Banana Cream Pie

Well I have been planning on making this pie for a little while. You see my Youth pastor was leaving and so me and another leader decided to put something together to say good bye for him. We made a card for him,  we had a hat and put little inside jokes all over it using little pins....One was a parrot. We wanted one other thing too though.  I was going to make him  the chocolate cake I have on here, but then I found out he didn't like cake,  but his daughter told me he loved banana cream pie, and so I thought, hey I can do that! And so I did, and everyone liked it! Even someone who didn't like bananas all too much. I hope you get similar reviews if you make this.  I adapted the recipe from one I found in a really old betty crocker book.

Here is what you are going to need!

1 baked nine inch pie crust
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 1/3 cups whole milk
4 egg yokes
3 tablespoons of butter
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon banana extract
1 large banana, diced into quarter inch slices

Oh and if you want you can reserve  the egg whites and make a meringue to top the pie.

How to do it:

1. combine the dry ingredients in a sauce pan and add milk slowly over medium heat. Stirring constantly. Seriously stir constantly or it will burn.
2. When mixture thickens and boils add  half the mixture slowly to the egg yokes stirring constantly still (You don't want to cook the egg yokes)
3. Add the egg mixture to the sauce pan again and bring back to a boil for one minute.
4. Remove from hear and add butter, banana extract, and vanilla extract.
5. Line bottom  of pie crust with banana so that there is almost not crust visible at bottom of pan, if need be add another.
6. Pour mixture over the bananas and the put plastic wrap on pie, carefully pressing down on the mixture. (This prevents the filling from getting a pudding skin)
7. Refrigerate for two hours and then serve with whipped cream.

Coconut Carrot Cookies

Do not let the name throw you! Seriously just don't.  I know I know the name sounds weird and coconut and carrots seem like a very odd combinations and coming along the recipe I adapted this one from  I was a little thrown off myself, but I thought, "Eh why not? I have carrots that are going to go bad if I don't use them soon, and I love coconut! I will make these cookies and pray they are yummy." Guess what! They were! The original recipe called for the cookies to be  topped with frosting, an I decided not to do so because I thought it may add too much. You can add it if you so choose though. These cookies have a subtle sweetness to them.  I hope you enjoy them.

The way I made the cookies they had 140 calories  calories and there were 26 cookies total.

Now here is what you will need: 

 1 cup mashed carrots (This is about 2 large carrots))
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup shortening
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract 
1 3/4 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup shredded coconut

How I mashed my carrots was I just steamed them until they were soft and then put them in a food processor then let them cool.

Now what you will do

1. preheat the over to 400F
2. mix carrots, sugar, shortening, vanilla, and eggs together
3. Stir in flour, salt, and baking powder
4. Stir in coconut
5. Drop  cookies  onto sheet about a couple TBS full. ((I use the medium sized pampered chef scooper)) and bake  ten minutes.

And this is your final product!

Baked Potato Salad. Fully loaded!

Well today I had a picnic to go and I knew what everyone else was bringing, sorta, and I realized there was no potato salad, and so I figured, why not?  I knew, however, potato salad is one of those things that some people like and some don't, and I wanted something I thought everyone would like.  I cut out the usual stuff, well other than the potatoes, and made what  I thought everyone would like.  This dish has bacon and cheese in. I just gotta say that little tidbit is what made my friend Tobi smile and exclaim her belief of my beauty. I hope your friends exclaim the same.  You are all beautiful! And I hope you love this dish. Oh and please note this was made for a group of about  six people.

You can add more or less bacon or cheese depending on your preference .

What you will need:

3 large russet potatoes
1/2 cup Mexican style sour cream
1/2 cup of Mayonnaise
3/4 cup bacon bits ( or you can cook your own bacon and crumble it. I would say 6-8 slices would work)
3/4 cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese
3 green onions  slices cut about a quarter  of an inch, ((Only the green part))
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 dash of Cayenne pepper
1 TBS chopped parley

How to make it:

1:  Peel potatoes, wrap in foil, and bake at 350F for 1.5 hours. After they are done let them cool and cut into half inch pieces.
2: As potatoes are  baking combine the rest of the ingredients in a medium sized bowl and when potatoes are cooled add them,.
3: Refrigerated until ready to serve

Brownies

IT had to happen. Brownies had to be here. Now normally I am not a huge chocolate person. I know. SHOCKER! I mean I am a woman I must love chocolate right? Well, eh I am more spicy than sweet I guess, but I do like brownies. They are a quick and easy dessert. I have made these a few times and people asked for the recipe and so I just put this out here now.  I hope you try this and like them.

