Spud Soup and Biscuits

 I go on cooking quests...one of them being to find the perfect biscuit recipe.  I found one.  I got it from Lisa Rogerson, except it is no longer Rogerson, off hand I don't know what it is.  Lisa is one of the daughters of our dear friend Vickie Rogerson from Washington.  She had a book of name brand recipes, like these biscuits.  These are KFC biscuits.  They are most delicous. 
KFC Biscuits
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/3 cup shortening
2/3 cup buttermilk
Sift dry ingredients together.  Put in shortening and cut in.  Make a nest and pour in buttermilk, mix til just combined.  Dump out onto lightly floured table and knead 1 or 2 times, pat out to 1/2 inch thick and cut.  Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 12 minutes at 400 degrees.  Most delicious with butter and honey or jam!

Spud soup.  Most people probably call it potato soup, Kasey started calling this spud soup and it has stuck.  I don't have a 'real' recipe for this..so it is sort of never the same twice! 
Peel and cube some potatoes...another one of those 'I never measure' things.  Just do what your family will eat.  Cover with water and boil til tender.  Drain off about half the water, you can lightly mash them if you want and that will thicken it a bit.  Sometimes I do, this time I didnt.  Add cream..I love cream!  You can also use milk which is a less fattening, less rich soup.  I add about a quart or so.  If I don't have that much cream I use milk too, add a can of drained corn if you like.  Fry up a half package of bacon that you have diced and drain well.  Add that to the soup.  Season to your taste with salt and pepper, garlic powder, onion powder.  Sometimes I add chicken base.  If you want a thicker soup add instant potatoes a little at a time stirring affter each addition to get it as thick as you want.  This batch I didn't thicken at all...because I was too lazy to climb up on a chair and get the instant potatoes off the top shelf.  We like it thicker.  Enjoy!

Italian Sodas

What is more refreshing on a hot summers day than an Italian Soda?  Sure you can go down to the Java Java place and get one..but why not make them yourself?  I have always had a load of kids and so to buy everyone a drink is close to 20 bucks.  For much less we just make our own! 

First you need carbonated water...flavored syrups, crushed ice (aka bar ice), cream, that cool whip stuff in a can and sprinkles.
Fill your cup with crushed ice and pour in, oh good grief, I never measure, an inch or two of your flavored syrup.  Then pour in some cream, I love cream so I probably put in an inch or two of cream.  Then fill up your cup with carbonated water, squirt the cool whip stuff on top, put sprinkles on, add a straw and enjoy! 
These are my favorite taste testers!  In the back is Marlyee and Karlene, Lyndie, Kirk and Kailerai are in the front. 

A couple side notes....you can get the flavored syrups in the coffee section at the grocery store or Wal-Mart.  Also, if you are in Riverton and know Wendell Richardson you can order some from him too.  You get a bigger bottle and it costs about the same as the little one from Wal-Mart. 
Bar ice.  I enjoy crushed ice and the only place in town that I know of to get it is at the bar.  The old IGA liquer store...drive thru so you don't even have to go in!  2 bucks for a bag of crushed ice.  My secret is out now!!

I Suck!

Kasey is coming today and  I decided that I would make him some Oatmeal Scotchies, his favorite.  How hard can this be?  You get the bag of butterschotch chips and follow the recipe on the back.  Yeah, that was a good idea. 
I got the ingredients out and mixed them up according to package directions.  Got my handy dandy cookie scoop and put them on the cookie sheets.  Preheated the oven to 375 and put the first pan into bake for 9 minutes.  They were a little on the done side, and flat as pancakes.  Removing them from the cookie sheet was not easy as they didn't hold their shape and they fell apart easily.  I did another pan and baked them for 8 minutes..they looked a bit better, although, still flat and hard to remove from the cookie sheet with out breaking.  The third try I baked them for 8 minutes and still..flat.  I let them cool for a minute or so before taking them off the cookie sheet...not a good decision.  I had to chisel them off the cookie sheet...see the picture of the mess:

You can see the piles of the first two batches...the crumbled mess is the third and final cookie sheet...unfortunately I made a double batch.  The bag had pan cookie directions, which I followed.  Good grief...I'll let this picture speak for itself:

They don't look too bad...except the stuff on the bottom of the oven.  That is the overflow that gave my house a lovely aroma of burnt cookies! 

Here is the finished product.  Does not look most delicious.  I don't even like this kind of cookie.  I will not be making Oatmeal Scotchies ever again. 

