twice baked potatoes

No Photo. This recipe is posted at Kelly's request.

1 potato per person served
pot of leftover homestyle baked beans
shredded cheddar cheese

Bake the potatoes or microwave until cooked.

Place each potato on a plate.
Slice open.
Ladle hot baked beans over baked potato.
Sprinkle generously with shredded cheddar cheese.

Serve.

pot roast 22

This must be at least the 22nd time I have made this version of pot roast, and iot still ranks high as a favorite with the hometown crowd . . .

Mary's magnificent soup

This is a classic recipe, good as an entree, snack, hot or cold, dip, or topping over rice or noodles.

tuna casserole

To make sauce:

Melt 1/2 stick of butter in saucepan over low heat.

Slowly add about 1/4 cup flour to melted butter, stirring constantly.

When the butter and flour mixture thickens, gradually add 2 cups milk.

Stir over low heat until sauce is thick and creamy.

Add 4 ounces grated cheddar cheese.


Add 12 ounces drained canned tuna packed in water.

To prepare noodles:

Boil a pot of water and cook pasta according to package directions.

Drain cooked pasta and add cheese and tuna sauce.
Mix thoroughly and serve warm

sweet potato pie

Sweet potato pie is delightfully easy to make and serves well -- warm or chilled.

Requires no extra sweetening, but . . . if you like sugar . . . maple syrup (or equivalent) can be added as topping.

I started with a recipe memorized from a cooking magazine -- maybe Rachel Ray's?

Ingredients:

4 pounds sweet potatoes
4 cups milk
6 eggs

Bake sweet potatoes in 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for and hour, or until done.

Take baked sweet potatoes out of oven and allow to cool (about 30 minutes).

Remove skins.

Mash the cooled, sweet potato pulp.

Mix in milk and eggs.

Season with cinnamon.

Pour into greased 11 x 17" baking dish

Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until done -- about an hour.

Optional: After about 35 minutes of baking, place strips of refrigerator pie crust across top of pie. Return to oven and finish baking until pie is done and the crust is browned.

3 alarm hamburgers

This is Guy's special spicy burger!

Grill hamburger patties in a skillet until browned to taste.

Place hamburger on toasted bun.

Top with lettuce, onion, spicy mustard, peperoncini peppers, pickles, and catchup.

sauteed cucumbers in butter sauce

Cucumber saute ingredients:

oil
1 cucumber, sliced
lemon juice

Slice cucumber.
Saute in oil.
Splash lemon juice across the bottom of the skillet.
Simmer until cucumber slices tender.

Sauce:

Melt 1 and 1/2 sticks butter

Throw in:
2 tablespoons lemon pepper
1 teaspoon lemon juice
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
2 teaspoons salt

Stir to mix.

Both the cucumber saute and the butter sauce go well over a pot of cooked pasta!

egg in zucchini nest

Here's a fun dish --

5 servings

In one saucepan,

Hardboil 5 eggs.

• 
  

While the eggs are cooking, combine in a separate saucepan:

2 cups rice
2 zucchini squash, sliced
1 yellow summer squash, sliced
4 cups water
1 cup tomato juice
2 tablespoons butter

Cover and simmer until the liquid in absorbed and the rice is soft.

• 
  

Drain the hard boiled eggs.
Serve the rice and zucchini mixture into plate bowls.
On top of each "nest" of zucchini and rice, place an unshelled hard boiled egg.
(Put dishes for eggshells near diners' plates on the table so each diner can shell their own egg.)

***

Review:

4 forks -- good to eat and to generate conversation

baked salmon with fruit salad

Serves 6:

2 pounds fresh salmon fillets

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit
Place salmon fillets skin-down on foiled-covered baking sheet.
Bake for about 30 minutes, or until salmon fillets are pink and flake easily with a fork.
Remove from oven and serve with lemon wedges.


Fruit salad:

1 can pineapple slices, unsweetened
2 bananas

Layer a slice of canned unsweetened pineapple and fresh banana slices

***

Review:

5 forks for flavor and ease of preparation.

pan-fried ham with celery and lime

Serves 6

Ingredients:

Precooked boneless ham, sliced into 6 very thin slices (about 1 ounce per slice)
1 stalk celery
1 fresh lime
vegetable oil to cover bottom of skillet

Chop and saute an entire stalk of celery in enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of a large skillet.

Pile the sauteed celery on a large plate.

Next, quickly pan fry 6 thin slices of fully-cooked boneless ham.

Place each slice of ham on a dinner plate.

Top each ham slice with several very thin slices of fresh lime.

Serve accompanied by sauteed celery.

***

Review:

4 forks -- enjoyed by diners

Swedish meatballs

Serves 6.

