MsRobyn's easy recipe thread

Cafe Society
1

As requested by Sat on Cookie.

These are recipes anyone can make. They require no special talent or equipment, and most people like them.

Cheesy Scalloped Potato and Ham Casserole

Five or six average-sized Russet potatoes (average=the size that comes in the bag)
A large package of shredded cheese (whatever kind you like)
One medium onion
A ham steak, diced into bite-sized pieces
Flour
Milk
Butter (Note: I use real butter. Margarine would probably work, but since I don’t use it, don’t blame me.)

Slice the potatoes thin. Put them into a non-stick casserole. Slice the onion thin. Put that into the casserole. Dump in as much cheese as you want. Add the ham. Wash your hands and mix all these together until they’re reasonably well-mixed. Add enough milk to just barely cover everything. Sprinkle flour on top, and top with more cheese. Bake in a 350 oven for about 45 minutes. Serves three or four, or one with leftovers.

Chicken

I sprinkle chicken pieces liberally with seasoned salt, black pepper, garlic powder and onion powder. I don’t baste the chicken first because I like crispy skin, but you can baste the chicken with a little salad oil if you like.

I’ve also been known to use 1 stick of melted butter to which I add a couple of big honkin’ spoonsful of crushed garlic. (I use the kind in the jar.) If you really like garlic, let this sit in the fridge overnight and then melt it again. Brush the butter and garlic on chicken.

Bake chicken at 375 until a large piece stuck with a fork runs clear. If you’re making wings, a joint should wiggle easily.

Butter-fried Potatoes and Onions

Slice one potato per person. Throw in as much onion as you like. At Stately Doors Manor, there’s no such thing as too much onion, so I use a lot of onion.
Melt half a stick of butter in a skillet and throw in the potatoes and onion. Fry until done. You can add peppers if you like, too. I don’t.

Tuna Salad

To a 6 oz. can of tuna, add about a tablespoon or a little less mayonnaise. I’ve also used Miracle Whip, ranch dressing, and bleu cheese dressing in place of the mayo. Add a little pickle relish and some of the juice.

You can add:
[ul]
[li]Chopped apple[/li][li]Chopped onion[/li][li]Walnuts or pecans[/li][li]Chopped celery[/li][li]Canned peas[/li][li]Whatever else you can think of.[/li][/ul]

Anyone got any more?

Robin

2

Ice Cream Soup

Scoop Ice Cream into bowl
Add some chocolate syrup
Stir until “soupy”

3

Would a three ingredient meatloaf recipe qualify? Here goes:

-One and one-half pounds of ground beef
-One package dry onion soup mix
-One small can evaporated milk[5 to 5.3 fluid ounces]

Mix well, shape into a flattish loaf, and bake for an hour @350F. It’s just a tad salty, so don’t put too much salt in the mashed potatoes you’ll also be preparing. Not making mashed potatoes? BARBARIAN! :eek:

4

4 slices of white bread, pour coffee on top and add plenty of sugar.

5

Roast Chicken

This dish will work whether you’re making a single Cornish game hen or a Perdue oven-stuffer (heck, you can even try turkey this way).

Need: chicken (4.5 lbs should be good for 2-3 adults, depending on appetite :D); olive oil; salt; pepper; additional herbs/spices to taste

-Make sure chicken is fully defrosted before you begin. Rinse it with cold water, pat dry and put on your roasting rack.

-With the breast side up, drizzle olive oil over the chicken, then sprinkle it liberally with salt and black pepper. Rub the oil, salt and pepper into the chicken. At this point, you can then add any number of other herbs or spices, depending your tastes - chopped garlic; coarsely chopped rosemary (preferably fresh but dried will do) with a squeeze of lemon juice; herbes de provence if you’re feeling fancy; paprika or garam masala for something spicier; etc. Make sure to rub the additional herbs or spices into the chicken as well.

-Turn the chicken breast side down, and repeat the oil-seasoning-herb/spice thing on the back of the chicken.

-WITH THE CHICKEN BREAST SIDE DOWN, put the chicken into an oven preheated to 350 deg F. Leaving it breast side down will allow the juices to flow into the breast and help keep it from drying out. To make sure that the breast side of the chicken gets nice and brown too, turn the chicken over when it has about an hour left to roast. The chicken should cook 20-25 minutes per pound, depending on your oven. The chicken is done when you stab it with a knife and the juices run clear.

