Recipe: Broccoli Salad

This is a family favorite. Partly due to the fact it contains bacon and buttermilk ranch dressing. I mean, come’on, who doesn’t love some bacon and buttermilk ranch dressing? Those two ingredients are like Peanut Butter & Jelly, Coffee and Cream, Oreos and Milk. Especially when it comes to making salads. But, I get bored with the same ol’ same ol’ summer salad. Or sum’ma – as my Aunt Nez would say.

I adore this salad. And, men don’t turn their noses up at it because it doesn’t look like a girly phoo-phoo salad because it has bacon in it. Light, creamy, crunchy, salty, and flavorful. Go on – you know you want to try it.

Broccoli Salad

3/4 cup grated cheddar cheese
2 bunches fresh broccoli (florets only)
1 small can sliced black olives, drained
1/2 bottle real bacon bits
1 bunch green onions, chopped
1 package Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix – mixed with mayonnaise as directed on the package
Dash paprika

Tear broccoli florets into bits-size pieces. Add olives, cheese, bacon bits and onion. Add dressing and stir to mix. Marinate in refrigerator for two or three hours before serving. Place on a layer of lettuce leaves and garnish with paprika.

Now, if you do want a sweeter, more girly phoo-phoo salad: Replace the olives with raisins and put sugar in the Mayo instead of ranch dressing mix. Yes, be’be’ – it is wonderful stuff!

Y’all Enjoy!

Oh! And, just so you know – I purchased this book yesterday. I’m in BIG trouble. I’ll be spending the summer cooking everything in this book and posting reviews. I swanee, she makes me homesick for my Mama’s cooking. Lawsie! Lawsie! Lawsie! Help me Rhonda.

Recipe: Easy Chicken Taco Pie

It’s time for another really easy recipe from my mother’s collection.  The great thing about it, you can add tomatoes, corn, jalapenos or other peppers, use pepper jack cheese and really spice things up.  I’m keeping the batch pretty basic because I’m a wimp.

I stewed a small baking hen then night before and took the meat off the bones.  Save a cup of the broth!

Ingredients:

Chicken, cheese (whatever you like- shredded), Black Pepper, Garlic Powder, Chopped Onion, Salt, Enchilada Sauce, Can of Cream of Mushroom Soup, Chicken broth and Doritos Corn Chips.  (Notice I’m a dork and had to make broth because I forgot to save some when I cooked the chicken. Either way works.)

Chop up the chicken and onions.

Add the soup, enchilada sauce, garlic powder, salt, and pepper and stir well.

Pour chips into the bottom of a greased 13 X 9 baking dish.

Schmoosh the chicken mixture on top of the chips.  It’s okay if a few chips break.  Go ahead and schmoosh it a little more.

Sprinkle cheese on top and break a few chips over the top as well.

Pour one cup of chicken broth over the top and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes.

Ahhhh!  Cheesey delici-o-city!  Serve with sour cream, black olives, peppers – whatever! Maybe a little Spanish rice or Mexican corn on the side.  Enjoy!

Mimi’s Chicken Taco Pie

3 or 4 cups cooked, chopped chicken
1 onion, chopped
1 can enchilada sauce
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 cup chicken broth
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Pepper to taste
12 oz. bag of Doritos plain corn chips
Cheese, shredded – (cheddar or pepper jack depending on your desired spicey needs)

Mix chicken, onion, enchilda sauce, soup, salt, garlic powder, and pepper.  Pour chips into the bottom of a 13 x 9 baking dish.  Pour chicken mixture over the top of chips and then sprinkle with cheese and broken chips.  Pour chicken broth over the top.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes. 

Beans and Weenie – My First Kitchen Disaster

Beans and Weenie!  Yes, that means one weenie……..a story that is still told at family gatherings.

Let me start by saying, I never took Home Economics while in school and did not consider cooking a priority and could hardly boil water when I got married.  So, why (I think to myself) did my mother ask me to cook dinner?  I was 15….(FIFTEEN!) and my sainted mother (we’ll talk about Mimi another time) worked full-time outside the home.  She called me at home and asked if I would cook dinner.  Nothing fancy, just a big pan of baked beans with “weenies” (hot dogs).  Sure! Fine! Whatever…..dang it! I guess she thought I needed to learn how to cook.  Didn’t she know I had more important things to do like practice my curling iron technique?