Fry Bread

We had indian tacos for dinner.  For those of you who have had them you should have smelled the grease and come over.  And for those of you who haven't had one, well your are missing out!  What is an indian taco?  Oh my gosh..a bit of most delicious heaven!  You make a fry bread, put it on your place, put chili on top and then top it with all  your favorite taco toppings.  Cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, onion, sour cream, salsa..mmm!  Fry bread is also most delicious with stew too.  Rip it in half and dip it in your stew...oh my gosh...so good!

This is all there is to it.  From the left, salt, flour, baking powder and water.  First thing, dump some flour into your bowl.  Basically the amount varies with how many people you are feeding.  When all my kids were home, and their friends were here too,  I would use a 5 pound bag of flour. 

Then you add a handful of baking powder. 

Half handful of salt.

Give it a stir and then add water.  The amount depends on how much flour you use.  According to Karri Hughus, you use a refill mug.  For a long time I had a Pit Stop cup that I used. 

Start by dumping about half the water in and stirring, you want a basic dough.  If you get too much water add more flour, not enough water add more. 

This has a little too much water in it.  I had to add more flour.  No biggie.

Once your dough is formed, dump it out ontoa a floured table and knead it so it is not sticky.  Just knead in flour til it is just right.

Once you have your dough ready get a pan and put a couple inches of oil in.  Get it hot, I put it on 8 on my stove.  Too hot and it burns, too cool and it gets greasy and icky.

John and I have found that if we grease our hands the dough doesn't stick to us.  We just use a spray.

Break off a golf ball sized piece, aahh..give or take on the size, and pat it out like a pancake.  Johns sisters in Idaho can flatten thiers just using thier hands, we haven't mastered that.  I wish I could.  John likes to put a little slit in the middle so it doesn't puff up.  I don't really care. 

Put it gently into the hot grease and fry til golden brown on one side then flip to brown the other. 
That little bit in the pan is my test piece to see if my oil is hot enough.

Thats me frying the bread!  Karlene was the photogapher! 

Put the cooked fry bread into a napkin or paper towel lined bowl or pan to cool.  Thats it.
I did measure out the ingredients for you to try! 

5 cups flour
3 tbsp baking powder
1 tbsp salt
I didn't measure the water.  You can figure that one out on your own! 
This amount fed 4 adults, 1 teenager and 3 little girls with about 3 pieces left over.  Some of the adults had seconds. 
Good luck and let me know if you try it and how it turned out.
And...all you much better then me fry bread cooks how did I do?  Is this how you do yours? 
Enjoy!

Chicken Casserole

This is one of my favorite cookbooks.  It is also a good read as it gives insight into the Amish life.  Kind of fun to look into another way of life, and they like to use butter!  Tonights dinner comes from this book, just a plain chicken casserole.  I have made it before and made a notation on the page to double the sauce and the page has a few stains on it.  That just adds to the cookbook, except when the pages get glued together.  Then it sucks.  I did that in my Mrs. Rowe's cookbook.  Luckily the recipe on the opposite page was one I didn't care to try. 
Patience is not my virtue and when you cook you need paitence to stand there and stir the sauce til it thickens.  I have discovered that almost high heat quickens that process! 

Easy Chicken Casserole

1/2 cup butter, I use the real thing but you can use margarine
1/3 cup flour
1 cup milk
2 cups chicken broth
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 (3 ounce) can mushrooms
2 cups cubed cooked chicken
8 ounces noodles, cooked and drained - I used egg noodles
1/3 cup grated Parmesan cheese - I used grated chedder

Preheat the oven to 350, grease an 8 cup casserole. 
Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat ( unless your name is Cheryl then you use the notch just before high), then whisk in the flour until smooth.  Gradually whisk the milk and the broth in, cook until thickened. Stir in the salt and pepper and mushrooms.  Add the chicken and noodles and cheese.  Stir together and spoon the mixture into the prepared dish (again, if your name is Cheryl you dump it all in a big bowl, stir well and then dump it into the greased pan, seriously who would spoon it in?)
Bake until bubbly and golden, about 45 minutes.  Depending on how much noodles you use you may need to double the sauce.  I measure the amount of noodles I put in....I just dump.  Same thing with the chicken and the cheese. 

Are these not the best pots?  I got them at a garage sale!  I used them to prepare the above dinner and am using the smaller one to bake it in.  The tea kettle is from a garage sale too, as are the spoon and whisk in the pots.  Just about everything in my kitchen is from a garage sale.  Most things are just better when they are 'broken' in. 

Not a very good picture of the chicken casserole and it isn't baked yet.  The only thing needed is a salad, oh and some homemade bread. 
Enjoy!

