A baking fool I am

Today I finally got around to doing some baking that I have wanted to do for a couple of years, I mean real baking.  I made fruitcake last year and a batch this week but I needed to really get some stuff going.  A couple of years ago I anticipated the great baking day and bought up pans, flour, sugar, and lots and lots of golden raisins for my white fruitcake.  That was the year of the ice storm and the day I bought up stuff we ended up not having power for like 10 or so days and work was a bitch so no I still had the baking stuff to use up but forget and buy more...my pantry is bursting.  Today I made a dent in it all.

Ingredients were pulled out of storage...

and we begin.................

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No Bake Cookes

2 cups sugar

4 T. cocoa

1/2 cup milk

1/2 lb. margarine

3 to 4 cups oatmeal

1/2 cup peanut butter

1 tsp vanilla

pinch of salt

Boil sugar, cocoa, milk and margarine for 1 minute.  Add oatmeal, peanut butter, banilla and salt.  Mix well.  Drop by teaspoons on wax paper and refrigerate.  Store in airtight container in the refrigerator. 

Now, I didn't have margarine so I used butter which should be fine but not sure and I only had 3 cups of oatmeal.  Really needed 4 cups to make it firmer. 

NEXT:

PaPa's Gingersnaps

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup shortening

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg, beaten

2 cups flour

2-1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp salt

Cream sugar, molasses and shortening.  Add egg and mix well.  In a separage bowl, mix dry ingredients.  Slowly add dry mixture to sugar mixture while beating.  Chill batter for at least an hour or overnight.  Roll into 1-inch balls in sugar and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake in a preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes.  Best warm out of the oven!

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Aunt Rose's Cooke Bars

4 eggs

1 lb. brown sugar

1-1/2 cup flour

1-1/2 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1 cup nut meats (pecans)

1/2 tsp baking powder (optional)

Beat eggs until very foamy, 4 to 5 minutes.  Add sugar and vanilla.  Sift flour, cinnamon, (baking powder), together.  Add to first mixture.  Bake on greased and floured cookie sheet (jelly roll pan) 25 to 30 minutes at 350 degrees.  Cut and turn out.  Roll in powdered sugar while hot.  Store in airtight container or they will get dry out and get very hard. 

(This recipe has been in my family for probably 50 to 70 years.  It's always a part of our holidays along with the white fruitcake.)

There was one casulaty during this baking extravaganza...my poor liquid Pyrex liquid measuring cup was bumped off of the counter into our large sink...OUCH...glass shards.  Thank goodness there was nothing in the sink. 

Corn Potato Chowder

I have no pictures and the amounts I used in this recipe are a little bit of this and a little bit of that but it is YUMMY!

4 medium potatoes, chopped
1 pkg Homemade Gourmet Corn Potato Chowder
1/2 can creamed corn
fresh chives and dill, chopped
1/2 cup chopped white onion
1/2 cup chopped green pepper and red pepper
1/2 to 3/4 cup cream
crumbled bacon
salt/pepper to taste
jalepeno salt (if you have it-very yummy) or can use green chilies, chopped
1/2 jar Old English Cheese
1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack/colby cheese

For a lark I also added the rest of some augratin potatoes from the night before. 

I know this sounds weird but the combination was delicious.  I boiled potatoes till tender and then added the rest of the ingredients and just cooked till hot.  If you do not have the Homemade Gourmet package then you can use potato flakes to achieve the thickness.  All of these ingredient amounts can be tweeked to whatever degree you want.  It was even better the next day.  Thick and creamy.

Three-Way +

This is my version of Three-Way, ala my youngest A.  I have made this ever since the girls were very little and they love it still.  My mother started making it, mixing it together with the spaghetti and freezing in freezer bags.  Whenever the girls would spend the night they knew there would always be Three-Way in her freezer to eat.  They knew how to reheat it in the microwave and then the memories were born.  Now my father makes it for the girls and other grandkiddo's who visit.  These are snapshots from A in California last night.  She called wanting to make it and needed to be reminded of how many cans of beans, etc. I use.  She needed comfort food with the scare of the fires looming around her.  She tweeks it a bit for her.  Sometime I will use stewed tomatoes to get some more veggies into the kiddos diet (squish them up a bit and they never know.)  I also use regular spaghetti.  The following is from her email and her contribution to this new blog.  Enjoy.


