These Burgers be crazy.

For those of you who read my blog often, I’m sure you’re starting to see a pattern…

jalapenos.

guacamole/ avacado.

cheese.

These burgers contain all of the above, and the recipe for the patty is to die for!

Recipe: (from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground beef (I like organic/ grass fed beef.)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 3/4 cup dry bread crumbs
• 3 tablespoons evaporated milk
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, minced

Directions

1. Preheat grill for high heat.
2. In a large bowl, mix the ground beef, egg, bread crumbs, evaporated milk, Worcestershire sauce, cayenne pepper, and garlic using your hands. Form the mixture into 8 hamburger patties.
3. Lightly oil the grill grate. Grill patties 5 minutes per side, or until well done.

 

I served with pepper jack cheese, homemade guac, jalapenos from our garden, and grilled onions. Put it all together on a whole foods wheat bun, and enjoy!

Mama Goose’s Pesto BLTC

Today, Jarrod and I had these delicious sandwiches for lunch. They’re my own creation, and this was our first time testing them out. After making them, I set our plates on the table and  went in the kitchen to pour some tea. By the time I got back to the table, Jarrod had already eaten his entire sandwich. He’s not one to really go on and on about food, but this time he did! He even told me this is the best sandwich he’s ever eaten. It definitely gives { this one } a run for his money.

Mama Goose’s Pesto BLTC sandwich

1) First  things first. I made this sandwich with my homemade sandwich bread. It’s the only kind of sandwich bread we eat, and it’s a must for the overall deliciousness of the sandwich 🙂

2) Cook the bacon. I’ve found that I like oven cooked bacon the best! It’s easy to do, and easy to clean up!

3) Toast the sandwich bread. On one side of the bread I melted Applegate farms white American cheese.

4) When the bread is done toasting, top the cheese toast slice with thinly sliced tomatoes, baby spinach leaves, and  the bacon.

5) On the other slice of bread, spread a thin layer of mayo and a generous layer of homemade pesto.

Put it all together and ENJOY!!

Perfect Pesto Recipe

We have TONS of Basil in our garden, and it is one of my favorite things (besides avacado, and jalapenos of course!)

Today I made this homemade pesto. and whipped up the most delicious sandwich with it! (post to follow)

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 garlic clove, peeled
• 2 cups fresh basil leaves
• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Instructions

1. Into the bowl of a food processor, add the garlic, basil leaves, pine nuts, Parmesan, salt, and pepper.
2. Pulse until finely chopped.
3. With the blender still running, slowly pour 1/2 cup of olive oil.

tip** you can freeze whatever you don’t use and have it for later!

I’m on a Lemon Kick- Ridiculous Lemon Cookies

I can’t get enough lemon right now. I’m usually such a chocolate person BUT I can’t seem to stop myself from baking lemony treats! Last week I made these {lemon brownies} that I found on pinterest, and last night I whipped up Lemon cookies that are so good that my fam has practically polished them off! Apparently this is an award winning recipe and DUH I can see why!

I found these cookies on pinterest as well! They came from Laurenslatest.com.

Lemon Crinkle Cookies

**the only thing I changed is… I used cane sugar, kosher salt, and organic ingredients**

makes about 2 dozen

Ingredients:
½ cups Butter, Softened
1 cup Granulated Sugar
½ teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 whole Egg
1 teaspoon Lemon Zest
1 Tablespoon Fresh Lemon Juice
¼ teaspoons Salt
¼ teaspoons Baking Powder
⅛ teaspoons Baking Soda
1-½ cup All-purpose Flour
½ cups Powdered Sugar

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease light colored baking sheets with non stick cooking spray and set aside.

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whip in vanilla, egg, lemon zest and juice. Scrape sides and mix again. Stir in all dry ingredients slowly until just combined, excluding the powdered sugar. Scrape sides of bowl and mix again briefly. Pour powdered sugar onto a large plate. Roll a heaping teaspoon of dough into a ball and roll in powdered sugar. Place on baking sheet and repeat with remaining dough.

Bake for 9-11 minutes or until bottoms begin to barely brown and cookies look matte {not melty or shiny}. Remove from oven and cool cookies about 3 minutes before transferring to cooling rack.

This is dedicated to the one I love…

Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! I haven’t gotten to see my own dad yet, but tonight we’re having pizza and beer to celebrate  the first man I ever loved 🙂

The girls and I have had the best time celebrating Jarrod today. He’s such a great daddy, and we wanted nothing more than to make this a special day for him!

