Long Time, No See

Where have I been? Why haven't I posted? 

It's been busy here for the last couple of months.

No recipes to share because I only cooked my easiest regular things.

You've already seen all of those recipes!

And to be honest, the next several weeks will be equally busy.

There's a college graduation and a week long babysitting stint.

Here are some highlights of the last couple of months.

Presidents' Day holiday—on wheels.

That weekend included lots of outside time.

See the missing headlight? 

A car ran a stop sign and pulled out in front of us.

Baked six loaves of bread for church (plus two for us.)

Beach trip with "the girls."

Substitute pianist at church.

Two birthday celebrations.

Spring break with the smaller grandchildren.

Strawberry picking at the neighbor's u-pick farm.

A visit to the children's museum offered things for all ages.

The museum included a "grocery store" to let the little ones do their shopping...

...and check out at the register.

A first time egg-dyeing experience.

Easter Sunday christening.

Concerts in the music room.

And the family band grew by one.

More piano work for church.

My dependable kitchen helper.

And once everyone headed home,

there was a lovely dinner out—for two.

 

Food For The Soul

Buttermilk Pancakes

I asked Daddy-O to cook supper about a week ago. He immediately said, "I can't cook!" But I know better. He is famous—with the grandchildren, at least— for his French toast, and he does a really good job with pancakes. There are nights when pancakes are just what the body...mostly the soul...needs.

And Shrove Tuesday, sometimes called Pancake Tuesday, is fast approaching. (It's the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent.) So it's a good time to share a pancake recipe. Now, I always keep a box of "only needs water" pancake mix in the pantry. There are a couple of good brands we like. It's nice to know there is something that can be fixed quickly when you are tired. And if you've let yourself run out of eggs and milk and everything else, you can still feed people. Always a good thing.

But homemade pancakes are special. I've posted a pancake recipe here somewhere way back, but this one is made with buttermilk. I like that flavor. And we happened to have buttermilk in the fridge. So here goes.

BUTTERMILK PANCAKES

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon canola or vegetable oil, plus enough to lightly coat griddle

Combine flour and dry ingredients. (I like to mix with a whisk.) Make a well in the center.

In a separate bowl, mix buttermilk, eggs, vanilla and oil. Pour into well in the dry ingredients. Mix until smooth.

Preheat nonstick griddle or skillet and brush lightly with oil. Use a 1/4 cup measure to pour each pancake onto griddle. When the tops are covered with bubbles, turn and cook the other side. 

For us, this made 8 pancakes.

So whether you're in need of "brinner" (breakfast for dinner) one night or you plan to observe Shrove Tuesday, hang on to this recipe.

Can't Get Easier Than This

3 Bean and Sausage Bake

The older I get, the less complicated my cooking becomes. I watch my daughters making wonderful dinners—and they'll say, "but this was easy."—and I know it was, but their recipes will have more steps than I want to take right now.

Last night I made a new recipe that was the epitome of simple. It tasted good. It was the comfort food I needed. And I had all the ingredients on hand—at least with a couple of substitutions, I did. (As far as I'm concerned, canned beans are interchangeable.) I'm keeping this recipe and will do it again.

I had spent a week, thankfully with Daddy-O's help for most of the days, keeping these two little kiddos while their parents had a get-away. I am not the grandmother I was ten years ago when the middle set of grandchildren were this age. (Our grandchildren are in 3 age "sets"—22...12 & 8...3 & 1) Lifting the baby and wrangling two little ones in general kept me on the move. 

I got home late afternoon two days ago and that night we simply had cheese and crackers for supper right before I fell asleep. Last night I figured I should do better.

This printed recipe had been on my kitchen counter for a couple of weeks. I am such a fan of beans and I love sausage, so I knew I was going to try this one. The hardest part of throwing this together was dicing the onion. And I'm speedy with that task. Slice the sausage and open the cans and you're nearly done.

The author of this recipe says it's Weight Watcher friendly. If you don't count the cornbread. I made a couple of less friendly subs because my goal last night was to be super quick. I used 1 tablespoon of olive oil instead of cooking spray to brown the sausage and the onion. And I used shredded cheese from a bag...not reduced fat like she did...because it was easy. 

In her post she said the recipe freezes well. I'm trusting her. We are a household of two, so I divided the recipe into two pan and popped one into the freezer after I covered and labeled it. I know we should have had something green on this plate. But last night it was good just to have food. Check out the original recipe from Recipe Girl here. 

