2-Ingredient Marinade for Pork or Chicken

This is probably my favorite marinade of all time.  And it only calls for 2 ingredients--what could be easier?!  This tastes great on pork chops as well as chicken...especially when it's cooked on the grill.

Ingredients:

Soy Sauce
Honey

No measurements for this recipe.  Use more soy sauce than honey.  On average, you can use 1/2 c. soy sauce and a large spoonful of honey.  Mix to combine.

You can let your meat soak up this marinade for a while in a large Ziploc bag, if desired.

When you cook the meat, it's great to have additional marinade on hand for basting.

Hope you like this combination as much as we do!

Potato Salad

This was my great-grandmother's potato salad recipe and I absolutely love it!  It's rare that I find a potato salad that I like besides this one (maybe we're all particular about certain recipes we grew up with).  I think the difference is that this recipe has a secret ingredient: dill pickle juice!

This recipe doesn't use a lot in the way of measurements.  It's another one that you just eyeball.  If you are using a lot of potatoes, then of course you'll increase the other ingredients.  If you are using just a few potatoes, then cut the ingredients a bit.  It's hard to mess this recipe up.  Aim for a nice consistency for the dressing portion of the potato salad and it should taste just fine.

Potatoes--your choice; I used 8 large baking potatoes
Hard boiled eggs--your choice; I used 10; 7 to cut up and put in the potato salad and 3 for decoration

Dressing mix:
Miracle Whip (or you can use mayo with a splash of vinegar, which is what I usually do)
dill pickle juice
mustard
onion flakes (optional; I don't use it)
salt and pepper to taste
dill weed

Topping:
Eggs--2 or 3 hard-boiled eggs, neatly sliced
dill weed or paprika for color, or you can also throw in radishes for extra color and flavor.

Potato salad isn't that hard to make; it's like bread, it just takes some time since you have to boil eggs and cook the potatoes in advance.  But it's easy enough to boil eggs and easy enough to pop a bunch of potatoes in the oven and let them bake for a while.  The remainder of the recipe is a breeze after these two parts are accomplished.

So, go ahead and get your potatoes baking (if you plan ahead, you can throw extra baked potatoes in the oven some night and already have this step finished).

Also, get those eggs boiled up.  I put my eggs in a pot of cold water, bring the water to a boil, then shut off the burner and allow the eggs to cook (covered) there for the next 15 minutes.  At that point, it's time to drain the hot water off the eggs and add cold water and some ice cubes to stop the cooking process.  This way you end up with nice, yellow yolks as opposed to the greenish-tinged yolks.

Once the eggs are cooled off, of course you peel them!

Once your potatoes have baked and cooled, then you remove the peel from them as well.

Yes, you may boil your potatoes if you prefer to do that as opposed to baking them.  But I have found that there is a small window between when your potatoes will be too hard and when they will become too soft to use.  Baking them gives me the consistency that I'm looking for.

Next, you want to cut up the potatoes into bite-sized pieces.  I typically slice the potato twice, lengthwise so that you're getting about four equal-sized pieces each time you slice through the potato.

Once you get your potatoes sliced, you then chop up the eggs that you are going to put in the salad.  At that point, you add the 3 main ingredients.

I usually begin with a large spoonful of mayo (don't forget to add that splash of vinegar for a better taste!).  Then I'll squeeze a fair amount of mustard on top of the mayo and mix it up a bit to get an idea of the dressing consistency.  If the potatoes still seem a little dry, I might add a bit more mayo or I'll pour in the pickle juice.  Better to add a little than a lot; you can always add more, but you can't take ingredients out once you've mixed them in!  Once you're happy with the consistency, you can then add the remaining ingredients.  For me, that would be the salt, pepper, and dill weed.

I usually prepare my potato salad in a large bowl and then transfer it to my serving dish so I don't have such messy looking sides of the bowl.  Once you have your potato salad in the bowl you plan to serve it in, you can now add the garnishes.  For me, that includes the remaining 3 eggs as well as a little extra dill weed sprinkled across the top.

Cover and refrigerate until well-chilled.  Serve as a side dish to your favorite meal.  My favorite main course to pair this with is grilled pork chops.  Stay tuned for my easy 2-ingredient pork chop marinade, which will be posted very soon!

Savory Slow-Cooker Beef Roast

This is one of my favorite recipes.  I love that I can start out my morning by putting just a few simple ingredients together and wind up with a very tasty meal at the end of the day!  This is another recipe that you can easily play around with--add more veggies or different ones, make it spicy or not-so-spicy (I go for spicy!)...adapt it to your family's tastes and enjoy!

3-4 pound beef roast
1/4 c. flour
2 tsp. dry mustard (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
1 onion, chopped as finely as you wish
2 carrots, peeled and chopped
16 oz. of diced tomatoes (use whatever kind you like; this is where I spice it up and use Rotel w/chiles)
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce (optional)
2 tsp. brown sugar (optional)

Additional ingredient: noodles of any kind or rice.

Start out with your roast.  As you can see, mine is still slightly frozen.

Next, combine the flour, mustard, salt, and pepper, and pat it on your roast.  I took the lazy route yesterday and dumped it all on top of my roast, but you'll get nicer results if you actually coat the meat with the flour mixture.  Set the roast in the crock pot.

