A Few Good Eats

I love to eat, and cook, so food is on my mind quite a bit. Here are a few of the things we've had lately:
PW's Cheeseburger Salad. I made this for the first time when we had company last week. Wasn't sure if it would flop or be a hit. It was a hit! Everyone went back for seconds until it was gone. First, you need to make your croutons. The recipe calls for 4 actual hamburger buns, but I only had two, so I also used bread and it turned out fine. Cut them into cubes, place them on a cookie sheet, pour a cube of melted butter all over, stir around to coat, then put in a 375 oven, turn on your oven light and watch them. Set your timer to stir and check them every 5-10 min until golden brown and crispy. If you've never made your own croutons, I'm sorry to inform you that after eating homemade you'll never again be able to buy those store-bought, hard little brick-ettes they call croutons out of the box. Sorry. While they're cooking, brown 2 lbs. hamburger. I did 3 lbs. for the bigger crowd we had. Then add 1/3 c. ketchup, 1 tsp. yellow mustard, 1 T. dijon mustard, and 2 T. BBQ sauce to meat. Stir and keep warm. Now the hard part, grate up some cheddar cheese, chop some tomato, slice some onions, tear up some lettuce, and most importantly, chop up some dill pickles. When ready to serve, everyone gets a pile of lettuce, puts some of the warm meat on top, then adds the toppings as they choose. Two things they can't miss though are the croutons and the pickles, they totally make the salad. Everyone wanted to pull out the ranch dressing but I convinced them to try it first without, and they all agreed it didn't need it. It ends up tasting more like an actual cheeseburger rather than a salad that way. Try it!
Another favorite is to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on some nice quality bread, then brush olive oil or melted butter on the bread and toast it until lightly golden in a hot pan. Serve with some salty chips and a glass of cold milk, .......utterly delicious!
I may have mentioned this before, but cooking bacon in the oven is the only way to go. If you're still frying on the stove top and making a greasy mess, you'll be glad to learn there's no mess with this method. Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Cover a cookie sheet with foil and spread your bacon slices evenly over the pan. If you have a convection oven you can do more than one pan at a time. Place pan in oven and watch and cook it for about 10-15 minutes. You may have to rearrange slices during cooking if they're not cooking evenly. Remove slices to a paper towel to drain, then pour off grease if you're saving it, otherwise just crumple up the foil and throw it away, your pan is perfectly clean.
Last but not least, I recently made "Hand Pies". They are just little individual pies that you can hold in your hand. Too yummy! They were simple to make - you could use premade crust if you wanted, but I have discovered the easiest and best pie crust recipe ever, so I used that. You need a food processor though. You just put 2 1/2 cups flour, 1 tsp. each of salt and sugar, and 1 c. butter cut into pieces in the processor and turn it on. After 10 seconds and while still running, slowly pour in 1/4 to 1/2 c. ice water until crust forms a ball. That's it! Just place on lightly floured counter and roll it out as thin as you can, and cut into 4-inch circles or squares. Place a spoonful of any flavor canned pie filling on crusts, (I made cherry and apple and they were both delicious), lightly wet edges with your finger dipped in water and fold over. Use fork to lightly make fork impressions on cut edges. Brush with water and sprinkle with plain or decorative sugar, if desired and bake at 375 for about 15 minutes or until lightly golden. Cool and eat!
Give these ideas a try and let me know how you like them!