Avocado Bacon Swiss Grilled Cheese

I've been wanting something with avocado for a while lately, and had the idea to put it on a grilled cheese. Well, I decided that a normal grilled cheese wasn't gonna do it for me, and started thinking of things to add to it. I really enjoyed what I ended up with.

An avocado, bacon, and swiss grilled cheese.
It also had a bit of cheddar and some grilled onions.

I grilled the onions with some butter on the griddle and cooked the bacon (In the oven. I burn it on the stove every time.)

When the bacon finished cooking I started the grilled cheese. I just split the toppings between the two pieces of bread and put the sandwich together when the outside was done. It ended up being so good. I love the taste of the bacon with the avocado. So delicious! This is my new favorite version of grilled cheese. Can't wait to make it again.

And has anyone ever grown an avocado tree from the pit? My mom always did this when she had avocados, but I don't remember it ever actually getting past the root stage. I decided to try it on my own. 

 This e-how page has good information about how to do it. I know it won't ever make fruit, but I'm excited to try and start my own house plant.


I'm linking up to:

Homemade Skyline Chili

  

If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, I would probably choose Skyline. 

If you've never heard of this, then you have to try it! Skyline is "Cincinnati Style Chili." It's very different than traditional chili. It's got a unique flavor, because it contains cinnamon and cocoa powder. It's good on hot dogs and french fries, but served on top of spaghetti noodles is my favorite way.
There are frozen Skyline meals available at some stores, but they're not nearly as good as the restaurants. Since I'm never in Ohio, I knew I needed to find a copy-cat recipe to get my fill. I can't remember what website I got this one from, but I tried it once and fell in love.

This tastes almost exactly like what you'll find in the restaurant. I think even if they brought a skyline restaurant to Tennessee, I'd still make this, because it's just that good.

Homemade Skyline Chili

Printable 4x6 recipe card available here.

Ingredients:

·         2 lbs. RAW Ground Beef

·         2 med. onions

·         2 tsp. minced garlic

·         4 cups beef stock

·         2 8 oz. cans tomato sauce

·         2 tsp. worcestershire sauce

·         2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar

·         2-3 tbsp. chili powder

·         2¾ tbsp. unsweetened cocoa

·         1 tsp ground cinnamon

·         1 tsp. ground cumin

·         ½ tsp. salt

·         ¼ tsp. allspice

·         ¼ tsp. ground cayenne

·         ¼ tsp. ground cloves

·         1 bayleaf

·         1 tbsp. dark brown sugar

Cut your onion and garlic, and puree in a food processor.

I don't use as much onion in the recipe as it calls for. I just really can't taste it, so I usually get one large onion and use half in the skyline and use the other half on top.As for garlic, I usually use minced garlic from a jar, but had fresh garlic on hand, so used it instead. It really didn't make any difference, so just use what you've got.

Once you've pureed your onion and garlic, cook in a large stock pot with a little bit of oil until the liquid evaporates.

Then add in your beef stock, and bring to a boil.
Add your raw meat and whisk to break it up. You want it as small as possible. This type of chili is very thin, so you want all the chunks broken up as much as you can get them.

After you've broken the meat up you'll add in the rest of your ingredients.

Something I do to save a bit of time since I make this fairly often is to measure out the dry ingredients for multiple batches at once. Then I just have to dump one bag of stuff in the pot, instead of measuring out a million different teaspoons of spices.

Reduce heat and let simmer for at least one hour.

It's a pretty gross brown color when you start cooking it all, but it smells good, and tastes amazing once it's done.

I prefer a 4-way bowl, which is the chili served on spaghetti noodles topped with onions, cheese, and oyster crackers. Some people like it with kidney beans as well, but I like it better without.


I usually cut the recipe in half, because it makes a lot for just 2 people. Sometimes I make the whole batch and the leftovers freeze great, it usually just depends on how much freezer space I have.


Linking up to:

Garlic Parmesan Knots

This was my second time making these. 

I liked them the first time, but changed them up a little bit, and they were much better this time.

You actually only need butter OR oil, not both.

One of my favorite things in trying new recipes is when I have nearly everything on hand already. I had to buy the can of biscuits, but everything was already in my cabinet or fridge.

The original recipe only calls for the garlic powder, canola oil, grated parmesan (the stuff in the green can), and some dried herbs. I like adding in some ground red pepper for a little spice, and I can't stand the parmesan in the can, so I have to use something a little more real. 

The shape of these is almost so simple that you can't even guess how it's done. All you do is roll out your biscuit and tie it into a knot. Tuck your ends around the back and you're done. 

Now, this is another place I differed from the original version. The recipe calls for you to bake now, before adding any of the other stuff, but when I did that I felt that the end result was too dry on the inside and greasy on the outside.
This time I mixed all the ingredients into some melted butter and brushed it pretty generously over the dough before baking. I think it definitely improved them.

Bake as directed on the biscuit package. 

I added a bit more butter and parmesan cheese after taking them out, but that was mostly for the looks, and you could get away with skipping it at this point, since they've cooked with everything on them already.

I was very pleased with how these turned out this time. Brushing the butter on first made them a bit more moist and fluffy. Last time I made them they were even better heated up the next day, so I'm looking forward to eating them tomorrow!

Here's the pin I originally got the recipe from:

Source: Real Mom Kitchen via Victoria on Pinterest

Miracle Pan Release

My favorite Pinterest project so far is actually one of the most simple I've done.

I pinned this a while back, and when baking some banana bread recently, I thought of it and decided to try it out.

Source: Apron of Grace via Victoria on Pinterest

Ingredients

1/2 cup Lard or Shortening

1/2 cup Vegetable Oil

1/2 cup unbleached or all-purpose Flour

Directions

Whip, whip, whip and store in airtight container at room temperature.

Yields 1-1/2 cups

 Brush on your pans with a pastry brush!

Only 3 ingredients and it took less than 2 minutes to put it together in a mason jar.

Not the most appetizing, but it gets the job done.

The best part is, it works great! I've used it for everything I've baked since then, and had great success. I used it when baking brownies a couple of weeks ago, and despite brownies being something I ALWAYS have a problem with sticking they pulled out of the pan effortlessly. I meant to get a picture just to show how clean the pan was after the brownies were removed, but I haven't gotten in the blogging state of mind yet and forgot to snap one before washing the pan. I promise I'll update this next time I bake something.

Let me know what you think if you try this out! :)