Zucchini Apple Crisp 8/21/14

I should have been a little quicker to thank you all for keeping that intruder out of my home for so long. She was back in full force recently. My son-in-law frequently gets my mail for me when he is on his recommended daily walk. He stopped in to see if I had picked up my mail, asked for my post office box key and said he would be right back. We usually enjoy a fresh cup of coffee on his visits. I knew he would be back shortly, so I got the coffee filter ready and trusted her to finish making the coffee while I prepared some crackers and cheese to enjoy with our coffee. As he arrived back,  I started to pour our coffee and noticed that only a small amount of it had entered the coffee pot.  I didn’t mention anything but was able to pour us each a cupful. Later on I decided I should examine the situation.  Lo and behold, you just can’t trust anyone else to do anything and do it right. My friend had not even put the filter in the coffee maker and the system was plugged with coffee grounds!  Have you ever tried to capture that many coffee grounds in a complicated maker?  It took me forever to get rid of them all.

I really shouldn’t mention her latest caper. It cost me most of my beer money!!  I will make the story as sort as possible. I knew my bathroom facilities were not working properly, but was managing.  When things got serious, I notified my plumber and fortunately he was able to come very soon. After some diligent work, he knew that there was something fast but he could not remove it. The only thing to do next was to replace it!  After his mission was accomplished, he took the damaged one to my trash container. He had broken it into pieces and came back in the house carrying the perpetrator.  You would never guess what that intruder had done.  He was holding up a lid to a condensed soup can!  Her only excuse was that she was rinsing the soup can, with the sink full of dishwater and clean dishes in the other half. So she poured the water in a pan and flushed it!  A very expensive misdemeanor. As close as I can figure it will cost each one of my kids $35.

A bright spot in my week to help alleviate my dampened spirit was a surprise visit from a daughter, who had brought lunch for both of us.  I just sat at the kitchen table and acted as if I were a guest.  She also brought a quart of pickled beets that she had canned from her garden.  Guess I will now go make some pickled eggs that I usually eat like popcorn. As long as there are any there I want to eat them. Thanks, Judy.

Today’s recipe comes from my sister’s granddaughter who made it for a family gathering. It came from Taste of Home and has apple in the title, but there are no apples in the ingredients. Thanks go to Dawn Blue.

          

ZUCCHINI APPLE CRISP

8 cups zucchini, cut like apple slices

¼ cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon nutmeg, (Dawn uses less)

½ cup sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

TOPPING: 1½ cups packed brown sugar

                    1 cup flour

                    1 cup rolled oats

                    ½ cup butter, softened

Place sliced zucchini and lemon juice in a saucepan. Cover and cook over medium heat, about 15 minutes until tender. Add spices and sugar. Blend until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and place into a greased 9 x 13 inch baking pan. For topping, combine brown sugar, flour, oats, and butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over zucchini. Bake at 375 degrees for 50 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream or whipped topping.

          

Due to the generosity of a long time friend and retired farmer, I received a generous supply of tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet corn, etc.   I turned to a recipe from my nephew who loves to cook. It is in my cookbook, but that was years ago and I am certain that there are new readers now. It is very tasty and very simple to make.  My thanks go to Richard G. and Mike S.

    

CUCUMBERS AND TOMATOES

2 to 3 average sized cucumbers (I used one long one)

1 medium to large onion

1 ½  teaspoons salt

1 large tomato, diced

1/8 teaspoon garlic powder

1/8 teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon seasoning salt

4 tablespoons Miracle Whip

Thinly slice onions and cucumbers. Add salt and cover with water. Let stand for one hour. Drain. Add diced tomato. Combine other ingredients and add to tomato and cucumber mixture. Chill for at least one hour. (I ate the whole thing!)

Magic with Vietnam Veterans 8/14/14

Wow! What a day. Partially what made it so special was that it was so spontaneous, so completely different than any of us had planned. Originally it was to have been a Sanders special gathering to replace our usual family camping trip. Details had changed and we were having trouble setting a suitable weekend.  The day that was picked by our host and hostess ran into too many complications so it was cancelled.  The landscaping project at my home to replace the swimming pool ran into the same problems and my daughter who was managing the project of removing stones issued an invitation to anyone who was available to come here and work on the project with the promise of food to tempt anyone who was available.

