I love root beer. More than I love you. A lot more.

I don’t like root beer floats cause I don’t like how the ice cream gets all runny and…blech. This is the best of both worlds. A blend. And super easy.
ingredients:
2 – 12 oz bottles of root beer (let them sit a bit and get flat.)
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 cup whole milk or half and half

This recipe couldn’t be more simple. Mix up all the ingredients. Let the foam die down a little.

Pour into your prepared ice cream maker. It takes about 20 – 30 minutes, I’d say.

Let me tell you, IT IS DELICIOUS. Wow.

If you know me, you know I am ANTI-box cake. I must make everything from scratch. However, to show that I am able to adapt to anything, here’s a recipe that partially uses a box cake mix.
ingredients:
1 package chocolate cake mix
1 cup cold coffee
1/4 cup water
1/3 cup butter, soft
2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1 (12 oz) package chocolate chunks

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a bundt cake pan with melted butter. Here’s a tip, don’t flour the cake pan after you’ve buttered it. You will get a grimy mess of a cake.

Also, these new sili-brushes rock the house.

Mix all ingredients except the chocolate chunks.

Mix until well blended.

Stir in the chocolate chunks, and spoon the batter into the greased bundt pan. Bake for 40-50 minutes. Let the cake cool a good 10 minutes, out of the oven. Usually I wait for the bundt to be cool to the touch to turn it over, otherwise you make end up with a broken cake.

The flavors of cinnamon and coffee, combined with chocolate, makes this cake taste similar to a Mexican hot chocolate.

Honestly, you won’t find a better creme brulee recipe anywhere. This was originally a Kincaid’s of Hawaii creme brulee recipe. What makes it ‘perfect’ and what makes it ‘Cheryl’s'? Well, when I make it, it’s so so. When she makes it, it’s perfect. No one want’s Jenn’s so-so creme brulee recipe, you know? Therefore, I suggest you get Cheryl to make it for you. Otherwise it won’t taste as good.
ingredients:
1 pint whipping cream
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup granulated Sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon brown sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Heat cream over low heat until bubbles form around the edge of pan. Beat egg yolks and sugar together until thick, about 3 minutes. Gradually beat cream into egg yolks. Stir in vanilla and pour into 6 (6oz.) custard cups.

Place custard cups in baking pan that has about 1/2 inch water in bottom. Bake until set, about 45 minutes. Remove custard cups from water and refrigerate until chilled. Sprinkle each
custard with about 2 teaspoons sugar blend. Place on top rack under broiler and cook until topping is medium brown. Chill before serving.

Optional: Garnish with Mint Leaf and fresh raspberries.

These things are EXTRAORDINARILY good. I’ll have to post a picture to go with this recipe later, as they get eaten up way too fast for picture taking.

Sausage and onions. A match made in heaven. Oh and then put them together in a tiny edible carrying pocket? Mmm. Heaven, indeed.
ingredients:
10 ounces kielbasa
1 small onion, chopped tiny
2 cups flour
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 large egg
3 TB butter, melted
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, grated

Preheat your oven to 375 and line your cupcake pan with paper or sili liners. Or grease it with butter if you are old skool like that.

Cut up the kielbasa into tiny-ish pieces. Cook the sausage in a pan on high heat until it gets that lovely brown-ish caramelized look to it. About 8 minutes. Put it to the side to drain on paper towels. Now put the onions in and saute for 3 minutes til you get that great smell and the same caramelized look. The reason you do the onions after, is so that they pick up all the lovely flavors that the sausage left behind.

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, lightly beat the egg with the milk and add the butter. Add the milk mixture all at once to the dry ingredients, just until combined, then stir in the cooked sausage, sauteed onions and the grated cheddar cheese. Don’t overmix, just until combined.

