Frenchy

I like it when drinks sound delicious. And simple. Emphasis on simple. Who wants to make complicated concoctions when you've already had a few?

So the Frenchy is three things, all of which I already had. The only odd ingredient is pear vodka. But guess what? I love pear vokda. I can't drink it straight up, but I love it mixed with any fruit juice I've tried, cranberry and pineapple being my favorites.

Pretty!

And this recipe calls for my favorite vodka and two preferred juices?


Um, yes.

So I made it up.

Not nearly as pretty

It wasn't nearly as pretty as the picture, probably because I didn't pour the cranberry juice gently enough over the other liquid, but it was still really tasty. I will totally make this again.

Slow Cooker Barbecue Ribs

I've been on a let's-not-spend-more-money-on-food-than-I-have-to kick, which was inevitably led to a let's-clean-out-my-freezer-and-pantry kick.

Which meant that I wasn't about to buy meat for my most recent dinner. I had pork ribs I had picked up a whole ago when they were on sale (yay for freezers), so I found a slow-cooker recipe to go with them.

BBQ Country-Style Ribs in the Slow Cooker
Ingredients:
   1 small onion, sliced in half-moon rings
   4 garlic cloves, chopped
   2 pounds country-style boneless pork ribs
   9 oz. of prepared barbecue sauce
   1 tsp. dried oregano
   1/4 tsp. ground cumin
   Pinch dried ground chipotle powder or squirt of hot pepper sauce
Directions:
   Spray inside of slow cooker with nonstick spray. Place sliced onion on bottom, sprinkle garlic on top. Rinse and pat ribs dry, put them on top of onion and garlic. Pour barbecue sauce on top, sprinkle herbs and hot sauce on top. Put on line and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

So I followed the recipe exactly, other than prepping everything the night before so all I had to do in the morning was put the pot in the crock and turn it on.

Per usual.

Unfortunately, I think my crock pot runs hot.

The recipe called for 8-10 hours on low, which I did, but I can home to burnt smelling ribs.

We ate them anyway. The flavor wasn't bad, but they were dry. Because they were overcooked.

They even look dry in the picture. Sad.

I might try this recipe again, but I'll definitely change the amount of time or the temperature.

Taco Bake

This one will be short and easy.

And fantastic.

I wanted something cheap to make for my friends, and since I had almost all of the ingredients for this taco bake, that's what I made.

Hers looks so much prettier than mine.

The only thing I didn't have was the queso sauce. But you know what I did have? Campbell's condensed nacho cheese soup. Totally pulled that substitution.

I cooked the meat, I stacked everything in my 9x9 (or is it 8x8?) inch square cake pan. I don't own a springform pan, although I do now think it could be useful.

I baked it.

I served it. With salad and Spanish rice, which I also had in my pantry.

The whole thing. I think the spring form pan would have allowed me to get the meat closer to the edges.

It was delicious.

I even sent the recipe home with a friend.

Brilliant.

Look, a whole, composed meal!

Super Sausage Dip

Occasionally, my boyfriend likes to have people over.

I see this as sign that I should cook, since I won't have to clean and since his idea of providing munchies is opening a bag of chips. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I prefer something more substantial and/or creative.

So I decided to make this super sausage dip since I was fairly certain I had all the ingredients. And I own a fondue pot.

Now, the pin I used said one can of Rotel tomatoes and green chilis, while the recipe itself calls for fresh chopped tomatoes and a can of green chilis, in addition to an onion and half a green bell pepper (I used a whole, small yellow one since that's what I had from my parents' garden).

I used the can of Rotel. It was just so much easier.

I followed the cooking directions exactly. I changed the color of the pepper and I added a couple dashes of hot sauce because, for some reason, I thought the recipe called for spicy sausage and I had regular. Turns out, I can't read. It took a while for the cream cheese to melt in properly, but I had time. It's not like people show up on the dot.

I then transferred it to the fondue pot and tasted it.

Oh.

My.

God.

Yes, it really is so good that those words deserve not only their own sentences, but their own paragraphs.

Everyone loved it. At least everyone who tried it did. I think everyone tried it.

We did have leftovers, as there were only maybe 6 or 8 of us at my boyfriend's house. I put the leftovers in the fridge, hoping he'd reheat it for a snack and let me know who that worked.

But he did not reheat it. And neither did his roommate.

I threw the leftovers away a week later.

I will totally make this again, but for a bigger group of people.

7-Up Biscuits

So, when I pinned the recipe for 7-Up biscuits, I didn't click through to look at the recipe. I know, we've been over this, it's a bad idea.

Anyway.

When I went to the recipe to find the directions (the ingredients were listed in the comments), there was nothing. It was one of those dump pages when a website has been taken down and they put up ads in its place.

So I searched Pinterest for a pin of 7-Up biscuits that actually had a recipe. I found one. The pictures looked nothing alike. But I had already settled on it, so I was going to make the darn biscuits.

And then I made the darn biscuits, following the directions exactly. The only thing I had trouble with was dividing them up equally after they had been mixed. But I did alright.

I wish I could say the same for the biscuits.

If you like what my mother always called Drop Biscuits, you will like these. Crumbly consistancy, more like a cake donut than bread. If, however, you are like me, and don't like that type of biscuit, you will not like these. See, that first picture made the biscuits look really yeasty and poofy. And obviously that was not the case.

I won't be making these again.

Random Coupon Score of the Week

So I know I usually don't do this, but I was really pleased how this turned out.

I went to my preferred grocery store (Remke bigg's, because they are in colusion with Speedway to garner my loyalty) to pick up a few things. All in the dairy section, but since I always carry my coupons with me, I decided to use a few.

I decided to pick up a few boxes of Hamburger Helper. Yes, I know, not the healtiest thing in the world, but I make one batch and it's lunch for a week, which is really nice to my pocket book.

It's especially nice to my pocket book this time around.

See, the coupon is for $.75 off of three boxes. Bigg's doubles up to a dollar, so it becomes $1 off three. Hamburger Helper is on sale, 10/$10. So, $1 per box. I was only going to use one coupon, but I had two identical ones and this was a good sale, so I used both coupons and got six boxes. I kept thinking of it as "Buy 2, Get 1 Free."

But it's better than that.

See, the boxes are originally $1.79 each. So I paid $4 for six boxes, when that would usually cost $10.74.

I like saving 60 percent on groceries.