Cass Cooks, Too!

posted by Cass on Jul 7

Posting compliments of Susan Walsch

Learning about food on cable tv is one of my greatest passions. Getting recipes from a book is great, but they do not compare to the recipes that are shared on TV. Television shows based on food give viewers a chance to visually witness the total preparation of a meal. A book does not afford the same opportunity. Yes, it is easy to read a book and look at pictures. Unfortunately, a book does not go into fine detail when it comes to each step that is required for each recipe.

I have been able to expand my horizons when it comes to preparing a top notch dinner for myself or my family. It is incredible how one can sit down throughout the day and learn about various styles of cooking. I have also learned how to mix different styles of cooking in order to come up with an authentic dish that will taste delicious. New techniques and recipes are always being shared with each episode. I also get a golden opportunity to see how dishes in other countries are prepared.

posted by Cass on Jun 22

Ok, so we made a couple of changes in the kitchen. The three teens are each taking 2 nights a week, and that leaves me with one, which was tonight and I made this:

I served it with rice, coucous, tomatoes/okra/corn and baby lima beans. It was so good to get back in the kitchen again, and also so very good to eat! I do love my own fried chicken.

Now, I don’t have a real recipe for friend chicken. I basically dip it in seasoned flour and throw it in hot grease. I vary the seasoning each time, depending on what I am in the mood for. Tonight, it was seasoned salt, garlic and a bit of thyme because I saw just a bit in the bottom of the jar and thought I might as well use it up. There ya go.

I do have three tips regarding fried chicken, though, that I can share. First and foremost, buy chicken with the skin on it. There is nothing healthy about fried chicken, and if you are gonna eat it, you might as well enjoy it. I prefer to fry thighs because they cook fairly quickly and very evenly, but I will also do breasts and drumsticks.

Second, hot grease. I use an electric skillet and I turn it to 350 and that’s where I keep it. I turn mine about 4 times, so each side cooks twice, and that gives a nice crispy skin. See above and live a little.

Third, and this is something Grandmother taught me just a few years before she died, long after she’d stopped cooking: the chicken is done when, after you turn it, the grease does not sizzle up. This is something you hear rather than see, but if the sound gets louder when you flip the meat, then you need to cook it longer. I haven’t pulled half cooked chicken out of the pan since she told me that.

posted by Cass on Jun 17

Recently, I had an opportunity to throw a small party. I had a couple of birthdays I wanted to celebrate along with a wee divorce and a little un-family thing and I wanted a special dessert to go along with the meal. I called my aunt to get her recipe for a cake that everyone raves about, because I knew it would be just the ticket. Here’s how you make it:

1 Pillsbury yellow cake mix
2 pints fresh strawberries
16 oz strawberry glaze
8 oz softened cream cheese
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
12 ounces thawed whipped topping

Make your cake. You can cook it in four layers, which is what I did, or you can cook it in 2 layers and cut them, but you need to end up with 4 slabs of cake. It takes about 15 minutes for the layers to cook, if you do foour. That information is not on the box, so I am just letting you know. Cool the cake completely. Completely, do you hear?

Cut the strawberries and mix with the glaze, reserving 4 pretty ones to slice for the top of the cake. Also set aside 3 tablespoons of the strawberry/glaze mixture.

Beat the softened cream cheese well with the granulated sugar. Test it, and don’t stop beating until the sugar crystals are completely dissolved in the cream cheese, otherwise, it will be gritty, and that’s just nasty feeling in your mouth. Add in the powdered sugar and the whipped topping and beat it all until mixed very well.

Now then, put down a layer of cake, frost it with 1/4 of the frosting and top with 1/3 of the strawberry/glaze mixture. Do this 2 more times and then top with the last cake. Frost with remaining frosting, and top with the reserved strawberry/glaze mix in the center. Slice the four reserved berries and place in a circle around that little bit of glaze stuff.

This cake is so good, and it is even better the next day, so make it ahead if you can. Now, I am going to give you the piece of advice my aunt didn’t give me. If your frosting is too stiff to spread easily, go ahead and thin it with just a wee bit of milk. You will know when you get ready to frost the second layer if you need to do this, because if the frosting is too stiff, the layers will move, and you will end up with a very good tasting cake that looks a little funny. And people might laugh until they take a bit and then they will try to make up for it with their mouth full and that is just gross. Wanna know how I know all this?