For meatballs, mix together:

1.5 pounds lean ground beef
1 cup rolled oats
1 beaten egg
1 teaspoon cardamon
salt and pepper to taste
moisten with a little milk, if mixture too dry
(Optional: add 1/2 chopped white onion for zestier flavor)

Shape mixture into small balls.

Brown meatballs in large skillet.

Add 1 quart water and simmer meatballs.

To make brown gravy:

When water is reduced and meatballs cooked thoroughly, reduce heat and add 3 cups milk to skillet.

Continue cooking at low temperature. While stirring sauce, sprinkle in 3/4 cup flour as thickener.

Stir as sauce thickens.

Serve meatballs with sauce over egg noodles. (Prepare noodles according to package directions.)

Bon appetit!

***

Review:

Everyone liked this recipe.

3 forks for bland, but good

chicken with bok choy rice

Serves 4.

Slice boneless, skinless chicken breasts into long strips.

Place in large skillet.

Add water to a depth of about 2 inches.

Simmer until the chicken is cooked through. (No pink interior color. Replenish simmering water, if need be.)

While the chicken is simmering:


In a saucepan, place:
1 and 1/2 cups rice
3 cups water
1 baby bok choy, diced

Cover saucepan.

Simmer rice and bokchoy until all the water is absorbed.

Serve rice onto plates.

Arrange hot chicken strips on top.

Mandarin oranges make a good accompaniment.

***

Review:

3 forks
The diners ate and were satisfied, but menu did not elicit extraordinary enthusiasm. Maybe because bok choy is not a familiar vegetable in this setting . . . ?

taco pie

This pumpkin face is happy because today's surprise entree came out great!
It is another of the,
"Oh my gosh, I thought we had all the ingredients (when we didn't)" successes.

My intent was to make soft-shell tacos. Bought the ground beef, onion, diced tomates, taco seasoning, cheddar cheese. (We had flour tortillas in the refrigerator.)

Recipe:
4 Servings:

Taco filling

• Heat 2 Tablespoons sunflower seed oil (or your favorite vegetable oil) in a large skillet.


• Add 1 pound low-fat ground beef and 1/2 diced white onion.


• Cook until meat completely browned.


• Add 1 can diced tomatoes.


• Add 1 package Taco Seasoning and 2/3 cup water.


• Simmer.
  
  

(Now would have been the time to pull out the flour tortillas and get ready to assemble soft-shell tacos. As it turned out, I had only 2 tortillas in my refrigerator, not enough to feed our hungry crew. And I didn't have the patience to wait for pasta or rice to cook.

So I reverted to plan B:

Grits --

• Boil 3 cups water in a saucepan.


• Add 3/4 cup grits, stirring constantly.


• Cook grits about 5 minutes, or until thickened.


• Pour grits into 4 bowls.


• Top each bowl of grits with several ladles of the simmering taco filling.


• Melt slices of cheddar cheese on top of the taco filling.
  
  Tastes great with lemonade!
  

***

Review

4 forks -- Everyone wanted seconds

Ham and eggs and grits

Sometimes we just have to fix comfort food -- days when:

• the dogs won't quit barking,
• the children won't stop fussing,
• the refrigerator's leaking,
• the phone's ringing
• unexpected guests stop by
  

Nothing but nothing beats ham and grits with water gravy, and a side of scrambled eggs for restoring harmony to the universe.

We tested out this menu last night with good effect:

Serves 4

Grits:

• Boil 3 cups water in a saucepan for grits.
• Add 3/4 cups grits to boiling water, stirring constantly.
• Let grits cook for a few minutes, until thickened. Stir occasionally so they don't burn.
  

Ham and water gravy:

While grits are cooking:

• Heat skillet.
• Place four fully-cooked, prepackaged ham steaks in hot skillet and cook for 3 minutes on each side. (It will blacken the steaks slightly.)
• Add 2 cups water to skillet with ham steaks and simmer. This makes the water gravy.
  

Returning to the grits:

• When the grits are thickened enough, add several slices cheddar cheese.
• Stir melting cheese into grits.
• Move saucepan with cheese grits to cool burner and cover.

Scrambled eggs and sausage:

• Get out another saucepan.
• Cover bottom of saucepan with sunflower oil (or your favorite vegetable oil).
• Break 4 eggs into skillet.
  
• Stir eggs in skillet with wooden spatula, scrambling them.
• Throw in a handful of sliced, fully cooked, little Smokeys sausage.
• Stir until sausage slices are heated through and eggs are cooked.

Serve:
Serve ham steaks on plates with cheese grits. Cover both with water gravy.

Pile scrambled eggs and sausage on the side.


Enjoy!

