of the meat.














Then everything goes into the pot with rosemary and thyme and enough beef stock to half cover the meat. Then cover the pot and cook at 275 for about 3 hours.

While this was cooking, I started on the potatoes. This way I can put everything in the fridge and just have to put them in the oven at the right moment, not hope my timing is right on preparation.

These potatoes in their original format were kosher. I use butter instead of a butter substitute so they are no longer kosher. Super good either way. Also, I hate mayo and I love these.

Melt 6 tablespoons of butter in a pan. Then slowly add 1/2 cup flour until thick.

Then add 1/2 cup mayo (the real stuff) and 28 oz of chicken broth. Heat on low and stir until thick. By thick we mean all combined and beginning to thicken.

I only had 20 oz of chicken broth (apparently I missed counted for grocery day) so I used 8 oz of left over beef stock from the roast. Now I don't have waste!

Slice peeled potatoes into 1/2 inch slices. You will need between 5 and 10 potatoes. I usually place them in cold water while I wait for my sauce to get thick.

Layer sauce then potatoes into dish. I usually end up with 2 or 3 layers. Remember to end with potatoes. You are supposed to bake for 1 and 1/2 hours at 350. Because my roast is in at 275, I am baking at 310 for a little longer.

Next up, Olive Bread. This was one of our Sweet as Pie Cooking Club from April of last year. I didn't get around to it because 1. it was April and 2. because I didn't have a reason. Travis doesn't like olives. But everything I flip through my PW cookbook I see it. And it looks so good. So I planned making a half batch tonight. Travis can eat the other half of the french loaf. Because I can't read my own hand writing at the store and only ended up with 4 oz of olives (instead of 10 oz) I am cutting the recipe by 1/4 (kinda). Really need to work on reading recipes before grocery shopping.

Originally this called for 14.5 oz of black olives and 6 oz of green. Yuck to the green. Also, I am lazy and I picked up a 4 oz can of already sliced black olives. Instead of 2 green onions I will add just 1. These both need to be diced and put into a bowl with 2 tablespoons of softened butter, 1/8 cup of mayo, and 1 cup of Monterrey Jack cheese (I may have used some Pepper Jack for a little kick).

I am really glad I quartered this recipe. It took up half the loaf. Now to just let everything finish baking!

The potatoes were as always, melt in your mouth delicious. The olive bread wasn't bad. I probably should have diced the olives. This is good for a party, but I won't make it just for us again. The pot roast was good, but nothing special. Next time I will probably use my crock pot recipe. Though in truth we don't have pot roast very often since Travis isn't a fan. I plan on taking my left overs to my brother and his roommates. They eat anything.

Delicious Chocolate Pie

Recipe two of my cooking Sunday is for Delicious Chocolate Pie. I got to pick this one for the Sweet as Pie Cooking Club. I happened to see it on a Pioneer Woman episode and said, hey I like chocolate. So I picked it for the month.

First up, melt 4 oz of unsweetened baking chocolate. I actually used the microwave like the recipe said instead of my normal double broiler. I just didn't want the extra dish to clean. Meanwhile I creamed two sticks of butter with 1 and 1/2 cups of sugar until fluffy.

I guess this counts as fluffy.

Then add the chocolate and 1 teaspoon vanilla. This is were I read I should be using the whisk attachment. Oops. There went trying to save dishes.

Good thing my whisk was clean.

Next add the four eggs five minutes apart. Yes I set the timer. When that was all done I put the filing in my graham cracker pie crust.

I am very glad I got the large crust.

Next for a two hour chill while I make dinner.

I ended up not getting to have pie after dinner. It was two days later by the time I got to try this. Travis had already eaten almost half the pie. Obviously he likes it. I like it too. Whip cream would be most welcome. I think on the way home tonight I will get some. This will get made again.