I have noticed that a lot of restaurants have fried green beans on their menus. Some are beer battered, some are coated in bread crumbs. I prefer a beer batter, myself. Any beer will work for this. You can even use a carbonated water. But beer works best. These are a great appetizer for guests, or just for your lil ol self. Dip them in anything you want, but I made a dipping sauce of Ranch salad dressing, some wasabi (Japanese horseradish) and soy sauce. Mm-m-m-m-mmm. I also like a sauce of sour cream and hot sauce. I’m sure you all have your favorite dipping sauce! You’re gonna love these and will most likely make them again and again. They really are addicting….seriously.

Fried Green Beans

Fresh green beans, washed and dried
1 cup of beer
1 cup of all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
vegetable or corn oil for frying

In a bowl, whisk flour, salt and pepper, and beer together, till almost smooth. On a medium high heat, heat about 2″ of oil in a good size skillet.
Dip green beans in the batter and place a few at a time in the hot oil. Don’t crowd them. Don’t keep stirring them around either. If you do, the batter will fall off. Allow them to get brown and gently turn the beans over to get them evenly browned all over. Remove them and drain on power towels. They are good just like this, or you can dip them in your favorite dipping sauce.

Ranch Dipping Sauce

1 cup Ranch salad dressing
1 tablespoon soy sauce
wasabi or hot sauce

Combine the 3 ingredients, and dip away!!!!

My father was born and raised in Kentucky. He loved country cooking. His mother taught him to make the best greens ever. We had them often, with dinner. For those of you who don’t know, when I say greens,    I’m talking about collard greens or kale greens or sometimes it’s a combination of those greens. My personal favorite is a mix of collard greens, kale, turnip and mustard greens….all cooked together with bacon, ham hock, or a smoked turkey leg or wing. My mom and dad always used ham hocks in their greens. It gives so much flavor. A lot of people cook their greens with a bit of vinegar cooked right in the pot. But my dad always had a bottle of hot pepper vinegar on hand. He would fill a jar with sliced jalapenos, serranos or some other kind of chili pepper and fill it with vinegar. When the vinegar ran low, he would just keep adding vinegar to the chili peppers in the jar. Who knows how long he kept adding vinegar before he would replace the chili peppers…….months…maybe years!!! Who knows!!  🙂 We would sprinkle this wonderful, hot vinegar on our greens. It’s hard for me to eat them any other way. So good….so, so, good. We usually had some homemade cornbread, to go along with it. Such a great combo. Think I will go heat some up now.

Country Collard Greens with Kale

1 lb pkg collard greens (I buy them prewashed and chopped in a package)
1 bunch kale, pulled off the stem
½ small onion, chopped
4 slices smoked bacon or a ham hock, or smoked turkey leg or wing
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup water
Couple splashes of red wine vinegar (optional)

If you are using bacon, chop it up in bite size pieces and fry it in a large pot with the onion. Add everything else and cook for 2-3 hours on low to medium heat until tender and no longer bright green. If you are using ham hock or turkey leg, just throw it in with the greens, stock and water. This cooks up great in a crock pot too.

Hot Pepper Vinegar

Fill a small jar, with freshed sliced jalapenos or serrano peppers. Pour vinegar over the peppers, filling the jar. The longer it sits, the more flavor your vinegar will have. As you use your vinegar, just keep adding vinegar to refill. This is great sprinkled on greens, salads, broccoli, corn. Good stuff.

Oatmeal is good for us right? Oats are fiber, aren’t they? Well, we all know that we need our fiber. 🙂 So, since these cookies have lots of oats in them, it is a healthy cookie! YES!! ok, well maybe they aren’t really healthy, but let’s pretend. 🙂
This cookie is deliciously chewy and chocolatey. Some of the oats are ground into a flour, giving it some good chewiness but without so much oat texture. It’s a serious chocolate cookie and loaded with chocolate chips.  I made half  with toasted almonds, half without. Both are great. Just have a big ol glass of ice cold milk and you are good to go! And you will feel healthy. 🙂

Just a little tip when making cookies……as you see in the picture, I put one scoop of dough on top of the other and slightly moosh down. This will prevent a thin, flat cookie. Sometimes, I will make 3 balls of dough and kind of overlap them together. That works too.

