Whole30 Rustic Shepherd's Pie and Sauteed Green Beans with Bacon

If you are trying to think of just what to cook for dinner while on the Whole30, then look no further. Here's a super simple recipe that everyone will really love full protein and healthy ingredients and our favorite Hereford beef.  Planning is essential to be successful on the Whole30.  Prepping meals and doing your grocery shopping a week or few days ahead of time will help you stay true to the program with no slip ups.  Leftovers are great for lunch or dinners the next few days as well. 

Click here for the recipe for Whole30 Rustic Sheherd's Pie

Colorful and full of flavor, this rendition on traditional Shepherd's Pie is anything but boring!  Halfway through our Whole30 journey, I created this Rustic Shepherd's Pie for my hungry husband who had been a real sport while my daughter Bethany and I were on the program.  I wanted something that was deceivingly healthy...and this recipe was just the one!

Click here for the recipe for Whole30 Rustic Shepherd's Pie

Our green beans were super simple to make with just Extra Virgin Olive Oil to saute the fresh green beans in with small chunks of bacon, salt and pepper. Just cook until crisp and tender.  Make sure the green beans are Whole30 compliant with no added sugar or preservatives.  We luckily use pork raised by our local FFA, Future Farmers of America students who sold at our local county fair.

Click here for the recipe for Sauteed Green Beans with Bacon

So, here's to your Whole30 journey. Let us know how you like this recipe and check out our growing selection of Whole30 recipes on The Ranch Kitchen Whole30 tab.  

Alise and Bethany

Jeremy's Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Olives

 

 

 

Excited to share with you our friend Jeremy's Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Olives that our Bethany came home raving about this fall after a visit to our friends ranch the Hamman's.  She said they loved these olives so much that they actually hid them to keep them all to themselves! 

Jeremy has been a friend of our family for many years in our Texas Hereford and Polled Hereford Association.  His love of life and sweet friendship is special to our girls and family.  His has a keen wit and is just a hoot to be around.   

Little did I know that outside of a Hereford cattle show Jeremy is a fantastic cook!  While at the ranch I understand he cooked several wonderful things.  I'm sorry I missed out and thank the Hamman's for having our Bethany in from Texas Tech for the weekend.

We love our olives stuffed with jalapenos, so wrapping them in bacon was something we had never thought of.   Bacon wrapped anything is way up on my list of comfort food!

I placed these olives in foil for easier cleanup of my baking dish.  Cooking time is between 35 and 45 minutes and I used the roasting element on my convection oven. 

I think I'll be try wrapping Feta cheese or garlic stuffed olives with bacon for our next party. It's especially good with pepper bacon and we used New Braunsfels Smokehouse Bacon which was a gift from our dear Hereford friends the Echols of Muleshoe Ranch for this first batch.  All our Hereford family is very dear to us. 

 



Thank you Jeremy for the fantastic new recipe for these olives!  We absolutely love them and now buy our jalapeno olives in bulk so that we are ready to make these appetizers on a minutes notice! They will be wonderful around the holidays and perfect to take to help out with friend's parties. 

Click here for Jeremy's Bacon Wrapped Jalapeno Olives

Enjoy your holidays ahead and here's another appetizer to wow your family and friends with!

 

Isn't my logo cute?  Thanks Bethany for the cute Christmas light addition to our logo! 

 

Sure Champs November Post 'Recipes from the Ranch' - Holiday Must Haves!

 

Thanksgiving is almost here and most of us will be thinking toward what recipes to fix for our holiday meals.  For this month's Sure Champ's Recipes from the Ranch we shared some of my families favorite side dishes that have now become a tradition at our house.

It's a cook greatest wish to impress her family and friends and these recipes are always highly requested and loved.

Each of these recipes are easy to prepare the day before, cook the day of or add the dressing to right before serving.  Served here are my Sure Champ Blue Ribbon Green Beans and The Ranch Kitchen's Winter Salad. 

 

Check out the November Blog post below at the link or by clicking on the picture.  You'll find both recipes on the Sure Champ site and also on my recipe tab on The Ranch Kitchen Blog and Recipe Site.

