Mel's monte cristo

I have been requested to post the recipe for something I made recently and I'm happy to oblige.

Ingredients

1 can of uncooked crescent roll dough (8 count)
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons of honey (can be replaced with honey butter, I used a package with cinnamon and brown sugar)
6 slices of turkey sandwich meat
6 slices of ham sandwich meat (honey ham is the best in my opinion)
6 slices of cheese of choice (I used swiss)
Raspberry jam/preserves of choice

So, first will want to melt your butter and mix it with the honey. If you are using honey butter, then just let it soften.

Unroll the crescent dough and put two of the triangles together into one square sheet. Do this for all 8 triangles (4 squares) and lay them on a prepared cookie sheet (tin foil and pam spray works well)

Spread your honey butter generously across all 4 squares.

You will cook these at 375 for about 6-7 minutes. Enough to let them get a little crispy but not TOO cooked. Let them cool down for a few minutes to avoid burning your fingers.

Put your turkey meat on one of the squares and top with 3 slices of cheese. Place another of the squares on top of that and add your ham and top with the other half of your cheese. Place another square on top of that and top with all the raspberry you desire.

Pop this back into the oven for an additional 10-15 minutes or until the crust is a golden brown. Make sure to keep watch to make sure it doesn't burn.

Let sit for about 5 minutes to let cheese settle and avoid burning your fingers.

Yield is 1 sandwich.

Warning: This sandwich is MESSY! Make sure you have plenty of napkins or wet wipes handy!
5 years

Rice and beans with sausage and greens

Ok, so this is a REALLY easy but REALLY popular recipe I've come up with for anything from church potlucks to family dinners.

It's endlessly customizable, too! But this is how I make it, because I LOVE to cook, but lately I've gotten super lazy because real life has gone nuts.

4 cups of white rice
1 carton of chicken stock (you CAN use broth but I like stock better. It has more flavor in my opinion)
Smoked Sausage
1 can of red kidney/chili beans
1 large can of seasoned greens (there are several varieties and I prefer turnip, but any one will work fine)
Salt
Pepper
Seasonings of choice

I can NEVER cook good rice on the stove, so I use my Instant Pot. I put in my rice and then pour in the entire carton of chicken stock. I then add my salt, pepper, garlic powder, smoked paprika, sazon, and just a tiny bit of liquid smoke. But you can stick with plain salt and pepper or add any spices you like.
I then set the timer to 7 minutes.

While the rice is cooking, I chop up my sausage and fry it. If you want to add any onions, peppers, or fresh diced garlic, toss it in with your sausage. If you have some spare bacon grease from a prior meal, this is a good time to use it.

Drain your cans of beans and greens while everything else is cooking.

When the sausage is nicely browned and just a LITTLE caramelized (careful not to burn it!), dump it into your rice, which should also be finished by then. Dump in the beans and greens and mix thoroughly. The heat from the freshly cooked rice AND sausage will heat up the beans and seasoned greens while you mix it.

Serve immediately!

This dish is even easier than the directions make it sound, it's cheap, and you won't be able to stop eating it because it tastes sooooo good! Even I have trouble stopping when I make this.
And like I said, it's easily customizable! You can add mushrooms, veggies, brown rice instead of white, add hot sauce, the sky is the limit! The only problem is that no matter HOW much of it I make, there's never any left overs! LOL
5 years

Easy summer casserole

So, this is a recipe I put together because I didn't like some of the ingredients in a Squash Casserole I found. (I hate zucchini and water chestnuts. Sorry) But it's still easy and so delicious it disappears almost as soon as it's done.

I used 1 cooked and seasoned chicken breast (bone in)
2 Summer Squash
1 package of presliced mushrooms (I used portabello but white mushrooms would be fine as well)
1 10 oz can of Cream of Chicken soup
1 8oz package of Sour Cream
1 small bag of seasoned stuffing (I did not use stove top but I'm sure it would work fine)
And 1 bag of Uncle Ben's Boil-In-A-Bag brown rice.

So first I thinly sliced my summer squash and sauteed it along with the mushrooms in a very liberal amount of butter, and preheated my oven to 350.

I then stripped my chicken breast from the bones and chopped the meat into small pieces. I'm sure drumsticks or thighs would also work, but they have a lot of excess fat to be trimmed away first because no one wants to bite into a lump of chicken fat.

The chopped chicken was then tossed into a bowl along with the sour cream and cream of chicken. Mixed thoroughly.

Once the squash and shrooms were done, I drained them with the butter going into another bowl and then tossed them into the mixture.

