Revive us oh lord

holy crap. this blog is very nearly dead. july 29 was the last post?! uh..sorry...

what better to revive it for the winter season than my mother's infamous

MOLASSES COOKIES

Ingredients:

1 c. sugar
2/3 c. margarine (not butter)
1 egg
4 tbsp. molasses (dark)
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. flour
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinammon

Mix all ingredients together. It doesn't work to use a mixer. I like to use -gasp- my bare hands. Chill the dough for 2 hours (or 1.5...) Roll into 1-2 inch balls and dip in sugar. Place on greased cookie sheet and flatten balls. Bake @ 350 for about 10 minutes.

Flatten balls, heh.

T-dawg's Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff

The recipe's actually from my mama, though.

Ingredients:
beef cubes ("for stewing")
3/4 c. flour
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. dry mustard
2 onions, chopped
2 cans or ~12oz. chopped mushrooms
1 can beef broth
1 c. sour cream

Combine 1/2 c. of the flour with the salt, pepper, and dry mustard in a large bowl. Toss with the meat chunks to coat them thoroughly. Place in crock pot. Stir in chopped onion and mushrooms. Add beef broth, stir well. Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours.

A half hour before serving, combine sour cream and remaining 1/4 c. of flour. Stir into pot, combining gradually so cream doesn't curdle. Serve over egg noodles or rice.

elaine's famous potato salad

i'm a little hesitant posting this recipe, because i haven't explicitly received permission from the creator. in fact i haven't even really even discussed the exact "recipe" with the chef, but i'm pretty confident in my ability to accurately deduce it, so here goes:

elaine's famous potato salad

potatoes
apples
pineapple chunks (fresh, not canned)
mayonnaise

to put this recipe in the proper context, i guess i should explain that in hong kong almost everybody seems to love mayonnaise. it is especially popular to make "fruit salads" with mayonnaise. and apparently potatoes are considered a fruit. the school canteen makes a pretty good fruit/potato salad involving what i think is canned fruit cocktail, but its nothing compared to the salad elaine, the security guard from the dorm next door, made for some of the other kids in my program that live in her building. fortunately for me, none of the other americans seemed to feel the same way, which scored me an impromtu invitation since they figured i would be the only one capable of eating enough not to offend her. i do have to admit that even i was a little shocked at first, but the pineapple/mayo combo really does grow on you.

"Build-a-mountain"

This is one of my family classics that I recently dug out of the recesses of my memory and plopped onto our dinner plates. It seems like a really gross combination of ingredients until you try it. Trust me. Note, however, that it is essential to include as many of the ingredients as possible to achieve the desired taste chemistry. The way my family set up the "buffet" was to put bowls of each ingredient in a row on the counter. Each one had a piece of paper with a rhyme to go along, explaining which part of the "mountain" the topping was to represent. Example: coconut is the snow, chow-mein noodles are...trees? okay it made sense when I was a kid, but the most important part is that you end up with a delicious mountain of food on your plate. My sister and I would be in charge of putting easy things in bowls and writing the directions (in crayon), complete with illustrations and arrows so as to keep any diners (our grandparents) from wandering the wrong way around the buffet and ending up with an inverted mountain. This is an essential recipe for this site, since it includes both cream of mushroom AND cream of chicken...in their purest form!

INGREDIENTS (recipe serves 8-ish)
2 cups uncooked long-grain rice
1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
some milk (about a cup?)
chow mein noodles
3 tomatoes, sliced
1 cup chopped celery
(1/2 cup chopped green bell pepperl)
(1/2 cup chopped green onions)
1 (20 ounce) can pineapple chunks, drained
1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
(1/2 cup slivered almonds)
1/2 cup shredded coconut
1 tbsp diced pimentos, drained

DIRECTIONS

Make rice. It might be prudent to have all your toppings chopped or set out beforehand if you don't have a family of helpers to do it for you.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine chicken and mushroom soup concentrates with pimentos. Mix well and heat a little, then add enough milk to not make it totally disgusting that you're eating condensed soup. Basically you want it to have the consistency of pudding, not soup. Stir until heated through.

On each plate layer cooked rice, sauce, tomato, (other optional vegetables), pineapple, celery, cheese, chow mein noodles, and coconut. Every bite tastes different!