I made some 3-way last night and thought it might be cute to post a blog of your precious daughter making one of our family's staples....I took pictures......


Here's how I make it: (the starving musician's version)
1 lb. Lean Ground Beef
1 small pkg of Thick Spaghetti (add cap full of EVOO so noodles don't stick together)
1 can petite cut diced tomatoes (cause we don't like big chunks) lol
2 cans organic pinto beans, do not drain
1 can tomato sauce
1 FULL pkg of Tulsa's very own Chili Bowl chili seasoning! (you should tell about how you send me care packages of this to me) :)

Lots and Lots of very fancy Jalepeno Salt! (which you sent me for my b-day) sprinkle REAL parmesan cheese on top and VOILA! Comfort food in less than 20 min.!

Cooking on a fire pit

A neighboring cabin friend called a crew over for breakfast cooked in the firepit this fine Sunday morning.  Here is the faithful fire starter, The Hubby, proudly showing off his fire making skills.

Next you have to gather the necessary tools to sweat over that large inferno.





Now comes the cook.  Whew it was hot but I was able to cook some awesome crispy bacon, scramble eggs and a few potatoes.  Thank goodness I cooked and others cleaned because I was done in.  It was delicious.

Now it was time to dig in!

Bathtub Chicken

First let me say that I made enough of this stuff yesterday to feed 100 people, it was over kill. So the recipe has a lot less ingredients than is show here but basically they are:

1 lb. spaghetti, cooked
1 lb. Velveeta Cheese, cubed
1 large cooked, deboned & shredded chicken or 2 cans of canned chicken
1 can Cream of Mushroom soup or Cream of Chicken or Cream of anything
pimento   or
1 can stewed tomatoes (or Rotel tomatoes)
1 can water chestnuts
1 can mushrooms
1 bunch celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
milk for soup
(can also add fresh broccoli or asparagus...endless)

These are the ingredients but I can't for the life of me remember the exact amounts cause it is a feel kind of thing here for me. This is extremly easy and my mother made it for us ever since I can remember. You can add or delete or change most of the stuff, just tweek it for your use as I have here in gargantuan amounts!
Boil your spaghetti according to package directions, probably a little al dente to account for cooking time.

Chop onion and celery Drain the spaghetti

I like water chestnuts and mushrooms but I omitted the mushrooms today as some are not fond of them. Roughly chop the water chestnuts just to break them up a bit.

Add the pimento. Pimento I never used to like because it was a pepper, but I've since learned to like peppers. It is great color too.

Okay, here it gets a little creepy doesn't it. Usually my mother would buy canned chunk chicken and sometimes would stew here own, but I'm a lazy cook. I could have purchased roasted chickens at the store but I didn't have the room in the fridge or the inclination to debone them on Thursday night when I bought for the party. So, as I was in the canned tuna and chicken aisle I spied the whole canned chickens. Well, curiosity got the best of me...kind of reminds me of the Alien movie doesn't it...chills...
I still had to debone these suckers and let me tell you after the first can, I learned. When I dipped my hand into that first can the whole chicken just fell into pieces, which meant lots of bones to find.

This first mass looks smushed because I was hunting for bones to make sure not a one found its way into my casserole...


Now, that is much better. I learned to slowly pull the leg/thighs out very easily and then it went quick and boneless! Smelled delicious too.

The cans were half full of wonderful chicken stock so of course I poured it in a ziploc bag and stored it in the freezer for the next soup in the fall...
The Cream of Mushroom soup is prepared according to can directions, EXCEPT that I use milk. It is much creamer. I have used Cream of chicken, asparagus, celery, just any kind will do but my fav is the Cream of Mushroom. I also found a couple of cans of the Cream of Roasted Garlic Mushroom which I used...yummy!