First we made him organic peanut butter cookies…

Hoke doing what she does best… getting things out of the pantry

Hen adding the sugar…

Mixing it all up…

Yum!

When the cookies were done and everyone was in bed, mama decorated the kitchen…

Jarrod always  gets out of bed before I do, so I think he was especially surprised this morning when I woke him up to come have fresh ground coffee, and homemade buttermilk biscuits with bacon, egg, and cheese.

Just out of the oven.

This is an old picture! I forgot to take one today because I was too busy eating. Just picture this with eggs added to it 🙂

Then it was time to open his presents! The girls and I worked hard on these.

Just mix 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 cup salt, and 1/4 of a cup of water. Roll into a ball. Mash flat. Make your imprint, and bake @200 degrees Farenheit for 3 hours. Let cool and then paint.

Before I baked them I poked a hole in the top of each. We painted ours a cream color and then I went back and just painted the hand print. After painting, I strung twine through them and hot glued a bow at the top. On the back in sharpie, I wrote the name date, age, and a little father’s day message.

(I know the homemade handprint Father’s day gifts are so predictable, but the girls loved it, Jarrod loved it, they were inexpensive, and all homemade!)

As a cute an inexpensive gift to my dad, I made him this:

I saw several similar ideas on pinterest, but I just spliced a few of those together and came up with this. I think it’s so cute, and he loves peanut m&ms.  I didn’t use a template for the tie. I just eyeballed it. ( As you can probably tell!)

 

 

After such a heavy breakfast and with pizza for dinner tonight, we had a lovely Father’s Day salad for lunch. We used lettuce and veggies from our garden…

Saturday Morning Buttermilk Biscuits (With Bacon and Cheese)

 

 

 

When my husband saw me looking at this recipe from The Hungry Mouse, he begged me to make it. Apparently he wanted it so bad, he woke up early Saturday morning, grabbed my list, and ran to the store to get the buttermilk and bacon. These were easy, delicious, and gone in about a day and a half. I’ve never cooked bacon in the oven before, but I love the new method!

 

Buttermilk Biscuits

2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. kosher salt
4 Tbls. butter (that’s a half a stick)
3/4 cup buttermilk

Makes 6 biscuits, about 3-inches in diameter (or more if you use a smaller biscuit cutter)

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper and set aside.

 Make the dough

In the bowl of your food processor, put the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Pulse the ingredients a few times to combine them.

At this point, take  your butter out of the fridge. You will want your butter to be cold.

Cut the butter into several pieces. Toss them into the dry ingredients in your food processor.

Pulse the flour and butter together a few times until the butter just starts to break down into pieces.

There are a few things that make these biscuits fluff up in the oven. The moisture from these tiny pieces of butter is one of them. It turns into steam and helps leaven the dough.

Drizzle the buttermilk in slowly, pulsing the dough as you go. If you’re using a food processor, keep the top on and pour it through the feeder tube. If you’re using a stand mixer, keep the mixer on low and drizzle it in. If you’re doing it by hand, just pour it in a little at a time, mixing as you go.

The goal is to mix the dough as little as possible. You just want it to come together and be raggy looking. That’s what helps create all those fabulous layers in your finished biscuit.

Your dough should look about like this:

Cut the biscuits

 Flour  a large cutting board or your counter.

Press your dough into a rough ball.

With your hands, smoosh the dough down until it’s flat.

You want it to be about a half-an-inch thick.

Cut your biscuits starting at the edge of the dough. I used a big cutter, so the biscuits would be a good size for sandwiches.

Pick the cutter up, dough and all. Pop the cut biscuit out gently.

Set the biscuit on your prepared sheet pan.

Repeat with the rest of the dough.

When you can’t get any more biscuits out of the dough, take the scraps, press them together into a ball, and mash the dough flat again.

Keep doing this until you’ve used up almost all your dough.

When you get to the last blob of dough, smash it just flat enough so you can trim the edges off with the cutter.

Bake the biscuits

 

Pop the the pan into your preheated 450 degree oven. Bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes, until they’re poofy and golden brown on top.

 

After about 6 minutes, they should be puffing up nicely (but still look raw on the edges)

 

They’re done when they’re golden brown on top.

 

Bacon in the oven

I have never cooked bacon in the oven, but there are several benefits. 1) It tastes incredible 2) You pop it in the oven, and that’s the only work you have to do 3) It keeps your stove top from getting splattered with grease.

 

Line a rimmed baking sheet twice with foil. Lay the bacon out flat and evenly.

