"Home Cooking to Help Warm Our Spirits as Well as Our Bodies" 1/30/14

We have had five Thursdays this month. Funny how it seems as if tt has been January forever! I cannot recall ever being at home so many days in a row.  A new batch of snow is quite beautiful to just look at  through my window panes, but to have it last forever and then get another few inches on top of the old is hard on the emotional status of those of us who do not venture outside. The future forecast is not inspiring with record low temperatures headed our way.  I will try to remember that Spring is only two months away  and control my complaints when it is too warm for comfort next summer.

I remember in the mid l930’s I was in the sixth grade and we lived on a farm between Waterloo and Auburn, Indiana.  Our home was a fair distance from the road.  The temperature was 17 degrees below zero. School was not closed. We lived right next door to the bus driver.  The bus had just bench seats down both sides of the bus with about a foot wide seat down the middle. The boys straddled it and the girls sat side saddle. My two youngest sisters were in the 2^nd  and  3^rd grades.  The bus driver put them on the side seat clear up beside him where it was warmer.  I was talking to my sister this week about that and she told me that our oldest brother who was in high school grabbed her by the hand when we came home and said ”Come on, Kork, we are going to the house”. He was in high school and took her by the hand and started running up the driveway.  She said her feet touched the ground about every six feet.  Memories are greater than the experience of living them.  That year we got our first sled for a Christmas present. We were thrilled with it because at least three of us could ride on it.

This will be a little late for you, but with the forecast for cold weather means that we should have some good home cooking to help warm our spirits as well as our bodies.  The first recipe is one that I have never heard of. I usually pass up frankfurter recipes because my taste for them has diminished greatly for them in recent years.  They are not nearly as good as they were when I was a kid and we seldom had them at home. My parents rarely bought any meat at the grocery store. But I think I might try this idea when I have some company to help me eat it.

                        

BROTHER JOHN’S  FRANKFURTERS

12 frankfurters

2 medium onions, minced

2 tablespoons butter

2 cans condensed tomato soup

1 pint dairy sour cream

Brown rice or mashed potatoes

Saute onions in butter. Slice frankfurters into ½ inch discs Add to onions and cook over medium heat until browned. Stir in undiluted soup. Heat thoroughly. Add sour cream. Heat without boiling. Serve over rice or potatoes.

                                   

CHICKEN AND RICE CASSEROLE

3 cups diced cooked chicken

4 cooked eggs, chopped

1 1/2cups celery

1 onion

2 tablespoons lemon juice

2 cans (10 oz.) mushroom soup

1 cup mayonnaise

1 cup soft bread crumbs

1 tablespoons butter

Combine chicken, eggs, celery, onion, lemon juice, soup, and mayonnaise. Spread into lightly greased baking dish. Combine bread crumbs and butter. Sprinkle over top of casserole. Bake uncovered for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

After stewing chicken, cool it in the broth before cutting into pieces, It will have twice the flavor.

Lettuce keeps better in the refrigerator without washing it. Keep the leaves dry. Wash it when you use it.

That Nosey, Old Friend 1/23/14

Impossible Cheeseburger Pie

Wasn’t Sunday something else in weather? The thermometer said it should be a nice winter day.  The wind contradicted that to the extent that made me wonder if spring were ever coming.  I was not outside much but a very few minutes was too long. Looks as if I will be at home for another week, especially since my trusty car refused to get past a few weak sputters. Maybe it was just trying to tell me that anyone my age should just be content at home.

I thought for a week or so that my nosey, old friend had decided to cool her jets and just mind her own business.  I should not have given her that much credit by even mentioning it.  I have a weakness for Maxwell House French Vanilla, sugar free, decaffeinated beverage mix. Whenever I feel sorry for myself, I prepare a cup of it for myself as a special treat. Just heat a cupful of water and add 4 teaspoonfuls of the mix. Everything went well and I set the mixture on the kitchen counter. I cannot drink anything that hot so I depended on my friend to remind me when it cooled somewhat.  Guess what?  She was not paying attention to business and let it get stone cold.  What could I do except reheat it?  So back to the microwave.  I know I punched in 50 seconds!  The next think I knew I heard an explosion of some sort.  Upon closer scrutiny, there was still a number of minutes left on the time dial!  That nosey whatever had added a zero or so to the time.  It was in a Corelle mug which was now in hundreds of small slivers with my drink running all over the turntable. She has now been banned from my home and I am  looking for new locks for on all my doors!  Watch for her and do not let her in yours.

