I remember back in the day when fried food was the norm in our house.  When the boys were young, I bought oil in gallon containers, and dumped several inches in a skillet to cook with.  Fried chicken, pork chops, potatoes, you name it, I fried it.  But today, I’m more enlightened, and would never do that.  We’ve all learned tricks to compensate for frying, my favorite being to pat dry chicken breasts or pork chops, then Pam a skillet, I use one with grill marks, brown it on top of the stove, flip it over, and immediately put it in a preheated 375 degree oven for 20-25 minutes, uncovered.  When you take it out of the oven it looks and tastes like fried, but without the grease.

But back to my story.  In all those years of frying food, I always had a mess when I finished, my cooktop was greasy, and that was before smooth cooktops so it was a pain in the patootie to clean.  On the occasion that I do fry something these days, an egg,  bacon, etc., I’ve learned to never use a small skillet.  Even if I have just one egg, I fry it in a 14” skillet, that way it never spatters on the cooktop.  It’s a great tip, and no, I don’t put oil in the skillet, of course I fry that egg with Pam.  This morning I’m making corn chowder, and I needed bacon drippings, so I pulled out the big skillet, fried the bacon, with no mess.  It’s a beautiful thing, frying in an oversized skillet, took me years to figure it out, but better late than never.

Yesterday when I made the cake and gave hubby a bite, he wasn’t a fan, but I haven’t been married to the man for forty years not to know a thing or two about his food preferences.  He’ll eat pretty  much anything that has a sauce on it, so I decided to try making him a mini pineaple upside down cake, his favorite.  BUT, I didn’t have pineapple, so I tried it with peaches.

I put some peaches in the bottom of my mug, added some brown sugar, a dab of butter, a few sliced almonds and a dash of almond flavoring.  And whlie I was making a double batch of the cake, substituting peach juice for the water, I nuked the peach concoction for one minute.  I took it out, gave it a stir, put in the cake mixture that I had whisked on top of it and nuked it for an additional 1:35 minutes.

This time he loved it.  He said it was a 7-8.  I don’t know if I would give it that high of marks, but it’s fast, easy and a no brainer.  Just thought you would all like to know…

And yes, I know there are blue sprinkles in the cake.  That white confetti cake was the only one I had in the pantry.  Sometimes you just gotta roll with what you’ve got.  Know what I mean, Vern?

This could be award winning dip, it’s so good.  And so simple to make, this is a winner!  My family made this at Christmas with the new Velveeta White Cheese, and it was devoured within minutes.

1 2 lb. block of Velveeta White Cheese, cut into chunks
1 lb. Jimmy Dean Hot Sausage
1 can Rotel Tomatoes
1 can green chiles

Brown sausage, drain, and put in saucepan with remaining ingredients.  Cook, stirring constantly until cheese melts and ingredients are hot.  Put in mini crockpot to keep warm and serve with tortilla chips, raw veggies, crostini, or our favorite, Fritos Scoops.

Your family will love this!

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter or regular butter, softened
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup semisweet chocolate pieces
3/4 cup honey-roasted peanuts
3/4 cup coarsely chopped bite-size chocolate-covered peanut butter cups (about 15)*

Directions

1. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and peanut butter with an electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add the sugars, baking soda and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of the bowl occasionally.

2. Beat in egg, milk and vanilla. Using the mixer, beat in as much of the flour as you can. Stir in remaining flour by hand. Stir in the chocolate pieces, peanuts and peanut butter cups.

3. Drop by generously rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake the cookies in a 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool. Makes about 30 cookies.

If you like, for easier chopping, freeze miniature chocolate-covered peanut butter cups in their wrappers for 1 hour. Remove frozen candies from wrappers before chopping.

Source:  Midwest Living

Two ingredients, angel food cake mix and any kind of cake mix.  Put them in a bag together, shake well, scoop out 3 tablespoons of the mix, add 2 tablespoons of water, then put it in a ramekin and nuke it for 1 minute.  The recipe didn’t say whether or not to spray with Pam, but I did because I didn’t want a mess. 

Ha, you can see how well that worked for me.  But, if I wasn’t Miz Piggy it would have been fine.  I made it, nuked it, and it was just this itty bitty amount of cake in the bottom of the ramekin.  So I doubled the recipe, at least I think I did, I was talking to my friend, Nisha on the phone while I was making this and since yours truly can’t chew bubble gum and walk at the same time, who knows what I did.  All I know is that it started to run over in the microwave so I quickly put a saucer under it and finished cooking it.  It took about a minute and a half for the larger batch, but remember, I have the microwave from hell, so my timing is never accurate.

