Crock Pot French Dip Sandwich

Happy Sunday!

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving vacation! I can't believe it is already over. But, only a month until Christmas!! We are super excited about Christmas because we are going home to Texas for the first time since June and we get to stay a whole week! Getting to see our family and friends is definitely worth the 11 hour drive with two cats meowing and driving us crazy the whole way!


If you are like me with your blog posting, you probably have some posts that get pushed back because you have quite a few lined up. This is one that we made a couple of weeks ago that I just haven't published yet. I found the recipe through the wonderful Pinterest and it is located here.

This recipe is wonderful!! It is now one of our top five favorite recipes that we have made so far. It tastes as good as a restaraunts French dip, it is super easy to make, and it's just as good left over as it is fresh from the crock pot! Score!

To make this delicious entree you will need:

•  3 1/2 lbs beef chuck roast

• 16-oz. beef broth (1 1/2 cans)

• 1 10.5-oz. can condensed French onion soup

• 6-oz red wine

• 1 tsp garlic powder

• salt and pepper, to taste

• 4-6 French rolls or a French bread loaf

• sliced swiss cheese

Directions:

1. Trim excess fat off of beef roast and season meat all over with salt and pepper.

2. Pour beef broth, condensed French onion soup, red wine, and garlic powder into slow cooker and place beef roast into liquid.

3. Cook on low for 6-8 hours. Slow cookers have different time intervals that you can select, so work with your cooker. Depending on how the settings on your slow cooker work, the time will vary. Since this is cooking in liquid, you don’t have to worry about the meat drying out in the same way you might if you were roasting the meat in the oven.

4. Take beef out and rest it, covered with aluminum foil, for about 15 minutes. Slice beef and return to slow cooker on low or very low for 30 minutes.

5. Lightly toast the bread and evenly distribute cheese between rolls, if using. Divide beef onto rolls and spoon the beef juice ( from the crockpot, this is your Au Jus sauce) into ramekins or other small bowls and eat everything while it is hot. Serve each sandwich with its own dip.

We put the bread onto a baking sheet under the broiler until lightly browned then added cheese until it was melted.

Optional- I used mayo on my sandwiches just to add to the taste and it was delicious!

I apologize for the lack of pictures on this post. I'm usually picture crazy, but for some reason my sandwich wasn't very photogenic and the pictures turned out blurry. Silly pictures!

Now I am hungry! Every time I look at blogs or Pinterest I end up wanting to eat. I should probably stop looking at them so often!

Try this recipe and let me know if you liked it as much as we did! It is definitely a must-make-again-soon recipe for us!

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Happy Turkey Day!

I wanted to post a short and sweet message to say Happy Thanksgiving!

We hope you have all had a great one so far. We sure have!

Garrett's family came to stay with us for the weekend and we have surely enjoyed their company! We cooked lunch today, took tons of pictures, and have been watching football with full bellies all day.

Some things I am thankful for this year:

1. My wonderful husband. I don't know what I would do without him.

2. Our two sons, or cats depending on how you look at it, Harley and Junior.

3. Our families and all that they provide for us.

4. Our friends at home, who we miss dearly, and in Denver.

5. A job that I enjoy. Even if I have to be there at 5:30am! Along with this goes coworkers/new friends, Joanna and Angie! : )

6. I already mentioned our families, but my sister Alyssa gets her own number. I am thankful that we are best friends and that we text all day everyday.

7. Last but not least, the blog world! : ) I am glad I have a little outlet to be creative and that you all "keep up with" us and comment and follow our blog. Thanks to you!

Seems weird not to have pictures, but don't worry, I will have a Thanksgiving post complete with pictures soon!

Breakfast Za

I know what you are thinking...what the heck is Za? Well Za is our way of saying pizza. Silly huh? I used to say it the good ole normal way...until I met Garrett and his family who called it za, now I call it za. Za is short. Za is easy. Our kids will probably say za. Not that pizza is an extremely long or complicated word.

Now that you further understand our weirdness, let's talk about how delicious this breakfast pizza really is! I mean, what's better than breakfast foods anyway? We both come from a family who often had breakfast for dinner, so anytime there are eggs, bacon, and sausage around, it is welcomed into our bellies with a smile on our faces.

