The Nifty Foodie

Am I the only person who is shocked that Christmas just passed? I can’t believe it. Neighbors are taking down lights, and our tree looks SO empty without gifts under it. My favorite holiday is over, and crazy enough, it’s time for a new year. 2012.

Time to take the shrink wrap off of the new planner and get used to writing “2012″ on papers/emails/etc. This is just crazy.

Also crazy…sometime in 2012, my 4 year blogiversary is happening and my 3 year wedding anniversary is happening too. WHAT?

It’s a lot to look forward to, but before everyone rings in the new year, I just wanted to share with y’all the top 10 posts of 2011.

10. Strawberry Swiss Meringue Buttercream – This was my first time making SMBC, and I swear, if you haven’t tried SMBC before, just do it. Please?

9. Pecan Pie Macarons – Gotta love macarons. These were really a huge favorite for Thanksgiving, and the star shape (which was a happy accident) made them super cute and festive!

8. Restaurant Style Queso Blanco – This is it. The ultimate queso blanco. If you’re as addicted to queso as me, you’d understand how wonderful it is to FINALLY have a recipe for this!

7. Strawberry Cream Cake – I’m actually glad I compiled this top 10, because I sort of forgot about this cake. Since it’s currently strawberry season in Louisiana, I think I MUST make this cake again. Yum!

6. Peppermint Bark Cheesecake Truffles – This is the recipe that made my year, basically. I still can’t believe I won that recipe contest, and I’ve been told by a few friends who made this that these little truffles were a hit at their holiday parties! So happy to hear that!

5. Banana Nutella “Ice Cream” – Two ingredient “ice cream”. It’s basically awesome and couldn’t be any easier. Your food processor does all the work!

4. Grilled Corn Grits – I can’t be from the South, and not have a post about grits. I promise you if you make this, your hips may never be the same again, but your taste buds will tell you it’s completely worth it!

3. Easy Pasta Salad – My first (and so far, only) vlog. I might get the courage to make one again, since you guys seemed to like it so much!

2. Cooking For Kids – The infamous post. Yup, who’da thought that a soda cupcake would get so much response from you guys (both good and bad)…yikes!

1. S’mores for a Shower – Nutella S’mores. I can see why you guys loved this one so much. I’m sort of craving s’mores right now, actually.

I hope you have a wonderful New Year with your family and friends, and thank you so much for reading The Nifty Foodie! See y’all in 2012!

When I made my first batch of caramel, I was so surprised at the taste. I was ready to taste a more flavorful Kraft caramel, but instead, homemade caramels tasted completely different. Completely. Homemade caramels are in a league of their own.

The same goes for caramel sauce. The homemade stuff tastes NOTHING like Smucker’s, and this stuff is much easier to make than caramel candy. No thermometer needed (Wahoo!), and it comes together fairly quickly. There’s still some of this precious sauce left in the refrigerator, and it’s taking everything in me not to finish that jar with a spoon. Diet be darned!

Salted Butter Caramel Sauce
Source: Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients:

• 1 cup sugar
• 6 tbsp. salted butter (in tbsp.-sized slices)
• 1/2 cup + two tbsp. heavy cream, at room temperature

Directions:

1. Add the sugar to a 2-3 qt. sized pot, and melt over medium to medium high heat. As the sugar starts to melt, whisk or stir to ensure that the sugar doesn’t burn and heats evenly.
2. Cook the sugar until it melts to a dark caramel color. Add the butter tbsps. at the same time and stir it in. Then, pour in the heavy cream. You’ll notice that the pot is going to foam up so do these steps carefully to avoid burning yourself.
3. Remove the pot immediately from heat and whisk it until you get a smooth sauce.

Note: You can either use it right away or store it in the fridge up to two weeks. Popping it in the microwave for about a minute will make it it’s original consistency again.

I’ve chosen the two winners of the Butterball turkey gift certificates. Thanks to all of you who entered!

EDITED:

Due to the lack of response from the original winners, I had to re-draw for the Turkey gift cards!

cara….who said:

I try to get as much done as I can the night before and we rent an extra fridge!

AND

Kayla…who said:

My tip is to make your SIL host so you can just show up with your pecan pie and call it a day.  

For the two of you who won, to redeem your prize, please email me within 48 hours at niftyfoodie@gmail.com! Congratulations!

Greetings from our new kitchen! We’re still unpacking boxes around the house, but the kitchen is completely set-up! The kitchen was definitely a priority for us when it came to unpacking, because take out was definitely starting to get boring. Since we moved a little further from the city, our choices are VERY limited. So yeah, it was time to turn on that stove!

