Fried Bananas with Peanut Butter Sauce

I came up with this dessert one night, when we had nothing sweet in the house.



Take a couple bananas and peel, then cut them in halves. Fry these in some butter, until soft and brown.

While the bananas are browning, put 1 cup of peanut butter, 1/4 cup milk and 1 tablespoon of sugar in a saucepan. Heat this and melt the peanut butter, stir continuously, until a smooth sauce is formed.

Plate your 'nanners and pour the sauce over them. If you want to add another flavor, you can put a couple spoonfuls of jelly or ice cream on the plate.

I am not a big peanut butter in a recipe type person, but this is awesome every time I make it.

Enjoy!

Support

Greetings all,

While I do not intend for this project to ever become a commercial venture, I am using the ads on the right hand side to help buy baby formula. If you enjoy the site and are feeling generous, give them a click. It helps me a lot!

thanks and best wishes!

Cream of Wheat Pie? CRAZY!

I have begun to do some experimenting on Sunday’s. A couple nights ago, I started thinking about pies. If someone can make a pie out of oatmeal, I can make one out of Cream of Wheat! So today was the day……

Cream of Wheat Pie

2 cups of water
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon of Cream of Wheat
¼ teaspoon salt
1 16oz can fruit cocktail in light syrup
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
2 eggs
1 deep dish pie crust (frozen)

Boil your water in a pot; add Cream of Wheat and salt. Cook for 2 minutes and add the fruit and cinnamon. Cook for 2 minutes.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs. You must temper your eggs. SLOWLY add ½ cup of the hot mixture into the eggs while you are whisking. This will bring the eggs up to the same temperature. If you do not do this, you will end up with scrambled eggs in the middle of your pie! YUCK!

Add the eggs to the pot and stir.

Transfer the mixture into the pie crust and bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

If the pie seems a bit runny, you can either cook it for another 10 minutes or allow it to sit for a few minutes before you serve it. It will thicken more as it cools. If you choose to cook it more, be careful you don’t burn the crust.

More than likely the top will not brown like a traditional pie. You could brush the top with melted butter as it firms up in the oven and that would help brown it a little.

The official HillbillyGormet taste tester (aka my wife) has approved of this pie. As a plus, this would be great for breakfast, since it is a breakfast cereal and it has fruit in it. No need to have that guilty feeling.

Of course, you can change it with any fruit or applesauce. I may get brave one day and add vegetables to see if I can make a great side dish with it. Imagine the looks on children’s faces when a pie is placed on the table and asparagus or broccoli is in it!

Cheap and Easy Chicken and Dumplins

This is a super easy and super cheap recipe that has been in my family for a long time.

1 can of Cream of Chicken soup
1 small can of the cheapest biscuits you can find. These are the ones that bake to about the size of a hockey puck!

Prepare soup as directed on can. When it starts getting hot, tear the raw biscuits into small pieces and throw them in the pot. The biscuits will plump as they are done.

That's it. Serve it up and enjoy. As listed above it will serve two people, but can be easily doubled to feed 4 or 2 super hungry people.

This costs about $1.00 to make. You can usually find the biscuits on sale for 4/$1.00 and the cost of the soup.

We eat this at least once a week, it is a quick meal when we get home late!

Corn and Mango Salad

Since we are in the heat of summer, I thought a refreshing and cool salad would be in order today. I came up with this on my way home from work today and it is awesome!

Corn and Mango Salad

1 bag Frozen Corn (Thaw it out)
2 plum tomatoes (or 1 medium sized tomato) Diced
2 Fresh Mangos diced
1 Cubanelle pepper sliced thin
2 small red peppers (hot, medium, mild, use what you want)
1 teaspoon of garlic
1 teaspoon of cilantro or Italian Seasoning
Dress with olive oil and vinegar to taste (I used white wine vinegar, but use what you got)

There is a thin pit that runs through the middle of the mangos. Slice off the sides and then you should be able to slice off the small strips left over. Peel and dice all of the flesh.

Dice your tomatoes, remove the seeds and get rid of the liquid.

Slice the peppers in thin strips, after you have removed the seeds.

Mix everything in a big bowl and add seasonings, oil and vinegar.