It is still ringing in my ears since my youngest sister told me often that if they ever take Velveeta cheese off the market, I would not be able to cook.  After today you may agree with her since the two recipes called for cheese that I am passing on to you today caught my attention as I was searching in a cook book for a new idea.  We are so spoiled with already prepared foods that we have almost forgotten how to cook from scratch. When my family was all at home I cooked macaroni and cheese often for the whole family. But since I am worrying about feeding just me, it is so simple to grab a box of prepared macaroni and cheese, sometimes I add a can of albacore tuna and dinner is ready.  So this recipe for macaroni and cheese is very suitable for family dining. It also resembles very closely the way my aunt made it that I enjoyed.

         

MACARONI AND CHEESE

4 cups uncooked macaroni

2 cups Velveeta cheese, cubed

1 ½ sticks butter

2 ¼ cups milk

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

4 eggs

Cook macaroni according to package directions; drain. Heat milk, cheeses and butter together. Beat eggs and stir into the cheese and milk mixture. Add macaroni, salt and pepper to taste. Place in a 9 x 13 inch baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes.

     

IMPOSSIBLE CHEESEBURGER PIE

1 pound lean ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup shredded cheese

1 cup milk

½ cup Bisquick

2 eggs

Cook beef and onions together. Add salt. Spread into 9 inch pie plate and top with shredded cheese. In bowl stir together Bisquick and milk. Beat eggs and add to this mixture. It may be lumpy which is all right. Pour over the meat mixture. Bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Do not despair. Spring will be here in a few more months.

Christmas Withdrawal Symptoms 1/16/13

Whoever thought that we would consider 40 degrees a heat wave? After two weeks of solitary confinement, with Saturday off for good behavior then back to the same old pattern, I was afraid that when I went out to church this morning I should wear a name tag! It is funny when your driveway is plugged how many things you can think of that you would like to do.

Another deterrent was the level 3 emergency warning that made me decide to just relax, work two more crossword puzzles, and fix something unhealthy to eat. I also had a couple of books that I picked up at a garage sale last summer that were beckoning me.  Why is it that I never think of doing any deep cleaning that I could and should do when nothing else is pressuring me? But it seems that when the weather is bad I just want to curl up with my space heater on, a blanket and watch the snowflakes fall. Oh, well, it is my home and my life, so guess I will just live what is left of it as I please!

I finally did remove most of my Christmas decorations.  Still have my nativity set in place. But I think that is a major part of our faith that should not be put out of sight on December 26^th.  I had some things boxed and in plastic tubs setting in the laundry room. Saturday I told myself, ”Do not be so helpless.”  I had already burdened a son-in-law with several trips to the garage with recyclables, etc. My mother did not raise dumb kids. So I had the car parked right by my back door. I locked the storm door open, opened the back car door and carried four or five containers out to the back seat of my car.  It took no effort to get them to the garage since I usually remember to put the car in during bad weather. So when I went out this morning it was a simple thing to remove them from the car and I bothered no one.

As for unhealthy food, I tried last week’s cheesecake recipe. Since it uses sweetened condensed milk it was kind of a no-no for me.  If, or when, I make it again I am going to increase the amount of lemon juice that the recipe calls for.  I am always impatient to sample new things and hate to wait for the full chilling time. If I am making something to give to someone else, especially a pie, I make a small one for me to sample just as soon as it is room temperature.  This inclination raised its head and I had a small container with a little of my homemade graham cracker crust ingredients in the bottom.  By waiting another day to sample the big one, I found it was much better, so do not hurry it along.  I have found a place to outsource the remainder of my experiment.

After the holidays that are full of special foods, and we are relaxed from the extreme weather, I found a couple of simple recipes that shouldn’t take much effort  but will fulfill the dietary requirements that our bodies need to carry us over a relaxed or maybe lazy time period. The first one is a combination that I have never heard of so that makes it challenging. Both recipes are from a sample recipe booklet.