I put the uncooked bread crumbs into the butter bowl and stirred until they were slightly moist and all butter had been soaked up. Toss that into the mixture and stir.

Finally cooked and added the brown rice. Folded rice in gently (mix is getting pretty thick at this point)

Once everything is all mixed together, I poured it into my baking dish (in this case a disposable tinfoil pan), spread it evenly, and popped it into the oven for 30 minutes uncovered.

Once done, just let it sit for about 10 minutes and then it's ready to eat!!
It's so good, even picky eaters went back for seconds!

6 years

Italian pasta salad - summer recipe

This sounds REALLY good!
I think I'll have to try this soon! I'm not a fan of italian dressing, though so I may try a vinaigrette.
The rest sounds delicious! Thank you for sharing!
7 years

Sausage "sketti" recipe

That sounds tasty too. I may try that some time.
7 years

Central florida friends?

The date for my move is looming. I'm going back to Florida late next month (June) and would like to connect with a few people in the area.

I'll be right next to Deland, so if you're in that general area I'd love to chat with you. I MAY look for a feedee after I get there but not at this moment.

I'm happily taken but my partner is fine with platonic arrangements, and I LOVE to cook. I do have my own car but it's a bit of a clunker so I can't go far. And until I get settled in I probably won't be going anywhere anyway.
But it would be nice to have some people to hang out with, maybe cook dinner for now and then, big plus if you enjoy swimming.

So, is there anybody out there? LOL
7 years

Sausage "sketti" recipe

LOL Thank you. It's absolutely delicious! But I might be biased LOL

It's especially good served with a loaf of garlic bread.
7 years

Sausage "sketti" recipe

So, I LOVE to cook. The kitchen is one of my favorite rooms in the house, and not much makes me happier than the pleasurable moans of happy eaters.

So, this is one of my most popular staples when I cook for others, and it's so simple you can make everything in the same pot!

Ingredients

1 tube Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage
1 Box of preferred spaghetti noodles (I do not recommend Angel Hair)
1 jar of your favorite sauce, although I personally recommend mushroom flavor
Shredded Cheddar cheese
(optional) Sliced mushrooms

I ONLY use Jimmy Dean sausage because every single other brand I've tried has either had too much grease when I cook it (which completely throws off the flavor and consistancy of the sauce if you don't drain it) or tastes inferior. Use another brand at your own risk.

First, cook your noodles as normal, drain and set aside.
Put your sausage in the now empty pot and begin to fry over a low-medium heat.
If you wish to use mushrooms, toss these in when your meat is approximately half cooked and stir frequently. You are essentially sauteing them in the small amount of grease from the meat.
When the sausage and mushrooms are both completely cooked and ONLY when the meat is fully cooked (you do not want undercooked pork) pour in your jar of sauce and reduce heat to low.
Add in about a handful or two of the cheese, but not too much. You don't want a cheese sauce, you want a subtle flavoring.
Cover and stir infrequently. Let it set for 10-20 minutes.
Add in your noodles and mix until all the noodles are covered in sauce.
You may wish to add a TINY bit more cheese but I usually don't.
Serve while hot.

Now, you may think I'm crazy to suggest maple flavored sausage and cheddar cheese, but the sweetness of the meat and the sharpness of the cheese are quite harmonious with the tang of the sauce.
I discovered this when I accidentally bought maple instead of sage sausage one night.

My personal favorite sauce is the offbrand found at Sav-A-Lot. But this seems to be a local thing. I have not been able to find this same sauce at Aldi or any other store, so we've had to make do. It's still delicious.

I hope you enjoy!
7 years

New chat (beta)

I think the new chat is rather nice, but I miss the background images.
I love how I can make it a separate window or leave it with the other browser windows, which I can't with the old version.

I think my only real complaint SO FAR is that the online users is in a separate box. I have to click the button to see who's there and that covers the chat window. In the old chat you can see who is online and active plus chat at the same time.

I do like how it uses the profile icons, though. It's so much easier to match names to profiles that way. At least for me. I have trouble remembering names.
8 years

Too explicit?

So I'm working on the last chapter of my story, but I'm worried that it might be TOO explicit?
I'm trying to keep the details tasteful and not going into the full details, but I don't know how much is too much.
Both of my characters are over the age of 18, both of them are human, and I don't believe there is a single word of profanity in the entire story.
So how vague does the action have to be to avoid breaking the rules? I've read several stories on here and they range from a simple "They started to have sex" to the nitty gritty, so I'm not really sure where the line actually is.

Can someone help me?
8 years
12   loading