Rather be cooking with Lisa Boykin Batts

Creamy and delicious

2012-01-18T09:32:00.002-05:00

I had plans for dinner a week ago Monday.

I told daughter Anna I’d make one of her favorite recipes, a yeasty, one-dish pizza dish she adores. Anna woke up with a sore throat that morning, so while she was at school that day I decided to change our dinner plans and searched the Internet, looking for soup recipes that would soothe her red throat.

When she called after school, she told me all she wanted was something warm for dinner, something that would feel good to her throat. I was happy I could oblige.

I settled on a creamy vegetable soup for this very cold evening. Anna doesn’t really like meat, so I thought this dish would be perfect for her. There are many versions on the websites I visited, including a copycat recipe for a creamy soup we had at Dixie Stampede in Myrtle Beach. They also sounded similar.

I decided to combine my favorite parts of several recipes and came up with my own version that uses onions, celery, carrots and a sweet potato, which I added for a little sweetness and more nutrition.

Many of the recipes don’t suggest blending the vegetables, but I decided to pull out my immersion blender and make the soup creamy — leaving only a few small pieces of vegetables in the soup for a little change in texture. But if you’d rather have the vegetable pieces, I’m sure that would be good, too.

For the cheese in this soup, I used a blend of shredded Velveeta and Cheddar because I had a partial bag in my refrigerator. But I’m sure either Velveeta or Cheddar alone would work well.

Many of the recipes I looked at listed whole milk or 2 percent milk and some even called for half-and-half. But I used skim milk, and was very pleased with the results.

The mix of the four vegetables I chose was delicious and flavorful, but you could certainly add others. I saw a number of recipes that use a bag of frozen California blend vegetables for cream soup. I plan to make this again soon, adding broccoli to my ingredient list.

No matter which vegetables and which kind of cheese you use, this creamy soup recipe is a wonderful way to warm up your family on a cold winter day and to sneak in plenty of vegetables in the process!

Creamy vegetable soup

32 ounces chicken broth (I use Swanson’s Natural Goodness, lower sodium, fat-free)
1/2 to 3/4 cup diced carrot
1/2 cup diced celery
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped sweet potato (peeled)
3 to 4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Dash salt
4 cups milk (I used skim)
1 cup shredded Velveeta/ Cheddar blend or other favorite cheese

In a medium saucepan, bring broth to a boil. Add carrot, celery, onion and sweet potato; simmer, uncovered, for 10 to 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

While the vegetables are cooking, in a large saucepan melt butter. With a whisk, stir in the flour and salt until blended and gradually add milk. Bring milk mixture to a boil over medium heat and cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened and bubbly; continue stirring, being careful not to let the mixture stick. Pour in vegetables and broth and stir to combine. Remove from heat and stir in cheese until melted.

Use an immersion blender to blend the soup to the desired consistency. If the soup is too thick, add more chicken broth.

Colors of the rainbow

2012-01-11T08:57:00.001-05:00

After all the sweets I had around Christmas, I promised myself not to eat anything that resembled a dessert until February, at least. But I broke that promise after my daughter made a batch of tie-dye cupcakes before her school break was over.

A few years ago, I had seen a number of recipes and photos for rainbow or tie-dye cakes and thought they were so pretty with their brilliant red, blue, green, purple and yellow layers. But I never made them. It seemed like too much trouble.

Anna is much more adventurous. She called me from home one morning and asked if I cared if she cooked. I told her it was fine as long as she cleaned up the mess. (That’s my standard answer for many things in life.)

Later that morning, she showed up at the office with a container of very pretty cupcakes that she made from a lemon supreme cake mix she doctored with food coloring: red, green, orange and yellow.

The cupcakes were very pretty, and the colors were so brilliant that you could see the swirled designs through the thin cupcake paper. I bit into mine and held it out to admire the pretty patterns that are unique to each cupcake.

So how did she make them? She said it’s easy, but a little more time-consuming than a regular cupcake.

Using a cake mix, make the batter as directed on the package. Choose a light colored mix such as yellow or lemon. Take out the food coloring you want to use and get an equal number of small bowls. Divide the batter among the bowls. Add drops of dye and stir, repeating the process until the batter is the shade you want.

Then spoon the different colors into each cupcake holder (with a cupcake liner inside) and don’t stir the batter — just drop the colored batter in around the edges and middle of the cupcake liner. You could do this is a layer cake as well.

Bake the cupcakes as directed on the box.

Anna covered half of her cupcakes with vanilla frosting and left the other half without frosting. They were delicious both ways.

In addition to making rainbow cupcakes, wouldn’t it be fun to make themed cupcakes? You could use the colors from the two opposing teams for a Super Bowl party, for instance, or pink and red for Valentine’s and red, white and blue for a Fourth of July party.

Tie-Dye Cupcakes

Cake mix (Use a light color mix such as yellow or lemon; make batter according to box instructions)
Paper cupcake liners
Various food dyes
Frosting (if desired)

Choose the dye colors for your cupcakes and divide batter into the same number of small bowls.

Add drops of food dye into each bowl and stir to make the colors you want.

Spoon batter into muffin pan filled with cupcake liners. Spoon batter around the edges and in the middle and do not stir.

Bake according to box instructions.

Frost, if desired, when cool.

Peanut Butter Cheerios

2012-01-10T14:43:00.003-05:00

Last week, my son and I went grocery shopping for "essentials" he needs back at college this semester: Chef Boyardee Ravioli, kettle chips, Snickers, Gatorade that's a sickening shade of blue. In our shopping, I saw that Cheerios has a new flavor— peanut butter. I do love peanut butter, and I also love Cheerios, so I bought a box and tried them as soon as I got home. I loved them dry and started thinking of how I could use them in a favorite recipe I make that's sort of like Rice Krispies treats.
Then it hit me. If Cheerios is making a peanut butter product, does that mean their other products will now carry a peanut allergy warning? I know that's happened with other products.
I have a teenage niece who has a peanut allergy. I know she's eaten her fair share of Cheerios because it's always been a safe food. Whenever they come for a long visit, her mom buys a fresh box for Jillian to eat while she was here.
I sort of panicked. What if Susan bought the Cheerios for Jillian and didn't see a warning on the label?
I had to know, so I went straight to the source. After some back and forth, I got this answer from the General Mills folks:
"Multi Grain Cheerios Peanut Butter contains peanuts. Cheerios has a commitment to allergen management. We can say with complete confidence that Multi Grain Peanut Butter Cheerios will not cross-contaminate other Cheerios varieties.
"Currently, Honey Nut Cheerios, Banana Nut Cheerios, and Oat Cluster Cheerios Crunch contain almond. Only Multi Grain Cheerios Peanut Butter contains peanuts.
"All other varieties, including original Cheerios, Multi Grain Cheerios, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios, Chocolate Cheerios, Cinnamon Burst Cheerios, Frosted Cheerios, Fruity Cheerios, and Yogurt Burst Cheerios, do not contain nuts."
I'm so pleased with this answer and wanted to share it with any of you who love someone with a peanut allergy!

A year of recipes

2012-01-04T11:49:00.006-05:00

I’m always a little surprised in December when I look back over the recipes I made over the previous 12 months. I think, “Did I cook all that?”

I’m happy with myself for trying so many new things, but sometimes I discover recipes I had forgotten since the first of the year and quickly make plans to try them again. That’s why I do this overview every year, not only to remind me of what I’ve cooked, but also to give my readers a second chance to try some good food!

The recipes from my food column in 2011 have been a good mix between desserts, main dishes and side dishes, I think. Several of them came from friends, including Harriet Page’s garden pea salad and Anne Liles’ Colorful Marinated Salad. I lost count of how many readers told me they had made these two dishes. I’m very grateful for friends who don’t mind sharing a good recipe!

I had a huge grin on my face when a reader stopped me in the grocery store after the recipe for vegetarian stir-fry appeared in the paper in February. She was making dinner for a guest who is a vegetarian, and she was shopping for ingredients for the recipe. That recipe was inspired by the American Heart Association’s Heart month celebration.

Other recipes came from browsing through cookbooks and magazines and online recipe sites.

The recipe for mini cheesecakes is a popular one with many cooks, and I was able to adapt one from the Allrecipes website for a Relay for Life fundraiser at my church. The cheesecakes were a hit at the father-daughter banquet and were so much fun for my daughter and me to decorate.

A very simple recipe for ham and cheese biscuits has been made many times at my house since I published that recipe in April. They are addictive! Give them a try.

And I love it when my mother-in-law, Ollie Batts, tells me how much she’s enjoyed making chocolate covered cherry cake and how many variations her friends have come up with. It really makes me happy when I know people try these recipes.

Apple crisp and peach cobbler were other reader-favorite recipes this past year, so was the easy recipe for pumpkin bars using white whole wheat flour. My daughter’s boyfriend asked me to make the pumpkin bars, adorned with cream cheese frosting, for his 18th birthday in December. I was thrilled he asked me and that he liked the dessert so much. Again, many readers stopped me in public to tell me they had made these recipes. Their comments help me figure out what kinds of recipes my readers like — simple ones using local and seasonal ingredients. I’ll be looking for similar ones in 2012.

And when I was making our grits and sausage casserole for Christmas morning, I told my family I wish I knew how many people told me they would be making the same thing for their holiday breakfast. Again, a simple recipe with a few basic ingredients.

Thanks to everyone who read my column last year and to those who took the time to email me or speak to me in public to say how much they like trying my recipes.

I have a few ideas for the coming year, but if you have suggestions of things you’d like to see in this column, send me an email. I love new ideas!

One for you and one for me

2011-12-21T08:53:00.003-05:00

How many of you have been to a cookie exchange?

I went to my first one Saturday with my friends at Marsh Swamp Church.

We enjoyed music and door prizes and choosing from among several dozen varieties of cookies, fudge, candy and other sweets to eat and take home.

On Friday afternoon, I made three recipes with the help of daughter Anna and cousin Nancy Boykin. We chatted and stirred and cut and rolled and had a fun time.

Everyone who attended Saturday’s exchange was asked to take at least three dozen pieces of a holiday treat. In return, we all got to take home at least three dozen treats.

I was brave and made three new recipes! I’ll share two of them here today.

The first, tiger butter, was so easy that I had it made in less than 10 minutes. This delicious candy — made with white chocolate, dark chocolate and peanut butter — is similar to a fudge, but because I spread it thin, it reminds me more of a candy. This easy treat is delicious, and I heard several people say the same thing I noticed, that the candy melts in your mouth! This recipe made more than enough for the exchange, so I saved some for our family Christmas Eve gathering.

I made two recipes from Better Homes and Gardens’ special interest publication “100 Best Cookies.” It was so hard choosing what to make from this magazine because there are so many options! But I chose salted peanut bars and sandies.

The recipe for sandies is almost identical to my recipe for nutty fingers or lady fingers. When I make nutty fingers, I have to drag out the Mirro press that has been in my family for decades. It’s seen better days, and my husband has to turn the crank for me to press the batter through the hole to make logs. It’s not an easy task. I had already thought I’d forgo the Mirro press and make the nutty fingers as cookies this year, so when I saw the round sandies, I decided this was all the incentive I needed to try something new.

They were so easy to make and taste just like the nutty fingers my family requests each year. Before the week is out, I’ll be making two more batches of this recipe for my extended family to enjoy.

Anna and I tried many delicious treats at Saturday’s exchange, from cinnamon hard candy to chocolate dipped pretzel rods — and took home containers filled with the fruits of our friends’ labor! I asked my friends to share their recipes for my column, and several of them did just that.

These are easy recipes that you can prepare before the week is out.

We had such a nice time at the cookie exchange, and I urge others to organize or attend a similar event next year. Our exchange included young girls, moms and grandmoms and was such a nice way to spend part of a Saturday morning. Anna and I will most certain be back next year.

Melted Snowman Cookies

30 ounces ready to bake sugar cookie dough
16 ounces vanilla frosting
2 packages (7 oz.) white decorating cookie icing
Bag of large marshmallows
Butter or margarine, for greasing your plate
6-8 small Ziploc bags

Bake the sugar cookies according to directions and slice about 1/4- to 1/2-inch thick. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

While the cookies are cooling, take the container of vanilla frosting and use your favorite food coloring and split into several bowls and use the food coloring to make all different colors of frosting to decorate the cookies or if you’re in a hurry, buy individual tubes of icing. Put each color frosting in a different Ziploc bag, and snip one corner of your bag to make your piping bag.

Next use decorating cookie icing, and frost your cookies. Make sure to let a little bit of icing spill over the edge, for the melting effect. Use a spoon to help spread the icing.

Lightly grease a small plate with the butter or margarine. Place a couple of marshmallows at a time on the plate, and microwave for about 5 to 6 seconds. You want them to puff a little but not double in size, or melt. Grease your fingers and pick up your marshmallow and place it on the edge of your cookie. Press it down slightly. Then decorate the cookies. I used scarves, bows, earmuffs and arms to decorate.

Makes about 12 to 15 cookies.

Heather Scott

Peanut Clusters

1 6-ounce package chocolate chips
1 12-ounce package butterscotch chips
1 12-ounce package salted Spanish peanuts

Combine chocolate and butterscotch chips in 2-quart bowl. Heat in microwave on 60% power for 4 minutes, stirring once during melting. Stir in peanuts.

Drop by teaspoons onto wax paper and let set.

Microwave time may vary, but it’s better to start low and add time because you can’t use it if it’s overcooked.

Beverly Boyette

Tiger Butter

2 6-ounce packages white chocolate squares
1/2 heaping cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Coat a large baking pan with wax paper.

In a medium-size bowl, melt white chocolate according to box directions. I used the microwave. Stir the chocolate to blend. Mix in the peanut butter.

Pour mixture onto waxed paper. Spread with the back of a spoon to desired thickness.

Melt chocolate chips. Start at 30 seconds in microwave. Stir. Continue heating at 15 second intervals until melted, but be careful not to overcook.

Dot the surface of the white chocolate mixture with the dark chocolate. With a knife or toothpick, swirl the dark chocolate into the white chocolate to make pretty marble designs.

Let the candy stand to harden. Can briefly place in refrigerator if needed.

Cut into squares or break.

Lisa Batts

Babe Ruth Bars

1 cup sugar
1 cup Karo Syrup (light)
1 3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
5 1/2 cup Special K cereal
12 oz. bag milk chocolate chips

Mix sugar and Karo syrup together in a pot and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and pour over peanut butter stir until creamy. Add Special K cereal gradually, stirring to coat flakes. Put mixture in a 9x13 dish sprayed with cooking spray or greased lightly with butter. Pack down until even. Melt chocolate according to directions then pour over mixture; spread evenly. Let chocolate harden then cut into bars.

Wendy Skinner prepared this from a recipe given to her by Pennettie Bass.

Classic Christmas Sandies

1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups finely chopped pecans, toasted
1 cup powdered sugar

In a mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer on medium to high speed for 30 seconds. Add the 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in water and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer. Using a wooden spoon, stir in any remaining flour and the pecans. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and chill for 30 to 60 minutes or until firm enough to shape.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake about 15 minutes or until bottoms are light brown. Transfer to wire racks and let cool.

Place the 1 cup powdered sugar in a large plastic bag. Add cooled cookies, in batches, to bag. Gently shake to coat.

*Notes: I didn’t toast my pecans, and I used a small scoop to form the balls. Also, instead of coating my sandies in a bag, I rolled them in powdered sugar that I poured onto a plate.

Lisa Batts, as prepared from a Better Homes and Gardens recipe

Festive salad

2011-12-14T12:58:00.003-05:00

I seldom make this broccoli and apple salad more than once a year, but it’s always for the same occasion — a family event held on the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

The turkey barbecue dinner at the home of my cousin Martha Cayton and husband, John, sort of transitions the family from one season to the next.

My salad — with its festive green broccoli and celery and red crunchy apples — makes me think of the holiday season ahead. I always ask myself if it’s too early to put the salad in a pretty red bowl or if I need to go with a clear or crystal bowl. I usually choose a pretty red bowl because I’m always ready to get the Christmas season started.

This salad is a variation of one I’m sure many of you make. I’ve made it before with raisins, but my family prefers it with apples, and I never include onions. It’s not difficult to make— just a lot of washing and cutting of the vegetables and the apples. I wait to add the sunflower seeds right before the salad is served.

If you’re asked to take a dish to a holiday gathering or if you’re hosting one at your house, this salad will certainly add some holiday cheer to your table!

Broccoli Apple Salad

1 red apple chopped into bite-size pieces*
1 bunch broccoli, washed and cut in bite-size pieces
3 celery ribs, chopped into bite-size chunks
1/2 cup or more sunflower kernels

Dressing:

3/4 cup mayonnaise (I use reduced fat)
1/4 cup sugar
2 tablespoons vinegar

Toss chopped apple, broccoli and celery.

In small bowl, mix dressing ingredients. Toss together broccoli, apple and celery with dressing. Pour into serving bowl. Arrange several pieces of apple so red is showing on top to make for a pretty display. Refrigerate.

Sprinkle sunflower kernels on top just before serving.

*Use a firm apple such as gala. I look through the apples to find the reddest ones.

Make yummy memories

2011-12-07T08:38:00.002-05:00

I really admire people who make gorgeous Christmas cookies: buttery cutouts decorated with elaborate frosting, dainty wafers dusted with powdered sugar, layered cookies oozing with sticky goodness. But I also admire moms and dads who make Christmas cookies with their children and don’t mind getting sprinkles all over the table and floor.

My husband and I decorated cookies with our children from the time they were old enough to shake sparkly red sugar onto mounds of cookie dough. Every year we’d buy new bottles of pretty sprinkles and let them shake on as much as they wanted. When they were finished, the kids would stand by the oven and peek through the window, watching their cookies bake. Afterwards, we’d all sit around the table and munch on sweet sugar cookies and drink ice cold milk. The kids loved it, and so did my husband and I.

Over the weekend, we repeated the tradition, this time with our 3-year-old granddaughter, Sora, who loves to decorate cookies whether it’s for the Fourth of July or Sunday afternoon snack.

This time around, the cookies weren’t homemade. They weren’t even the slice and bake kind. I purchased already-baked butter cookies — the flower-shaped kind with the hole in the middle.

Sora watched me frost one of the cookies with vanilla frosting I had dyed green, then she picked up the plastic knife I had provided and frosted her own. She liberally added red sugar, cookie confetti and red hots to decorate her cookie “wreaths.” She had so much fun with this impromptu cookie-decorating session before church on Sunday. It was so easy and an inexpensive way to enjoy a holiday tradition.

Were her cookies the perfect example of a magazine-quality cookie? Of course not. But they were pretty to us and were delicious. She also got a good lesson in frosting cookies.

One of the main things you must get over when decorating cookies with children is the desire to make them perfect or even pretty. Let the cookie be their creation. Let them use their imagination and decorate as they see fit. As the child gets older, his abilities will certainly improve, and he can help out more.

He can add the pretzel antlers to reindeer cookies and carefully drop on eyes and a mouth when the cookies come out of the oven. The older child can also help roll out cookie dough and press down the cookie cutter to make snowmen, Santa Claus and Christmas tree shapes.

Look through Christmas cookbooks and at online cooking sites and find cookies you and your child will enjoy making together. When you’re out shopping, let her pick out one or two bottles of sprinkles she likes and let choose someone special to share the cookies with them when they are finished.

And one more very important thing. Take photos of your child while he’s decorating her cookies.

It’s fun for me to look back and remember those days.

Reindeer cookies

1 package ready-to-bake cookies (I used chocolate chip)
Mini twist pretzels (two per cookie)
M&Ms for eyes and mouth (I used red and green M&M baking bits)

Preheat oven as directed on package.

Break cookie squares into individual pieces. Gently shape squares into slightly vertical rectangles. Place pretzels at top, where antlers would be on a reindeer. Put cookie onto cookie sheet and gently press down so pretzel goes into the cookie. Don’t press down too much; you don’t want the cookie dough to be much thinner than it is from the package.* Repeat with remaining cookies, leaving space for the cookies to spread out.

Bake according to package directions.

When cookies come out of oven, add eyes and mouth while cookies are still hot.

*You can add the M&M’s at this point, but they will “bleed” into the cookie while baking. But it is safe at this point for a younger child to add the eyes and mouth. Have him put the eyes close together because they will spread out when the cookie bakes.

Cookie Wreaths

1 package butter cookies with a hole in the middle
A tub of vanilla frosting
Green food coloring
Assorted sprinkles

Mix drops of food dye into the desired amount of frosting. Stir and continue adding dye until frosting is a pretty shade of green.

Frost the cookies. Decorate with sprinkles.

Eat a few cookies and enjoy the time spent with your child!

Christmas breakfast

2011-11-30T11:34:00.003-05:00

So many of our Christmas traditions involve food: baking cookies, stirring up a batch of chocolate fudge, sipping a favorite holiday punch, sitting around the table at Grandma’s house sharing turkey and the trimmings on Christmas Day.

Many of us have Christmas morning breakfast traditions as well, whether it’s cinnamon rolls or a cheesy sausage and egg casserole.

For a number of years, Daddy made scrambled sausage and eggs on Christmas morning, and I’ve made the same at my house a few times. I’ve done several other things at my house as well from casseroles to a delicious cinnamon coffee cake that sits in the refrigerator overnight and is ready to bake while the family opens presents.

If you don’t have a tradition of your own, you might want to try a new breakfast casserole that I’ve made several times in recent months — once for breakfast and other times for dinner. The casserole is simple enough — made with sausage, grits, cheese, milk and eggs — and takes about 10 minutes to assemble.

I was not a big fan of grits until the last year or two, so this casserole wouldn’t have caught my attention before now. But I started seeing a number of versions of grits casseroles in cookbooks and decided to make one myself.

I don’t like a lot cheese in egg dishes, so I cut the amount of Cheddar cheese in half — from a whopping four cups to two cups (which is still a lot for me!) I also used turkey sausage instead of pork sausage, and to make the recipe even easier purchased sausage crumbles that were already cooked and ready to mix in my casserole. When I make grits, I use the instant kind in the little pouches, so I did the same for this recipe, making four pouches of grits.

You can add a number of spices and seasonings into this dish — including garlic powder and thyme — but I prefer the recipe as I’ve written it here.

This casserole is wonderful comfort food, whether you serve it for lunch, brunch or dinner. Prepare a pan of hash browns or tater tots and serve with a bowl of fresh fruit and toast with jelly, and you’ll have a satisfying meal.

If you have any leftovers, the casserole is delicious warmed up in the microwave the next day.

Cheesy grits and sausage casserole

1 1/2 packages (9.6 oz. each) turkey sausage crumbles (I use Jimmy Dean)
4 pouches of grits (or grits for 4 servings) prepared according to package directions
2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
4 eggs
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, stir cheese into hot, cooked grits until the cheese melts. Whisk eggs and stir into other ingredients; add milk and stir until combined.

Pour into casserole dish, which has been prepared with baking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes until cooked through.

Sifting through life's pieces

2011-11-29T14:14:00.002-05:00

Let’s just say it wasn’t the happiest weekend I’ve spent with my family. On the weekend before Thanksgiving, my sister, Susan, and I, along with our families, finished the very difficult task of emptying our parents’ house. It’s the house we grew up in. The house where we took our first steps, had our birthday parties and sleepovers. The house where we opened presents around the Christmas tree, where we brought home boyfriends to meet our parents, where we carried our children to be loved on by their grandparents, where we took loving care of our aging mama and daddy, who both had Alzheimer’s.
It was difficult physically as we hauled things out of the house those last weeks and difficult emotionally as we cried at every turn and realized our days at our childhood home were numbered. The oddest thing would strike a chord with one of us, and the tears would flow: a birthday card to Mommy signed in a pre-schoolers’ wobbly print; an entry in Mama’s journal announcing I was pregnant with my first child; a photograph hidden in a picture frame of our handsome daddy in his Army uniform.
Mama and Daddy kept too much, I’m sure some would say. They kept greeting cards from family, friends and politicians; church bulletins that listed one of our names; newspaper clippings; and magazines with historic significance.
Want to know how much it snowed in January 1974 or how many pints of corn my parents froze in 1983? I could have told you because it was all recorded in the stack of calendars we found in a drawer in their room. I can’t tell you anymore, however, because we threw away those calendars.
We threw away a lot of things since Mama died in February of 2010, less than a year after Daddy passed away. We started slowly. Four months after Daddy died, we went through his clothes. It was hard, very hard to get rid of suits he wore to church, colorful plaid shirts he wore around the house and the lightweight jackets he wore daily as he aged and needed something on his arms to fight off a constant chill. But we did it. It was part of the grieving process. Daddy wasn’t coming back to wear those clothes, and it gave us a good feeling knowing the people we donated them to could put them to good use.
We were slower on everything else. The house was on the market, but we had no offers, so we kept the house as-is so we could enjoy it when Susan and her family visited. That was our excuse anyway. Truth be told, we wanted to preserve that house, those memories. We didn’t want to let go, and it was keeping us from moving on.
It wasn’t until this summer, more than a year since Mama’s death, that we cleaned out the attic. Not only did it hold the keepsakes from our years at the house, but it also held boxes full of “treasures” from my own grandparents’ house. It seems my parents were unable to toss the utility bills, Christmas cards and even some items of clothing from their own parents’ house more than 40 years ago. So we went through those items of our grandparents’ as well, shared some with our Aunt Margaret and purged accordingly. But we kept my cousin Eddie’s letters from Vietnam written to our shared grandmother, Papa’s pocket knives and my preacher Granddaddy’s Bible.
I decided from the start that I wouldn’t keep too much, and I think I was good at sticking to this. I bought a 30-gallon storage bin and an accordion file folder. In the storage bin I put assorted items including a party dress or two my mother wore in the 1950s, the wooden Playskool mailbox I had as a child, a stack of letters written between my parents around the time they got married and my framed wedding portrait that Mama displayed over the sofa in the living room.
The file folder holds other special items. On a piece of fading white paper from a legal pad, Mama jotted down a timeline of what she did Monday, Oct. 8, 1979, my senior year of high school. I couldn’t toss it. On that day, she washed nine loads of clothes, fed my sister’s dog, made two beds, went to the bank and Carolina Office Equipment Company and paid a bill at Churchwell’s. She mopped up the water when the dishwasher ran over and called the pediatrician’s office about my polio shot. ”She will be suspended from school if she doesn’t get it by Thursday,” she wrote. Priceless (to me at least).
I saved a utility bill sent in error for $9,379.41 from the family’s farm house, where no one lived, and a listing of costs associated with building the very house we were cleaning out for its new occupants: Porch tile cost $74, cypress paneling was $85.40, the mailbox was $2.86 and the kitchen appliances were $615. That was 1958, the year they were married.
And also tucked into the folder is a piece of pink paper from a note pad. Daddy had written “Wheel of Fortune” Channel 7 at 7 o’clock. “Millionaire” at 7:30 on Channel 13. No clue why I saved this, but when I look through this folder years from now, I can remember how much my parents enjoyed watching those two shows each night, and it will make me happy.
I kept some other things, of course, including a few small pieces of furniture, half of Mama’s beautiful fine china trimmed in silver, a few dessert cups Susan and I both adored, a coffee cup I can use for tea, the turkey pepper shaker that is the mate to my salt shaker and a number of Christmas ornaments from the family collection. They are all things that have special meaning for me.
While we were going through things and deciding what to keep and what to toss, Susan and I decided early on to throw away or give away things they didn’t have any special meaning to us. We didn’t want our children to have to deal with items we were too sentimental or cowardly to toss, such as newspaper clippings about people we didn’t know or photos of people we didn’t recognize or the maternity clothes our mother wore in the 1960s. I’m not kidding.
But we did keep what we wanted to keep even if it sounds foolish to others. Susan and I, as well as our girls, each have a box of face powder still holding a dusting of the fragrant powder that Mama wore each day before she got too sick. All I have to do is open that box of Coty honey beige and take a whiff, and I can pretend that I’m hugging Mama and smelling the powder that colored her beautiful face.
Thank God for my memories and for my parents.
lisa@wilsontimes.com | 265-7810

Time for tea

2011-11-23T08:32:00.002-05:00

Before you head out for Black Friday shopping or even when you return — which could be in the middle of the night — wouldn’t it be nice to have a hot cup of tea?

I really enjoy hot tea, especially this time of year.

My favorite is chai latte, but I also enjoy teas I prepare at home.

For years I’ve made Johnny Appleseed tea in my slow cooker because my entire family enjoys it so much. It’s soothed many colds and sore throats at my house.

Now I have a new fruited tea to add to my recipe collection. I saw a recipe for marmalade tea in Debbi Baker Covington’s “Dining Under The Carolina Moon” a few weeks back. I was intrigued with the idea of mixing a jar of marmalade into a batch of tea. I’ve said before, I love experiments, and this sounded like a fun one.

I changed around several things in Debbie’s original recipe, including substituting brown sugar instead of white, just as I do in the Johnny Appleseed tea. I also didn’t have a lemon, so I used fresh orange juice, and I added a stick of cinnamon to my steaming tea mixture to add a festive flavor to my tea.

The marmalade immediately starts to dissolve when it hits the hot tea, and the little pieces of orange peel float round as you stir. Debbi mentions the tea can be strained; we didn’t mind the orange pieces.

After I had a cup of tea, I poured what was left in a favorite glass tea pitcher and left the tea in the refrigerator for more than a week. Anytime I wanted hot tea, I just poured a cup and let it warm in the microwave. If you are fixing this for a crowd, I suggest pouring the hot tea into a slow cooker and leaving the setting on warm.