                        

PEACHY CHICKEN

2 pounds chicken, skinless chicken breast recommended

1 can cream of chicken soup

¼ cup of water

1 can cream of mushroom soup

¼ teaspoon poultry seasoning

1 can mushroom pieces

1 can sliced water chestnuts

1 can drained peach halves, packed in  own juice

Lightly brown chicken. Add remaining ingredients except peaches. Cover and simmer 45 minutes. Add peaches and cook long enough to heat peaches through. It is possible to put everything (except peaches) into a crockpot and cook on low all day. Add peaches long enough to heat through. Suggest heating them  in microwave before adding to crock pot.

The last recipe would have been better before the modern term “genetically modified” came into existence. Before all of you younger cooks can remember the deliciousness found in tomatoes fresh from the garden with just a quick hand rub of removing and soil from them and eating them just as they were was a rare treat.  They have lost a lot of flavor by the treatments they undergo to make them more suitable for shipping and lasting longer in the stores. But for those of you who do not know what a really good tomato is like, you won’t be disappointed.

                        

BROILED TOMATOES

2 large tomatoes

½ cup sour cream

¼ cjup shredded Cheddar cheese

¼ cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

3 tablespoons chopped green pepper

3 tablespoons sliced green onion

2 tablespoons flour

¾ teaspoon sugar

Cut tomatoes in half horizontally. Remove seeds and excess juice. Turn tomatoes upside down on continue to drain on paper towels. Combine peppers, onions, flour, sour cream and sugar. Mix well. Using a foil lined cookie sheet, place tomato halves On the sheet. Spoon one fourth of the mixture onto each tomato. Broil for 2 to 3 minutes until sour cream is bubbly and browned. Sprinkle with cheese and broil 2 minutes until cheese melts.

Hope all of your New Year’s resolutions are in full operation.

Snow Days 1/9/14

Hope you missed both The Earth and Magic Moments during our vacation time.  Certainly glad that I have the blessing of the modern technology needed to just hit “send” and this is delivered to the downtown office and do not have to think about hand delivering it in the morning,  Isn’t this storm something to mess up your schedule?  Last week was a dress rehearsal for this week, because I was not away from the house from last Saturday until this weekend.  From the looks of my driveway right now it may be spring before I get out. So it is a good thing that I have nothing scheduled on my social calendar for a number of days.

My kids have been reminiscing about the times that we were snowed in on the farm and hosted neighborhood gatherings (mostly all relatives) featuring homemade pancakes for anyone who could get to our home.  Those days were enjoyed by us and the neighbors so much that I secretly decided that they were praying regularly for a snow storm. One daughter told me last week that if I were lonesome that I should just make up a batch of pancakes and someone would stop in.  I tried it, but guess what.  I had to eat them all by myself!

I just noticed a different soup recipe that I think I will try tomorrow and maybe it will have better results than my pancakes did. A cousin featured a recipe on Facebook that really interested me. Do you think if I do a pot of soup and end up with her fabulously simple great dessert it will bring someone to see me? Think I will try it.

                        

TWO POTATO SOUP

½ pound small unpeeled red potatoes

½ pound medium russet potatoes

1 can (14 ½ oz.) chicken broth

1 cup water

¼ cup chopped onion

2 teaspoons cooking oil

1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

¼ cup milk

2 tablespoons evaporated milk

3 tablespoons cream cheese, cubed

1 tablespoon fresh parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

1/3 cup shredded Swiss cheese

Cut potatoes into bite size chunks. Place in a large saucepan. Add broth and water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and cook for ten minutes or until almost tender. Meanwhile, sauté onion in oil until tender and add to potatoes. In a small bowl, combine flour milk and evaporated milk until smooth. Add to the potato mixture. Bring to a boil, cook and stir until thickened. Reduce heat, stir in cream cheese, parsley, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and potatoes are tender. Garnish with Swiss cheese.

            

MIRACLE CHEESECAKE PIE

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 carton (8 oz.) whipped topping

1 pkg. (8 oz.) cream cheese

1/3 cup lemon juice

Prepared graham cracker crust

Soften cream cheese. Add whipped topping and sweetened condensed milk. Mix with hand mixer on low speed until well blended. Add lemon juice and immediately pour into  crust. Top with more whipped topping.  If desired you can use an Oreo crust and garnish with cookies.

