Best Bread Pudding

 From the Taste of Home Test Kitchen, this is super yummy. Always a big hit for a sweet breakfast treat. That caramel sauce is the bomb-diggity. I also use Texas Roadhouse rolls that I cut up. Note: get the half and half, it makes it. Don't try to make your own. It is different. Also, one times this recipe really is enough for two 13x9's custard wise. I only put a little of the custard mix in with the casserole after I've gotten the bread good and wet. I don't like bread pudding that is super soggy. The brown sugar is a nice touch sprinkled on. Make sure you whisk all that butter in to the brown sugar for the caramel sauce before you add the cream. Also, about 20 minutes for the caramel sauce to thicken on low. Don't try to thicken it beyond that. It will break. It is a sauce. 

Ingredients

• 2 large eggs
• 2 large egg yolks
• 2-1/4 cups half-and-half cream
• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 20 dinner rolls (1-1/4 pounds), cut into 1-inch cubes (18 cups)
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• SAUCE:
• 1 cup butter, cubed
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup half-and-half cream
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°. Whisk together the first 10 ingredients until blended. Gently stir in bread. Transfer to a greased 3-qt. or 13x9-in. baking dish. Sprinkle with brown sugar; let stand until bread is softened, about 15 minutes. Bake until puffed and a knife inserted in center comes out clean, 40-45 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, for sauce, melt butter in a large heavy saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar; stir until dissolved. Gradually stir in cream. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer until thickened, 15-20 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add vanilla, sea salt and baking soda, stirring well. Serve sauce with warm bread pudding.

Grandma Jackson's Pot Roast

 This is my Grandma Jackson's pot roast recipe. Absolutely the best pot roast I've ever had. Made only more special because it was hers. 

Chuck Roast

Potatoes

Carrots

Onions

Better than Bouillon or your favorite beef broth soup base

First, you will coat both side of your chuck with vegetable oil and a liberal amount of salt and pepper. Then, on medium heat, you are going to sear both sides of your chuck roast. Add your seared roast to your baking dish. Then add your beef broth or water/bouillon mix. For the water/bouillon mix, you add three spoonfuls for every four cups of water and mix well. Then pour this over your chuck. 

Cover with foil and cook for one hour at 375. 

Turn down to 275 and cook that puppy all day. You definitely need to have it in by noon if you're serving at dinner time. 

Add your vegetables to the baking dish. Cut your potatoes in quarters, long ways. I don't know why, but it makes a difference. Salt and pepper the veggies, leaving covered. Bake at 350 for an hour and then uncover for the last 15 minutes or so. 

It is important that you don't let the juice run dry. If you need to make up more of the broth mix, do it. 

Note on the Better than Bouillon. That is what my store had that was like what I was told to use. The original recipe called for a beef soup base from an Amish supply store, and I didn't have it on hand. But I've eaten it both ways and I think the taste is very similar, if not identical. 

Oxtail Stew

 

 

So this recipe came about because I had a few random leftovers from a cow that we had butchered last fall. I saw "OXTAIL" on the wrapper and was like, what?! What am I supposed to do with that? I was determined to cook it, somehow, someway. So, I scoured various recipe sites and saw that Oxtail is used in a lot of Asian cooking, Caribbean cooking and Italian cooking. Well, Italian cooking speaks my love language, so I started looking at the Italian recipes. I decided I wanted to cook it slow and didn't really want to have to mess with it, and this is what I came up with. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did, because it turned out simply amazing.

Ingredients:

2-3 lbs of oxtail chunks (If it doesn't come already chunked or segmented, ask your butcher to do it for you. You really want the marrow to be visible)

1 lb baby carrots (I get these because I really don't like chopping carrots)

6-8 golden potatoes

2 cans of diced tomatoes (regular size)

Italian seasoning

Kosher Salt

Ground Black Pepper

Red Wine

My kiddos don't like onions, but I think pearl onions would be fantastic in this.



I did this in my crock pot; which is 5.5 quarts. First put down a layer with your carrots covering the bottom. Then chop your potatoes into good size chunks and place those on top of your carrots. Then a layer of the diced tomatoes with the juices. Place the oxtail on top of this. Do a healthy sprinkling of salt and pepper and the Italian seasoning. I think people are afraid of seasoning and beef really responds best to a good sprinkling. Around your beef, pour enough of your red wine to not quite cover your carrot layer. I saw people suggesting a burgundy wine with this, but I really just think any good table red would work. I put mine in the crockpot on low for 3 hours and then thought it might take too long on low, so I bumped it up to high and cooked it for five hours like that and it was perfect. I think if you cooked it on high for 6 hours that would be a good place to start. Maybe start it on low if you're going to put it on early in the morning.

Sarah's Meatloaf Recipe

I vary this a lot depending on how many people I'm making it for.

This is the "recipe" I use when I make it for my family.

1 lb ground beef (or chuck, it doesn't matter)
1 lb sausage (I use the Jimmy Dean Sage sausage)
1 large white onion, chopped into large chunks
2 rolls of Ritz crackers, crushed
2 large eggs
1/2 palm of Kosher salt (that's just what I use. I guess its about 1 tablespoon of coarse salt, maybe 1/2 tablespoon of table salt)
About 4 turns of crushed pepper. (I don't know if you have a pepper mill or not, but its probably 1/2 teaspoon or there abouts)

Mix this all together. I use my hands and press into a 13x9 glass baking pan.

The glaze that I put on top is simple. It's just brown sugar and regular mustard. What I usually do is put a big scoop of brown sugar in a bowl and add mustard to it until its a thick glaze. I think its probably a loose cup of brown sugar and 1/2 cup mustard. I really do this part to taste, so you might take a little taste before you put it on your meatloaf, and add more brown sugar or mustard depending. The glaze gets spread over the top before you cook the meatloaf.

The meatloaf gets baked at 350 for about an hour or until the meatloaf is browned and cooked through.

This does produce a lot of oil in your cooking pan, so it is best to remove it to a serving platter for the table. :)

Sometimes I'll add an extra pound of hamburger when we have company coming over. You just add an extra egg and roll of ritz crackers and maybe another onion if you like onions. But, don't do more than two lbs of beef per roll of sausage. You can fit three lbs of meat in the 13x9 pan just fine, but if you do more than that, its best to split it up into two pans.