Vidalia Onion Pie {Recipe Revealed!!}

Recipe by request from several of my Facwbook friends

Vidalia Onion Pie

For a regular size pie plate:
Crust:
1/4 box cheese its
2 tbsp butter
Insides:
2 large or 3 small onions
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
3 eggs
1/2 cup of milk

If you have a deep dish pie plate, you’ll need a little more of everything.

To put it together,  crush the cheese crackers and add butter to make the crust and sautée the onions (with salt, pepper and red pepper flakes).

Layer the cooked onions with shredded cheese in the pie crust (I usually start and end with cheese).

Then mix the milk and eggs with salt and pepper and pour over top. Poke through the onions to let it sink in and add more milk if It looks like it needs it. Bake at 375° for about 30 minutes, or until set.

If it’s deeper, do three large or four small onions. Obviously, double thethe recipe if making two shallow pies.
I have never measured the cheesy crackers. I just crush em and line the pie plate until things look right.

This is very similar to a quiche and great for cheese and onion lovers.

Ham & Bean Soup

If you’re a regular reader, you know that I constantly steal recipes from my Sister in Law (SiL) and rework them depending on what I have in my cabinets. Yesterday, I did this and completely transformed a Vegan Bean Soup recipe that Beth found on Pinterest.

I will share my version of the recipe. The link above is to the original recipe if you’re more diligent about following recipes than me.

Easy Ham & Bean Soup

• Generous dash of olive oil
• 2 sweet onions, chopped
• 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• ~4 cloves of garlic minced

Saute veggies in a medium sized soup pot until they are a bit soft–for about 10-15 minutes then add: 

• 3 cans of (whatever you can find) black beans, pintos or mixed beans—Or if you’re cabinets are like mine, one of each. Drain and rinse.
• 2 cups of your choice broth (I had beef broth on hand)
• Roughly 1 1/2 or 2 cups of chopped pre-cooked ham
• Salt & pepper to taste
• 4 tsp powdered curry
• 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes

Slap a lid on that puppy and set it to low-medium or just above a simmer for about 30 minutes. I forgot to add but I do recommended 1-2 TBSP of lime juice.

This would make a fine meal by itself, but if you really want a happy belly: 

Throw some tortillas in a skillet and put some cheese in the middle. A cheese quesadilla pairs beautifully with this hearty soupy meal.

Portabella Burgers and Stuffed Bell Peppers

Cut and cored the peppers and mixed up the pepper ingredients.

The other night we had my adopted daughter over for supper. She said she would est anything we ate so this is what we came up with. I was a little nervous having never made either one of the following recipes.

This is the same stuffed bell pepper recipe that I shared previously in my valentine date post.

I did kinda make my own tweaks.
I added a whole package of cream cheese (oops!! 8 oz instead of 3 oz) but it turned out tasty. I added two cups of Italian blend shredded cheese instead of 1/2 cup cheddar. I really wanted fresh onions, but had to settle for onion powder.

My favorite tweak turned out to be adding protein rich quinoa instead of brown rice. I cooked up two cups dry, so I’m sure it was more than two cooked cups. However, I also made more than 6 pepper halves. I do wish I had had more spinach as I like that sort of thing. I used bell peppers from my dad’s garden so they are a but smaller than from he grocery store.

After I got the peppers into the oven, I marinated three large portabella mushroom caps in a whole bottle of Italian dressing. I allowed them to marinate about 15-20 minutes-the peppers take plenty long, you have time.

The peppers cooked for about 45 minutes. The cheese was melty, the ingredients hot and the peppers tender.

After a 20 minutes in the Italian dressing, I threw the caps into a skillet one at a time on medium heat. Just enough to get warm all through and a little browned. Each one took about five or seven minutes.

The “burgers” had feta cheese, tomato, onion and spinach between buns.
The peppers could be cut up or eaten by hand depending on preference. It was a fantastic supper and so filling that we didn’t even consider making dessert.

Big thanks to Beth, for the portabella burger recipe.

Banana Pepper Poppers {Recipe Revealed!!}

This was our pan full of peppers before baking. I don’t know how many servings this might be in a regular household but this was about four and since we ate it as a main course we cleaned it up.

Ingredients
• Couple dozen sweet banana peppers
• Block of cheese (at least half pound)
• Package of bacon
• knife, cutting board, and baking sheet

Mathod
• Slice open peppers long ways and scrap/cut out seeds
• Slice cheese and put into pepper pockets. Arrange cheese evenly if possible
• Wrap bacon around each pepper. We cut one bacon strip in half for the small peppers.
Bake in oven 350° for 30 minutes or until peppers are tender, bacon is cooked and cheese is melted.

The final product looked like this.
You can see that I barely remembered to take a picture of them.

My specifics:
I used turkey bacon because that is what I usually keep in my fridge.

I also used some of Kenny’s Farmhouse Cheese. I used the onion and chive cheese, which crumbled and mashed nicely into the peppers.
I also just found out that Kenny uses vegtanle based rennet to make his cheese! So all y’all veggie people are good to go.

The sweet banana peppers I got from dad’s garden and boy oh boy are they delicious!

I am not paid nuttin’ to mention product names. I love their cheese and I felt decadent using something other than Walmart cheese. Heh.

Day 313: Supper with Family

Drove up to visit my brother in Illinois. There is always a good feed put on by my sister in law (SiL).

She made broiled Italian breaded chicken, corn, broccoli and cheese casserole, and portabella mushrooms baked with olive oil, herbs and balsamic vinegar.

It was a good feed.
After we ate, we went to visit the SiL’s neices. They were lumpy and cute. I would post pictures but they aren’t mine.

I kept one of the twin girls entertained by making faces, jigging her on my knee and licking her cheek.
Okay…So I only licked her cheek once. Promise
Katryn (baby) had that creepy deep stare that babies develop as they grow. She freaked me out with her stare but no one else thought my memories were being stolen by the miniature human.
Haha, babies are so weird.