Allow it to chill in the refrigerator for a couple hours.

I am adding this to the menu tonight, we are having fajitas. I think this will make for a great side.


Price breakdown

Corn $1.79
Tomatoes $1.00
Mangos $2.00
Peppers $3.00
Garlic $.10
Seasoning $.10
Oil and Vinegar $.25

Total $8.24

This is a higher end dish than what I try to do, but we are having company tonight and sometimes you just gotta splurge! Plus, it tastes awesome and will make for great leftovers.

Break it down

One day for lunch, we had very little in the kitchen. I had some hot dogs, but no buns. So I made a deconstructed hot dog lunch.

On the plate is obviously two hot dogs with chili and onions. I added the mustard base as a bit of fancy flair. The round things are bread, which I used a glass to cut out circles and toasted them with a bit of butter, then topped with cheese and pepper flakes and baked again.

While it is not a beautiful plate, it served it's purpose. We ate a decent (cheap) meal and didn't have to buy anything more than we already had.

CORN/CORD

It is important to have a CORN or a CORD every week. I am not talking about the vegetable, CORN stands for Clean Out Refrigerator Night, whereas CORD is Clean Out Refrigerator Day. This is an important aspect to the overall budget reducing goal. We always have leftovers when we cook. In addition to making lunches or using them another night, we try to making something new out of the leftovers. As an example, I took leftover Hamburger Helper, added leftover queso dip and a little milk. While heating on the stove, I began toasting corn chips in the oven. I then poured the cheesy hamburger mixture over the chips, topped with shredded cheese and baked it again. When the cheese melted, I topped it with leftover onions and tomatoes, along with leftover salsa from taco night. Our five various containers in the refrigerator became a one time nacho platter, which we had for lunch. It looked a bit odd having the pasta on the nachos, but it tasted wonderful!
The only limitations to this, is your imagination. To help you get started, one simple and easy backup to this is a soup. Start with a tomato sauce base and then add what you got, it will turn out wonderful, be nutritious and get rid of leftovers. But the best part, it saves money! One thing I have found is adding a table spoon or two of barbeque sauce to any soup gives it a great smoky deep flavor. Consider it a secret ingredient

Oatmeal Pie

I had my doubts about this when I first found it on HillbillyHousewife.com. I tried it today and I must say it is quite tasty! It came out of the oven looking like a pecan pie, but had a crumbly texture, like cornbread. Jenn and I both tried a slice before supper tonight and it was great! I used a store bought pie crust (Food Lion has them for about $1.00 each), so I figure in all I have about $2.00 in this pie! I also mixed in about a handful of coconut flakes, next time i am thinking raisins in it would be great.

Check it out!
http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/oatmealpie.htm

Hillbilly Cookies

Hillbilly Cookies

1 box of cake mix
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1/2 to 1 cup of morsels*

Mix well by hand.
Place a scoop of the mixture on an
ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at
350 degrees 8 to 10 minutes

*morsels can by anything you like*
raisins
nuts
chocolate chips
coconut
dried cranberries
anything YOU like

Everyone thank my mother for this recipe!

Rice is King!!!

Rice is a central component in the culinary experiences of many cultures. It has been used though out history to feed people quickly and cheaply. In our kitchen, there is always five pounds of rice. We eat it almost daily.

Rice is one of the most versatile foods you can have. Whether you eat it steamed, fluffed, fried or as a filler in other dishes, it does not matter. A simple pot of white rice can turn into a filling meal by the addition of a bullion cube and some left over vegetables, want to change that again, throw it in a pan, scramble an egg in it and now you have vegetable fried rice. Three meals, three different tastes, all from one initial cooking. I always cook a little extra, so I have leftovers in the refrigerator. It goes in breads, soup and of course pudding!

Let me give you a few examples of how to make a great rice side dish.

The chicken you had two nights ago, you saved the bones from that, right? When you put your water and rice in the pan tonight, place a couple of those chicken bones in the pot. Take them out when you serve, and your family will wonder how you achieved that excellent chicken taste. (You can do the same thing with beef, pork or wild game bones). This is healthier and has a ton of less sodium, than those boxed rice mixes in the store.

