Stars and Stripes Pie

Is this not the cutest darn pie ever? I got the idea from Womansday.com The best part about it is that you really don't have to cook anything. All the ingredients are all ready made so your basically just throwing it in a pie shell. Making the top look pretty and popping it in the oven! So if your trying to figure out what to bring to that 4th of July cook out then here is your answer. Your friends will be impressed I know mine were!
*TIP:  If your not into cherry pies then you can use strawberry pie filling instead like me.

INGEDIENTS:

1 box (15 oz) refrigerated ready-to-use pie crusts

3 cans (21 oz each) cherry pie filling or 3 cans of strawberry pie filling.

1 can (21 oz) blueberry pie filling

1 large egg, slightly beaten in a cup

3 Tbsp sanding or coarse (crystal) sugar

You also need: 11/2- to 2-in. star-shaped cookie cutter

 *TIP:  I used a shallow pie plate to save money. That way I only used 2 cans of strawberry pie filling and 3/4 can of blueberry pie filling. With the left over dough and pie filling I made fried pies.

DIRECTIONS:

1. On lightly floured surface with lightly floured rolling pin, roll 1 pastry round into a 12-in. circle. Fit into a 9-in. pie plate, letting edges overhang. Drain 1 can cherry pie filling, combine in a bowl with remaining 2 cans cherry pie filling.
NOTE: If your using 2 cans for a shallow pie plate then just use the whole can amount in the pie plate don't worry about draining any fillings.

2. Make a nice border along the edges of the crust. Brush the edge with the beaten egg and sprinkle the raw or coarse sugar on it.


3. Bend a clean 6-in. square of cardboard in middle forming a wedge. ( I just cut a plate into a rectangle and bent it.) Place in upper left corner of pie (like hands of a clock pointing to 9 and 12). Fill with blueberry pie filling. Spoon cherry pie filling into rest of pie. Lift out cardboard. ( It is easier to do this step if you have an extra set of helping hands holding the card board in place while you fill the pie.)



4. Roll other pastry round into a 10-in. circle. With a pastry wheel or sharp knife, cut round in five 1/2-in.-wide strips. With cookie cutter, cut 5 or 6 stars from rest of pastry. Brush strips and stars with beaten egg;sprinkle with sanding sugar.



5. Heat oven to 425°F. Starting in middle of pie, carefully place 3 long strips, evenly spaced, across filling toward bottom edge. Cut remaining 2 strips into 4-in.-long pieces. Lay over cherry filling on upper right corner.Press ends of strips into edge of crust or lay them flat across like I did in the picture above.


6. Bake 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350°F; bake 25 to 30 minutes longer until pastry is golden brown and filling bubbles. Place on wire rack and cool completely.

Ethiopian Tomato Salad

This salad really surprised me when I first tried it. It was so refreshing! The bold flavors meshed together perfectly. My husband and I were fighting over who got to finish it off. This is the perfect summer salad.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 sm onion
2 sm tomatoes
1 sm jalapeno

DRESSING
 2 Tbsp lemon juice
 2 Tbsp rice wine vineagar
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
 1/8 tsp fresh ground pepper
1 tsp white sugar

DIRECTIONS:

1) Coarsely chop or dice onions and tomatoes.
2) Seed the jalapeno and dice finely. You can put the seed in too if you want it a little spicier.
3)  Mix dressing ingredients together until well combined. Pour dressing over vegetables and stir together gently. Let stand for 10 minutes for the flavors to blend and use a slotted spoon to serve.

Chipotle Lime Shrimp Tacos

 

These are super easy and tasty! Adding the lime to the chipotle shrimp really kicks this dish up a notch! My family love shrimp taco night!
 

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 3/4 tsp chili powder
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1 pkg small flour taco size tortillas (you can use corn tortillas if you prefer)
1 lime zested and juiced
juice from 1 lime
cilantro, fresh
1 sm tomato,
diced sour cream (optional)
salsa (optional)
lettuce (optional)

Directions:

1) Combine the first 5 ingredients in a large bowl; add shrimp, tossing to coat.







2) Heat oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add shrimp mixture to pan add the juice and sprinkle zest on top, mix; cook 1 1/2 minutes on each side or until done. Remove from heat.