I proceeded to rummage through the cabinets, collecting all the necessary ingredients and formulations for conjuring up this legume wonderment.  Beans (check), brown sugar (check), BBQ sauce (check), dry mustard (check), onions (check), Weenies, weenies????..weenies………????????  I searched the refrigerator top to bottom, nook and cranny, and then checked the freezer – NO WEENIES. Then, I checked the bottom drawer of the frig and under the bacon, AH-HA, I spy the corner of the weenie package.  I gleefully grab the bag and pull it out from under the bacon.  Oh, Crap!  There was one weenie in the bag. ONE!  Le ’me to es’plain……………….

I have three brothers (I swore they were the spawn of hell at the time………..yep, I was pretty sure about that one).  My two oldest brothers were notorious for coming home from school and eating EVERYTHING in sight.  Vultures! Wolverines! Grizzly Bears! Oh MY!  Yes, they were human vacuum cleaners when it came to food.  They have wiped out all you can eat buffets and been asked to never come back to restaurants.  My mother had resorted to putting POST IT notes on food in the refrigerator reading “DON’T EAT THIS” (guess the weenie package was fair game in their minds since the Post it was MIA that day)  Yep! I had been slammed……….back to the weenie story.

What in the heck was I going to do with ONE WEENIE! (pause – okay perverts, you know I’m talking about a hot dog so get your mind out of the gutter!) Moving on….. I was panic stricken.  What was I to do?  Should I call Mom? No! We didn’t call Mom at work unless someone had died, or was dying or was bleeding, hmmm – this didn’t qualify.  So, I used my fifteen year old reasoning skills. 

1.  I just wouldn’t cook anything.  (No! Then, I would be to blame).

2.  Call Mom and cry about what “THEY” did…..(no, I’d just get in trouble for calling and she’d make me cook something else and I wasn’t about to start over – Good Grief! I had to get on with my social life.)

3. The Ultimate, Perfect Solution – Cook the Beans and put the One Single Weenie dead center in that big casserole dish.  They would be to blame for the weenie situation. (Remember, this is the reasoning of a fifteen year old).

PERFECT! BRILLIANT!  No, this was beyond brilliant……………

Mixed up some killer baked beans and purposefully, deliberately placed the lone weenie in the center of the 13 X 9 casserole atop the baked beans and placed it in the oven to bake.  Meanwhile, my Mom comes home from work and upon entering the house, the smell of baked bean deliciocity tells her “my darling daughter” has followed through on my request.  All is right with the world!  Dear Mom proceeds to prepare other side dishes to accompany my creation while I proceeded to do homework back in my room.   

Okay….you know that tone your mother’s voice takes on when she is really “put out”. OMG!  She calls my name in a gnarly voice that rivals Edith Bunker!   “What Happened To The Weenies?”    I was in deep doo-doo – I could feel it – I could smell it! Crap!

My brothers responded to Mom’s outcry and the laughter erupts from the kitchen.  I was a laughing stock in the kitchen!  Oh, the humiliation – foiled again at the hands of my brothers.  I tried to explain “I cooked exactly what you told me to, but THEY ate the weenies”.  This did not bode well.  (Mom)”Why didn’t you call me and tell me?” – (me)”you said to never call you unless it was an emergency; this is not a food emergency”.  Oh, that did it!  I had smart mouthed my mother – deeper doo doo!  I went to my room to drown in the humiliation. 

Since this grand humiliation lesson in cooking, I’ve managed (for 26 years) to cook (successfully and not successfully) for my own family and I have never asked my daughter to cook supper, not once! PS.  they always jokingly ask me if I can bring Beans and Weenie to family food gatherings. JERKS!

Please check back with me soon and I’ll post family recipes.  Maybe I’ll include a few more family stories along the way.  Enjoy!