Pie Makes Everything Better

 It's been a while.  Summer got busy, then school started, and I'm still working on the weekends.  I made a trip up to my parents' a few weeks ago, my dad was in the hospital for awhile.  I took dessert, Lottie's cherry cheese pie, which has been a family favorite as long as I can remember.  It's also one of the easiest recipes in the book.  I didn't use "Thank You" Brand pie filling, I wasn't aware it was still available until after I bought all the ingredients.  As far as I can tell, it's only available at Buehler's, and I'm not driving 3 hours for pie filling.  So I used Lucky Leaf.  By the way, in 1962, Thank You brand pie filling was 3 Number 2 cans for $1 at Young's IGA.  I spent a lot of time at that corner grocery store, but it was Smith's by the time I was old enough to run through the automatic doors. The recipe says it makes two pies, but in order to make two, I had to stop what I was doing and go buy another 21 oz can.  I also used pre-made graham cracker crust.  It turned out just like I remembered it.

Cherry Cheese Pie

1 8 oz. pack cream cheese

2 Tbsp lemon juice

3 Tbsp sugar

1 pack Dream Whip

Can Thank You Brand Cherry Pie Filling

Fix Dream Whip  according to directions on package.  Cream together Cheese, lemon juice and sugar.  Fold two mixtures together.  Put in bottom of baked pie shell.  Spread pie filling over top.  Top with whipped cream.  Makes two 8 inch pies.

Quick and simple

 The last time I cooked a "Lottie" recipe was a month ago, May 25th.  To say the last month has been hectic would be a major understatement.

This sounded like something simple, and it was.  It made a ton, of course, so I froze them and snacked on them for a couple weeks.  Of course there was guesswork involved.  I guessed at the amount of vanilla and chocolate, since Lottie just assumed whoever was making this recipe 80ish years later would know.  Unfortunately, I had to throw out the first crust.  I messed it up, long story.  The final product tasted really good though, even without jello.

Tiny Toffee Squares

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 rgg

2 cups flour

salt

vanilla (I used a teaspoon)

sweet chocolate, melted (I used a bag of chocolate chips)

Mixed salted nuts

Mix first five ingredients.  Bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees.  Remove from oven and spread immediately with melted chocolate and nuts.

Back into the kitchen

 It's been awhile...

Between the play, the end of school year, and my second job, I haven't had much time to cook or blog.  I did make one recipe last weekend.  And it's a weird one.

May would have been a busy month for Lottie, too.  Her birthday was May 1, Her first baby (Robert) was born May 14, and her anniversary was May 17.  

I worked on Sunday, with Cathy.  I realized how weird this recipe sounded when I saw the expression on her face.  At one point last winter, I promised her that I would bring treats in once in awhile.  When I described "Marguerites" to her, as asked her if she wanted me to bring her some:

"No."

Basically, it's a meringue on a saltine cracker.  I give it 6/10.  I wouldn't ever take it to any kind of function, because frankly, they're ugly.  They taste okay, good for an after school graze.  And remember, use nuts, no specific kind given,, I used walnuts.  Moderate oven, I guessed 350?  But make sure that syrup is exactly238 degrees, or the moon will go dark and your kitchen walls will start oozing lime jello.

Marguerites

1 3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup water

2 egg whites, beaten

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup nuts, chopped

1/8 tsp. salt

1 tbsp butter

40 soda crackers

Boil sugar and water to soft ball stage or 238 degrees, then pour over beaten egg whites and beat until stiff.  Add vanilla, nuts, salt, vanilla and butter.  Drop by spoonfuls on the crackers and bake in moderate oven until light brown.

And the Secret Ingredient is...

 Three recipes this weekm, because last week was busy:  Caribbean Fruit Salad, Lemon Bisque, and Hershey Bar pie.

I made Caribbean Fruit salad last week.  Fruit, walnuts, and you guessed it;  jello!  I would give it a 6/10.  I'm not a big fan of the walnut/lime jello combo, and the coconut doesn't really add much flavor, just texture.  Not an appealing texture though.  

