Screwed Up Texan Recipes has Moved!

That's right! When I made the move to Wordpress for my main blog, I went ahead and moved all posts for Screwed Up Texan Recipes over there too! Now you can find all my recipes in one convenient place and organized under the "recipes" tab on Screwed Up Texan. I am so excited about the move and I wanted to make sure everything was working correctly before I made the announcement.

Here are a couple things you may want to do while you are at my new site if you haven't already:

1.) Put me in your reader by subscribing to my feed.
2.) Add yourself to my Google Friend Connect found in the sidebars.
3.) Check out my Cilantro Soup with Pecans recipe, as well as many more fun and light-hearted humorous stories.
4.) Get ready for a fun give away next week featuring Chef Richard Chamberlain's cookbook, The Healthy Beef Cookbook next week!

Much thanks to Shauna for helping me make the transition to Wordpress! I love the new features on my blog!

Spicy Bread and Butter Pickles

When I was younger there were three things that I remember refusing to eat: pinto beans, oatmeal with raisins, and any type of sweet pickle. Of course this was all after my stint with hiding green beans down my pants at the dinner table. So, you can understand my dismay in the summertime when my mother would get her canning supplies ready and start up another batch of sweet or bread and butter pickles. Honestly, I never knew the difference between the two until I got older and decided to make my own...after all, my pantry was already full of dill pickles.

Even though I still won't eat sweet pickles to this day, I have learned to enjoy bread and butter pickles. Yes, they're sweet, but they are also tangy and full of spice with just the right amount of onion. My bread and butter pickles even have a slight bit of heat for extra flavor, done just the way we Texans like our food. Not overly powerful, but not flavorless like my mother's bread and butter pickles.

Interestingly, bread and butter pickles got their name during the Great Depression when meat was scarce or too expensive and so were used in their place. If you ask some they will say bread and butter pickles are great between two slices of bread with just a little bit of butter.

Spicy Texan Bread and Butter Pickles (FREE printable recipe here)

10 cups sliced cucumbers (about 20 whole small)
6 onions, sliced
1/2 cup peeled and halved beets (optional)
2 T minced garlic
1/2 cup salt (use pickling salt if you prefer a cloudless end product)

3 cups apple cider vinegar (or 2 1/2 cups distilled white plus 1/2 cup red wine vinegars)
5 cups white sugar
1/4 to 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
2 t coriander seed
4 cloves
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 t celery salt or celery seed
2 T mustard (I used spicy dijon)
1/8 tsp ground ginger

Toss the first five ingredients together and allow to sit and drain in a colander for at least 3 hours, but preferably five at room temperature. This step allows the cucumbers to be at their crispiest after processing.

Blend the remaining ingredients together using a whisk in a large saucepot. Add the cucumber mixture and stir gently with a wooden or plastic spoon. Turn heat to medium high and allow to boil for two minutes. Remove from heat and immediately begin filling prepared jars.

Process for 10 minutes in boiling water bath canner at less than 1000 ft above sea level leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Adjust for your altitude. Allow pickles to sit for at least 24 hours before consuming.

Cheesy Tomato Hamburger and Pasta Dinner

I've been searching for and creating new easy meals for my family the last few weeks. With summer heat turned up full blast outside, I really haven't had much energy for cooking lately. The following recipe is a result of my desire to create wholesome, yet delicious, meals for my family. It's so good that not only will I be making it again and again, but the kids licked their bowls clean.

Cheesy Tomato Hamburger and Pasta Dinner (free printable recipe here)

1 pound ground beef
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 10 oz can tomato sauce (pureed tomatoes for you Aussies)
2 cups milk
2 cups rigatoni pasta, uncooked
garlic salt to taste
2 tsp dried oregano or 1 T fresh
1 to 2 T corn starch for thickening, if needed

Brown ground beef in a large skillet on medium high until about 2/3 done. Drain off excess fat (do not rinse), then return to skillet and continue browning over med high heat. This process ensures good flavor while eliminating much of the fat. Season with garlic salt.

Turn heat to medium, add milk, tomato sauce, 2 cups milk, pasta, and cheese. Stir, increase heat and allow mixture to boil. Top with fresh oregano or dried oregano. Cover. Turn heat down and simmer for about 20 minutes or until pasta is tender.

If dinner is too thin, thicken with cornstarch mixed with a little cold water. Add slowly to dinner while stirring. The meal will thicken. You could also use heavy whipping cream in place of milk for a thicker end result.

Bacon and Beet Greens

A couple months ago I fell in love with Swiss chard. Just when the spinach in my garden was beginning to turn bitter, the Swiss chard in my neighbor's garden was growing large and tender. I had never tasted Swiss chard before that moment, but I got some cooking advice from the neighbor and went home and prepared it. Since then, cooking greens whether spinach, chard or beet tops in a garlicky mixture of onions and bacon is my favorite way to prepare them. Try it--you won't be disappointed.

Bacon and Beet Greens (printable recipe here)


4-6 cups beet greens and stems, sliced into bite size pieces
3 slices of bacon (see notes)
2 T bacon grease or butter
1 small onion
1/2 t garlic salt
1/4 t red pepper flakes (or to taste, optional)
black pepper to taste

In a small skillet, cook bacon until crispy. Remove crispy bacon from skillet, reserving the bacon grease to use in recipe, and crumble bacon into bowl.