I’d still love to receive Christmas goody recipes from my readers to share in this column. Send to the email address below or to Lisa Batts, The Wilson Times, P.O. Box 2447, Wilson, NC 27894.

Johnny Appleseed Tea

2 quarts water, divided
6 tea bags or 3 family size tea bags
1 (6-ounce) can frozen apple juice concentrate, undiluted*
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar

Bring 1 quart water to a boil; add tea bags. Remove from heat; cover and let steep 5 minutes. Remove tea bags.

Pour remaining quart of water and remaining ingredients into slow cook, mix in steeped tea. Set slow cooker to low or warm. Yield: 9 cups.

*I can no longer find the small can of juice. I buy the larger can and use at least half. I try to get most of the concentrated syrupy liquid that’s at the bottom of the can.

Marmalade Tea

10 cups water
3 family size tea bag (I use decaffeinated)
12 oz. jar orange marmalade
3 to 4 tablespoons brown sugar
Juice of one orange
Cinnamon stick

Bring 10 cups of water to boil. Remove from heat and steep tea bags for 7-8 minutes. Stir in marmalade, sugar, orange juice and cinnamon until marmalade is melted and well mixed. Strain tea if deserved before serving.

Serves 10.

Adapted from “Dining Under the Carolina Moon” by Debi Baker Covington

Thanksgiving sides

2011-11-16T08:23:00.002-05:00

This is not the column I had planned to write today. This week’s recipe didn’t turn out as planned, and I don’t mind confessing that. I was experimenting with refrigerator or spoon rolls that my readers could bake for Thanksgiving Day.

I decided to blend several recipes and come up with my own. The rolls I baked were beautiful, the texture was just right, and they rose perfectly, but they had no taste. I haven’t given up on them and will try again with more honey and salt and will share if they are a success.

After that disappointment, I went to my Facebook page and asked my friends for casserole recipes that would be good for Thanksgiving. In no time, several people posted with ideas.

So today, I’m sharing several recipes you can make next week for your family’s Thanksgiving celebration.

I tried one of the recipes, Harriet Page’s garden pea casserole. She said it was one of her mama’s recipes. Harriet said the recipe was given to Edna Ruth Thompson by Sarah Miller in 1968. She said it’s a favorite recipe for anytime, and her family loves it. She said it’s an easy recipe to double or even quadruple!

When Harriet told me about the recipe, I was skeptical; I’ll admit that too. I couldn’t imagine a garden pea casserole with a white sauce, cheese and cracker crumbs. Well, I made it Monday afternoon and was so very happy with the results.

Anna and I couldn’t believe how good it smelled as it cooked and couldn’t wait for it to cool enough for us to eat. It was delicious! I hate to tattle on either one of us, so I’ll just say we both had more than one serving!

We agree it would be such a nice addition to a Thanksgiving spread or to serve anytime as a side dish.

Garden Pea Casserole

2 cans (14 to 15 ozs. each) garden peas, drained
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 cup cracker crumbs (I used Ritz whole wheat)
Black pepper to taste
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons flour
2 cups milk
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter over low heat. Add flour, pepper and salt. Stir until blended and smooth. Slowly add milk and cook until smooth and thickened.

Remove from heat; add peas. Pour half of mixture into casserole dish. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup cheese and 1/2 cup cracker crumbs. Add remaining sauce and peas and top with cheese and cracker crumbs.

Bake uncovered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

Harriet Page

Corn Pudding

3 eggs slightly beaten
1/4 cup melted butter
1 (approximately 17 ozs.) can cream-style corn
1 (approximately 17 ozs.) can whole-kernel corn, undrained
1 (8 1/2 oz.) box cornbread mix

Heat oven to 350. Grease a shallow 2-quart baking dish or 6 (10 oz) custard cups.

Combine ingredients, stir well. Pour/spoon into baking dish. Bake about 1 hour, or until set, in the 2 qt dish (40-45 minutes in the custard cups).

If using the custard cups, you can loosen them and invert the puddings directly onto a dinner plate. Serve the larger casserole directly from the dish.

Susan B. Hoffman

Broccoli and Cheese Casserole

1 can (10 3/4 ozs.) cream of mushroom soup (regular or 98 percent fat free)
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons yellow mustard
1 bag (16 ozs.) frozen broccoli florets, thawed
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (4 ozs.)
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tsp. butter, melted

Stir the soup, milk, mustard, broccoli and cheese in a 1 1/2-quart casserole.

Stir the bread crumbs and butter in a small bowl. Sprinkle the crumb mixture over the broccoli mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees F. for 30 minutes or until the mixture is hot and bubbling.

Mary Elliott Farmer

Spinach and Artichokes

The combination of nutmeg-scented cream cheese, spinach, artichoke hearts, and water chestnuts is irresistible. The addition of diced cooked chicken or shrimp could turn it into an entree.

12 oz. cream cheese, softened
4 (10-oz.) packages frozen chopped spinach, thawed and drained
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 (8-ounce) cans sliced water chestnuts, drained
2 (14-ounce) cans artichoke hearts, drained and quartered
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter 3-quart casserole dish. In bowl with mixer at medium speed, beat cream cheese until smooth. Reduce speed to low, beat in spinach, butter, lemon juice, salt, pepper, seasoning salt, and nutmeg until thoroughly combined. Stir in water chestnuts. Arrange artichokes on bottom of baking dish. Pour spinach mixture over artichokes. Cover with foil. Cut several slits in the foil to vent.

Bake 30 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle top with Parmesan cheese. Bake until golden brown about 15 minutes more.

Serves 12.

Debbi Baker Covington

There's a squash in my soup!

2011-11-02T08:38:00.003-04:00

I had the most delicious soup last month at a luncheon at the Wilson Country Club. It was a creamy butternut squash soup sprinkled with cinnamon and served in a bread bowl.

The women at my table loved it as much as I did, and one challenged me to make my own and put the recipe in the paper. Challenge accepted!

Before the week was out, I had purchased my first butternut squash. I had no idea how big the squash should be to end up with six cups, but I decided on a 31⁄2-pound butternut and took it home with me.

I didn’t know whether my husband would even try this soup, but when I told him what I was making for supper than night, he was pleased and looked forward to something new.

The first order of business was peeling that big thing. That was no small feat. I had read suggestions online for how to peel a butternut squash with ideas that included roasting it with the peel on it and removing the peel once the squash had cooled. But my sister assured me it was easy to peel the squash if I used a vegetable peeler.

Well, that’s the route I took, first cutting the squash into manageable segments with the sturdiest chef’s knife I own. It was awkward, but I was able to get most of the peel off with my very cheap peeler. (Make note to tell my husband to buy me a nice vegetable peeler for my Christmas stocking.) Please be careful when cutting and peeling your squash. I consider it a major triumph that I did not cut myself while slicing that thing. I recommend buying two smaller squash rather than one really big one for this recipe.

I must stop to warn you of something else. I had a weird skin reaction to the squash; my sister did, too, with one she cooked recently. I researched online, and discovered many people get contact dermatitis from butternut squash. The skin on my left hand, which I had used to hold the squash while I cut and peeled it, turned a strange yellowish orange and felt extremely tight and uncomfortable. I tried washing off what felt like a waxy film, but it didn’t help. It was a few hours before the symptoms went away. I found out later that I should have applied a cortisone cream.

When I was preparing another butternut squash a week later, I held onto the much-smaller and more manageable squash with a paper towel, limiting my hand’s exposure. I had no reaction.

If you get to this point in the recipe, and I haven’t scared you too much, the rest is easy.

I looked at a number of butternut squash soup recipes and combined a few ideas, including roasting my squash instead of sauteeing it and adding a bit of nutmeg for flavor. I also decided to add in a medium sweet potato to give a little sweetness to my soup.

The kitchen smelled so good while the squash, onion and sweet potato were roasting, and I couldn’t wait to try my soup.

Once the vegetables were cooked, I combined them with the other ingredients and got a chance to use one of my favorite convenience products — an immersion blender. The soup was creamy in no time, and once I added a little half-and-half, it turned the prettiest shade of pale orange.

I sprinkled some cinnamon on top of my soup, and we were ready to eat our meal, complete with a salad of fresh greens, apple, nuts, feta cheese and strips of grilled chicken.

My husband loved the soup as much as I did. In fact, once we had finished our meal and were cleaning up, he pulled out a bowl and had some more, this time without cinnamon. He said he liked it better that way.

My soup did not taste exactly like the country club’s, and I didn’t expect it to. But it was smooth and creamy, it was delicious with a touch a cinnamon, and it was my creation.

There were plenty of leftovers with our soup and I several delicious lunches.

Creamy Butternut Squash Soup

6 cups butternut squash, peeled and cut into chunks (purchase 3 to 3 1/2 pounds of butternut squash)
One medium to large sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks
1 onion, quartered
Salt
Olive oil
3 cans (14 ounces each) reduced sodium, reduced fat chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Half-and-half (about 1/4 cup)
Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

On a cooking tray, spread butternut squash, sweet potato and onion. Sprinkle some salt and drizzle a little olive oil over the vegetables. Use hands to gently toss, making sure the oil also coats the pan.

Roast for 45 minutes to an hour or until vegetables are tender.

Pour the cooked vegetables into a soup pot and add chicken broth, pepper and nutmeg. Let come to a simmer. When heated through, remove from heat. Add in a few splashes of half-and-half. With an immersion blender, blend the soup until it is creamy. If you do not have an immersion blender, a conventional blender would work as well.

Pour soup into bowls and sprinkle a little cinnamon on top, if desired.

Salute to red velvet

2011-10-12T10:29:00.004-04:00

Playhouse of Wilson is staging “The Red Velvet Cake War” this weekend, so I thought I’d pay tribute to the play’s delicious namesake.

I didn’t feel ambitious enough to make a red velvet cake, and I’ve already published a wonderful recipe for red velvet cupcakes, so I went with red velvet cookies. And to make them even easier, I made my cookies from a cake mix!

If you’ve ever made cookies from a cake mix, then you know just how easy it is to come up with perfect results. If you’ve never attempted cookies from a cake mix, then this is a good place to start!

I used the Duncan Hines recipe, which uses three ingredients: a box of red velvet cake mix, 2 eggs and 1⁄3 cup vegetable oil. Powdered sugar to decorate is optional, so are the white chocolate chips I mixed into half of my batter, with very good results.

It takes less time to mix the cookies than it does to mix a cake. I used my very small cookie dough scoop, which is 1 teaspoon, to form my cookies. They bake in eight minutes.

I was worried my cookies would be more grayish than red, but I shouldn’t have worried. These cookies are a beautiful red, and the white chips make them even more special.

Give this recipe a try or substitute another cake mix if you don’t want a red tongue when you’ve finished eating!

RED VELVET CAKE CONTEST

Playhouse is hoping some of you out there will enter a red velvet cake in their cake contest Saturday. Have your cake at the Boykin Center between 7 and 7:30 p.m. so the judges can get to work tasting. The winner will receive a Playhouse season ticket and T-shirt as well as a $50 gift certificate to any Wilson restaurant.

“Red Velvet Cake War” opens Thursday and continues Friday and Saturday night at 8 and Sunday at 3 p.m. Tickets are $10 for students and $12 for adults.

If you buy a ticket Thursday night, you get a second one free.

Red velvet cookies

1 box red velvet cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
Powdered sugar (optional)
White chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine one box of Duncan Hines red velvet cake mix, two eggs and one-third cup vegetable oil using a hand blender or wire whisk. Stir in 1 to 2 cups white chocolate chips.

Form teaspoon-size balls and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet or baking pan about one inch apart. Slightly pat down the top of each ball.

Cook for 8-10 minutes (the top of the cookie will crack).

While hot, lightly sprinkle the top of the cookie with powdered sugar if desired.

Duncan Hines

Appealing apples

2011-10-05T08:06:00.001-04:00

I love fall. The cool mornings, sunny afternoons, leaves that color the landscape with oranges, reds and yellows.

I love making soups and breads and almost anything that calls for apples in the ingredient list.

Last week, when I made a quick visit to my favorite grocery store, I saw that not only did they have in a supply of this season’s fresh apples, but they were also on sale. I quickly picked up a few yellow delicious to eat with our dinner of turkey Sloppy Joes and got a few more Cortland apples to make baked apples the next night. Neither variety disappointed.

I look forward to apple season each year. When we were young, Mama and Daddy would take my sister and me to the mountains each fall, and we’d always come back with apples. Sometimes we even picked them ourselves. I looked forward to taking those apples home to enjoy in Mama’s cobblers and apple buns or stewed on the stove and served alongside pork chops.

I had thought I’d make an apple cobbler for supper Saturday night. My son was grilling burgers and hot dogs for us, and I wanted something to go along with our meal. But instead, I decided to try something new, an apple crisp.

I looked through a number of recipes and then put my own twist on one. The dessert is so simple to make and is in the oven in 15 minutes, probably. The house smelled so good while the crisp was cooking.

I do love the smell of apples cooking, especially if there’s cinnamon involved.

The crisp was a golden brown on top, but underneath was a layer of perfectly cooked, soft apples.

I scooped some crisp in dessert cups and topped each with vanilla ice cream. The crisp was still hot, so the ice cream quickly melted.

Oh my, oh my, this dessert was so good. There were five of us eating the apple crisp, and everyone loved it. I especially liked the combination of textures with the soft apples, smooth ice cream and crunchy oatmeal topping. Yum, yum.

I can’t wait to make this again.

Apple crisp

4-6 medium cooking apples, peeled and sliced
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Pour cut apples into ungreased pie plate and spread evenly.

In a bowl, mix brown sugar, oats, flour and cinnamon. Add melted butter and vanilla and stir well until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over apples.

Place pan on cookie sheet lined with aluminum foil in case the apple juice runs out while the dessert cooks.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes or until topping is golden brown and apples are tender. Serve warm with ice cream on top.

Add more whole wheat

2011-09-28T10:58:00.004-04:00

I love getting a surprise in the mail at work, especially if it involves food.

Last week, I got a package wrapped in a fabric flour bag and filled with recipe cards and a coupon for a bag of Gold Medal white whole wheat flour.

The recipes were tempting and included cookies, breads, desserts and even biscuits.

I knew right away that I would be trying this flour. I keep whole wheat flour in my refrigerator and work it into recipes often, but it’s not white. I was curious about white whole wheat flour — its taste and its nutritional value.

According to the press release that came with my recipes, Gold Medal’s white whole wheat flour is made with hard white spring wheat rather than hard red wheat that goes into many whole wheat flours, and it has the same amount of fiber and protein.

Because the flour is white, it’s a safe bet that your family won’t notice if you add the white whole wheat flour to your pancakes or muffins.

Gold Medal experts recommend starting out slow if you’re adapting recipes and at first substitute white whole wheat flour for 25 to 50 percent of the recipe’s flour content.

The recipes they developed and sent to food writers use white whole wheat flour only.

I decided to make pumpkin bars topped with a smooth cream cheese frosting. With fall upon us, I’ve been eager to make some of my family’s fall-weather favorites. For me, recipes made with pumpkin are a special treat.

It didn’t take long to mix up this recipe, but I did have to wait two hours for the bars to cool before frosting them, so keep that in mind if you make them.

The only change I made to this recipe was using light or Neufchatel cream cheese.

I had a piece of the dessert as soon as I frosted it and loved it. I was pleasantly surprised when I had a refrigerated slice the next day. I loved the dessert cold, too!

My husband also loved this recipe and certainly never complained about the flour I had used. We did discuss that I had used white whole wheat flour and agreed that we really couldn’t tell a difference in the pumpkin bars and other similar recipes using plain flour.

If you need to take a sweet dish somewhere this fall, this is a good one. Gold Medal recommends cutting it into 49 pieces (seven rows by seven rows.)

I confess, our slices were much larger than that!

But even so, you can have a good number of servings regardless.

Pumpkin Bars

4 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
2 cups white whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 package (3 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups powdered sugar

Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease bottom and sides of 15x10x1-inch pan with shortening. (I sprayed with baking spray.)

In large bowl, beat eggs, granulated sugar, oil and pumpkin with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Stir in flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, ginger and cloves. Spread in pan.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely in pan on cooling rack, about 2 hours.

In medium bowl, beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla with electric mixer on low speed until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, until smooth and spreadable. Frost bars. Cut into 7 rows by 7 rows. Store covered in refrigerator.

Gold Medal/ Betty Crocker Kitchens

Make it easy

2011-09-21T10:09:00.004-04:00

I certainly enjoy using ready-made food products to give my meal-planning a boost, especially on weeknights.

For instance, I make an easy chicken parmesan dish with frozen chicken patties and our favorite canned spaghetti sauce topped with mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. And I always use frozen pie crust when I make chicken pot pie.

Sandra Lee has made a fortune with her “semi-homemade” dishes which she demonstrates on Food Network.

I love seeing the meals she comes up with using convenience products. There’s nothing wrong with shortcuts when it comes to getting a meal on the table.

One of my favorite shortcut products is turkey meatballs. I’ve used both the frozen and fresh variety and love them both.

I have a wonderful from-scratch turkey meatball recipe I use in a soup, but for today’s meatballs in tomato sauce recipe, I rely on someone else to make them and I make the sauce from scratch.

This pasta sauce has a lot of tomatoes, and when I pour it over spaghetti, I go light on the sauce and heavy on the meatballs!

The sauce is very simple to make and only requires some sauteing, can-opening and waiting while the sauce simmers.

I add my meatballs about 10 to 15 minutes into the simmer time so their flavor can blend with the sauce.

When I make this recipe, I make a big batch, as reflected in the recipe.

We usually eat our first meal as spaghetti and meatballs and freeze the leftovers in small batches for meatball sandwiches.

I put maybe five or six meatballs on the bread (depending on the size of the roll) and top them with a little sauce.

Then, add a few slices of mozzarella cheese and put the sandwich in a hot stove or toaster oven to let the cheese melt.

I love this sandwich, which I eat with a fork!

Meatballs and Tomato Sauce

1 onion, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
Oil oil for sautéing
4 28 oz. cans petite diced tomatoes
12 oz. tomato paste
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon oregano
A handful of fresh basil leaves or 1 teaspoon dry
2 bay leaves
2 14-oz. bags turkey meatballs (I use Armor)

In a large pot, cook onion in a small amount of olive oil until translucent. Towards the end of cooking time, add garlic.

To the pot, add tomatoes, tomato paste, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, bay leaves, sugar onion and garlic. Stir until mixed. Bring to a boil and let simmer for one hour. Add meatballs about 15 minutes into the cooking time.

Serve over hot spaghetti or on a hoagie roll, topped with mozzarella cheese and warmed so the cheese melts.

Yum! Bananas and peanut butter

2011-09-14T10:37:00.002-04:00

I hope it’s been long enough since my last muffin recipe to share another one because this one is so good!

About a year ago, I folded back a magazine to reveal a peanut butter and banana muffin recipe that I intended to try. When going through magazines over the past year, I’d see that folded back page but pass it by.

In recent months, I’ve become very attached to peanut butter and banana sandwiches, usually made on crunchy whole grain toast made from one of my favorite La Brea breads. I get a craving for them often.

When I ran across that recipe again a few weeks ago, that craving kicked in, so I moved the magazine to the kitchen where I’d see it and bought some bananas. Once they were ripe enough for baking, I finally tried the muffins (with a few changes.)

The recipe in Healthy Cooking magazine was for mini muffins topped with a mixture of brown sugar, peanuts and chocolate chips. I decided right away to use my regular muffin pan and to forego the topping, which would only add fat and calories to the muffin.

I made a few more changes with the flours and used brown sugar instead of granulated.

When I took my muffins out of the oven, I was disappointed. They were not the lovely golden brown that I usually look for in a muffin; they were more pale. I’ve found that muffins that don’t have oils don’t brown like those that contain butter or oil. Maybe the original recipe had a topping to dress it up.

As it turns out, the color of the muffin had absolutely no bearing on its taste. These muffins were delicious and only got better the next day and the next as I enjoyed them for a morning snack. One morning I put a muffin in the toaster oven for a few minutes to warm, which made the chocolate chips gooey and even more delicious.

The taste of these muffins reminded me of Gift of the Magi Bread, which made me think I could add some of those other ingredients sometime — including mandarin oranges, almonds and maraschino cherries.

If you’d like a crunch to these muffins, use chunky peanut butter. For a more intense peanut butter flavor, you could also use peanut butter chips or a mix of chocolate and peanut butter chips.

I wanted to make these muffins again this week but decided to wait a week. I really, really like these muffins and don’t want to get tired of them too soon.

But before the week is over, I’m going to get some bananas and let them start ripening!

Peanut Butter and Banana-Lover Muffins

1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup self-rising flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup fat-free milk
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 12 muffin cups or line with cupcake holders.

Mash the bananas in a large bowl. Mix in brown sugar, egg, milk, peanut butter, applesauce and vanilla. Stir in oats, flours and chocolate chips and mix until just moistened.

Fill 12 muffin cups about three-fourths full.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Cool slightly before removing from pan.

Two easy casseroles for busy school nights

2011-08-24T11:52:00.001-04:00

When school starts back, it’s not just the kids who get a change in routine, it’s their parents as well.

We all want consistent bedtimes, a plan for school lunches and some ideas for easy dinners that accommodate soccer practice, dance lessons and school meetings.

I can’t help you much with the bedtimes, but I do have a few ideas for easy dinners that can make the school week go a little smoother and keep you out of the drive-thru line so often. And if you make enough food, then you’ll have leftovers for those lunch boxes!

I’m going to share two simple casseroles — one I’ve been making for years and have published here before, and the second a recipe that I tried earlier this month.

Soon after Reggie and I were married, I found a recipe for baked ziti that was easy enough for me to make. I had cooked some before I was married, but I still relied on simple dishes to get me through those early years of making my own meals.

This baked ziti recipe is as easy as it gets and has only four ingredients: a jar of spaghetti sauce, mozzarella cheese, ziti and Parmesan cheese. You can vary the recipe each time you make it by buying a different brand or variety of sauce or you could forget the ziti and try another pasta shape. Twists would be good in this recipe.

The baked ziti is quick to prepare when you get home from work or school or can be made the night before and refrigerated for baking the next day. It’s also an easy recipe to teach the young cooks in your house.

Team this easy dish with a loaf of fresh bread and a green salad or even a fruit salad, and you have a delicious and easy meal.

I considered making my easy baked ziti for an Italian dinner for Bible school workers a few weeks back, but after looking at the list of dishes my friends were making I decided to go with more of a white sauce for my dish just to offer some variety. The problem? I didn’t have a recipe. But I did see a jar of pasta sauce that caught my imagination — it’s Bertolli’s Four Cheese Rosa Sauce. (I love the word Rosa, by the way, because it was my paternal grandmother’s name.)

Rosa sauce is a creamy tomato sauce that’s a beautiful rosy color. Not quite the white sauce I had envisioned, but it was close enough.

I didn’t have a recipe to use with this rosa sauce, but I went to Bertolli’s website and found their recipe for oven-baked four cheese rigatoni pasta.

This recipe has a few more ingredients than the baked ziti, but it can all be ready to mix with the hot rigatoni after the hot pasta is drained. The egg and ricotta give this dish a nice creamy texture, and I loved it when the sauce got caught in the ziti and popped into my mouth when I bit it. Yum.

I really liked this sauce and the recipe and will make it again. I especially liked it at the dinner because it was a nice complement to the other dishes that were made with tomato sauce.

A salad and crunchy bread will complete this meatless meal as well.

And while you’re sitting at the dinner table, make sure to talk to your children about their day at school. You’d be surprised how much you can learn about your child over a plate of pasta!

Oven-Baked Four Cheese Rigatoni Rosa

1 cup ricotta cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (about 8 oz.)
1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves
1 egg, slightly beaten
1/8 tsp. ground black pepper
8 ounces rigatoni or large tube pasta, cooked, drained
1 jar Bertolli® Four Cheese Rosa Sauce
2 Tbsp. Italian seasoned dry bread crumbs
2 Tbsp. grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine ricotta cheese, 11/2 cups mozzarella cheese, basil, egg and black pepper; set aside.

Toss hot rigatoni with sauce in large bowl. Stir in ricotta mixture. Turn into 11 x 7-inch baking dish, then sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, bread crumbs and Parmesan cheese.

Bake covered 25 minutes. Remove cover and bake an additional 5 minutes or until bread crumbs are golden brown and cheese is melted.

Bertolli

Easy Baked Ziti

1 (28 oz.) jar spaghetti sauce
1 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese (6 ozs.)
5 cups hot cooked ziti (about 3 cups uncooked)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

In a large bowl combine spaghetti sauce, 1 cup mozzarella cheese and ziti, cooked according to box directions. Spoon into a 2-quart baking dish sprayed with Pam. Sprinkle with remaining mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbling. Can be made in advance, refrigerated and then cooked.

10 years of sharing

2011-08-17T01:54:00.004-04:00

For 10 years now, I’ve been sharing my recipes on these pages, and, in the process, sharing my life, I guess.

It all started in August 2001. My co-worker at the time, Heather Wilkerson, was on maternity leave, and for some reason I decided that was a good time to start a food column. Turns out I was right.

I called the column “Can I have that recipe,” and originally I asked readers to send in their recipes and I ran them on Wednesdays along with Associated Press food copy.

The column was a hit immediately. I didn’t get tons of recipes, but I did get positive feedback.

Soon after the first recipe for Cooker Chops appeared on Aug. 15, 2001, people started stopping me in the grocery store or at church or at my children’s school or anywhere else I went to say they read my column. That continues today. I am humbled every time a stranger at Walmart pulls up her cart and says, “Are you that girl who puts recipes in the paper?” Then the person goes on to tell me which recipes she’s tried and which one she’s trying next. Several times, the readers (both men and women) actually have a clipped copy of my recipe in hand, and they are at the store shopping for ingredients.

Once, at Harris-Teeter, a woman asked me where to find an ingredient from a vegetarian recipe of mine she was holding in her hand. I was all smiles the rest of the day. I love, love, love when readers try my recipes. And I love it when they e-mail and tell me how much their family enjoyed a dish.

Every now and then, I get a hand-written note. One was from a dear friend who told me how my mama’s Brunswick stew recipe, which Mama made every year on Christmas Eve, had become a tradition for her family as well. That note is tucked in a drawer in my desk. I pull it out sometimes when I feel discouraged and wonder if anyone reads my column.

Some readers tell me they have tried a recipe, and others say, “I don’t cook, but I cut out your recipes!” I love it when people tell me that because they often go on to elaborate that when they retire they are going to pull out the recipes I’ve published and start cooking!

When I realized a few weeks back that this month marked the 10th anniversary of my column, I started thinking about how the column has changed the way I cook and also tried to think of which recipes have been the most popular.

I’m always trying new recipes at home because that’s how I prefer to write the column now and I also want to make it myself so I can give suggestions on preparing it and so my daughter, Anna, can photograph it. I think her photography has been a positive addition to the column, and it’s also been a good experience for both of us working together.

Many of the recipes I’ve put in the paper have become part of the menu rotation at my house. And, as it turns out, some of our favorites have been reader favorites as well.

When I think of the most popular recipes, I think of the ones I’ve had calls about for reprinting. My recipes for meatloaf and microwave bread and butter pickles have probably been the most-requested as well as my chocolate chip pie. The meatloaf recipe first ran in June 2004. For a year or so after that, I kept copies of that recipe on my desk for people who requested it. My family dearly loves that meatloaf, and although it’s been seven years since it was in the paper, people frequently tell me they still make it.

Orange streusel loaves is another memorable one. I ran that recipe in an August 2005 column. Over the next few days I was flooded with calls from my readers who couldn’t find orange supreme cake mix, the main ingredient in the recipe! Turns out that not all stores stock it, and my readers headed to the ones that did and bought up what was there as soon as the recipe was in the paper. I still love this recipe and have made it many times to take to a family in need.

Other favorite food column recipes of mine and my family include chicken tettrazini, meatball soup, cornbread dressing, pasta salad for a crowd, creamy wild rice with chicken soup, sweet pickle peaches and turkey burgers. I make turkey burgers once a month, at least! Oh, and my husband and I look forward to leftovers so we can make veggie filled ham and cheese pie and to summertime when we can make tomato pie.

I’m hungry just writing this and keeping thinking of good things to go cook. Did I mention chocolate chip cake, turtles, yummy Oreo truffles, chocolate hearts and a delicious slow cooker roast?

Thanks for visiting my food column every Wednesday either in print, on our website (www.wilsontimes.com under Life) or on my blog, http://lisabatts.blogspot.com/.

Please keep reading and keep cooking.

I sincerely love the time I spend in the kitchen cooking for my family and making memories around the dinner table. It’s my hope that the recipes from my columns are met with success in your kitchen as well.

Veggie Filled Ham and Cheese Pie

2 tablespoons flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup fat-free half-and-half or milk
3 eggs
1/2 cup Cheddar cheese (divided)
1 frozen pie crust (deep dish)
1/2 to 1 cup fresh spinach
1/4 cup mixed bell pepper cut into strips or diced
1/4 cup diced onions
1/2 cup fresh mushroom slices
1 cup chopped ham
Olive oil for sauteeing

Cook pie crust for 5 minutes at temperature recommended on package. Set aside. Turn oven temperature to 350.

While crust is cooking, saute mushrooms, onions and peppers in a small amount of olive oil.

With a whisk, beat eggs, flour, salt and half-and-half until combined.