3) Heat tortillas in microwave according to package directions. Place tortillas on each plate; arrange shrimp on each tortilla. Top each tortilla with chopped cilantro, shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes. I also enjoy a dollop of sour cream and salsa.

Day Trippin in Pensecola

We went to the beach recently for the day. We are only 3 hours away now so we left early in the morning and then left that night and came home. It was a lot of fun! Landon was seriously cracking me up while we were there. They had some sand that was piled up next to where we sitting and he kept body surfing down them. I wish I had gotten a picture of that. I did however get a few pics of them playing.

Playing in the sand

My awesome daughter body surfing!

showing some attitude

Jada showing me her wet windblown look

The Award Winning Bacon and Green Onion Breakfast Tart

This is the breakfast tart that I made at the www.justapinch.com cooking showcase. I won the grand prize! I love the smokiness of the bacon and the tanginess of the cheese. The tart sounds fancy but it is super easy to make.

INGREDIENTS:

butter, for greasing the pan, flour for dusting the pan
 1 unroll-and-bake refrigerated 9-inch pie crust
 1 egg white, lightly beaten
 4 oz thick bacon, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
5 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten
 1/2 c ( 4 oz) mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
 2 c shredded gruyere cheese
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper

 MASCARPONE CHEESE SUBSTITUTE:
If you can not find marscarpone cheese at the store here is an easy sub
 4 oz cream cheese room temp ( do not use light or fat free)
1 Tbsp sour cream ( do not use light or fat free)
2 Tbsp heavy whipping cream

DIRECTIONS:

1) You can use a 9 in tart pan with a removable base or a 9 in Spring Foam pan.

2) Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter and flour the bottom and sides of a 9-inch tart pan.

3) Unroll the pie crust and arrange it in the prepared pan. Gently press the crust into the bottom and sides of the pan. Trim any excess crust from the top of the pan. With the tines of a fork, prick the pastry in several places. Using a pastry brush, coat the crust with the beaten egg white. Put the pan on a baking sheet and bake in the center of the oven until the egg white has set, about 10 minutes. Allow the crust to cool for 10 minutes.

4 ) In a medium skillet, add the chopped bacon and cook, stirring frequently over med-high heat, until brown and crispy, about 6 to 8 minutes. Drain on a paper towel lined plate.

5)  In a medium bowl, combine the beaten eggs, mascarpone cheese, Gruyere, green onions, salt, pepper, and bacon. Mix until smooth. Pour the mixture into the cooled crust and bake until the mixture has set and the top is golden, about 18-20 minutes. Cool the tart for 8-10 minutes then remove it from the pan to a serving platter. Cut the tart into wedges and serve warm.

 TIP: If you don't like the smoky taste of bacon, you can substitute it with pancetta.
Also if you like a little kick you can add half a chopped jalapeno pepper to the mix.

The most fun weekend ever!

So as most of you may know I won a cooking contest! Yay me! The contest was for the awesome recipe site called www.Justapinch.com. I have 9 blue ribbons with this site. They have contest quarterly and this one was a breakfast challenge. I almost didn't enter but I decided to find and come up with about 4 recipes to enter and my Bacon and Green Onion  Breakfast Tart won! woot woot! When I got the call that I had won I was having such a bad day but that one call turned that frown upside down. The first weekend in June was the showcase in Nashville. Just a pinch flew me and my friend Debbie to Nashville, picked us up in a limo, and  paid for our hotel and airfare. We even got to eat at a fancy shamncy restaurant called THE PALM with Janet Tharpe the food editor of Just a Pinch. It  had incredible food! I got the surf and turf (9oz filet with half a 3lb lobster) and creme brulee for dessert. YUMMO!  After dinner we were driven around to see all the cool hot spots in Nashville.