As an alternative to the herb/spice route, and if you want one of those classicly browned chickens sitting on your table, try mixing 1/4 cup orange juice, 1 tablespoon butter or margarine and 1 tablespoon honey. Melt these together in the microwave for about 30 seconds so they blend well, then baste the chicken with it, once before it goes into the oven and at least once more about half-way through. The chicken can get VERY dark-looking this way, though, so if you’re concerned about aesthetics leave the chicken breast-side down a little bit longer (to keep it from browning too much).
Mashed Potatoes

Need: potatoes; salt; butter or margarine; milk

The quantity of potatoes you’ll need is the hardest thing to judge because the size of potatoes can vary so much. A decent rule of thumb is to make N+2 medium-sized potatoes, where N=number of guests.

-Peel the potatoes and cut into small cubes. (The size of the cube is unimportant; just be aware that the smaller the cubes, the faster the potato will cook.) Place cubes in a 3-quart pot with enough water to cover the cubes, and add 1 teaspoon or so salt.

-Bring the pot to a boil, and continue boiling until potato cubes poked with a fork start to fall apart (about 15 minutes or so after start of boil). The idea is to cook the cubes beyond the firmness you would want for potato salad, say.

-Drain water from the pot. If you have a masher, mash away at the potato; else use a fork. When the cubes have been mostly reduced to mush, add 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter or margarine, and just enough milk to make the mush smooth.

-Keep on mashing to mix the butter and milk well with the potato and get rid of lumps. At this point, you can add some additional salt to taste, or maybe dress it up with a bit of finely chopped chives.

6

This is shaping up to be MUCH different than one of Zenster’s old recipe threads!

7

INDOOR BBQ CHICKEN

5 - 6 chicken breasts (with skin and bones)
1 jar BBQ sauce or marinade (your choice)
1 Reynolds baking bag (aluminum foil pouch)
1 broiler pan (with drip rack)

Coat meat in sauce. Place each piece of chicken skin up in bag. Put bag in broiler pan (without drip pan). Seal bag. Bake at 400º for 1 hour.
Carefully remove bag from pan. Put drip rack on pan. Take meat from bag and place on the drip rack. Broil 3 - 5 minutes on each side. Remember to leave oven door cracked open. This will make the skin crunchy.

TATER-TOT CASSEROLE

1 lb ground beef, uncooked
1 pkg dry onion soup mix
1 can English peas, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 pkg frozen tater tots

Layer beef, onion soup mix, peas, mushroom soup, and tater tots in a 9x13” baking dish. Bake at 350° for 1 hour. Makes six servings.

ONE-TWO-THREE-FOUR PIE

1 graham cracker pie crust
2 pkgs of Dream Whip topping mix (1 box)
3 pkgs Jell-O instant pudding, any flavor
4 c milk

Put milk in a medium mixing bowl. Using an electric mixer, add Dream Whip and pudding mixes on low speed until combined. Mix at high speed until thick.
Spoon into crust. VERY FLUFFY PIE! Pile it high in the crust! Refrigerate.

ICE CREAM DREAM PIE

12 ice cream sandwiches
12 oz Cool Whip
½ c kaluha liqueur (or coffee)
1 tub Chocolate Frosting
Slivered almonds

Place 6 ice cream sandwiches on the bottom of a 9x13” pan. Mix Cool Whip and kaluha and spread half of this mixture on the sandwiches. Place remaining sandwiches on top. Spread chocolate frosting over sandwiches and cover with the remaining Cool Whip mixture. Sprinkle slivered almonds on top. Cut and serve.

8

Broccoli Water:

Day-before preparation: Steam some broccoli for dinner. Remove from steamer, retaining water in bottom of steamer. Turn off heat and cover steamer pot.

The next morning, wake up to an aromatic reward of day-old broccoli water. The green tint adds something special for Saint Patty’s day.

9

These are some of my favorites:
Grilled (or broiled) chicken. What you need:
1 skinless boneless chicken breast per person.
1 bottle 30-minute marinade (I prefer KC Masterpiece[sup]TM[/sup], but it’s your choice)
Put THAWED chicken into Ziploc[sup]TM[/sup]-type bag
Pour enough marinade into bag to cover chicken, close bag.
Let sit for at least 1/2 hour. Put either on BBQ grill and cook until done, or put into oven on BROIL until done. (Make sure to keep checking and flipping. Chicken is done when a fork can be inserted easily into both sides.)

Roast:
You will need 1 roast, potatoes, carrots, 2 - 4 cloves garlic, onion, and celery.
And a crock pot.
Dice the garlic and onion. Put approx. 1/3 - 1/2 on the bottom of the crock pot. Put the roast in, cover with sliced veggies & the remainder of the onions and garlic (If you use baby carrots, you don’t have to dice them).
Fill the crock pot about 3/4 of the way with water. Turn on HIGH and let it run all day.

10

Good God no!!

