Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

Ingredients

  • 1 pkg. (16 oz.) dried green split peas, rinsed
  • 2 cups cubed fully cooked ham (we used ham from the “Brown Sugar-Bourbon-Glazed Ham” recipe
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 cup julienned or chopped carrots (we chopped our carrots)
  • ½ tsp. dried rosemary, crushed
  • ½ tsp. dried thyme
  • 1 carton (32 oz.) reduced-sodium chicken broth
  • 2 cups water

Directions

  1. Using a 4- or 5-quart slow cooker, add all the ingredients to it, stirring to combine. Put a lid on the slow cooker and let it cook on LOW for 8 to 10 hours or until the peas are tender.

Serves 8.

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This is such a scrumptious, filling and satisfying soup to have on a cold day. As the soup cooks, the house gets filled with all the aromas from the soup which just gets you that much more excited to eat this when it’s done cooking. The soup has a smokiness and a light sweetness to it that we think comes from the ham. The onion still has a little bit of bite to it even after all the time spent cooking it. You could use other types of cooked ham but we think the soup tastes the best when the ham from the “Brown Sugar-Bourbon-Glazed Ham” recipe is used in it.

Recipe source unknown.

Take care everybody !

B.A.T.H. Grilled Cheese Sandwich

We were thinking about the b.l.t. sandwich and decided to do our own initial-based sandwich !

Ingredients

  • Sourdough bread
  • Mayonnaise
  • Habanero cheese (we used 3 slices per sandwich, divided)
  • Avocado, sliced (½ of an avocado per sandwich)
  • 1 pound of Oscar Mayer Naturally Smoked Bacon, cooked (you’ll need 4 slices per sandwich and any bacon leftover is great for munching on)
  • Tomatillo spread
    • 1 pound of tomatillos, husks removed and afterwards cored and quartered (halve the quarters if the tomatillo is big)
    • ¼ cup water
    • ½ tsp. kosher salt

Directions

  1. First start off by making the tomatillo spread: Add the tomatillos and water to a blender. Puree until smooth. Take a large skillet out and add the pureed tomatillo mixture into the skillet. Set the heat to medium-high and add the salt in, stirring to combine. Stirring frequently, reduce the mixture until it has a spread-like consistency. Let it cool down to room temperature.
  2. Now you can start making this sandwich. Spread mayonnaise on one side each of two slices of sourdough bread.
  3. Get a large skillet out and set the heat to low. Once the skillet’s hot, place one slice of the bread in the skillet, mayonnaise side down. Use enough of the tomatillo spread to cover the non-mayo side of the bread followed by: 1 ½ slices of the cheese, bacon, avocado, the other 1 ½ slices of cheese and finally the other slice of bread, mayonnaise side facing outward.
  4. We don’t remember how long it took to cook the first side but it couldn’t have been more than a minute or so ! At this point you flip the sandwich over and cook until it has a nice golden brown crust to it. Eat right away !
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This turned out really good ! The avocado adds a nice creaminess, the tomatillo spread has a great tanginess to it, the habanero cheese provides a little heat and the bacon provides a nice contrast in texture as well as a nice level of saltiness.

This recipe was something we thought up ourselves !

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Oscar Mayer.

Take care everybody !

Poblano-Tomato Soup

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds halved tomatoes (we cored the tomatoes before cutting them in half)
  • 6 garlic cloves
  • 3 halved shallots
  • 1 red bell pepper, halved and seeded
  • 1 poblano pepper, halved and seeded (we used 3 poblanos that were 4 ½ inches long each)
  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 cup unsalted chicken stock
  • ¼ teaspoon salt (we used 1 ½ tsp. of kosher salt*)
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground coriander
  • ¼ cup cilantro leaves
  • 4 lime wedges