If you serve canned fruit to the kids or as a dessert, you should always save the liquid for cooking dishes in the future. Use this as part of the cooking liquid for the rice. It will concentrate and intensify the flavor of the rice. Below is an example of a mango rice, but this would be great with any fruit syrup.

Rice pudding is one of my favorite dishes. A basic rice pudding is 3 cups of rice, 2 cups of milk, 2 eggs and 1/3 cup of sugar. I like to take ½ cup of hot cocoa mix and mix that in as well. This gives a great chocolate flavor. I have also been thinking about an orange and cranberry rice pudding, which would be awesome with turkey.

Your imagination is the limit with rice. As has always been the case in Charleston, Rice is King! We eat it almost everyday. So, while I love plain white rice, I enjoy spicing it up and creating meals around the rice.

All the best!

Cheap and Easy Tamale Casserole

This is something I found in a cookbook, however, I made it easier and cheaper than the original.

Brown one pound of hamburger in a skillet. Add a medium onion (diced) and a tablespoon of chili powder. Once the onion is soft, drain the meat mixture and pour into crock pot.

In a separate bowl mix one cup of cornmeal, one large can of tomato sauce, one 14 oz can of creamed corn. This is going to make a soupy looking mixture. Pour this over the meat in the crock pot.

Cook on low for 4 to 6 hours until the cornmeal has set up in a loaf texture.

When this is done, it has the texture and taste of authentic Mexican tamales, yet is much simpler to make.

This can be modified with a can of tomatoes, green chilies, olives, almost anything.

Cost breakdown

Meat $2.00
Onion $0.25
Chili powder $0.10
Cornmeal $0.10
Tomato sauce $1.00
Creamed corn $0.50

Total $3.95

This can easily be doubled or tripled, depending on the size of your crock pot.

We eat this with tortilla chips and it is even better if you top it with sour cream and shredded cheese, but in order to keep the cost down, I left that out.

All the best!

Fast and Easy Chutney

I made an apricot coconut chutney to put over chicken. I used canned apricots and pureed half the can along with a half a handful of coconut, then cut up the remaining apricots and folded them in. It gave a nice tropical feel to plain frozen breaded chicken breasts. I would recommend pureeing all the apricots and cutting a few fresh ones up to mix in. The canned ones were a bit mushy.

To go with that I made mango rice, using the leftover syrup from canned mangos (we had for dessert the night before) to cook the rice in. It was good, but I made a very sticky rice from the sugar in the syrup.

Not bad for a bunch of stuff just thrown together.

Fun with leftovers

This comes from my wife (affectionately known as the Anti-Betty Crocker). This is very good and a great way to use up leftovers.

Several days ago, I made buffalo wings with boneless chicken strips. We had several left over.

Tonight, she made wraps out of those leftovers. Sliced them into thin slices, she baked them in the oven until they were hot. While they were heating, she shredded lettuce. Then she assembled the wraps, by using tortillas, lettuce, the chicken, cheese and blue cheese dressing.

She rolled the wraps like a burrito and then sliced them in half and served with fries. They were very good.

Do I expect you to have leftover buffalo wings? No. The point is that many people (like my father), do not like leftovers. The key is to change the leftovers and fix them differently.

All the best!

limited stuff

I am in Minnesota this week for a sales conference, so postings will be limited this week. Consider this, I would rather be home......but work calls. And there is no beach here, how do these people live? But the food has been good so far!

Are bread machines worth the money?

I have owned a bread machine for at least ten years. It has been one of the best kitchen appliances I have ever used. I use it almost everyday, as we always have fresh bread. One of the best things about the machine is that I can take a basic bread recipe, add a few things and make unlimited new breads.

You can pick up a great machine at a mass merchandiser from $50.00 up to a couple hundred. While I would love to have a fancy one, I have a rather simple one with several different settings. Each setting has its own time cycle, heating temperature and kneading times. Read the owners manual to get familiar with it.

