JACKed sweet potato muffins

baking, breakfast 10 Comments

I’m pretty sure this is my new favorite recipe.

I was going through my bookshelves to see if I had any cookbooks I could live without (spoiler alert: I didn’t), and came across this one: Jack Daniel’s Spirit of Tennessee Cookbook.

This had belonged to my great aunt, and was signed to her from one of the authors, Lynne Tolley. It’s a treasure trove! I went looking for something involving sweet potatoes and found these, what they call sweet potato muffin delights.

They are SO GOOD, y’all. There isn’t a lot of flour, so the eggs and sweet potato make these so light and airy, and the flavors are great! Just a little hint of Jack, but not so much that you can’t respectably eat these for breakfast. 😉

JACKed sweet potato muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

  • 1 3/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 3 tsp baking powder
  • 2 Tbsp. brown sugar
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1/2 cup milk (I used whole)
  • 1/4 cup Jack Daniel’s Whiskey
  • 1 1/4 cup cooked and mashed sweet potatoes (microwave is fine here)
  • 1/4 cup butter, melted
  • Cinnamon sugar for topping

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 425F and grease or line 12 muffin cups
  2. Combine eggs, milk, Jack, sweet potatoes, and butter and mix well
  3. Put a wire strainer or sifter over the top of the bowl and add flour, salt, baking powder, and brown sugar; shake or press through until all the mixture is sifted into the bowl
  4. Mix until JUST combined, then spoon into prepared muffin cups
  5. Sprinkle tops with cinnamon sugar, then bake until a toothpick in the center comes out clean; the cookbook says 35-40 minutes but mine were done after 20, so don’t go far

Because I am positive that you all need to make these, this is a good time for you to try out my snazzy new ZipList functionality! You can save recipes from One Particular Kitchen (and all these amazing blogs), and create your shopping list as you do it! Just click on that “save recipe” button at the top of my recipes, or you can get to your ZipList recipe box or shopping list from my main menu. Let me know if you have any questions!

Also, let me know when you make these muffins, m’kay? Trust me.

Pizza chicken pasta

slow cooker, supper 2 Comments

I found this recipe in Great Food Fast, my favorite pressure cooker book, but it’s easily adaptable for baking in the oven too. It’s warm and comfort-food-ish without being heavy, and is very kid-friendly as well! I mean, it’s practically PIZZA. This is great served with some garlic bread or, I don’t know, some vegetables? I seem to have skipped that part. Ahem. Anyway! Try this:

Pizza chicken pasta

Ingredients

  • 4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp pepper
  • 2 Tbsp. olive oil
  • 1 jar (24 ounces) spaghetti sauce
  • 2 Tbsp. water
  • 24 slices pepperoni
  • 1 cup shredded mozzarella
  • Corkscrew pasta

Instructions

  1. Whisk together the salt, pepper and flour, then toss the chicken breasts in the flour mix
  2. Heat the olive oil in a skillet or in a pressure cooker set to brown, then lightly brown chicken on each side
  3. Put chicken in pressure cooker dish or casserole dish and cover with spaghetti sauce, water, and pepperoni
  4. Cook in a pressure cooker on high pressure for 8 minutes, or bake at 350F in a casserole dish for 40-50 minutes depending on thickness of chicken breasts
  5. While chicken is cooking, cook pasta in well-salted water
  6. Serve chicken and sauce over pasta, sprinkling mozzarella over all of it

Notes

You can also transfer the chicken to a sheet pan, then top with mozzarella and cook under the broiler till melted and bubbling. This would be easy to do in a slow cooker as well! Just allow 4-6 hours for the chicken to cook

Help me out! What’s your go-to side dish for spaghetti sauce based recipes?

Cheese straws

baking, snacks 14 Comments

After talking and hemming and hawing about it forever I finally bought a cookie press. It’s so much fun! I can’t believe I waited so long. I just had to try cheese straws first, and they were fantastic.

They also kind of made me want to wear a big hat and drink mint juleps, but that’s for another day.

The cookie press I bought came with a recipe book with this recipe included; I changed it to use butter instead of margarine, because yuck.

Cheese straws

Yield: 5 dozen 3 inch straws

Ingredients

  • 8 oz sharp cheddar cheese, graded
  • 3/4 cup butter, well softened
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tsp hot sauce (I used Louisiana)
  • 1 3/4 cups flour, sifted
  • 1/2 tsp paprika
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (or more if you like the heat)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven 400 F
  2. Blend cheese, butter, egg and hot sauce and set aside
  3. Sift together flour and spices, then knead into butter mixture, either by hand or in a food processor with the metal blade
  4. Use cookie press with star disk, or pipe out of ziptop bag onto ungreased cookie sheet, and bake for 10-13 minutes until golden brown. Remove immediately to cooling rack; store in airtight container when completely cooled

By the way, show of hands: who has had cheese straws before? Turns out my lived-in-the-South-all-her-life friend Vanessa had never had them. What about y’all?

Candy cane syrup

dessert 2 Comments

Who else has leftover candy canes? I love the look of them on the Christmas tree (I should probably take that thing down, huh?), but I’m not likely to sit around and eat a dozen candy canes when it’s all over. I love peppermint in my coffee, though, so I figured why not use them up?

Candy cane syrup

Ingredients

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup water
  • 6-12 candy canes

Instructions

  1. Stir together sugar and water in a heavy pot over medium heat
  2. When sugar has melted, drop in unwrapped candy canes and stir until dissolved
  3. Let syrup cool in the pan, then pour into clean jars

I hear tell this is also great over ice cream. How else should we use it?

Slow cooker pot roast

slow cooker, supper 6 Comments

I love the comfort foods of fall! By August, when it’s easily 102F in Nashville, I’m ready for cooler weather, football, and fall foods; this is definitely one of my favorites.

I put out the call on Twitter for pot roast preparations about a year ago and got some fabulous ideas which I’ve cobbled together here. The flour thickens the juice and really brings everything together; it’s fantastic. I make it in my combo cooker (affiliate link), but you can also brown in a skillet then move to a slow cooker. Either way, you’ll love it.

Slow cooker pot roast

Ingredients

  • Chuck roast
  • 2 tbsp. oil (vegetable or olive)
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • 1 tbsp. kosher salt
  • 1 packet zesty Italian dressing seasoning
  • 1 packet ranch dressing seasoning
  • 1 packet onion soup mix
  • 1/2 cup red wine
  • Carrots
  • Red potatoes

Instructions

  1. In a small bowl whisk together the flour, salt, dressings, and soup mix. Sprinkle over the roast on all sides, pressing the mixture onto the meat
  2. Heat oil in a large skillet or in your combo cooker if you have one, then brown roast on all sides
  3. When well browned, add in wine and vegetables and cook all day — I let mine go 8-9 hours

Your turn! How do YOU do pot roast?