Chop onion and saute in skillet in bacon grease. Add garlic salt, red pepper flakes (optional), and black pepper. Stir to combine.

Add beet greens, all at once, and stir to coat with onion mixture. Sprinkle with crumbled bacon. Cover and turn heat to simmer and cook greens for five to ten minutes or until the tenderness of your liking. You can also add a couple tablespoons of water and cover with a lid to "steam" the mixture.

Serve with Spicy Apricot Glazed Salmon with Sauce or Southern Battered Fish Fillets. Serves 4-6.

Notes: If you want to cut some fat out of this dish...which is totally not Southern...use butter or vegetable cooking spray like Pam to saute the onions and add two tablespoons of bacon bits in place of crumbled bacon.

Spicy Apricot Glazed Salmon with Sauce

Unless it's catfish, bass, or canned tuna fish, we don't eat fish much in our family. Especially salmon. Salmon is a "fancy food" to be enjoyed by "fancy people" and quite honestly we ain't very fancy people. In fact, the first person I ever met that cooked and ate salmon was a Yankee (that's anyone north of the Red River y'all). However, once in a while my husband and I will treat ourselves to some Yankee food...spiced up the way we Texans like it. When the kids enjoy it, well we know the recipe must be worth sharing.

Spicy Apricot Glazed Salmon (click here for printable recipe)

2 medium salmon fillets
8 oz apricot or wild plum jam
1/2 t red pepper flakes (use more or less according to your likes)
2 T red wine vinegar
1/4 t garlic salt
1 T lime juice

Cover the bottom of a roasting pan with foil and then spray with vegetable oil for easy clean-up. Lay salmon fillets inside side by side.

In a small saucepan, mix together red pepper flakes, red wine vinegar, jam, garlic salt, and lime juice over medium heat. Brush about three tablespoons over salmon fillets. Broil salmon for 5 minutes, meanwhile continue stirring and heating the jam sauce.

Take out salmon and brush again with three tablespoons of jam sauce. Return to oven and broil again for another five minutes. Continue stirring and cooking jam mixture.

Once again take out salmon and brush with three tablespoons of jam sauce. Return salmon to oven and broil again for another five minutes or until salmon is done (will be opaque and flaky). Remove jam sauce from stove.

Garnish salmon with a dipping bowl of jam sauce to be served with salmon or brush the remaining mixture over the salmon and serve immediately.

This recipe is wonderfully sweet and spicy all at once. My boys gobbled it right up! Serves 4-6.

NOTE: You can also use the sauce for glazing chicken or pork.

Fresh Cucumber Salad

Our cucumbers this year have been in one word: prolific. I've now got several quart jars of pickles from the cucumbers we've picked, not to mention the many we've sliced and salted to eat. Needless to say, I've been experimenting with a few recipes calling for cucumbers in recipe books I've picked up at garage sales. My favorite recipe comes from a Justin, Texas family that I've tweaked to my liking and it's perfect on a hot summer day like the ones we've been having.

Fresh Cucumber Salad (printable recipe here)

4 small cucumbers, sliced thinly
1 small yellow sweet or Vidalia onion, sliced thinly
1/4 cup sour cream
3 T red wine vinegar
1/4 t honey Dijon mustard
2 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
cracked black pepper to taste

In a blender, combine all ingredients except the cucumbers and onions and blend until smooth. This is the dressing.

In a small casserole dish, a glass loaf pan works well, layer the cucumber, then onion, then dressing alternatively until all ingredients are gone. You can also double this recipe and use an 8 x 8 square baking dish.

Refridgerate for at least one hour before serving. Makes four to six servings.

Hill Country Apple Crisp

A layer of toasted chopped pecans tops this favorite apple crisp with a touch of Hill Country Texas. Serve warm with whipped cream, ice cream, or plain. Easy version in notes below.

Hill Country Apple Crisp (FREE printable recipe here)

6 medium apples, peeled
1/2 cup sugar
2 T lemon juice
4 T butter or margarine, melted
1 cup quick oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp molasses, optional
1/2 t cinnamon
1/2 t nutmeg
1 cup pecans, chopped

or you may omit all the ingredients above and use one can of apple pie filling, plus 1 cup pecans, chopped.

Core and slice apples as you would for apple pie. In a medium bowl, add cored and sliced apples, white sugar, and lemon juice. Stir until all apples are coated.

Add butter or margarine, oats, brown sugar, molasses (optional), cinnamon, and nutmeg. Stir until apples are coated once more.

Place apple mixture into an 8 x 8 greased pan and spread evenly. Top with chopped pecans. Bake at 350 F for 40-45 minutes or until tender.

NOTE: If using canned apple pie filling (either store bought or canned yourself in one quart size), just spread into greased 8 x 8 pan, top with chopped pecans, and bake for time required.

Sausage Cheese Grits Casserole

One of my favorite dishes that brings back many fond food memories is a bowl full of creamy white grits. Too often as a child, I think anyway, my mother made oatmeal. Occasionally she'd mix breakfast up with a bowl of white rice or cream of wheat with milk, butter, and sugar. However, what I really looked forward to were the times she'd cook us grits.

In hour home, we ate grits two different ways: 1.) for breakfast with milk, sugar, and Country Crock mixed in, or 2.) for dinner with cheese and salt or more Country Crock and salt. It wasn't until much later that I discovered that there was more to grits than Country Crock.