May the blessings of a great Christmas celebration remain with you and your families throughout 2014.

Merry Christmas 12/25/13

I will have to be a bit more charitable to my nosey friend and give her credit where credit is due!  She must have felt my displeasure with her and she returned my paper that I intended to use for my Christmas message. She placed it right out in plain sight where I could not miss it, but it was in a place where I would have never put it!

For years and years I was not a fan of the Christmas Carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.  What has turtle doves, French hens, geese, leaping lords, swimming swans and partridges in a pear tree have to do with Christmas?  Then a few years ago I came across this bit of information.  Hope it makes a difference with you, too.

There was a time in England when people were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during this time wrote this Carol as a catechism. It has two levels of meaning. First the hidden meaning known only by members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious meaning which made it easy for the children to remember.

The partridge in a pear tree was Christ.The two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments.Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love.The four calling birds were the Four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament.The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation.Seven swans a swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit—Prophecy, Serving, teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership and Mercy.The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes.Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit—Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self Control.The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments.The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful apostles.The twelve drummers symbolized the twelve points of faith in the Apostles Creed.Thus we have the carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.

For a recipe this week apply the scripture reading “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all other things will be added unto you”.

Wishing each and every one of you a Holy and Merry Christmas and a fantastic year of 2024!

Angels 12/19/13

Do you believe in angels?  I certainly do. They have been abounding around my home for over a week.  Remember last week when I was having a pity party for myself because I was missing an important Christmas party?  That evening when I was mentally imagining what they were doing at the party, the front door bell rang.  It is seldom that I ever get company at that hour, so I cautiously turned on the front porch light. When I opened the door, there on my built-in porch were eleven angels with their wings and halos showing. Closer scrutiny revealed eleven of my club members who had left their Christmas supper before dessert and came to my home to serenade me with Christmas carols!  They also brought me a carry out meal from their supper. Another magic evening. I will give you the recipe for the loin roast that their hostess served with cheesy potatoes. 

The angels were busy, too, during and after the snow storm this weekend. Saturday morning a son-in-law diligently shoveled snow in my driveway twice, only to have it fill up again in an hour. I credit a neighbor with clearing the sidewalk and a narrow path to my front door. When I was getting ready to call it a day, I noticed two trucks with snow plows clearing the bank parking lot. They had taken a major swipe down my driveway, clearing a huge part of the snow. Also either an angel or one of Santa’s elves was hand shoveling along the edge of the bank. When I looked out this morning, I saw where he must have shoveled to my front door.  I do not know who to thank for sure but I am sure they all have halos and wings, including another son-in-law who finished the driveway this afternoon.

I had something special for Christmas ready to include in today’s efforts.  I haven’t seen my nosey friend for a few weeks, but she certainly must have been here and hid it from me.  Just so she didn’t take it home with her so I can use it for next week.  Let’s forget about her and just go to the food department.

            

FATHER BILL SCHOOLER’S PORK ROAST

 2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon basil

1 teaspoon Rosemary

3 bay leaves crushed

1 ½  teaspoon garlic powder

1 ½ teaspoon pepper

Combine all ingredients and rub on pork roast. Wrap in saran wrap. Chill in refrigerator overnight. Remove from refrigerator 1 to 2 hours before baking at 325 degrees for 1 to 2 hours until meat thermometer reaches 175 degrees.

         

HOLIDAY FIG TORTE

30 to 35 Fig Newton cookies (1 pound)

1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

2 large bananas, sliced

2 tablespoons lemon juice

3 cups cold milk

1 package (5.1 oz.) instant vanilla pudding mix

1 carton (12 oz.) whipped topping

½ cup chopped pecans

Red and green maraschino cherries, drained

Cover the bottom of a 13 x 9 in baking pan with cookies. Beat cream cheese with sugar until fluffy. Spread over cookies. Toss bananas with lemon juice. Arrange over cream cheese layer. Whisk pudding mix and milk for two minutes. Let stand for two minutes. Fold in half of the whipped topping. Spread over bananas. Spread remaining topping over pudding layer. Sprinkle with pecans and decorate  with cherries. Cover and chill overnight.

Make the day before and eliminate some of the holiday fuss.