Sprinkle 1/4 cup cheese in bottom of partially cooked pie crust. Top with a generous layer of spinach leaves. Arrange sautéed vegetables to cover spinach. Pour egg mixture over all. Top with remaining cheese.

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 45 to 55 minutes or until top is golden.

Seasoned Turkey Burgers

1 package ground turkey (the package I buy weights 1 1/3 pounds)
1 tablespoon Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Mix all ingredients well, making sure to evenly distribute the soup mix. I start out with a spoon and then use my hands. Make into 4 patties.

Cook 3 minutes on one side; flip and cook about 3 minutes on the other side or until cooked through. (I cook mine on a George Foreman Grill.)

Serve on bun with favorite condiments. I use multi-gain sandwich thins.

If you have leftovers, reheat slowly in a skillet.

Lisa's Favorite Meat Loaf

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. ground round
2 tablespoons onion, finely chopped
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup milk
1 cup fresh white bread crumbs

Sauce

1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

Combine ground round, onion, eggs and salt. Mix together with ketchup, milk and bread crumbs. (I make bread crumbs with stale white bread shredded on a hand-held cheese grater.) Make sure the loaf is very moist, adding more milk and ketchup if necessary.

Form into a loose, long loaf that almost fills a 9X11-inch dish.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Remove from oven and drain fat with a spoon.

Spread mixture of ketchup and brown sugar and bake 10 more minutes until ketchup mixture is bubbly.

*Note: When making this meat loaf, I often vary amount of ingredients to make a larger or smaller loaf. I also make a little more sauce because we love it so much. This meatloaf is wonderful with mashed potatoes and field peas.

Read three of Lisa Batts' favorite food columns

Meatballs and soup a good mix

2011-08-17T01:51:00.001-04:00

This column first ran in January 2007.

It’s been about a year now since I first clipped a recipe for Rachel Ray’s Spaghetti and Meatball Stoup.

The Food Network star featured the recipe on her “30 Minute Meals” show, and I later saw the recipe reprinted on a discussion group. “Sounds good,” I thought. But I never made it.

Then I got an e-mail from Food Network a few weeks ago highlighting soups, and the recipe popped up there. “Gotta make it,” I said. And I did.

Ray calls her recipe a stoup — “thicker than soup, thinner than stew.” Her version is delicious, I’m sure, but I made a few changes.

For instance, her recipe’s meatballs are made with a meatloaf mix of ground beef, pork and veal. I used ground turkey only. She also uses tomato sauce; I took the suggestion of several people who had reviewed her recipe and used a jar of spaghetti sauce. Instead of spaghetti, I used rotini pasta in my recipe so it would be easier to eat. And I cooked the pasta separately from the soup so the noodles wouldn’t expand too much and soak up the broth.

My version of meatball soup was a big hit at my house. We all loved it! The meatballs are flavorful and tender and make a good flavor combination on a spoon alongside pasta, veggies and a tangy sauce.

Just before Christmas, I mentioned how much I loved using my small cookie dough scoop. Well, I found a new use with this recipe. After I had mixed the meatball ingredients with a sturdy spoon, I just scooped up the mixture to make a meatball. I squeezed the handles on the scoop and dropped the meatballs one at a time into the simmering soup.

That’s just too easy. (And my hands stayed clean!)

My husband saved enough from the soup bowl for leftovers the next day. I put the noodles in a sandwich bag so he could add them separately.

Serve this soup with crusty bread, and you have a very satisfying meal.

Meatball Soup With Pasta

Small amount of olive oil for sauteeing
1 to 2 carrots, peeled and chopped
1 medium yellow onion, peeled and diced
2 small ribs of celery, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped (more to taste)
1 26-oz. jar spaghetti sauce (I use Ragu Robusto Parmesan and Romano)
2 14 oz. cans chicken broth (I use Swanson’s Natural Goodness with lower sodium and fat)
1.3 lbs. ground turkey (that’s the set amount in the package I purchase)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 pound pasta (I use whole wheat rotini or twists) cooked and drained

Warm soup pot to medium high heat and add enough olive oil to sautee; carrots, onions, celery and garlic. Sautee for 5 minutes. Add spaghetti sauce and chicken broth and cover pot. Bring to a boil and let simmer.

While soup cooks, make meatballs. Mix ground turkey with cheese, bread crumbs and egg. Roll into 11/2 to 2-inch balls or use small cookie dough scoop. Add meatballs to soup. Bring back to boil and let simmer for 10 minutes until meatballs are cooked through.

Add a serving of pasta to individual bowls and pour soup on top.

My favorite meatloaf

2011-08-17T01:49:00.001-04:00

This column first ran in June 2004.

There were many favorite meals at my mama’s house, but there are few I enjoyed more than her meat loaf.

Mama’s meat loaf was always loosely formed, not packed tight like a hamburger, and was topped with tangy tomato sauce. She often added chunks of Irish potatoes or sweet potatoes around the edge of the pan that cooked alongside the meat loaf, mingling with the beef juices and tomato sauce. I loved this meal dearly.

As a child, I knew she was making meat loaf for supper when I saw slices of white bread on the table, getting stale enough to make bread crumbs. Later I’d watch her take off her wedding rings before she worked in the ground beef, milk, eggs and bread crumbs with her hands.

When Mama made meat loaf, she usually divided it into two parts, one small loaf made without green bell pepper for my sister, and one made with finely chopped bell pepper for the rest of us.

On lists of comfort foods, meat loaf is often at the top of the list, and I agree.

I often make meat loaf for my family after a tough week at work or school or during an especially cold spell in the winter. But it was Father’s Day that caused me to pull out my recipe most recently. In talking about how to celebrate the day, I asked my husband if meat loaf, mashed potatoes and his favorite green salad with mandarin oranges was a good idea for Sunday lunch. He heartily said yes.

My recipe is not much different from my mother’s. But because I could never make mine taste just like hers, I gave up trying and came up with my own, combining recipes from different places until I hit on our favorite combination. I also make sure not to pack it tight, but to make a loosely formed loaf, just like Mama’s.

My family’s favorite part of my meatloaf is the ketchup and brown sugar sauce I put on top. It’s wonderfully tangy and sweet at the same time. When making the recipe, I’ll often bump up the ingredients to have more sauce.

I have wonderful memories of eating meatloaf for Sunday lunch at Mama’s. I think that’s one reason why it’s so important to me to make it for my husband and children; I want them to have similar memories of that wonderful aroma and the taste treat of meat and potatoes.

Lisa’s Favorite Meat Loaf

1 1/2 to 2 lbs. ground round (I’ve also used ground chuck)
2 tablespoons onion, finely chopped
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup ketchup
1/4 cup milk
1 cup fresh white bread crumbs

Sauce

1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed

Combine ground round, onion, eggs and salt. Mix together with ketchup, milk and bread crumbs. (I make bread crumbs with stale white bread shredded on a hand-held cheese grater.) Make sure the loaf is plenty moist, adding more milk and ketchup if necessary.

Form into a loose, long loaf that almost fills a 9X11-inch dish.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. Remove from oven and drain fat with a spoon.

Spread mixture of ketchup and brown sugar and bake 10 more minutes until ketchup mixture is bubbly.

*Note: When making this meat loaf, I often vary amount of ingredients to make a larger or smaller loaf. I also make a little more sauce because we love it so much. This meatloaf is wonderful with mashed potatoes and field peas.

Orange coffee cake a delicious treat

2011-08-17T01:46:00.001-04:00

This column first ran in August 2005.

I’m always cutting recipes off cake mix boxes, pasta boxes and the paper insert of graham cracker crusts.

The recipes always look so tasty.

But after sampling a slice of orange streusel loaves made by my co-worker Thea Simpson last week, I was surprised to find she got the recipe from the side panel of a box of Duncan Hines orange supreme cake mix. I would have guessed the loaf was made from scratch.

Thea had made two loaves of the quick bread for a meeting at work. I quickly spotted the loaves — one made with nuts, one without — when I walked into the conference room and hoped I’d be offered a slice. And I was.

The bread had a wonderful, fresh orange taste and immediately perked up my taste buds and my spirits. I had a slice with the nut-laden streusel filling and knew, immediately, that I must make that recipe for my family — and, in turn, share it with my readers. I made my two loaves Monday night, and they were a hit with my family and the friends I shared with the next morning.

Thea said she’s been making orange streusel loaves for a long time and always keeps an orange supreme cake mix and box of vanilla instant pudding on hand so she can make the recipe whenever she wants.

The recipe suggests cooking it in two loaf pans, but Thea said it works just as well in one Bundt pan. When she makes it in a Bundt pan, she said she often pours half the batter in the pan, tops it with the streusel filling, then adds the remaining batter.

She’s also made the cake using Lemon Supreme cake mix and lemon juice in the drizzle, and says that variation is especially good in the summer.

The day after I sampled her orange loaf, I confessed to Thea that I had come close to going to the grocery store at 9 o’clock the night before to purchase the ingredients and bake my own orange streusel Loaves right then. I craved a slice that much. She laughed and told me that she had come close to coming back to work late that same night to retrieve the leftovers she had left at the office.

It’s that good.

Orange Streusel Loaves

1 box Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe orange supreme cake mix, reserving 2 tablespoons of mix
1 package (3.4 oz.) vanilla instant pudding and pie filling mix
4 large eggs
1 cup sour cream (I use reduced fat)
1/3 cup oil

Streusel:

2 tablespoons reserved cake mix
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon margarine or butter
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons milk or orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9x5x3-inch loaf pans.

For streusel topping, place 2 tablespoons cake mix, brown sugar, cinnamon and margarine in a medium bowl and mix with a fork until crumbly. Stir in pecans. Set aside.

For cake, combine remaining cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, sour cream and oil in large bowl. Beat at medium speed with electric mixer for 3 minutes. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Sprinkle with streusel mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 50 to 60 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans 15 minutes. Loosen loaves from pans. Invert onto cooling rack. Turn right side up. Cool completely.

For glaze, combine powdered sugar and liquid (milk or orange juice) in small bowl. Stir until smooth. Drizzle over cooled loaves.

Makes 2 loaves.

Banana waffles

2011-08-03T10:49:00.002-04:00

On more than one occasion this summer, my family has eaten waffles for supper. We love having breakfast foods for our evening meal, and waffles are a good choice for a hot summer day because the oven can stay turned off! And if you use microwave sausage and bacon like we often do, you don’t have to turn on the stovetop either.

This week, I tried a new waffle recipe that can break up the routine a little. The recipe uses two ripe bananas and no oil. The waffles are flavored with cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla extract.

We are big fans of banana nut bread at my house, and I was hoping the waffles would remind me of my favorite breakfast bread, and they did. I didn’t add pecans to my waffle batter, but I’m sure that would be a wonderful addition if you try them.

I adapted this simple recipe from one I’d seen online, mixing in 1⁄4 cup of whole wheat flour as well as some cinnamon, vanilla extract and a little brown sugar.

I have waffle iron issues at my house right now, so I made these twice in two days. The first time I made them in a cheap, new waffle iron that didn’t brown the waffles at all. In fact, I had to toast the batch of plain waffles I made in order to brown them and make them appealing enough to eat. I was not amused and took the waffle maker back to the store that afternoon.

The next day, I remade the banana waffles in my old waffle maker, the kind that flips. They browned beautifully, but they also stuck. I didn’t have that problem the day before with the new waffle iron. After the waffles started sticking, I re-sprayed the surface of the iron with cooking spray. That seemed to work.

These waffles are good to me without a topping, but you could also add any number of dressings from maple syrup and pecans to peanut butter.

Next time you have a couple of ripe bananas sitting on your counter, give this simple recipe a try.

Banana Waffles

2 ripe bananas
Sprinkle of nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 cup milk (I used skim)
1 egg
1 cup self-rising flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour

In large mixing bowl, mash bananas. Mix in nutmeg, cinnamon, vanilla, brown sugar, milk and egg until combined. Stir in self-rising and wheat flour until blended.

Cook in waffle iron prepared with cooking spray. If the waffles stick, reapply spray between each waffle.

Fruit salad

2011-07-20T10:58:00.002-04:00

Sometimes, for me, the salad makes the meal.

For years, I never made or experimented at restaurants with a green salad that wasn’t your basic lettuce, tomato, cucumber, bell pepper mixture topped by some gooey dressing. Gotta love that gooey, fatty dressing!

But in recent years, my husband and I have loved experimenting with new salad combinations, and, more than anything, new dressings we make ourselves.

Twice this summer, we’ve made a delicious salad using a fruited dressing recipe of my sister’s. The dressing is so delicious and so simple to make using an envelope of Good Seasons Italian dressing mix. I saw this recipe again when I was thumbing through a school cookbook my sister helped with several years ago. Susan has several ideas for the toppings for this salad, but I tweaked that (of course) and used what I had on hand each time I made it.

The first time we made the salad dressing, which uses the juice of an orange, I topped my romaine lettuce with chunks of fresh orange, crunchy gala apple and toasted, sliced almonds. The citrus-based dressing was the perfect complement for my choice of ingredients.

I had planned to make the same salad the second time, but when it came time to assemble the salad, I realized I didn’t have any apples (which is unusual for me.) So instead of oranges and apples, I used oranges, fresh blueberries and toasted pecans. Both versions were so delicious! And I was a happy girl when I realized there was salad dressing for leftovers the next day.

I’m sure many fruit and nut combinations would work with this salad. I’d love to try strawberries, blueberries and oranges with toasted pecans or walnuts. And I know all versions would be delicious as a main course salad topped with strips of grilled chicken.

Salads are so perfect for these hot summer days, and I hope you’ll give this easy one a try.

Orange Dressing

1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup rice wine vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar because it’s what I had)
1/3 cup orange juice (I squeezed my own)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 (0.7 oz.) envelope Good Seasons Italian dressing mix

Combine ingredients until sugar is dissolved. Store in refrigerator.

Use on a variety of fruited salads. I’ve used romaine lettuce topped with chunks of apple and orange or romaine topped with oranges and blueberries, both sprinkled with toasted nuts.

Peach cobbler

2011-07-13T11:48:00.003-04:00

When my sister, Susan, moved to South Carolina a few years ago she started bringing baskets filled with beautiful peaches to Wilson when she visited in the summer.

There’s something different about these fragrant peaches, which boast a layer of bristly peach fuzz. They are sweeter, fresher and more juicy than the ones I buy at local grocery stores (although they are good in their own right, and I purchase plenty in the warm weather months.)

Susan has been home twice this summer, and each time, I’ve been the recipient of a basket of peaches. Reggie and I made a batch of deliciously sweet peach jam with the first peaches as well as a cobbler. I also enjoyed them sliced with my breakfast or for a bedtime snack.

When Susan came back this past weekend, she brought Red Globe peaches that had just started to ripen. I had been wanting to try a cobbler recipe Susan had shared with me the week before, so I decided to make a batter peach cobbler to go with our grilled dinner.

I usually make cobbler using a very simple recipe of our mother’s that’s topped with a frozen pie crust. This new cobbler, adapted for other recipes, makes its on crust from the buttery batter. Susan added cinnamon to her recipe, so I did the same.

The pie makes up quickly, with only a few steps. Peeling the peaches is the only time-consuming part of the process. But I don’t mind peeling peaches because I get to sample as I go along!

The house smelled so good as the peaches started to cook, and we couldn’t wait to try our cobbler. I loved the taste of the sweet peaches and the touch of cinnamon I could taste in the crust.

The recipe was well-received by my family, and I will certainly make it again.

I might toss in a handful of blueberries next time. And Susan tells me the recipe is equally as good when made with blackberries instead of peaches.

I know baking a dessert that takes 50 minutes to bake really heats up the kitchen on a hot July day, but turn on the fan and turn down the thermostat, because peaches won’t be in season much longer.

Mama's Fruit Cobbler

Fresh fruit
3/4 to 1 cup sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons flour (more for fruit that will be runny when cooked)
Pinch of salt
1/2 tablespoon butter (or less)
1 pie crust

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Fill pie pan with fresh fruit. I use blueberries (fresh or frozen), fresh peaches or cooking apples.

Mix sugar, flour and salt and sprinkle over fruit. Dot with a little butter. With apples, add cinnamon to taste.

Top with a pie crust (I use frozen). Slit top of pie crust.

Bake at 425 degrees for 30 to 50 minutes.

Peach Cobbler

1/2 stick butter
3/4 cup self-rising flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
4 to 5 cups of peeled and sliced peaches (choose amount based on size of baking dish)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
Cinnamon sugar to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Place butter in a square or round baking dish and place in oven to melt. Keep an eye on it so it doesn't burn.

While butter is melting, mix flour, sugar, milk and cinnamon until incorporated.

Remove pan from oven when butter has melted. Pour batter mixture on top of butter, then spread peaches on top of batter. Don't mix. Sprinkle top with cinnamon sugar. (Remember pan is hot, so be careful when moving it back to the oven.)

Bake for 40-50 minutes or until brown on top. Cool slightly before serving.

Fill up your cookie jar this summer

2011-07-06T11:08:00.002-04:00

It’s summertime, and at my house that means there are lots of people in and out. And those people get hungry!

I try to keep snacks around for my family and their guests to munch on, and I like to make those treats myself when I can. Thanks to a book I came across while browsing in the library’s new books section the other day, my cookie jar is now holding some delicious home-baked cookies.

“Cookies: More than 200 Recipes” by Jill Snider was enticing to me right away. I enjoyed reading the tips and descriptions she puts with each recipe, and I loved the combinations she came up with for her cookies. How about crunchy cereal cookies — a breakfast cookie recipe with crisped rice cereal, rolled oats, almonds, coconut and sunflower seeds? Or chocolate cherry mounds with pecans, dried cherries and two kinds of chocolate?

The cookie names alone make you want to start baking: butterscotch cashew cookies, Hawaiian chews, chocolate caramel oat cookies, cranberry almond oatmeal cookies.

There are many traditional favorites in this book as well, and I chose an oatmeal cookie as my first recipe from this book. A number of cookie recipes in the book use oats, but I tried oatmeal candy cookies and made them the last two Saturday afternoons.

This is a simple, basic oatmeal cookie recipe that uses candy pieces. It also calls for coconut, but I omitted that so I wouldn’t be the only one eating them. (My crowd can spot coconut hidden in any recipe.)

The first time I made this recipe I used my small cookie scoop and made small, uniform cookies that everyone gobbled down. I wasn’t sure if there would be a cookie left before they had time to cool! I cooked these cookies a minute or two more than what the recipe suggests because I love crunchy oatmeal cookies.

I made a few changes to this recipe other than leaving out the coconut. I used self-rising flour instead of all-purpose flour and left out the baking powder, baking soda and salt, and instead of using 1 cup of candy-coated chocolate pieces, I used a mixture of miniature M&Ms and miniature chocolate chips (about half-and-half.)

The cookies were a big hit at my house, and I feel confident I’ll make them again and again.

This is a good recipe to use if you have kids around who want to help. Both times I made this recipe, my 2-year-old granddaughter was at the house, and she poured in the chocolate chips and M&Ms. She also helped me hold the mixer.

Before writing this column, I wanted to try something different, so I made a second recipe, using ingredients I’ve never put in a cookie. I chose white chocolate, fruit and nut cookies.

These buttery, tender cookies are packed with white chocolate, chopped cashew nuts, dried cranberries and dried apricot. I wasn’t sure how I would like the combination, but it was a delicious cookie, and everyone who tried it agreed.

When you’re making these cookies, try to get some of each ingredient in each cookie because the combination is really good.

White Chocolate Fruit and Nut Cookies

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour*
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon grated orange zest*
8 squares (1 oz./28 g each) white chocolate cut into chunks*
1 1/4 cup coarsely chopped cashews
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/2 cup chopped dried mango*

Preheat oven to 375F.

Grease cookie sheets or line with parchment paper.

On a sheet of waxed paper or in a bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter and brown and granulated sugars until light and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add orange zest. On low speed, gradually add flour mixture, beating until blended. With a wooden spoon, stir in white chocolate, cashews, cranberries and mango.

Drop dough by heaping tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart on prepared cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 8-12 minutes or until golden around edges. Cool for 5 minutes on sheet, then transfer to a rack and cool completely.

*I used self-rising flour and omitted the salt and baking soda. I didn’t have an orange, so I didn’t use orange zest. Also, instead of cutting squares of chocolate, I used a cup of white chocolate chips. And I also used apricot instead of mango.

"Cookies: More than 200 recipes" by Jill Snider

Oatmeal Candy Cookies

1 cup all-purpose flour*
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup quick-cooking oats*
1 cup candy-coated chocolate pieces*
1/2 cup unsweetened flaked coconut*

Preheat oven to 350F.

Prepare cookie sheets with parchment paper or by greasing.

On a sheet of waxed paper or in a bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat butter, granulated and brown sugars, egg and vanilla until light and creamy, about 3 minutes. On low speed, gradually add flour mixture, beating until smooth. With a wooden spoon, stir in oats, candy pieces and coconut.

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls on prepared cookie sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 9-13 minutes or until golden. Cool for 5 minutes on sheet, then transfer to a rack and cool completely.

*I made the following changes: I used self-rising flour and omitted the baking powder, baking soda and salt. I didn’t have quick-cooking oats, so I used old-fashioned. I omitted coconut, and I used a mixture of miniature M&Ms and miniature chocolate chips instead of 1 cup of the candy pieces only.

Another good variation: instead of M&Ms and chocolate chips, I mixed in about a cup of dark chocolate chips and 3/4 to 1 cup chopped dried cherries. Delicious!

"Cookies: More than 200 Recipes" by Jill Snider

Microwave Relish

2011-06-22T10:53:00.003-04:00

Last July, I told my readers about a simple recipe for microwave pickles. I made the recipe many times and so did my readers, who emailed me, called me and stopped me at Wal-Mart as much as six months later to tell me how much they loved that easy pickle recipe.

Just this week, I heard from a neighbor who had made her first two batches of the season, and my husband and I have made two recipes already as well.

Because that recipe was so popular last year, I wanted to try something new this year. I decided on microwave pickle relish. I started with last year’s simple recipe for microwave bread and butter pickles and just varied the vegetables.

I used cucumbers, sweet onion, green bell pepper and pimiento. Next time I make the relish, I will use red bell pepper instead of pimiento, but I didn’t have any at the house, so I improvised. (Funny how hard it is to leave the house and go to the grocery store when it’s hot and humid outside!)

The relish takes a little more time than the very quick pickles because you must do a lot of chopping.

To prepare my unpeeled cucumbers (which we grew, by the way!) I sliced then in half vertically, then in half again to make quarters. I then sliced off the inside seeds, leaving the firmer flesh to cut. Using a chopping board, I made very small cubes out of my cucumbers.

I carefully chopped the onion and bell pepper in small cubes as well and left the diced pimientos as they came in the jar.

The vegetables are then cooked in a vinegar solution that’s mixed with sugar and pickling spice, and everything is cooked in the microwave for 7-8 minutes.

It’s really that simple.

Once you’ve eaten your relish, which is stored in the refrigerator, you can make another batch in the remaining relish syrup.

I’m sure many of you are either growing your own vegetables this summer or relying on fresh produce from area farmers markets, so take advantage of the summer bounty and give this recipe a try.

Click here to read last year’s pickle column.

Microwave Pickle Relish

2 1/2 to 3 cups cucumbers, diced small
1/4 cup sweet onion, diced small
2 tablespoons diced pimiento or 1/4 cup red bell pepper, diced small
1/2 cup green bell pepper, diced small
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pickling spice*

Place diced cucumbers, onion and pepper in microwave-safe bowl. Pour other ingredients over vegetables. Cover bowl with plastic wrap.

Microwave on high for 8 minutes.

Let cool before pouring into container for storage. Store in refrigerator after cooling.

*Instead of pickling spice, you can use 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed, 1/4 teaspoon celery seed and 1/4 teaspoon tumeric.

Microwave Bread and Butter Pickles

2 to 2 1/2 cups sliced cucumbers
1 cup sliced Vidalia onions
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pickling spice*

Mix all ingredients in a glass bowl and cover with plastic wrap. I used a batter bowl.

Microwave on high for 7-8 minutes.

Let cool slightly before pouring into container for storage. Store in refrigerator after cooling.

*Instead of pickling spice, you can use 1/2 teaspoon mustard seed, 1/4 teaspoon celery seed and 1/4 teaspoon tumeric.

Cool off with Jell-O

2011-06-08T11:17:00.003-04:00

One hot afternoon last week, while discussing what to eat for supper, my daughter made the comment that she wished we could have something cool to eat.

I know the feeling and find myself planning more and more meals that involve sandwiches, green salads and pasta salads. I’ve also been known to make a number of Jell-O salads this time of year as a side dish to whatever we are eating.

I have several favorites.

Sometimes I mix up a batch of orange Jello-O, using the juice from a can of pear halves as part of the 1 cup of cool liquid called for in the instructions. (There’s not enough liquid for the entire cup, so I use water to reach the one-cup measure.) Pour the mix into a square baking pan and add the pear halves, cut side up, and place a cherry inside the indention before placing in the refrigerator. The same salad is also delicious using sliced pineapple instead of pears.

But the one I’ve made most is the one I remember from my childhood. It’s a salad I ate at my paternal grandmother’s house, and I associate it with her, although I imagine one of my aunts made it. It’s simple enough and so good. Mix a small box of Jell-O (my favorites for this recipe are orange and cherry) as instructed on the box, using juice from a can of fruit cocktail as part of the cool liquid. Pour the mixture into a glass baking dish and mix in the can of fruit cocktail and some chopped pecans if desired. Place in refrigerator to congeal. I love having this salad on a hot summer day as a side dish with a sandwich. It cools me off and is so good.

When strawberries and blueberries are in season, I often made cherry Jell-O parfaits. I mix the Jell-O as instructed on the box and divide it between four parfait dishes. After the Jello-O has set in the refrigerator I layer the fruit with whipped topping for a cool and easy dessert. We all love it at my house.

I made a new version of this treat last week using a recipe from the Jello-O website, www.kraftfoods.com/jello/. Fast Fruity Delight is a simple recipe for an easy hot-weather dessert. I love trying new techniques, and I was eager to mix the frozen strawberries I used into the Jello-mixture and watch the dessert as it quickly congealed. This four-ingredient treat would be a fun recipe to make with children.

There are so many Jell-O recipes on the Web site. Give them a try this summer.

Fast Fruity Delight

3 oz. package Jell-O gelatin (choose flavor based on your fruit)
3/4 cup boiling water
2 cups frozen fruit (strawberries, raspberries, tropical fruit blend, blueberries, etc.)
1 cup whipped topping

Add boiling water to 1 package (3 oz.) Jell-O gelatin in large bowl; stir 2 minutes until completely dissolved.

Stir in 2 cups frozen fruit until gelatin starts to thicken. Add 1/2 cup gelatin mixture to whipped topping and stir with whisk until blended. Spoon into four dessert cups; cover with remaining gelatin mixture.

Refrigerate at least 15 minutes or until firm.

Kraft

Yummy sandwich

2011-06-01T11:39:00.003-04:00

In the last year or so, I’ve found myself open to adding more of a variety of flavors into my meal planning.

A lot of that has happened because of a new passion for grilling at my house. My husband and l especially love experimenting with marinades and rubs for chicken and beef.

Today’s recipe for Carolina pulled chicken is a good example of our new flavor experiments. There was a time when I would have never considering using a prepackaged spice mix for my food. I’d be afraid I wouldn’t like one of the ingredients, so I wouldn’t even try it. But this delicious chicken recipe gets the bulk of its flavor from an envelope of McCormick Grill Mates Carolina Country marinade.

This is a very easy recipe to make and involves mixing and simmering a tangy and delicious sauce and grilling a package of chicken breasts. When the breasts are cooked, all you do is shred the meat and mix it with the sauce and it’s ready for the sandwich rolls.

It was the weekend and I had the time, so I made the sandwich rolls for this recipe, but any roll, lightly toasted, would work well. If you lightly toast the sandwich rolls, they won’t get soggy as quickly when you add the sauce-covered meat.

The McCormick recipe suggested this sandwich be served with pickles, so we tried it with our favorite Trader Joe’s bread and butter pickles. My husband and I both agreed the pickles added a nice crunch and cooled down the mildly spicy sauce. When we make our own microwave pickles again this summer, we will use them, I’m sure, for this sandwich.

I look forward to making this recipe again, but I might not always grill the chicken. The grilled chicken added a wonderful flavor to this recipe, but shredded chicken or turkey cooked by another method work be delicious, too, I’m sure, and would be easier for a weeknight at my house.

Carolina Pulled Chicken

3/4 cup ketchup
3/4 cup cider vinegar
1/2 cup coarsely chopped sweet onion, such as Vidalia
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 package McCormick Grill Mates Carolina Country marinade
1 1/2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast halves
Vegetable oil
Sandwich rolls

Mix ketchup, vinegar, onion, sugar and marinade mix in medium saucepan until well blended. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low; simmer 10 minutes or until onion is tender. Set aside. Brush chicken lightly with oil.

Grill chicken over medium heat 6 to 8 minutes per side or until cooked through, turning occasionally.

Shred chicken using 2 forks. Add to saucepan; toss to coat well. Spoon shredded chicken mixture on rolls.

McCormick

Veggie Spaghetti

2011-05-25T11:12:00.002-04:00

Some of my favorite recipes are ones found on the “back of the box.” Come to think of it, two of those favorites -— for baked macaroni and cheese and lasagna — are both from Mueller’s. And that’s where I got this week’s recipe: from the back of a Mueller’s box.