3 BEAN & SAUSAGE BAKE

1 tablespoon olive oil

16-oz turkey kielbasa, sliced

1 medium onion, diced

2 garlic cloves, minced (or 1 tsp from a jar)

1 (15-oz can) great northern beans, drained & rinsed

1 (15-oz can) pinto beans, drained & rinsed (I only had black beans on hand)

1 (15-oz can) light red kidney beans, drained & rinsed

1 cup water

1/2 cup ketchup

1 tablespoon packed brown sugar

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Preheat oven to 350º. Spray a 3-qt baking dish with cooking spray. 

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in skillet. Add kielbasa and cook until brown, stirring occasionally. Add onion and garlic, and cook until onion is tender. Add remaining ingredients and simmer for about 5 minutes to let flavors blend. 

Pour into baking dish and bake, uncovered, for 35-40 minutes until bubbly in the center. Let stand 5 minutes before serving. (Because I divided mine into smaller pans, 30 minutes was enough baking time.)

I made a quick batch of corn muffins from a box of Jiffy mix. I always keep a box on the shelf because it's so easy. Right around New Years, I read a post on Instagram of 24 things to add to Jiffy Mix. And I found the article for you to read here. You can add one more thing to the list. Last night I scraped out the last of the sour cream from a container and added about 1/3 cup to the mix along with the milk and egg that's listed on the box. It was so good. A definite improvement in taste AND texture. 

My, Oh My...That Pie!

Easy Skillet Apple Pie

You've seen this recipe here before but it's worth another appearance. My friend Missy pointed me toward this Southern Living recipe a couple of years ago. If Missy says it's good, it's good. I made it right after she told me about it. Since then I've made it a few more times. My son-in-law made it twice over the holidays. It's that good. And it's that easy.

It also looks impressive. I had my book club friends here for lunch this week. Carol brought soup and corn muffins. Sarah brought cheese, fruit and crackers to nibble on as the girls arrived. And my job was to provide dessert. The seven of us take turns with the food. When they walked in my front door, our house smelled divine. All that cinnamon! 

This is ridiculously easy to make considering the showy result. The hardest part is peeling and slicing four pounds of apple. My mix of apples was what I had in the refrigerator—Macintosh, Red Delicious, a couple of Galas and one lone Granny Smith. That was fine.

I had a friend watching as I made it. She looked at the big bowl of sliced apples, shook her head and told me, "They're never going to fit into that pan." Although I didn't tell her, I wasn't sure they were going to fit either. But I kept piling them up high, tucking them in along the sides. I wish I had made a "before" photo. But they cook down into a normal size pie.

You might need to scoop it out. One time I actually got slices. Either way, it's delicious.

EASY SKILLET APPLE PIE

4 lbs apples, half Granny Smith & half Braeburn or Macintosh

good squeeze of lemon juice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 cup sugar

pinch of salt

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 box refrigerated pie crust (2 crusts per box)

1 egg white

2 tablespoons sugar

Preheat oven to 350º. Peel and slice apples into 1/2 inch slices. Squeeze lemon juice over apples and toss.  Then toss apples with cinnamon, 3/4 cup sugar and pinch of salt.

Melt butter in 10-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and cook, stirring constantly, for 1 to 2 minutes until sugar is melted. Remove from heat and place one pie crust on top of butter mixture. Spoon apples over pie crust. Top with remaining pie crust. (I didn't try to crimp the edges because the pan is hot. Just tuck in anything that hangs over.) 

Whisk egg white until foamy and brush over crust. Sprinkle with sugar. Cut slits in the top crust so the steam can escape. 

Bake for 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until golden brown and bubbly. If the crust is browning too quickly, shield with foil for the last 10 minutes.

Cool for 30 minutes before serving. And y'all...it begged for a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!

PS...I slid a pizza pan onto the rack under the pie as it baked. Only one tiny drip. But better than it landed on the pan.

Aiming For An Ordinary New Year

Chloe, your comment on my last blog post meant more to me than you'll ever know. 

We all (I think) wonder if people notice us. It's good to be checked on. 

We said "good riddance" to 2022 and welcomed 2023 with our traditional peas and collards. Notice how basic the plate is? It was a very bare bones meal, with three of us eating at lunch time and the rest having the leftovers for dinner—after they got home from the hospital. 2022 seems to be dragging its feet into this new year. 

We are aiming for "ordinary" this year. There is wonder and comfort in the routine and the regular. We look forward to tucking in special bits in here and there.

We have had nothing catastrophic happen, but the last six months have been nothing like we expected.  So many things happened. Our schedule went wonky. Some health issues were ours. Some belonged to others but impacted us, too. Our church pianist fell right before Christmas and broke her arm. That turned into lots and lots of extra time at the piano to prepare music for several services. I'm learning trying to live within my limits. Piano time took priority over cooking, making photos and blog posting. 