Most times, I use my basic setting, which on my machine lasts 3 hours. A basic recipe for white bread is 4 cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of yeast, 1-1/2 cup of warm water, 2 teaspoons of salt, 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of butter. Regardless of what the recipe calls for, put the water, sugar and yeast in first. Give it a quick stir and allow the yeast to come alive. The water will activate the yeast, the yeast will eat the sugar and you will see a bubbly foam form in the pan. This whole process takes about 10 minutes and while it is working, I get my other ingredients together. Next, put the butter, flour, and salt. Always put the salt in last, it will kill the yeast, so you want it to stay away form the yeast as long as possible.

When you search around on the internet, there are thousands of recipes. I am always looking for new variations to my basic list. This week I made potato bread. But instead of plain potatoes, I used instant sweet potatoes. The bread came out great and to go along with it, I made a compound butter with brown sugar and honey. This on the sweet potato bread, a cake it almost made!

Are they worth the money? Yes. Instead of the bread in the plastic bag being thrown out when it molds, we have fresh bread daily. If a loaf does hang around for a couple days and goes stale, I run it through the food processor and make bread crumbs. It gets used and is never thrown out.

Broccoli and Carrot Salad

Broccoli Carrot Salad

2 heads of broccoli
3-5 carrots (peeled or not)
¼ cup raisins
¾ cup of ranch dressing
2 teaspoons of hot sauce
¼ teaspoon of red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper to taste


Cut your broccoli into small bite sized florets and place in bowl. (I peel the stems, cut them and use them as well.) Shred the carrots and add to bowl. Put raisins, dressing, hot sauce and pepper flakes in bowl. Stir to combine, and then add salt and pepper to taste.

You can eat this immediately, but it is best to put in refrigerator and allow the flavors to combine for a couple hours.

This is a great way to get kids to eat healthy, as the ranch dressing will mask the flavor of the broccoli and the carrots add a great color to it.

Variations: Use blue cheese dressing instead of ranch. This would also be good with fresh apples or pears in it.

Cost involved:
Broccoli: $1.93
Carrots: $0.50
Raisins: $0.35
Dressing: $0.45
Hot Sauce $0.05
Seasonings: $0.10

Total: $3.38

Staples - You gotta have these

Of all the ingredients you can have in your kitchen, there are a few that you must keep at all times. Let's call these the Hillbilly staples.

Rice- Rice is a central component in the culinary experiences of many cultures. It has been used thoughout history to feed people quickly and cheaply. In our kitchen, there is always five pounds of rice. We eat it almost daily. Rice is one of the most versatile foods you can have. Whether you eat it steamed, fluffed, fried or as a filler in other dishes, it does not matter. A simple pot of white rice can turn into a filling meal by the addition of a bullion cube and some left over vegetables, want to change that again, throw it in a pan, scramble an egg in it and now you have vegetable fried rice. Three meals, three different tastes, all from one initial cooking. I always cook a little extra, so I have leftovers in the refrigerator. It goes in breads, soup and of course pudding!

Dry Powdered Milk- While we do not use reconstituted milk for drinking, you can if you choose. We keep it for the addition to our bread, for use in recipes calling for milk and in coffee. By using reconstituted milk, you can save a lot of money and not miss any of the flavor. This product has come a long way in the last few years and is actually quite good.

Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder, Bullion cubes (pick a flavor) - These four spices will provide all the seasoning you need for almost anything. You can branch out and buy what you like, but these four will run you about $5.00 to buy them at once and then they will last for a while. I keep other spices on hand, but when I am cooking on a daily basis, these four are always on the counter.

I always make sure these few things are in the kitchen. With these few items, I can make a multitude of meals, adding only a few other things to it.

In the next post we will explore essential equipment that you need to equip your mountain kitchen.

What is the point of this?

What is a Hillbilly Gourmet? It is this mountain boy's attempt at bringing cheap and easy food to the masses.



I don't expect many people to understand or even to care, but with the prices of everything going up, we can all use a little help in the kitchen. So with that, I will be showing you simple foods, which you can serve to company, but they are meant to reward yourself and your family.



There are some great sites out there that show you how to save money, but the food is a lot of times bland and gross. I would suggest you stay tuned in and I will help guide you through this wonderful journey. (We might even make it to cooking opossum!).

I intend to update this daily, many times using what we have eaten for supper (yes supper, dinner is at noon).

All the best!