Company's coming....dinners on!

OK, so as a whole I do not buy cookbooks. Most of the time you spend twenty five dollars for a couple of recipes and the book sits collecting dust on a shelf you could use for something else. So last week while I was in Oklahoma I ran across this cookbook and I bought it. It's called "The Pioneer Woman Cooks". It is written by a Oklahoma housewife. She and her family live on a horse and cattle ranch. It's a meat and potatoes kind of cookbook.

The thing that intrigued me about the book and the reason I bought it was because it had a lot of recipes from the mid-west and south. Some reminded me of recipes my mom fixed when I was little. So, what's another twenty seven dollars I thought and I bought the cookbook. It is a fun and entertaining cookbook with lots of pictures. Tonight I made dinner with two recipes out of the book. Oh my! My husband's words, "I think this is the best dinner you have ever made, I know the potatoes are". I am not normally a big mashed potato girl, but these, I could have eaten the whole pan. This is NOT a low calorie dinner, but if you got company coming and you want to impress 'em, this would be the dinner. I hope you enjoy and don't forget to give me your thoughts.

Perfect Pot Roast with Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Perfect Pot Roast

3 Tblsps. olive oil
kosher salt & pepper
one 3 to 5 pound chuck roast
2 onions (cut in half from tip to root, cut off tops and bottoms and peel off skin.)
6 to 8 carrots (cut off ends and then cut in about 2 inch chunks)
2 to 2 1/2 cups beef stock
3 to 4 fresh rosemary sprigs
2 to 3 fresh thyme sprigs

Heat oil in a large pot over medium high heat. Add the onions  and brown on both sides. Remove from oil. Next put carrots in the hot oil. Toss them around until slightly brown. Brown them but don't cook them. Remove from pan. Salt and pepper the meat and then put in pan of oil and sear on both sides. Remove and put in crock pot.

To the hot oil add 1 cup of beef stock and whisk constantly to deglaze the pan. The point of deglazing is to loosen all the burned flavorful bits from the bottom of the pot. When done pour over roast in crock pot. Add enough stock to come halfway up the meat. Tuck in the herbs so they are down in the juice and put in carrots and onions. Cook on low for 6-8 hours depending on size of the roast. Serve with Creamy Mashed Potatoes.

(Note: I adapted this recipe to make in the crock pot because it's easier using my crock pot when I work. If you get the book it tells you how to do it in the oven.)

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

5 pounds Yukon Gold Potatoes
1 1/2 sticks of butter, cut in pieces
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup half and half
1/2 tsp. seasoned salt
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Cook the potatoes in boiling water until you can pierce with a fork. Drain and put back in pan. Add butter and mash until mixed. Add cream cheese and mash until mixed. Add seasoned salt, salt, pepper and half and half and mash until smooth. Put in a 2 quart casserole dish and bake for 20 to 30 minutes.

(Note: I also made gravy from the juices of the roast. It made fabulous gravy. And can you really have roast beef and potatoes without gravy?)

Have you seen the muffin man......

I had been on a quest for years to come up with a good muffin recipe. Muffins are notoriously high in calories and not much nutritional value. You can blow two meals calories in one muffin and not get much for it. So I set out trying to create a muffin recipe that will feed your body with good things to start your morning out right. I came up with three. Below are two of the recipes. I will post the other one at a later time. The calorie content is still high, but so is the protein, fiber and calcium. These muffins get you through the morning and they taste good too! I hope you enjoy them.

Lavender Lemon with Blueberries

Lavender Lemon Muffins

1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. McCormick Lavender
1 1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats (put through food processor until coarsely chopped)
1/2 cup nuts
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
3 oz. cream cheese
1/4 cup lemon yogurt
2/3 cup buttermilk
1/8 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. lemon extract
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 and spray muffin tins with cooking spray. Combine sugar, lavender and lemon zest in a food processor. Process until lavender is chopped fine. (Remove 2 Tblsps. You can either discard or sprinkle on top of muffins right before cooking.) Combine sugar mixture, flour, oats, nuts, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl mix cream cheese until smooth. Blend in yogurt, buttermilk, oil, lemon extract and egg. Add to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Bake for approx. 30 minutes.
(variation-add on cup of blackberries or blueberries once everything has been stirred together.)

Banana Nut Bran Muffins

Banana Nut Bran Muffins

1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup oats (put through food processor until coarsely chopped)
1/2 cup wheat bran
1/2 cup nuts
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 bananas (quarter banana and then sliced thinly)
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 and spray muffin tins with cooking spray. Combine sugar, flour, oats, bran, nuts, cinnamon, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk together banana, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and egg. Add to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Bake for approx. 30 minutes.

Note: I bake my muffins in large muffin tins so if you use smaller tins you might have to adjust the cook time. Recipes make approx. 6 big muffins. Also, if you find you like these muffin process enough oats to last a while and then just keep them in the freezer.