Candied Bacon!

Seriously…It changed my life!

It was really simple to do this.  All that we used was brown sugar, and maple syrup.

We used one packaged of thick sliced bacon (you can also use thin sliced if you want),  about 1 1/2 cups brown sugar, and 1/2 cup maple syrup. Mix the brown sugar and the maple syrup in a bowl. * You can add more if you want – the more brown sugar and syrup added to the bacon the more gooey it will becomes.

Lay all of the strips of bacon out on a baking sheet lined with foil.

Brush the mixture on one side, and put it in the oven at 400 degrees.

After about 5 minutes pull the bacon out, flip them all over, and brush on the other side.

Repeat the process until the bacon is done to your liking. The entire process takes about 30 minutes.  – But wait there more!

The real excitement comes when you put it on a BURGER!

DON’T JUDGE ME BECAUSE I PUT MY CHEESE UNDER THE MEAT!

PLEASE  hit it with a few slices of avocado, and them some chipotle ranch! It’s life changing!

Buffalo Chicken Ranch Garlic Bread

This is something that we put together ourselves, but here is what you will need.

Prep Time: 20 min. Cook time:  About 1 hour Serves 2

1 loaf French bread

10 slices of cheese – we used provolone

3 chicken breasts

12oz. bottle of hot sauce

2 packets of ranch mix

3 cloves of garlic

butter (about 3 tablespoons)

Crumbled Blue cheese

parsley

Liquid ranch *optional

Cut the load of bread in half and then down the middle, so you will have 4 pieces. (The recipe only covers 2 pieces of bread, but you can use all 4 if you like.  With only 2 pieces we had chicken left over.

Melt the butter, (the amount you use it up to you) we used about 3 tablespoons.

Get your chicken boiling on the stove, and once that is done – Shred it!  If your wife has a KitchenAid Mixer it makes it all worth while. It shreds chicken like a dream!

Once you have shredded the chicken place it in a pan on the stove, add both packets of ranch seasoning, and 12 oz. hot sauce. Mix it around.  Salt and pepper to taste. Let it cook on low.

Melt the butter, and then add the 3 cloves of garlic.  We crushed our own. Spread the garlic on two of the pieces of bread.  Put 5 pieces of cheese on each piece of bread (you can use more if you want)

Put the 2 quarter pieces of bread in the over for about 15 minutes at about 325 degrees, just enough to melt the cheese.

Next, pile the chicken mixture evenly on the bread, and put it back in the over about 15 more minutes. or until the bread it nice and toasty.

After it is toasted to your liking, pull it out,  drop on some blue cheese crumbles, and hit it with some liquid ranch dressing (optional) and sprinkle on the parsley.

All Done!

This was only made to serve 2, but you can use all 4 quarters of the bread.  We had plenty of leftovers!

Banana Pancakes

As a newly married couple we have started a tradition of doing something for breakfast every Saturday morning.  Some times it is rather excessive, and other times we just keep it simple.  This is what we tried this past weekend. Super simple, super cheap, and kind of healthy. All you need to start is:

1 banana and 2 eggs

We did add a few drops of vanilla, just for more flavor.

Mash the two bananas, the squishier the better, and mix in the eggs.

Mix together, with a few drops of vanilla, and this is what you get. You can hit it with some butter, maple syrup, and powered sugar – we won’t tell.

This is what you have.  For every 1 banana and 2 eggs you should get about 4-5 pancakes. Keep then about the size of you palm, they will flip better and wont be so thin.

EAT UP!

 

Onward to Christmas!

This is the ham that we had for Thanksgiving, and for the second year in a row we used The Pioneer Woman’s recipe.  We also decided that if you add pineapple rings and maraschino cherries, it makes it look fancier.  Wink! Wink!

Since we are newly weds, we did have both families and 3 dogs, and several friends together under one roof. It’s wasn’t all bad, everyone left happy and with full bellies. 

This ornament was a gift from my mother on mine and Steph’s first Christmas together.  If was from Cher’s Signs by Design. We have ordered several things from here over the last several years, and couldn’t be happier with them. 

This has been our moments up until now, so tag along if you want, and subscribe to the blog.  

Merry Christmas!!, and we will talk soon…

How we made Sun Tea!

This might be a little late in the season for this, so you might want to wait for warmer weather.  This is how we made our peach tea similar to that of Sonic. 

You will need about 3 peaches cut into slices.  You could really use any type of fruit you want…we chose peaches. 

Create you own simple syrup with equal parts sugar and water, drop in the slices, and bring to a boil. 