A few days ago at rehearsal, we started throwing around the idea of a potluck.  Before you cringe, keep in mind that we've spent three hours a day for the last month together.  We wear masks and socially distance as much as possible.  A few of us are already fully vaccinated.  Everyone that prepared food wore a mask while they made the food.  Which was great for me, because I'm a "sampler."  It's hard to pass marshmallows through a mask.  I made two pies, in case one wasn't enough for nine cast members and three crew members, and because I'd never tried the lemon one before.  Actually, 12.5 people, one of our cast members is is six months pregnant.  Thanks to some clever costuming, you can't tell which one it is.  The other pie, Hershey Bar, is a family favorite.  Especially of my aunt's.  She was Lottie's first great-grandchild, and during my grandma's entire pregnancy, she told her "You're gonna have that baby on my birthday."  And she was right.  I made both at once, and didn't destroy either one.  I'm kind of proud of that.  My only disaster was the whipped cream.  Something happened with the first batch, and it separated.  I got online, but none of the solutions worked.  Instead of light, fluffy whipped cream, I made butter.  Lottie, the WWI/Great Depression/WWII era housewife would have probably found some way to use it, or save it, but I had enough left over for both pies, so I threw it out and started over.  The recipes turned out well.  One of the instructions in the lemon pie was to "whip the Jello."  I didn't know you could whip Jello.

I would give both recipes 9/10.  I even ate the leftover filling for breakfast on Saturday morning.

I used the leftover filling as a test to see if the pie was set, etc.

I forgot to get a picture before I took them to rehearsal.

Caribbean Fruit Salad

1 package lime jello

1 cup boiling water

1 cup juice from drained pineapple

2/3 cup crushed pineapple

3/4 cup sliced bananas

1/4 cup chopped nuts

1/2 cup angel flake coconut

Dissolve jello in hot water and juice.  Chill and when partially set fold in pineapple, nuts, bananas and coconut.

Hershey Bar Pie

20 large marshmallows

6 Almond Hershey Bars

1/2 cup milk

Melt together in a double boiler over hot water.  When cold fold in 1/2 cup cream whipped.  Put in graham cracker crust.  Cover top with crumbs.

Lemon Bisque

1 package lemon Jello

2 cups hot water

3/4 cup cream, whipped

Grated rind of 1 lemon

1 T. lemon juice

1/2 cup sugar

salt

1 cup rolled vanilla wafers

Dissolve Jello in hot water and cool until it starts to thicken.  Whip Jello, then cream and fold together along with other ingredients, except crumbs.  Cover bottom of 8 inch pan with part of crumbs;  pour in filling and cover with remaining crumbs.

This weather is nuts

 I picked another recipe (again) that sounded fairly simple.  It's hard to mess up cookies, even for me.  I may be taking a hiatus soon, the next few weeks are going to be really busy, with school and the play I'm in.  It also didn't take a long list of ingredients, which is good, because I haven't left the house since Saturday.  We've had about 8 inches of snow since the weekend, layered with ice and sleet.  Today was our fourth consecutive snow day.  They let us out midday on Wednesday, Monday was a holiday, and we haven't been back for a week.  We're already closed for tomorrow, and we may get two to four more inches by Thursday morning.  I've been looking in the newspaper archives for this week 100 years ago.  There's no mention of the weather.  The Simons would have been celebrating my great-grandma's 17th birthday, but not much big news from Orrville.

My kitchen.  That blinding white light isn't from the sun, it's from all the snow on the ground

 Back to the recipe.he farther I got into it, the more I realized that the cookies were basically the snowball cookies that are a staple on every Midwestern Christmas cookie tray.  Except they're peanut flavored.  I used butter instead of shortening, which may change the texture slightly, but they tasted fine.  The dough was really dry, it was hard to form them according to the recipe.  The peanuts weren't chopped small enough.  I'm not good about consistency, so I finally grabbed a 2 tablespoon coffee scoop (I don't drink coffee, so at least I got some use out of it) and used that.  The recipe says 12 minutes, but the first batch started to burn at 9 minutes.  I fully intended to ration them out in case of a power outage, but it never went out.  They turned out so well, I had to put them in the fridge because when they were on the counter, I was eating one or two every time I passed through the kitchen.

Peanut Puffs

3/4 cup shortening
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 t. salt
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 t. vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
5/4 cup salted peanuts (chopped)

Cream shortening with peanut butter and salt, add sugar and vanilla, then flour and peanuts.  Shape dough in small balls.  On ungreased pan, bake 12 minutes at 375 degrees.  Roll in powdered sugar.

