Biscuits and Gravy

Biscuits and gravy, great southern breakfast.  Start by browning one pound of sausage in a skillet.  Once the sausage is cooked, add flour to the oil to make a roux.  Once the flour is dissolved, start slowing adding milk, until you get the consistency of gravy you want  (the roux needs to cook about 30 minutes with the milk).  While the gravy is cooking, make your biscuits in the oven.

Chocolate, Peanut Butter, Nutty, Heath, Graham Cracker Cookie

These pan cookies are made in a 13x9 inch casserole dish.  Start by melting a stick of butter in the oven at 350, once melted, add one cup of graham cracker crumbs, mix well and press down.  Cover the graham cracker crust with a 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk evenly.  Then cover this with you ingredients, I used chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, walnuts, and heath pieces.  Press the ingredients down softly.  Bake this at 350 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the edges are just starting to brown.  Once cooled, cut carefully with a sharp knife.

Meatloaf and Baked Butternut Squash

Classic meatloaf made with ground beef, Italian bread crumbs, seasoning, chopped onion, and a ketchup brown sugar topping.  Next time I will saute the onion prior to adding it to the meatloaf.  I served a baked butternut squash casserole with the meatloaf.

Pan Fried Pork, Steamed Asparagus, Baked Butternut Squash, and Roasted Red Potatoes

This was a recipe I found.  I marinaded the pork chops in a little soy sauce and some season salt.  Then I dipped them in egg and Italian seasoned bread crumbs.  Once they were breaded, I put them in a skillet with hot olive oil and seared each side of the pork for about 3 minutes.  Once seared, I placed the pork chops in a baking dish and baked them in the oven at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  This was the perfect amount of time for the thickness I had and they were still juicy and not dried out.  While they were baking for 45 minutes, I made a pan sauce by adding cream of mushroom soup to the skillet where the pork was seared and about half a beer.  I let this simmer the entire time the pork was cooking and just added some salt and pepper.  While the sauce was simmering, I also steamed some asparagus.

Grapefruit Mimosa

Traditionally mimosa's are served with orange juice, but I like mine with grapefruit juice.  This one is made of half champagne and half grapefruit juice, you can also use prosecco instead of champagne, making it a Grapefruit Bellini.

Christmas Dinner

Christmas Dinner involved all our traditional favorites like turkey and dressing, green beans, green bean casserole, gravy, squash, homemade cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, fruit salad, and one new addition, butternut squash casserole.  I forgot to take a picture before we put it away in the fridge for leftovers.  We also had for dessert, lemon cheesecake, pecan pie, apple pie, chocolate pie, and coconut cream pie.