Never cut the potatoes smaller than quarters (halves if little) they become waterlogged. Never use a masher pass them through a ricer or use a fork. Make sure anything you add is warmed (milk. sour cream, butter) . Do not salt the mash - anyone can add some no-one can take any out. Avoid mush. Search for other mashed potato threads - I’m sure there are good recipes hidden away in the past.

11

Buy box of Pasta Salad Mix. Boil as directed and drain. DO NOT RINSE WITH COLD WATER.

Add seasonings and butter to taste. You can also toss in any leftovers that look good or a can of tuna. I love this hot pasta dish and who the hell eats cold pasta?

12

Garlic Cheeseball

2-3 bulbs (whole bulbs, not cloves!) garlic, peeled and chopped
1 pack cream cheese

Form creamcheese into ball, then smoosh in the garlic. Serve with assorted crackers.

13

Here’s a simple one: Chicken Stir-Fry.

The secret is the sauce. Make it first. Ingredients are: 1 1/3 cups of soy sauce, 1/3 cup white corn syrup, 2 tablespoons cornstarch, and 1/4 teaspoon (or more if you like it) cayenne (ground red) pepper.

Make some white rice. Whatever your method, steam it, boil it in a bag, whatever. If you’re using just plain rice, my usual method is to use twice as much water as rice, a little butter and a little salt. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to mediumish and cover. Set your timer for 15 minutes. Stir the rice every 5 minutes. After 15 minutes, you should see dark holes in the rice, because almost all the water should be boiled off or absorbed. If not, let it go a bit longer. Anyway, when you see those dark holes, take the rice off the heat and let it sit covered for 5 more minutes. Then you can fluff it.

While that’s going on, cut chicken into pieces of your own choosing. One inch cubes, long slices, whatever you want. In a nice hot high-walled pan, stir-fry the chicken until it’s just about done, should take just a few minutes. Transfer the chicken from the pan to a clean bowl and cover loosely with foil. Now, stir-fry some mixed veggies in the same pan, again, whatever kind of veggies you want. Should only take a couple minutes to warm them through.

Now, put the chicken back in the pan with the veggies and add the sauce. Bring the sauce to a boil and let it boil for a few minutes to thicken and reduce a bit. Then, turn off the heat, and serve your magical chicken concoction over the rice.

14

I love me some Oreo Sludge Bars.

  • Thirty-ish Oreos (a medium package) smashed to a dark-grey powder (the finer the powder, the softer the brownies - I use a food processor but a potato masher works fine)
  • a stick of butter, melted
  • a 14 oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
  • 3/4 cups flour
  • a tiny spoonful of vanilla
  • half a bag of teeny-tiny semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375F. Butter the hell out of a brownie pan (9x9). Mix the dry ingredients together in a mixing bowl, including the chocolate chips. Pour the melted butter over the mixture and stir; mix in the condensed milk and stir. You should have a sticky gray tar. Pour into the brownie pan and bake for 20 minutes. Move the brownie pan to the fridge or freezer to cool.

When the brownies are solid (~1hr) scrape any excess butter (!!) off the top of them, and cut into 1" squares. Super yummy with vanilla ice cream.

15

Waterlogged? Hasn’t happened to me yet, but I suppose if you don’t drain them well that could be a problem. The point here is to get to a smooth mash closer to whipped potatoes in consistency, but if you like your mash more solid you don’t have to cook as long. I also don’t quite get your objection to using a masher, but if it’s an issue of lumps, then you just have to apply a little effort and make sure there aren’t any.

W/r/t salt if you’re cooking for someone who has salt issues it’s fine to hold off, but I prefer not to serve completely bland food at table. Haven’t had any complaints yet. Obviously YMMV.

16

I posted this over in the “Manly BBQ Recipe” thread, but I’ll put it here, too.
It’s insanely easy, relatively cheap, and very, very good. Perfect for a summer barbeque.

BBQ Baked Beans
1 can navy beans
1 can red kidney beans
1 can white kidney beans
1 can black beans
1 can regular baked beans
½ pound of bacon, cooked and chopped up
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce

Drain the beans, mix gently with the bacon, brown sugar and BBQ sauce. Put in a large casserole dish and bake at 350° for about 1½-2 hours.

17

I present Poor Student Lentil Soup.

Fry up a small onion and a clove of garlic per person in some oil (olive oil is nice) until golden and soft in a saucepan of appropriate size.

Add some lardons of bacon (bacon bits) if you wish, but it’s good without too, and fry for a couple of minutes.

Add 2 fistfuls of red lentils per person, and stir to cover with oil, fry for a minute (you could use less or more lentils, depending on your own taste, but that amount works for me).

Add some unsalted stock (vegetable or chicken), enough to cover the lentils and simmer for 45mins, or until the lentils are soft and the soup is thick. You’ll need to stir it every so often to stop the lentils sticking. Keep topping up the stock every time the lentils look like they might be drying out.