I was making a stir-fry dish recently, using whole grain spaghetti, and I spotted the recipe for veggie spaghetti on the back of the box. The pretty picture made my mouth water. I’m a pushover for a new pasta recipe, and this meat-free recipe looked both easy and healthy.

So I kept the spaghetti box on the counter where I could see it because I didn’t want to forgot to make it. I’m so bad about clipping a recipe and never making it!

I made it for my husband and me for lunch one day last week, and we both really liked it.

I did make a few minor changes to the recipe. Instead of asparagus, I used two small zucchinis, sliced, and I added a few of my chopped fresh basil leaves to the simmering sauce. I also used shaved Parmesan cheese instead of grated; I like the way it melts when sprinkled on a bed of hot pasta!

Veggie spaghetti is simple to make. After cutting and sauteeing the vegetables, I let my pasta water come to a boil and the pasta cook while the easy tomato sauce simmered. In less than 30 minutes, Reggie and I were enjoying a hot meal for lunch and had plenty leftover for the next day. This would be a good dish to make on the weekend to keep in the refrigerator for quick weekday lunches. Just warm up a serving and sprinkle on the shaved Parmesan, and you have a healthy and filling midday meal. We’ve also decided we really like this recipe cold!

Veggie Spaghetti

1 box (13.25 oz) whole grain spaghetti
1 tablespoon olive oil
2 cloves of garlic, minced or 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
1 yellow onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 can (28 oz) whole peeled tomatoes
1 bunch of asparagus, chopped
1⁄2 cup mushrooms, sliced
1⁄4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

In a large skillet, cook peppers, onions and garlic in olive oil over medium heat until tender, or about 5 minutes. Add tomatoes and simmer for 15 minutes.
Cook pasta according to package instructions.

Meanwhile, add to simmering sauce, asparagus, mushrooms, salt and pepper to taste.

Combine pasta and sauce and toss with Parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.

Mueller’s

Notes: I used two small, sliced zucchinis instead of asparagus. I added them towards the end of my sauteeing along with the garlic, and they also simmered in the pot. I also added some fresh basil to the simmering sauce and used shaved Parmesan cheese instead of grated. We waited to add the cheese to our individual serving; that works better if you know you are going to have leftovers.

Cherries and chocolate

2011-05-11T10:41:00.002-04:00

I love a good, moist chocolate cake. I don’t make them often, but it’s nice knowing there’s one waiting for me in the kitchen when I really, really want something sweet and it has to be chocolate.

Over the weekend, I tried a very easy recipe for Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake that is made with no oil. The name alone convinced me to try it because I do love chocolate covered cherries!

Then I saw how easy the recipe was (four ingredients) and decided to make it for our Mother’s Day Batts family gathering Saturday night and offer it alongside a dessert fruit pizza.

This is how simple it is. You mix together in a bowl a box of devil’s food cake mix, a can of cherry pie filling, 2 eggs and a teaspoon of almond flavoring. Mix it and bake it and glaze or frost it, and you’re done. I put a simple chocolate glaze on my cake.

Most of my guests decided to have a slice of both desserts, and I don’t remember seeing anything left on their plates.

I found the recipe for this easy cake in a cookbook from the Tar River Piecemaker Guilting Guild that’s no longer available, but after researching a little, I found out it was the 1974 Pillsbury Bake-Off Grand Prize winner. That cake was named Chocolate Cherry Bars and featured a glaze as well that sounds much sweeter than the one I make.

If you want a simple dessert for a birthday party or just a family meal, give this easy cake a try.

Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake

1 18.25 oz. box devil's food cake mix
1 21 oz. can cherry pie filling
2 eggs
1 teaspoon almond extract

With a mixer, combine all ingredients in a bowl for 2 minutes until combined.

Pour into a 13X9-inch pan prepared with cooking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

Chocolate Glaze

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pour chocolate chips and butter into microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir until chips are blended. Mix in honey and vanilla extract. Frost cake or cupcakes.

Ham leftovers?

2011-04-27T11:31:00.001-04:00

I’m sure some of my readers have some leftover Easter ham in the refrigerator. And if that’s the case, I’ve got an easy recipe for you to try.

I often use my ham leftovers for omelets, ham and cheese muffins or even a ham and veggie pie I shared in my food column last year.

But I’ve also made ham and cheddar biscuits several times since I discovered the recipe last spring. The recipe is so easy, starting with a biscuit baking mix.

I mixed up these biscuits before my oven had preheated last week, using packaged diced ham and shredded cheese. But even if you have to dice and shred yourself, you can put this recipe together in just a few minutes.

The first few times I made the biscuits last year, my family ate them up so fast I had to make a second recipe.

When I made them again last week, I made a few changes to make the biscuits a little more moist. I liked the change. My son and I ate them for lunch the first day, along with some fruit, and the next morning, I warmed one in the microwave for 10 seconds and enjoyed it for breakfast.

And if you like to think ahead, make enough to freeze for later use.

Ham and Cheese Biscuits

2 1/4 cups biscuit baking mix (I used reduced fat Bisquick)
1 cup milk
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
1 cup diced, cooked ham

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Mix baking mix with milk to form dough. Stir in cheese and ham.

If you want smaller biscuits, drop by tablespoonsful on prepared baking sheet. I wanted bigger biscuits and used my muffin scoop.

Bake at 450 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Reheat for 10 seconds each in microwave.

Hot cross buns

2011-04-20T12:02:00.003-04:00

For many Christians around the globe, it's a time-honored tradition to eat hot cross buns on Good Friday. Various histories I've read claim the rolls date back hundreds of years, perhaps even to pagan times when their significance had an entirely different meaning.

The spicy rolls packed with dried fruit are either topped with a cross of white frosting or emblazoned with a cross cut into the roll just prior to baking. The cross is meant to remind Christians of Christ's crucifixion.

Various folklore claims the rolls can fight off illness and evil and will never get moldy because of the protection of the cross.

Hot cross buns were not a tradition for my family when I was growing up, and I've only had them a few times, including several years back when I made a batch myself.

Last year, newspaper publisher Morgan Dickerman shared a delicious shipment of hot cross buns from a bakery in Colorado with our staff. The rolls were delicious and had special meaning because we ate them on Good Friday. I decided right then that I wanted to share a recipe for hot cross buns in my food column for this Easter.

I read many recipes over the last few weeks before deciding on the ingredients for my hot cross buns. My first decision involved the dried fruit to use. Most recipes call for currants, some for raisins, others for a mixture of dried fruits. I opted for golden raisins for my buns. The golden raisins had such a variety of pretty gold tones and added a nice touch of color to the rolls. They also aren't as obvious as their darker counterpart, which is a good thing for me because I really don't like raisins!

Then I had to decide on spices. The first recipe I read only used cinnamon. But I saw a number of other recipes that use a combination of spices including cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg and ginger. I love cloves, but I was afraid the spicy taste might overtake the rolls. So I ended up using a teaspoon of cinnamon and a 1/4 teaspoon of both allspice and nutmeg. I measured out the spices and put them in a small container, stirred them up and smelled them before adding them to my flour. The aroma was wonderful and not too over-powering, so that's what I went with.

Since I had only used one dried fruit, I opted to put the zest of both a lemon and an orange in my rolls. The faint hint of citrus added a nice touch.

I cut a cross into about half of my rolls before baking. I experimented with scissors, a straight-edge knife and a serrated knife. I had the best luck with the serrated knife.

After the rolls had baked and cooled, I put a sugary glaze cross on each one. The rolls with the cross cut into them definitely had the neater cross.

My hot cross buns were absolutely a hit at my house. They were delicious the day I made them and equally good the next day, cut in half and toasted.

If you'd like to start a new tradition at your house to mark the significance of Good Friday, give these rolls a try.

Hot Cross Buns

3/4 cup lukewarm milk
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 egg white
3 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon bread machine yeast
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoons allspice
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 to 1 cup golden raisins

Egg wash:

1 egg white
Splash of milk

Glaze:

1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons milk

Pour milk, butter, sugar, salt, 1 egg, egg white, bread flour, spices and yeast into bread machine bowl in order recommended by manufacturer. Start dough cycle.

If your machine has a timer for adding nuts or other ingredients, add the raisins when the timer beeps, otherwise, add the raisins in the last few minutes of the final knead cycle.

When dough cycle is complete, remove dough from bowl and place on a floured surface. Divide the dough in half, then in half again to have four pieces. Roll each quarter into a log shape and divide into thirds to form your rolls.

Place rolls in 9x13 pan that has been prepared with butter. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Cover dough and let rise in a warm place for around 45 minutes. (When I am rising dough, I put a cut of boiling water in my cold oven to create warmth and steam before putting in my pan of dough.)

After they have doubled in size, cut a cross into the top of each bun. Then whisk one egg white with a splash of milk and brush on rolls.

Bake in 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Let cool.

Mix glaze ingredients and pipe or brush on a cross shape.

Pondering the tornado and life

2011-04-18T08:31:00.000-04:00

I took a walk around my yard Sunday morning, walking slowly and thinking while I picked up small pieces of debris my husband had missed the evening before.
I wondered whose 2-inch-square piece of siding was in the grass by my newly-planted garden. Did the yellow insulation that fell from the tree in our front yard overnight come from the hard-hit house about a half-mile away? And what was that green plastic piece that looked like the color of a stop light?
All these little pieces were part of someone’s business, someone’s home, someone’s life.
The ripped bottom portion of a car title might have come from the used car lot that was in the direct line of fire when a tornado tore through N.C. 42. And what business close by uses trayformers? I have the instructions on how to operate and clean one — whatever it is.
My walk was very sobering. The entire weekend was sobering — humbling, in fact — as I realized once again just how little control I have over my life.
Like so many others, my family sat around the television and computer Saturday afternoon, watching the radar and listening to forecasters talk about the life-threatening tornadoes that were headed towards our part of the state. I stayed in constant contact with my daughter, Anna, who was in the Lucama area with her boyfriend’s family. She was worried, and I was too, and wanted nothing more than for her to be with me or to at least be safe where she was.
As the system got closer to Wilson County, and it became apparent we weren’t going to dodge it this time, we all got a little more anxious and firmed up our plans for taking cover. We decided we would sit in the hallway; it’s the same place my children slept during Hurricane Fran. I opened up the hall closet where we store blankets and quilts and told my husband, son and his fiancee, Alicia, to grab whatever they needed and to cover up when the time came.
By the time the storm was in Wilson County, we had determined by the television maps that the tornado was headed for our neighborhood — Westwood. It was really coming, and there was nothing we could do about it and nowhere to run.
Anna was safe, I learned, but now it was our turn to deal with the tornado.
I calmly walked to the back of the house to tell the latest forecast to my husband, Reggie, who was watching a DVD with our 2-year-old granddaughter, Sora. Before we finished talking, we lost power, and everything went dark. It was like a signal, a curtain rising, indicating that the show was about to begin.
It was then we realized we had almost waited too long to bring our elderly next-door neighbor to our house. But my husband headed out in the wind and the loud noise — a very loud, roaring noise unlike any I’d heard before.
And when I saw a large piece of something black and square fly way above the tree line, I knew something was very different and very wrong. Son Robert called out, “It’s here!”
Within seconds, insulation and siding and tree limbs were swirling and flying everywhere, and my husband and neighbor were running the best they could into the house with Robert hurrying them in.
We didn’t stay in the hallway long. We were curious, too curious. Robert stayed in the hall with his young family and our neighbor, but Reggie and I couldn’t be still. We peeked out windows, and I walked into the den before realizing how foolish I was to be in a room with so many windows.
And then it was over — so unlike a hurricane, which goes on for hours, but also so much like a hurricane with its destruction.
Our family and our home were spared. We had limbs and debris to pick up, but nothing more.
As the evening went on and my children and I visited homes where people had lost so much. We listened to their stories, I took notes, and Robert and Anna took photographs for me. I couldn’t believe the destruction I was seeing. The blown-out windows in homes, the trees on roofs, the look of disbelief and shock on so many faces.
Their homes and their way of life were here one minute and gone the next.
Saturday night, after my stories and photos were emailed to my editor, I walked outside to the front porch and was immediately overwhelmed once again by the smell of pine from the fallen trees.
I looked up and saw the moon and thought about the stormy sky and debris I had watched just six hours before.
So much went through my mind. Why don’t we have a battery-operated radio? Why was our house spared? Where are the people staying tonight who no longer have a home? How will they ever pick up the pieces and start all over again? Will they get help?
Then I thought of little Sora and other children who lived through the storm.
Sora definitely sensed our fear Saturday, and when she was at the house on Sunday, she ran up to me and wanted me to hold her when she realized we were watching a video of the tornado on the computer.
Saturday night, she told her Mama that the loud monster had scared her. She later told her that her daddy’s blanket and her daddy had scared that monster away. If only it were that simple.

lisa@wilsontimes.com | 265-7810

Easy side dish

2011-04-13T11:12:00.003-04:00

I admit that I fall into a rut when it comes to cooking vegetables at my house.

We have corn, butter beans, peas and potatoes. Occasionally I make a broccoli dish. My kids convince me to make green bean casserole a few times a month, but I usually stick with the same things my mother cooked — interspersed with a variety of green salads.

I love to find a new way to get our veggies in each day and was excited to see something new on my plate at a church function earlier this month. There on the same plate with my ham, deviled eggs and congealed salad was a serving of colorful marinated vegetables. It was the first thing I tried. I loved the vinegar marinade sweetened with sugar and the mix of canned French-cut green beans, corn, garden peas and pimiento.

I immediately knew I wanted to share this recipe with my readers this month because it would be great for an Easter ham dinner. Not only is it delicious and very pretty, it can also be put together in just a few minutes then stored for several days in the refrigerator. That’s one less thing to do before dinner on Easter Sunday.

I made the recipe for my husband and me last week, and we had the dish with shrimp and baked potatoes. It was a delicious combination.

Don’t be afraid to make a full recipe when you try this. As I was told by Anne Liles when she shared the recipe with me, it keeps for several days in the refrigerator and only gets better with age!

Colorful Marinated Vegetables

3 15 oz. cans French-style green beans (some cans are 14 or 14.5 ounces)
1 15 oz. can whole kernel corn
1 15 oz. can garden peas
2 tablespoons diced pimiento
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup oil

Mix sugar, vinegar and oil with a whisk until combined.

Place vegetables in a colander and drain and rinse.

Pour vegetables in a bowl. Pour marinade over and stir to combine. Store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. The vegetables are good for several days.

Anne Liles

Nutty granola

2011-03-30T10:45:00.002-04:00

I’ve made granola from time to time over the years but never consistently.

I love it on top of yogurt, but once my favorite yogurt became unavailable, I gave up on it for almost a year.

I’m on a yogurt kick again, so I decided to try some new granolas. I also wanted a granola I could eat as a breakfast cereal with fresh fruit and milk.

I started reading recipes, as I always do, and pulled out a recipe from Ginny Tarleton for soy nut granola I had made a number of times. I knew I didn’t want to use soy nuts this time around because they hurt my teeth when I bite down on them.

I read that recipe and several others before coming up with a recipe that combines plenty of healthy ingredients including rolled oats and flax seed meal, which I keep in my freezer for bread baking.

For my nuts I chose pecans and almonds. I love toasted pecans (who doesn’t!) and thought they’d add a wonderful addition to the granola, and they did. Next time I make this, I will probably add 1 cup instead of the half-cup I added the first time. I also had roasted almonds on hand, so I chopped them in my food processor and mixed them in as well. (Come to think of it, I didn’t have to buy anything special for this recipe.)

Many granola recipes I read have dried fruit, but I’m not a big fan of dried fruit, so I didn’t add it to mine.

Once mixed, the granola is baked at 325 degrees until nice and brown. You will smell the toasted pecans. It will not have a crunch until it has cooled, so don’t keep baking it until it crunches!

This is a very good granola. I’ve had it sprinkled on vanilla yogurt topped with strawberries and as a breakfast cereal with milk and strawberries. (Can’t wait to try it with blueberries.) It was a very filling breakfast.

Many recipes for granola add cinnamon, and you can add it to this one if you’d like. I made a delicious granola this winter that had cinnamon, and it was good, but I prefer it without. And, you can certainly substitute the type of nut you prefer in this recipe and throw in some dried fruit for good measure!

Easy Nutty Granola

4 cups old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup chopped almonds (I used roasted almonds)
1/2 to 1 cup chopped pecans
2 tablespoon flaxseed meal
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup apple juice

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, use a spoon to mix oats, almonds, pecans, flaxseed meal and brown sugar. In a small bowl, whisk vanilla, oil, honey and apple juice. Pour liquid ingredients over dry ingredients and stir with a large spoon until blended.

Pour mixture on large cookie sheet or two smaller ones prepared with cooking spray.

Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes. Take out of oven and stir. Bake for another 10 minutes. Depending on how thick your granola is on the pan, you may need another 5 to 10 minutes.

The granola will harden some after it cools.

All for a sandwich

2011-03-23T11:07:00.003-04:00

Sometimes it just takes an image to convince me to try a recipe. This time around, it was a grilled cheese sandwich I saw on someone’s blog.

It wasn’t just any grilled cheese sandwich, mind you. This sandwich was made with mozzarella cheese between two slices of Italian herb bread. I craved that sandwich to the point that I made a loaf of bread just to recreate it. Sounds like I have way too much time on my hands, but trust me, I don’t!

I had never baked a loaf of bread made with Italian herbs, but I’ve made herb dinner rolls many times. That recipe is a family favorite.

So I decided to try my luck with the Italian herb bread.

First I looked around the Internet for a recipe. I found plenty but decided to make my own. Just a few days before, I had baked a loaf of one of our favorite breads. It’s a recipe I have made plenty of times, so I decided to adapt it for this herb bread. I looked at the herb ingredients on several bread recipes online and also compared the herbs in the dinner rolls we like so much to come up with a combination of herbs — oregano, thyme and sweet basil — that had a wonderful aroma. I added Parmesan cheese for extra flavor.

As usual, I used my bread machine to mix the dough for the first rising. Then I removed the dough from the machine and formed a loaf to rise and bake in a glass loaf pan.

The house smelled so good as my loaf of herb bread baked. I made the bread one day, and had my sandwich the next. I grilled it on the stove with butter, just as I do any other grilled cheese, but I used two slices of mozzarella instead of American cheese.

I must say the sandwich was delicious and worth the effort.

My husband ate the bread with a meal and really enjoyed it. He said it would be delicious dipped in pizza sauce. Last week, I made the bread again, and we all enjoyed the bread with a plateful of spaghetti.

If you have any leftover bread, make croutons.

Herb Bread for Bread Machine

3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk (I use skim milk)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons honey
1 teaspoon bread machine yeast or active dry yeast
1 3/4 cups bread flour
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon oregano
1/2 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon dried sweet basil
2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese

Scald milk. Remove from heat and add olive oil and honey. Stir until butter melts. Cool to room temperature.

Add milk mixture and other ingredients to bread machine in order suggested by manufacturer. Use dough setting. Might need to add extra flour; keep an eye on it.

When dough is complete, form in shape of a loaf and place in greased loaf pan. Let rise for about 30-45 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees for 25-28 minutes.

*When I make this bread without herbs, I follow the same recipe but use 2 tablespoons butter instead of olive oil, and omit the oregano, thyme, basil and Parmesan cheese. You can also use 2 cups of bread flour and omit the wheat flour. My husband and I love this recipe for breakfast as toast with jelly or cinnamon toast. We also enjoy it as sandwich bread, especially for toasted pimento cheese.

Lisa Batts

St. Patrick’s Day treats

2011-03-09T12:42:00.002-05:00

I’ve never been a big fan of food colorings, thanks in part to an incident from my childhood when my sister, Susan, and I dyed our milk blue. I still shudder when I think of swallowing that royal blue milk. Suffice it to say that neither of us drank our milk that night, and we never tried that experiment again.

So when thinking of a St. Patrick’s-themed recipe for this column, I surely did not want to suggest adding green food coloring to your mashed potatoes or biscuit dough as a way to bring a bit of the holiday spirt to your dinner table.

Instead, I propose adding some pistachio pudding to a cake mix and making some green cupcakes!

I’ve made a number of cakes where I’ve added vanilla or chocolate pudding mix to the cake batter, but I had never tried pistachio until this week. In fact, I guess I have never even used pistachio pudding for anything because I was surprised when white powder poured out of the envelope when I added it to my mixing bowl. But as soon as the liquid ingredients hit the bowl, a beautiful shade of green emerged.

I opted not to use cupcake holders for these cupcakes because I assumed they would be a pretty shade of green and I wanted to show off the green in the photograph and to my family. They are not a beautiful shade of green on the outside, more of a brown cupcake with a green tint. But once you bite into the cupcake, more green shows.

The cupcake itself is sweet and very good, but it’s not much different from other cupcakes I’ve made with a yellow cake mix. But it is green and would be fun for St. Patrick’s Day treat.

To make your cupcake even more festive, put green sprinkles on top once you’ve frosted it. I use both whipped topping and a chocolate glaze for mine.

Pistachio Cupcakes

1 box yellow cake mix
Pistachio pudding mix (3.4 oz. size)
1⁄2 cup oil
4 eggs
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 cupcake pans by lining or spraying with baking spray.

Pour all ingredients into a bowl. Mix on high for 2 minutes until all ingredients are blended.

Pour into cupcake pans.

Bake at 350 degrees for 18-20 minutes.

Frost and decorate after the cupcakes have cooled.

Makes 24 cupcakes.

Cookies through the years

2011-02-23T11:23:00.002-05:00

I enjoy reading a good cookbook, not just the recipes, but the stories that sometimes come along with them.

At the Wilson County Public Library recently, I came across a cookbook that I thoroughly enjoyed. "The Gourmet Cookie Book" is a collection of cookie recipes from the magazine -- one per year from 1941 to 2009 --as varied as Moravian white Christmas cookies from 1946 to butter cookies with jam in 1984.

Each recipe is accompanied by a description of the cookie and a lovely but simple photograph that shows off the cookie.

In addition to offering recipes, the cookbook tells a story of how cooking and cooking magazines have evolved from the ingredients we use to the way we write recipes.

The first year, a recipe for Cajun macaroons appeared in a menu for a Mardi Gras party in New Orleans. Although the recipe was time-consuming, the book states, it was popular with readers and was requested often.

For the book, Gourmet decided to leave the recipes as they were published in the original form, with instructions such as "bake in a hot oven." However, the editors tested the recipes and put in notes to clarify temperatures and ingredients and to offer an easier (or more modern) way to make the cookies.

For instance, for the October 1960 recipe for pine nut macaroons, the editors suggest using a food processor to grind blanched almonds, and they tell you "breakfast cocoa" in the ingredients for February 1950s chocolate wafer is unsweetened cocoa.

Some years, there were few cookie recipes in the magazine. In 1962, there was only one cookie recipe the entire year, and that was for cottage cheese cookies, described in the current book this way: "Cottage cheese in cookies might sound strange, but it is much like ricotta, lending a subtle tang that mellows a sugar cookie into something nuanced and very lovely." I want to make this cookie.

Mixed into the descriptions of the cookies are details about the magazine in relation to the world at large. The 1944 recipe for cinnamon cookie crisps gave advice for things to put in a care package to send to a soldier.

Dining trends are also noted in the book. The 1989 recipe for cornetti, or almond cookies, reflects America's passion for Italian food that year, and cranberry pistachio biscotti showed a love for trendy biscotti.

There were so many recipes in this book I'd like to try, but the one I chose to make was lemon thins from the April 1976 Gourmet. I was almost 14 at the time it was published in the magazine. My sister and I always loved lemon cookies and the photograph reminded me of ones we ate as children. The note with this recipe says this was the first time since the end of World War II that Gourmet devoted an entire story to cookies.

The lemon cookies were easy to make and were delicious. They are very simple and not too sweet. They also stayed soft the next day.

Look for "The Gourmet Cookie Book" at the library or bookstore. It makes good reading and provides a wonderful source for some delicious cookie recipes.

Vegetarian stir-fry

2011-02-16T11:50:00.003-05:00

For five years now, I've had a wonderful stir-fry recipe in my possession. The sad thing is, I didn't make it until last week!

The recipe is Sweet and Spicy Peanut-Pasta Stir-Fry in the 2006 American Heart Association's Love Your Heart publication. (Not sure why they call it spicy -- maybe it's the red pepper flakes I didn't use!)

I bought that little cookbook in the grocery aisle that year and did a food column, sharing a cranberry tea recipe, I think. I've pulled out the recipe collection a few times since, but I never gave the vegetarian entree a second look, apparently.

Knowing it was heart month, I wanted to give us all a recipe we could feel good about, so I looked through that publication one more time.

This time, the recipe really appealed to me, and I couldn't wait to try the stir-fry dish, featuring red bell pepper, broccoli, carrots and onion and even dry-roasted peanuts.

This is not a super-quick recipe because there are several steps involved, including cooking the pasta, squeezing an orange for the sauce and prepping the vegetables, but I had it ready in about 30 minutes. A note on the recipe suggested making the orange juice mixture in advance to cut down on preparation time and buying cut produce from the grocery store. I did get my broccoli from a salad bar but still had to cut it some to smaller sizes.

The aroma was wonderful on both the sauce and the sauteed veggies, and I couldn't wait to try it! Let's just say I wasn't disappointed.

Hands down, this is one of my favorite dishes I have ever made for this food column. I think part of its appeal is that it's different from anything else I make, and I was so proud when it turned out as pretty as the picture in the cookbook!

So why is it good? The citrus flavor teamed with the stir-fried vegetables is fantastic, and the blend of textures is extra appealing. I love the crunch of the peanuts and the wonderful flavor they add.

The recipe makes a lot, enough for four is what's suggested, and there was enough for leftovers the next day. All morning, I kept thinking of my stir-fry waiting for me at home! I decided to warm it in a skillet instead of the microwave, hoping the peanuts would be just as good as the night before, and they were!

I plan to make this dish often and keep it in the refrigerator to have at lunch. I want to try it with a little stir-fried chicken as well and will probably eliminate the peanuts if I make it that way.

Be good to your heart (and your tastebuds) and give this dish a try.

Sweet & Spicy Peanut-Pasta Stir-Fry

5 ounces uncooked whole-wheat vermicelli or spaghetti, broken in half
1/2 teaspoon grated orange zest
1/3 cup fresh orange juice
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon grated peeled ginger root
1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
1/2 cup dry-roasted unsalted peanuts (about 21/2 ounces)
1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
2 cups small fresh broccoli florets (no larger than 3/4 inch)
1 medium carrot cut into matchstick-size pieces (about 3/4 cup)
1 medium onion, cut into 1/4-inch wedges
1 medium red pepper, cut into thin strips

Prepare the pasta using the package directions, omitting the salt and oil. Drain well.

Meanwhile, in a small bowl, stir together the orange zest, orange juice, sugar, soy sauce, vinegar, ginger root and red pepper flakes. Set aside.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Heat the peanuts for 2 minutes or until they begin to lightly brown, stirring frequently. Transfer to a plate.

Add the oil to the same skillet and swirl to coat the bottom. Cook the broccoli, carrots, onion and bell pepper for 6 minutes or until just tender-crisp. Transfer to a large bowl. Stir in the cooked pasta and peanuts. Cover with aluminum foil to keep warm.

In the same skillet, bring the orange juice mixture to a boil. Cook for 2 minutes or until reduced to about 1/3 cup, stirring constantly. Pour over the pasta mixture, stirring to blend.

Serves 4

American Heart Association

Cheesecake treats

2011-02-09T11:46:00.003-05:00

Want to surprise your co-workers with a sweet Valentine treat next week?

This simple recipe for miniature cheesecakes makes a lot of pieces (five dozen) and takes very little time to put together.

I needed a lot of dessert for a Relay for Life fundraiser at my church and didn't want anything complicated -- just easy and delicious. I certainly chose the right recipe because in less than an hour, I had more than 60 little cheesecakes ready for someone to decorate.

There are a number of versions of this recipe, but I adapted the allrecipes.com version, and instead of using crushed vanilla wafers in the bottom of my miniature cupcake holders, I used a whole, bite-size vanilla wafer, flat side down. The vanilla wafers also come in a smaller mini size, depending on the brand. I used two 24-cup miniature muffin pans, and the bite-size cookies fit one pan just fine but were too big for the other pan -- go figure!

Anyway, if you have trouble getting them to fit, use 1/2 teaspoon crushed vanilla waters in the bottom of each miniature cupcake liner.

I made a double recipe for last weekend's event, and each time, I mixed miniature chocolate chips into about half of the batter to have a variety for my dessert tray. The chocolate chip variety was a hit with my family members who "sampled" the cheesecakes.

Because the fundraiser was a father/ daughter Valentine dinner, my daughter and I decorated the little cakes with a seasonal theme. I put pretty red cherries from a jar of cherry pie filling on many of them. On others, Anna arranged decorative sprinkles. She put them on soon after the cakes came out of the oven, before they completely cooled. The rest of our mini cheesecakes, including the ones with chocolate chips inside, got a drizzle of the chocolate glaze we use on so many desserts.

Be creative when you decorate your cheesecakes. Blueberry topping would be so good on these little bize-size desserts, or even crumbled vanilla wafers, fresh strawberries, caramel sauce or chopped nuts. And if you choose several toppings, your dessert platter will be even more appealing.

You can also be creative with the cheesecake itself. For instance, use almond extract instead of vanilla or stir some lemon zest into the batter.

It's always nice to find a go-to recipe. The next time someone needs many dessert pieces, I will certainly volunteer to make this easy recipe.

