Air Fryer Broccoli Casserole

As I made our late lunch today, I realized I had two small heads of fresh broccoli that needed to be used ASAP.  A quick check of the pantry provided a can of cream of mushroom soup, and the fridge had sour cream, mayo, an egg, and shredded sharp cheddar!  Let's make a casserole!

Lightly grease an 8 x 8 baking dish.  

Trim the fresh broccoli and separate the florets into bite-sized pieces.  I rinsed my broccoli florets and drained in a plastic colander and then zapped them in the microwave for a minute to start the cooking process.

In a medium mixing bowl, I combined one small can of cream of mushroom soup, 4 oz. sour cream, 1/4 cup of Duke's mayo, one large egg.  Add salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste.  Fold in the broccoli.  (I had about 4 cups of broccoli.)  Stir in about 2  cups of shredded sharp cheddar.  

Spoon into the prepared baking dish.  

I already had potatoes baking in the air fryer, so I placed the baking dish on the tray and into the air fryer it went as well.

I baked at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.  You can certainly use your conventional oven.

This made the perfect amount for our late lunch and we even had a little left over for another meal.  It was a great way to use what I had on hand for a great side dish.

Crawfish Dressing

 

For Thanksgiving, chicken and dressing is a must.  There's no other choice but for me to bake chicken and dressing for our table.  But this year, I thought I'd shake up the routine a bit and add a second dressing to the Thanksgiving menu.  Now I'll be perfectly honest with you here.  The general consensus of my diners was this:  "You can never NOT make chicken and dressing, but this crawfish dressing is delicious!"

Make sure you purchase wild caught crawfish from the Gulf Coast if possible.  We really can't be sure about foreign farm raised crawfish.  Pay the extra cost for wild caught, please.

1 T. extra-virgin olive oil

8 oz. Conecuh sausage (sliced lengthwise and then into 1/4" rounds)

4 T. unsalted butter, divided

1 large yellow onion, copped

1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped

2 ribs celery. chopped

3 - 4 cloves garlic, minced

1 pound frozen crawfish tails, thawed

4 t. Cajun seasoning

2 skillet of homemade buttermilk cornbread**

4-5 cups of low-sodium chicken broth 

2 green onions, chopped

1 - 2 t. poultry seasoning

salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

freshly chopped parsley for garnish, if desired

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Lightly grease a 9 x 13 baking dish and set aside.

In a 10-inch nonstick or cast iron skillet, brown the smoked sausage in 1 T. of olive oil over medium heat.

Add 2 T. butter, onions, bell pepper, and celery to the same skillet and cook for 2 - 3 minutes until softened.  Add the crawfish, garlic and 2 t. of Cajun seasoning and cook for 2 - 3 minutes until crawfish are heated.

Transfer the cornbread to a large mixing bowl.

**Here's the link to my Buttermilk Cornbread recipe!

Add in the crawfish, sausage, vegetable mixture along with the remaining Cajun seasoning, green onions, poultry seasoning, salt and pepper and 3 cups of chicken broth to the cornbread.

Stir in the beaten eggs and then gently mix and add more broth until desired texture is reached.  The dressing should have the texture of thick oatmeal; wet, but not soupy.

Transfer the dressing to the prepared baking dish, smooth into an even layer and top with the remaining 2 T. of butter, sliced into thin slivers.

Bake the dressing, covered with foil, for 35 minutes.  Bake an additional 15 - 20 minutes uncovered until the center is no longer jiggly and edges are browned,  Garnish with fresh chopped parsley if desired.

Adapted from Pink Owl Kitchen

Betty's Green Bean Salad

My mom made this salad every year for Christmas. It was so popular that she began to make it for Thanksgiving as well. I've found the tartness of the dressing really helps cut through the richness of the other holiday dishes.  

I found her handwritten recipe and tweaked it slightly.  Instead of the sugar, I very successfully substituted Stevia and adjusted the white vinegar/vegetable oil ratio.  This is really an easy side dish that I'm sure your guests will love as much as our family does.

2 cans French style green beans, drained

1 can small English peas, drained

1 medium jar chopped pimento, drained

1 small bell pepper, diced

1 cup diced white or red onion

1 cup sugar or Stevia

1/1 cup white vinegar

1/4 cup Wesson vegetable oil

dash of salt and pepper

Mix first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together sugar, vinegar, oil, salt, and pepper.  Pour over vegetables and stir to combine. Cover and refrigerate at least 24 hours before serving. 

Turkey, Conecuh Sausage, and Vegetable Stew

We've enjoyed turkey sandwiches on rosemary bread this week.  There's just something about Thanksgiving leftovers that make me happy.