Yesterday I was able to spend several minutes in our beautiful historic sanctuary before I sorted out my music and settled in at the piano. I needed the calm and the peace that was there. 

(It was a different story on Christmas Eve when a squirrel got into the sanctuary and raced around during the service.)

These collards were so good yesterday that I'm sharing this recipe again. It takes a whole morning or afternoon to cook them like this—and I put my cooker out on our porch—but it's very easy. Any leftovers can be frozen for a quick vegetable side dish later. 

COLLARD GREENS

1/2 lb. smoked meat (ham hocks, smoked turkey wings or smoked neck bones--I use turkey wings)
2-3 teaspoons House Seasoning*
1-2 teaspoons Lawrys' Seasoning Salt
2 (16- oz) bags frozen chopped collards (or 1 large bunch of fresh collards, cleaned and sliced)
1 tablespoon butter

In a large pot, bring 3 quarts of water to a boil and add smoked meat, house seasoning and seasoned salt. Reduce heat to medium and cook for 1 hour.
Add frozen greens and butter. Cook for 1 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Adjust seasoning to taste.

*House Seasoning: 1 cup salt, 1/4  cup black pepper, 1/4 cup garlic powder. Mix together and store in airtight container.

 

How regular will I be posting in 2023? I really have no clue. Maybe not at often as in years past (do I dare admit I have nothing left to say?) but I'm aiming for at least once a month, with extra posts when there is something worth sharing. 

This blog space has become a much used resource for storing my recipes. It's accessible to family and friends. It can be pulled up while standing in the grocery aisle. So you may see and occasional post that is only a recipe. That lets me add it to the index. 

Just a reminder, if you can't find a recipe in the index, you can use the little search box at the top left of the web version of the blog. Type in a key word and it should pull up any posts related to it. I find I use that more often than the index. The trick is to open the web version . 

Best Laid (Birthday) Plans

 

The plan was to have a lovely brunch in a favorite restaurant with family for my birthday. But Covid happened. (Daddy-O has it but isn't too sick, thankfully.) So we were home alone and I cooked my own birthday dinner. Good move on my part. This was so good. And because there was the tiniest bottle of bubbly rosé in the refrigerator left from last year's wine advent calendar, it felt like a felt like a celebration!  I've wanted to try this recipe for a while and I had a chicken in the fridge. Jessica made this here a few weeks ago and told me she makes it almost every week because it's easy. She's right.

This is a "do what I say, not what I do" photograph. I should have tented the chicken with foil sooner, but it was fine. That's the seasoning that got so black, not skin that burned. I'll try the avocado oil next time and see if that makes a different. You're seeing my real cooking, train wrecks and all. Look at the next photo.

Oops!

Working too quickly, I managed to split the wrong side of the chicken ALMOST the whole way through. This dinner was only for the two of us, so I just flipped it over and cut out the backbone. It cooked just fine. Not exactly a photo worthy finish, but since I cut the chicken into pieces and put them on a platter to serve, no one would have been the wiser if we'd had guests.

Cooking boo boos happen. But food is so expensive now, you need to be okay with figuring out a fix. Meat still tough after it's cooked? Chop it up and serve it on sandwiches or over rice. The classic "fix" is crumbling up a cake that stuck to the pan and layering it with pudding and/or Cool Whip to make a trifle. The big trick is NOT to tell anyone that the "fix" wasn't your original plan. 

This really isn't a recipe as much as a starting place for you to cook this dish. Jessica says she's used all kinds of seasonings, but really likes this one. She likes golden potatoes. I had red potatoes on hand. She said sometimes she mixes the seasoning with some oil and rubs it under the skin and rubs plain oil on the outside. If she's feeling extra decadent, she mixes the seasoning with some cold butter for the under-the-skin rub.

ROAST SPATCHCOCK CHICKEN AND VEGETABLES

1 whole chicken, about 3-1/2 to 4 lb

Red potatoes, cut into large chunks

3 or 4 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

Olive oil or avocado oil

1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1./2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon oregano

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Preheat oven to 425º. Line large sheet pan with foil. Mix dry seasoning ingredients. 

Remove giblets from chicken and pat dry. Using sharp knife or sharp kitchen scissors, remove backbone from chicken. Pat the inside dry. Open chicken up and lay it out flat, skin side up on sheet pan. (Google "how to spatchcock.")

Toss vegetables with a little oil and add to pan around chicken. Sprinkle some seasoning over veggies.

Mix a little oil with some seasoning and rub under the skin. Rub outside of chicken with oil and sprinkle rest of seasoning over the bird.

Roast, uncovered, for about an hour. (Smaller bird may be done sooner.) If the chicken is getting brown too quickly (or the spices start to burn), tent with foil.