Mini Cheesecakes

1 (12 ounce) package vanilla wafers (regular size crushed or whole bite-size or mini)
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Toppings

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Line miniature muffin tins with miniature paper liners.

Place bite-size or mini vanilla wafer, flat side down, into paper liner or crush the vanilla wafers, and place 1/2 teaspoon of the crushed vanilla wafers into each paper cup.

In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until all of the lumps are gone and mixture is smooth. Fill each miniature muffin liner with this mixture, almost to the top. I used my miniature muffin scoop.

Bake for 15 minutes. Cool.

Add desired topping.

Makes around 5 dozen.

Adapted from allrecipes.com

Satin Chocolate Glaze

3/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon honey
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pour chocolate chips and butter into microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for 1 minute. Stir until chips are blended. Mix in honey and vanilla extract. Frost cake or cupcakes.

Valentine's chocolate

2011-02-02T11:37:00.002-05:00

You've gotta have chocolate on Valentine's Day, whether it's from a beautiful heart-shaped box or prepared in your own kitchen.

In the past, I've enjoyed making a nice meal for my husband on Valentine's Day and topping it with a special dessert. Two years ago, I made an especially delicious treat called Chocolate Decadence from Cooking Light.

This yummy dessert is much like a lava cake. It looks like a cupcake or miniature cake from the outside, but when you scoop your fork or spoon inside it, a wonderful soft chocolate center is revealed. What a perfect way to end a special meal.

I found this recipe at Cooking Light, of all places. It only goes to show how you can prepare recipes sensibly if you don't go overboard. For instance, this easy recipe for four little cakes uses only 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter.

I remember how much Reggie and I enjoyed this dessert at our Valentine dinner and kept it in my "must share" stack of recipes.

The cakes can be made in 2 oz. ramekins or regular-size muffin tins, and the ingredients are nothing fancy. The serving size is not very large, but the big chocolate taste makes up for that.

One good thing about this recipe, the chocolate cake gives you a clean slate to decorate. You can sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top, decorate with some whipped topping, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream or even some sliced strawberries. You can also bake them in a heart-shaped muffin pan for a special touch. And don't forget to serve your cakes on pretty plates.

If you aren't cooking for Valentine's Day, find another special occasion to make this yummy dessert for your sweetheart, and maybe your sweetheart will return the favor.

Chocolate Decadence

1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup 2 percent reduced-fat milk (I used 1 percent)
2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa
1 1/2 tablespoons butter
1/2 ounce unsweetened chocolate, chopped
5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 large egg white
8 teaspoons semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°.

Lightly coat 4 (2-ounce) ramekins (or use a muffin pan) with cooking spray, and sprinkle 3/4 teaspoon sugar into each of the ramekins, shaking and turning to coat. Set prepared ramekins aside.

Combine 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar, milk, and cocoa in a small saucepan, stirring well with a whisk. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook 30 seconds or until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly. Remove from heat; add the butter and 1/2 ounce unsweetened chocolate. Stir until the chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Cool chocolate mixture 10 minutes.

Add flour, vanilla, salt, and egg white to chocolate mixture, stirring with a whisk just until blended. Spoon 2 tablespoons chocolate mixture into each prepared ramekin, and top each with 2 teaspoons chocolate chips. Divide the remaining chocolate mixture evenly among ramekins, spreading to cover the chocolate chips. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until barely set. Cool for 10 minutes. Invert onto dessert plates. Serve warm.

Cooking Light | December 2003

Eat your veggies

2011-01-26T12:13:00.003-05:00

There are some simple things we all can do to make our diets healthier, and with a little willpower and encouragement maybe we can all eat a little bit better this year.

Amber Burgess, nutritionist with Wilson County Health Department, has a list of easy changes we can all make when preparing or purchasing meals.

* Buy breads, pastas and rice made with whole grains. "Try the whole grain versions in all of those," she said.

If you're unsure if you'll like the whole grain versions, do it in steps, she said. First try Barilla's Plus pastas that have extra fiber but are not whole grain.

* Start looking at nutrition labels and make it your business to understand them. It's important to have a good idea of what's in the foods you are eating.

Burgess said she knows it's not always easy to understand the numbers and remember the recommended daily allowance, so she tells clients to pay attention to the percentages on the labeling.

For fat, cholesterol, calories and such, keep servings in the 20 percent or less categories.

* Increase your intake of fruits and vegetables.

"The objective is to get vitamins and minerals you need and fiber," she said.

Compromise is certainly workable. For instance, if you don't like whole fruit and vegetables, you can drink some juice, although you should limit it to one cup per day.

If your children don't like fresh fruits and vegetables, don't force it on them, she said. Instead, talk to them about why fruits and vegetables are good for them and encourage them, she said, and let them see you eat healthy foods as well.

If you don't have unhealthy snacks around, children will be more likely to eat a banana or apple from the fruit bowl, she said.

She suggests making fruit fun. Do finger foods, small servings of bananas or strawberries presented in a cute way. An apple cut in small pieces is probably more appealing to a child than a huge apple. Children also like clementines because they have no seeds.

Burgess also reminds parents that children can get their vegetables in soups and spaghetti sauce.

* Exercise. To be successful in weight management, you need a combination of good diet and movement.

* Switch to low-fat or fat-free milk.

* When you're eating out, look online for the nutrition facts on menu items. "If you want to pick something healthy, look at calories first," she said.

Burgess said consumers are surprised when they learn the amount of fat, calories and sodium in restaurant foods, including salads when cheese, ham and eggs are added in.

* Switch to fat-free salad dressings. But if you have high blood pressure, be careful when choosing fat-free items. Often the salt and sugar content are very high in fat-free products, she said. Sometimes, the 1/3 less fat is the better option.

"The thing is not to drown your salad in dressing," she said.

Vinegar and oil dressings are usually good choices.

* Pack your own lunch instead of eating out. "It's highly ideal," she said. "You get to choose the serving size and what's put in your meal."

When you make your own sandwich, add some lettuce and tomato, and throw in a piece of fruit to go with it. A small serving of chips is fine, she said.

It takes dedication to get up early enough to make your own meal, but the effort is worth it.

"It's hard, but if you can do it as much as possible, it will save money and on health care costs, too."

* Try to cook your own food. "The more natural the food is, the better it is for you," she said.

At home, you can control the fat and salt that goes into your food and how much fat is in the meat you use.

When buying ground beef, she suggests the 90/10 blend. But if you want a little more fat, 80/20 is OK. And don't forget to drain off extra fat into the garbage can after cooking the ground beef. Lean ground turkey is a good substitute for ground beef.

Burgess shares one of her favorite healthy meals she cooks at home. The sweet and sour chicken recipe is inexpensive, too, she said.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Veggies and Fruit

1 jar canned mushrooms
1 cup chopped mixed bell peppers
1 red onion
1/2 cup diced tomatoes (canned)
1 cup Splenda sweetened pineapple chunks (reserve the juice)

Meat

8 to 10 chicken tenderloins cut into small cubes
1/4 tsp. minced garlic sauteed with chicken (add more or less to your liking)

Sauce

1/4 cup lite soy sauce
1 tbsp corn starch
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon Splenda brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
Juice from pineapple chunks

Brown chicken with garlic in oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Remove chicken and add all veggies except for tomatoes and stir fry for 2 to 4 minutes until desired tenderness.

In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and soy sauce, vinegar, brown sugar and ginger and mix together and immediately pour mixture into the skillet, along with the tomatoes, pineapple and pineapple juice. Stir together and bring to a full boil and reduce heat to medium cover and cook for 5 to 7 minutes. Serve over brown rice and enjoy. I suggest using the 10 minute boil in bag brown rice because “old fashioned” brown rice takes too long to cook!

Amber Burgess
Nutritionist, Wilson County Health Department

Easy casserole

2011-01-12T10:41:00.003-05:00

This recipe is most certainly easy. Easy and delicious.

I first saw the recipe for Baked Penne and Meatball Casserole several months ago while reading through the website for Mueller's pasta (www.muellerspasta.com). For those of you who are regular readers, it's the same website where I found the delicious roasted grape tomato, corn and pasta ribbon soup this past summer.

I printed out the meatball casserole recipe and saved it in a stack of other recipes I want to try one day.

We had planned to make Baked Penne and Meatball Casserole for dinner on Christmas night. Over the years, my sister and I have made a number of pasta dishes for Christmas night, most notably lasagna and baked ziti. But this year I wanted something even easier and remembered the tucked-away recipe.

I bought the ingredients to make a double recipe, choosing our favorite pre-cooked Armour turkey meatballs and an inexpensive canned spaghetti sauce. I usually make the Christmas night pasta on Christmas Eve so I don't have to do much work on Christmas, but this year I decided to wait since the prep time was so short.

I'm glad I didn't make it in advance because the predictions of a big snowstorm sent my sister and her family back to South Carolina before lunchtime Christmas Day. We had so much to eat at my mother-in-law's house on Christmas Day that my family didn't want the meatball casserole Christmas night, so I saved the ingredients and made the casserole one day last week.

Indeed, it only takes a few minute to put together this casserole, and with a green salad and crunchy loaf of bread, you have an easy weeknight supper.

You can add your own touch to this recipe, mixing in some sauteed mushrooms and peppers or trying different varieties of pasta sauce.

I do have one recommendation for this recipe. The meatballs were frozen when I put them in the casserole, and they were not heated through at the end of the recommended cooking time. Next time I make this, I will let the meatballs and pasta sauce simmer on the stovetop while the pasta is cooking. That way the casserole really should be heated through in 30 minutes.

Baked Penne and Meatball Casserole

12 ounces Mueller's penne
8 ounces frozen Italian-style meatballs
1 (26 ounce) jar spaghetti sauce, any flavor
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese, divided
Fresh parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cook pasta according to package directions.

Combine pasta, meatballs, pasta sauce and 1 cup cheese in a large bowl; mix well. Turn into a lightly greased 2 1/2 quart shallow baking dish; cover.

Bake 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.

Uncover, top with remaining 1 cup cheese and parsley. Bake 5 minutes, or until cheese melts.

* Notes: I omitted the parsley and used turkey meatballs. The meatballs were frozen when I mixed them into the casserole and didn't cook all the way through in the recommended baking time. Next time, while the pasta is cooking, I will simmer the meatballs and pasta sauce so the meatballs will be cooked through in the 30-minute baking.

www.muellerspasta.com

Cinnamon rolls

2011-01-05T11:55:00.002-05:00

When my children were little, I'd often give them a cookbook for Christmas. I'd pick out something colorful and interesting that would catch their eye with age-appropriate recipes.

It had been a few years since I gave a cookbook, but "Teens Cook: How to Cook What You Want to Eat" caught my eye at the bookstore last month, and I bought a copy for Anna.

We've had fun flipping through the thin volume of recipes tested and tasted by teenage sisters Megan and Jill Carle and pointing out things we want to try: Roman apple coffee cake, fried apple rings, potato skins, wonton soup and vegetable lasagna, for starters.

The recipes each have a photograph along with commentary with one of the two girls telling a little about the dish with a tip or two for making it. For instance, Megan says to be careful not to overcook the fresh egg noodles in the vegetable lomein recipe. Jill notes that toffee bars were the first thing she ever learned to bake.

Anna and I had a hard time choosing which recipe to try first last week when she was still home for Christmas vacation, but we settled on a recipe for cinnamon rolls that doesn't require yeast. Megan, a vegetarian, had learned the method while visiting Germany as an exchange student. I was a little surprised to see one of the main ingredients in this recipe is cottage cheese. The recipe also calls for 2 tablespoons of baking powder. That's right, tablespoons.

I tried to streamline the recipe some by using my mixer instead of the food processor or blender recommended to puree the cottage cheese. It didn't work. I learned from these two young cooks that my food processor, small as it is, did the job of mixing ingredients for these rolls.

We really didn't think ahead when we were making the rolls that it would take a large area to roll them out, so we made a mess. Learn from our mistake and spread out when you make this recipe.

Our cinnamon rolls were in the oven in about 30 minutes from the time we started prepping the ingredients and making the dough. We were eating hot-from-the-oven cinnamon rolls in just over an hour from when we started. Pretty amazing. Even more amazing? They are delicious. No, they do not have a wonderful yeasty aroma, but they did smell heavenly cooking on a cold winter afternoon.

Cinnamon Rolls

1 cup cottage cheese
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup milk
2 tablespoons baking powder
4 1/4 cups flour, divided and more flour, for dusting

Filling

2 cups firmly packed brown sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1/2 cup butter*
1/2 cup honey*

Preheat oven to 325.

Place the cottage cheese in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth. Add the sugar, eggs, oil and milk and puree until smooth. Pour the mixture into a large bowl and stir in the baking powder. Add 3 1/2 cups of the flour and stir until the mixture forms a dough. Using your hands, add the remaining 3/4 cup flour a little at a time by sprinkling a little flour over the dough and folding the dough over to mix it in. Repeat this process until the dough is smooth and not sticky. (You may not need all the flour.).

Spread a thin layer of flour on a flat surface and roll the dough into a large rectangle, about 20X25 inches.

To prepare the filling: Combine the brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Melt the butter and brush over the entire surface of the dough. Drizzle the honey over the butter, then sprinkle the sugar mixture evenly over the dough. Starting on the longer side, carefully roll up the dough as tightly as possible.

Lightly butter or spray the bottom and sides of a 13x9 baking pan.

Using a serrated knife, cut the roll into 1 1/4 inch thick slices with a sawing motion. If you press down while cutting the dough it will smash together and lose the "roll" effect.

Arrange the cinnamon rolls in the pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until done. (To check for doneness, pull up slightly on the center of one of the rolls in the middle of the pan. The dough should pull apart. If it stretches, it needs to cook more.)

Remove from oven, run an knife around the edges to loosen the cinnamon rolls, and invert onto a serving platter.

*I used 1/4 cup butter and much less than 1/2 cup honey.

"Teens Cook"

In case you missed them...

2010-12-29T15:42:00.002-05:00

It's not always easy coming up with a recipe each week for my food column. In fact, it's seldom easy. But it's worth the effort. This food column is one of the most rewarding things I do, especially in recent years since my daughter, Anna, started taking the photographs for me.

I cannot tell you the pleasure it brings me when someone tells me, "I look forward to reading your food column every week." And it happens often. Just ask my kids; they like to tease me about it!

Just a few days before Christmas, one of my son's former high school teachers stopped me at a store to tell me she tries my recipes often and had recently made my microwave peanut brittle and rocky road fudge. Her comments made me smile.

This past year, as I've struggled with heart-breaking grief after my mother's death, just 11 months after my father's death, I've really relied on the routine of trying new recipes, sharing them with my readers and hearing feedback as therapy. It's amazing how far a little encouragement and thanks will go (not to mention a hot bowl of soup or a sweet treat) to mend a broken spirit.

Again this year, I decided to use this year-end column to re-publish some of my favorite food column recipes for the year. I wasn't sure there were any memorable ones until I started looking through our archives and realized it was this year I shared so many recipes that I'm still making such as a super yummy veggie filled ham and cheese pie that my husband and I adore.

I make honey mustard pasta salad at least once a month for lunches, and I keep Chicken Tetrazzini Florentine in my freezer for nights I don't want to cook.

My daughter often requests that I make pizza melts, and my husband looks forward to nights I make seasoned turkey burgers.

Son Robert requested a fruit pizza for his Christmas Eve birthday. We all love this easy recipe.

And my recipe for microwave bread and butter pickles was one of my most popular ones ever. For weeks after that one ran, I got calls and e-mails from people telling me how much they loved them.

So in case you missed these favorites, here they are again.

Thank you for reading my column every week, and please don't stop. I got cookbooks for Christmas, and I'll be experimenting and sharing!

The best recipes of 2010

Good-for-you Chili

2010-12-22T12:20:00.001-05:00

My sister was visiting at Thanksgiving and told me about this wonderful new turkey chili she had made. She suggested we save out three cups of shredded turkey and freeze it for the Cooking Light chili.

We did just that.

A week or so after Thanksgiving, I thawed the turkey, and in a short time after work one evening threw together this very easy chili.

Before making it, though, I read some reviews and made a change or two based on other cooks' recommendations and on my family's preferences.

The recipe calls for three cans of Great Northern beans, which are white. I wanted to add a little variety to my chili, so I followed a suggestion and used one can of black beans along with two cans of Great Northern beans. I also cut back on the spices because I don't normally like spicy foods, but when I make it again, I'll probably add as much cumin and chili powder as called for.

I did add a little more tomato, cutting two roma tomatoes. Next time I'll probably add even more because we liked the texture and color they added to the chili.

I added the fresh cilantro to my chili; it's the first time I've ever cooked with cilantro. I didn't particularly like the smell of the cilantro on my hands after it was chopped, but I threw it in my chili pot anyway. I didn't especially like the taste, either, and I'm thinking I'll leave it out when I make the recipe again.

When it came time to serve our chili, my husband and I added a dollop of reduced-fat sour cream and a sprinkling of shredded Mexican cheese. Wow! These two ingredients added so much flavor to the chili.

The chili smells so good cooking and lived up to expectations. My husband and son gobbled it down; so did I.

In reading reviews, I noticed that several people often cook a turkey breast just so they can have turkey to make this recipe. After my first bowl, I could understand why!

I considered saving this recipe until next November, but I decided my readers need to be making it this winter! So for those of you who cook turkey for Christmas, save out three cups of shredded turkey and make this delicious and good-for-you chili soon.

White Bean Turkey Chili

1 tablespoon canola oil
2 cups diced yellow onion (about 2 medium)
1 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried oregano
3 (15.8-ounce) cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained*
4 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth
3 cups chopped cooked turkey
1/2 cup diced seeded plum tomato*
1/3 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
8 lime wedges (optional)

Heat oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté 10 minutes or until tender and golden. Add chili powder, garlic and cumin; sauté for 2 minutes. Add oregano and beans; cook for 30 seconds. Add broth; bring to a simmer. Cook 20 minutes.

Place 2 cups of bean mixture in a blender or food processor, and process until smooth. Return pureed mixture to pan. Add turkey, and cook 5 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Remove from heat. Add diced tomato, chopped cilantro, lime juice, salt, and pepper, stirring well. Garnish with lime wedges, if desired.

Notes: I used 2 cans of Great Northern beans and 1 can of black beans, all rinsed and drained. I used 2 plum or roma tomatoes, and next time I’ll use more, probably to equal at least 1 cup. We garnished our soup with light sour cream and a blend of Mexican cheeses.

www.myrecipes.com from Cooking Light

Microwave sweets

2010-12-08T12:29:00.002-05:00

A friend seemed surprised Friday to find me shopping for stocking stuffers. He claimed it was too early for that. Not at my house!

I like to do my shopping early, plan ahead what I'm cooking for the holidays, and save time wherever I can. That includes cooking.

I've always been a fan of the slow cooker, and I used my very first tax refund check to buy a microwave oven. I made a lot of quick recipes in that first microwave and continue to take shortcuts, from melting chocolate to boiling water, in my microwave.

So why not use that same appliance for holiday treats? My go-to fudge is a very simple recipe made in the microwave oven, so it was no surprise that I was drawn to another microwave fudge recipe, this one for Super-Easy Rocky Road Fudge, found in Nestle's "Holiday Recipes" publication. The photograph alone, showing off the marshmallows and walnuts, was enough to convince me to give it a try.

As the name implies, this fudge is simple, requiring just a minute in the microwave followed by a little stirring. The only time-consuming step for me was cracking the walnuts. I know that was the hard way to get chopped walnuts, but they are so good freshly cracked.

When I poured this fudge into a baking dish to cool, I made sure to leave plenty of the chocolatey treat behind in the bowl so I could eat it still warm. It was heavenly, especially the bites with chocolate, nuts and marshmallows.

If you have kids at home, let them help you make this fudge.

But you might want to keep the kids out of the kitchen for microwave peanut brittle. The mixture is just too hot for little guys. In fact, you really need to think ahead with this recipe to make sure you are prepared to get the hot bowl out of the microwave oven.

I've never made a lot of peanut brittle. As I've said before, I don't like to make recipes that require a candy thermometer, but this one does not. The nut and sugar mixture cooks in the microwave for a total of 8 to 10 minutes until bubbly and brown. The unmistakable aroma from the microwave also signals it's time for peanut brittle! I found this recipe at allrecipes.com and read the many reviews. I'm glad I did. I followed recommendations and used a glass mixing bowl with a handle so I could safely remove the very hot bowl with very hot ingredients from the microwave. My microwave is above my stove, so it's even more important to remove this mixture carefully, using a reliable pot holder (which I have very few of!) My microwave oven cooks fast; I used the 6 minutes recommendation for the first cooking and about 2 1/2 after stirring.

I spread out the peanut brittle on a cookie sheet prepared with spray but wasn't careful enough to spread it evenly. Some parts of my peanut brittle were thicker than others, and a little chewier than I like. Next time I'll be more careful to spread it evenly and quickly.

I hope you'll consider this delicious recipes when you're planning your holiday goodies this year.

Microwave Oven Peanut Brittle

1 1/2 cups dry roasted peanuts
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 pinch salt (optional)
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda

Grease a baking sheet or use cooking spray and set aside.

In a large glass bowl with a handle, combine peanuts, sugar, corn syrup and salt. Cook in microwave for 6 to 7 minutes on high; mixture should be bubbly and peanuts browned. (Bowl and ingredients will be very hot.) Stir in butter and vanilla; cook 2 to 3 minutes longer.

Quickly stir in baking soda, just until mixture is foamy. Pour immediately onto greased baking sheet and spread to consistent, thin layer. Let cool 15 minutes or until set. Break into pieces, and store in an airtight container.

Allrecipes.com

Super-Easy Rocky Road Fudge

2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups miniature marshmallows
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped walnuts

Line 13- by-9-inch baking pan with foil; grease lightly.

Microwave morsels and sweetened condensed milk in large, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on high, 100 percent, power for 1 minute; stir. Morsels may retain some of their original shape. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring just until morsels are melted. Stir in vanilla extract. Fold in marshmallows and nuts.

Press mixture into prepared baking pan. Refrigerate until ready to serve. Lift from pan; remove foil. Cut into pieces.

Nestle

Festive holiday dip

2010-12-01T12:10:00.000-05:00

You might be surprised how I come up with ideas for this food column. Take this week's topic, for instance. It's the perfect example of putting the cart before the horse, as my daddy used to say.

I was shopping in the Kohl's home section recently, drooling over pots and pans I'd love to cook my dinners in and wishing I could replace my everyday china with something more colorful. And don't get me started on my desire to own more kitchen gadgets. But what really caught my eye was a collection of blue-tone dinnerware adorned with the cutest, chubby snowmen. I especially liked a small square bowl and immediately envisioned a pretty holiday photo for a future food column. Yes, I admit, I often buy plates and bowls and linens that I like and then plan a food column around the purchase.

As soon as I saw this pretty little bowl I knew I must do a dip recipe. Hostesses can't serve cookies and cake only at Christmas, right? (But don't fret; you'll see holiday sweets soon enough in this space!)

Back to the dip. My family enjoys dips at home, at parties or even restaurants. I don't make appetizers often, so it's a treat when we have something new to dip our chips or crackers or veggies into.

I really treated everyone last week with a new dip from Kraft Foods. I read many recipes featuring a favorite dip ingredient -- cream cheese -- before I settled on Red Pepper Cheese Dip.

It only takes a few minutes to mix this four-ingredient, delicious recipe. Let it chill for an hour or so, and it's ready to dip with snack crackers. I loved the flavor combination in this recipe, which reminded both me and my husband of pimiento cheese. The dip's color is a lovely shade of orange with pretty pieces of roasted red pepper and green chives to dress it up. Put the dip in a pretty bowl, and you have a festive addition to your party table.

We ate our dip for several days.

I must make another confession. While my turkey breasts were cooking Thanksgiving Day, getting nice and tender for our evening meal, I ate dip and pumpkin pie for lunch. A new tradition is born!

Red Pepper Cheese Dip

1 container (8 oz.) whipped cream cheese spread
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 jar (7 oz.) roasted red peppers, drained, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh or frozen chives
Crackers

Mix cheeses, red peppers and chives until well blended; cover.

Refrigerate at least 1 hour to allow flavors to blend.

Serve as a dip with crackers.

Kraft Foods

Nuts and chocolate

2010-11-17T10:56:00.003-05:00

What is it about Thanksgiving and pies? Pumpkin, apple, sweet potato and pecan pies share the spotlight with the cranberry sauce and turkey.

I suppose pies became a regular menu item for the big day because they're easy to make in advance. I know I always make my pumpkin pie on the night before Thanksgiving because that leaves ones less thing to do on a very busy day.

I usually make just one kind of pie for the relatively small gathering I cook for, and it's always pumpkin. And, I'll tell you a secret about my husband and me. We don't eat our pumpkin pie after our big Thanksgiving dinner, we either have it for breakfast or lunch on Thanksgiving Day, when we aren't stuffed with turkey and dressing and mashed potatoes!

Many of you find a large spread of desserts at the Thanksgiving table, and if you've been asked to prepare a pie, maybe you'd like to take something new this year.

Last year I ran across a recipe for a mixed nut pie. It sounded so good, but I never got around to making it.

Whenever I find a new recipe to try, I either tear it from the pages of a magazine, make a photocopy of it or print it from a Web site. Then it goes into a three-ring binder where I either promptly forget it or it nags me until I try it. I remembered this nut pie all year, and every time I saw it when flipping through my binder, I thought about trying it.

Last week, I pulled out the recipe again and studied it. I also read similar recipes on the Internet, trying to decide if I really wanted to make it. The recipe is very similar to pecan pie, with a corn syrup and sugar base. I don't especially like pecan pie, I reasoned, so why would I want to use a cup of canned mixed nuts for a pie I wouldn't like?

So instead of making the pie I had craved for a year, I turned to an old reliable recipe for Chocolate Chip Pecan Pie -- my version of Derby Pie. This pie is a favorite dessert at my house and is so easy to assemble. I always have the ingredients on hand and often make it at the spur of the moment to treat my family.

I knew it would be just as delicious with a cup of mixed nuts added in, and it was. My family enjoyed this twist on a favorite recipe. I liked the different textures offered with peanuts, almonds, cashews and Brazil nuts. I left the cashews and peanuts whole but chopped the larger nuts.

This pie is especially good straight from the oven. But if that's not possible, put individual slices in the microwave for a few seconds to warm up the chocolate chips.

This was definitely a good change in a familiar recipe, perfect for a special occasion, but the original with pecans only is also hard to beat!

Nutty Chocolate Chip Pie

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 stick butter, melted
1 cup mixed nuts (I purchased a can that was labeled "lightly salted")*
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pie shell, unbaked

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt butter and let cool slightly.

Chop larger, harder nuts, such as Brazil nuts and almonds, into bite-size pieces. I left peanuts, cashews and pecans whole.

In a bowl, combine sugars and flour. Mix in eggs, then cooled butter. Stir in nuts, chocolate chips and vanilla extract. Stir until combined.

Pour mixture into unbaked pie shell.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes.

*When I make this with chopped pecans only, I use 3/4 cup.

Season for cranberries

2010-11-17T10:55:00.000-05:00

If you're like me, you're already thinking ahead to the annual Thanksgiving feast. The big day is just two weeks away, so those of us who are cooking had better be deciding on side dishes and pies and how to stuff the turkey.

My menu doesn't change much from year to year; my family isn't keen on change. But I have added a few new recipes from season to season and hope to continue to be flexible with my holiday meals.

My husband and I are the only two cranberry eaters at our house, and we both look forward to the congealed cranberry dish made with Jello, whole berry cranberry sauce and pecans that I make each year. The recipe is one my mother made often, not only for Thanksgiving but also whenever she made chicken casseroles. It's easy to make, and I love it not only with the main meal at Thanksgiving but the next day with my turkey sandwich.

That being said, I also love making relishes with fresh cranberries. I've made a few fresh relishes over the years and enjoy the novelty of cooking with the berries, which pop as they simmer in a saucepan.

Last week, I did some experimenting and made a relish with fresh cranberries, a tart apple and walnuts. It smelled so good as it cooked.

When I purchased the cranberries at my local grocery store, I noticed the bulk nuts were already on display, so I bought enough walnuts for this relish. I cracked those while the relish cooked and later mixed them into the cranberries along with the apple. I loved the way the apple chunks went from vivid white to a pretty shade of pink as I mixed the ingredients.

I let the relish cool until dinnertime, then served it alongside a pasta dish. It wasn't the side dish I would have chosen for a tomato-based pasta dish, but I was pleasantly surprised how good the two dishes were together. My husband couldn't get enough of this tart relish. He ate a bowlful and requested more. The same thing happened with the leftovers the next night.

This really is a delicious relish, especially if you like tart dishes. The different textures of the nuts, apples and cranberries are pleasing to the palate. And if this relish was good with a pasta dish, I can only imagine how good it will stack up with turkey and gravy, mashed potatoes and dressing!

I found this recipe on the Web site for the Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association. The only change I made was to use apple juice instead of cranberry-apple juice because that's what I had in the refrigerator.

This dish can be made in less than 30 minutes on Thanksgiving Day or just as easily the day before and stored in the refrigerator.

Cranberry, Apple and Walnut Relish

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup cranberry-apple juice (I used apple juice)
1 pound (4 cups) fresh or frozen cranberries
4 cups peeled and diced Granny Smith apples (about 1 pound)
2/3 cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Combine sugar, juice and cranberries in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat; simmer 15 minutes or until cranberries pop and mixture thickens.

