Chili Beer Briskit/Hasselback Potatoes

These are two receipes that I found on Pinterest. The Chili Beer Briskit can be found here and the Hasselback Potatoes can be found there. These are both great recipes and made for an amazing meal!

Chili Beer Briskit Ingredients:

2 1/2 lbs. beef brisket
1/2 cup chopped onions
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 12 oz. jar chili sauce
1 12 oz. can of beer

Directions:

Place briskit in crock pot and season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Pour onions and chili sauce on top. Cook on low for 6 hours.



Add beer and cook on high for 30 minutes. The original recipe also says you can garnish with tomatoes and parsley sprigs. I didn't do this.



Hasselback Potatoes Ingredients:

Potatoes
Butter or Margarine
Olive Oil
Sea Salt
Pepper

Directions:
Thinly slice potato almost all the way through as shown below. Spread butter or margarine on top, pour a little olive oil on that, and season with salt and pepper. Cook at 425 degrees for 40 minutes. The original recipe also calls for garlic but I didn't realize we had some until it was too late. Enjoy!



***We like to save on dishes since we don't have a dishwasher. We usually only use paper plates. :)***

Broccoli/Cauliflower Salad

This is a great recipe I got from my mom for my wedding shower (thanks Mom!). While it's not a difficult recipe, it does take a lot of prep work.

Ingredients:

Salad:
2 cups of cutup cauliflower
2 cups of cutup broccoli
1/4 cup diced red onion
3 slices of crisply cooked bacon (or bacos because it's easier)
1/4 cup Rasins - optional
1/4 cup Sunflower Seeds - optional

Dressing:
1/2 cup Hellman's mayonaise
2 Tbs sugar
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp or less of vinegar (for thinning the dressing)

Directions:
Combine all salad ingredients and toss lightly.



Add dressing and toss to coat.
When I made mine I found that I needed a little more dressing than what the recipe called for. So I made a half of a batch of dressing after the first full one went on and added to it until it tasted "right".


***This picture was taken before the rest of the dressing went on***

The great thing about this recipe is that it can easily be doubled (or tripled, etc.) for a larger crowd. If I'm not mistaken, my mom doubles the recipe for our family which usually feeds about 10 people.

You can also chop the vegetables the night before and put them in separate Ziplock bags. My mom's recipe says to add the dressing before serving, but I found it was a little better after the salad chilled for about 30 minutes.

As always, enjoy! :)

Awesome Apple Pie

Awesome Apple Pie!

Ingredients:



Crust:
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
3/4 cup shortening
7 Tbs. ice water

Filling:

6 tart apples
3/4 to 1 cup brown sugar
2 Tbs. flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
Dash of salt
2 Tbs. butter

Directions for the Crust:

Mix flour and salt.
Add shortening and cut in with pastry blender or fork
Add one tablespoon of water at a time until a ball forms (I found it took about six tablespoons).



Divide ball in half.
Roll one half into a circle on a floured pastry sheet or counter.



Place in pie plate and cut off excess edges.

Directions for the filling:

Peel and slice apples.



Mix sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt.



Mix dry ingredients with apples.

Fill pie crust with mixture.

Dot with butter.

Roll out other half of dough and cover filling.
Cut small slits in the middle of the top.
Trim edges and seal top and bottom crust by pinching together.

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.
Turn down to 350 degrees for 50 minutes.
Enjoy!

Crock-Pot-Roast

This Crock-Pot-Roast recipe is one I found in a fundraiser cookbook that my aunt from Alabama bought me (thanks again Aunt Dee! :). This is my family's go-to meal when I don't want to cook or when nothing else sounds good.

Ingredients:
1 beef roast (we usually use a bottom round that's about 4 to 5 pounds)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can golden mushroom soup
1 can french onion soup (not the dry pack)

Directions:
Place meat in crockpot
Cover with all three soups
Cook on high 7 to 8 hours



Is that all you ask? It sure is! Simple, quick, easy, and so yummy!

However, I will warn you, when it first goes in it doesn't smell that great. But trust me, as it cooks your mouth will start to water. We usually serve this with Pillsbury biscuits and a vegetable side.

Enjoy! :)

Pulled Pork

I found this great pulled pork recipe online the other day. Unfortunately, I don't remember where otherwise I would provide a link. The recipe is fairly simple, just a bit of chopping and cutting at first. Note: I'm giving the recipe as I did it, however, I doubled the first three ingredients from the original recipe and forgot to double the last three. You may want to try it the correct way first but the way I made it tasted just fine.

Ingredients:
1 3lb. pork tenderloin
2 cups barbeque sauce
1 large onion, chopped
2 - 2 1/2 tsp. minced garlic (or 2 cloves of minced garlic)
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

Cut pork into slices about 1 inch thick and chop onion.



Add all ingredients to the crock pot.



Cook on high for 4 hours.
When done, shred pork with two forks in crock pot to make sure it soaks up the juices really well.



Place on bun (or eat it plain) and enjoy!

Apple Cake!

Delicious Apple Cake Recipe!