Since I was in the mood to make tex-mex (and H didn’t really mind that craving either), we made chicken enchiladas one night and then chicken taquitos with this salsa the next night. Tex-mex two nights in a week? Heck yes!

This salsa is really a big favorite in our house, and I’m really not sure why I haven’t shared this recipe with y’all until now! We’ve made it quite a few times, because it’s ridiculously easy to throw together and way tastier than anything you can buy in a jar! While this salsa makes a lot (and I mean A LOT), it’s really not difficult to go through this stuff fairly quickly. It’s addictive, for sure!

Restaurant Style Salsa
Source: Pioneer Woman

Ingredients:

• 1 28 oz. can whole tomatoes with juice
• 2 10 oz cans of Rotel
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 whole jalapeno, quartered and sliced thin (remove seeds if you don’t want as much heat)
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 1/2 cup cilantro
• 1/2 of a lime’s juice

Directions:

1. Take all ingredients and put them in a blender.
2. Pulse the blender until you reach your desired consistency.
3. Enjoy!

My husband and I really love a good bowl of queso blanco. Whenever we go to a tex-mex restaurant, we have to order the queso, and it never fails to just hit the spot. Sometimes, I even wonder why I order a dinner…it’s the queso that I’m really after!

I really wanted to know what type of cheese was in the queso, so I’d research and various folks would mention mexican cheeses that I’ve never worked with, so I was intimidated. Plus, I tend to have trouble trusting people on random forums, like Yahoo! Answers. Why waste my time. Then, I saw a post on Confessions of a Foodie Bride about making this infamous queso, but the cheese totally threw me for a loop. White American? Really…that’s it? So, I had to give this a try, because I love Shawnda’s blog, and I knew she wouldn’t steer me wrong here.

Y’all, this is restaurant queso blanco. I’m not lying. If you want queso blanco at home, make this…you won’t regret it. We definitely loved this recipe and it couldn’t be easier to make!

Restaurant Style Queso Blanco
Source: mildly adapted from Confessions of a Foodie Bride

Ingredients:

• 1 Tbsp cooking oil (veggie, olive, canola – whatever you have)
• 1/4 cup white onion, diced
• 1 large jalapeno or serrano, seeds and stem removed; diced
• 12 oz white American cheese, shredded
• 4 oz Monterrey Jack cheese, shredded (not pre-shredded…grate this yourself)
• 1/4-2/3 cup cream, half-and-half, or whole milk

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in a pot. Add the onion and pepper and cook until until softened and reduce heat to medium-low.
2. Add the shredded cheese and 1/4 cup of the cream. Stir until well combined and mostly melted.
3. Add in additional cream a little at a time until you reach desired consistency.

A few weeks ago, Justin of Marx Foods asked for bloggers who would be interested in developing a recipe using Mangalitsa pork products. (The winner would move onto another challenge issued by Marx Foods!) I’ve never heard of this before, but I was intrigued, so of course, I sent an email. Before I knew it, I had a slab of Mangalitsa bacon in front of me, begging to be made into something.

I asked my Twitter friends what they would prefer: sweet or savory. It was close, but savory had the most requests.

So, I brainstormed. I didn’t want to do a breakfast item, since that’s what bacon is known to be used in. I wanted to do something a tad different, and I remember having a spinach salad with bacon vinaigrette at a restaurant a while back. It was absolutely delicious, so I thought this would be a good thing to try to replicate in the kitchen.

I’m not the best cook in the world when I wing it, but for some reason, this dressing came out really awesome on the first try! The bacon lends a very mild flavor, but is still prominent in the dressing. I really enjoyed it!

Warm Bacon Vinaigrette
an original

Ingredients:

• 1 slice thick cut bacon (I used mangalitsa bacon), cut into small cubes
• 1 small shallot, finely diced
• 1 clove garlic, finely diced
• 1 tsp. honey
• 1 tsp. dijon mustard
• 4 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Cook the bacon on medium heat until done. Set the bacon to the side and pour off all but appx. 1 tbsp. bacon fat.
2. Cook the shallot and garlic in the same pan (with the 1 tbsp. bacon fat) for about 5 minutes on medium low heat until it’s cooked down.
3. Turn heat to low. Add in red wine vinegar, honey, dijon mustard and whisk well.
4. Whisk in the olive oil, a little at a time until well blended.
5. Serve over a salad of greens or spinach and enjoy!