Pour the soup into the mixture.



Now the Velveeta. I know it's kind of not really cheese but it is great in this recipe. In my Mother's day there was only one kind but now there are a myriad of flavors so I used some Mexican and Pepper Jack for a kick along with the original. You cube it up for ease of melting while baking. I believe the original recipe called for canned or stewed tomatoes but my mother never used them, instead opting for the pimento. My sister used Rotel tomatoes sometimes. See this is a very adaptable recipe.


I then poured it over the spaghetti and mixed. You can do it in a very large bowl, which I didn't find until this morning while putting stuff away...thump head!

Now comes the cleanup. It would have been a much quicker process if I had found the bowl and used already deboned, cooked, canned chicken but it was fun. I almost forgot...bake @ 350 degrees for 30 to 45 minutes depending on the size of casserole pan. You just want it bubbly, melted and the veggies done. Delicious with a green salad and garlic bread.


Yes it was overkill for only 21 people but I don't care. I love to cook for people and I'll take some home, some to neighbors and they will all enjoy. You can also freeze them for a later meal. We only dove into one of them so one may make the freezer.

Creamed Corn 101

This is a step by step of making creamed corn like my granny and mother used to do. Enjoy.


The first step is good fresh corn...This is not a low-cal version.

Ingredients: fresh corn, cream, salt, pepper, bacon drippings, sugar (alternative: milk and flour)

Shuck and clean the silks and cut out the bad spots. This batch was beautiful with no blemishes.





Wash ...

Drop into a pot of boiling water to blanch for about 5 minutes. This makes it easier to cut off the cob.

After blanching for about 5 minutes then drop into an ice water bath to stop the cooking process and make it easier to work with.

Carefully take out of the boiling water and
give it a cool bath.

Now starts the most important process and the secret for creamed corn. You take good knife and in a shallow dish stand the ear on end and just cut the tips of the corn off. Trust me.

When you have cut all the tips off then you take your knife and scrap down the sides to get the cream or milk of the corn, the best part. It will splatter so sometimes I do it in my deep kitchen sink or just wipe down the walls.



See the cream there...

Now the cream is in the pan...yummy






When you get it to this point you can also put it in freezer bags and freeze for that special dinner.





Now, sometimes if I really want rich creamed corn I will use real cream to thicken, or I will make a slurry of milk and flour, not too much but enough to thicken. Lots of salt and pepper to taste and maybe a smidgen of sugar, but not necessary. Oh and the most important part, about a tablespoon or a little more of bacon drippings. This is not a low cal recipe but you can make it that way. If I'm going to this trouble, especially if I'm serving at a get together I will ramp it up.

In a large skillet or saucepan melt your bacon drippings. Don't walk away because the drippings can burn quickly. When hot add the corn and heat. When good and hot then you can add the cream or the milk thickening mixture. Add the seasonings and taste to tweek it just right. Bring the mixture back up to hot as the cream will cool it down. That is basically all you have to do.




Now doesn't that just make your mouth water. I took it to a party last night and it was ALL GONE! Success!

Veggie Soup

VEGGIE SOUP

Ingredients: These can be added to or left out depending on your taste.

Cabbage, leeks, tomato soup, celery, onion, green-red-or yellow peppers, garlic, yellow and/or zucchini squash, carrots, green beans, canned tomatoes, chicken or veggie stock, jalapeno salt, salt and pepper, veggie bouillon, olive oil, bacon drippings only if you want for a little flavor, and bay leaves.








I saute the cabbabe, leeks, onions, peppers and any of the other veggies I want. I use olive oil but sometimes add 2 tsp to 1 tbls of bacon drippings for a little flavor. You really don't have to saute the veggies but I like the flavor and the smell in the house is awesome.









Let is simmer for an hour or two and I serve with grilled cheese sandwiches. Great on a fall crisp day. Enjoy.