Once everything in nice and bubbly, dump everything in your tea jug.  

Fill your tea jug to the top with water, and drop in 4 tea bags.  Take it out back, and just set it in the sun and wait.  The best time to do this is in the morning so that the tea has all day to sit in the sun and marinate. –  (For a more adult version you can add 1 cup vodka) 

You can also subscribe to this blog, if you would like to follow along. 

Now that we are moved!

Now that we are all moved in with MOST everything unpacked, hung on the walls, and rooms painted…we tried these.

I found the recipe online, so we decided to put our own twist on them. 

2 oz Vodka

3 oz Ginger beer

3 oz Limeade, our you can use just lime juice

Ice

Of course it does help to use the moscow mule mugs!

In this one we tried Cherry flavored vodka

        2 oz  Cherry Vodka

3 oz Ginger beer

2 tablespoons maraschino cherry juice 

3 oz Limeade, our you can use just lime juice

Drop in 2 cherries and lime wedge

Ice

In either case you can double the recipe, but please drink RESPONSIBLY!!

Out for awhile…

Most of you that know us on a more personal level know that we are moving.  Just like most newly wed couples we have bought our first house.  So we will be away for a while, but we will have plenty to share once we return. 

Food shoot!

This was my first attempt to photograph some sort of food. Of course like most people I have taken Instagram pictures of my food, but somehow it isn’t same. The picture below was some chicken tacos that we made awhile back, and not bad either. This was taken with my phone in what I would call a food tent. I will post a review later after I have had more chances to use it. 

Photo by Travis

This one was also taken with my phone, but I used just natural light coming from the kitchen window.  I seem to find that the natural light route is the best way to go when photographing food.  

OH! and I used these to make tea with – something I might share later. 

Photo by Travis

I’m going to continue on this food journey to see where it can takes me, and if you want you are free to tag along. 

My new Food!

This is what I decide to throw on the grill this last weekend. 

I took just 3 normal sized pork chops, a little salt and pepper on both sides, and put them in a bowl.  

The seasoning below is what I am most partial too, so that is what I used. I hit all sides with the powered seasoning, then I mixed a few tablespoons of the spicy brown mustard and some Sprite, until they were all swimming. Put them in the fridge, and let them marinate about 6 hours or so. 

I took the chops out at about 4 hours, and injected some Jack Daniels in all three and put them back in the fridge for the next two hours.  

After the chops were done, I mixed about 1 cup of BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray’s) 1 cup of brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons of spicy brown mustard (I do love the Spicy brown mustard). Lastly I brought that to a boil until it was nice and caramelized and poured it over the chops! And done!

It was super easy and super simple.  Next time I will share a drink recipe that my wife found. 

Bogle Park

As much as I have told myself that I would like to get away from taking pictures of everyday people, I broke down last weekend.  However it was a nice change of pace, but there are still other options in the photography field that I would like to pursue. 

It was extremely hot in the park on Saturday, but these two pulled it together so nicely. Even though people might not be my final stop in the photography world, they are still full of inspiration…especially the younger ones. 

Picture by Travis

Beer Can Chicken

It is likely from this post that you have an idea of where this blog might be going, but I will leave that up to you.  Most of our weekends during the summer are spent outside, with the grill, drink in hand…you get the idea.  Last weekend we tried beer can chicken for the first time, and this is how it went. 

We used the normal stand (which was a wedding gift) and some cheap beer.  More often than not I take recipes and make it my own, so this is what we came up with. 

Take a couple of big swigs out of the beer, and leave about 3/4 left.  I took the rest of the space and filled it with Fireball Whiskey, just to see. Not too bad…it had sort of a cinnamon taste.  Of course, there are other things that you can experiment with.  

I cooked it on the grill for about 2-3 hours (until it tempted right) just over the normal coals. Wasn’t to bad at all, which gives me some other ideas for future weekends. 

Definitely something try if you enjoy the grill.  So now I am off to see what to come up with something for this weekend.  I”l keep you posted!

The transition…

Now that we are newly weds, I have taken some time to adjust some things on this site. I’m sure the rest of the adjustments will take place over time, but for now I will slowly incorporate the Miss into this blog. 

Not so long ago I enjoyed taking pictures of people, but now I have chosen to take this in a different direction; and I’m bringing someone else along. So you will just have to tag along and see where this blog goes. 

As most newly weds do, we have a large amount of activity going on right now, but we will do our best to keep this up to date.  Or, you can just SUBSCRIBE and follow along.