Sometimes being a mom of four, I just want to prep dinner and forget about it. Making a roast is one of those meals that you can do just that with. You prep it and place it all in a crock pot or in the oven.  I limit my use of crockpots because I really have no control over the final product. If it over cooks, it is done for and sometimes the contents can become a mushy mess.  I like to either boil my roasts in a large pot or place it in a casserole dish and pop it in the oven.

This is really easy to make. How much easier than taking a woosah breathing moment and cutting your vegetables and then seasoning everything. Dinner can be ready for the oven in what, 15 minutes? That is what I did here. I placed everything in the cooking dish, covered with foil and placed in ta preheated oven at 350 degrees. Cooking at that temp, I left the roast in the oven for three hours then reduced to 250 for two more. When done, your roast should be tender and able to be pulled apart instead of sliced. If it is still tough, put it back in the oven covered.



You will need:
Beef Shoulder Roast
1/2 cup chopped red onion
1 cup diced celery
1/2 sliced bell pepper
1/2 sliced red, yellow bell peppers
Red Potatoes (cut in quarters or if small enough in half or whole)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 1/2 tbsp dried italian seasoning
Salt and pepper to your liking (I use 1-2 tbsp of each)
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/2 cup water
Carrots & Mushrooms *optional

Clean all your veggies and meat. Place meat in center of your baking dish and places your veggies around it. Pour in your water and Worcestershire sauce and then add your dried seasoning. Cover tightly with aluminum foil and place in the fridge until ready to cook. Preheat your oven to 350 and cook for three hours, reduce temp to 250 and cook for two more hours until meat is tender and able to be flaked.

Allow roast to sit for about 15 minutes and serve.


*while cooking, check in on the roast every hour to make sure there is enough liquid in the dish. You should have the liquid coming up halfway on the roast. That way it does not dry out.

One of the greatest memories I have from growing up is the fact that my mom made sure we all had breakfast and dinner as a family. There was no one person in front of the television while another was in their bedroom...we all set the table, washed our hands and sat down to a home cooked meal prepared by her. She did not play. We sat around the table, talking about what was coming up for the day and at dinner, we talked about how our day was. Now that I am older and I can reflect, it was truly magical.

With Valentine's Day upon us, it got me to thinking about the fancy dinner's my mom would have for us on the day of love. Dinner was complete with her best china given to her by her mom and we each had a stuffed animal and chocolates at our place setting. Of course, my dad had the best gifts. He and my mom exchanged jewelry and other tokens of their love in between lots of kisses on the mouth (to our kiddy disgust) and hugs. Dinner was the end all be all but breakfast....oh breakfast. It was so good. The start of our day...we all sat down to a fully cooked breakfast. Toast or biscuits, sausage, bacon, eggs, oatmeal or grits and ....grapefruit on holidays and special occasions.





One of my dad's favorite breakfasts started with broiled grapefruit. Now that I am older, I do not think I have even seen or heard of anyone else serving or eating this for breakfast. But he did...and that meant, we did too.

The tartness of the grapefruit paired with a sprinkling of sugar was just so good when warmed up.

This one memory makes me feel so good. It reminds me of the times at the kitchen table with my mom, dad and sisters, laughing, being mad at times, but always feeling loved.

These photos are not my own, but you can best believe I will be heading to the grocery store and grabbing a few grapefruit to broil this Sunday. Not to just serve my kids a bit of goodness, but to show them they are loved and share with them some of the love I got as a child.


 Happy Valentine's Day, all.




Find the recipe by clicking the links under the above photos of the grapefruits.

Hot sauce is one of those condiments you will find everywhere in the South. Every restaurant will have it displayed and even if it is not in sight, you can certainly ask for it and I bet you they have bottles of this spicy sauce.

My family loves hot sauce. When I go to the grocery store, I end up with the huge 12 oz bottle and as big as it is, it only lasts a few weeks. My sons, especially put it on every single thing. Like seriously, everything. My 14 year old must have it on certain foods otherwise he will not eat. While we keep hot sauce in our house, being spice and hot sauce fanatics, we love trying different kinds of hot sauce. Sometimes we have challenges. Sometimes we do blind taste testing.

When we received two awesomely packaged bottles of Tabanero, my kids were ready. We even had a neighbor over who wanted in on giving the two sauces a try.



So I laid out two tasting bowls, filled them with the sauces and we did a taste test.

I really loved the regular one and the sweet one we all agreed would make a pretty mean hot wing sauce.  So we voted and we all gave the sauces high marks and decided that we would use them both for a batch of hot wings in place of our regular buffalo sauce for our Super Bowl Party.



For delicious game day wings from the head honchos themselves, check out the Tabanero Blog for five finger lickin' wing recipes!


The heat level of the Tabanero sauces is just right. There is a hint of heat without it being overwhelming and there is no after taste that will leave you reaching for a glass of milk. I mean, it is really smooth.

When trying the Agave Sweet & Spicy, your tongue is greeted with a bite of spice then ends on a soft and lightly sweet note. For anyone who can not handle a bunch of heat, this one is really nice. I think it would be perfect with a few dashes of it on top of a burger.

So for this tasting, they both were winners, but we really have almost used the entire bottle of the Hot Sauce Picante. It was just that good.


If you have ever wanted to try hot sauce here is a list of things to try it on or in:

1. Add a few dashes to your cocktail sauce and kick up Shrimp Cocktail to a new level.
2. On popcorn. A few splashes and add a bit of heat to your popcorn.
3. In your bbq sauce
4. Instead of regular tartar sauce, add in a little hot sauce
5. In greens. Mustard, collard, turnip or even on kale.
6. Love baked beans, add in a few splashes.
7. In your sloppy joes. When mixing your sloppy joe, sprinkle in some hotsauce
8. Sprinkle on your eggs. 
9. Fry up some fish and use hot sauce instead of tartar sauce
10. Mix in a little hotsauce to your butter and place a bat of your spicy butter on top of a nicely cooked steak.