23rd recipe created by me: Carrots and Wild Rice!

So as we all are during this current pandemic, I'm staying home.

And due to the grocery shortages because of everyone hoarding, we get the groceries we can get; I've been eating whatever is in my pantry.

So I made a batch of Uncle Ben's Long Grain and Wild Rice, because I love that stuff.  I could eat it every day.

Today, I was craving carrots.

So I heated up a can of carrots, drained, stirred in butter and brown sugar, and then mixed it in with the wild rice.

It was quite delicious!

22nd recipe created by me: pickle juice baby back ribs

What?  Pickle juice?

Yes, Pickle juice.

I first prepared the baby back ribs by seasoning with seasoned salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder.  Roasted in the oven at 400 degrees.

When they were ready, they were terrific!

But on a whim, remembering that a certain chicken place uses pickle juice on their chicken, I decided to try pickle juice on the ribs.

So I poured some pickle juice on a sample.  Ehrmahgerd!

I poured more pickle juice on more ribs.  It's awesome!

21st recipe created by me: Green Beans turkey giblet gravy

As with all recipes "created by me", this recipe was created by accident.

I had made smothered fresh green beans for Thanksgiving.  I sauteed some "creole seasoning"** in olive oil in a cast iron skillet.  Added seasoned salt, black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder.  Then I transferred it to a crock pot, along with fresh green beans, and added some chicken broth.  Cooked down the green beans overnight.

** "creole" seasoning is in the refrigerated produce section; It's finely chopped onions, celery, green pepper, and garlic, in a container ready to use.  I hate green pepper, but in the creole seasoning, you don't really taste it.  

So when the green beans were all gone, I still had a bowl full of broth.  So I decided to use the broth to make my turkey giblet gravy.

Roast the neck and giblets in the oven at 350 degrees.  When they're done, chop the giblets and remove the meat from the neck.  

Make a roux with butter (or turkey drippings) and Wondra flour, then mix in the green bean broth.  Add more Wondra flour, and more green bean broth, until you have the amount of gravy you want.  Add the chopped giblets and neck meat.  Warm on low until it's ready.

I discovered that using the broth from the green beans made the giblet gravy taste like... green beans.

Which if you like green beans, is good.  If you don't like green beans, you won't like this.

20th recipe created by me: Mustard baby back ribs

Tonight I had a slab of baby back ribs that I had to do something with.

I've tried several different recipes for ribs, but tonight I decided I was going to try making one on my own.

First I put the following seasonings in a bowl:  Black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, brown sugar.**

**I also added seasoned salt, but due to the salt content in yellow mustard, you don't need the seasoned salt.  Paprika might have been good.

Then I rubbed the slab of ribs with yellow mustard.  Sprinkled the seasoning mixture on the ribs.

Into the oven at 400 degrees.  I put the ribs vertically, in a circle in a cast iron skillet.

Those ribs were the bomb!  They were a little salty, which is why next time I will omit the seasoned salt.  Yellow mustard contains salt.

Nineteenth recipe created by me: Double D sausage beanie weenies!

Someone suggested to me that I try a sausage local to the area, called "Double D sausage."  It's made and sold by the Double D sausage company in Bogalusa, Louisiana.

I was assured that it was the best sausage in the world.  Well, I don't know about in the world, but it is VERY good sausage!

I fried up the smoked sausage in a cast iron skillet, and it was amazing.  I decided to cut the sausage into slices, brown the slices in the skillet, and put them in beans to make beanie weenies out of them.

I put the browned sausage slices in with a can of Maple Bacon flavored Bush's Best canned beans.

There are lots of things you can put in beanie weenies, such as worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, yellow mustard, and such.  But if you use a variety of Bush's Best beans, you don't need to add anything, because those beans are already flavored.

Although you can, if you want to.

The sausage is divine, and cooked in with beans were also very divine!!!

Eighteenth recipe created by me: Lazy Spaghetti Sauce.

Spaghetti sauce is very easy to make.  But this particular sauce is easier than easy, so I called it Lazy Spaghetti Sauce.

I wanted spaghetti sauce, but I was too lazy to brown and drain any ground beef, or chop anything.

So I put a jar of spaghetti sauce in a crock pot.  Added a drained can of carrots, a drained can of mushrooms, onion flakes, dried minced garlic, onion powder, and garlic powder.

No browning required, no chopping required.  Lazy!

I always love meat sauce, so I didn't know if this meatless sauce would be very good.   Yeah, it was pretty good.

I wanted to add some protein to it, so I cut some hard boiled eggs into quarters and added.  Ew, eggs in spaghetti sauce?  Yep!  Italians do it, why not?  It was great!

If eggs are not for you, some drained kidney beans would also add some protein.

Seventeenth recipe created by me: Coca Cola Ranch Ribs

As with most recipes "created by me", this was pretty much on accident.

I found a recipe on the internet for coca cola baby back ribs.  I love baby back ribs, and I love coca cola!  So I decided to try it!

