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country bob's, freebie, recipe

Country Bob’s Joes

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The people at Country Bob’s sent me a couple of bottles of their wonderful All Purpose Sauce a while ago and last week I finally got a chance to do some experimental cooking with it. After trying a few of the dishes from their recipe book, it was time to begin adapting my cooking to it. The first thing I had to try was a new version of the old Sloppy Joe standby. It came out great, so here it is:

Dan’s Country Bobified version of the Sloppy Joe:

1 lb. ground hamburger
1 chopped green pepper
1 chopped medium onion
2 cups chopped/diced tomatoes with juice
1 tablespoon spicy brown mustard
1/2 cup County Bob’s All Purpose Sauce
salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chili powder to taste

Brown the hamburger and onion in a fry pan, adding in the chopped peppers about half-way through the browning. When the meat is browned completely, drain and then stir in the tomatoes and juice, the mustard, the Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce, a dash of salt and pepper and a bit of chili powder and garlic powder. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes until the liquid from the tomatoes has mostly evaporated. Serve over a half-bun or home made bread slice as an open face sandwich with dill pickles and chopped onion for a garnish. Definitely tasty.

When I made this, I used some frozen diced tomatoes from Mom’s garden that I had in the freezer. Some other variants that are tempting me is to replace the tomatoes with a can of either diced tomatoes with jalapeño peppers for a spicy version and diced tomatoes with habanero peppers for a blazing hot version. (Diced tomatoes with jalapeño peppers and diced tomatoes with habanero peppers are available in the Mexican foods section of most grocery stores.)

If you try this or any variants, let me know.

BTW, I just checked the Country Bob’s site and you can now sign up for a free bottle of Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce for yourself, another family member, and a friend. With a triple freebie like that, how can you go wrong? Just click on the link above and follow the directions.

recipe, snow, weather

They lied!!!

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The “They” being the weather people. It was supposed to get up to a balmy 14 degrees today. Instead it peaked at about 6 degrees and the wind blew all day. The wind chill for most of the day was between -20 and -50 degrees. Contrast that with the 60 degree day we had yesterday. Lends credence to the old adage about the weather in the Colorado plains – if you don’t like the weather now, just wait a minute and it’ll be different. Right now the thermometer is falling past -3 degrees. (Since Google analytics says that about 50% of the readers of this blog are from metric based areas of the world – all the numbers are good old degrees Fahrenheit, not Celsius. [ -25 degrees F is ~ -32 degrees C ])

I finally decided that the wind was as calm as it was going to get about noon and went out to shovel the walk and driveway. Then I ventured over to the mother in laws and did hers as well. You could sure tell the difference in doing the two driveways. My house faces south, so shoveling the drive put me in the lee of the house out of the north wind so it was cold but not biting. MIL’s house faces west, so shoveling her drive put me squarely in the north wind and it was definitely biting. You could feel your checks stiffening in minutes. One of the rewards was a plate of fresh from the oven cookies from MIL. Yum!  My mother and I were planning to attend the Master Chorale’s Christmas sing this evening, but the cold, wind, and ice deterred us. All in all not a fit day out for man nor beast.

I see on the news that the temperature has already set a new low record for the date in Denver and will probably set a new one for tomorrow if it just stays as cold as it is now until midnight. (Denver International Airport is currently reporting -15 degrees) The silver lining out of all this is that the mountains are getting some great ski snow. Vail got 22 inches yesterday and is forecast to get another 22 inches tomorrow as the next front hits. Almost makes me wish I skied. Of course my wife is up in the mountains and is not quite as overjoyed as the tourists. I think she is conflicted – snow means good business for the mountain businesses, but it also means the ice and cold can get old if you are not skiing.

So what did I do to while away the cold afternoon and evening? Well, I made a casserole and baked a cake. Nothing like cold weather to make one appreciate the warmth of the oven and baking. I approach cooking as a form of experiment. Mix this and that and the other thing and see what happens. Sometimes it tastes good and sometimes it is a lesson learned (and a garbage can filled). The casserole turned out to be good. If any one is adventurous, here it is.

Squash Casserole

  • 2 cups grated zucchini
  • 2 cups grated star squash
  • 1 cup chopped green pepper
  • 1 cup chopped onion
  • 1/2 cup shredded cheese (mozzarella)
  • 1/4 cup oil
  • 1 cup Bisquick mix
  • 4 eggs
  • salt and pepper to taste (about 1 tsp of each in my case)

Turn oven on to 375.
Mix everything together well in a large mixing bowl.
Stir well with a large spoon.
Pour mixture into a greased 9×9 baking pan (at least 2 inches deep)
Cook until the top is medium to dark brown, about 35-40 minutes
Makes enough to serve 6-8

The cook time depends on how much moisture is in the zucchini and squash. I used  frozen shredded zucchini and it was pretty wet after defrosting. It took an extra ten minutes or so to cook. Fresh Zucchini shouldn’t take as long, but this isn’t summertime!

Next time I may try using cheddar or jalapeno jack instead of mozzarella. Be interesting to see how the taste changes.

Time to get ready for the meetings tomorrow morning. It promises to be a long day with meetings starting at 9am and ending with an energy conference from 6-8pm. If it’s as cold tomorrow as it was today, I don’t think Molly will be anxious to go for a walk tomorrow night. We’ll see. Today she romped in the snow while I shoveled the walks and driveways. She isn’t a lot of help as she likes to shovel snow with her nose and throw it back where you’ve already shoveled. She doesn’t get that snow removal is not a game!