Directions

  1. Take a jelly-roll pan and place it in the oven. Turn on the broiler and get preheated on the high setting.
  2. Take a large mixing bowl out and add the following ingredients to it: tomatoes, garlic, shallots, red bell pepper, and the poblano. Pour the oil over the ingredients in the bowl, tossing to coat everything in the oil. Take the pan out of the oven long enough to place the vegetables on it, spreading them out as evenly as possible. Stick the pan back in the oven for 10 minutes or however long it takes for the veggies to get blackened.
  3. Once the vegetables are roasted (or blackened as they put it in step 2), place them in a blender (some juice accumulated on the pan during the cooking process and we add that to the blender as well). The vegetables are going to be hot still, so make sure you remove the center piece of your blender lid so steam can escape. Put the lid on the blender after removing the center piece but place a towel (we used some paper towels folded over) over the center so your kitchen doesn’t become a splatter zone. Blend everything until it has a smooth consistency. Once smooth, add the chicken stock, salt, ground cumin and ground coriander to the blender, blending it all together afterwards. Split the soup into 4 portions (around 1 ¼ cup per portion) and divide the cilantro equally between the portions. Serve each portion with a lime wedge.
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*We’re not gonna lie, the soup tasted like water with the original amount of salt. The additional salt though brought out the flavors of the roasted vegetables.

This was a tasty take on the classic tomato soup. We enjoyed it hot or at room temperature. You’ve got to add the lime juice to the soup ! The soup is tasty without the lime juice but squeezing the lime wedge over the soup adds a great acidic brightness to the dish.

Recipe source unknown.

Take care everybody !

Gussied Up Mac ‘N Cheese

We found this recipe in a Southern Living magazine and just had to try it out !

Ingredients

  • 1 (16-oz.) package cavatappi pasta (we used corkscrew pasta)
  • 1 Tbsp. salt
  • ½ lb. andouille sausage, casings removed* (we used a whole pound of Roger Wood brand andouille)
  • 4 cups heavy cream
  • 1 (16-oz.) package pasteurized prepared cheese product, cut into 1-inch cubes (we used original Velveeta)
  • 2 cups (8 oz.) freshly shredded smoked Cheddar cheese
  • ½ cup freshly shredded aged Gouda cheese
  • ½ cup freshly shredded Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
  • 1 (5-oz.) package unsalted kettle-cooked potato chips, crumbled (lightly salted potato chips may be substituted) (we used Lay’s Lightly Salted potato chips)

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Look at the box the pasta came in for cooking instructions and follow those directions for the al dente results, adding that one tablespoon of salt to the water. Once cooked, drain the pasta and leave it off to the side for now (we put our pasta in a sealed mixing bowl so the pasta wouldn’t get dried out or stuck together).
  2. While the pasta’s cooking, quarter the andouille lengthwise. Now take each of the quartered pieces of andouille and slice them into ¼-inch-thick pieces.
  3. Take a Dutch oven out and set the heat to medium-high. Once the Dutch oven’s hot, toss the andouille in and let it cook for 3 minutes or until it looks browned around the edges, stirring constantly. Once browned around the edges, scoop out the andouille and lay it on a paper towel lined plate so any grease can drain off.
  4. Pour the cream into the Dutch oven and wait for it to come a simmer. As soon as you see the cream is at a simmer, turn the heat down to low and stir in the cheese product. Keep stirring until the cheese product has completely melted at which point you can add all the other cheeses in and toss the sausage back in, remembering to continue stirring constantly. Once all the cheeses have melted, turn off the heat and take the Dutch oven off the the stovetop. Stir the pasta in afterwards.
  5. Take a 3-quart baking dish or 12 (8-oz.) ramekins out and butter up the inside(s) of whichever one you go with (we used a 3-quart baking dish). Pour the Dutch oven mixture into the baking dish and top it with the potato chips you crushed earlier. Stick the dish in the oven for 20 minutes or until the dish is bubbly and looks browned. Take the dish out of the oven and let it sit for 5 minutes before serving.

* This is how we removed the casing from the andouille:

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We had trouble picking between all the scrumptious mac & cheese photos that we took so we’re posting several but really, is there such a thing as too many pictures of macaroni & cheese?

