Sheila's Mexican Cornbread

When I was a kid, I wasn't a fan of cornbread. Then I married my Sweet Baboo and discovered iron skillet-baked Southern cornbread. After she moved in with me in Texas, she took her cornbread to the next level with the most delicious Mexican skillet cornbread. We used to have this stuff ever once in a while and every time I found myself wondering why we didn't have this more often.  It's not hard to make and it's sure to be a family favorite. I could make a whole meal out of a skillet load of this stuff.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup stone ground corn meal 
• 1 cup grated cheese
• 1 cup whole kernel corn
• 1/2 cup cooking oil
• 1 cup sweet milk
• 1 small onion chopped finely
• 1 small bell pepper chopped finely
• 1 tsp. finely chopped garlic or 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• small jar diced pimiento 
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1-2 finely chopped jalapeno peppers (vary according to taste)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp baking soda

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. In mixing bowl beat together eggs, soda, salt, milk, and oil 
3. Add corn meal, whole corn, onion, peppers, garlic, pimiento, and grate cheese
4. Mix well
5. Heat tsp oil in iron skillet - make sure the bottom of the skillet is oiled
6. Pour cornbread batter into skillet
7. Bake cornbread in oven until a table knife inserted into the bread comes out clean

 Serving Suggestions:

Goes great with any Tex-Mex casserole, Frito chili pie, or even haystacks. A little butter is nice but not necessary. Absolutely lovely cornbread.

Tom King

Southwestern Vege-Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Didn't dice the avocado. got in a hurry. Topped with a little sour cream.

I'm from Texas so I have to have lots and lots of Tex-Mex recipes - especially enchiladas. I have recipes for enchiladas with flour tortillas and corn tortillas. This is one of the corn tortilla types. I used several types of vegetarian chicken including Morningstar Farms chicken strips, Fri-Chik cut up into strips, Morningstar Farms Vege-Chicken Nuggets, and other vegetarian chicken substitutes. The rest of the enchilada recipe is what makes the dish good anyway.  Here we go....

Ingredients:

• 2-3 cups vege-chicken cut up
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 to 1 tsp chili powder to taste
• 1/4 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp Canola oil
• 1/2 onion chopped
• Red or green bell pepper chopped
• About 10 oz spinach, fresh or frozen chopped
• 1 1/2 cup salsa mild to hot depending on your taste
• Corn tortillas (6 inch)
• 1 cup shredded cheese (Monterey Jack is good but so it cheddar, mozarella and once I grated up some leftover Brie), 
• 1/4 lb cubed Velveeta.
• 1/4 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup diced tomatoes 
• 1 Avocado peeled and diced
• Chopped black olives
• Cilantro for garnish
• Cooking spray

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray
2. In a medium bowl, combine chicke, garlic, cumin and chili powder. Add to lightly oiled skillet and cook over medium high heat for 4 to six minutes until vege-chicken starts to brown. Remove and set aside.
3. Add oil to the  skillet. Add onion and pepper; cook over medium heat stirring occasionally about 5 minutes or until tender. Stir in the spinach. Add cubed Velveeta, diced tomatoes, milk  and salsa. Stir until melted. Add chicken srips to sauce
4. Coat a 2 quart casserole dish with cooking spray.
5. Fold sauce and chicken mixture by spoonfuls into corn tortillas and roll. Place tortilla rolls side by side in the casserole until you fill up the casserole. Spread the rest of the sauce and chicken mixture over and around the enchiladas. 
6. Cover with shredded cheese and bake 30 minutes or until cheese is melted and bubbly.
7. Peel and dice avocado. Garnish the top of the casserole with avocado, black olives and cilantro. 
8. Let sit for 5 minutes before serving. 

Serving Suggestion:

Serve with sweet corn and maybe a salad with a nice Ranch dressing and some tortilla chips, iced decaf tea or caffeine free Dr. P. 

Tom King.