Mrs. Rowe

This is one of my favorite cookbooks.  There really was a Mrs. Rowe, she was born in 1913 and died in 2003.  She and her husband opened a restaurant called Mrs. Rowe's.  This book tells all about her life as a young girl and her married life and about her restaurant.  It is basic food, comfort food.  It is in Staunton Virginia.  So...here is my tale of woe.  In February Doey and I went to North Carolina to visit Kody and Austin and to help them drive back home.  I thought yay me for two reasons.  1) I was hoping we could go through Kentucky and I could make a pit stop in Pike county Kentucky to look for dead people and 2) we could also go through Virginia and stop to eat at Mrs. Rowes.  Sadly we did neither...the daughter - in - law vetoed my pit stops.  Some excuse of 'you'll thank me later for not taking your pit stops when you are ready to be done driving'.  She was right.  So we ate at a Cracker Barrel in Tennessee and the food was awful, and we crashed a Wendy's grand opening party that was for family and friends only.  They told us it was for friends and family and I whispered to Kody, Austin and Doey just tell them we are from the neighborhood.  Then when they realized that we obviously weren't getting the 'friends and family grand opening' thing they fed us for free!    I bet Mrs. Rowe's would have been delicious!  I want to share my favorite recipe from her book but I was concerned about the copyright thing...so I called Mrs. Rowe's.  Her son, Mike, is in charge now and was out of town.  I explained to the lady in charge who answered the phone that I wanted to share a few recipes and she said since I owned the cookbook I probably could!  She sounded nice and had a cute accent but she probably didn't know any more about copyright stuff then I do!
This is my favorite macaroni and cheese...no more box stuff for us!  It is so quick and easy..I hope you enjoy it.  As you can tell the page is well used and part of the mac and cheese recipe is stuck to the baked apple recipe on the opposite page.  If I ever want to make her baked apple recipe I will have to wing the how to section as it is covered up with the mac and cheese directions! 

 Mrs. Rowe's Baked Macaroni and Cheese
2 cups macaroni
3 cups grated cheeese
3/4 cup milk
2 tbsp butter
Preheat oven to 350.
Cook macaroni according to package directions.  Drain.  Spray a 9x9 inch pan and put half the macaroni in the pan, top with 2 cups of cheese, add the rest of the macaroni, the rest of the cheese and dot with the butter.  Pour the milk over the top and bake 20 minutes. 
This is the 'real' recipe.  This is my version:

I boil some macaroni, depends on how many I am feeding and I never measure.  I spray a 9x13 pan and put half macaroni in, cover with 2 good handfuls or cheese, more if it looks skimpy.  More macaroni, more cheese, and about a half a cube of butter, sliced.  I pour about a cup and a half of milk over all and bake til we are ready to eat.  I have never timed it.  I do however bake it at 350!  You can never go wrong with extra butter and extra cheese!
It is truely most delicious!  And what do we always have it with?  Hot dogs...duh!

Quick Breads

I have a collection of cookbooks and among this collection are little sets or series of cookbooks.  My very most favorite set is called Company's Coming by Jean Pare`.  There are quite a few in her series, I have 3. 150 Delicious Squares, Salads and my favorite Muffins and More.  I don't think I have made anything from the squares or salads books, but the muffin one has been used a lot!  The pages in my muffin book are stained with vanilla, drips from eggs and other something red,  smudged where I have dripped batter and swiped it off with my finger, and on the banana page there are a couple of those strings from the banana, all dried and brown and a permanent part of that page.
I also have some recipes that I have gotten from family that are most delicious.  Yesterday I made Fayettas Raisen Bread.  I remember her making this and I don't think she had a recipe, just had it memorized.  I have another one I got from my cousin Karen for Cranberry Bread, that is way good.  The good and bad of that one is this: I am the only one who likes it.  My family isn't to fond of it, so I get to eat the whole loaf.  So when you add a whole loaf of cranberry bread with at least a cube of butter to slather on each slice..well it is no wonder I am a little thick around the middle! 
Here are the recipes for Raisen Bread and Cranberry Bread...Enjoy

Raisen Bread
3 Cups water
1 cup raisens ( I used about a cup and a half)
Boil together for 3 minutes
Add
1 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
stir and
mix 1/4 cup water with 2 tsp baking soda and stir that in.
Add
5 cups flour
1/2 tsp mace
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
stir well.
Pour into 2 greased loaf pans and bake at 350 for 45-50 minutes.

Karens Cranberry Bread

1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
Mix togetther and cut in 2 tbsp shortening
Add
3/4 cup orange juice
1 egg
zest of an orange
1 to 1 1/2 cups cranberries, chopped or whole
Bake 60 minutes at 350