Blue Bottle Dinner

Read on for recipes for: Beer Bread, Beer Cheese Soup, Beer Pork Loin Roast, Strawberry Beer Cake AND Chocolate Peanut Butter Beer Cake.  :0)

Mike and I are getting married in December.  I have this idea in my mind that I want to use gorgeous blue bottles as vases to decorate my reception.  This means that I need lots of people to drink things that come in blue bottles and donate them to me!  Moscatos, Rieslings, Bud Light Platinum, etc...  I found an AMAZING one at Sam's Club.  It is a huge, 1.5 Liter bottle of Riesling. I have no idea what I would use it for, but I really feel that I need 2 ;-)

Thanks, yet again to Sam's Club, I found cases of 12 Bud Light Platinum's for about $10.50.  This is an awesome deal.  The problem is that I do not love to drink beer. This means that I have to cook with it instead.  So, get ready for my Blue Bottle Dinner!









Bud Light Platinum Beer Bread:

Preheat oven to 400F.  Grease/flour loaf pan 

Sift together: 
3 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar (or sugar substitute)
3 3/4 teaspoon
3/4 teaspoon salt

Gently stir in 1 bottle of Bud Light Platinum until just combined.  Pour in to bread pan.  

Optional: Top with a sprinkle of oatmeal or 1/2 cup melted butter (1/4 cup at the start of baking and 1/4 cup midway through).

Bake for 40 minutes. Cool in pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to cooling rack until ready to devour. 


Bud Light Platinum Beer Cheese Soup:

1/2 medium onion, finely diced
3/4 cup carrot, finely diced
4 stalks celery, finely diced
2 Tablespoons butter
1/3 cup flour
1/3 cup fat free powdered milk
1/4 cup nacho cheese powder (check GFS for this)
1 Tablespoon powdered chicken bouillon
2 teaspoons powdered garlic
3 cups fat free milk
1 bottle Bud Light Platinum
8 oz shredded cheese (I used equal parts mozzarella, 2% colby jack, 2% cheddar)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Sweat down vegetables in large pot on medium until very soft. Melt in butter. In another bowl, mix flour, powdered milk, cheese powder, bouillon, garlic.  Using whisk, stir dry ingredients into vegetables.  Continue to stir until flour is no longer white (a few minutes).  Whisk in milk.  Once mixture is warm again, whisk in beer.  Once the temperature is just below boiling, slowly whisk in small amounts of cheese until all is incorporated.  Keep whisking.  DO NOT LET IT BOIL!  Soup will begin to thicken.  Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy with some beer bread.


Bud Light Platinum Pork Loin Roast

I started my pork loin roast in a crock pot, then had to move it to a roasting pan and to the oven. I would recommend just cooking it in the oven on 300F for about 2 hours.

In pan, place:
2 lbs pork loin (thanks to Sam's Club for the HUGE pork loin at $1.99/lb)
1.5 lbs  baby pototoes, quartered
1 cup baby carrots
4 stalks celery, cut in to 2 inch segments
1/2 medium onion, cut in to rings

Over everything:
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 Tablespoon dry minced onion
2 bottles of Bud Light Platinum

Once meat it cooked through and vegetables are soft, removed extra juices from pan and add a slurry of cornstarch/water and 1 teaspoon of chicken bouillon along with salt and pepper to taste.  Whisk until you have a lovely gravy.


Bud Light Platinum Strawberry Cake:


This is a take on two cakes I like to make. One made with cake mix and yogurt, another made with soda pop instead of typical ingredients.

1 box of strawberry cake mix
1 bottle Bud Light Platinum
Follow instructions on cake mix to bake.

Frost with a thawed 8 oz container of cool whip (fat free works well) mixed with a 6 oz container of strawberry yogurt.  Garnish with free strawberries. 

