JOIN FOODIE FANATICS!

LOTS OF YUMMY RECIPES CAN BE MADE HERE! THEY ALL HAVE BEEN DELICIOUS! SO FAR WE HAVE MADE PAULA DEEN. WE PICK A NEW FOOD NETWORK STAR IN FEBRUARY!

SO...JOIN US!!!!

FIND THE SITE HERE.

Paula Deen's Banana Nut Muffins

I feel like I've been only making Paula Deen recipes lately! But....who cares! They are so yummy!

I had some ripe bananas so I decided to make her banana nut muffins from Cooking With Paula Deen January/February 2008 issue. They are so easy to make and so yummy delicious!

The recipe can be found here. It's a must make!

Foodie Fanatics: Chicken Empanadas

This week's Foodie Fanatics recipe was chosen by Michele of Makin' Cakin' Weekends. I must say these were great! I have to admit, I didn't get to make these myself. My daughter, grandkids, and I were all set to make but I received a phone call that my mom had fallen and was on the floor. Kelly and I drove over there. Mom was fine. Her legs just are not real strong and when she bent to pick up something, they gave out. She was sitting in front of her chair in the living room, embarrassed. My dad was not able to pick her up by himself. They are both almost 79 years old. Kelly and I got her up and stayed to chat for a little.

My son-in-law, bless his heart, fixed the empanadas. We left out the bell pepper since I'm not the biggest fan. We used jarred jalapeno. This was not hard to make he said. They were really great. The recipe can be found HERE.

Good choice, Michele!

Savannah Smiles Lemon Blueberry Parfait

As I have mentioned, it's Girl Scout cookie times. But, I am sure that you all know that. All the cute girls knocking on your door or hitting you up at the troop. My troop of Daisies had an awesome first cookie booth.

I found this recipe on Facebook from Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida. Savannah Smiles were brought back for the 100th Anniversary of Girl Scouts. It's a wonderful lemon cookie. There are many recipes on the Little Brownie Bakers site.

This parfait made with the cookies was super easy to make and YUMMY! I think it would be the most perfect summer dessert.

Savannah Smiles Lemon Blueberry Parfait

One small pkg (3.4 or 3.5 oz) instant lemon pudding and pie filling

1 1/2 cups whipped topping, divided

2 cups cold milk

1/2 cup fresh blueberries

3/4 pkg. Savannah Smiles lemon cookies. Leave 8 or 9 whole cookies to decorate desserts with and crush the remaining 12 cookies into cookie crumbs.

Directions:

1. Prepare lemon pudding as directed: With a whisk or an electric mixer, blend together the pudding mix and 2 cups milk, on low speed for about 2 minutes. Let set for 5 minutes.

2. In a separate bowl, stir together with a spoon, 1 cup pudding and 1/2 cup whipped topping.

3. Using 2-4 clear dessert cups, layer the ingredients into each cup as follows:

Lemon pudding

cookie crumbs

pudding/whipped topping mixture

blueberries

Repeat

Whipped topping

top with a blueberry and cookie crumbs

just before serving, insert 2-3 whole cookies near the edges

Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Paula Deen's Pork Tostados

Monday, the day after having the Spice-Encrusted Pork Tenderloin and Seasoned Black Beans, I used the pork and beans to make Pork Tostados. It was wonderful on a Monday to come home and make a very simple meal. They were yummy and I would definitely make the pork and the tostados again!

Pork Tostados

3 T corn oil

6 (5-inch) corn tortillas

left over Seasoned Black Beans

left over Spice-Encrusted Pork Tenderloin

toppings: salsa, guacamole, sour cream, cilantro...

In a large nonstick skillet, heat corn oil over medium-high heat. cook tortillas on each side until golden. Drain on paper towels.

In a small saucepan, add beans and cook over medium-high heat, stirring often until all liquid has evaporated. Use a potato masher to mash beans.

To assemble tostadas, layer beans, salsa, guacamole, shredded pork, and sour cream on each tortilla. Garnish with fresh cilantro, if desired.

I put salsa, black olives and cheddar cheese on mine.

Foodie Fanatics: Spice-Encrusted Pork Tenderloin and Seasoned Black Beans

This week's recipe was jambalaya, and again I wasn't in the mood for the dish. I found a recipe for Spice-Encrusted Pork Tenderloin and Seasoned Black Beans. The recipe was in the January/February 2009 Cooking with Paula Deen magazine. I've been wanting to make a pork tenderloin or pork roast. I am so glad I made this.....it was totally AWESOME! Spicy and yummy! My son told me it was a keeper!

The recipe makes quite a bit since it's supposed to be used for Pork Tostadas also. I halved the recipe since it's just the two of us and I still have quite a bit left over. We may make the tostadas tomorrow night.

I didn't have the Mexican oregano, so I used regular; I used regular chili powder and caraway instead of coriander.

The Seasoned Black Beans were good too. Spicy! I would have been great over rice! It's to be used in the tostados, too.

Spice-Encrusted Pork Tenderloin

2 tablespoons ancho chili powder
2 tablespoons ground coriander
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons Mexican oregano
2 tablespoons garlic salt
2 tablespoons cracked black pepper
4 (1.5-pound pork tenderloins, trimmed)
1/4 cup olive oil, divided

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a rimmed baking sheet with aluminum foil; set aside.

In a small bowl, combine chili powder, coriander, cumin, kosher salt, oregano, garlic salt, and pepper. Coat tenderloins evenly with spice mixture.

In a large nonstick skillet, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium-high heat. Cook 1 tenderloin for 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until browned. Remove tenderloin and place on prepared pan. Repeat with remaining olive oil and tenderloins. Bake for 20 minutes or until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of tenderloin registers 155 degrees or desired degree of doneness. Slice to serve.