Using the wonderful Pinterest, I discovered this recipe here. It called for Egg Beaters, low fat turkey sausage, and light cheese. Psh, yeah right. Not only did I already have pork sausage, full fat grated cheese, and regular eggs, I wasn't about make a reduced fat breakfast item! Don't get me wrong, usually I am all about reduced fat or lower calorie foods, but not for breakfast! It's early in the morning, you are allowed the real thing! : ) However, if you do want to make the lower calorie version you can click that link and it will take you to it! I'm sure it tastes great! But, if you are like us and already have most of the ingredients such as eggs and pork sausage, you can follow our recipe.

You will need:
* Only 4 ingredients!*

• 1 Can of Crescent Rolls

• Pork Sausage (We just eyeballed the amount, so use it as you would like!)

• Grated Cheese (We eyeballed this too. It's up to you!)

• 4 Eggs

You need to:

1. Open the can of crescent rolls and grease a baking sheet or dish. Place the rolls so that they make a half circle. You could make a full circle too if you used another can or maybe cut them in half. Ours formed a half circle, so that's what we made! Roll up the edges to make a crust.

2. Brown ground pork sausage in a skillet. Drain what grease you can and spread the sausage over the unbaked crescent rolls.

3. Crack 4 eggs in a small bowl and scramble with a fork. Pour them over the rolls and sausage. Some will probably run off the edges, ours did, but it didn't matter.

4. Sprinkle grated cheese over the whole thing. We like alot of cheesey goodness so we used quite a bit, but make it the way you like it!

5. Bake in a 375 degree oven for about 25 minutes or until crust is browned and cheese is melted.

Doesn't it look yummy?

Not the most photogenic, but yummy!

You can use a pizza cutter to slice it into triangular shapes if it doesn't pull apart on its own.

We each had a piece that morning and then I kept the leftovers for my early commute to work the next couple of mornings. It is great heated up in the microwave too!

Now back to beating my mother in law in our fantasy football game... : )

Oh, before I forget. I posted a Red Velvet Brownies entry to a linky party on a neat blog called A Creative Princess, and it was one of the top 5 most viewed so it was featured on her page!! To me, that's super exciting! : ) Thanks for featuring me Terri and thanks to her readers for checking out my blog!!

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Simple Sliders

I'm tempted to continue on with other "S" words for this title, like Simple Sliders Snakes Slices and Sour cream, but I won't. It would be fun though. And probably get your attention. But, hopefully just the mention of a slider will get your attention as well!

One of mine and Garrett's favorite things to do on a Saturday night is grill burgers and hot dogs. Yes, AND hot dogs! It's only us two (for now) but we love to make both. Then immediately regret it as soon as we get up to clear our plates. But, that's what Saturday nights are for, to eat too much and to be too lazy!

We love to grill.

Here's proof:

I found this old picture under a file called Random 2009. And that's exactly what it is, random. However, it is one of my favorite pictures! That's my dad on the right and Garrett in the middle on the left. ( He may kill me for this but, right now, I am laughing at his in between short and long hair, sorry hun).  That's an old roommate named Steven on the right who is now a pharmacist, and one of our best friends, Cole, on the far left. Oh the good ole college years!

Fast forward two years, a couple inches on Garrett's hair, and 550 miles to Denver, Colorado and this is what we have. Garrett grilling on a FREE grill that we found on Craigslist.
And being silly of course.

This is last summer at home in Texas. My dad on the right and my father in law on the left. We come from a family of griller's : ). Oh, if you were thinking "There's no grill in this picture", well look to the faaarr right. And, I can promise you, the burgers cooking on it are some of the best burgers I have ever had! Dad can grill a mean one.

So now you get my point. I mean who else has pictures of people grilling? Or posing by grills? We do. Because we love to grill. Ok ok I won't say it again.