Chewy Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

1 stick of butter, room temp
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup + 2 tblsp flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup oats
1/2 cup ground oats (just put 1/2 cup oats in the food processor and pulse till you have a fine powder)
1/2 cup mini chocolate chip
1/4 cup chopped toasted almonds, walnuts or pecans

Heat oven to 350. Cream the butter and sugars together till very fluffy, about 2 -3 minutes. Add in egg. Add flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Don’t over mix. Add oats and oat flour. Add chips and nuts. Put 2 scoops(total of 1/4 cup dough), one on top of the other, onto an ungreased cookie sheet . Or you can roll 1/4 cup of dough into a ball, tear in half and place one piece on top of the other. Slightly press mounds down. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes. DO NOT OVER BAKE THESE. They will look a bit under done, but should still look set.

OH! by the way, these make a great ice cream sandwich.

Beef stroganoff has been a favorite dish of mine forever. Although I do like it with noodles….the traditional way……I prefer mine over rice. Mm-m-m-m, all that rich sauce poured over rice….mushrooms, beef….yum. This is an easy dish to put together. I love serving it to guests. I think your guests and family will love this, too. Serve it with some good red wine and ohhhhhhhhhh, good stuff. You will just want to slurp up every little bit of the sauce. But don’t slurp…rude…no slurping.

Beef Stroganoff

1 lb sirloin, thinly sliced (it’s easier to slice really thin if the beef is slightly frozen)
1/2 stick of butter
1 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced (it will look like too much, but they shrink up)
1/2 of a medium sized onion, sliced
1  8 oz container of sour cream
3  tblsp Worcestershire sauce (A MUST)
2  cups of beef or chicken stock, mixed with 2 tblsp flour
1/2  cup white or red wine
salt and pepper to taste

Cooked rice or egg noodles

In a large skillet, melt 1/2 stick of butter. Add beef slices and onion. Fry until onions are semi soft. Add mushrooms, Worcestershire, chicken/beef stock, wine, salt and pepper. Allow it to simmer for about 20 minutes. Add sour cream. Allow to cook for approx. 10 minutes. Serve atop rice or noodles.

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This is a WOW pie. A close your eyes, savor and say M-mmm-m-mmm, pie. Seriously, this is some kinda pie. The funny thing is, I am not a huge fan of bananas……..or vanilla pudding, for that matter. But……this pie…can you tell I am a little crazy about this pie? Ok, so I saw a version of this pie on the Food Network. It’s one that Wolfgang Puck makes. I was impressed by how pretty it was and knew I had to make one similar. My version has a chocolate brownie crust. I also just used a Jello instant pudding mix, instead of making pastry cream from scratch. I do have a great recipe for pastry cream, though. So, we have a brownie crust and layers of banana slices and pudding, topped with whip cream, shaved chocolate and drizzled with creamy caramel. You will love this pie.

Extreme Banana Cream Pie

Crust:  approx. 4 or 5 brownies, pressed into a 9″ pie plate (a square pan will work too)
If you don’t have any brownies, you could use your favorite cookie crust

Filling: 1 large box (5.1 oz) Jello instant vanilla pudding mix.
prepare as directed on box, except use 2 1/2 cups of milk instead of the 3 cups called for. (you don’t want your pudding too soft)

– 4 bananas, sliced in 1/2″ chunks
– Caramel sauce (store bought is ok) or you can make my recipe, found in my Recipes index
– Shaved bittersweet chocolate, as much as you like
– whipped cream, as much as you like

Make the pudding according to package directions, using only 2 1/2 cups of milk, rather than the 3 cups called for. Chill. In the meantime, just break apart some brownies and press your brownies into a pie plate or square casserole dish, so the plate is covered.

Cover the crust with banana slices. Spread bananas with pudding. Add another layer of bananas. Spread with pudding, covering bananas completely. Top with a mound of whipped cream. Chop or shave some good chocolate and sprinkle on top of the whipped cream. Drizzle with a bit of caramel sauce. You can add more caramel to individual slices.

LOVE, LOVE