After it comes out of the oven, let it rest a bit before serving. I cut mine into the normal chicken pieces and placed on a platter along with the vegetable. Jessica pulls the meat off the bones and serves it that way.

My weekend was not what I planned, but it might have been what I needed. I spent the day digging deep into my messy laundry knitting/sewing room, sorting and tossing out and even finishing up projects that were so close to being done. I listened to a book while I worked. I watched some Christmas movies while I worked on a new knitting project.

I woke up this morning and felt good when I looked at the neat laundry room. Daddy-O is beginning to feel better. Life is good.

UPDATE: Before I hit the "publish" button for this post, I got sick. Hopefully sunny days are just around the corner. I'm taking time off until after Thanksgiving, then I'll regroup and see what I have to share.

A Stew By Any Other Name

Alabama Camp Stew

I'm almost embarrassed to share this recipe—because it's a bunch of cans dumped in a pot. Almost embarrassed. But I'm doing it because it tasted good, it was so easy to make AND Daddy-O went back two times for more.

I came across this recipe on the food blog Southern Plate years ago. Christy, the writer, is from Alabama. What made me remember the recipe was that she said if you have these cans in your grocery cart, when you check out, the cashier is likely to ask if you're making camp stew. That's why she calls it "famous."

At the beginning of the pandemic I stocked up on shelf stable foods when we weren't sure if the grocery stores would stay open. I remembered this recipe and bought all the cans, printed out the recipe and put the cans and recipe together in a box and added the box to my pantry stash. 

Thankfully those days are behind us, but I realized I liked having a food stash. Not as big as my pandemic stash, but extras of things that we use often. Our closest grocery store is 7 miles away. That's a 14 mile, 25-minute round trip drive to the store and back if I find out I'm out of sugar mid-recipe. So I keep extras on hand. 

Yesterday I was going through my stored foods and checking expiration dates (that's part of storing extras at home) and saw that the tomatoes in my camp stew box needed to be used. Tomatoes, unlike many canned foods, should not be used long past the expiration date.

After a long day of working around the house, this easy recipe was worth a try last night. And it sounded like good football watching food. So glad I finally tried it.

I imagine some of you will have a hard time finding the canned pork or beef BBQ. I found it on the bottom shelf at our Ingles store. But knowing that I have readers in California and Maryland and other far flung states, I googled "camp stew" to find other ways to make this. There are recipes for cooking fresh meat. Some bought BBQ from their local barbecue joint. And one person said that instead of canned, she subbed refrigerated BBQ, such as Lloyd's, found in the refrigerated section, near the mashed potatoes, at the store. 

And to be honest, if you're from California or Maryland, you're probably horrified by dumping all these cans together and would never make this anyway. Right?  In my google search, I did find this fun story about How Camp Stew Became A South Alabama Icon. Read it and learn.

I found a zillion versions of this stew online. Sometimes called camp stew, sometimes called Brunswick stew, depending on where you live. One of our friends has a stew cooking every now and then and sells quarts of Brunswick stew that we like. This recipe has a similar flavor. He uses chicken and pork that he has smoked. If you don't need to make gallons of stew, try this one pot recipe.

ALABAMA CAMP STEW (or Brunswick stew if you live in another state)

3 (14-oz) cans diced tomatoes

14-oz can whole kernel corn

14-oz can butter beans or lima beans

1 onion, chopped

2 (10-oz) cans Castleberry’s Pork or Beef in BBQ sauce

10 or 12-oz can chicken breast

Dump all cans, including the liquid, and chopped onion into a large saucepan. (Mine was 4-1/2 qt.) Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes to 1 hour, stirring occasionally, making sure the bottom doesn’t scorch. 

Made with the Castleberry's pork, the stew had a little kick. And it's a little sweet, like my friend's Brunswick stew. You can do anything you want with the recipe. Add hot sauce if you want it even hotter. Add a diced potato, leave out the corn or add more corn. Use leftover rotisserie chicken instead of canned. Use all chicken (add BBQ sauce) if you don't eat meat. Tinker with seasonings.

What to serve with the Camp Stew? We just had crackers. But this cornbread would be an excellent choice. I made these two pans last Sunday to take to church for a vegetable soup and cornbread fund raiser.

Two batches of Corny Cornbread

CORNY CORNBREAD

1/2 cup vegetable oil  (plus extra to grease the pan)
1-3/4 cups self-rising cornmeal mix  (make sure it's cornmeal mix)
1 cup cream-style corn (frozen or canned)
2 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 cup grated cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Generously grease a cast iron skillet or a 7x11-inch baking pan. Preheat pan in the oven while you're mixing the batter.

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula until combined. Pour batter into the preheated pan. Place pan in the oven and bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.