Bread Pudding with Rum Sauce

I made a few changes. I just did it in a 9x13" pan and tore up probably 10 slices of bread and a few leftover pancakes that needed to be used. I tore the bread up a day before and let it sit out over night instead of toasting it in the oven, kind of over kill.  Besides running the milk and sugar mixture for the rum all over the hot stove and burning it to it, I didn't do the veg oil and flour, I just used butter and melted it. Then I just added all the paste to the simmering milk and whisked it in and let it cook for awhile to thicken and added rum extract. But you can do it however you like, it still tastes good. :)

BREAD PUDDING:

6 slices day old bread

1t cinnamon

1/2c raisins

2T melted butter

4 eggs

1/2c + 2T sugar

2c milk

1t vanilla

1. Break bread into small pieces into 1 1/2qt baking dish.
2. Sprinkle cinnamon & raisins over bread.
3. Drizzle butter over all.
4. Toast in 350F oven.
5. Combine eggs, sugar, milk, & vanilla.
6. Add to toasted bread mix.
7. Bake at 350F for 30 min or until firm.

RUM SAUCE:

2c milk

1/2c butter

1/2c sugar

1T vegetable oil

2T flour

1T nutmeg

1T vanilla

Rum to taste

1. Place milk, butter, & sugar in saucepan & bring to boil.
2. Heat oil in small skillet & stir in flour to make smooth paste.
3. Add some milk mix to flour mix and blend well.
4. Return flour mix to milk mix in pan.
5. Cook & stir until thickened and smooth.
6. Add nutmeg, vanilla, & rum.
7. Serve over pudding!

Good & Easy Hot Dish!

1# hamburger

Onion

Brown and season with lawrey's and pepper.

Then add (all chopped)

1/2c green pepper, celery, whole kernal corn.

1 1/2c carrots

Then 1c uncooked minute rice

16oz stewed or diced tomatoes

1c water (just use the water that you rinse the can out with)

Use a big stock pot. Bake 1 hour at 350F or until rice fully cooked.

We serve ours with cottage cheese and peas!

PLUM SYRUP!

Ok, so this started out as a way to use up 2 plums that I had.
It turned it to amazingness.
I will end up putting the full bottle into the freezer to save for later.

This recipe makes 2 cups.

2 plums
1/4c pineapple
1/4c strawberries
1 1/2c sugar
1 1/2c water
1t lime zest
2T cornstarch
Just a little bit of water to thin cornstarch


1. Combine all ingredients and bring to a boil.
2. Pour syrup thru strainer and mash the fruit. (I used a potato ricer and the pineapple wouldn't mash but still got flavor out).
3. Put back on stove and bring to boil.
4. Whisk in cornstarch to thicken syrup.

Sweet & Sour Pineapple Chicken

Sorry for the poor quality.


2 Chicken breasts, cut into chunks
2 "shakes" each of the following: soy sauce, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar.
1/2t hoisin sauce
1T honey
salt and pepper

Combine these ingredients and marinate in the fridge for an hour or 2.

1 can pineapple chunks (we actually only had slices on hand and I cut those up, I think the "tidbits" are a little too hard)
SAVE THE JUICE!
1c broccoli florets
1/2c snow peas or snap peas whatever
2T minced white onion
3T corn starch
a "dash" of crushed red pepper flakes, optional
2T brown sugar (goes into the sauce)

1. Save one half of the juice for the sauce the other half you can drink.
2. Drain the chicken marinade into the reserved pineapple juice.
3. Put the cornstarch in with the chicken chunks and toss to coat.
4. Heat a skillet on high with veg oil.
5. Add the chicken and cook until golden brown.
6. Add in the pineapple sauce, onion, and pineapple chunks.
7. Cook for 5 min.
8. The sauce will start to thicken because of the cornstarch from the chicken in the pan.
9. Toss in your broccoli, peas, whatever other veggies you want and turn down on low, cover, so the veggies can steam.

TADA!
We served ours with rice.

Grandpa's Cafe

My grandpa (dad’s dad) owned a cafe since I’d been born and he sold it when I was 12.

I worked at his cafe for a few summers a couple days a week from age 10-12.

He had a VERY cheap special. 2 cakes, 2 eggs, 2 links. (2 Pancakes and 2 sausage links)

I remember one day he was trying to teach me how to read a clock face and apparently I made him so bad by not understanding that he said “You disgust me” and that upset me so much that the next time he asked me to come work I didn’t want to.