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This is such a scrumptious comfort food dish. It’s creamy, the potato chips add a crunch to the dish. The pasta was perfect for catching all the sauce with. Naturally the andouille brought a ton of flavor to the dish as well. You do have to eat the mac & cheese when it’s hot though or else you’ll only be able to eat a small portion before feeling full.

We weren’t paid in any way to promote Southern Living, Roger Wood, Velveeta, or Lay’s.

Take care everybody !

Melting Snowman Cookies

Ingredients

  • ½ cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tube (16 oz.) refrigerated sugar cookie dough, at room temperature
  • 6 marshmallows
  • 1 can (16 oz.) white frosting (we used Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Vanilla Frosting) (we’d get two cans to play it safe)
  • 12 pieces (1″ long) red licorice laces or Twizzlers Pull-n-Peel candy (we couldn’t get an inch long one to sit the way it was supposed to but a 3-inch long one got the job done)
  • 24 mini rainbow nonpareil candies (we used M&M’s Minis)
  • 3 orange gumdrops
  • M&M’s Minis (we used rock-shaped chocolate since we didn’t want the same candy being used for both earmuffs and buttons)
  • 1 tube (4.25 oz.) black decorating icing

Directions

  1. Bake cookies:
    1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Take two baking sheets out and line with parchment paper. Take a large mixing bowl out and add the flour and cookie dough to it, beating them together with a hand mixer on low speed until blended. Place the dough on a lightly floured surface, rolling it out until it’s ¼-inch thick. Using a knife, cut out 12 (3 1/4″) wavy round shapes (we didn’t get 12 out of our dough so we probably cut ours too big). Place each shape on the lined baking sheet, trying to keep them 2 inches apart. Stick each sheet in the oven for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies look golden. Cut each marshmallow in half crosswise, placing the cut side down onto each cookie. Put the cookies back in the oven just long enough for the marshmallows to slightly puff up and stick to the cookie, about 1 minute. Allow the cookies to cool completely.
  2. Coat cookies:
    1. Line two rimmed baking sheets with wax paper, placing a rack on top of each lined baking sheet. Place the cookies on the rack. Take a microwave-safe bowl out and add the frosting to it. Microwave the frosting on High in 20-second intervals, stirring afterwards, until the frosting looks pourable but still a little bit on the thick side. Spoon the frosting over each cookie, spreading it out to ensure a complete cover of frosting on the top. Jiggle the rack just a little bit to help any excess frosting drip off. Re-melt the excess frosting that dripped off and re-pour over the cookies if needed. Keep any frosting that’s left over off to the side. Let the cookies dry for 2 hours.
  3. Decorate cookies:
    1. After the two hours have passed, re-melt any leftover frosting. To create the earmuffs, take one licorice piece and stick each end of it into frosting that you apply to each side of the marshmallow on each cookie (Since the licorice was so hard to work with, we just stuck the ends into the marshmallows and we didn’t have to use any frosting. Our licorice did feel like it’d been on the shelf for a couple of years though so we either microwaved it for a few seconds or rolled it between our fingers before sticking it into the marshmallow). With leftover frosting, apply a little to one side of the nonpareils (or mini M&M’s in our case) and attach them to the ends of the licorice. (We found that putting the M&M’s in the front rather than the sides looked cuter.) Cut noses from the gumdrops (depending on the size, each drop was cut into 1/8 or 1/16) and attach them to the face using excess frosting (we were able to just insert them into the marshmallow without using frosting). Attach the buttons to the body with frosting as well (the rocks were just pressed in and they settled nicely). Using the icing, pipe on the arms, eyes, and mouths.
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This is what the licorice looked like after an hour or so:

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We were really proud of how these turned out. Instead of looking terrible, these cookies looked scrumptiously cute ! The one downside to these cookies was that after an hour, the licorice popped out. To avoid the situation, you can either not use earmuffs on the melted snowman or draw a line on the cookie connecting the two nonpareil candies together. If nothing else when it comes to decorating the snowman, you can choose to follow the suggested candies or go your own route and pick whichever candies sound delicious to you !

We got this recipe from a Woman’s World magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to mention Pillsbury, Twizzlers, M&M’s or Woman’s World.

Take care everybody !