Alas, the store did not have baby back ribs; They had St Louis ribs.  Not quite the same thing; They are both pork ribs, but baby back is a different part of the pig.  Personally I prefer baby backs, but, I got the St Louis ones.

The recipe called for salt, pepper, coca cola, and BBQ sauce.  You season the ribs with salt and pepper, put them in a crock pot with some coca cola, slow cook on low for 8 hours, transfer to an oven pan, slather with BBQ sauce, put under the broiler until the sauce is caramelized.

Well, it's a great recipe, except I kinda did it wrong.  I seasoned the ribs with salt and pepper, but instead of pouring just a can of coke in the crock pot over the ribs, I used about a liter of coke.  Also, the bottle had been opened 2 months ago, so there was little carbonation, which may or may not have made a difference.

So, I slow cooked the ribs in all of that coca cola.  Refrigerated overnight, removed the fat cap, slow cooked some more.

Because of the excess liquid and longer cooking time, these ribs weren't just fall off the bone... they already fell off the bone!  The ribs were now the consistency of pulled pork, and I didn't even have to "pull" anything.  

Now, it's still rib meat, right?  I scooped it all out of the pot with a slotted spoon into a bowl.  

I suppose I could have gone onto the next step and slathered with BBQ sauce and put under the broiler.

But instead, I wondered how it would taste with ranch dressing.  So I put some ranch on a plate and dipped the rib meat into the ranch.  Mmm, pretty tasty!

Now, if you want the actual experience of eating ribs off the bone, you want to do the above recipe correctly.  

I named this recipe "ribs" because it really was rib meat, as opposed to pulled pork, which is made from the shoulder or butt.  If you like ribs, try them with ranch dressing sometime!

Sixteenth recipe created by me: Fully Loaded Sloppy Joes

I decided to deck out a plain sloppy joe sandwich (which tastes great plain already) with some of my favorite condiments.

Make your favorite recipe sloppy joe mix.  Today I used a seasoning packet and followed the recipe.

Then put the meaty mix on a bun.

Add a little bit of ranch dressing, bacon bits, and parmesan cheese.  Yes, you read that right:  ranch dressing, bacon bits, and parmesan cheese.

If that seems too weird for you, you can substitute sour cream for the ranch dressing, and your choice of shredded cheese for the cheese.

Either way, it will be delicious!!!

Fifteenth recipe created by me: Crunchy Toast

I have always liked toast and butter.  

I liked it so much, that when I was a teenager, I made up a song about it:  "Toast and butter is very very good.  Toast and butter is my most favoritist thing in the world.  TOAST AND BUTTER!!!"  OK, that's not much of a song, just a silly kid singing random phrases, but anyway.

Today I officially created my fifteenth recipe:  Crunchy Toast.

I decided to add a little twist to my beloved toast and butter.  I added some grated parmesan cheese, and some bacony Bac-O's.

Actually they were generic Bac-O's, but you know, crunchy bacon bits.

Those are two of my favorite condiments.  I like to add them to a lot of things.  Macaroni and Cheese is an example.

It was awesome, of course.

So there you go... Crunchy Toast.

Fourteenth recipe created by me: Sloppy Joe Tacos

All right, I didn't want to have only thirteen recipes created by me-- that would be bad luck.

So I came up with a fourteenth recipe, after deciding that I really prefer sloppy joe seasoning, to taco seasoning on ground meat.

So the next time I make tacos, I'm going to make sloppy joe mix, and put it on taco shells.

And there you have the 14th recipe created by me-- Sloppy Joe Tacos!!!

Thirteenth recipe created by me: Smoked Gouda Tacos

This recipe was created for the very simple reason that the only cheese I had on hand to put on my tacos, was smoked gouda.

I wanted tacos, so I browned one pound of ground chuck.  Drained.  Added a packet of taco seasoning and 2/3 cup of beef broth.  

The recipe called for 2/3 cup of water, but I prefer to use beef broth.

I mixed in the seasoning and beef broth, and spooned the mixture on a taco shell.

Added some grated smoked gouda, and sour cream to make a taco.

It was messy, but good!

Smoked gouda is a little unusual to put on tacos, but hey, I like smoked gouda.

twelfth recipe created by me: ground round stew, or yum yum stew?

This is the twelfth recipe created by me, and I can't decide whether to call it ground round stew, or yum yum stew.

It's a stew made from ground round.  

And actually, I was reluctant to try it because I wasn't sure it would be good.  

But when I did try it, I said "yum yum."  Hence, the inability to decide on a name!

I'm not a big fan of stew meat because it's so tough that I don't want to eat it.

So I tried making stew with ground round instead.

Browned the ground round in a cast iron skillet; Added worcestershire sauce, onion powder, and garlic powder.

Added the drained beef to the pot, along with cut up carrots, onions, and whole mushrooms.

I had planned to add potatoes too, but there wasn't enough room in the pot.  Potatoes would have been great though.

Added two cans of cream of chicken soup, mixed with milk, and a packet of Lipton onion soup mix.

Let it cook on low for several hours.  

It was, well, yum yum.

This would make a great outdoor camp oven meal, over coals.