Google it

 I chose another fairly simple recipe this week: Macaroni A La King.  Although as a French teacher, that physically hurts to use the phrase "La King."  I also picked something that could potentially be frozen and eaten for awhile, in case we get the three days of ice and snowstorms that are forecasted to start tonight.  I'm still eating Chocolate Dessert, too.  The weeks are about to get a little crazy, with school and rehearsal, and the construction site that is my backyard.  This recipe only involved one emergency trip to the store, because I realized I only had almond milk instead of real milk.  I have a running list of things to Google.  When did almond milk become commercially available?  I knew how to prepare the ingredients, but again, the instructions were kind of vague, and I tried to remember the order of ingredients when I made macaroni and cheese from scratch.  Weird fact about me:  I don't cry when I cut onions.  Google, why don't some people cry when they chop onions? 

The "I hope it's supposed to look like this" stages

It turned out....just okay.  I didn't drain enough water after cooking the macaroni and vegetables, and it was too runny.  Despite the fact that it's piled with bacon and cheese, I don't know if it's worth saving.  

Macaroni A La King

Cook 1 cup macaroni, 1 cup celery, 2 large onions in 1 qt. water for 10 minutes.  Leave water on that remains.  Make sauce of 4 T. butter, 4 T. Flour, 2 cups milk, salt, and pepper.  Add 1/2 cup undiluted tomato soup, 2 cups shredded cheese.  Put strips os bacon over top.  Bake 30 minutes 350 degrees.

Pork chops in the time of Covid

 For this week's meal, I picked something fairly simple: Stuffed Pork Chops and "Chocolate Dessert."  The dessert was suggested by Grandma Wagner, that was one of her favorites.  There aren't a lot of main dishes, and most of them are kind of complicated.  I may save recipes that call for roasting a whole chicken for when we're allowed to be in large groups again.  On that note, I was lucky enough to get the first dose of the Covid vaccine a few days ago.  One step closer to normal.  I was thinking about that earlier, because Lottie survived both malaria and typhoid in 1908.  She was a tough woman.

    The stuffed pork chops were fairly easy, minus the usual guesswork.  The pork chops I bought came in a pack of four.  I wasn't able to have them "cut with a pocket" because I did grocery pick up.  I'm a modern woman, I cut my own pork chops, thank you.  I cheated a little bit, because I didn't see the stuffing recipe on the previous page, so I used the boxed kind.  Next time I'm feeling ambitious, I'll make my own.  Actually, it took me a minute to figure out my grocery list for that one.  I saw "dressing" and for a few minutes, I thought she meant mayonnaise.  It took me a minute to realize it was actually what we call "stuffing."  In my defense, every other recipe in the book has mayonnaise, why would this one be any different?  Halfway through, I suddenly remembered that it came out a few years ago that you weren't supposed to stuff raw turkey and then bake it, maybe it was the same with pork chops.  Unlike the egg situation, there really wasn't another way, so I decided to risk it. It's been six hours, so far so good.  I wasn't worried about portion sizes, we're supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow overnight, so if I can't get out all week, I'm ok.  They turned out well, and in less than two hours.  I used a cooking thermometer at an hour and 40 minutes, and they were fine.

Stuffed Pork Chops

Have pork chops cut with pocket.  Put 1 or 2 T. dressing in pocket and secure with a toothpick.  Fry on both sides, place in roaster with 1/2 inch water and 1/2 cup sherry wine.  Roast 2 hours at 375 degrees.

I told Grandma about what I was doing, and she was excited.  She wanted me to try the "Chocolate Dessert."  It was probably the easiest dessert I've done so far.  Except that there's no baking temperature.  The cake mix box said 350, so that's what I used.  I taste tested it right out of the oven, but it was better after it cooled almost to room temperature.  Right out of the oven, it tasted a little like a molten lava cake.  Not bad.  Maybe next week I'll get brave and try a candy recipe.

Chocolate Dessert

1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup cocoa, stir in 2 cups water.  Put in 13x9 cake pan.  Scatter marshmallows over this.  Spoon over this Duncan Hines Chocolate Cake, mixed according to directions.  Sprinkle nuts over top and bake 45 minutes.  Serve with whipped cream.