I remember this group of 3 came in and the ONLY thing they said to me for their order was “scrambled eggs and water.” I even double checked what they said. So, that’s what I put in for the order. My grandpa asked me if I wasn’t sure they wanted the SPECIAL. And I said “no all they said was ‘scrambled eggs and water’. My grandpa had enough faith in me that that’s all he made them. I took it to their table and these jerk offs gave me a nasty look and asked where their food was. Luckily my grandpa never reprimanded me for it and he fixed their order in less than 10 minutes. They didn’t leave me a tip.

I remember having a tan bowl with my tips. Usually I’d get change which was fine cause I LOVED playing spin the coins. Most people hold the coin up with their left pointer finger then flick the side of the coin with their right finger. I grip both sides of the coin and twist really fast. I’d start a chain of them.

I’d also spend my time adding up the prices on the menu.
My grandpa actually gave me $10 plus all my tips for working a day. :) Some days if it was from 8am to 8pm he’d give me $20!

His cafe was closed from 2-4. Usually we’d take a nap on the  “oh so cold” booths cause the air conditioning was on high and it’d get REALLY cold. Other days if he needed to get something from the store we’d go to dairy queen and get sundaes!

He had a big stereo that had a cd player. If there weren’t a lot of customers he’d let me pick some polka cds from his collection OR I could play one of my 50-60s cds.

I kind of miss my grandpa’s cafe…

General Tso's Chicken!

This stuff is AH-MAZ-ING.


General Tso’s Chicken
Yields 2 servings

• Ingredients:
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 t hoisin sauce
• 3 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1/2c flour
• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 tablespoon olive oil (I used vegetable oil)
• 1 tablespoon sesame oil
• 6 green onions, chopped, plus more for serving
• 1/2t grated fresh ginger
• 1/2t minced garlic 
• 1c broccoli florets
• 1/2c snow peas
• Crushed red-pepper flakes, optional
• Sesame seeds, optional
• Cooked rice, for serving

Directions: (oh ftw, I MOSTLY eyeballed all this stuff. I tried to guess at how much I put in but it won't hurt if you just eyeball it.)

1.  I marinated the chicken it really adds to the dish and helps it! I diced the chicken, added 1/4t hoisin sauce, 1T rice wine vinegar, 1T soy sauce, 2 dashes of sesame oil, 1/4t fresh grated ginger, 1/4t minced garlic, and 2T brown sugar. I let that sit in the fridge for at least 3 hours. Any amount of extra time you have will help the chicken so it doesn't need to be that long but it's better if it's marinated that long!
2. So then I drain the chicken from the juices and coat the chicken with the flour and cornstarch.
3. I heat up 2T veg oil in a nonstick pan and cook until the chicken is done. Remove from pan.
4. Add 2T veg oil. Saute the scallions and ginger and rest of garlic. Add the broccoli and peas and whatever veggies you want and the crushed red pepper flakes.
5. Add (eyeball) hoisin, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, and brown sugar.
6. Add the chicken and toss to coat.

Serve with rice!
This isn't very saucy so if you wanted more sauce you can mix the sauce ingredients with 1/2c of water and some cornstarch and then you'll have to let it cook to thicken.

Without counting the marinating time, this took like 15min because I had all the veggies pre-chopped and in the freezer so I just threw them in the pan.

It was so good even Bradley liked it!! :D
You could easily change this up and instead of using the crushed red pepper flakes you can use orange juice and zest to make orange chicken! :)

Dirt Cake

1 block (8oz) cream cheese, softened
2 pkgs vanilla pudding
3c milk
1 tub (8oz) cool whip
1 pkg gummy worms
1 pkg oreos

1. Prepare pudding according to directions but use only the 3c of milk.
2. Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream the cream cheese.
3. Add the pudding to the cream cheese and beat until combined.
4. Stir in the cool whip.
5. Put oreos in ziplock baggy and beat the crap out of them until they're crushed.
6. Put 3/4 of oreo mixture in bottom of 9x13 pan.
7. Top with pudding mixture.
8. Sprinkle remaining oreos on top and top with gummy worms.

A few notes about this:

• I also crushed up some animal crackers (because my husband got into the oreos and those were the only ones on hand. You could use the chocolate version of those as well!) and on a positive I can tell people there's dead animals in it too! HA!
• I found some gummy "rocks" on sale, I put those on top as well!
• My mom once couldn't find gummy worms so she used gummy dinosaurs instead!

It's a cute dessert that people of all ages enjoy. This was the cake I have wanted for my birthday for probably 16 out of my 19 (almost 20) years and I still love it! Oh! And since I'm making this for Easter I make throw on some egg shaped gummy/candy things too!
Hope you like it!