What you need

1/2 cup of veggie oil
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup white chocolate (optional)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Here is what you do

1. preheat oven to 350F
2. in a medium bowl mix together everything but the chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and walnuts.
3.   fold in the chocolate chips, and then the optional ingredients.
4. Pour the batter into a well greased eight by eight dish and make 20 to 25 minutes

Tortilla Soup

I am Mexican and  grew up have Mexican food at least once a week so it is no surprise that it is my favorite kind of food.  Unfortunately much of it is high calorie and I have two calorie conscious parents, and so when I found a tortilla soup recipe  that was also low calorie I was so excited!  This recipe is super easy.

The entire pot will be 1200 calories  so you can decide on that how many servings to have.

What you will need.

1 lb ground turkey. (Or, like me, you can use your turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving)
1 TBS olive oil
4 garlic cloves
1 onion
1 28oz can of diced tomatoes
1 can  sweet corn
 1 can drained and rinsed black beans
2 seranno peppers diced
quarter cup of taco seasoning
Tortilla chips
grated cheese

How to make it:

1. Heat olive oil in a large  pan or pot and brown turkey.
2. Add the onions and garlic.
3. Once onions are translucent add everything else. (( if you want it soupier you can add more water))
4.  simmer for thirty minutes and enjoy  topped with grated cheese and tortilla chips.

See I told you it was easy! And this is the yummy final product.

Cuban Pork Shoulder Sandwich

Now, I am a girl who likes all different kinds of flavors. There is  very little that I do not like, and so I recently tried out a little restaurant here in Seattle called Paseo. Let me tell you they were amazing!  They apparently have the fourth best sandwich in the country! Well I unfortunately do not live within walking distance to this little hole in the wall and so I decided to set out and find a recipe that could be similar to it, and I think I have done it. Now, it is not exact, but similar, and I hope you all enjoy it!

Oh and for those of you who do not like onions I beg of you to put them on the sandwich. The onion flavor is not intense and I think the caramelized onions make this dish.

I made this to serve three but had enough left overs for two more sandwiches. 

So here is what you will need:

Marinade
1 Pork Shoulder ( mine was 2.5 lbs)
15 garlic cloves
1 tsp salt
1/2 onion
2 teaspoons ground oregano
1 cup Orange juice
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 cup  lime juice
3/4 cup olive oil.

For the assembly:
Bread (I used the Costco  torta sandwich rolls)
Caramelized onions (Recipe is below)
Mayo (My folks used dijonnaise and thought it worked. It may work for you other calorie conscious people)
picked jalapenos 
Romain leaves
Fresh cilantro leaves

Caramelized onions:
1 Onion
1 TBS oliveoil
1 tsp salt
1 tbs sugar

Now for how to do it

1. In a food processor (If you don't have one a blender will work)  pulse the salt and garlic together.
2.  Chop up onion and pulse it with the salt garlic mixture.
3. Add the juices and oregano and pulse again
4. heat the olive oil on the stove and then add the garlic mixture.
4.5 heat the sauce through.
5. Put the pork shoulder in a bowl and poke holes all thorough it, with a knife or fork, on all sides.
6. Pour the marinade  over the meat.  Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours or  over night.

The next park can be done in a  crockpot or an oven. I did it in the oven.

7. Preheat the oven to  325F
8.  Cook the meat uncovered for one hour per pound of the meat and then add a half hour.  ((Basically cook until it can shred easy))
9. Let the meat rest on a cutting board for ten minutes then cut the fat off and shred it up.
10. Drain the fat from the dish you cooked the meat in and them pour the yummy juices into a large pan, and add the meat with a half cup of water and  bring to a simmer. cook for ten minutes.

As the meat is simmering you can  caramelize the onions,

How you do it:

1: Warm olive oil over medium high heat.
2. As the olive oil heats cut the onion up into half moon about a  quarter inch to a half inch in width.
3. Sautee the onions in the olive oil and add salt and sugar until onion reduces and  turn to a light brown color.

Now you can assemble the sandwich!
I recommend toasting the bread in oven  for maximum deliciousness.

And this is your final product!