(The picture comes from a site with a recipe that is inferior to mine, as it has the pimentos on top instead of doing their proper job flavoring the sauce)

the "family party" at grandma and grandpa's

the following three recipes were served to me at least once a month from the time i could eat solid foods until i was 11, always on sunday afternoons, always on a plastic cafeteria tray, sometimes followed by store brand vanilla ice cream in a cake-cone, and always followed by at least one grandchild being checked for a concussion after falling down the basement stairs


potato salad:

five large boiled potatoes
one cucumber
radishes
green onions

cut above ingredients into potato salad sized pieces, sprinkle with pickle juice then mix together with mayonnaise, celery salt, mustard (if you like that), milk, regular salt, etc, etc

marshmallow salad:

prepare 1 small package jello lemon pudding mix (not instant and leave out the egg yolks), then add:
2 cans fruit cocktail (drained)
2 cans mandarin oranges (drained)
1 largish package miniature marshmallows
mix well and chill in refrigerator

before serving add sliced bananas and 1/2 pint whipping cream, whipped plain (no sugar added)

ham rolls:

one bag of small white rolls
ham
iceberg lettuce (optional)
mustard and/or mayonnaise

guests assemble sandwiches at their leisure. serve with potato/marshmallow salads, on cafeteria trays if possible

Potato Insanity

This family recipe was contributed by Nicole:

1 bag (thawed in refrigerator) Ore-Ida diced hash browns (I think they are called "Southern Style Potatoes").
8 oz. Sour Cream
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
1/2 Onion, diced
8 oz shredded cheddar cheese (or more)
1/2 stick of Butter
Potato Chips (plain)

Preheat oven to 375. In a bowl, mix the potatoes, sour cream, soup, cheese, onion, salt & pepper. Glop into pan. Roughly crush potato chips, sprinkle liberally on top. Melt the butter, drizzle over potato chip crust. Bake 30-35 min, until crust is golden and crunchy, underlayer is bubbly.

My family's version of this has corn flakes on top, but potato chips are obviously the better choice. I can't believe I've been putting them on tuna casserole all this time and never extended the deliciousness to other recipes! Also, I suggest we talk meatloaf on this blog because I made mine last week and DAMN is it good. It's been posted on someone else's blog somewhere but I think it's time to bring it up here, since there's bound to be some discord about where the ketchup goes.

Childhood and curry.

Last night I made my mother's recipe for "Chicken Devan". First, it must be stated that I don't know what this dish is really called. When I was studying abroad my British roommate made it and called it Chicken de Vian (or something like that), and it seems more likely that this could be the original name. However, I belive JofC refers to it as "Devan", so that is what I will call it, as did my mother before me.

The JofC recipe lacked several important things: 1. simplicity - nothing makes a recipe simple like two cans of cream soup, and a pile of cheddar. 2. mayo - lots of it. 3. curry - this is the true secret. The JofC recipe involves making a Mornay sauce (a white sauce with cheese added), which is a lot of trouble. Why spend so much time stirring and reaching appropriate heat levels when you can combine one can of cream of mushroom soup, one can of cream of chicken soup, 3/4 cup of mayo, juice of 1/2 a lemon, and 1 tsp curry powder to create a sauce that tastes one hundred times more delicious?!



i used frozen broccoli and cooked the chicken in lots of olive oil beforehand. My mother used Minute rice, but even I have limits. top it with some shredded cheddar (sharp) and put it in the oven at 350 for around a half hour, making sure to check it periodically so the top doesn't burn. Serve atop non-Minute rice.

(note, in this blog JofC will refer to Joy of Cooking. I have the 2006 or 2007 edition..the one that tells you to put a tablespoon of salt in your pancakes. wrong.)

tuna casserole: the remix

they say when life gives you lemons make lemonade. well sometimes life gives you bags of frozen broccoli, and shortages of frozen peas. that said, here is an ingredients list for the tuna casserole that i made last night:

about half a box elbow macaroni OR small shells
one can cream of mushroom soup (CofM)
one-two cans of tuna fish
one cup milk (or less, depending on the amount of macaroni)
one 8 oz block of sharp cheddar cheese (minimum)
one-two cups frozen broccoli
black pepper
red pepper flakes, if you want to take it there
crushed chips

i'm pretty sure you are all capable of figuring out how to combine these ingredients appropriately. however, despite the obvious simplicity of this recipe, i still manage, somehow, to screw something up almost every time. except last night. last night my casserole was nearly perfect. in fact it probably could have been in some sort of museum. so here is a second list of things that might account for my uncharacteristic success:

leave the noodles slightly undercooked

use a small casserole dish, calling for fewer noodles, less milk, and slightly less cheese, resulting in a much higher CofM ratio

don't grate the cheese, cut it into slices, and add it last, just before you pour everything into the casserole, so that it doesn't completely melt until you put it in the oven

if you have the luxury of a colander, heat the CofM with a little of the milk in the bottom of your pot before returning the drained noodles. i'm pretty sure this can't possibly serve any purpose other than making you feel like you are making a more complicated recipe that requires a roux or something, but i like imagining that kind of thing so i recommend this anyway

bake at 350 for about 40 minutes