Surprise... Beer Burgers

I had big plans to use everything in the fridge before our upcoming vacation.  I was going to make dairy/egg free spaghetti pie, a recipe I had made a few times before I knew about my allergies. But when I walked in the door, Pres was in the kitchen with ingredients on the counter along with his laptop opened to the website Man Tested Recipes. 

He had picked out a recipe for  The Best Beer-B-Q Burgers because he thought the recipe called for the use of beer.  It didn't.  He made the burgers anyway.  It's funny because we have a cookbook from the Shiner brewery with all sorts of recipes involving beer.  Surely, there is a recipe in that book for burgers.  We'll have to look next time. 

 We garnished our plates with some frozen/bake sweet potato fries and embarrassing amounts of ketchup.  I substituted cheese with Brianna's Home Style Honey Mustard Dressing.

And in the spirit of using everything in the fridge before vacation, I cut up a full container of strawberries before dinner and enjoyed some of them over coconut milk vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup (something I just realized I could still eat!)

Hot lake daze

My lazy lake weekend didn't require any hard thinking, so the post won't either.  :)













































- Please excuse my typos while I post from my iphone.

Test 1

Just set up blogpress on my iPhone. Testing it out! Here is a pic of my blogging partner, Cooper.





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Easy empanada-muffins

I've been wanting to try this ever since Saturday when I made a pizza like version at my parents' house.  This was so much better... and counts as my new dairy/egg free recipe for this week. And it was so easy, Katie could do it!

These little creations are like a cross between an empanada and a muffin, hence the creative name I gave them, Easy empanada muffins.  I was inspired to make them in muffin tins after bumping into the Cowgirl Chef on blogger and stumbling upon her recipe for eggplant, tomato and feta muffins.  She is a texas native that lives in Paris, and her website features lots of mexican foods and Texas classics with "french twists." 

All you need for this recipe is a filling of your choice and Pillsbury crescent rolls.  I used left over taco meat (made with ground buffalo and a package of taco seasoning, a can of Rotel chopped tomatoes (drained) and a chopped onion), tomatoes, bell peppers, "tamed" jalapenos, left over sauteed onions, yellow squash (I know it doesn't sound like it belongs here, but it was a use-it-or-lose-it situation), and some salt and pepper.  I chopped the veggies in my food processor and tossed them in a pan.  When they were soft, I added the taco meat to warm it up.  If there is alot of liquid in your mixture, you might want to cook it out.  

I took the mixture off the heat and proceeded to the next step, but I think if you let the filling cool, it would work better.  I've read a quick cooling tip in Cooking for Food Allergies Everyday and Gourmet: spread the mixture out flat on a plate and stick it in the freeze for 5 minutes before using.  

I mixed in some real shredded cheese to a small amount of the mixture for Pres, but used Tofutti soy cream cheese for the majority of the filling.  I used one large package (8 rolls) and one small package (4 rolls) of Pillsbury crescent rolls.  Rather than separating the dough at the perforated marks, I pushed the perforations together with my finger and cut the dough into little squares.

I put about a tablespoon of the filling in the center of each square and roughly folder the corners up so they met in the center.  I then put each empanada-muffin into the muffin pan, which I had spritzed lightly with olive oil.

I cooked them for ten minutes at 375 degrees.  They were a little soft on top, so if you would like them more crispy, I guess you would cook them at a lower temp. for longer time...?  However, I don't need to worry about that because I don't like things crispy!

Let them cool before removing from the pan, or they might fall apart.  And there you go... easy goodness that can quickly switch between cheesy and dairy/egg free.  If you leave out the meat or substitute tofu, it's vegan! 

And you also have my first real recipe post, although I know I didn't really put a recipe on here.  But that's just me.  I'm not great with directions, and when you get them out of me, they are going to be of the East Texas turn-right-at-the-big-oak-tree sort.  Naturally, it would be the same for a recipe.

The cutest thing that ever happened

Before I left my parents house, I danced with my little 2 year old nephew Will.

I picked him up and told him to put one hand on my shoulder, and he did.  Then I held out my right hand and said, "now give me the other hand."  And he did.  We danced in a straight line down the hallway with our right arms stretched out in front of us.  I said, "Will, that was a tango." He said, "Ango!" 

Then we danced around in a sort of square.  I said, "Will, that was a waltz."  Will said, "Watz!"

And then we did a little two stepping.  I said, "Will, that was a two step."  He said, "Too step!"

And then he showed me the Elmo tickle dance.