 

 

You can read the blog post here at -
Sure Champ Recipes from the Ranch November Must Have Blog Post.

What are your favorite recipes?  I'd love for you to share them on my The Ranch Kitchen blog.  It's easy to create a login and post your recipes so that your famly and friends can easily access your family favorites for generations to come!

Happy holidays a little early and enjoy the cool, crisp weather ahead!

Alise Nolan

 

Milestones and Breafast Soft Tacos

                                                        

This week marked a milestone in our family when my youngest daughter Audrey turned 13!  What a blessing she has been to our family. The last of our three girls and our 'baby' is all to quickly growing up.

This weekend we celebrated with getting her ears pierced of which is a tradition with our girls when you turn 13.  We told her if Bethany her middle sister could do it she could...because she doesn't do anything that involves pain.  She did it all while holding a teddy bear provided by the Claire's assistant. 

Later on during the weekend, we continued the celebration with several of her closest friends, cousin Zoe, Nanny and had a slumber party with pizza on the grill, a chocolate fondue with sweets and fruits, cookie cake and hayride on the back porch by the fire. 

In the morning, we will have her request of her big sister Ilissa's Breakfast Soft Tacos.  Thankfully we get fresh farm raised eggs from Scott's brother Terry.  They are always put to good use, especially with my middle daugther Bethany's love for baking sweets. 

Tonight in the middle of the slumber party I am able to blog a little while watching these sweet girls put on performances for each other.  I don't know if I'd ever be able to handle boys....I guess they wouldn't be inside, but camping outdoors.  However, I couldn't imagine being any more lucky than to have been a mother of three girls. 

My mom told me tonight how lucky I was and I know she is right.  I'll gladly take a night watching these girls dance, share their junior high stories, and act like they are still not teenagers one more time...because as Scott said after the hayride, "you got this" and went to bed.  And I guess he's right.  I've got a 'passle' of girls and couldn't be more blessed! 

Soft tacos are an easy dish to put together. We love ours with scrambled eggs, sweet onions, crumbled sausage (or shredded beef or bacon), and Colby Jack cheese all rolled up in flour tortillas and topped with a tomato salsa.  This recipe is just that simple!

 

Click here for the recipe for Breakfast Soft Tacos.

Special thanks to our Bethany for taking this picture of Audrey!

Happy birthday Audrey!  We love you so much!  Enjoy your teenage years! 

Love, Mom



Audrey and her sweet cousin Zoe! Her and her mom Leslie always have the best gifts for our girls!



Audrey and her best friend Jaici and her sweet gift...who will be a blogger one day I'm sure!

Audrey with my husband Scott and I.

Audrey and her Nanny...my mom.

Stuffed Jalapeno and Chicken Poppers & Lazy Girl Stuffed Jalapeno and Chicken Poppers

Left overs can be a wonderful thing.  Years ago my new husband...my only husband, had the grand idea that I cook fresh each day.  After he saw the time in the kitchen it took me and the grocery bill, he quickly agreed with me that left overs can be a wonderful, if not a fantastic thing.  Since that first week or marriage I have 'repurposed' many nightly meals with the leftovers from the evening before. 

Stuffed Jalapeno Poppers is one such meal.  Simple, delicious, and a little time consuming, these appetizers were a great way to use up the multitude of peppers from our garden.  The hubby loved them as did the youngest daughter who both have iron stomachs and love anything spicy.

I made these poppers two ways.  One traditional and one is what call the lazy girls way due to being industrious and cleaning far too many jalapenos!  Both turned out great!   

Make sure that if you don't want a burning sensation in your eyes that you either wash your hands well after cleaning your jalapeno peppers or wear gloves.  The fumes can also be intense and hard on you as well from washing the jalapenos in the colander.  If you like your poppers hot, do not clean out the insides.