Remove from heat. Stir in apples and walnuts. Spoon into bowl and cool. Cover and chill at least 4 hours.

Yields 4 cups.

Wisconsin State Cranberry Growers Association

Helen's Cranberry Sauce

1 (14 oz. can) whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 (3 oz.) package cherry Jello
1 cup hot water
1/2 cup cold water
1/2 cup pecans, cut up
Orange cut in bite-size pieces (optional)

Mix Jello and hot water. When Jello is dissolved, mix in cold water, cranberry sauce, nuts and orange. Chill. Stir while chilling to keep nuts from rising to the top.

Helen Boykin

Seasonal Flavors

2010-10-27T12:37:00.004-04:00

If you cook with pumpkin, then you probably know there was a shortage last season. If you wanted a jar of Libby's pumpkin, you were more than likely out of luck unless you had a stash in your pantry.

The good news is, this year's pumpkin harvest was a good one and canned pumpkin is back on the grocery shelves, so feel free to start baking your favorite pumpkin breads!

Reading the news stories about this year's harvest made me hungry for pumpkin spiced with cloves and cinnamon and ginger.

I recently bought Cooking Light's Quick Baking publication at the grocery store checkout and was eager to try a few recipes. One of the recipes I marked was for Pumpkin-Cranberry Muffins.

I've made several pumpkin muffin recipes over the years, most that include pecans, but none with cranberries. I love dried cranberries in other dishes -- especially on fresh salads -- so I was eager to try them in this recipe. Might as well use two seasonal ingredients in one recipe, right?

This is a basic recipe that takes only a few minute to mix up. You'll notice it's low in fat, using no butter and only 2 tablespoons of canola oil.

The baking muffins made the house smell so wonderful and made me eager for Thanksgiving and pumpkin pie!

This is a very moist and dense muffin. The spices make it the perfect mid-morning snack with hot tea. And I really like the tart flavor and the texture that the cranberries offer. And the cranberries add such a pretty red color to the orange muffins.

If you like pumpkin muffins, give this one a try!

Pumpkin-Cranberry Muffins was one of many recipes I marked in Cooking Light's Quick Baking. I've also tried Sweet and Salty Peanut Chocolate Chunk Cookies (very good) and I have on my short list of things to bake Orange Pecan Tea Bread, Fresh Apple Cupcakes with Almond Streusel, Fresh Tomato and Zucchini Tart with Mozzarella and Basil, and the recipe that intrigues me most, Cornmeal Buttermilk Biscuits. I have buttermilk in the fridge from my Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins, so I have extra incentive to make those biscuits!

Quick Baking, which costs $11.99, is only on display until Nov. 5. It would make a wonderful stocking stuffer for the cook in your life.

Pumpkin Cranberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour* (about 6 3/4 ounces)
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 large egg
2/3 cup sweetened dried cranberries, chopped (such as Craisins)

Preheat oven to 375°.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking soda, and next 5 ingredients (though cloves); stir well with a whisk.

Combine granulated sugar and next 5 ingredients (through egg) in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 3 minutes). Add flour mixture to sugar mixture; beat at low speed just until combined. Fold in cranberries.

Place 12 paper muffin cup liners in muffin cups; coat liners with cooking spray. Spoon batter into prepared cups. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in center. Remove muffins from pan immediately; place on a wire rack.

* I used self-rising flour and omitted the baking powder and salt.

Cooking Light

Popcorn Balls

2010-10-20T10:44:00.004-04:00

I've loved popcorn balls as far back as I can remember. A neighbor made them for trick-or-treat most years, and my sister and I never failed to make a stop at her house for one of her famous treats.

I've never wanted to make popcorn balls because the recipes all involved a candy thermometer. Nothing turns me off a recipe quicker than a note about how high the temperature must reach soft ball, hard ball, etc. I immediately turn the page of the cookbook and look for something else to cook.

But I was certainly not intimidated by marshmallow popcorn balls. Recipes for these seasonal treats are featured throughout my favorite Internet sites. They each varied a little bit, and some even include flavored Jello to add color and flavor. But rather than copy one of those recipes, I just read them all and made up my own recipe.

If you've ever made Rice Krispies Treats, then you can certainly make marshmallow popcorn balls because the process is very similar.

Rather than pop my corn on the stove, I used a bag of microwave popcorn. My favorite is Orville Redenbacher's Natural, Simply Salted, popcorn. There's no artificial butter flavor added to this particular product, so it's perfect for the popcorn balls.

Once the corn was popped, I spread it out on a large area I had covered with wax paper. With the popcorn spread out, it was easy to remove the unpopped kernels, which you do not want to include in your popcorn balls.

Next I cooked a bag of marshmallows, 4 tablespoons of butter and a º cup of brown sugar in the microwave for about 2 minutes, then stirred until the marshmallows were melted. I gradually added the popcorn to this marshmallow mixture, stirring as I worked, until I had almost used it all. Along the way, I mixed in some Halloween sprinkles that included chocolate jimmies that melted a little bit; that was OK with me. I had some of the marshmallow mixture left over, and I really wished I had about 1 to 2 cups more of the popcorn to work with. Next time I make this recipe, I will probably pop a second bag; we can just eat the popcorn that I don't use for the popcorn balls.

After everything was mixed in, I started forming the popcorn balls and placing them on the waxed paper. This is the tricky part because the mixture is so sticky and hard to work with, but I learned a good lesson. I mixed them the best I could, first using waxed paper as gloves and later buttering my hands a little. But I finally realized if I could just get the mixture divided into something that resembled balls, then I could easily go back and shape them like I wanted once they had cooled a little and were less sticky.

I added a few sprinkles to my finished popcorn balls for a festive touch.

I really enjoyed my Easy Marshmallow Popcorn Balls and so did others who tried them. I liked the crunch of the popcorn and the blend of salty popcorn with sweet, creamy marshmallows.

Easy Marshmallow Popcorn Balls

1 bag of microwave popcorn*
1 10 oz. bag marshmallows
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
Sprinkles, if desired

Pop popcorn and spread out on waxed paper. Take out any unpopped kernels.

Place marshmallows, butter and brown sugar in large, microwave save bowl. Microwave for 2 minutes. Stir. If marshmallows haven’t melted, cook an additional 30 seconds or until melted. Stir to combine.

Mix in popcorn a little bit at a time, until it’s all incorporated with the marshmallow mixture. *Pop a little more popcorn if needed. Mix in sprinkles if desired.

Form mixture into balls and place on waxed paper. The mixture will be very sticky. Work with it the best you can, using waxed paper as “gloves” or buttering your hands. Form into loose balls, then go back after the balls have cooled and pack a little tighter.

Slow-cooked minestrone

2010-10-12T22:30:00.003-04:00

Sometime back in the summer, I read a recipe for Slow-Cooker Minestrone in an issue of Cook's Country magazine.

I thought the recipe sounded delicious, as well as healthy, and I couldn't wait to try it. But I did wait because I didn't want to make the soup when the temperature was hovering around 100 degrees outside.

But the gorgeous fall weather last week inspired me to give it a try.

I've seen many recipes for the Italian soup over the years, with different vegetables and different processes. Like most minestrone recipes, this one has beans, onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, chicken broth and a small pasta. This basic recipe was adapted for the slow cooker by Cook's Country writer Diane Unger. In the story that accompanies the recipe, she describes how she chose her beans, her greens and her pasta.

I did make a few changes in Unger's recipe. I cut back on the olive oil to saute the onions and carrots, used only four cloves of garlic instead of eight and about one cup of fresh basil leaves, which I cooked with the soup. I also omitted the red pepper flakes and used fresh spinach instead of chard and diced tomatoes instead of whole. I didn't add additional basil or olive oil at the end of the cooking process either.

This is not one of those recipes that allows you to throw everything into the slow cooker and let it cook. There's quite a bit of prep work and advance cooking, but it's worth the extra effort.

In Unger's recipe, the zucchini, chard and pasta cook in the slow cooker during the last 20 minutes of the cooking process. I got held up at work the day I made this and had my daughter turn off the slow cooker at the designated time. I've had trouble in recent months with food tasting scorched in my slow cooker and didn't want to overcook my soup. But when I got home, the soup was no longer simmering, so I knew the pasta wouldn't cook in 20 minutes. So I improvised. I cooked the pasta (I used ditalini) and the zucchini in separate pots on the stove and stirred the spinach into the hot soup. When the pasta and zucchini were cooked, I drained them and added them to the soup as well. Problem solved.

We loved this recipe, and I felt good about serving it to my family. The flavors combine for a delicious, Italian-style soup with a wonderful garlic/ basil flavor. The combination of textures with the ingredients is very appealing, and the shaved Parmesan cheese sprinkled on top just makes it even more delicious. And make sure you serve this with a loaf of crusty fresh bread.

This recipe makes a lot of soup. We froze as much as we ate, which is a good thing!

Slow-Cooker Minestrone

1 cup dried medium-size white beans, rinsed and picked over
6 tablespoons extra olive oil*
2 onions, chopped fine
4 carrots, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes
8 cups low-sodium chicken broth
3 cups water
2 cups loosely packed basil leaves, chopped
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
2 medium zucchini, quartered lengthwise, seeded, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1 bunch Swiss chard, stemmed, leaves chopped
1/2 cup small soup pasta
Salt and pepper

COOK BEANS. Bring beans and enough water to cover by 1 inch to low boil in medium saucepan over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until beans are just beginning to soften, about 20 minutes. Drain beans and transfer to slow cooker.

SAUTE AROMATICS. Heat 3 tablespoons oil in Dutch oven over medium heat until shimmering. Add onions and carrots, and cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add tomatoes and cook until pan is nearly dry, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in broth, water, 1/2 cup basil, oregano and pepper flakes and bring to boil. Transfer to slow cooker. Cover and cook on low until beans are tender, 6 to 7 hours.

FINISH SOUP. Stir zucchini, chard and pasta into slow cooker and cook, covered, on high until pasta is tender, 20-30 minutes. Stir in remaining basil and remaining oil. Season with salt and pepper. Serve.

Cook's Country

* I made several changes to this recipe when I prepared it. I cut back on the olive oil to sauté the onions and carrots, used only four cloves of garlic instead of eight and about 1 cup of fresh basil leaves, which I cooked with the soup. I also omitted the red pepper flakes and used fresh spinach instead of Swiss chard and diced tomatoes instead of whole. I didn't add additional basil leaves or olive oil at the end of the cooking process either. We sprinkled shaved Parmesan cheese on top of our hot soup.

Chili Time

2010-10-06T11:07:00.002-04:00

I'm determined to expand our weeknight dinner options at home and to continue to try new things. Towards that end, I made Quick Southwestern Chicken Barley Chili last week. Not only did I make it, I ate it!

I'm not much on Southwestern foods. I don't usually like salsa, not in the least bit, and my stomach and I aren't fans of spicy foods. So when I make tacos and such at my house, I normally pass.

But I had tried this chili last winter, and I really liked it. So did my family. My cousin Betty had brought it to our family after my mother's death. The chili was delivered in a slow cooker and was delicious. Over the course of the next two days, my family enjoyed it so much, especially my daughter, who scooped it up with chips.

Anna has mentioned it from time to time, and when it was cool and rainy last week, I decided it was a good time to try it and surprised her with it when she came home from school.

This is a very simple, very quick recipe -- two factors that make it a great weekday option.

The back-of-the-box recipe from Quaker features quick barley, something I've never cooked with.

I made only a few changes to this recipe. I didn't use no-salt tomatoes because the store was out of them, and I used a small can of corn instead of frozen corn.

I boiled a pound or so of chicken strips on the stove while I did the rest of the prep work for the chili. (A review I read on this recipe suggested using cooked ground chicken, which I'm sure would be a good substitute.)

When the chili is complete, it's not very thick and could easily be considered a soup. But as it sits, the liquid is absorbed by the barley, and it thickens.

I made this at lunchtime and put it in my slow cooker on low to keep it warm. By the time Anna was home from school, the chili had thickened, and she was able to eat it with chips, like a dip. Just the way she likes it.

I used mild salsa in my chili, and even I agreed it was too mild. I went back and added another 1/2 cup of medium salsa to spice it up a bit. So choose your salsa depending on your family's taste for saucy food!

This is definitely a healthy recipe. Cooked as prepared, according to Quaker, it has 210 calories, with a total of 2 fat grams, sodium at 250 and dietary fiber at 6 g and protein at 19.

Quick Southwestern Chicken Barley Chili

1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, no salt added, undrained
1/2 cup salsa
1 can (14.5 oz) fat-free chicken broth
1 cup quick barley
3 cups water
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1 can (15 oz.) black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen whole kernel corn (I used canned corn.)
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
3 cups cooked chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces (about 1 1/2 pounds boneless before cooking)

In 6-qt saucepan, combine first seven ingredients. Over high heat bring to a boil; cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add beans, corn, pepper and chicken; increase heat to high until chili comes to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer for another 5 minutes, or until barley is tender. If upon standing the chili becomes too thick, add more chicken broth or water until chili is desired consistency.

Yields 10 cups

Quaker Oats Company

Zucchini Bread

2010-09-29T16:07:00.003-04:00

I've only recently started cooking with zucchini. My mother never cooked with zucchini, probably because Daddy didn't grow it in the garden, so I never did either.

But last year, my brother-in-law, Billy, gave us an enormous supply of the green squash and I used it in several recipes from soups to casseroles.

This year, when he gave us another huge batch of both yellow squash and zucchini, I decided to try something new.

With one of the way oversized zucchinis, I made zucchini bread last week.

I had only had zucchini bread once before. Someone offered me a slice, I tried it and did not like it. Not one bit. So I never tried it again.

But many people love zucchini bread, so I decided to give it a try with my own recipe.

I first looked at recipes online and ended up drastically altering a recipe from Paula Deen's Web site. I cut the sugar, added brown sugar and used 1 cup of whole wheat flour, for starters.

Because I had never made zucchini bread before, I had to ask a co-worker if I was supposed to peel it before grating; she told me no. But I do remember reading a recipe review that said the cook had peeled her zucchini so her grandson wouldn't see the green flecks in the bread and she could continue referring to it as cinnamon bread! Oh the things we do to get our kids to eat vegetables.

I didn't peel my zucchini before grating, and I loved the bright green flecks in my lovely bread, tinted slightly a lovely shade of brown from the brown sugar and wheat flour.

I wasn't sure how the bread would go over at my house, but I was happy that my husband loved it as much as I did. We both enjoyed it for breakfast several days.

If the idea of zucchini in a quick bread doesn't appeal to you, please think again. There's nothing yucky about this bread, only a lot of yum!

Zucchini Bread

2 1/4 cups self-rising flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil (I use canola)
4 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup water
2 cups grated zucchini
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix flour, nutmeg, cinnamon and sugars.

In another bowl, mix oil, eggs, water and zucchini. Combine the two mixtures and fold in nuts.

Pour into 2 prepared loaf pans and bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes or until tester comes out clean.

Sweet and Salty

2010-09-22T11:42:00.003-04:00

If you watch the Food Network or read any food magazines, you have more than likely heard of fleur de sel, or French sea salt. The literal translation is flower of the sea.

Over the last year or so, celebrity chefs I follow have been making desserts that combine both sweet and salty, using fleur de sel. I love the combination of chocolate and salt, especially in the form or chocolate dipped pretzels, so the idea has always intrigued me.

I've seen numerous recipes for fleur de sel caramels and even bought some at a gourmet cooking store. The caramels were delicious.

I hadn't really planned on trying these recipes or even purchasing expensive fleur de sel, which is abundant on the Internet by the way, but some fell into my lap, so to speak. My sister and her family were in France this year and brought me a pretty little jar filled with the delicate, hand-harvested fleur de sel.

I thought I would make caramels, probably using the recipe I watched Ina Garten make on her Food Network show. But one day, while reading some food blogs, I stumbled across Salted Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies at Annie's Eats. The cookies looked delicious, and I had the ingredients on hand, so I made them.

The recipe is simple and straight-forward and mixes up quickly. As soon as the cookies started baking, my house smelled like a chocolate shop! I loved it.

I was unsure of adding the salt to the top of my beautiful cookies, so I only sprinkled it on a few, and I tried to be light-handed. Maybe I sprinkled too much, I don't know, but I thought they were a little too salty. But after I brushed off part of the salt, I enjoyed my cookies. But I'll be honest, I enjoyed the ones without the salt on top even more.

If you're curious about fleur de sel, like I was, give this recipe a try and see how you like it. Just go easy on the salt. But if you'd just like a good chocolate cookie recipe, try this one and omit the salt on top.

Salted Double Chocolate Cookies

Yield: About 24 cookies

Ingredients:

8 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 tbsp. unsalted butter
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. fleur de sel (sea salt), plus more for sprinkling*
2 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
12 oz. semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped (I used semi-sweet chocolate chips)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the 8 ounces chocolate chips and butter in a microwave safe bowl and cook for 30 seconds. Stir. If chips aren’t completely melted, cook another 15 seconds.

In another mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, brown sugar and vanilla. Beat on medium-high speed until the sugar has completely dissolved, about 4-5 minutes. Reduce the speed to low and add the melted chocolate mixture, blending until incorporated.

Add in the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Fold in the remaining chocolate chips with a spatula. Drop heaping tablespoons of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, about 2-3 inches apart or use a dough scoop.
Bake until the cookies are just slightly soft in the center and crackly on top, about 10-12 minutes.

Sprinkle lightly with additional salt if desired and let cool on the baking sheets 10 minutes.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

*If you don’t have fleur de sel aren’t planning to use salt for the top of your cookies, it’s fine to omit the salt and baking powder from the recipe and use self-rising flour instead.

Adapted from annies-eats.com

Add a little GREEN

2010-09-08T10:58:00.003-04:00

It's been four years since I shared my sister's version of Chicken Tetrazzini in this column, and now I'm pleased to give you Susan's latest version of the dish.

In the 2006 column, I told the story of how Susan first tried the recipe when a neighbor in Silver Spring, Md., brought over the dish after the birth of Susan's first daughter. Susan got the recipe from her neighbor and eventually adapted it, coming up with her own homemade sauce to replace the can of cream of chicken soup the original recipe called for.

I've made Susan's version of Chicken Tetrazzini many times for my family because they like it so much. And I know my readers made it, too, because so many of you e-mailed me or stopped me at the grocery story to tell me how much your family loved it.

Well, dear readers, Susan's newest version of this recipe is even healthier!

While our mother was sick earlier this past winter, Susan and her girls visited often, and many times, she would come with food for her and the girls because we knew we wouldn't have time to cook during her visits. During one of the weekend stays, Susan brought some frozen, individual servings of her Chicken Tetrazzini Florentine, made with spinach, as the name suggests, and whole wheat spaghetti. One of the servings didn't get eaten, so she left it behind for me.

I let it sit in my freezer for several weeks mostly because I wasn't sure if I'd like the change. But when I finally tried it, I was pleasantly surprised and actually craved it a few weeks later. So earlier this summer, I made Chicken Tetrazzini according to Susan's old recipe, but I used whole wheat spaghetti. I poured half of the prepared recipe in a small casserole dish, and to the other half, I added a half box of cooked and drained spinach. I made it both ways because I was pretty sure my children wouldn't try it if they saw green stuff in the tetrazzina. I was right, of course.

I made the tetrazzina again Sunday morning. I had cooked the chicken the day before in my slow cooker. This time I made a double recipe. I made the first the traditional way, but using whole wheat spaghetti; the second was made with whole wheat spaghetti also and spinach. My husband and I thoroughly enjoyed the florentine version when we got back from church. We each had a congealed fruit salad as our side dish.

So now I have lots and lots of Chicken Tetrazzina and Chicken Tetrazzini Florentine left in my refrigerator. I plan to follow my sister's lead and divide it by serving size, wrap it up and freeze it.

Chicken Tetrazzini

8 oz. box whole wheat spaghetti or linguine, cooked and drained
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 can heated chicken broth (I use reduced-fat, reduced-sodium)
1 1/2 cups heated milk (skim or 1 percent OK)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese or a blend
3 cups cooked, diced chicken breast*
1 10 oz. package frozen spinach, cooked and drained or squeezed to remove excess water
Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Start spaghetti cooking while you prepare this recipe. Break spaghetti roughly into thirds before dropping into boiling water.

Melt butter in large pan. Stir in flour and cook over medium heat 1 minute, whisking constantly to avoid sticking. Slowly whisk in chicken broth and milk (I heat together first in microwave in 4-cup Pyrex bowl for 4-5 minutes). Cook and stir until slightly thickened. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir in cheese until melted. Remove from heat. Add chicken, cooked spaghetti and spinach; stir to combine.

Pour and smooth in 9X13-inch baking dish. Top liberally with grated Parmesan cheese.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes, until heated through and lightly browned on top.

Can be frozen before baking; in fact, I often make a double recipe so I can freeze a second meal. If frozen, thaw in refrigerator overnight before baking, for best results. Also good with turkey.

*I cook boneless chicken breasts in the slow cooker. Just sprinkle a little (maybe 1/2 teaspoon) dry Italian dressing mix over chicken and add about a 1/4 cup of water. Let cook on low about 5 hours or until cooked through. The chicken will be very tender if cooked this way.

Boiled Peanuts

2010-09-01T11:12:00.001-04:00

About this time of year, my family starts looking in the classified section of the newspaper and just asking around to see who has freshly-dug peanuts for sale.

We love to make boiled peanuts a few times each fall.

If you've never made your own boiled peanuts, it's very easy. Your house will smell like boiled peanuts for a few days, but we think it's worth it!

Boiled Peanuts

5-6 pounds freshly-dug peanuts in shell
1/2 cup of salt
Water

Wash peanuts to get off remaining dirt. Place in large pot and fill with water. Bring to a boil. This might take as long as 30 minutes. Let boil for an hour. Occasionally stir peanuts, and add water if needed. After an hour, turn off heat and let sit for about 3 hours to let salt soak in.

Drain water and store peanuts in the refrigerator.

Packing Lunch

2010-08-25T11:18:00.004-04:00

A lot of sandwiches were packed up this morning and sent to school alongside a bag of chips and a cookie or two.

If you have children, odds are good you've packed a few lunches, either as a regular thing or just for a change of pace from the school lunchroom food.

I know I've packed my share of sandwiches, from bologna and cheese to peanut butter.

The first week or so, it's not so bad. But as the months go by, the child gets tired of eating the same ham sandwich, and who can blame him?

There are many ways to spice up a child's lunch box and many opportunities to work in nutritious meals.

One of the most important things is to ask the child what sounds good to him. What are the other kids taking that looks appealing? Are you willing to try something new?

If you're lucky, and you don't have a picky eater at home, there are plenty of options for some delicious and healthy lunches this school year.

* For starters, be creative with the breads you use for sandwiches. Whole-grain is preferred; if your child had rather have white bread, choose a white whole wheat option. We've bought several of these at my house, and we all like them.

If white bread isn't a necessity, then send lunch on different breads. Peanut butter is delicious on a bagel, either the full size or the newer thin-sliced bagels.

At my house, it's a big treat to have pimiento cheese on sunflower bread from our grocery store bakery; if the sandwich has been grilled first, it's a bigger treat. And yes, the grilled pimiento cheese sandwich is good cold.

And don't forget pita pockets, tortillas or sandwich wraps. Spread a little mayonnaise or mustard on a small tortilla, layer turkey and cheese and roll it up. There are so many options for sandwich wraps. A little dried tomato and lettuce will dress up a sandwich, so would a different cheese, such as swiss or mozzarella.

* Every now and then, forget the bread. Fill one small zippered bag with crackers, another with cheese squares or cubes and a third with some meat. You can choose pieces of bologna, ham, turkey or even slices of pepperoni (I buy turkey pepperoni). Chicken salad and ham salad are also good on crackers. When lunch comes, the child can make his own cracker sandwiches.

Another fun option is hummus with whole grain crackers or pita chips. Put the hummus in a small plastic container with the crackers in a separate bag. It's easy for the child to dip the crackers into the hummus for a change of pace.

* Hummus makes a nice dip for carrot sticks as well. If your child doesn't like hummus, pack a little of his favorite low-fat salad dressing to dip the carrots or celery in.

* Fruit is always a lunch box favorite, but don't limit the choice to an apple or a banana.

Strawberries are delicious for lunch, but be sure to wash them and take off the stem to make it easier for the child to eat. If it requires extra work, many kids will not make the effort.

A sandwich bag full of crunchy grapes is also a good option.

Peeled and sectioned clementines are one of my favorites for my own lunch. Clementines have no seeds unlike a tangerine, so they are especially child-friendly.

Keep individual-size containers of fruit such as peaches and pears or even applesauce on hand for those occasions when you don't have fresh fruit in the house.

* Most kids want chips with their lunch. If you want a healthier option, check out the many baked chips on the market now or pack a bag of pretzels.

*If you have a small thermos, make a bowl of soup in the morning or a box of your child's favorite macaroni and cheese. Spiral pasta mixed with your homemade spaghetti sauce would also be a nice treat for lunch.

If your child loves pasta salad, pack it in the thermos, but don't forget the fork! I've included a new pasta salad recipe I've made a few times this summer. I love it for lunch.

* Some kids expect a sweet treat in their lunch box. If you're worried about packing high-fat cookies each day, look for healthier options, such as graham crackers, or make your own treats, knowing you can control the ingredients.

* If you've packed items such as sandwiches made with meats and mayonnaise, pimiento cheese, chicken or ham salad, hummus or salad dressing (or anything else perishable), be sure to include a refrigerator pack or a frozen juice box in your child's lunch box to keep the food cool until it's time to eat

Honey Mustard Pasta Salad

1 lb. box tri-color pasta twists or whole wheat pasta twists
1 to 1 1/2 cups honey mustard salad dressing (I used Paul Newman’s Own Light Honey Mustard)
Any of your favorite mix-ins including yellow, green or red bell peppers; cucumbers; and carrots

Cook pasta according to package instructions. Drain and rinse. Pour into large bowl and mix with 1 to 1 1/2 cups dressing. Stir in vegetables. Store in refrigerator.

Snack bars loaded with favorite flavors

2010-08-18T11:16:00.003-04:00

Several years ago, my husband and I started eating a lot of breakfast bars or granola bars.

During our weekly shopping trip, we always stop for a few minutes on the cereal aisle just to check out the latest offering of granola and fruit bars. There are so many on the market now that it's hard to keep up with all the new products. There are bars made from packaged cereals, nuts, dried fruit, oatmeal, peanut butter and chocolate.

Reggie and I particularly like the peanut butter varieties or anything with a lot of nuts, including almonds and sunflower seeds. I keep a stash of these breakfast bars in my desk drawer at work and will often have one for a mid-morning snack. It's a treat to pull out a granola bar filled with crunchy almonds!

But I like making my own treats, too.

Last week, I tried to think of some recipes that would be good for back-to-school, whether it be breakfast, snack or lunch for students or teachers. I searched the Internet for some ideas on breakfast bars and came upon a wonderful recipe that is totally versatile and can be tailored to your taste.

The recipe doesn't require baking, but you do need to heat the peanut butter/ honey/ brown sugar mixture on the stove.

The next step is up to you. The recipe calls for five cups of dry cereal, your choice, and a half to one cup (or more) of add-ins such as dried fruit, nuts or chocolate chips.

I made my first batch Sunday before moving my son back to college. I wanted him to try them.

I chose chunky peanut butter, five cups of Rice Krispies and a half cup of chocolate chips.

The recipe I used as a guideline said to boil the peanut butter mixture, but my ingredients got hot way to fast and started to stick and burn, so I turned down the heat, picked out the little burned pieces, and opted not to let the mixture boil. I let it cook until it was thinned out. The next time I made it, I let the mixture start to bubble; the bars turned out too hard to even cut.

Follow the directions on this one, and stir constantly. Use a non-stick pan if you have one. If you've ever made Rice Krispies Treats, you know what marshmallow/ butter mixture looks like after it's cooked. Go for a similar consistency.

I added the chocolate chips after stirring in the cereal. The mixture was still very warm, and the chocolate chips melted quickly. I only added 1âÑ2 cup of chocolate chips, but it looks like so much more because the chips melted. (That's a good thing in my book!)

The breakfast bars don't hold together at first. But once they've cooled enough to touch, press down the mixture firmly into the pan, or use a piece of waxed paper to press down if the bars are too hot to touch. Once they have cooled, they should firm up nicely.

I think the end result was awesome. I loved the taste and the texture of the peanuts and cereal, and so did my family. And, of course, the chocolate added a nice touch. The cut bars are also pretty, revealing a nice pattern of peanut butter/ honey mixed with the cereal.

I keep imagining new combinations for this recipe. I want to make it with two cups of oatmeal and three cups of Rice Krispies, and I want to try it with granola and maybe dried fruit. I'm sure Cheerios would be good, too.

I had a bar for my mid-morning snack today. I loved the chewy texture and the peanut butter flavor with the slight taste of honey. This recipe is most definitely a keeper and would be a great treat for those of you going back to school.

Peanut Butter Honey Breakfast Bars

1 1/2 cups crunchy peanut butter*
1 cup honey
3/4 cup brown sugar
5 cups Rice Krispies
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Combine peanut butter, honey and brown sugar in saucepan. Warm over low heat, stirring constantly until mixture thins and is very hot. Be careful not to let it stick to the pan or get too hot. Remove from heat, add in cereal, then mix in chocolate chips. Pour into square baking dish. Press down mixture firmly with a buttered spatula or waxed paper.

