Warm Cauliflower Bacon Salad with Ranch Dressing (low carb)

This is comfort food!  Try it soon.

Heat some olive oil and butter, OR bacon grease (yeah!) in a skillet

over medium heat. 

Add chopped cauliflower, diced onion, and some julienned radishes

(just happened to throw these in on a whim).

.

Heat until the vegetables are tender. 

Remove from heat and spoon into a warmed dish. 

Top with real bacon pieces, shredded cheese,

and homemade ranch dressing.

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Warm Cauliflower Bacon Salad with Ranch Dressing

goes well with

steak, tenderloin,  pork chops, or meatloaf!

Warm Cauliflower Bacon Salad with Ranch Dressing

.

1 pkg cauliflower (frozen, then thawed)

3 radishes

1/4 cup diced onion

bacon grease, olive oil, or butter for sauteeing

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

bacon pieces

homemade ranch dressing

.

Heat some olive oil and butter, OR bacon grease in a skillet over medium heat.  Add chopped cauliflower, diced onion, and some julienned radishes.

Heat until the vegetables are tender.  Remove from heat and spoon into a warmed dish. 

Top with real bacon pieces, shredded cheese, and homemade ranch dressing.

 

Super Bowl Party Time!

If you're planning a Super Bowl Party, here's some great recipes to get you started.

Whether it's burgers, wings, chips and dip, cake, brownies...lots of great recipes can be found online.

...

Below are some of my favorites places:

The Pioneer Woman Cooking

Tasty Kitchen

About's Super Bowl recipes and Party Tips

Deep South Dish

Taste of Home Super Bowl Recipes

...

No matter what you make, enjoy the game, family and friends and may the best team win!!!

 

Grilled Burgers and Spicy Fries

My Grillmaster lights the grill once again! 

It was a weeknight and I was wanting a simple supper, something that didn't involve messing up a bunch of mixing bowls, pots and pans, and dinner plates.  I didn't feel like the clean-up. 

So I picked up some burgers, already pre-formed!  I was looking for easy, too.   I glanced at the prices of the french fries in the freezer section and remembered the half bag of whole potatoes I had at home just waiting to be turned into delicious homemade fries.

As I went through my mental list at the grocery, I picked up some buns, a Vidalia onion, some iceburg lettuce (I know), and some hamburger sliced dill pickles, our favorite. 

When we arrived home, my Grillmaster set about preparing the grill...charcoal only for him.   I prepared the condiments for the burgers and my youngest daughter scrubbed and helped slice the potatoes for the fries.

What a meal!  I took my mom (who is fighting cancer, on a bunch of meds, and nothing tastes good) a burger.  She ate half of it and declared it was the tenderest grilled burger she'd ever had.



I know the cheese is not melted.  Poor fellow, I forgot to give it to him and it never entered his mind to put some cheese on the burgers those last few seconds on the grill.  So when he brought them in, I took a few of the hottest ones and threw some cheese on them.  

* * * * *

TIP: When we light the grill, we usually do enough meat and veggies for more than one meal.  This night we grilled a huge pack of barbequed chicken legs and some deer tenderloin wrapped with bacon to have another time.  Leftover grilled goodies make for a quick and easy lunch!

Grilled Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin

My Grillmaster is at it again!  This time it's one of his specialties, wild game. 

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Grilled Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin

 

1 lb bacon

1 deer tenderloin, sliced

1 bottle Worchestershire sauce

1 T garlic

1 T lemon pepper

 

Marinate sliced tenderloin in Worchestershire sauce, garlic, lemon pepper for 4 hours or even overnight.  Remove slices from marinade, wrap with 1/2 a slice of bacon and grill over hot coals until done, 8-10 minutes per side.  Serve with a green salad and warm buttered rolls.

 

Optional marinade:  Teriyaki sauce, yum!

 

Tip: If you run out of bacon, skewer the rest of the deer meat with sliced veggies for kebabs.  :)

 

Steak and Onion Salad with Creamy Homemade Dressing

I like to use leftovers and I love salads!

What better way to use up the leftover grilled ribeye steak than on a bed of crispy salad greens and top it with homemade salad dressing, shredded cheddar cheese, and bacon pieces?

We had some leftover steaks  that kinda cooked longer than we like'm to, (it wasn't quite as "done" as it looks in these pics, really) so I decided to make Steak and Onion Salad.

Usually I stir-fry a cheaper cut of steak for this dish.  Sometimes I sauté the onions or sometimes I used fresh green onions or sliced Vidalias.  Sometimes I even throw both on there!  I'm liking onions, okay?

Sorry, there's no real recipe for this.   I just throw together a salad using my favorite salad ingredients, top it with the grilled steak, dressing, and peppercinis.

Steak and Onion Salad with Creamy Homemade Dressing (Lower Carb)

Your favorite salad greens: baby lettuces, radicchio, endive, butter...

I used Fresh Express prepackaged.

Shredded cheddar cheese

real bacon pieces

cucumbers, peeled, sliced, quartered (my DD did this :) )

sliced radishes

grape tomatoes, quartered

sliced yellow onion or green onions

sliced peppercinis.

steak, grilled or stir-fried and sliced into strips

To serve: Toss tomatoes, cucumbers and salad greens and other salad ingredients in a large salad bowl.  Place portions in individual salad bowls.  Add steak and onions.  Serve dressing alongside.

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Ok, don't laugh, this is not a fancy-schmancy recipe, I usually just throw together some type of mayo based salad dressing.  I can't stand the bottled stuff.  Not sure if this is kinda like a homemade Thousand Island, maybe?  Nevertheless, it's pretty good.  :)

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Creamy Homemade Dressing

1/2 cup mayo

1 T Heinz LC ketchup

1 tsp mustard

1 T peppercini juice

a dash of spices: salt, pepper, garlic powder

1 pkt Splenda, optional (if you prefer a sweeter dressing)

Mix all together in a small bowl.  If you prefer a thinner dressing, add some water or milk.

For a great low carb dessert, what about Mini Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Pie?

Ribeyes on the Grill

My Handyman, aka Grillmaster, loves to grill a steak.  Did I tell you about the whole ribeye we found at a meat sale for $2.99 a pound?!  We got 22 steaks out of that almost 15 pound slab of meat.  That comes out to a cost of about $2.00 per steak! 

Handyman does an awesome job.  He usually seasons the steaks with some garlic, lemon pepper, and Season All and lets them sit while the coals are getting hot.  Then depending on the thickness of the steak, he grills it about 6 minutes or so on each side.  That's all it takes. 

The steak he grilled for me Monday was so much better than the one I got a Chile's a few weeks ago.  That steak nowhere resembled or tasted like a Ribeye in any way.  I even mentioned it to the waiter and he talked to both managers and they all insisted it was a ribeye.  It was the strangest shape and was way too dry.  I ate as much as I could around the edge of it, then gave up.  It will be a long time before I go to Chile's again, even if I do love their Chili Con Queso in those little cast iron skillets.

What is your favorite beef steak? Do you prefer a ribeye or T-bone, or perhaps another cut?