Now here is the “rest of the story”.  My daughter was the only one who showed up and I was busy planning a bit of food without starting too much of it. Late in the morning I received a phone call from another daughter who had planned a major project at her home.  Guess what?  She, her husband and one of her brothers were at the Montpelier fair grounds participating in the Welcome Home Vietnam Vets at the War Memorial celebrating the fifty year anniversary. My nephew, Steve Jennings and my son Jim were there with four other Edgerton, Vietnam vets—Ed Kimpel, Randy Sutton, Bob Witsaman, and Tom Trausch.  Would I like to come over?   How could I go with Becky working so diligently in my back yard?  The next thing I knew, family members were picking me up and Becky had departed for home, a shower and she and her sister beat me to the fairgrounds.

There was a helicopter which had been used in Vietnam giving rides to anyone who cared to go. Six of Jim’s siblings agreed to go. When they asked me if I were going, I quickly replied, “I do not even like riding in an elevator!”  Now after the fact, I think maybe it would have been a thrill, but why take a chance. The Edgerton Vets asked about a possibility of flying over Edgerton. They were told that if they waited until the last flight they would allow that privilege. There were at least eleven flights carrying six passengers at once. So the afternoon was well on its way out when they left Montpelier to refuel and on to Edgerton. All Jennings and Sanders relatives formed a line to wave them off and then we started home.  As I was unlocking my back door we heard a familiar sound and they were flying very low over my house! A number of people saw it over St. Mary’s Church. A great day with many magic moments.  Thanks to all veterans who gave of their time to serve our great country.

I better write down my original plans for this week because by next week I will only remember that I did have plans! Let’s just go to food.  I received several requests for directions for last week’s  onion and corn recipe. Since they were conspicuous by their absence, I said I would repeat the recipe in case they did not save it.

            

CORN ONION SHORTCAKE

¼ cup butter

1 large sweet onion, finely chopped

1 ½ cups corn muffin mix

1 egg,

1/3 cup milk

1 cup cream style corn

1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese, divided

Melt butter over medium heat. Saute onion until tender. Remove from heat, Set aside. Combine muffin mix, egg, milk and corn. Spread into a 9 inch baking pan. Combine sour cream, sautéed onion, salt and half of the cheese. Spread over the batter. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Cut into squares. Serve warm.

          

MANDARIN CAKE

1 package yellow cake mix

4 eggs

1 can (11oz.) mandarin oranges, reserve juice

¾ cup vegetable oil

Pour I cup liquid from oranges into measuring cup. If there is not enough to make one cup add water. Chop oranges. Mix all remaining ingredients with mandarin liquid. Pour into three greased pans lined with wax paper. Bake 20 to 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

        

MANDARIN FROSTING

1 can (20 oz.) crushed pineapple

1 package (3.5 oz.) vanilla instant pudding mix

1 carton (12 oz.) whipped topping.

Mix all ingredients and frost cake. Refrigerate.

Remember many magic moments and memories are found in unplanned and unexpected places.

Family Wedding Magic 8/7/14

What can be more exciting and magical than a family wedding? A large part of my family journeyed to Grove City on Saturday to attend the wedding of my granddaughter and her fiancé. In addition to the specialness of witnessing the joining of the lives of two people that are special to us were the added magic moments of family togetherness. Two of my great  granddaughters who are nieces of the bride and live in Texas were flower girls. We get to see them so seldom that it was a special occasion in itself. Their younger baby sister, who resembles a China doll (I am a bit prejudiced) was making her initial visit, added to the specialness of the day, since I had never seen her. The bride was beautiful as we expected her to be and it was a very joyous occasion. Best wishes are extended again to Val and Ted who are both teachers and coaches in the Grove City Schools.  May their marriage be a long and happy one.

Nearly all of us stayed overnight so we had ”another party” Sunday morning in the dining hall of the hotel. It is great when we enjoy the company of close and extended family with a number of special friends as a bonus. To me getting home again had a specialness of its own, too. See there are so many aspects of Life that have built in pleasures that we quite often  fail  to appreciate.