Eleventh recipe created by me: onion garlic salmon

This recipe was created by accident.  


I planned to make salmon and noticed that I had an onion that needed to be used before it went bad.


So I sauteed the sliced onion in butter in a cast iron skillet.


Added a fillet of salmon to the same pan with the sauteed onions.  


On the salmon I put McCormick garlic bread sprinkle, dried onion flakes, and dried minced garlic.


Then put the same pan in the oven, and baked at 350.


If you have fresh garlic cloves, feel free to add those while sauteing the onions.

tenth recipe created by me: bacon bratwurst

Actually, this recipe was going to be called "beef bacon bratwurst", since I used beef bacon to make it.


Did you know there was such a thing as beef bacon?  I did not, until I saw it in the grocery store, in the same section as the regular bacon.


Evidently, it's an alternative bacon for people who do not eat pork, for cultural or religious reasons.


This was my first time trying beef bacon.  


Frankly, I did not like the beef bacon, and it's more expensive than regular bacon.


So I'm going to call this recipe "bacon bratwurst", since I think regular bacon would be better.


It's very simple.  Grill some bratwurst.  Fry some bacon in a pan.


Serve the bacon on the bratwurst.


Alternatively, you can wrap the bacon around the bratwurst before you grill.


Finish in the oven at 250, to make sure it's cooked all the way through, without charring the outside.

Ninth recipe created by me: garlic butter bacon pasta

Because I added my own little twists to these two pasta recipes, I decided to deem the 9th recipe created by me.

I name it garlic butter bacon pasta.

Similar to shrimp scampi, except for the fresh herbs and bacon bits.

It can be made with shrimp or crab (or both), and with sage or thyme (or both).

The sage or thyme have to be fresh! Dried will not do in this case.

You cook your pasta separately.

Then you melt some butter in a skillet, and saute some minced garlic along with fresh sage or thyme.

Add some cooked shrimp or crabmeat; saute some more.

Toss with the pasta, and top with bacon bits and parmesan cheese.

It's an awesome thing to do with leftover spaghetti.

eighth recipe created by me: cheddar melt lasagna

This recipe was created by accident, based on what I had available, as most of my recipes are.

It's cheddar melt lasagna. Note I said cheddar melt, not cheddar cheese. There's a difference.

Cheddar melt is a combination of shredded cheddar and shredded american, and it melts much better.

Basically, I had some leftover lasagna noodles and sauce, but was out of mozzarella and ricotta cheese.

I did, however, have some cheddar melt. So I baked the noodles and sauce, topped with cheddar melt!

There you go, cheddar melt lasagna.

seventh recipe created by me: black bean and tomato dip

This recipe was created this morning on a whim.

I was going to make some more salsa to enjoy with my chips, but I had a can of black beans.

So I mixed the black beans drained, 2 roma tomatoes, cilantro, and minced garlic.

I tried it and decided something was missing, so I added a half a jalepeno pepper, like I do for salsa.

I don't normally include peppers in anything; I make an exception for salsa.

I could have added onion, but I didn't. Add it if you want.

This is essentially, my salsa without the onion, less tomato, and black beans.

Black bean and tomato dip!

sixth recipe created by me: blue corn chip pie

This was a recipe I created a while back, from white chili that was made by someone else.

White chili is chili with chicken and white beans, instead of beef and pinto or red beans.

I didn't actually make the white chili, and it's not my first choice; Someone else had made it.

I decided to spruce it up by making a "frito pie", except I used blue corn chips instead of fritos!

Basically, take the white chili, add shredded cheese, sour cream and blue corn chips.

There you go, blue corn chip pie!

Fifth recipe created by me: Bacon salmon

This recipe was created by me this evening, part by necessity: Bacon salmon.

See, after scorching the bottom of my camp oven dish last night, I wanted to fry some bacon in my 12 inch camp oven to help re-season it.

So I was planning to have a "breakfast for dinner" night, in which I would serve eggs and bacon and toast, and maybe pancakes too if I felt like it.

But my other half wanted salmon, so he asked if I could make something with salmon AND bacon.

I thought that sounded kind of weird, but wasn't opposed to the idea.

The result was the fifth recipe created by me, which is Bacon salmon.

It's very simple: You season a salmon fillet with black pepper and spray with olive oil Pam.

Bake it in the oven at 350. While it's baking in the oven, fry some bacon on the stove.

Put the cooked bacon over the salmon fillet, and serve.

Alternatively, you can wrap the raw bacon around the salmon and bake it in the oven at 350.

But, I wanted to fry the bacon, so that's what I did.

fourth recipe created by me: Chicken stock fish

This recipe doesn't seem like it would be good, but the fish turned out very moist.

One night, I had some chicken stock and celery to use up, and some fish in the freezer.

So I laid the fish out in a cast iron skillet, along with the cut up celery, and poured over the chicken stock. Into the oven at 350.

One day I might come up with a better name than Chicken Stock Fish, but that's exactly what it was.

This is similar to the skillet poached salmon, except that's made on the stove with white wine.