I’m sure you could also use little wooden dowels to keep the cake straight, but really, thinning the icing a bit seems a lot easier and more efficient.

posted by Cass on Mar 23

Okay, remember that lovely soup I told you about last time? It was even better over tater tots.

Put the tater tots on the plate, pour the soup over, and then smoosh them up a couple at a time to let them soak up the soup. It’s like…potato cheese broccoli soup.

posted by Cass on Dec 30

So at lunch time today, we had extra kids from the neighborhood here. I’d planned on packaged broccoli cheddar soup, but I was afraid it would not make enough for everyone to have enough, so I set about figuring out how to extend it. Here’s what we started with:

We made the soup according to the package directions, then added the Normandy Blend veggies, the Cream of Mushroom soup, an extra soup can of water and half a hunk of not-Velveeta. We heated it through and served it with saltines, and it was so. stinkin’. good!

The best news is that the neighborhood kids bailed, so we have plenty of leftovers

posted by Cass on Dec 11

Yeah, I know I didn’t list this in the upcoming recipe list. However, it really is the best roast ever, so I felt like I just had to share! So I am.

I used about a ten pound Boston Butt to make this. And actually, it was so easy that I just called out the directions to my 15 year old as I walked out the door.

Start a bit of oil heating in a large skillet. Combine some lemon pepper seasoning with some flour. Use a proportion like you were breading something to fry it. Roll the roast in that mixture until it is coated well. Then sear it in your hot oil. Put the roast in a covered pan and cook it in the oven at 250 degrees for several hours. Like 3 or 4. But if you have to go a bit longer you can. Or you can put it in the crock pot. See, I’m easy.

Serve the roast with a starch and a veggie the first night. For the lunch the next day, serve the chopped leftovers on hamburger or hot dog buns with a slice of cheese. Yummilicious.

If you were lucky enough to find the pork on sale for 89 cents a pound like I did, then you have 2 meals there for around $10. Less, if you aren’t feeding an army of 9.

posted by Cass on Dec 3

So, I set out to have BBQ ribs the other night. Angel Food had some delightful baby back ribs in their boxes this month, and I thought they would be real tasty. We put the ribs in the pan, and opened the pantry to get the BBQ sauce out, and there wasn’t any. Oops. Then we opened the fridge. I always have a couple bottles in there! And so I did. Two bottles with 1/2 inch of sauce each in them. Double oops. I threw those away, frowned and turned back to the fridge. I pulled out a bottle of sun dried tomato vinaigrette and mixed about 3/4 cup of that with 1/3 cup of honey, and poured that over the ribs. I simmered them in my large electric skillet at 250 for about 4 hours, and they were so good and tender! I pulled the bones out with tongs and piled the meat on a platter. We served them with diced sweet potatoes and field peas. Yum-i-licious.

Now that picture above, it’s not of my ribs. That would mean I remembered to take a picture, which I did not. Bad food blogger, bad food blogger.

posted by Cass on Nov 7

#1. Name a food you like that uses a red sauce or anything red in it.
#2. Name a food you like with whipped cream in it or on it.
#3. Name a food you like with blueberry in it.
#4. Share a recipe for pasta or dessert or a beverage.

man, am I ever late again. Sorry. I don’t mean for it to be this way, but life keeps happening while I am busy making other plans.

1. Umm. Umm….Spaghetti. Strawberry jelly. BLT.
2. Oooh, coffee drinks. Love big tall sweet coffee drinks with whipped cream.
3. Pie. D’uh.
4. Let’s see……… hot chocolate?

3 cups powdered milk
1/2 cup cocoa
3/4 cups sugar
dash of salt

Mix together well, and use 4 tablespoons of the mix to 8 ounces of hot water. Top with mini marshmallows or whipped cream, LOL.

posted by Cass on Nov 6

Ok, maybe not that many, but a lot. Last week, in my cooking segment on my knitting blog, I asked for recipes for Weiner Schnitzel. If you remember, there were pork chops in the AngelFood boxes, and I wanted to try my hand at this wonderful German dish. Allena offered up a recipe and I read through it, said “hmmmm”, and took off running. I made it this afternoon (and tweeted while I was doing it) and it was so good!