A very special thing happened in my life last week that followed closely a dangerous and stupid thing that I had done. After partially becoming stable due to the thoughts of what might have happened, as I was entering my back door, I heard a wee small voice.  I turned around and there was a young neighbor girl, possibly a first or second grader, holding out her hand with a plastic bag in it.  As I asked her ,”is that for me?”, she scampered back across the street.  She had brought me two samples of luscious looking bar cookies and the recipe.  They tasted every bit as good as they looked, so I felt I must pass the recipe on and not be selfish with it. Besides the instructions sound too simple to be true and have them taste that good.  Hope you agree with me. Thanks go to the kindness of her mother, helping me prove that Edgerton is a great place to live. In fact two instances in less than a half hour were on the positive side. Thanks to you too, Betty and Linda.

               

MAGIC COOKIE BARS

½ cup butter

1 ½ cup graham cracker crumbs

1 (14 oz.) can Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 cups (12 oz.) semi sweet chocolate cips

1 1/3 cups Flaked coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (325 if using a glass baking dish) In a 9 x 13 inch baking pan, melt butter in oven. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs evenly over the butter. Pour Eagle Brand milk over crumbs. Layer evenly with remaining ingredients and press down firmly. Bake 25 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool, cut into squares. Store loosely covered at room temperature.

Although this is in a 20 year old cookbook, I have never heard of this combination. The  suggestion is to use it in place of a vegetable side dish, even though it is called a cake.

            

CORN ONION SHORTCAKE

¼ cup butter

1 large sweet onion, finely chopped

1 ½ cups corn muffin mix

1 egg

1/3 cup milk

1 cup cream style corn

1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (4 oz.) shredded cheddar cheese, divided

Melt butter over medium heat. Saute onion until tender. Remove from heat; set aside.  Combine milk, egg, muffin mix and corn.  Spread into 9 inch baking pan. Combine sour cream, sautéed onion, salt and half of the cheddar cheese. Spread over batter. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Cut into squares, serve warm. To make cracker crumbs, Place crackers in a plastic bag and run a rolling pin back and forth  until they are the size you want.

Porcupine Meatballs 7/31/14

First and foremost in the magic moments category we must offer congratulations to Edgerton’s citizen of the year, Karl Mavis!  The honor was not achieved by magic, but by hard work, using the talents God gave him and his devotion to his family and to the Edgerton community during  his entire life time as an Edgerton citizen. I am certain that Thursday evening was indeed a “magic moment” for  him and his family.  Karl, you may bask in your honor for the whole next year for receiving this well deserved honor.         

Hope most of you participated in the Festival of the Flags.  My aging knees and weakened legs kept me away for more than I ordinarily miss.  On my priority list is the Thursday evening program. Thanks to my daughter who drove me almost clear into the big tent that was made possible. Thanks need to be expressed to the community choir who give unselfishly of many hours of practice for our enjoyment.  It was especially pleasant to have them concentrate completely on patriotic selections.  The choir was smaller than usual, but that did not diminish my enjoyment and appreciation.

We usually have a family gathering near my home for the parade, but this year I was the only one who appeared. But we have to make the best of the way things turn out. So I was on my best behavior and visited with a high school classmate who was sitting with a number of his family next to me. On my right was a friendly looking stranger whom I cautiously made a comment. She responded very well and we found out that she knew some of my kids and had read my column in the paper but had never met me.  Do not tell anyone, but we found ourselves chatting more than we paid attention to what was going down the street. For punishment that is why I think my “sunburned” nose and forehead turned noticeably red by Sunday morning church services. Now I know that it is true that you can get that way on a cloudy day, because we never saw the sun the whole time I sat reserving my place in the front row and the hour during the parade.

Also, another magic moment for me was when I cautiously entered the business where the Swope family was greeting people and displaying their literary talents. Just because I had absorbed the duties of a columnist featuring recipes when Sharon, author of Apron Strings, retired twenty four years ago, why would they be interested in me? They say the things we worry most about never happen and I was graciously received by the whole family.  I cautiously asked if any of them had one of my cookbooks. As they all replied negatively, I cautiously removed one from my purse and gave it to a daughter.  They started grabbing it from each other, so I settled things with my decision to give it to Sharon. This brought on the question if I had any more. I left with money to pay for five more which I am to mail to various parts of the country.  This will make me look better to my kids when they find that many less of them under my bed when I am gone.

I changed my mind about three times as to which recipes to give you this week. If you don’t like these you will just have to wish that I had used the other ones. The first one intrigued me by its title.