Stuffed Jalapeno and Chicken Popppers

20 - 30 jalapenos, cut in half and membranes

1 block cream cheese, cut in strips

1 chicken breaks cut in strips of 1/2 inch wide

1 package of bacon, sliced in thirds

Black pepper to taste

Prepare jalapeno peppers to be stuffed by slicing in half and cutting away membrane with seeds.  Wash in a colander and drain well.  Add to this 1/3 cream cheese slice to poppers, then chicken, wrapped by 1/3 a slice of bacon.  If you wrap the bacon tightly and lay open edges down you do not have to toothpick the poppers. Place in a greased 9 x 13 inch Pyrex dish.  Sprinkle with fresh cracked black pepper.

Cook on 350 in your oven until bacon is crispy.  Serve immediately. 


Lazy Girls Stuffed Jalapeno and Chicken Popppers

10 - 15 jalapenos, cut in half, membranes removed and cut in small pieces

1/3 block of cream cheese

1/2 chicken breast cut in cubes, (you can use dark chicken meat as well)

1/3 package of bacon, cut in small cubes and separated

Black pepper to taste

Lightly grease a small rectangular dish.  Prepare jalapenos by slicing in half, removing membranes and seeds and chopping in to small bits.  Layer jalapenos first in a small dish.  Top with cubed chicken breast.  Next add cream cheese, then bacon sprinkled on top.  Add two to three chopped jalapeno peppers as a finisher or garnish on top.  Cook on 350 degrees until bacon is crisp.  Serve hot. 

Cooks Note:  Use gloves to handle these peppers and wash hands thoroughly afterwards...don't touch your eyes...ouch!

 Alise - The Ranch Kitchen

The Ranch Kitchen's Stuffed Jalapeno and Cheese Chicken



The Ranch Kitchen's Stuffed Jalapeno and Cheese Chicken

Over the holidays I decided to spice up that ordinary chicken breast with what I had in my pantry.  The recipe I share with you today is very similar to how we cook dove breast. Dove is a type of wild game bird that when I am lucky and the weather is not too hot or dry in Texas, we have an abundance of.  My husband used to bring home dozens of them from his hunts and cooking them for dinner was always a special occassion.  But Texas has been under drought conditions! So it's the next best meat for this dish - chicken!

My dad was down and I wanted something special that would give that 'wow' factor.  My girls call him Grandpappa and he is very much loved.  For him a good meal is the ultimate expression of love as he often says the saying 'made with love' when describing a great homeade meal.  I love him a ton and enjoy cooking for him when he come down.

With the sandwich slices of deli hot pepper cheese, a can of pickled jalepeno's from my pantry, chicken breast and bacon this recipe was born rather simply.

The Ranch Kitchen's Stuffed Jalapeno and Cheese Chicken

4 - 6 chicken breast (slice a pocket slice in each breast to 3/4 down)

6 slices of Hot Pepper Cheese (sliced sandwich thin)

1 jar - 8 ounce size of Pickled Jalapeno, drained

4 - 6 slices of bacon, uncooked

Tony Chachere's (Cajun) seasoning to taste

Preheat oven to 400 degrees or on the roaster element on your convection oven.   Slice each chicken breast 3/4 down in the thickest portion of the top of each piece making a pocket.  Place folded Hot Pepper Cheese in each pocket along with 2 - 3 slices of pickled jalapeno.  Toothpick breast together to hold in cheese and jalapeno mixture.  Wrap with one slice of bacon wrapping over the pocket filled with cheese and jalapenos several times, tooth picking to secure as necessary.  Place prepared chicken in an oiled pan and season with Tony Chachere's or a good Cajun seasoning spice rub. 

Cook for 1 hour or until juices run clear when you slice into a chicken breast.  I served this with a salad, asparagus, my zucchini squares (for a later post) and good old Southern Iced Tea. Don't forget to remove the toothpicks before you serve this dish.

Enjoy....this recipe is definitely a keeper in our household now.

Thanksgiving and my birthday at the last Texas A&M vs. Texas football game in Aggieland.  Dad takes this trip with us when the Aggies have Thanksgiving at home each year.  We tailgate with friends and eat great food. Great memories!  Here he is with Audrey our youngest at the game!

Alise