Today was a cold, drizzly, and gray day.  As I contemplated the remaining turkey, I knew this was a perfect day to stay indoors and continuing decorating the house for Christmas and start a big pot of stew.

I had saved the broth/stock from roasting the turkey by placing it in the freezer last Thursday.  You can use either turkey, chicken, or vegetable stock in your stew.

This recipe has a combination of fresh, canned, and frozen vegetables.  Read through the ingredients, check out your pantry, fridge, and freezer, and adapt the recipe to what you have on hand.

2 T. butter

2 T. olive oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped

3 ribs celery, thinly sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced 

6 - 8 oz. Conecuh sausage, sliced lengthwise and sliced into 1/4" inch thickness

2 (14.5 oz.) cans diced tomatoes with juice

1 (14.5 oz.) can navy beans, rinsed and drained

3 cups frozen or fresh okra

1 (10 oz.) bag frozen mixed vegetables

3 Russet potatoes, peeled and chopped

1 T. dried Italian seasoning

2 bay leaves

4 cups diced cooked turkey

6 - 8 cups chicken, turkey OR vegetable stock

salt and pepper to taste

In a large Dutch oven (I used a 7 quart pot), heat the butter and olive oil over medium heat.

Saute onion and celery for 4 - 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Add in garlic and sausage and cook, stirring frequently, until the sausage has browned.

Stir in next 9 ingredients and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to a simmer.

This is right as my stew begin to simmer.

I set the heat to the lowest setting and went on about my day.  Every 30 minutes or so, I'd give it a good stir, recover the pot, and check back later.

After a few hours, we were ready to eat.  Here's the stew ready to be ladled into bowls!  Taste and add salt and pepper if you'd like.  Make sure you remove those bay leaves before serving.

This was an excellent and delicious way to use up that leftover turkey.

Thanksgiving Sausage Balls

 

If I had kept count through the years, I would bet I have made 10,000 sausage balls!  I've been making them for over 35 years with breakfast sausage, cheddar cheese, and Bisquick.

But I've been seeing a new version on my social media feed lately.  How about substituting the Bisquick with a boxed stuffing mix?  Well, that got my attention!  You can choose any flavor you'd like, but I chose the cornbread variety.

Empty the stuffing mix into a large mixing bowl.  

Pour in 1 cup of boiling water and stir to combine.  Let it cool for a few minutes.

Next, using a large spoon or your (very!) clean hands, mix in the sausage and the shredded cheese.

Spray a rimmed baking sheet with non-stick spray.  Roll the mixture into 1-inch diameter balls and place on the baking sheet.  I had 40 sausage balls with this batch.

Place the baking sheet into the refrigerator for an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Bake the sausage balls for 25-28 minutes until the internal temperature checks as 165 degrees F.

You can serve these little bites of Thanksgiving goodness with cranberry sauce or gravy to dip them.  I had some spiced cranberry jelly from Aldi left over from our Oktoberfest meal.  That made an amazing accompaniment! 

Ground Pork and Cilantro Lime Rice Stuffed Peppers

Through the years, I've made many variations of stuffed peppers.  I've used all sorts of fillings and many different types of peppers.  

Aldi had these gorgeous multi colored bell peppers and I immediately started mentally choosing the ingredients for the filling.

You can use whatever salsa and rice you prefer, but for this recipe these were my choices.

  

I always pre-cook the peppers for about 10-15 minutes before I add the filling.  This way, you're ahead of the game!  Slice the tops off the peppers and set aside.  You'll want to remove the seeds and the membranes from inside the peppers and discard.  Trim the stem from the top part you removed and dice the pepper that remains.  You'll use those bits of goodness in a few minutes.

So now that you have that instruction in your brain, let's go to the ingredients.

You'll need:

5 - 6 medium bell peppers prepped as stated above

Your favorite salsa

1 small yellow onion, chopped

1 T. chopped garlic

3 T. taco sauce

2 - 3 T. fajita seasoning

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

1 pkg. Cilantro Lime rice, prepared according to package directions

1 can black beans, rinsed and drained

2 cups shredded pepper jack cheese

Garnish:  sliced green onions, cilantro, sour cream

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.  Spray a baking dish with olive oil spray.

Add 1/3 - 1/2 cup of salsa to the bottom of the prepared baking dish.  Fit the prepared bell peppers on top of the salsa.  You may need to slice a little off the bottoms of the peppers to get them to sit upright all nice and level.

Place into oven while you prep the pork filling and rice.

In a large skillet over medium high heat, begin to brown the ground pork while the rice cooks.

When the pork gets about halfway cooked, add the onions, the diced bell pepper, and the garlic.

Now stir in the taco sauce and the fajita seasoning.  Lower the heat to medium low.