This cake can be a bit sticky because there is no egg in it.  So, with my next cake, I tried something a little bit different.  Either way, it was delicious. :0)


Bud Light Platinum Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake: 

1 box vanilla cake mix
1/2 cup cocoa powder
- OR - 1 box chocolate cake mix, if you remember to have some in the house!
1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons Bud Light Platinum
1/3 cup oil
3/4 cup egg beaters - OR - 3 eggs
Follow instructions on cake mix to bake.

In a small sauce pan on low heat, reduce the rest of the bottle of Bud Light Platinum (around 1/4 cup to start) to about half.  Once removed from the heat, add 1/3 cup peanut butter, 2 Tablespoons sugar (I used half brown sugar and half regular sugar - both as sugar substitutes).  Slowly mix peanut butter concoction in to a thawed, 8 oz tub of (fat free) cool whip.  

Frost bottom layer of cake. Sprinkle on approximately 1/4 cup mini chocolate chips.  Add second layer and frost. Top with chopped Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. 

I took this cake to a family dinner tonight and it got rave reviews.  Most people had no idea it was made with beer.  Mostly since I didn't tell them. :0)  And, with all the recipes, you can use any beer you please. Bud Light Platinum comes in blue bottles, so that is why we used them!

Total Blue Bottle Count for these recipes? 6.  Only about 100 more to go!

No recipes :)

I have been a horrible blogger. Mostly because I get too lazy to post recipes. So, today I shall just post pictures and brief summaries. I think that should work well!

Chicago Style Pizza - Beezo's way. I made a french bread dough as usual, but substituted about 1/3 of the flour for cornmeal. I put it in a deep dish pie pan, then layered with delicious ingredients (olives, artichokes, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, lots of cheese, etc...) then poured sauce on top and baked for about 45 minutes on 400F. Good stuff!

Talk about deep dish pizza!

American Pie :)  Strawberry/Blueberry pie with stars and stripes on top. Just cut out some strips of pie dough and Mike cut out some lovely stars.  Baked up lovely, but I forgot to take a picture!

Hard boiled eggs.  Don't they look sad?  hehehe.  Eggs in the bottom of a pan, covered with at least an inch of cold water, brought to a boil, heat turned off, covered and let sit for 12 or so minutes.  Run under really cold water and enjoy!

Drying off after a dip in the hot tub!

Ambrosia Salad

Or as I like to call it: PINK FLUFF!

This is such yummy stuff!  Pictures just can't do it justice :)

Recently, Kate and I ate some ambrosia salad at a restaurant and I was reminded of how much I love the stuff!  It reminded me of a good ol' church potluck. So, I had to come home and make some up!  The lovely thing about the recipe is that you can throw anything in there that you would like:

In a wire mesh strainer, I strained about 3/4 cup cottage cheese, 1/3 cup maraschino cherries, 1/2 cup sliced strawberries, 1/2 can shredded pineapple, and 1/2 can of fruit salad

In a large bowl, I folded together 1/2 a container of FF sour cream, a tub of whipped cream (FF, or course), 2 -3 TBS sugar free Jello, 1/3 cup shredded coconut, and 1/4 cup finely chopped pecans.  Then, gently fold in the drained fruit and refrigerate until ready to eat! YUM!

Ready to eat! Horrible picture, but delicious food!

Happy Birthday Cupcakes!

I love Despicable Me.  The minions are so adorable. So, since there was a Birthday party for a certain 2 year old who loves the movie, I made her minion cupcakes that are circulating Pinterest.

Ingredients:
cupcakes
blue cupcake liners if you can find them
yellow frosting
blue frosting
black frosting
candy eyes (or smarties with black dots on them)
half of a twinky for each cupcake

Then, assemble:

Homemade Beer Bread

There are some companies out there that sell Beer Bread mix. It isn't cheap. I was given a recipe for it and found it to be super easy and super yummy!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease and flour a loaf pan.