Sheila's Never Fail Perfect Pie Crust

I've had some requests for Mama's never fail, flaky perfect pie crust. The woman can make a pie crust I'm here to tell you. Her made from scratch chocolate pie using this crust recipe is to live for (I say live rather than die because you are going to want a second piece. It's easy and hard to mess up.  Enjoy!       - Tom


Ingredients:

4 cups flour
1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups shortening
1 tbsp vinegar
1 large egg
1/2 cup water

Directions:

1. Put first 3 ingredients in large bowl
2. Mix well with fork
3. Add shortening and mix with your hands until crumbly
4. In small bowl beat water, vinegar and egg
5. Combine the two mixtures, kneading with hands until mixed
6. Divide dough into four or five portions and shape into round flat patties
7. Chill at least 1/2 hour
8. May be frozen if individually sealed in plastic wrap or ziplock bag

Summary:

Makes 4 or 5 crusts. I've used this recipe for more than 30 years and never had it fail. I use my hands to mix the dough because the more gently you mix it, the flakier the crust will be. When you are ready to make a pie, thaw (if frozen) and roll our with rolling pin. There are tools to make the fancy edges with or you can do it the old fashioned way by pinching the edges to make a nice looking edge.

Sheila  

Making Bread While Working at Home

You can buy a bread machine, but that doesn't guarantee your bread will be any good.

It promises to be easy to do, but in reality, mmmmmmmmmm not so much!

There is a secret to making bread and I will share it with you. It involves no exotic ingredients, no special kitchen tools or the wearing of special underwear (although you may if you wish). The secret to great bread-making is knowing what a baby's butt feels like when you pat it!

Of course, you actually have to have taken a run at diaper changing at some point in your life. If you have not, then by all means, run straight out, find a baby, remove it's diaper and pat its butt. If you get home without being arrested, then you are ready to make Grandma's bread.

Introduction:


The "Bread Machine Recipes" cookbook says to measure all the ingredients carefully. If you ever watched you grandmother bake bread, you realize at once what balderdash that is. The truth is bread wants to be baked. The flour and yeast and stuff wants to become a beautiful loaf of golden crusted bread. It has no higher ambition. You, as the baker, are merely the facilitator of this exquisite transformation. So remember, the ingredients are merely a suggestion. It is the baby's butt that is the key!

Ingredients:

• Half cup or so of hot tap water (not boiling)

• Teaspoon of salt

• One egg

• 2 tablespoons honey, Karo Syrup or a big handful 

  of brown sugar. (As you gain confidence - and weight 

  - you WILL later add more than this I promise you).

• 2 cups of whole wheat flour

• 3/4 cup or so of white all-purpose flour

• A big glop of butter or margarine, a couple of 

  tablespoons of Olive or vegetable oil or some Crisco, 

  whatever you have.

• 1/4 cup of nonfat dry milk (I've never done it this way 

  - I put this in for historical purposes). I use a quarter 

  can of evaporated milk.

• 1/4 cup or so of wheat germ.  This was another of my 

  grandmother's secrets for making the bread the right 

  texture and adding nutritional value to it.  Wheat germ 

  is the heart of the grain and is very good for you and 

  also slightly crunchy, a quality which I like in my wheat bread.

• 2 packages of rapid rise yeast or regular yeast or a yeast cake 

  - whatever works for you.

Directions:

1. Dump everything into the bread machine in any order you want. They say it matters, but it doesn't. Just don't do the water yet. Make sure you screw in the twirler paddle dealy bob before you pour in the ingredients or it gets real messy trying to get the thing on there and rotating freely - I do that a lot (like tonight).

2. Program the machine for basic bread and a 1.5 pound loaf. If you want to not have the hole in the bottom from the paddle that you get when you bake it in the machine, then set it for dough. You'll have to pull out the loaf, reshape it and put it in a bread pan to bake in your oven, but you're on your own there. I make 3 of these babies or more a week on a good week and I don't want to have to watch the oven - am almost certain recipe for smoked bread if I'm watching it cook. Press Start.

3. Fiddle with the dough as it forms. The bread recipe book stopped at step 2. It is wrong to do so, especially since I haven't told you to put in the water yet. Once you press start, you must tend to the critical initial kneading of the loaf. Open the top of the bread machine. Watch the paddle dealy (no need to learn these technical names - it will be obvious to you what the paddle dealy is). Use a big wooden spoon and poke on the dough ball as it forms so that it picks up all the flour as you slowly add the hot water. Don't use all the hot water before it starts coalescing into dough. You may not need it all.