*Adapted from cooks.com

Remembering Cathy

2010-08-17T08:29:00.001-04:00

My cousin Cathy should be turning 50 Wednesday, but she won’t.
I should be calling to tease her about being so old, but I can’t.
Our dear Cathy is gone.
Cathy died Jan. 21. It was out-of-the blue, completely unexpected. We were totally unprepared. But who is ever prepared to lose someone you love? Someone who was busy at a work event one evening and found dead in her hotel room the next morning? How does anyone know what’s lurking inside them and what’s coming next?
Cathy was a rock to her family. She was our Boykin family planner. The cousin who remembered birthdays and sent cards. Her Christmas card was always one of the prettiest ones I displayed. She was still sending them years after I stopped the practice.
She was the cousin who bought special gifts. She gave my granddaughter, Sora, a dainty layette set when she was born. Sora wore it to my daddy’s funeral.
Cathy was so devoted to her family; I learned a lot from her. Once, she told me she’d been criticized for being too involved with her parents, who had numerous doctor visits and hospital stays. But she ignored the criticisms and stayed by their side whenever they needed her, keeping a close eye on the medical staff caring for them. She was a hawk and loved her parents with a intensity and a sense of devotion that few children have. She also knew how much we all cared about what was going when her parents were sick, and she’d send us wonderful e-mails to keep us in touch.
Her mother, my Aunt Nellie Rose, died about two years ago. It was so hard on Cathy, who had no children of her own, but was a tender and loving caregiver to her mom and dad. We talked about it a lot.
My own parents were very ill at the time, and she helped me cope. She’d call or e-mail to check on me and to ask about Aunt Helen and Uncle H. Her phone calls always began with, “This is your cousin Cathy!”
Cathy headed straight to Wilson when she heard Daddy had died, just a few months after her mama’s passing. She guided me through the process and made sure Susan and I were safely tucked in the kitchen and out of sight when the funeral home came to pick up my daddy. She didn’t want us to see him leaving the house for the last time.
A few days later, at the funeral, Cathy arrived at the church with N.C. State tissues, a thoughtful tribute to Daddy, who loved the Wolfpack.
After Daddy died, she shared her own troubles dealing with her mother’s loss and helped me realize what I was experiencing was normal.
Not only was Cathy devoted to her husband and immediate family of parents, sisters, nieces and a nephew, she also helped take care of our aging Aunt Alice, who now lives in an assisted care facility in Wilson. She and our cousin Nancy would often meet to take Aunt Alice shopping for clothes or to K&W Cafeteria for lunch. They also had a standing date twice a year to change out Aunt Alice’s clothes to prepare for the next season. It was all about responsibility and dedication for Cathy.
I try to dwell on our younger, carefree years when I think of Cathy and the fun times we had as adults.
I remember all the Boykin cousins playing at our grandparents’ home in Rock Ridge. I grin when I think how Cathy and I got a strange pleasure in leaving our younger siblings, Betsy and Susan, out of our playtimes. I know, it was mean, but we were kids.
I remember the Fridays Daddy dropped me off at the Lassiter household to play with Debbie, Cathy and Betsy all day while he worked in the office in Raleigh. It was such a treat to play with those girls.
And I fondly recall the dinners I shared with Cathy and Nancy at Beefmastor. Cathy insisted on paying every time we went out. She said we had expenses she didn’t have and to please let her treat us. She wouldn’t even let us pay the tip.
Cathy was special to all of our family, and the band of cousins will never be the same without her. But we’ll remember her as the cousin who loved N.C. State sports, who married sweet Bob Voron in a beautiful rose garden ceremony, who loved her family, who flew to cool destinations with her job, who helped me book my first airline flight in 25 years, who helped her grieving daddy, our Uncle Jimmy, deal with the loss of his beloved wife.
We’ll remember Cathy loved her dog Moocher, and she loved us. She was as good a cousin as any girl could ask for.
The last time I had communication with Cathy was just a few days before she died. Mama had fallen and fractured her pelvis and was moved to the palliative care unit at Wilson Medical Center. When Cathy returned from her business trip, she wanted to come see Aunt Alice and Aunt Helen.
I often read that email, dated Jan. 18, when I think of Cathy. Her compassion is summed up in this one correspondence:
“Oh Lisa,
How horrible for your Mom. I can't stand this — just when you think she might be turning the corner for the better, more catastrophe. How are you holding up — I know you are exhausted. Please let me know how you all are doing, and if I can help in anyway. I was planning to visit Aunt Alice on Saturday, so I could sit with your Mom if you need me.”
You don't know how much I wish she could have made that visit

Bow Tie Lasagna

2010-08-11T10:50:00.002-04:00

Rachael Ray hit a chord with today's cooks when she started promoting 30-minute meals.

So many of us work outside the home during the week and don't have time to monitor the oven while a roast cooks or spend 20 to 30 minutes chopping, dicing, browning and mixing a casserole before letting it cook another 30-45 minutes. Instead, we want recipes that are quick, but we want them to be good.

I'm always looking for a good, satisfying meal that I can put on the table quickly when I get home from work.

A few weeks ago, I ran across a recipe for Bow Tie Lasagna on the hugely popular Web site, www.thepioneerwoman.com. The recipe is featured on Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond's sister site, Tasty Kitchen. Ree tagged this recipe a 16-minute meal, and, you know what, you really can make it that quickly or at least close to that!

The trick, of course, is to be organized. Don't do your shopping on the way home from work. Have the ingredients at home. Often, I'll place non-perishable recipe items for the night's meal on the kitchen counter during my lunch break or even the night before. I also leave the printed recipe on the counter so I don't have to hunt for it when I get home from work. And I work in advance as often as I can. For instance, my husband and I have gotten in the habit of washing and tearing lettuce and storing it in a zippered bag so when we're preparing weeknight meals and want a fresh salad, all we have to do is taking the bag of lettuce from the refrigerator. We add a tomato and bell pepper from our garden and have a quick, fresh salad.

Anyway, back to the lasagna dish.

I've made this recipe three times now and find it very simple to prepare: Start the water boiling for the pasta, then brown the beef while the bow ties cook. Once the pasta and ground beef are ready, it's only a matter of mixing the ingredients together and letting the cheese melt.

Serve the dish with a fresh salad and a loaf of bread. I often splurge on my breads and try any number of options from the bakery at the grocery store.

This dish is no ways as heavy as a regular lasagna recipe that uses much more cheese. It only calls for 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese and 1/2 cup sour cream.

My family really enjoyed this simple dish and frowned when I made it the second time because I was making it for someone else's family and not for them!

I think one reason we liked it so much was the pasta sauce. Instead of using my old standby brand and flavor, which I still love, I bought an entirely new pasta sauce, Paul Newman's Sockaroni, which gave the entire dish a different flavor.

We had leftovers when I made this dish for my family. I really enjoyed them warmed over for lunch the next day. Again, no heavy meat and cheese dish, just a nice change from the regular fare.

I feel certain I will keep this recipe as a regular in my family's meal rotation. I might even try it with ground turkey next time.

Bow Tie Lasagna

1 pound ground chuck*
5 cups bow tie noodles (cooked)
3 cups spaghetti sauce
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese
1/2 cup sour cream

Cook ground beef in small pan. Meanwhile, cook noodles according to package directions.

After noodles are cooked, drain and drizzle with olive oil. Mix in spaghetti sauce. Add cooked beef, seasonings, cheese and sour cream. Fold together and allow it all to combine and melt, over low heat, for about 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

Tasty Kitchen

* I made a few changes. I used lean ground beef, oregano instead of Italian Seasoning and reduced fat sour cream. I cooked my beef in a large skillet and mixed the other ingredients in the skillet instead of the pasta pot; it was tight fit! I cooked the entire package of bow ties and had enough left over for a small pasta salad.

Grape Tomatoes Galore

2010-08-04T10:42:00.004-04:00

Overflowing. The vines and now our kitchen bowls and countertop have been overflowing with grape tomatoes this summer.

Unlike their larger counterparts that grow one row over in our raised bed gardens, the grape tomatoes are not smaller and cracking open thanks to the hot, dry summer. They are bright red and plump.

So, what do you do with quart after quart of bite-size tomatoes?

My husband and I have eaten our fair share in salads this summer, but, honestly, I'd much prefer a slice of a vine-ripened, larger tomatoes for a salad if one's available.

So that sent me looking for new ways to use our grape tomatoes.

The first thing I made was a very simple bruschetta from Rachael Ray on the Food Network Web site. Although recipes for the easy Italian appetizer don't mention using grape tomatoes, they are perfect for this before-dinner treat. Grape tomatoes aren't too juicy, and they are easily cut into cubes without really losing their shape. And, to make it even better, I was able to use fresh basil, which is also growing in my backyard. That means all I had to buy for the bruschetta was a small loaf of Italian bread because I already had garlic on hand.

Reggie and I ate so much bruschetta the first time I made it that we almost forgot to eat the main course!

Even after making bruschetta a few times, plenty of grape tomatoes were left sitting on my countertop. So I went back to my search for new recipes. I really wasn't looking for a soup recipe. It's much too hot for soup, right? Turns out I was wrong, this tomato-based soup is so smooth, light and delicious that it was actually a wonderful treat for a hot Sunday night meal with my sister, Susan, and her girls.

The recipe is Roasted Grape Tomato, Corn and Pasta Ribbon Soup. I found it online at www.muellerspasta.com.

Once I saw that the grape tomatoes and corn are roasted along with garlic, I knew I had to make it. One of my favorite new recipes from last summer starts with a variety of roasted vegetables, including grape tomatoes. I love roasting vegetables and knew the addition of fresh corn, which we had purchased at the farmers market, would make a delicious combination.

The recipe isn't complicated. It takes a little time to cook because the tomatoes must roast for a half hour.

The recipe suggests pouring the soup into a blender to puree. Instead, I used my immersion blender. My immersion blender doesn't do as smooth a job blending, but it was perfect for this soup, I thought, because although the base was smooth, it left a few pieces of corn and tomato, adding a nice texture to the dish.

I made several changes to the recipe. The original recipe said to roast the fresh rosemary with the vegetables. I don't like rosemary very much, neither does Susan, as it turns out, so I left it out. I've never found a vegetable broth I particularly like, so I used low-sodium, low-fat chicken broth. I also omitted the balsamic vinegar and black pepper, because we liked the way the soup tasted without those ingredients. My husband did add apple cider vinegar to his soup and said it was a very good addition.

We never found the specific pasta called for in the recipe, whole grain wide pasta ribbons. Instead, Susan picked up another whole grain fettucine. Really, any pasta would work. Next time I make it, I'll pick a small, whole grain pasta.

I have so many grape tomatoes on hand right now, that I'm going to make a double batch of the soup this week for the freezer. I'll omit the pasta for now but will add it when I'm ready to eat it.

Bruschetta with Tomato and Basil

1/2 baguette or crusty long loaf bread, sliced (12 pieces)
2 large cloves garlic, cracked away from skin
Extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
3 small plum tomatoes, halved and seeded (I used grape tomatoes)
20 fresh basil leaves (I didn’t use that many)
Coarse salt

Preheat broiler to high, (if you prefer you can also grill the bread). Place bread slices on a broiler pan. Char bread on each side under hot broiler, keep an eye on it. Rub toasts with cracked garlic and drizzle with oil. Chop seeded tomatoes and place in a small bowl. Pile basil leaves on top of one another and roll into a log. Thinly slice basil into green confetti and loosely combine with tomatoes. Add a drizzle of oil and a little coarse salt to the bowl and gently toss tomatoes and basil to coat. Pile toasts around the bowl of topping. Place a spoon to scoop topping in bowl and serve.

Rachael Ray

Roasted Grape Tomato and Corn Ribbon Soup

6 oz. whole grain pasta (fettucine or small pasta should work fine)
2 pints grape tomatoes
2 cups fresh or frozen corn kernels
4 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
5 cups low-sodium, low-fat chicken stock
2 tablespoons chopped fresh, optional
Fresh ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine grape tomatoes, corn and garlic. Toss with olive oil. Pour onto baking sheet, prepared with olive oil or covered with parchment paper. Roast in oven for 30 minutes. Tomatoes will start to split. Let cool slightly. Mash garlic with a fork.

Spoon vegetables into large stock pot and add 1 cup of chicken broth. Blend with immersion blender until desired consistency. (You can also use a blender.) I like to leave a few pieces of vegetables, but leave most of the soup smooth.

Add remaining stock and bring to a boil.

Stir in pasta and simmer until pasta is tender but firm, following cooking times on package.

Garnish with basil and pepper if desired.

* The original recipe from Muellers roasts 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary with the vegetables, uses vegetable stock instead of chicken broth and mixes in a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar to the finished product before pouring into soup bowls.

Don't heat up the kitchen

2010-07-28T11:08:00.002-04:00

I love my slow cooker in the winter because it's always handy for soups and stews and roasts and everything that tastes good when it's cold outside. But I also love it in the summer because it keeps my kitchen cool while at the same time cooking my dinner!

For supper Monday, my family had a deliciously tender turkey breast, thanks to the miracle of a slow cooker. I cook a turkey breast this way quite often because I love the leftovers. The first night, I make hot turkey sandwiches or just serve the turkey with a few side dishes. During the week I make turkey salad at lunch, and by Wednesday or Thursday, we're ready for shredded turkey simmered in my homemade barbecue sauce.

But on Friday night, we dined on Sloppy Joes that cooked only four hours in a slow cooker. Once again, my kitchen didn't have to be heated up.

The Sloppy Joe recipe is one I found online at myrecipes.com. It was originally published in Southern Living three years ago. The recipe had a number of favorable reviews, so I decided to try it, making only a few changes.

This recipe uses not only ground beef but sausage as well. I don't use pork sausage very often, so I substituted turkey sausage. I also cut the brown sugar from 1/4 cup to 2 tablespoons, and, because I'm not a big fan, I used just a teaspoon of chili powder instead of a tablespoon.

I turned the slow cooker to low on the last hour of cooking and would probably cook it on low the entire time the next time I make it, but I seem to think my slow cooker cooks a little too hot. If you're home, just keep an eye on it.

This recipe yields a very thick, very tasty Sloppy Joe. We thought it was very good. My husband had seconds and ate another sandwich for lunch the next day. My son, Robert, sprinkled grated mozzarella cheese on his and said it was a good addition.

Robert goes back to college in a few weeks. He asked me over the weekend if I could make some of his favorite foods before he leaves. He said I'd been needing my Crockpot! I've included some of his favorites that would work well in this hot summer weather.

Slow-cooker Sloppy Joes

1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 (16-oz.) package ground pork sausage*
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 medium-size green bell pepper, chopped
1 (8-oz.) can tomato sauce
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons cider vinegar
2 tablespoons yellow mustard
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
8 hamburger buns, toasted

Brown beef and sausage with onion and bell pepper in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat, stirring 10 minutes or until beef and sausage crumble and are no longer pink. Drain well.

Place beef mixture in a 4 1/2-quart slow cooker. Stir in tomato sauce and next 9 ingredients. Cover and cook on HIGH 4 hours. Serve on hamburger buns.

Cooktop Method: Proceed with recipe as directed in Step 1, returning drained beef mixture to Dutch oven. Stir in tomato sauce and next 8 ingredients, omitting flour. Bring mixture to a boil over medium-high heat. Cover, reduce heat to medium, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 30 minutes.

Prep: 15 min., Cook: 45 min.

Note: To freeze leftover Sloppy Joe mixture, let cool completely. Place in zip-top plastic freezer bags; lay bags flat, and stack in freezer. Freeze up to 1 month. Thaw overnight in the fridge, or defrost in the microwave.

Mandy Fugate, Orange City, Florida, Southern Living, April 2007

*Note: I used turkey sausage, and cut brown sugar to 2 tablespoons and chili powder to 1 teaspoon.

Slow Cooker Macaroni and Cheese

8 oz. box (2 cups) elbow macaroni (uncooked)
8 oz. light Velveeta, cut into cubes*
4 cups milk (I used 1 percent.)
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon salt

Pour all ingredients into slow cooker and mix until combined. (I use a disposable, slow cooker liner to make for a very easy clean up. They are sold on the aisle with oven cooking bags.)

For best results, cook on low for 3 hours and high for 1 hour. If possible, mix every hour to keep from sticking. If you won’t be at home while it cooks, it will do fine without stirring and cooked on low for maybe 5 hours. I used to cook this on high for 4 hours but found it works best cooking slower.

* When I cannot find an 8 oz. light Velveeta. I cut the 16 oz. in half and save the other half for up to several weeks in the refrigerator.

Slow Cooker Turkey Breast

Thawed turkey breast (make sure it’s a size that will fit your slow cooker*)
Salt and pepper to taste

Place turkey breast in slow cooker. Be sure to remove the giblet or turkey bag if there is one. Do not add water to the slow cooker; it will make plenty of broth, I promise. Cook on low all day, around 8 hours. Don’t open lid while cooking.

*If the turkey breast is a little bit too tall and the lid won’t completely close when you place it in your slow cooker, don’t be too worried. When the breast starts to cook, it will shrink, and the lid will close.

Dilly Beef Sandwiches

1 boneless beef chuck roast or beef bottom round (3 to 4 pounds)
1 jar (16 ozs.) whole dill pickles, undrained
1/2 cup chili sauce
2 garlic cloves, minced (I omitted)
10 to 12 hamburger rolls, split

Cut roast in half and place in a slow cooker. Add pickles with juice, chili sauce* and garlic. Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours or until beef is tender. Discard pickles. Remove roast.
When cool enough to handle, shred the meat. Return to the sauce and heat through. Using a slotted spoon, fill each bun with about 1/2 cup meat mixture.

Yields 10 to 12 servings.

*Note: You will find the chili sauce near the ketchup in your grocery store.

Sweet way to enjoy fruit

2010-07-21T10:49:00.003-04:00

One of the nicest things about going to someone's house to eat is trying a new recipe. Eating someone else's baked beans. Enjoying someone else's potato salad. Don't you agree?

On July 4, my family and I had a wonderful dinner at the home of my cousin Martha Cayton and her husband, John.

Some of us swam in the pool, some of us sat by the pool and enjoyed the conversation, but we all ate heartily.

One of the highlights of the evening was Martha's dessert: a fruit pizza. She had told me she was making it, and I had looked forward to it for days. I've seen several versions of this dish and couldn't wait to see how Martha made it.

We all loved the fruit pizza. It was a delicious and light dessert for a hot summer day.

Martha used a very simple recipe, which I also made over the weekend.

The crust is a tube of refrigerated sugar cookie dough. I made my "pizza" in a disposable pizza pan and was able to easily make it stretch to cover the entire pan. The dough had gotten very soft in my hot kitchen, though, so if you have trouble pressing it to fit the pan, let the dough get to room temperature and use your fingers to stretch it out across the pan.

There are several steps to this recipe, so you have to think ahead to get them all done.

While the cookie was baking, I prepped my fruit, except for the peaches. I was afraid they would turn brown so I waited to cut them just before putting them on the dessert. I also used strawberries, blueberries and kiwi. This was the first time I had used kiwi. I looked online for suggestions on peeling it. I followed the directions I found and cut 1/4 inch from each end of the fruit and gently inserted a teaspoon between the green fruit and the brown skin. I ran my spoon around the fruit to make a complete circle. Then I was able to pop out the green fruit, which was ready to be sliced. Martha used the same fruit on hers but said she has also made it with bananas and fresh pineapple.

I also made the cream cheese filling and started the citrus glaze while the cookie cooked and cooled. (Carefully watch the cookie as it bakes; you don't want to overbake it and make the crust too hard.)

By the time the cookie had cooled, I was ready to assemble my dessert.

You should think in advance how you want to arrange the fruit on your pizza. Martha arranged her fruit in a circular pattern, and I did the same thing. I cut too much fruit but used it all anyway by layering the strawberries and blueberries for my final and largest circle.

Applying the citrus glaze is the last step. There's plenty glaze to go around, but take it easy, and spread just a little bit at a time. Make sure to completely cover the peaches or any other fruit you use that might brown otherwise.

We ate the majority of our pizza in less than two hours after I made it and put it in the refrigerator. We couldn't wait. The cookie was a little firm then but was really too soft 24 hours later when we ate the few remaining leftovers. Martha and I both recommend eating the pizza on the same day you make it.

While eating my fruit pizza Sunday afternoon, my sister, nieces, daughter and I discussed other options for a dessert pizza. Just think of the variations using peanut butter or chocolate chip cookies, frostings, nuts, whipped cream and chocolate chips. It all sounds good to me!

Fruit Pizza

Crust:

1 package (16.5 oz.) sugar cookie dough

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slice cookie dough into 1/8” slices and arrange in circles on a pizza pan. Press and smooth cookie dough slices together to cover the pan. If you have trouble making it stretch, allow the dough to come to room temperature; it will be easier to handle then.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. Cool completely.

Filling:

1 8 ounce package cream cheese, softened (Reduced-fat works fine.)
1/2 of an 8 ounce carton of whipped topping
2 tablespoons sugar

Beat cream cheese and sugar till fluffy. Fold in Cool Whip.

Spread on cooled cookie crust leaving the edge of the cookie crust uncovered.

Fruit topping:

1 cup blueberries
1 large kiwi, sliced thinly in circles
2 fresh peaches, sliced thinly
1/2 pint strawberries, sliced
You can use other fruits as well, including bananas and pineapple.

Arrange fruit over cream cheese filling.

Orange glaze:

1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp. grated orange peel
Dash of salt
1/4 cup water

In a small saucepan, combine sugar, salt and cornstarch. Gradually add the liquid ingredients and grated orange peel. Cook over medium heat till mixture bubbles for about 3 minutes until thickened. Cool and spoon over fruit.

Make sure to cover any fruit that might turn brown.

Refrigerate and cut into pizza slices to serve. Best if eaten the same day it is made.

Martha Cayton

Quick pickles

2010-07-14T10:36:00.002-04:00

When my husband and I planted our little raised bed garden this spring, we included several pickling cucumber plants. We are both pickle-lovers, especially Reggie, and liked the idea of making our own.

When I think of pickle-making, several things come to mind. I remember big white buckets brimming with cucumbers on the floor in Mama's kitchen, large canning jars sterilized and ready for packing, and the unforgettable smell of pickling spice simmering in a pot of vinegar and sugar. I also remember a piece of notebook paper with detailed instructions about soaking cucumbers in a lime bath and on how to care for the pickles on Day 2 and Day 9 and Day 14.

That's not the image I'll remember from our pickle-making experience this year. We went the easy route, making microwave pickles in less than 15 minutes. I kid you not.

Granted, we didn't make enough pickles to last the year, but that's OK. We can make more.

We've made the bread and butter pickles several times now. The first time, we followed the advice of someone who left a review on the recipe, suggesting the cucumbers be added to the spicy vinegar and sugar solution after it had cooked. The reviewer said the sliced pickles would be firmer or crisper if they weren't microwaved. So we tried it. I didn't like the way they looked, and the first time I tried them, I thought they tasted like cucumbers soaked in pickle juice, which is exactly what they were.

Reggie liked them, though, and ate them. He said they got better each day as the cucumbers, stored in the refrigerator, soaked up the syrup.

A few weeks later, co-worker Carol Smithwick offered me one of her microwave pickles. It was delicious. She later gave me the recipe, and I discovered it was the very same recipe Reggie and I had used. The difference? She cooked her cucumbers in the microwave.

So later that week, Reggie and I gathered a few cucumbers left from our garden and added some I had purchased at the farmer's market, and we made two more batches. This time, we followed the recipe and cooked the cucumbers along with the vinegar/ sugar solution.

Within a few minutes, the house started smelling just like Mama and Daddy's kitchen at pickle-making time. The aroma of pickling spice and vinegar made my taste buds scream for pickles!

I let the cucumbers cool a little before pouring them into the 16 oz. plastic freezer jars we had purchased. One recipe fits perfectly in the containers, but you can certainly use something else. After the pickles cooled a little more, we put them in the refrigerator. We waited 24 hours to try them, allowing the flavors to soak in. We were very happy with the results. We finished the first jar in less than a week!

I didn't want to waste the leftover pickle juice and onions that hadn't been eaten, so I cut up another 2 cups of cucumbers from our garden and made another batch, once again cooking the cucumbers, this time in the juice and spices left from the first batch. The pickles were delicious and only get better each day.

I hope the cucumber vines keep producing a few more weeks so we can make some more pickles!

The recipe here reflects the way Carol and I made our pickles. I think it's interesting that we made the same changes to the original recipe. We both used apple cider vinegar instead of white (just like our mamas used when making pickles) and instead of using mustard seed, tumeric and celery seed to spice up the pickles, we used pickling spice.

I know there are many of you out there who still make pickles the old-fashioned way, and I salute you. I always get homemade pickles when I'm in a covered dish meal line because I know they will be delicious. But for those of us who are afraid of canning or just don't have the patience to can large quantities, this really is a good alternative.

Microwave Bread and Butter Pickles

2 to 2 1/2 cups sliced cucumbers
1 cup sliced Vidalia onions
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon pickling spice*

Turkey burgers a delicious alternative

2010-07-07T11:19:00.001-04:00

My fascination with turkey burgers started this winter while I was frequenting the cafeteria at Wilson Medical Center. My mother was hospitalized, and many days I was eating all three meals in the downstairs cafeteria. I'd usually alternated my meals between the cafeteria line, the bountiful salad bar and the grill.

One of my favorite menu items at the grill was the turkey burger. I had made turkey burgers before from a recipe my sister gave me, but this turkey burger was the first one I bought at a restaurant, and I loved it. I was first drawn to it because the cafeteria posted the nutritional information for both a beef cheeseburger and a turkey burger. The turkey burger had 9.5 grams of fat with 203 calories. In comparison, the cheeseburger had 24 grams of fat and 476 calories. I couldn't bring myself to eat the cheeseburger!

I dressed up the turkey burger with my favorite condiments and thoroughly enjoyed it every time I bought it.

When my cafeteria days ended and I had no one to cook for me three times a day, I still craved those turkey burgers and bought some frozen patties from the grocery store and made them myself. They were very good, but I wanted to try something else.

I did what I do so many times when I try something new -- I read a number of turkey burger recipes and came up with my own. After making the burgers once or twice, I tweaked the recipe some more, cutting back on the onion soup mix to lower the sodium and dropping the egg, which isn't really necessary. My version is very simple and takes only a few minutes to assemble. (A few weeks ago, we published a turkey burger recipe that I'm sure is quite good, but mine is more streamlined in its preparation and needs very ingredients.)

My husband and I still pile on our favorite burger toppings, choosing from mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, bread and butter pickles, lettuce and tomato. He's added cheese to his a few times, but I haven't tried it that way yet. We also make the turkey burgers on multi-grain sandwich thins. Have you tried these yet? They are very thin and flat and quite tasty. We really like them for variety and use the leftovers for egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches or even grilled pimiento cheese.

So far, Reggie and I are the only ones who have eaten turkey burgers at my house, so there are two leftover burgers each time I make them. I warm them in a skillet at lunch the next day, and they are just as delicious as the night before.

I'm really glad I have this recipe. Burgers are probably Reggie's favorite food, but I feel guilty whenever I make them (and I do still make them occasionally.) But he really likes turkey burgers because he can layer on mustard and pickles and ketchup and enjoy the taste without so much guilt.

My sister tells me she has a delicious black bean burger recipe, so stay tuned; I might try that next!

Seasoned Turkey Burgers

1 package ground turkey (the package I buy weights 1 1/3 pounds)
1 tablespoon Lipton Onion Soup Mix
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 1/2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

Mix all ingredients well, making sure to evenly distribute the soup mix. I start out with a spoon and then use my hands. Make into 4 patties.

Cook 3 minutes on one side; flip and cook about 3 minutes on the other side or until cooked through. (I cook mine on a George Foreman Grill.)

Serve on bun with favorite condiments. I use multi-gain sandwich thins for this burger.

If you have leftovers, reheat slowly in a skillet.

Garden fresh

2010-06-30T11:40:00.004-04:00

Last night, my husband and I each made a delicious salad to go along with our meal. The salads were so fresh and good and were made from tomatoes, green bell pepper and a cucumber from our raised bed garden.
We've been eating the cucumbers for several weeks, and just a few days ago had our first, ripe and juicy tomato. Last night, we added a very tender and tasty bell pepper to our salad. I really love homegrown bell peppers; they are so much better than their thick-skinned cousins I buy at the supermarket.
Reggie and I have loved our little garden, outlined from 2X4s we found stored under my Daddy's shed. We visit the garden several times a day, just to check on things. Over the weeks, we've gotten excited over the first cucumber, the siting of the first watermelon and the first red tomato. I know, we're silly, but it's really been fun for us.
Our newest discovery this week was a few crop of tiny cantaloupes! I had given up on them and had decided I might just pull up the vines and plant pumpkins instead. Buy my patience paid off. We have five or six walnut-size, fuzzy green cantaloupes growing in the garden now with two more up to the size of an orange. Anna and I love cantaloupes and can't wait to see if these grow to be as sweet as some of the ones we've bought this summer.
This weekend, I'm going to make a roasted vegetable pasta dish and will use our abundant supply of grape tomatoes, a zucchini I bought at the farmer's market today, and one or two of my bell peppers. I know I'll be stingy with my peppers. I'm hoping to have enough one day to make some stuffed peppers.
I'm so glad Reggie and I decided to do the raised bed garden this year. We never had much luck with patio tomatoes and peppers. It was expensive to fill the plot with bagged garden soil and manure, but it was worth it. We've enjoyed working side-by-side, having something different to talk about and now relish in our little harvest.