Mix:
3 cups flour
3 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar

Add:
12 ounces beer

Top with:
1/4 cup butter, melted

Bake for 20 minutes

Top with:
1/4 cup butter, melted

Bake another 20 minutes

So, that is the basic recipe.  When I made mine, I used:

Honey brown beer
in addition to the ingredients, 3 T honey

So amazing!!!

You can make so many additions to it, or change up the beer for soda. Have fun!

Easter cupcakes

I had a few cadbury eggs (like 50) left from last Easter. so, I made some cadbury cupcakes.

Ingredient List:
one box chocolate cake mix
eggs
oil
water
cadbury eggs
frosting, vanilla and cream cheese
green food coloring
reeses eggs
cupcake liners
oven set at 350F

Take cadbury eggs out of foil. Freeze until solid (I did mine over night). Prep chocolate cupcakes as box states. Put liners in cupcake pan and small spoonful of batter. Put in cadbury egg. Pour more chocolate cake batter over, to cover. Bake as box instructs. Cool, then frost with green frosting and eggs. I mixed vanilla and cream cheese frosting together in the mixer with green food coloring then spiked it on cupcakes for grass.

Look at all that Cadbury goodness deep down inside! :)

Baked Beans

My dinner tonight? Baked beans and corn muffins!  Talk about a perfect (solitary) meal.

 

 I started out with 1.5 cups of dried beans.  As you can tell, I have a variety in there.  Pinto, Black, Northern White, Kidney, and Cranberry beans.  I cooked them at a slow boil for about 2 hours, then threw in about 2 cups of frozen crinkle cut carrots and 1 cup of frozen diced onions, then boiled another 7 minutes and drained it all. I then preheated the oven to 325F and greased a large baking dish (with a lid if possible, or wrapped with tin foil). In a separate bowl, I combined 3/4 cup (ideal) brown sugar, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1 TBS apple cider vinegar, 1 TBS yellow mustard, 1/4 cup crumbled bacon, 1 tsp maple syrup extract, and several cups water (as it cooks, you may have to add more water. I started with 2 and added 1 cup later).

Everything set to be combined into deliciousness.

Meet my beans. Aren't they fabulous?

I mixed everything up in my baking pan, sealed it tight, then put it in the oven. All the recipes online told me I should bake for about 3 hours. I kept peaking at it, though, and finally got so hungry that I had to sneak some out for dinner. It was great, but still needed a bit of time to soften up.  The beans are currently back in the oven with some extra water.  I served my huge scoop full of beans with fresh corn muffins. (See my corndog recipe. Add 2 TBS frozen corn for each 3 TBS of corn meal mix)

Sorry the picture is so dark. I was too busy wanting to eat this to try and take a magnificent photo.

BBQ Steak Sandwich!

Hello all.  With the beauty of spring surrounding us, I have started cooking up again.  That, and it is spring break, so I have excess time on my hands!

For lunch today, I made myself a steak sandwich. Eye of round steak was on sale at Meijer this week. That was my poison!

I started with 1 TBS flour, a little salt, and a little black pepper.  After my steak came to room temperature, I dredged it in the flour mixture. (I read online that letting your steak come to room temperature before cooking helps it to be more juicy).

Steak, sitting in a lovely bath of flour, salt, and pepper

Then, I fried it in a little pam on a skillet. (It got a bit smokey, and YES, my fire alarm went off! Oops).   A minute or two on either side was all that it took to cook the steak, as it was a very thin slice.  I dropped some frozen, pre-sliced onions into my flour mixture and tossed them around, then got rid of the extra flour. Once my steak was happily resting on my plate to be eaten later, I threw the onions (about 1/4 cup) and 1 TBS bacon crumbles in the skillet to brown up.  I topped the steak with a slice of reduced fat muenster cheese, plopped the onions and bacon on top, poured on a little bit of Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and put it all inside a toasted English Muffin that had a bit of mayo on it.  I served it with asparagus (pop off the ends and steam for 7 minutes), carrot sticks, and Special K cracker chips - sour cream and onion flavored.  Yum!