Smoosh the lentils with a potato masher or the back of a spoon, you don’t need a blender, when the soup is the consistency you like (add more stock or bubble with the lid off to make it more or less watery) turn off the heat.

Add salt and pepper, some lemon juice and paprika or tabasco to taste.

Serve with bread and butter, and, if you want, a swirl of cream and a scattering of parsley.

It’s healthy, filling and very cheap. It’s great for lunch or light dinners in the winter, and is a good vegetarian/ vegan starter if you don’t use the bacon.

18

I won’t enter into the potato debates - I’m violently allergic to the bastards. But I do love the (botanically unrelated) sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Mash

2-3 lb. orange sweet potatoes/“yams” of even thickness
1/4 c milk
2 T butter
2 T orange juice
nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice to taste

Scrub sweet potatoes in water, prick each 3-4 times with fork tines, then place on cookie sheet. Roast at 450 deg. F for about 35-50 minutes - varies depending on the yams’ thickness and moisture content. While roasting, turn them after 20 minutes, then every 10-15 thereafter until cooked through.

Slide jackets off cooked sweet potatoes and place in bowl. Add remaining ingrediants and mash. Usually, high roasting browns the sweet potatoes and carmelized the sugars, which means there’s not much reason to add further sugar. Adjust flavors to taste.

19

Inspired by Peg Bracken’s Innocent Chicken:

Raw chicken parts, can be skin on, skinless, with or without bone. Can also be diced or sliced.

Butter

Bread crumbs

Seasoned salt

Poultry seasoning

Melt butter (margarine is for heathens). Put bread crumbs in a dish or in a bag suitable for coating the chicken in. Add LOTS of seasoned salt and poultry seasoning. Mix well. Coat chicken in melted butter and then coat with bread crumb mixture. Put in an ovenproof dish and bake, covered, at 350 for about 45 minutes (for regular sized chicken pieces, if the chicken is diced, then adjust baking time). Uncover and bake for about another 15 minutes. Cut into chicken at thickest point or use meat thermometer to check for doneness.

It’s not absolutely necessary to uncover the dish for the last part of baking, but it helps crisp up the crust. This dish tastes sort of like chicken and stuffing in one item. I don’t use pepper, so other people might want to add pepper to the seasoning mix, but my daughter and husband think it tastes just fine as it is.

Peg Bracken’s recipe called for salt, garlic salt, and pepper. I like my version much better.

20

Penne all’ arabiati

Every day furthers my conviction that people have forgotten what food is really supposed to taste like. This simple recipe depends on using high-quality ingredients, so don’t skimp.

A can or two of Italian plum tomatoes, or the equivalent in fresh peak-of-ripeness summer tomatoes, skins removed (to remove skins, dunk your tomatoes in boiling water for about 30-60 seconds and they’ll come right off.)

Tomato paste

One or two cloves of garlic

Hot pepper flakes

Extra virgin-olive oil

Cubed slab bacon (optional)

Fresh basil (preferably grown in your own garden)

Fresh parmesan-reggiano cheese, grana padano, or similar sharp, salty hard cheese. I’ve used domestic parmesan – don’t. It’s not even close.

Penne/ziti/mostaccioli

Now, having secured high-quality ingredients, simply do the following:
Heat up a tablespoon or two of oil over a medium high flame. If you are using bacon, throw it in, but use less olive oil. Lower the heat. Add some crushed or finely chopped garlic and the hot pepper flakes to taste. Do not let the garlic burn. I sometimes take the pan off the heat if it seems too hot. After about a minute or two, add your drained tomatoes and a tablespoon of tomato paste. Let simmer for a half hour or so. If it seems too watery, you can add more tomato paste or let it cook down some more. You can even toss in a sprinkle or so of sugar if you desire, and a bit of salt to taste.

Cook your pasta in a separate pot to al dente. It should be fully cooked through yet still retain a bite to it. Do not overcook it. When it’s done, dump it in a colander and throw cold water over it to stop it from cooking further. You may toss it in olive oil if you wish.

Serve it with the sauce, chopped (or torn) fresh basil, and grated parmesan cheese.

As an avid meat-eater, the standard bacon-less version of this dish is my favorite and, if properly prepared, is one of my favorite simple dishes in the world. As I said, the key lies in sticking to the best ingredients you can get your hands on. I think most of the jarred spaghetti sauce concoctions they sell at the supermarket are crap, way too heavily spiced, too chemically, and miss the whole point: the unadulterated taste of garlic, tomatoes, and fresh basil. And that stuff that comes in green cans labeled “parmesan”…don’t even get me started on that…