Because of that thing we love to, Garrett and I came up with a recipe for sliders one night. And they are the BEST sliders we have ever had. I guess recipe isn't really the correct word, more like "idea" because there is only two changes from regular burgers, but they make ALL the difference. : )


You will need:

• Ground Chuck, not lean ground beef or you will regret it (I'm not sure of the amount, it depends on how many you are cooking for) 

• Sliced Cheese

• King's Hawaiin Rolls (The secret to the deliciousness, you can get them at Walmart)

• Any toppings/dressing you want on it

To make the patties:

Go ahead and get the amount of meat that you are going to use and pre-season it. We use only salt, pepper, and garlic but use whatever you normally make burgers with. Make these patties pretty small because they are going to fit onto rolls. However, they will shrink once you grill them so don't make them too small.

These are the size we made...or Garrett made I suppose.

This was too cute not to share.

Go ahead and get the rolls and cheese ready before you grill these because they don't take long at all. We use a half of slice of cheese per slider and tear it into fourths so it will fit. If you like it extra cheesey you can put the whole slice, I do sometimes. Sshh!

About this size..

And, using a bread knife, slice through the rolls horizontally. Like this..

One you get them all cut in half, put them in the oven with the broiler on for a minute or so. We just keep an eye on them until they get a little brown and then they are ready to come out. You can add the cheese then or you can add it to the meat on the grill which is how we roll.

My grilling machine. Plus about 3 inches of hair : )

Once these are done you are good to go. By go I mean pig out!

This makes my mouth water

Ohh the sweetness of the Hawaiin roll with the saltiness of the burger and cheese equals heaven! We hope we have inspired you to try a different kind of burger, or bun in this case, we think you will be greatly satisfied!

Happy Wednesday! Two more days until Friday!!

Thank you for stopping by our blog, if you don't follow us already, please do!

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Red Velvet Brownies w/ White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I found this recipe awhile back on one of my favorite blogs called Chef in Training, found here. I can't believe it has taken me so long to make these! Red velvet brownies with homemade buttercream icing? Yes please!

On top of their deliciousness they are pretty easy to make as well, which is always fantastic.

To make mouthwatering red velvet brownies you will need:

• 6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 oz red food coloring  *We used one bottle of red gel food coloring
• 4 tsp pure vanilla extract, divided
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 3 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt

 

For the white chocolate buttercream frosting:

• 1/2 cup (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 4 oz good-quality white chocolate (not chips), melted (We started out with white chocolate chips, even though I was warned not to, but ended up using Ghirardelli because I burnt the chips, I wouldn't suggest using them)
• 1 – 2 tbsp heavy cream

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.  Butter and flour a 9″x13″ baking pan.

In a small bowl, slowly stir together the cocoa powder, food coloring, and 2 tsp vanilla into a thick paste until no lumps of cocoa remain. Set aside.

 In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, then stir in the remaining 2 tsp of vanilla.  With the mixer off, add in the cocoa mixture, then turn the mixer to medium and beat the two mixtures together until they are one uniform color.  Slowly add in the flour and salt and mix on medium-low speed, just until combined.  Do not overmix.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir up the batter with a rubber spatula once or twice just to ensure all of the flour has incorporated from the sides of the bowl and there isn’t anything stuck on the bottom of the bowl.  You’ll want one uniformly colored (red) batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 26-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted into the center of the brownies.  Allow brownies to completely cool in the pan on a baking rack, about 45-60 minutes.

Your batter will look something like this. It is really thick, you will have to smooth it into the pan with a spatula.

To make the frosting:

In a large bowl, cream butter until soft and fluffy then beat in the vanilla.  With the mixer on low speed, slowly add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time; allow the sugar to mix in before adding the next 1/2 cup. Once all of the sugar has been added, beat on medium speed for 30 seconds and scrape down the sides of the bowl.  Add in the melted white chocolate and beat on medium speed until incorporated.  With the mixer on low, add in heavy cream 1 tbsp at a time and beat at medium speed until the frosting has reached your desired consistency.

Frost and devour!

These are also really good with a couple of scoops of ice cream! : )

We hope you enjoy them!
Can you believe tomorrow is Monday already? I can't. Weekends sure do fly by when you bake!

Hope you had a great weekend!!