Bubba's Key Lime Pie

For Christmas, Travis got me tickets to see Paula Deen, so this past week-end he and traveled to Cherokee, NC with my Christmas gift for an early Valentine's Day get-away. We had a great time away and Paula Deen was very funny. She didn't really "cook" she talked about what her Chef was cooking and interacted with the audience and told stories with her son, Bobby, her husband, her Aunt Peggy and her brother "Bubba" and his daughter.

The dessert they served with the meal they were cooking was Key lime Pie. I had never made Key Lime Pie before Mama and Eddie brought me some Key lime Juice back from their trip to Key West. I have made Key lime Pie several times since then, until I ran out of the Key lime juice. Well, just the other day I saw that same Key lime juice at Ingles. So, when the pie was served on Saturday night I thought that would be the perfect recipe to put with this post. I searched Paula Deen's website and found a recipe for "Bubba's Key Lime Pie" and I adapted it a little bit.

Ingredients:

2 eggs yolks

2 teaspoon grated lime zest(not pictured)

1/2 cup Key lime juice

1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk

You can make your own crust, but I buy the package of 6 mini-ready graham cracker crust. My family loves "little pies". You can also use a ready made 9-inch graham cracker crust.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium bowl, beat 2 eggs yolks. Add condensed milk, Key lime juice and zest. Blend together.

Pour filling in crust and bake for 15 minutes, recipe will make six "little pies".

Refrigerate pies for several hours before serving to let set.

Once set, serve with a dollop of cool whip.

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

When Samuel or Travis go on a trip, I usually try to make them so kind of treat to take and share. A lot of times, I make Rice Krispy Treats. Well, since Samuel got his braces on this week, he can't eat yummy marshmallow goodness. I went ahead and made some for him to share but he asked me to make him some Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies.

I'm sure most of reading this, know how to make these super easy and supper yummy cookies, but since this will be passed down to my kids, I thought I would share the recipe.

The recipe for chocolate oatmeal cookies, sometime called "No Bake Cookies" is in just about every cookbook that I have on my shelf, but when I'm making them, I always go for my Seasoned Love cookbook from the Lincoln Inn Restaurant. I helped compile this cookbook when Daddy and Candy owned and ran the Lincoln Inn Restaurant in Stanford, Kentucky. I have many wonderful memories from the Lincoln Inn, from waiting tables and getting a tip of a quarter to learning to cook so many things. Every time I use the griddle at church, I think about my Daddy standing at the griddle at the Lincoln Inn frying up a "Mike's Special", but that's another post!

Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies

2 cups sugar

dash of salt

1 stick of butter

1/2 cup milk

4 Tablespoons cocoa

Mix together in a cooking pot and bring to a boil.

Once the mixture comes to a rapid boil, boil for one (1) minute.

After the one minute, add:

3 cups oatmeal

1/4 cup peanut butter

(and I add a splash of vanilla)

Mix together well and drop by spoonsfuls onto was paper.

Let dry and enjoy!

Thankful and Blessed

We were blessed to receive money for Christmas from our parents to help us buy a new refrigerator and stove. They were delivered on Friday and I cooked our first meal on Saturday night.

We are very thankful and blessed!

Taste and see that the Lord is GOOD!

Snow Cream

Here in South Carolina we are snowed in with about 7 inches of snow on the ground. We have had a wonderful day to home together resting and playing. The snow was not so great for making a snowman, but it was perfect for making SNOW CREAM.

What you need:

Snow
(When we are expecting snow, I usually put a big bowl out on the picnic table to collect the snow for our snow cream.)

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla flavoring

milk (not pictured)

Mix the sugar, vanilla and sweetened condensed milk well.

Once mixed, pour that mixture over your bowl of snow. Begin stirring the snow and sugar mixture adding milk as needed to make it smooth and creamy.

Mix well and then enjoy this yummy winter time treat with your family. As you can see, I made a big batch of snow cream today to share with our neighbors and to put in the freezer. Travis and I are getting ready to enjoy another bowl once the kids go to bed.

I have to give credit to my mother-in-law for teaching me how to make snow cream. I don't remember having it growing up and I don't think we did since my sister called me this afternoon to ask me how to make it...

Enjoy!!!!!

Ranch Potatoes

My mom gave me this receipe for Ranch Potatoes; it's one of my families favorite potato dishes. Somehow, the ranch dressing and cheese melt into the potatoes to make them very, very yummy.

Things you need:

2 cups ranch salad dressing

2 cups shredded chedder cheese

5 pounds of potatoes

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

Peel, dice and wash the potatoes.

Spray a large casserole dish with cooking spray and put diced potatoes in the dish. Pour the ranch dressing and shredded cheese over the potatoes and mix well until all the potatoes are coated with ranch dressing.

Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until the potatoes are tender, stirring several times during baking..

Taste And See

Even though I have posted everyday (but one, when I was sick) over the last year, this is the first time I have typed on here in a while. I really enjoyed "A Year In Pictures" and just recently realized why I love taking pictures so much. For some reason, I don't really remember much from my childhood, don't really know why, but I don't. Most of my memories of are from pictures and I remember things from the pictures that I have seen and hear stories about. I guess that's why I take so many pictures of everything and why I love to take pictures.

But, this is a new year and while I enjoyed the past year and taking a picture EVERY DAY, I won't be continuing it in 2011. Looking back at "A Year In Pictures", Wow - we were very busy. That is something I already new had already resolved to not be that busy in 2011.

But....I didn't just want to stop the blog at all. I had several ideas swirling in my head on what to do. I continue things and do better when they have a theme and wanted to come up with a theme for our family blog.


This is what I have come up with:

For the next year, I hope to post a recipe at least once a week. It may be a old family recipe or a new one I found or something I have made up. I hope that the kids will join me in the kitchen on some days. Then, at the end of the year, I want to print them out and it will be a wonderful "cookbook" to give my kids.

I just finished reading Choosing to SEE by Mary Beth Chapman and in her book she tells of "seeing" God and His work all around us, no matter the situation. So, in thinking about the blog, Psalm 34:8 came to mind, Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him. So, I hope that in the coming year, as I am in the kitchen doing what I love for my family - COOKING - I can SEE that He is good and take refuge in Him. And then share that happiness on here and then pass it along to my kids one day.

I hope you enjoy the year to come and I pray that you will SEE Him each day.