 

You can use as much or a little bacon as you would like to cook. (It will turn out the same no matter the amount)

Put the pan in your 450 degree oven with your biscuits.

The bacon will take maybe 13-18 minutes to cook, depending on how crispy you like it. Just keep an eye on it.

 

I took mine out after maybe 18 minutes. My oven seems to take longer to cook.

When it comes out of the oven, you will want to sop the grease up. Set it on a paper towel lined plate. Press paper towels over the top, and most of your great should soak into the towels.

Stick the bacon and the cheese on your biscuit. If you time it right, the bacon and biscuit should melt your cheese. If it doesn’t, stick the sandwich in the microwave for a few seconds.

YUM! Easy Right?!

I personally like Bacon, egg, and cheese biscuits so next time I’m going to add eggs.

 

 

Chicken, Spinach, Goat Cheese Quesadillas with Avacado Sauce

Here are the things I love  most in the world (minus jalapenos) all in one meal!! I saw this recipe on Pinterest, and it came from the blog  Sugar Cooking. I’ve taken a few minutes to look around her site, and there seem to be several delicious recipes that I’d like to try!

J. Boyd loved these and so did I! My Quesadillas really did turn out looking this fab, but I borrowed these pics from the Sugar Cooking Blog, because my pictures turned out so sad …maybe because I was too focused on eating.

We’re having these babies again tonight!

Enjoy!

Chicken, Spinach, Goat Cheese Quesadilla 

Ingredients:

• Flour Totrillas  (I used Whole Foods Organic 365 brand)
• Chicken (cooked and sliced) I cooked mine in the cast iron skillet
• Garlic (1 tsp., minced)
• Baby Spinach (1 pre packaged bag, I used whole leaf WF 365 brand frozen)
• Salt, Pepper, & Cayenne Pepper to taste
• Goat Cheese (4 oz, crumbled)
•  Shredded Monterey Jack
• Non-Stick cooking spray or olive oil

Directions

1. Heat the spinach with the garlic, salt, pepper, and cayenne pepper over medium-low heat in a pan until just wilted. Remove from heath and set aside.
2. Heat the grill pan (or regular pan) over medium-high heat. Spray with non-stick cooking spray or drizzle with olive oil. Toast the inside of the tortilla for about 30 seconds.
3. Take the tortilla off the grill pan and assemble as follows. Over half the quessadilla sprinkle about 2 tablespoons of monterey jack cheese, following by a few slices of chicken, then the spinach, then the crumbled goat cheese.
4. Add to the grill pan and cook for about 1 – 2 minutes. Carefully use a spatula to flip the empty half of the tortilla onto the loaded half. Let the quesadilla cook for about 30 more seconds, then flip it over. Give it another 1 -2 minutes, then remove from the pan and enjoy!

Avocado Sour Cream

Ingredients:

• 1 Avocado, chopped
• 1/3 c. sour cream
• 1 T maynoaise
• 1 lime juice
• 1/4 t onion powder
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Use a fork to mash the avocado as much as you can.
2. Combine it with all other ingredients and stir together.

Note: If you want a thinner dip, stir in a few tablespoons of buttermilk. If you want a smoother dip, throw everything in the food processor.

Salted Caramel Brownie Cookies

These cookies are one of the most divine things I’ve ever eaten! A friend repinned these on Pinterest, and I immediately repinned and ran to the kitchen to make them! I love the combination of sweet and salty, and these were perfection! Enjoy!

PS- Follow me on Pinterest @ Jamie Boyd!

This recipe comes from a blog called the Kitchenist.com, and is adapted from this recipe by Martha Stewart

Salted Caramel Brownie Cookies

makes 12

 

Ingredients-

 

4 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon fine salt

1 egg

1/3 cup lightly packed dark brown sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

1/3 cup toffee bits

a few pinches sea salt

 

 

Directions-

 

1. Preheat oven to 170°C/350°F. Melt chocolate and butter together, either in a small saucepan over the stove, on in a bowl in the microwave. Set aside.

2. In another bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3. In another bowl (or using a mixer), beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy. Add the melted chocolate/butter mixture and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and mix until combined. Stir in the toffee bits- batter will be very thick.

4. Drop heaping tablespoons of batter onto a parchment-lined baking sheet, about 1 to 2 inches apart. (These cookies will not spread much.) Sprinkle a small pinch of sea salt over the top of each cookie, and bake for 12 to 15 minutes. The tops of the cookies will be shiny, crackly and brown, like a brownie. Cool on a wire rack.

• These go fast!!