And how did it taste, curious minds want to know?  Well, all I had was a confetti cake mix to mix with my angel food cake mix, so it’s kinda vanilla tasting.  But it’s not bad, but I’m also desperate.  I don’t have anything in the house that isn’t healthy, and this is the only thing I could come up with fast that didn’t involve actual work.

Would I do it again.  Sure, I would.  If this was topped with a sliced banana, a drizzle of chocolate sauce, or some fresh fruit, or my dilly’s favorite, lemon sauce, it would be pretty good for a quickie.  A bit of almond flavoring would be nice, too.

But I think I would like it better using a chocolate cake mix.  Or I could just stir some chocolate chips or cocoa into this.  It’s not knock-your-socks off people, but it’s not too bad considering that it only takes 1-2 minutes start to finish.  Except for the mess…. Ughhh!!

Tweaks: I made this again, doubled the recipe, put it in a mug, did NOT Pam it, nuked it for 1:30 and it came out perfect.

If you’re one of those people who makes black-eyed peas on New Years Day, I have a wonderful recipe for you.  My neighbor, the one with the fantastic German Potato Salad recipe, makes these every year, and it’s a fabulous dish!

2 cans black-eyed peas, I drain and rinse for a more subtle flavor
2 cans italian stewed tomatoes
1 lb. sweet italian sausage, with casing removed
1 large onion
2 tablespoons of italian seasoning
1 teaspoon of oregano, if desired

Brown onion and sausage, drain, crumble and dump all in a crockpot, simmer on high for 3-4 hours, meanwhile cook a cup or so of pasta, any small pasta will work and stir it in at the end. 
This is so good, and so easy….

Enjoy and Happy New Year

~ jan

My son, John, made molasses cookies Thanksgiving recipe from the recipe on the back of this bottle of Grandma's Molasses.

For years we have made Silver Palate Molasses Cookies, it's our family favorite, and the recipe is in the Tried 'n True archives on this site, but after tasting these, we have a new favorite.

They are moist, fat, plump chewy cookies, the tops are dusted with sugar, they crackle when they bake and the taste is amazing.  My Silver Palate recipe is a flatter, oilier cookie, these are just better.

I never thought I would say this, we have used our Silver Palate recipe since the 80's, but this one is just far superior.

Hope you all enjoy these as much as we do.  Oh my, they are so good!

~ jan

 

These cookies should be soft, so watch them carefully when baking. They will look very moist and underdone, but I promise you they're fine and will set up completely while cooling. I found one recipe in my research that called for sliding the parchment paper onto the counter top to cool the cookies rather than transferring them to a cooling rack. Supposedly, this would keep them optimally soft. For cookie baking, I prefer insulated cookie sheets to prevent undersides from over browning.  I used a SiloPat baking liner when I baked these.

 

Grandma's Molasses Cookies

Makes 3 1/2 to 4 dozen

2 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. (generous) salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. cloves
3/4 cup shortening, at room temperature (Crisco)
1 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/4 cup molasses, preferably Grandma's (not blackstrap)
1/4 cup granulated sugar

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the shortening, brown sugar, egg and molasses on medium high speed until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat on lowest speed to moisten. Increase speed to medium and beat until combined, scraping down bowl as needed. Chill dough in freezer for about an hour or in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 and line baking sheets with parchment paper or place on SiloPat. Place 1/4 cup sugar in a shallow bowl. Scoop dough by rounded tablespoons and roll between your palms into 1 1/4 to 1 1/2-inch balls. Dip tops of balls in sugar and place on baking sheet about 2 1/2 inches apart.

Fill a glass with cold water. Dip your fingertips in the water and sprinkle each ball of dough with a few drops (this makes the crinkles). Bake one sheet at a time in the center of the oven for 8 to 9 minutes, or until cookies have spread, but still appear quite moist (they will not look "set" or done, but they are). Slide parchment onto counter top and cool completely.

NOTE:  I think these cookies are so moist and soft because you use shortening (Crisco) instead of butter.  We used to use shortening a lot years ago, but now so many cookies are made with butter instead...