Buttery Corn Bread

Ingredients

2/3 cup soft butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 2/3 cup milk
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/3 cup cornmeal
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Cream the butter and sugar in a mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the eggs and milk. In another bowl, combine the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, and salt. Add the flour mixture to a creamed butter alternatively with the egg mixture.

3. Pour into a greased 9 X 13 inch pan. Bake for 22=27 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cut into squares and serve warm with honey butter.

Potato Puff Buns

4 beaten eggs

1 cup powdered milk

1 cup shortening or butter

1 cup sugar

4 Tbl. Saf Instant Yeast (or 5 packets)

2 cups mashed potato flakes

1 1/2 Tbl. salt

6 cups warm/hot water (as hot as you can get it out of the tap)

12-14 cups flour

Mix all of the above ingredients, except add only 4 cups of the flour (on speed 1 of Kitchen Aid or other mixer). When the mixture is blended, add the remaining 8-10 cups flour, 2 cups at a time. When the dough is no longer sticking to the sides of the bowl, knead for 5 minutes (on speed 2 of Kitchen Aid or other mixer).

Place in flour-dusted bowl and cover with clean dish towel. Let rise until double in bulk, about 1 hour. Punch down and pull off globs of dough for rolls. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-14 minutes depending on the size of the rolls. Tops of rolls should be slightly brown.


(This recipe is too big for my mixer so I did half at a time. The entire recipe made four dozen large rolls.)

Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup

1 pound dried green split peas, rinsed
2 med carrots, peel and slice ( I used a bag of matchstick cut carrots – so easy!)
2 med celery stalks, med dice
½ - 1 onion medium dice
2 med garlic cloves, minced ( or several dashes of garlic powder)
1 bay leaf
2 sprigs Italian parsley ( I  did not have this)
1 meaty smoked ham bone, or bag of pre-diced ham ( I used pre diced ham - so fast!)
5 cups chicken broth
Sea salt or kosher salt
Ground black pepper

Arrange the spit peas on the bottom of the crockpot in an even layer. Layer the carrots, celery, onion, garlic bay leaf, over the peas in one even layer. (Or several layers!) Place the hambone on top or the diced ham.

Pour chicken broth over all and season with salt and pepper.  Cover and cook on low for 8 – 10 hours till peas are very soft and meat is falling off the bone.

Remove the ham bone, cool, and pull the meat off.  Put back in the soup and discard the bay leaf.  Stir a bit and serve with crusty bread.  The soup gets thicker as it cools.  You don’t have to blend it at all; it just gets really soft and the peas lose their shape.

Minestrone Soup

1 lb. hamburger
1 chopped onion
3 cans Campbell's minestrone soup
3 cans water
15 oz. Pork and Beans (with maple and brown sugar)
1 tsp. oregano
1 Tbl. Worcestershire (optional)

Sauté and drain hamburger and onion.  Add the rest and simmer 1 hour or all day on very low heat.

Better variation ( 12/15/2013):

Add 2 cans pork and beans and if they are not maple flavored, then add some maple syrup!

Add 1 24 oz can of cheap pasta sauce by Hunts – onion and roasted garlic.

Also add 1 cup of small shell noodles at the beginning if cooked in the crockpot.

Cook 4 hours on low.

If cooking on stove top then add the pasta and some extra water so the noodles cook but you don’t lose liquid. 

Or don’t add extra pasta at all, very flexible soup!

Cafe Rio Creamy Tomatillo Dressing

2/3 c. tomatillo salsa verde (can or jar)
2/3 c. mayonnaise
1 1/2 T. sugar
2 T. lime juice
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1 c. canola oil
1/4 c. cilantro (more according to taste)

Blend all ingredients except oil and cilantro. Add oil slowly while blender is on high speed. Add the cilantro in bursts until broken up into fine pieces.