Spoon the batter into your prepared cupcake pan. Divide it all evenly into the 12 cups. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes, until just cooked. Cool for about 10 minutes. These are GREAT served warm with some hot soup. Kids love to eat them too!
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We are big fans of Southern food. Bigger fans of fried chicken. It sounds strange but Cap’n Crunch cereal makes this chicken sweet and tasty. You can fry it in oil, or be good to your heart and oven fry. It’s just as yummy.
Ingredients:
2-1/2 cups Cap’n Crunch cereal
1 cup Cornflakes (plain!)
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
2 pounds chicken pieces (or breasts cut into tenders)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Crush, grind, bash, any way you can, get the Cap’n Crunch and the Corn Flakes smashed to smithereens. The finer the better. I put the cereals in a freezer bag and have at it with a rolling pin. That works for me.

Stir together the onion powder, garlic powder and black pepper. Combine with the flour and set aside.

In a separate plate beat the egg with the milk.

Wash and dry your chicken. I cannot stress this enough. I am a bacteria-phobe and believe that washing the raw chicken will get you to heaven.

This is how your assembly line should look:
chicken, seasoned flour, egg+milk and cereal.

Place the chicken on a non-stick foil lined cookie sheet. Bake for 1 hour. Now, you are more than welcome to do it the traditional way and fry the hell out it. I prefer the semi-healthy way and ‘oven frying’ it. It’s still just as tasty.

This is a really easy and amazingly tasty recipe.

And as my son said, “Mommy! This is GOOD CHICKEN!”

Secret ingredient? SPRITE. You heard me. It makes the meat surprisingly tender and barbeques up great!

ingredients:
3 lbs short ribs
1/4 C sesame seeds toasted
1 C soy sauce
1 C sugar
1Tbsp sesame oil
1 tsp pepper
1 C green onion, chopped
3 cloves garlic
1 can sprite

If you can’t get short ribs where you are, any kind of thin steak will do, boneless or not. Just slice it up after you’ve grilled it.

(If looking at raw meat makes you sick, as it does me, then don’t look to the right, just keep on reading)

Put the meat in a container with a lid.

Combine all the ingredients and mix well. Pour over the meat and seal well, put in the fridge, 5-8 hours is best, turning now and then to make sure all the meat gets soaked. Sometimes I even do it overnight.

Grill the meat, only a few minutes each side, since the cut is pretty thin. Let rest for a few minutes, then serve.

It’s the SPRITE that does the trick here, folks. That’s good stuff.

Serve with a bunch of cold side dishes. Yum!

This “sauce” was originally to be used with white fish, but I made this when I was pregnant, so I couldn’t eat white fish. I tried it with pasta. Not bad.
ingredients:
half a head of garlic
1 large shallot
olive oil
teardrop tomatoes
green olives
spinach
pasta

I diced the shallot and the garlic and put it on medium high heat, with some olive oil. I like lots of garlic, so it was pretty loaded.

After the shallot became soft, I added the tomatoes, which I sliced in half, so they wouldn’t be so sour. I also added pepper and salt.

I liked the taste of these particular Spanish olives, so I chopped up about 1/4 cup, depending if you like olives…

Add the olives and the spinach and let simmer til all the flavors kind of blend together. You can also try it the way it was supposed to be, over seared white fish.

This is an awful picture, but trust me, it tastes great.

I love coffee, and I love mochi. So I tried to come up with something that was a combo of the two. This recipe turned out great and was easy to make.
ingredients:
1 (16oz) box mochiko
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1-1/2 cups milk
10 ounces strong coffee
1 teaspoon vanilla

katakuriko – potato starch

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, grease a 9×13 inch pyrex with butter. Get a large mixing bowl and stir together the dry ingredients. Now, as far as coffee, you can use instant if you don’t have fresh brewed on hand, just make it STRONG, that is where your flavor comes in.

Add the milk, coffee and vanilla to the dry mixture. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan. Cover tightly with foil – place the pan in the center of the over and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Uncover and cool for several hours.

When cool, use a plastic knife to cut it. Roll it around in some potato starch (katakuriko), that will keep it from sticking to each other when you serve it. Potato starch is just a light flavorless flour, don’t freak out at the name.
I like to cut mine into tiny bite sized pieces, but big ol’ chunks work well too. This is a really lightly sweet treat, that is great for dessert or snacking. Mochi is tasty, but the coffee in this gives it a really great addicting taste.