Such a happy plate!

Look at all those onions, bacon, and BBQ sauce sitting happily on top of my steak and cheese sandwich! YUM!

Yes, this was officially FOOD!

A True Beezo Bowl

I would like to start this all about by sincerely thanking the individual who sent me my very own Beezo Bowl.  My parents received a package at their house, addressed to me!  Inside, a beautiful bowl made just for me!  There was no evidence to be found as to who sent the package.  Thank you to my anonymous friend! If it wasn't supposed to be anonymous, let me know! 

Chocolate Brownies:

The first recipe I have is a gluten free, low carb, low calorie, low fat chocolate object.  My sister, Emily, has to eat low carb. For her birthday, she sent me this recipe.  I thought it would be disgusting, but I was wrong!  It is supposed to be for a cookie, but I never could get it to stop oozing, so I turned it in to a brownie.  Oh yeah, each one is about 53 calories each!!!!


1 1/2 cups of Ideal powdered sugar (you can use real pwd sugar, too, it is just more calories)
1/3 cup DUTCH processed Cocoa
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon instant coffee *optional*
1/4 teaspoon baking powder (my own addition. This makes the brownies more fluffy, less dense) 
                whisk dry ingredients together
2 egg whites (I use the kind in a carton)
1 teaspoon vanilla
                gently stir this in to the dry ingredients
1/2 cup semisweet or dark chocolate chips
                gently stir in to the brownie mix

Pour mix in to a parchment lined and lightly pam sprayed 8x8 pan. Bake in a 350F preheated oven for approximately 30 minutes. Once cooked, move parchment to a cooking rack.  Slice in to 9 brownies. ENJOY!!!

Hummus:


I got a great recipe for Hummus from the ladies in my bible study. In the past, I haven't wanted to make it because you have to have tahini for it, but they gave us a great tip - you can use almond butter or peanut butter instead. I went one step farther and used Better'n Peanut Butter.  It is a peanut butter substitute I found at Trader Joes.  It has 85% less fat and 40% less calories than regular peanut butter.

15 oz can of garbanzo beans, drained. Reserve the liquid
3 Tablespoons tahini, pb, almond butter, or better'n peanut butter
1/4 C fresh lemon juice (or more)
1 - 3 garlic cloves (depending on preference)

Place beans, garlic, and tahini in food processor. Add lemon juice and 2 Tablespoons of garbanzo liquid. Blend until smooth. Add more water if too thick.  May garnish with parsley and drizzle with olive oil.  Refrigerate. 

Another idea they gave me was to spread humus on an english muffin, then to top with cheese (I used Trader Joes lite provolone) and broil until cheese is bubbly. YUM!

Low Fat Strawberry Cake:

This is another bible study recipe. So delicious!

16 ounces White Cake Mix (read the labels. There are lower calorie/fat ones out there. I used Betty Crocker)
2 - 6 ounce  packages low fat strawberry yogurt
3 egg whites (I use from a carton)
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup oil (I use apple sauce)
8 ounces Cool Whip (Lite or FF)
Strawberries to garnish

Mix together cake mix, 1 package yogurt, egg whites, water, and oil (or applesauce).  Pour in to 2 - 9 inch cake pans that have been prepped with pam and a light dusting of flour.  Bake in a preheated 350F oven for 30 minutes. Cool.  Mix together the cool whip and second container of strawberry yogurt. Frost cake with this and garnish with strawberries. Store in the fridge.

As you can see, we were a bit hasty with frosting this cake. We wanted to eat it. It is delicious.  I think this recipe would lend itself to some alterations:

Use coconut yogurt and garnish with lightly toasted coconut
Use any berry yogurt and garnish with mixed berries
Use pineapple coconut yogurt and garnish with pineapples and coconut

The possibilities are endless!