A Thanksgiving Gift - Grandpa's Corn Casserole

While I still feel a bit cynical about Thanksgiving, I want to share a Thanksgiving gift with you.  It's the recipe my father makes every Thanksgiving for an easy, delicious corn casserole.  By "easy" I mean that kids old enough to use the oven can make it.  Or, kids not only enough to use the oven but old enough to open and stir - say, 5-6 years old - can make it.

From The Daily Gazette

Grandpa Yoder's Corn Casserole

Ingredients:
1 16 oz. can of creamed corn
1 16 oz. can of whole kernel corn
1 8 oz. container of sour cream
1 box of Jiffy Corn Bread Mix
1/4 c. of melted butter.

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Grease a casserole dish (or use non-stick spray).
3. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
4. Pour into the casserole dish.
5. Bake 45 - 60 minutes, or until lightly brown on top.

This is a family favorite - my daughter loves Grandpa's corn casserole.  I hope that you and your family enjoy this.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Recipe: Inez's Zucchini Bread

Inez Patterson is my husband's Mom.  She was a character, from all accounts, who worked hard at being both a good person and a great mother.  Inez cooked dinners at home virtually every day, and my dear husband introduces us to various dishes from his childhood from time to time.  Last Saturday, he went to the kitchen with our daughter and whipped up a favorite of his - zucchini bread.  I was at the writing conference, and I came home to a wonderfully smelling house with even more wonderfully tasting bread.  I loved it so much, I decided to share the recipe.  I hope you enjoy this as much as we do.

 Inez's Zucchini Bread Recipe 

Ingredients:

• 2 c. Flour
• 2 tsp. Baking powder
• 1 tsp. Salt
• 1/4 tsp. Baking Soda
• 3 tsp. Cinnamon
• 3 Eggs
• 1 c. Vegetable Oil
• 2/3 c. Sugar
• 2 c. Grated zucchini (from 2 medium-sized zucchinis)
• 2 tsp. Vanilla
• 1 c. Raisins
• 1 c. Chopped Walnuts

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, Fahrenheit.
2. Grease a 13"x9"x2" dish or a loaf pan.
3. Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.
4. Make a well in the center of the dry mixture.
5. Add everything else in and mix together.  Do not overmix.
6. Pour mixture into the dish or loaf pan.
7. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the center springs back.

Recipe: One Skillet Pasta

Have you ever come into your kitchen, dreading not the actual cooking of dinner, but instead the cleaning up afterwards? Have you ever moaned about how many pots and pans get dirtied just trying to make a simple pasta dish?

I have.  So when I found a recipe that dirtied one and only one skillet, but gets me a fabulous pasta dinner, I copied it into my homemade cook book faster than Speedy Gonzalez.  I use this as a meal anytime I want a break from doing a huge load of dishes.  I also began to teach my son how to make this, because it's that easy.

One Skillet Pasta

Ingredients:
1 lb. of ground beef
2 c. of hot water
26 oz. of spaghetti sauce
3 c. of  some other small pasta, uncooked
1 c. of ricotta cheese
1 c. of mozzarella cheese

Directions:

1. Cook the ground beef in a skillet.  Drain out any excess fat.
2. Add the water and spaghetti sauce to the beef, mix together, and heat until boiling.
3. Add the pasta, turn the heat down to a simmer, and cover.  
4. Cook for 15 - 20 minutes, until the pasta is tender.
5. Add the ricotta cheese, stirring to incorporate.  Cook for an additional 5 minutes.
6. Stir half the mozzarella into the mixture.  Spread the rest of the cheese over the top. Cover the skillet one more time, and wait until the cheese melts before serving.

Emergency Dinner: Chicken and Rice

We all know what an emergency dinner is - you've gotten home from either work, shopping, or some other errand and it's dinner time.  Actually, dinner time passed you by 30 minutes ago, and now everyone (including you) is hungry and cranky.  You want to get food on the table as soon as possible, and you want to avoid hitting the local fast food restaurant again.