4. Be patient. At first it won't look like there's enough water, but keep poking the dough ball down to pick up the excess flour. You may need to add some flour if the dough ball is too sticky. Here's where the secret comes in!

5. Feel the dough. If it feels just like a baby's butt when you pat it, you have achieved doughy perfection. Add hot water or flour to achieve the perfect texture. Once you have done that, go away and let the machine do its job. Come back in about 3 and a half hours to witness the completion of the process.

6. Most bread machines use the paddle dealy to push the bread out when it is done. I try to get there before that happens so that the bottom of my bread doesn't get squashed. I take it out before the machine ejects it. It may just be my machine, but that's my recommendation.

7. Enjoy!

Tom King - Baker Extraordinaire
(and God bless whoever invented the bread machine!)

Uncle Tom's Puyallup Style Barbecue Sauce

Makes great barbecued Tender-Bits

I ran out of KC Masterpiece and Bull's Eye barbecue sauce the other day after my wife had put in her order for barbecued something chicken-like. I already had some Fri-Chik in the oven, so I ran upstairs, jumped on the Internet and found some interesting looking recipes. Unfortunately, I didn't have all the right ingredients.

So, typical man, I decide to wing it. I call this Puyallup Style Barbecue Sauce so that people in Kansas City, Memphis or St. Louis won't be offended. This barbecue sauce is my own invention. Try this at your own risk. I take no responsibility if you try it and think your vege-chicken is ruined. But trust me. It won't be. This stuff is great and you can adjust it to your own taste if you are any good at all as a cook. It also eliminates the need for Worcestershire sauce (a common BBQ sauce ingredient) which often has anchovies in it.  If you want to stay strictly vegetarian, this version is the way to go.

It takes about 10 minutes to mix up and maybe 15 minutes to cook. This makes about two cups of a nice tangy barbecue sauce. 

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1 cup ketchup
• 1/4+ cup water
• 1/8 to 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon Cajun seasoning
• 1 tablespoon grape jelly

Directions:
Put 3 tablespoon olive oil in a little pot on medium-high heat.  Add the garlic powder. Stir just a bit till the garlic powder starts turning brown. Add the brown sugar, vinegar and ketchup. I like Delmonte, but I used Hunts for this time out because you can get it in bulk at Cosco. Add the rest of the seasonings and reduce the heat to medium.

I adjust the recipe to taste. I like a little less vinegar and a little more ketchup. The original recipe called for 2 tablespoons paprika, but I cut it in half because the Cajun seasoning has paprika in it. The Cajun seasoning has chili powder and cayenne.  The Cajun seasoning can be increased to make the sauce hotter. My bunch likes a milder barbecue flavor, but you can add more Cajun seasoning or a touch of plain cayenne if you like it hot. I'm not sure who came up with the grape jelly, but I transmigrated it from another recipe and it got rave reviews, so I ain't messin' with the magic.

Simmer the sauce for 15 minutes until it thickens.  If it's too thick, just add a bit more water to get it to the thickness you like.

I poured the rest into an empty KC Masterpiece bottle and stuck it in the fridge. I think I'll make some more to keep on hand.  I like it with vegetarian Wham, Tender-Bits, Vege-steaks and chili beans too.

Enjoy.

Tom

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies

Pat Fine's No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

 Pat Fine was Sheila's pastor's wife back in Monroe, Louisiana when she first became an Adventist. Pat gave her a whole pile of recipe cards and there is not one of her recipes that is NOT fantastic.
Sheila was having a sweet tooth and I dug out one of Pat's cookie recipes. It was really easy and quick. It would be difficult to screw it up.

How to do it!

Pour all this stuff into a saucepan, stir and bring to a boil. Boil for 1 minutel

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 Tablespoons cocoa
• Dash of salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup butter

 Add the following ingredients to the saucepan and stir until it's melted into the mixture.

• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup of peanut butter

Mix in well...

• 3 1/4 cups of oatmeal 
• 1/2 cup nuts

Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper. Let sit until firm. Store in a cool place. Makes a cookie jar full.

These things are really really good and have some pretty good stuff in it.  Enjoy.

Tom & Sheila King