Now you want to get your vegetables chopped and combine the remaining ingredients (with the exception of the noodles or rice) in a bowl.

Stir it all up.

Then, pour it on top of your roast.

Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 4-5 hours.  The sauce will thicken up a bit as a result of your flour mixture.  Once the roast is pretty much done cooking, go ahead and start getting your noodles (or rice) prepared.  I personally prefer egg noodles with this recipe.

Cook the noodles according to the directions on the package.  While the noodles are cooking, shred the beef in the crockpot.  Once the noodles have been drained, serve them up on a plate and place a spoonful or two of your beef roast mix on top.

If using a spicy version, make sure to have full glasses of milk on hand for anyone who has a hard time with spicy foods! ;)

Chocolate Haystacks

Remember the chow mein noodles that I used in THIS recipe?  Well, here is what I like to do with any leftover chow mein noodles.  This is yet another fast, simple dessert recipe, using a mere 4 ingredients.  While it tastes great on its own, this would be a fun recipe to play around with.  Add mini-marshmallows for a "rocky road" flavor.  Substitute the chow mein noodles with graham crackers and make a S'mores version.  Add your favorite combinations.  Omit the peanut butter if you don't care for that flavor.  You can even change the name to "Monster Spiders" at Halloween and lay them out so they look more like spider legs.  The sky is the limit.  Have fun!

Ingredients (**Note:  There are no measurements for this recipe; you have to figure out how many noodles you have and estimate the other ingredients accordingly.)

Chocolate chips
Peanut butter (optional)
chow mein noodles
peanuts

Melt the chocolate chips and peanut butter in a sauce pan over low heat.

Once the mixture has reached a smooth consistency, it's time to add your remaining ingredients.

Stir it up well, so all the pieces are coated with the chocolate mixture.

Next, prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper (or wax paper).  Take scoops of the chocolate mixture and set it on the parchment paper.

At this point, the haystacks are not going to stick together--you need to chill them for a while in the refrigerator or other cool place.  Once they have cooled, they look like this:

They can be somewhat messy to eat, so have some napkins on hand and a sense of humor as your family starts to wear chocolate on their faces and hands! ;)  I recommend keeping the haystacks refrigerated/cooled so that they don't fall apart.  Hope you like them!

Scotch Krispy Bars

You've likely seen a dessert recipe similar to this one--I know a lot of people use peanut butter and marshmallows--but this is a unique twist to the recipe and it's been a family favorite for years.  There are NO marshmallows in this recipe, and the bars taste best after they've been refrigerated (this also prevents them from falling apart).  With just 3 ingredients, they are a snap to make!

Ingredients:

6 Cups of Rice Krispies (store brand is just fine)
1 cup of peanut butter
12 oz. butterscotch baking chips

Place the butterscotch chips and peanut butter in a saucepan on the stove and melt them over low heat.

Next, measure out and pour the Rice Krispies into a large bowl.

Once your butterscotch/peanut butter mix has melted completely, pour it over the Rice Krispies.

Mix it together until all the cereal pieces are coated with the butterscotch mix.

Place into a 9x13" pan.  No need to grease the pan, just pour it in, and spread it around evenly.

Place it in the refrigerator and allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes, possibly longer, until the bars are firm.  Slice into serving size pieces and enjoy!

Stuffed French Toast

The other morning I decided I wanted to make a slight change to our typical French toast fare.  I love my basic french toast recipe, but I decided to dress it up a bit and make stuffed french toast in its place.  It turned out great!  For this particular recipe, I paired cream cheese with jam and made it into a creamy spread to place between the slices of bread.  As I finished making breakfast, another thought came to me--the next time I will stuff it with a combination of cream cheese, brown sugar, and cinnamon; I think that would taste really good, too!  Here is my simple stuffed french toast recipe.  There are not a lot of measurements given as I usually just estimate amounts.  In spite of that, I am sure that anyone could make a delicious version of this recipe!

Bread (I used a loaf of the cheap store-bought kind)
2 Eggs
Milk (a fair amount)
Vanilla (just a splash; perhaps 1 tsp.)
Cream cheese
Jam (any kind will do; I used strawberry)
Syrup or powdered sugar as a topping

Heat up a griddle.  Allow a little butter to melt on it so that your bread won't stick.  Also prepare your egg mixture to dip the bread in--beat the eggs, add the milk and vanilla in a shallow dish or bowl.  I used a 9x13" pan for mine.

Next, prepare the bread.

Place a decent amount of your jam/cream cheese mixture on the center of the bread.  For more flavor, use more than I did.

Spread to cover the surface of the bread.

Then place the second piece of bread over top, like you are making a sandwich.

Dip both sides of the bread in the egg and milk mixture, then place onto the hot griddle.

Allow it to cook for a few minutes, then flip when the bottoms are a golden-brown.

Cook the second side until it, too, is nice and golden.

Remove from the pan and serve with either a light dusting of powdered sugar or syrup (or both!) for a sweet treat.  You may decide that it doesn't need anything on top of it, but I have a bit of a sweet tooth!