The next morning  I stood in front of an audience and taught everyone how to make the tart. It was so much fun. There were so many pictures being taken the whole time that I didn't take too many my self but my friend Debbie (who I met on Just a pinch)  did.  So I will be posting some of those. They also had to do 2 video interviews with me and that was what made me the most nervous. Once I started cooking though my nerves subsided and I felt more comfortable.  After the showcase was over more pictures were taken and I got to go on my $1000 shopping spree! THAT was sooooo COOL! It was so nice to just walk through the Viking store and pick out what I wanted. They mailed me my new stuff so that way I didn't have to take it back on the plane with me. I don't think that my new knives and torch would have gone over well with the TSA. After the shopping spree Debbie, Kim and I did some more shopping around town and then that night Debbie and I went to the Grand Ole Opry to watch Rascal Flatts play. Before the concert we ate at an Italian restaurant in the Opryland Hotel. That had to be one of the most beautiful hotels I have ever been in. They even had a beautiful waterfall and what seemed like a rainforest when you walked around the place. After dinner we atteneded the concert. That was a neat experience. I guess I never realized that the Grand Ole Opry  was a live radio show. They kept doing commercials. Rascal Flatts were awesome. The lead singer has an incredible voice.
Early Sunday morning I flew home. When Josh and the kids picked me up from the airport, I stood at the curb waiting for them. I then saw Josh drive up with both Jada and Ammon hanging their heads out the window yelling mommy and holding a sign up saying welcome home! Too cute! (Now people don't fret. Josh had pulled up earlier and had let the kids out of their cars seats just when he was pulling up curb side. Josh is a wonderful daddy that always buckles his kids in.) 

That was a whirl wind of a weekend for me. Josh, the kids and I even took a day trip to the beach on Monday, since he was off work. So needless to say, Tuesday morning I was sunburned and tired. But this  definitely was the MOST fun weekend ever!

Our First Stop was Gigi's cupcakes. It was right across the street from our hotel! They were amazing! I got the banana split cupcake, Debbie got the salted caramel and chocolate overload.

Janet Tharpe (food editor on just a pinch), me and Susan Feliciano (a fellow just a pinch member)

Debbie Wright, me and my sista Kim Dowdle

The kitchen crew and Missy the winner of the holiday tradition contest. She MCd the showcase. I will be MCing the next one in August.

They convinced me to put the silly hat on.

Janet and I talking before the showcase began. She is such a sweet person!

Doing my cooking thang!

The Tart

Going out to the Grand Ole Opry

At the Opryland Hotel

Glass art at the hotel

Rascal Flats doing their Thang... they were awesome!

My loot! I know it doesn't look like much but the place was so expensive! Here is what I got: A viking  9 speed hand held mixer (that thing is powerful!), professional knife sharpener, Viking saute pan, pasta maker, electric candy themometer, cast iron 2 sided griddle, pineapple cutter, 2 knife guards, lemon juicer, adjustable table spoon, melon baller, mandoline, strawberry huller, sifter, grill basket, 2 new ceramic knives, spatula, creme brulee torch, 2 miniture wisk, zester, and a maganetic knife holder.

Coconut Lime Talapia

I love seafood but I'm not a fishy fish person. Ok basically that means that I don't like fish that taste too fishy. One of the fish that I enjoy cooking and eating that isn't too fishy is talapia. One of my favorite talapia recipes is one that I came up with one night. I love coconut and limes so I decided to just mix the 2 together. It taste great! I've made this recipe several times and have finally tweaked it enough to finally share it with y'all. I think next time I might grill it in a foil pack. I hope you enjoy this super easy and yummy recipe!

INGREDIENTS:

4 talapia, filets
Salt and pepper
1 lg lime, finely grated zest and juiced
1 to 2 Tbsp cream of coconut
2 Tbsp butter, divided



DIRECTIONS:

1)  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray.
2)  Rinse and pat dry the fish. Place on the cookie sheet.
3)  Zest the lime and set a side. Salt and pepper one side of fish and drizzle half the lime juice on the fillets. Flip over and repeat. Sprinkle the zest on the top of the fillets.
4)  Brush on the cream of coconut evenly onto each fillet.
5)  Place half a tablespoon pat of butter onto each fish. (I like to cut the pats of butter up in fours to cover them on the fish more evenly).
6)  Cook in the oven for 10-12min.

TIP: I like to drizzle the extra juices from the cookie sheet onto my fish when they are done cooking!