                   

PORCUPINE MEATBALLS

I pound ground beef

1 egg

1 package beef Rice-A-Roni

1 package brown gravy

Mix lean ground beef and Rice-A Roni with seasoning packet. Make into large meatballs. Brown in skillet. Prepare gravy mix. Pour over meatballs. Cover and simmer on low for 15 minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes.

How about this one for the hot month of August?  I use a lot of instant chocolate pudding mix but have never done this.  Freeze one for tomorrow and save the the other one for a day or week later. Directions say it may be frozen for 2 months, but I doubt if it will be around that long.

    

CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM PIE

2 quarts of vanilla ice cream, melted

1 package (5.9 oz.) instant chocolate pudding mix

2 (10 inch) graham cracker  crusts

Whisk melted ice cream and putting mix for 2 minutes. Pour into crusts. Freeze until firm. Remove from freezer 10 minutes before serving. Garnish with whipped topping if desired.

Keep strawberries fresh for over a week by refrigerating them, unwashed, in an airtight container between layers of paper towels.

Look for magic moments in each new day 7/24/14

I almost went on to August for the date on this, then realized that again we have 5 Thursdays in the same month. There are possibly some statistics for that happening, but it really doesn’t change much in the pattern of Life.   The sun comes up each morning and there are meals to cook, dishes to wash, floors to sweep, beds to make, dusk comes a bit earlier each evening and it is most important that I look for magic moments in each new day.

I nearly forgot to do that last week with a very mundane schedule for the week which included a doctor and dentist appointment. On Saturday morning I received a phone call to see if I would be at home to receive an unexpected visitor.  My Home Economics Club gained several new, much younger members. Two of them, (how lucky can one old lady be?) have been very kind and attentive to me.  This one has called me “Grandma Max” for years. Her employment had transferred her out of our community for several years. We have a Facebook and email friendship but I have not seen her for a long time. I was so elated about her prospective visit, I forgot to use the short time before her arrival to hide a few things and wipe the dust from the most visible  furniture.  It was indeed a magic hour, or two, while we brought our friendship to a new level. Thanks so much for your time and kindness, Kathy. I should also include a visit from a son-in- law and a daughter in-law, one just before her arrival and the other just as she was leaving, which made my day very special.

I intended to do this early today, but I got interested in a two hour movie, so here it is almost my bedtime and I still have not accomplished much. So let’s just go to food.  I was frustrated that there was nothing in my refrigerator to warm up for lunch today, so I tried a recipe that I gave you a few weeks ago. It sounded too bland, but I made it just like the recipe except I did only a half batch to see if I liked it and it sounded like too much for one little old lady to eat.  It was the cabbage and noodle recipe. I had just purchased a head of cabbage and noodles were on sale at the local grocery this week. So what could be more ideal for a time to try it.  I was surprised how tasty it was, but my imagination ran wild with it and I added a package of summer sausage, to spice it up a bit. I am sure it originated with the dilemma of cabbage and noodles being all there was in the house to eat and a successful answer came to a creative cook’s mind. It would also make a filling meatless dish to fill a family. As for me, I will probably always add the sausage in the future.

I enjoy Rueben sandwiches but have never eaten nor heard of any one making a Rueben dip.  So you are on your own if you try this one.

                        

RUEBEN DIP

8 to 10 ounces deli corned beef, finely chopped

1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, cubed

1 can (8 oz.) sauerkraut, rinsed and drained

1 cup (8 oz.) sour cream

1 cup (4 oz.) shredded Swiss cheese

Rye bread or crackers (I like Keebler Club Multi-Grain) In a mini slow cooker, combine beef, cream cheese, sauerkraut, sour cream and Swiss cheese. Cover and cook on  low heat for 2 hours or until cheese is melted. Stir until blended, Serve warm with crackers or rye bread.

Do not tell my son-in-law that I gave you a recipe for green beans. He turns green at the mention of them.  I like to try new ways to prepare vegetables, but I won’t mention this to him.

                        

GREEN BEANS WITH CARROTS

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon white vinegar

1 tablespoon sugar

1 medium carrot, cut into julienne strips

1 ½ cups frozen cut green beans

Salt and pepper to taste

2 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled

In a skillet, heat oil. Stir in vinegar and sugar. Add carrot strips, cook and stir for two minutes. Add beans and cook five minutes longer. Add salt,  pepper and bacon.

Don’t forget to look for magic moments daily. You never know where one might be lurking.