Stir in the beans.

Your cilantro lime rice should be finished by this time.

And it gets stirred into the mixture at this point.  Turn heat to off.

Stir in one cup of the shredded cheese.

Carefully remove the peppers from the oven and divide the filling between the peppers.

Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

Cover the baking dish foil (you may want to spray the foil with nonstick spray before covering the peppers so the cheese won't stick).

Bake for 25-30 minutes until the peppers pierce easily with a knife point.

Remove the foil during the last five minutes or so of cooking to brown the cheese.  You may want to turn on the broiler for a few minutes.

I topped ours with the thinly sliced green onions.  

For plating, add a few spoonsful of salsa on the plate.  Carefully place the pepper on top of the salsa.  Enjoy!

Thai Pork Stir Fry

I've made several variations of this recipe through the years.  The original blog post was Thai Style Pork Burritos.  Once again, I enjoyed tweaking this one a tad and renamed it as Thai Pork Stir Fry.  Sweet Harold did put his filling in a low carb tortilla.  I chose to enjoy mine as pictured above.

Here's the ingredient list:

1 pound ground pork

2 T. grated fresh ginger

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 small onion, thinly sliced

2 cups coleslaw mix with carrots

3 T. soy sauce

2 T. lime juice

2 T. honey

2 t. ground coriander

1 t. red pepper flakes

2 T. oyster sauce

 

Garnish: fresh cilantro, chopped, 1/2 cup coarsely chopped dry roasted peanuts, sweet Thai Chili sauce

Heat large, non-stick skillet over high heat. Add pork, cook, crumble and stir until pork is no longer pink about 4 - 6 minutes. Add ginger, garlic, onion, and coleslaw mix and stir fry with pork for 2 minutes until vegetables are wilted. 

In a small bowl, whisk together the remaining 6 ingredients.  Pour into the pork/vegetable mixture and stir constantly to blend all ingredients well, about 1 minute.

Garnish with cilantro, peanuts, and Thai chili sauce.  

For a great side, try these Thai Pickled Cucumbers !

Thai Pickled Cucumbers

I love pickled vegetables in any form.  This recipe has all the flavors going on:  sour, sweet, a tad spicy, with lots of crunch to help balance rich or spicy dishes.  I served this alongside the Thai Pork Stir Fry.  Delicious!

If you prepare this first, the flavors can mingle and blend perfectly and by the time your stir fry is ready to eat, these are as well!

You can use the small pickling cucumbers (Persian variety), but I used a seedless English cucumber and cut it up into bite sized chunks.

If you want to add shallots or some finely chopped red onion, that's great.  I had neither so I didn't.  😋

3 Persian cucumbers or 1 English cucumber, sliced or chopped

3 T. finely diced shallot or red onion

1 red jalapeno or Thai bird chili finely chopped....in the alternative 1 t. of dried red pepper flakes

1/2 cup white vinegar or rice wine vinegar

1/4 cup water

3 T. sugar

1/4 t. salt

3 T. chopped cilantro

Place the vegetables and/or red pepper flakes into a bowl.  Stir in remaining ingredients and set aside for 20-30 minutes to allow flavors to blend.

Refrigerate leftovers.

Grilled Boneless Pork Ribs with Small Batch Barbecue Company's Maple Bourbon BBQ Sauce

 

Recently I met the owner of Small Batch Barbecue Company which is located in Trussville, AL.  I purchased two bottles of sauce from him and he encouraged me to try this one on some sort of pork.  Today was the day!

First of all, let's talk about this sauce.  Upon opening the bottle, I was immediately struck by the sweet maple aroma and the earthiness of the bourbon.  This was a unique blend of these two flavors.  The sauce is super thick and I knew this was going to be a huge hit with Sweet Harold.  

Food City had these lovely boneless ribs for sale with their Pick 5 program.  You can purchase select proteins with 5 selections for $19.99.  I decided to marinate these boneless pork ribs in Dale's Marinade for a few hours.

While the grill was preheating, I patted the pork dry with paper towels.  

Then on to the grill and you know how I love to get those grill marks!

I grilled the pork until the internal temperature reached 140 degrees F.  You'll want 145 degrees or more to reach doneness. 

But at this point you'll want to start applying the sauce as the temperature reaches completion.

Look at those brush marks!  That shows how thick this sauce actually is.  Turn a few times while the sauce continues to glaze the pork.  By this time, the aroma was starving us!

We had steamed broccoli and buttery herb rice to go alongside these delicious boneless ribs.

Our verdict?  If you love a thick sauce, a sauce with the winning combination of sweet maple and the subtle smokiness of bourbon, this will be a winner in your book just like it was in ours!