You’ll need:
eggs or egg beaters
fine bread crumbs

2 onions
2 jars mushrooms

6 porkchops, beaten thin and cut into two pieces each. BTW, when you get ready to pound your chops, cover them with wax paper. This will prevent flying pig juice from …..ok, enough, you more than get the picture, right?

oil
flour
salt
pepper
water
egg noodles
Please forgive me for not having a picture of these lesser, boring, but oh so necessary ingredients.

After you have pounded the pork chops, dip them in egg and then in bread crumbs. Fry them in a little oil until browned. It may take a couple of panfuls. Start the water for your egg noodles now. Once it boils, add the noodles, turn off the burner, and let them sit for the time it says on the package.

Once they are browned, stack them up on a serving plate, and set them aside.

Throw the onions in that same pan, and brown them. Oh my, doesn’t that smell so good? I do love the smell of frying onions. Even if it does last forever. That and cabbage. Yumm.

After the onions are done to your satisfaction, sprinkle in some flour and stir it around to make roue. Use plenty of flour, so you don’t end up with greasy gravy. Scrape up those pan crispies, too! They have such wonderful flavor! Let it brown as much as you like, and then add the water to complete the gravy. (Does anybody need a gravy lesson? I could do that; it would be a great justification for that flip video I want.)

Add the mushrooms. I got these at a steal. 10 dry ounces for 88 cents. I am going back tomorrow to buy Wal-Mart out of them. I would have done it today, but they say “in brine” and I wanted to make sure they aren’t too salty. They aren’t, they are just right!

Stir them in.

Heat them through and serve: A goodish portion of noodles, a cutlet or two and plenty of sauce ladled over the top of it all.

Doesn’t that look like it would get your ledehosen in a wad?

posted by Cass on Oct 31

Before I get into the Four Foods on Friday, I want to take a few minutes to let you know what’s going on with me. I know that looking over the past couple of weeks of entries here it appears that this blog may be all about Four Foods and other memes, but this is not the case. I desperately want to get this blog back to how it was a couple of months ago, before football became my life and I got so overwhelmed. I was having fun then, and I think you were, too.

Football season ended last Saturday, and only Cheer is left. We’ll be done with that the week of Thanksgiving, but this week, we had a vacation from practices, and I spent the bulk of the week streamlining and catching up and cutting the chaff, so I could have a clear focus and time to put into developing just a few blogs into what I really want them to be. I’m excited about that!

So, what does that mean for you? Well, if you look at the tagline up above, you will see I changed it. It says “Frugal Gourmet meets Scarlett O’Hara”. I really want to specialize in bringing you recipes that don’t break the bank, and still have people asking for more, more, more of that, so one thing I plan to do is provide recipes for some of the foods that come in the Angel Food boxes. Dollar for Dollar, ounce for ounce, it doesn’t get any more budget friendly than Angel Food.

Okay, that’s a huge long introduction, and I still have more to say, but I am going to force myself to shut up and move on to the Four Foods on Friday. Here are this week’s questions:

#1. What kind of pretzels are your favorite?
#2. What’s your favorite way to eat pancakes?
#3. Do you make garlic bread from scratch or buy frozen?
#4. Share a recipe that calls for mozzarella cheese.

1. I like the little rods, and I especially lke them with peanut butter. I put a dollop of peanut butter in a bowl with a handful of pretzels, and dip the pretzels in it. So good!

2. On a plate in front of me, LOL. Seriously, I like honey on oatmeal pancakes, and maple syrup on regular white flour pancakes and either on whole wheat pancakes.

3. I do both, depending on time, inclination and finances.

4. I use mozzarella pretty much exclusively, because it is lower in saturated fat than other hard cheeses, and I have to watch my cholesterol. The recipe that first comes to mind is my lasagna, but that is neither quick, nor easy, nor inexpensive, so I will skip it. What about stuffed shells?

Stuffed Shells

Large pasta shells
8 ounces mozzarella
8 ounces cottage cheese
10 ounces frozen spinach
2 eggs
salt
pepper
jar of prepared spaghetti sauce

Cook the pasta. Mix the other ingredients, except the sauce, together. When the shells are done, fill them with the cheese mixture. Pour the sauce over the top, bake until hot and bubbly. Serve with salad and garlic bread.