When our oldest son was seven, I worked in Denver and lived in Colorado Springs.  That meant I had a very long commute home, after which I needed to get dinner ready.  Let me tell you, cooking is definitely not one of the top 10 things I wanted to do after a commute.  So, I cooked extra on weekend and we ate leftovers at the beginning of the week.  Sometimes we ate pizza (he was seven, so we could not eat enough pizza for him).  But other nights, I'd whip up an emergency dinner.  No, it's not the healthiest dinner on the planet, but it beats fast food.

Tonight's Dinner:

Chicken and Rice

Ingredients:

• 2 c. of water
• 1 can (16 oz) of chicken, drained
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• 2 c of instant rice
• 1 c. of shredded sharp cheddar cheese (optional)

Directions:

1. Put water, chicken, and soup into a skillet.  Heat until the water boils.
2. Add the rice, mix well and cover.  Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes.
3. Spread the cheese on top of the mixture in the skillet and let sit another minute or until the cheese melts.

Voila!  Dinner is served.  I used the first five minutes of sitting time to set the table and finish the rest of dinner, and the last minute to call everyone to the table to eat. 

Recipe: Homemade Egg Noodles

I never really cooked when I was single - it just seemed like too much work for one person. After I got married (years and years ago), my husband cooked on the weekend, and I learned several simple meals. But in some ways, I never felt like I was cooking, since I used several cans of ingredients to make the dishes.

Late this summer, I finally decided to do what I considered "real cooking". Two things happened:

1. I learned how much I love my crock pot. 
2. I realized that I had been cooking before - I just didn't know it. 

 I found a wonderful website called A Year of Slow Cooking, where I learned how to make homemade marinara sauce. When it came time to make the pasta, I wanted to have something homemade to go with my marinara sauce.

I searched the Internet, high and low, and came up with...  a big headache.  Then I created a very simple recipe, using all the other recipes on the Internet.  So here is...

(Yet Another) Homemade Egg Noodles Recipe


Ingredients:

16 oz. (453.6 g.) of Flour
5 room temperature eggs
Pinch of salt
2 tsp. of Olive Oil (optional)

Directions:

1. Measure out the flour into a large bowl.  Make a well in the middle of the flour.
2. Break the eggs into the hole.  Add salt and olive oil directly to the eggs.
3. Mix the eggs, salt, and olive oil into the flour.  If the dough is too wet, add some flour.  If the dough gets too dry, add a little water.
4. Put the dough onto a lightly floured surface and kneed until it become smooth and slightly elastic.
5. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes or so.
6. Take about 1/4 of the dough, and roll out as thin as you can.
7. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into thin noodles.  Put the noodles on a plate, adding just enough flour to keep the noodles from sticking to themselves.
8. Roll out the other 3/4 in three sections, adding to the plate with flour.
9. While you are rolling out the last piece of dough, bring salted water to a rolling boil in a large pan.  
10. Cook the noodles in the boiling water in batches.  You want to use batches to avoid the noodles sticking to each other in the water.
11. Note, it only takes about 1 to 2 minutes to cook the noodles - do not walk away from the pan or you can accidentally overcook the noodles.  
12. Serve immediately, or lightly coat with olive oil to keep the cooked noodles from sticking to each other and refrigerate.

Notes:

• I add a pinch of salt to the noodles, but I also add salt to the boiling water.  Otherwise, the noodles taste rather bland.
• If you are mixing the dough by hand, I suggest you coat your hands with a light layer of Crisco shortening.  This will help keep the dough from sticking to your skin.
• If you don't have a scale, start with 2 1/2 cups of flour and add flour to get the dough to the right wetness.
• Make the noodles as thin  as possible, because they will puff up a lot in the boiling water.  The first time I made this recipe, it looked like a cooked long dumplings instead of noodles.  Luckily, they still tasted fantastic.
• If you have a pasta press, I envy you!  I have no hints about how to use a pasta press, but when I get one I'll update the recipe.