Ready to go in oven

Seasoned Black Beans

4 (15-oz) cans black beans, drained

2 (10-oz) cans diced tomatoes with green chilies

1/2 tsp kosher salt

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

In a medium saucepan, combine beans, tomatoes, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat until heated through. Serve immediately.

Have the Cake: Cinnamon Rolls

This month's challenge for Have the Cake is Cinnamon Rolls. I LOVE cinnamon rolls! I wanted to participate this month but did not want to mess with yeast. I made the Paula Deen ones before and they were awesome but take time. I found this one on Mommy's Kitchen's site. The recipe can be found here.

These were delicious! My son and his friend loved them. Best of all, they do not take long to make since they are made with crescent rolls.

Mine did not come out minis like Tina's did. I guess I didn't roll them tight enough. No worries...I put them into regular size muffin tins and they worked out great. I will definitely make these again and again! Loved them!

the filling

ready for oven

fresh out of oven

Copy Cat Club: The Original Home Baked Girl Scout Cookie

I am my granddaughter, Samantha's, Girl Scout leader. My daughter, Kelly, is the co-leader. I was her Girl Scout leader. I am thoroughly enjoying my second time around with a troop. Our troop consists of 7 Daisies in Kindergarten and 1st grade. The girls are wonderful as are the moms.

As you know, it's Girl Scout cookie time again. One of my mom's is our cookie mom, along with my daughter helping her. We pick up the cookies this Monday and start selling on Thursday. So, support your local Girl Scouts and buy cookies!

I found this recipe on line for the original home-baked Girl Scout cookie. Originally, the girls baked cookies and then sold them door-to-door. The following recipe was given to Girl Scouts in 1922 and sold for about 25 cents per dozen. The whole story can be found here on the Girl Scout website.

This past meeting we discussed the upcoming cookie sales and talked about the types of cookies, the cost and a goal for the troop. The girls do not quite understand setting a goal and they wanted to sell like 5 or 6 boxes for their goal. Anyway....we set a goal of 1,000 boxes. Wish us luck.

While the moms were signing up for booths and discussing the finer points of the cookies sales, I brought the scouts into the kitchen and had them make the original cookie recipe. The girls love to bake! This is also an entry for the Copy Cat Club.

I originally printed this from allrecipes.com. Then, just now I looked at the History of Girl Scouts and see the allrecipes version did not tell you to refrigerate for an hour before trying to cut out. So, instead of cutting out the cookies, we scooped onto the cookie sheet. Worked out well, the girls liked using the scooper!

The Original Home-Baked Girl Scout Cookie

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar plus additional amount for topping (optional)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream butter and the cup of sugar; add well-beaten eggs, then milk, vanilla, flour, salt, and baking powder. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Roll dough, cut into trefoil shapes, and sprinkle sugar on top, if desired. Bake at 350° for approximately 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges begin to brown.

Makes about 36 cookies.

My cookie mom's daughter, Ally.

Foodie Fanatics: Simply Delicious Strawberry Cake

It was my week to choose the Paula Deen recipe. I chose Chili Chicken Stew which was from her January/February 2009 issue. It can be found here. This is what it looks like:

But.....after running around on Sunday putting Christmas decorations away from my home and my parents, plus the temperature getting into the upper 70's, stew just did not sound good at all. So, I opted to make a dessert to eat while watching the Denver/Steeler game. Go Broncs!

I stuck to the Paula Deen chef and made her Simply Delicious Strawberry Cake. Yummy! It was made with a box white cake which made the recipe easy. The hardest part was pureeing the strawberries! I added a little more strawberry to the icing.

The recipe can be found on the Food Network site here. You won't be sorry!

Foodie Fanatics: "Cake" Ice-Cream Cones

This recipe for the Foodie Fanatics was chosen by Michele at Makin' Cakin' Weekends. We are still baking from Paula Deen. My daughter and I made these yesterday before dinner to have to munch on during the night. They are super easy to make. You can make with any flavor cake mix. I was originally going to do funfetti, but had a bad egg and made chocolate instead.

Everyone seemed to enjoy them. My four year old grandson kept asking were the ice cream was! He knew they were cake, but they were in the cones. Silly boy!

The recipe can be found here on the Food Network Site. I recommend making these especially for a kids party! The flavor possibilities are endless.

Sorry the pic is fuzzy, we were outside enjoying a fire in our 60 degree weather!

My grandson with the frosting on his nose!

Copy Cat Club: Sonic Root Beer Freeze

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year's Eve. We did. My daughter and her family came over. My 15 year old son had six friends over. (five spent the night) We grilled out burgers, ate a lot, played the Wii, toasted with champagne, laughed alot. We also decided to have these Root Beer Freezes after dinner. This is one of the recipes for the Copy Cat Club.

They were very delicious. Most of the kids had the root beer (A&W, of course, since my first job as a teen was waitressing at an A&W Restaurant in Ohio). One had Coke, I tried strawberry soda and my daughter had Cherry Coke. All came out very good. These are definitely to make again. Kelly actually made these for us, but I was going to do these during the week.

I found the recipe on Copy Kat. There are some yummy looking stuff there. The recipe is super simple. Two ingredients! I would recommend trying different sodas.

Sonic Root Beer Freeze

2 cups vanilla ice cream

1/2 cup root beer

Directions:

Place both ingredients into a blender, and mix for about 30 seconds on puree.

How easy is that!!!

My grandkids finishing off my freeze.

The root beer and ice cream in the blender

Kelly's Cherry Coke Freeze

My strawberry soda freeze