***

Review:

5 forks for pleasing the appetite and restoring good humor

spaghetti squash veggie bar

A fun variation on the old-fashioned, salad bar theme ---

Four servings:

• Wash, pierce, and bake 2 whole spaghetti squashes on a cookie sheet in 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for 1 and 1/4 hours.

• Carefully remove cookie sheet with squashes from oven. Slice spaghetti squashes in half, lengthwise.

• Remove seeds from center of squash.

• Serve each warm squash half on a plate. Use a fork to turn the spaghetti squash out of the shells to make it look more like strands of spaghetti!
  

• Provide plenty of condiments to season the squash to each diner's taste.

For instance:

grated Parmesan cheese
salt
pepper
hot sauce
butter
cinnamon
raw sugar
grated nutmeg

***

Review:

3 forks for flavor
4 forks for fun

best beef stroganoff

Really good!

For four servings:

• Slice 1 pound lean steak

into small,thin stir-fry pieces.

• Dice 1/2 onion.

• Heat about 1 1/2 Tbsp vegetable oil in large skillet. (Sesame oil is my favorite!)

• Add steak pieces and diced onion to oil. Stir as they cook.

• While steak and onion are cooking, heat a saucepan of water to rolling boil. Cook 1 pound dry pasta according to package directions. Drain. Set aside.
  

• When steak and onion are cooked through, add 1 cup sour cream and about 1/4 cup prepared mustard to mixture in skillet. Heat until warmed through, stirring constantly.

Serve cooked pasta into soup bowls. Top with ample beef stroganoff topping.

Enjoy!!

***

Review:

5 forks for yummy taste.
Everyone ate seconds.

As the

boring Chinese noodles

These easy to fix noodles look bland, but don't be fooled by appearances!

Guy came up with this concoction:

Cook 3 packages Ramen noodles according to package directions.

Drain water thoroughly and add one well-drained can of Chinese bean sprouts.

Add 1 and 1/2 packages of Ramen noodle powdered seasoning (pre-packaged with the dry noodles).

Top with 2 tbsp. freshly ground black pepper.

Stir mixture gently to heat through.

Serve immediately -- with something cool to drink!

spicy lentils with tomatoes and onions

Don't be fooled by the simple title! This is one outrageously superb recipe!

Mimi made this recipe practically from thin air:

For one big Dutch kettle of lentils:

Saute 1/2 diced white onion in enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of the Dutch kettle.

When the onions are soft and translucent,
pour in one, 1-pound package of dried lentils.

Cover with water to a depth of about 2 inches of water above the top of the lentils and onions. (If the water is absorbed before the lentils are done, add more water.)

Simmer for 60 to 90 minutes, depending on your preferences.

When the water is mostly absorbed and the lentils are cooked through, add one can of cooked, diced tomatoes.

Add your choice of fresh seasonings to taste from the following list:

curry powder
coriander
turmeric
cumin
fenugreek
ginger
garlic
fennel seed
red pepper
black pepper
salt

***

Review:

5 forks for flavor
5 forks for presentation

"A twist of different flavors!"

"Looks sensational!"

"Looks like chili!"

cucumber wrap

Hooray for Boo!

She prepared this easy summer entree for us

the afternoon our air conditioning quit.

For each serving:

• Put large flour tortilla on plate.

• Cover with fresh spinach leaves.

• Layer a slice of chicken deli meat on top of spinach leaves. (Omit if preparing vegetarian version.)

• Cover chicken sliced meat with thick layer of diced cucumber.

• Season with Ranch salad dressing and Parmesan cheese

Guten Appetit!

***

Review

3.5 forks for presentation
3.5 forks for flavor

skinny wheat bread wraps

Here's something different -- a wrap recipe derived from sheer necessity!

(Turned out we had no corn tortillas, no flour tortillas, -- in fact, no flat bread of any sort and a meal to prepare. What to do?)

Here's our solution:

• For each wrap, get out one slice whole wheat sandwich bread.

• Use a rolling pin to carefully roll each slice of bread flat. Make it completely skinny. These are the skinny whole wheat bread wraps.
  

• Spread the skinny bread wraps with cream cheese and mustard.

• Sautee 1/2 yellow onion and 1/2 pound ground beef until the onion is translucent and the beef is cooked and crumbly.
• Sprinkle cooked ground beef and onion mixture on prepared skinny bread wraps.

• (Or omit beef and use sauteed vegetables for vegetarian version.)
  

• Lay a Kosher dill pickle spear on top of each prepared skinny bread wrap as a surprise element.

• Roll it up.

• Secure with a toothpick, if you wish.

Delicious!
***

Review:

5 forks for flavor
4 forks for attention-getting presentation