Blueberry goodness

2010-06-30T10:49:00.001-04:00

I hope you like blueberries because I have another delicious and simple recipe to take advantage of those plump berries in grocery stores and farmers markets right now.

My cousin Betty passed along the recipe for Blueberry Oat Bars recently. I stuffed it in my pocketbook and forgot about it until last week. I'm so glad I found it!

The recipe is a simple one-bowl recipe that mixes up in just a few minutes. There are no complicated ingredients; in fact, the only item I had to buy was the blueberries. Everything else was in my pantry or refrigerator.

I only made a few changes. The original recipe called for margarine, but I used butter. It also recommended a glaze of powdered sugar and milk added after the cake had cooled, but I opted for cinnamon sugar instead, which I sprinkled on before baking.

The result is a very moist cake with delicious berries enhanced by the undercurrent of cinnamon. This cake is delicious as a dessert but would be equally good for breakfast or brunch.

I'm already thinking of ways to expand on this recipe. It would definitely be good with apples and nuts instead of blueberries. And I'm thinking it would make a simple and tasty cake without the fruit. Just top the cake with chocolate syrup or frosting. It's so easy to make, you could mix it up on the spur of the moment to treat the family to a weeknight dessert.

But try it with the blueberries first!

Blueberry Oat Bars

2 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
3/4 cup milk
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
Cinnamon sugar

Cream butter and sugars. Add eggs and beat well. Add vanilla and milk and mix well. Add flour and oats and mix until combined. With spoon stir in blueberries coated with flour or sugar. (I took 2 tablespoons of sugar from the 3/4 cup and tossed it with the blueberries).

Pour batter into greased 9x9 pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake at 325 for 35-40 minutes until golden brown.

Cool treats for July 4

2010-06-23T11:08:00.003-04:00

There's something special about July 4. It's right in the middle of the lazy days of summer, when we're already in a laid-back mood.

It's not one of the high-pressure holidays. You don't have to buy gifts, cook a turkey or come up with the perfect card for your sweetheart. You just get to enjoy it. At my house, that usually means cooking on the grill or at least eating picnic foods, even if we buy the fried chicken from a restaurant and team it with locally grown corn on the cob.

And although the menu has changed from year to year -- maybe hot dogs one year and cheeseburgers the next -- I have made a flag cake almost every year since I had children. I know you've seen this cake: yellow cake in large Pyrex dish, frosted with vanilla frosting or Kool Whip and decorated with strawberries and blueberries to resemble the American flag.

This time of year, women's magazines have all kind of recipes that incorporate a patriotic theme, and most look fairly easy, from red and blue sprinkles on a cupcake to sugar cookies dyed red or blue and cut out in the shape of stars. Most are easy adaptations of recipes and decorations we are already familiar with.

I've been wanting to make ice cream sandwiches, and decided I'd give them a patriotic theme with red and blue M&M Minis that I sorted from a large bag of the candies. I've made ice cream sandwiches several times over the years, using different chocolate chip cookie recipes. This time I used my family's favorite chewy chocolate chip cookie recipe, adding some corn syrup because I read that would keep the cookies from getting too hard in the freezer.

I have a few tips if you're making your own ice cream sandwiches this summer.

First, find somewhere cool to assemble the dessert. My kitchen was hot when I put dollops of ice cream between my cooled cookies. The ice cream started melting quickly, and the M&M decorations I put on the sides immediately started to melt colors onto my vanilla ice cream before falling off altogether. I wanted to cry, but instead, I came up with a solution.

I placed my remaining ice cream sandwiches on a cookie sheet and put them in the freezer for several hours to harden the ice cream. When I was ready to serve them later that day, I dotted the ice cream with M&Ms Minis that had been chilled in the refrigerator. They must be served immediately.

If you want to avoid dealing with the M&Ms on the side of your cookie, mix them into the cookie batter instead, adjusting the amount of chips accordingly. When I make this cookie recipe, I use 1 cup M&M Minis and 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips.

If you have any remaining ice cream sandwiches, wrap them individually in plastic wrap and return to the freezer until ready to serve. I found that if I wrapped the sandwiches in plastic as soon as I made them, the ice cream continued to melt and attach itself to the plastic wrap, making a mess.

For an easier version of this recipe, use ready-to-bake chocolate chip cookies instead of cookies made from scratch. You can also vary the ice cream flavor. Wouldn't a chocolate cookie be delicious with mint chocolate chip ice cream? And you can certainly vary the decorations on the side and use sprinkles or chocolate chips or even chopped nuts.

Pasta salads

When you're planning your July 4 gathering, you might want to consider a new pasta salad. You can make the dish in advance and keep it chilling until it's time to eat. And other than boiling the pasta, you don't have to worry about heating up the kitchen.

I asked readers last week to submit their favorite pasta salad, and I got two responses.

Laura Harris said her recipe is always a hit and feeds a crowd.

Marie Brown has a tuna salad made with a box of macaroni and cheese. She said it's one of her favorites.

Thanks to Laura and Marie for sharing their recipes!

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 cups self-rising flour
1 stick butter, melted
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon light corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips*

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Either prepare cookie sheet with cooking spray or line with parchment paper.

In medium bowl cream melted butter, brown sugar and granulated sugar until smooth. Beat in vanilla, egg and egg yolk until creamy. Mix in flour until blended. Add in chocolate chips until mixed throughout dough.

Drop approximately 2 teaspoons dough per cookie onto prepared cookie sheets.

Bake at 325 degrees for 17 minutes or until top turns a light golden brown. Don’t overcook because you want the cookies to stay soft.

Makes approximately 28 cookies.

*I make this recipe often; it’s my family’s favorite chocolate chip cookie. I usually make it with 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1 cup M&M Minis. I also omit the corn syrup if I’m not using them for ice cream sandwiches. I usually make them large, using my muffin scoop to form each cookie.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

Cooled chocolate chip cookies
Vanilla ice cream (I use the low-fat version.)
M&M Minis or other decorations, such as nuts or sprinkles (I find it works better to cool the M&Ms in the refrigerator.)

Make sure cookies are completely cooled. Find two that match up fairly well in shape and size. Put a scoop of ice cream on one cookie and make a sandwich with the second. The cookies should be firm enough to press down and flatten the sandwich some. Place the sandwich cookies on a cookie sheet and freeze. Just before serving, place decorations on the ice cream.

Pasta Salad

1 box penne pasta
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup apple cider vinegar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons dried parsley
1 teaspoon Accent
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon garlic powder
3 tablespoons yellow mustard
1 large onion, chopped
1 large cucumber, sliced thin
4 ounce jar pimentos, drained

Boil pasta according to directions. Drain and add additional ingredients.

Make 1 day ahead and refrigerate.

Laura Harris

Mac and Cheese Tuna Salad

1 box Kraft Deluxe Mac and Cheese (prepared as directed and cooled)
2 cans white tuna (drained)
3 eggs (boiled and chopped)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup green bell peppers
1/2 cup chopped sweet pickles
1 jar chopped pimentos (drained)
3/4 cup mayonnaise

Mix all ingredients, cover and refrigerate. Serves 6.

Marie Brown

Cool salad for a hot day

2010-06-16T14:32:00.003-04:00

For lunch today, I had a real treat: a creamy pasta salad and perfectly ripened chunks of cantaloupe. I had prepared both the night before.

I thought about lunch all morning and how easy it would be to just dish it out and enjoy it when I got home. And I did enjoy it. In fact, I didn't know when to stop eating! (I know; that's bad.)

One good thing about this recipe, those of us who eat pasta salad at my house all loved it.

There's nothing ground breaking about this salad, no complicated ingredients, no tricky preparation. Just a straight-forward, easy side dish that's a little different from other pasta salad recipes I make.

I really enjoy pasta salads made with fat-free Italian dressing, but I've been craving a creamy pasta salad since watching one being made on a Food Network show a few days ago. The recipe wasn't given, although the diner cook did mention the ingredients while she was making the salad. I hopped up from my seat, grabbed some paper and a pen and jotted down the ingredients as she tossed them in her bowl.

I used that and a few other recipes as a starting point.

The dressing for this salad is reduced-fat sour cream and reduced-fat mayonnaise mixed with honey dijon mustard. I seasoned the dressing with some salt and pepper. The diner cook added onion powder and garlic salt, but I had neither. I used about a half cup of cubed cheddar cheese and about a cup and a half of mixed veggies including diced celery, shredded carrots and red, orange and green bell peppers. To save money, I bought the peppers and carrots from the salad bar at my favorite grocery store. That way I got three varieties of peppers without having to buy three whole peppers, which would have been too many for this salad.

You could use a number of pastas for this salad including elbows and seashells, but I used cellentani or cavatappi, a long, wavy tubular pasta known as double elbows that I've always enjoyed cooking with.

As the hot days of summer progress, I'm sure I'll be making more and pasta salads to eat at lunch. It's so nice to have a cool meal on a hot day.

If you have a favorite pasta salad recipe you'd like to share with our readers, send it to me at lisa@wilsontimes.com.

Creamy Pasta Salad

1 pound cellentani or other pasta, cooked and drained
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, cut into small cubes
1 cup vegetables, including shredded carrots, diced multi-colored bell peppers and celery
8 oz. reduced fat sour cream
1/2 cup low-fat mayonnaise
1 tablespoon honey Dijon mustard (any mustard would work)
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt

Cool drained pasta with water.

Mix sour cream, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, salt and pepper. Stir into pasta, along with vegetables and cheese.

Cool before serving.

Keep refrigerated.

Much needed shopping trip

2010-06-15T08:25:00.004-04:00

I went to the outlet stores in Smithfield last night with my sister and our girls. Sounds like a simple enough trip, huh? Nothing worthy of writing about.
But it had a major significance for me.
Until my mother's death in February, we spent as much time as we could with my parents whenever Susan and the girls came to visit. We sent the sitters home, and we were the sitters both day and night. We clung to the time we had together, eating meals around their kitchen table, visiting on the porch, sitting in the den giving our parents a bedtime snack. There was no time to go shopping and no one to leave them with if we did. And although we missed our outings together, it was OK. It's how we wanted it.
But last night, we had no responsibility at home. We were free to go shopping.
We chatted all the way to Smithfield, all carefree and all excited.
We stopped at whatever shops we wanted and took our time.Susan and I browsed in a cooking store for well more than a half and hour as the girls made their way in and out of shops looking at T-shirts and earrings. We met up later and admired shorts and tops the girls tried on, offering advice and encouragement to spend money!
We stayed in the last shop until it was time for the employees to lock up and go home, but not before making a few more splurges.
On the ride home we talked about our trip, we refereed a silly play fight in the back seat, and we told stories on each other.
About halfway home, Susan mentioned how nice it would be if Mama was back home, ready to make a batch of popcorn on the stovetop for us. "And Daddy could make chocolate milkshakes," I said. We talked about how Mama would always fret if we didn't get home before dark and how she'd be standing at the door, arms crossed, looking for for our car lights to appear over the hill. "I was getting worried," she'd always say as she opened the door to welcome us in. We'd remind her we'd been gone less than an hour and only to Wal-Mart, less than a mile away, but that didn't matter, we were out after dark!
We all wished we could call call her and tell her we were on our way home, but we couldn't of course.
The mood got light again in the car, and a few fits of laughter and giggles broke out both on I-95 and again in line at Sonic when an uninvited and very large beetle made its way into our car. Actually there was a little screaming with that incident.
Regardless, there was plenty of laughter and plenty of smiles.
It was good to be happy.

Blueberries

2010-06-09T15:38:00.003-04:00

It's blueberry season in North Carolina, and that's good news for those of us who love them.

Blueberries are big business in our state. In 2008, North Carolina growers produced more than 28 million pounds of blueberries, according to the N.C. Blueberry Council. That's a lot of cobblers and muffins!

Although many of us in this region have blueberry bushes growing in our yard, the bulk of commercial blueberries are grown in Bladen, Sampson, Pender and Duplin counties.

Blueberries are antioxidant rich and provide a substantial punch of Vitamin C and Vitamin K.

My family loves blueberries, and in addition to our traditional blueberry dishes, I'm always eager to try new recipes once I can find the big, fat N.C. blueberries we love so much.

The most recent recipe I tried was blueberry jam. I make a lot of yeast breads, and I enjoy having a piece of toast and jam or jelly for breakfast with my bread. I'm almost out of my sister's peach jam and my freezer strawberry jam from last summer, so it's nice to have a new flavor in the house.

One of my favorite toast toppings is a blueberry fruit spread from Cascadian Farm, so I was eager to see if I'd like a homemade version as much.

There are several versions of this same Easy Lemon Blueberry Jam on the Internet. I was surprised to see that the recipe uses lemon Jello, not pectin. Often, it's the novelty of a recipe that intrigues me, and in this case, it was the lemon Jello that drew me in!

The reviews all point to how easy the jam is to make, and I found that to be true as well. The only change I made was to reduce the amount of sugar from 2 cups to 1 1/2 cups.

It only took a few minutes to prepare and cook this recipe and have it ready for the refrigerator. The result is a very tasty jam with nice big pieces of sweet blueberries.

If you love blueberries, give it a try on toast, bagels or biscuits and enjoy the goodness of my favorite blue fruit!

I've also made Crumb-Topped Blueberry Muffins three times in the last month. They are so moist and good! The second time I made them, I topped them with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar instead of the crumb topping. Both ways are delicious. I'm sure I'll be making this recipe several more times this summer.

Lemon Blueberry Refrigerator Jam

4 cups fresh blueberries
1 1/2 to 2 cups sugar
1 (3 ounce) package lemon Jello

In a large saucepan, slightly crush 2 cups of blueberries. Add remaining berries and sugar, mix well. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat; stir in Jello until dissolved. Pour hot jam into jars or containers. Cover and cool. Refrigerate.

Adapted from allrecipes.com

Crumb-Topped Blueberry Muffins

1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1 cup fresh blueberries

Topping:

1/8 cup white sugar
1/8 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons butter, cubed
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Fill 12-cup muffin pan with liners; you’ll probably only need 10 or 11.
Combine flour and sugars. Pour vegetable oil into a 1 cup measuring cup. Add the egg and enough milk to fill to 1 cup mark. Mix liquid ingredients with dry ingredients. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups to about three-quarters full and sprinkle with crumb topping.
To make topping, mix ingredients with a fork.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until done.

Adapted from allrecipes.com

Trim down with new recipes

2010-06-02T11:09:00.003-04:00

For my birthday last month, I requested several of those cooking magazine special editions found at checkout counters in grocery stories and in our favorite bookstore.

I do love looking through new cookbooks, and although I have enough of them, it's fun to me to have new recipes to choose from.

I especially like Taste of Home's Comfort Food Diet Cookbook. Although I've seen many of these recipes before in the company's magazines, it's nice to have them assembled in one book.

The book, which sells for $9.99, has more than recipes in its 144 pages. There's also plenty of information on how to eat healthy and get into shape.

I enjoyed reading the snacks section and getting ideas on easy afternoon snacks. Did you know there are only 45 calories in a cup of whole strawberries? And 2/3 cup of Cherrios teamed with 1/4 cup fat-free milk has just 93 calories. And, this is my favorite, you can have a 49-calorie snack when you enjoy two Hershey's Kisses.

There's a two-week meal plan using recipes found in the book, and the book's recipes are grouped by calories. For instance, breakfast recipes are divided by under 100 calories, 101-200 calories and 201-300.

One of the recipes I'm most interested in trying is in the breakfast section, Crunchy Apple Salad.

California Pizzas, in the lunch category and weighing in at 245 calories, is a delicious recipe I made several years ago. When my garden tomatoes get ripe, I'll be making that easy dish, which starts with a flour tortilla.

I also really look forward to trying Makeover Frosted Banana Bars. Yum.

The recipe I've already made from this book is Garden Primavera Fettuccine. This is a super-easy side dish, which I made even easier by using a bag of Steam Fresh mixed vegetables instead of fresh. This is the first recipe I've ever made using a jar of Alfredo sauce. I thought the sauce was very good and teamed nicely with the vegetables.

I'm always looking for a new side dish to serve my family, and I thought this was a very good alternative to a green salad.

Garden Primavera Fettuccine

1 package (12 ounces) fettuccine
1 cup fresh cauliflowerets*
1 cup fresh broccoli florets
1/2 cup julienned carrot
1 small sweet red pepper, julienned
1/2 small yellow summer squash, sliced
1/2 small zucchini, sliced
1 cup Alfredo sauce
1 teaspoon dried basil
Shredded Parmesan cheese, optional

In a large saucepan, cook fettuccine according to package directions, adding vegetables during the last 4 minutes. Drain and return to the pan.

Add Alfredo sauce and basil; toss to coat. Cook over low heat for 1-2 minutes or until heated through. Sprinkle with cheese if desired.

Yield: 10 servings. 165 calories per serving.

Taste of Home

*Instead of using fresh vegetables, I made this recipe with a package of Steamfresh broccoli, cauliflower and carrot blend. I cooked the vegetables in the microwave, then added to the cooked and drained pasta.

Cappuccino Smoothies

1 cup (8 ounces) cappuccino or coffee yogurt
1/3 cup whole milk
3 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar, optional
1 tablespoon chocolate syrup
1 1/2 cups ice cubes
1/2 cup miniature marshmallows, divided

In a blender, combine the yogurt, milk, sugar if desired and chocolate syrup. Add ice cubes and 1/4 cup marshmallows; cover and process until blended. Pour into chilled glasses; top with the remaining marshmallows. Serve immediately.

Yield: 3 servings. 166 calories

Taste of Home

Farm Chicks' cookbook a treat

2010-05-26T11:09:00.002-04:00

I really enjoy looking through a pretty new book, and a new one the library acquired has kept me quite busy in recent days, thumbing through the pages and dreaming of food I could cook or crafts I could make.

The book is "The Farm Chicks in the Kitchen" by Teri Edwards and Serena Thompson, regular contributors to Country Living magazine. The pretty, hardback edition is filled with beautiful photographs, recipes, craft ideas and stories from the pair, founders of the Farm Chicks Antique Show in Spokane, Wash.

The book starts with brief first-person stories by the authors telling about their lives and how their antique show evolved. I enjoyed reading about Serena's childhood spent in a hippie gypsy wagon and Teri's stories of growing up in a large family and raising her own girls with a love of cooking.

By the time I had read their stories, I was eager to see their recipes. Let me just say, I'd love to be invited to stay at either Teri's house or Serena's house and sample some of the their food.

The personal notes and striking photographs make the recipes more appealing. For instance, Serena's children request her cinnamon rolls on their birthday. Teri always made Cheesy Potato Soup for daughter Allie when she visited from college. Elaine's Farm Style Chicken Salad Sandwiches recipe came from friend Elaine who made them for the authors at their first antiques show. In a side note they describe how the sandwiches were wrapped in wax paper and stacked on a huge platter. "We were inspired by her old-fashioned presentation and have enjoyed rediscovering the great wrapping wax paper makes."

Scattered throughout the cookbook are craft ideas as well. One page is devoted to place makers made from items found at a flea market. Another suggests making aprons from old sheets.

I also loved the stories of people the two met as they traveled the area looking for antiques.

In other words, there's more to this book than the recipes. But boy are the recipes enticing.

It was very difficult for me to choose a recipe to try in this cookbook because I want to cook so many. I actually bought the ingredients for two, Cherry Breakfast Swirl and Apple Puff Pancake.

I ended up making Cherry Breakfast Swirl, and I'm glad I did. It's a very simple recipe and doesn't take much time at all to assemble. The end result is a very pretty treat that is great for breakfast or any time! Although it was still delicious the next day, I thought it was best just after it was baked.

Make sure to look for this book the next time you're at the Wilson County Public Library. It would also be a fun one to own.

Cherry Breakfast Swirl

1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks) softened*
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
4 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour*
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 21-oz. can cherry pie filling
1/2 cup sliced almonds

Prepare the batter: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a large jelly-roll pan.

Cream the sugar with the butter in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer on medium speed until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and almond extracts and the eggs. Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low and beat in the flour and baking powder just until blended.

Bake the cake: Spread two-thirds of the batter in the prepared pan; the batter will look insufficient and will spread very thinly. Scatter spoonsful of the cherry filling over the top and dot with tablespoonsful of the remaining batter. Then, using the back of a spoon, flatten each little mound of batter just a bit.

Sprinkle on the sliced almonds. Bake until the cake is lightly browned, 28 to 30 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Store in the pan, covered with plastic wrap, up to 3 days.

Makes 20 servings.

*I used 11/2 sticks of butter with good results. I also used self-rising flour and omitted the baking powder.

"Farm Chicks in the Kitchen"

Tasty cookie

2010-05-19T13:06:00.006-04:00

I read way too many cooking magazines. In fact, I read so many that I often forget whether that new salad recipe I wanted to try was in Light and Tasty or perhaps Food Network Magazine. And did I see a recipe for that new pasta dish in a fall edition or a spring edition of Southern Living? Or was it at Christmas?

Until recently, I used to keep the entire magazine on my cedar chest. I'd fold back the magazine to reveal the recipe I wanted to cook. But what if there were two magazines in the book I wanted to try? And what do you do when the stack of magazines gets way too high?

I eventually started tearing pages out of magazines that I don't want to keep, and now I have a stack of ripped out pages I keep tucked away in one of my cooking notebooks. One day I'll get organized. One day ...

While thumbing through a stack of these pages recently, I found a recipe for Oatmeal Toffee Cookies that I had saved from the December 2008 edition of Cooking Light. My children enjoy recipes made with toffee bits (found with the chocolate chips at the grocery store), so I had saved the recipe, intending to try it after Christmas. That was a year and a half ago. Oh well ...

I finally made the cookies last week, and, as predicted, my children loved them. So did my husband. The buttery taste of the toffee is delicious with the oatmeal. It's a simple recipe that mixes up in a just a few minutes. I love having recipes like this that I can make at the last minute for dessert or a bedtime snack. Nothing fancy, nothing complicated.

The cookies didn't last long at my house, and I've had requests for more already.

Oatmeal Toffee Cookies

3/4 cup all-purpose flour*
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/3 cup almond toffee bits

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Weigh or lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl; stir with a whisk. Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 5 minutes). Add vanilla and egg; beat well. Add flour mixture; beat just until combined.

Stir in toffee bits.

Drop dough by tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart on 2 baking sheets coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 350° for 11 minutes or until lightly browned.
Cool on pans 1 minute. Remove cookies from pans; cool completely on wire racks.

Cooking Light

* I used self-rising flour and omitted the baking soda and salt.

Strawberries

2010-05-12T13:59:00.003-04:00

Strawberry season is one of my favorite times of the year.

I've loved strawberries my whole life and have found joy watching my children and now my granddaughter take delight in biting into a fresh strawberry grown in Wilson County soil.

I've picked strawberries several times this season and bought them from two area strawberry farms. The ones I purchased at Saturday's farmers market are almost gone, so I'll be back to a farm before the week is over to stock up again.

My family loves to eat strawberries unadorned, but we also enjoy them in salads and desserts. And I love that my daughter takes strawberries to school with her lunch.

I've especially enjoyed eating unsweetened strawberries with lite whipped topping and angel food cake this spring. I got the idea after eating the dish at Wilson Medical Center's cafeteria. I don't feel guilty when I mix this treat to take back to work for my afternoon snack.

Sunday afternoon, I mixed up a smoothie using some of my fresh berries. I tried the smoothie with lemonade this time instead of orange juice, which I normally use. It was very good and not too sweet, although you might want to add a teaspoon of sugar if you want it more like a milk shake. I thought at the time how good it would be for breakfast.

If you haven't tried our locally grown berries this season, I urge you to support our local farmers and drive out to one of the farms and give the strawberries a try.

Strawberry Smoothie

6-7 large strawberries
6 oz. container strawberry yogurt, frozen*
4 oz. lemonade or orange juice

Place ingredients in blender and blend until combined.
*It was not easy to remove the frozen yogurt from the container. I let it sit in a bowl of hot water briefly so it could thaw enough to come out of the carton. Next time I might let the juice be the frozen ingredient.

Easy Strawberry Treat

Angel food cake
Fresh strawberries, sliced
Lite whipped topping

Break up angel food cake into bite-size pieces. Add a little whipped topping. Top with strawberries. Add a little more whipped topping to cover. Stir if desired or eat with layers.
Make this recipe according to how many servings you need. I’ve made it as a single serving in a small bowl and for the family in a glass dish.
This dessert is a better if it sits for about 30 minutes. (But I usually can’t wait that long to eat it!)

Twist on salsa

2010-05-05T00:07:00.004-04:00

Maybe you've noticed from my recipes that I don't cook Mexican-style foods.

Outside of the occasional Old El Paso taco dinner kit, I just don't experiment. Why? I don't like many of the spices in Mexican dishes, and I especially don't like salsa. Not only do I not like to eat it, I don't even like to smell salsa when my husband puts it on his eggs or my daughter eats it with a plate of chips. I buy it for them, but I don't eat it.

But earlier this semester, my daughter needed to make a dish for a project in her Spanish class at school. Last year, we had much success with a Mexican-styled rice that I've made several times now for the family (me included), so I was game for a new project. She wanted to make salsa and found a recipe that used black beans, black-eyed peas and corn.

We liked the idea of using fat-free Italian dressing in the recipe, although the ingredient surprised us, but we immediately decided to eliminate the black-eye peas and double the black beans instead.

We also used a bag of Steamfresh corn instead of canned corn because we like it so much, and we bought mild Rotel tomatoes and green chilies instead of spicy. I make a slow cooker dip with Rotel, ground beef and Velveeta, and it's not too spicy for me, so I reasoned it would be OK in our salsa as well.

It takes about five minutes to make this delicious salsa. So even if you didn't have plans to celebrate Cinco de Mayo in any way today, you can now. Just stop by the grocery store at lunch and pick up the ingredients.

The mixture of colors, tastes and textures has a lot to do with why I like this recipe so much. It's totally different from anything else I make, and it's so nice to be different every now and then. The crunch of the corn and green beans is such a nice balance with the tender beans. And the spices from the dressing and tomatoes were perfect for my taste. If you like things spicier, buy the spicy version of the tomatoes.

This is a chunky dip and needs a sturdy chip for dipping.

We made the salsa again a few weeks ago for a second Spanish class meal. Anna's teacher requested the salsa again. I took it as a compliment.

This recipe makes a whole lot of salsa and would work very well for a party.

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

2 (15 oz.) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
1 12 oz. bag Steamfresh Super Sweet Corn (cooked according to package directions
1/2 cup chopped onion (I’ve used both yellow and purple)
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper (gives color but fine without it)
2 10 oz. cans mild Rotel tomatoes with green chilies; drain one only
1/2 cup fat-free Italian dressing (I use Wish Bone)
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

In large bowl, combine rinsed beans, corn, onion, bell pepper and tomatoes (drain one can only). Mix in Italian dressing and garlic powder. Cover and refrigerate for several hours, but it’s delicious as soon as you make it!
Serve with a sturdy chip.

All the tastes of a pizza

2010-04-28T12:01:00.002-04:00

If you read my food column last week, you saw my promise for another easy refrigerated crescent roll recipe today. And it's a good one.

Last week I made Pillsbury's Pizza Melts.

The recipe can be an appetizer or an easy meal teamed with a salad, which is how we ate it.

Pizza ingredients are cooked inside flaky crescent rolls and served with pizza sauce for dipping. I love recipes that involve dipping!

There's nothing complicated about making this recipe. You basically unroll a tube of refrigerated crescent rolls onto a baking sheet (I lined mine with parchment paper), layer a small amount of pizza sauce as well as mozzarella cheese and pepperoni and top with a second tube of crescent rolls. The top layer is brushed with a beaten egg and sprinkled with oregano. Simple enough, right?

Once the recipe cooks, you cut it into triangles. The recipe suggested 32 triangles, I did mine in 16, first cutting into eight squares. I made a few changes to the recipe, but not many. I used the reduced-fat version of the crescent rolls, mini turkey pepperoni and cut the mozzarella cheese to one cup.

The online photograph really drew me to this recipe. The beautiful golden crust dotted with oregano was very appealing to me.

Looks were not deceiving in this case. The Pizza Melts triangles were just as good as they looked. The leftovers were also delicious the next day, warmed up in the microwave.

If your family likes pizza, I highly recommend this delicious recipe.

Pizza Melts

2 cans (8 oz each) refrigerated reduced-fat crescent dinner rolls
1/4 cup pizza sauce
1/2 package (3.5 oz) sliced or mini turkey pepperoni
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon dried oregano leaves
1 cup pizza sauce for dipping

Heat oven to 375°F. Grease cookie sheet or line with parchment paper.
On cookie sheet, unroll 1 can of dough into 1 large rectangle. With floured rolling pin or fingers, roll or press dough into 12x9-inch rectangle, firmly pressing perforations to seal.
Spead 1/4 cup pizza sauce over dough to within 1/4 inch of edges. Top with pepperoni and mozzarella cheese.
On 14-inch length of parchment paper, unroll remaining can of dough. Press to make 12x9-inch rectangle, firmly pressing perforations to seal.
While holding paper with dough, turn dough upside down to cover cheese. Remove paper. Brush with beaten egg. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and oregano.
Bake 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown. Let stand on cooling rack 5 to 10 minutes. Move to cutting board. Using pizza cutter, cut into 8 squares. Cut each square in half diagonally.
Serve with pizza sauce for dipping.

Adapted from Pillsbury