Ingredients:
3 cups apples (Gala, Honeycrisp, etc.)
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. each of salt, baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup each of oil and butter (or 1 cup of one of them)
2 eggs
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup pecans (optional but totally worth it)

Directions:
First, peel and chop your apples. I found it took about 4 small apples to make 3 cups.



Then mix apples, cinnamon, salt, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, brown sugar, oil, and butter in bowl.



Next, add flour and mix again. It will get quite thick after this.



Add pecans and mix one last time. Pour (or glop) mixture into a greased and lightly floured bundt cake pan. Bake on middle rack at 350 degrees for 45 to 55 minutes (I found mine came out the best at 50 minutes but because oven temperatures vary yours may be different). When top and sides are brown check with a toothpick. Enjoy!

I tried to make the cake look whole but my husband got to it before I could get a picture. :) Besides being very tasty, I've been able to make two complete cakes from one shopping trip! So cheap once you have the ingredients. I'll only need to replace the apples and brown sugar for the next time!

The Downside of Mr. Potato Head

Ha!

Slip 'n Slide!

John going down the slip 'n slide!!!

JJ

I'm really bad about updating but here are some pictures of JJ. The first few are in the hospital, the last two are more recent. Enjoy!

Just born!

Great Grandma and Grandpa Bergy

Grandma Allinder

Grandpa Bergy

Grandma Bergy



Great Grandma Finkbeiner

Dr. Balaskas

Family picture!

JEH VI

WOW! I can't believe baby (John Edward Harris VI) is finally here! While it seems like we were just recently getting excited to tell people that we were expecting, it seems like so long ago too. It's been a long, tough, joyous, emotional and exciting nine months.

He was born via c-section at 12:03 p.m. on Monday, May 2. He was 7 lbs 8 oz. and 20 inches long. The worst time of the day was when they put the IV in. For some reason that I can't remember they put it in my forearm rather than my hand. It was much more painful. The second hardest time was when they did the spinal block. It wasn't so much that it hurt but that John couldn't be with me to help me through it.

And of course the most exciting time was when they lifted JJ over the partition so that I could see him! I almost immediately started crying, he was so perfect. I was relieved when they said he could stay in the room with us because all of his vitals were good. However, I became a little concerned when they checked his sugar level in recovery and it was only 36. Something that I had prayed so much about and asked God not to let happen, it seemed, was about to happen. Because he wouldn't feed well, we had to supplement with a bottle to make sure his blood sugar level came up above 40. He took about an ounce and they checked his level again after an hour. It had come up to 69. Another hour or so later it was at 73! Praise God it was staying normal! They continued to monitor his sugars before each attempt at feeding and they remained in the normal range. We are so blessed that after several high blood sugar readings during my last trimester, he doesn't seem to have any problems.

It's about to hit 3 a.m. here and I still haven't slept. I'm sure part of it is hormones and part of it is excitement. Whatever it is it's slowly but surely going away. I'm about to fall asleep now. Thank you to everyone who kept us in prayer during the pregnancy and during delivery. We feel incredibly blessed by all of your love and support!

Baby Showers!

I've been very blessed to have been given three baby showers. The first shower came in January when I was moving from the phone team at work to another team. John and I hadn't even registered yet and it was a complete surprise. That's where we received most of the new clothes for baby. We also received some other essential items like baby wash, baby powder and diapers. It was a wonderful blessing! The next shower was the family/friend one. I don't have many friends who live near by and John's family is scattered throughout the country so we decided to combine everyone. We received a lot of items off of our registry. The bigger items we received included the crib mattress, the stroller/car seat combo, the bouncer and the bath tub. We also got a lot of cute clothing items that were a great fit for our theme! The games we played were also fun. The first one was a sheet of paper that had a quote from a children's story book and you had to figure out the name of the book. I got 10 of them right which I thought was kind of impressive (especially since that's how many the winner got right too). The second game was "The Price is Right" where you had to guess the value of a variety of baby items they bought. The person closest without going over was the winner...well, everyone went over so it was just the closest person. My sisters planned this shower and they did a great job! Oh...and the food was AMAZING! :) Finally, the ladies at my church also planned a shower. We all went to The Gathering Place for breakfast which is such a great place to eat! One lady got a few toys, a bottle brush and some receiving blankets for us. Everyone also went in on a gift card to Buy Buy Baby. I'm sure we'll have lots of fun spending it on things to finish our registry and maybe get some things that we had decided not to register for at the time. Since our house is kind of small it's been quite a task trying to find a place for everything. I'm taking a couple days off from work so that I can really clean and organize things. I believe it's called "nesting"...lol. But we have been so blessed by everyone in our lives and we thank you all so much for your gifts! I think we're about ready now to meet the little one! :)

SNOWPOCALYPSE 2011!

Pictures of the blizzard. Welcome to February! :)




Max wouldn't go outside right away, but after a while he "warmed up" to it.



John built a fort so big we both could've fit inside!



A picture of the fort.



This used to be a path to the backyard...it's gonna be awhile before we get there again.



The snowbank after John shoveled the driveway.