Old-Fashioned Macaroni Salad

This is one of those recipes I remember my grandmother serving when we would go to her house.  She would always serve this dish at spring and summer visits and I remember it well.  I never got her exact recipe for this dish.  I found The Pioneer Woman's recipe for Macaroni Salad and it tastes very similar to my Muffa's.  So, I tweaked it a wee bit and it is very close.  Maybe next time I will add a bit of mustard or mustard powder or mustard seed to the dish and see if that is what it needs to be more Muffa-like.

Ingredients:
3 cups elbow macaroni
1 large jar pimentos
1/2 medium onion, diced
1/2 medium green bell pepper, diced
2 heaping Tablespoons sweet pickle relish
3/4 cup Miracle Whip salad dressing
2 Tablespoons Ranch Dressing
1 Tablespoon red wine vinegar
2 heaping teaspoons sugar
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Cook elbow macaroni as directed on package.  Rinse, drain, and allow it to cool.

• Add diced onion, pepper, and pimento to macaroni but do not stir till all ingredients have been added.

• Dollop in relish, Miracle Whip, Ranch dressing.

• Splash with vinegar and sprinkle in salt and pepper.
• Give this all a gentle stir to blend well but not break up macaroni noodles.
• Chill in fridge for an hour or so and serve cold.

I'm taking mine off to the family reunion today.  I hope it hits the spot as much as my Muffa's used to do!

Personal Pizza

Ingredients:
Crusts (regular or thin & crispy
Tomato sauce
browned ground beef
browned ground sausage
cooked bacon slices
green pepper, diced
onion, diced
mushrooms, sliced
black olives, sliced
Mozzarella cheese, grated

Directions:

• Place crust on pizza stone.

• Spread tomato sauce on crust.

• Spread browned meats over sauce.

• Chop bacon slices into small pieces.
• Spread bacon over sauce.

• Sprinkle on peppers .

• Sprinkle on onion.

• Sprinkle on mushrooms and olives over all.

• Cover with grated cheese.

• Bake 10-18 minutes until cheese is melted, golden, and bubbling.
• Slice into quarters and serve.

I loved these!  They were quick and easy to assemble using ingredients I had on hand - most of it already prepared and in the fridge.

Tennessee Caviar

This recipe is one adapted from a dish that is our daughter-in-law, Jessica's specialty.  It is great served as a salad but we really like it as a dip with corn tortilla chips best.

Ingredients:

1 can kernel corn
1 can Rotel tomatoes and chili peppers
1 can black beans
1 can black-eyed peas
1 small onion, diced (red onion adds color)
1 small bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup chopped, fresh cilantro (or about half that amount of dried cilantro)
1 garlic clove, minced (or about a half-Tablespoon of dried minced garlic)
2 Tablespoons lime juice
1/2 bottle of Italian salad dressing
1 teaspoon seasoning salt
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Drain liquid out of corn, peas, and beans.
• In a large bowl, dump corn, tomatoes, beans, peas, onion, and pepper.

Don't all those colors and textures already look yummy?

• Add cilantro, and garlic and gently stir to blend well.
• Pour in lime juice, salad dressing, and sprinkle seasoning salt on top and give it all a quick stir.
• Add salt and pepper, if needed.
• Chill at least a couple of hours or over night for the best melding of flavors imaginable.
• Serve in a pretty glass bowl to show off all those bright and cheerful ingredients like any good southern woman would.

This also makes a great spread when food processed!

All-American Pasta Salad

This dish is a fresh, cool, simple, make-ahead treasure for summer pot-luck dinners like the one we are attending tonight!

Ingredients:
1 pound Penne pasta
8 ounces smoked Gouda cheese
1 jar diced pimentos
1 jar artichoke hearts
1/2 purple onion
1/2 pint grape tomatoes
1/2 green bell pepper
3 green onions
1 can sliced black olives

Dressing Ingredients:
1 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons sweet pickle relish
2 tablespoons red pepper jelly
2-3 tablespoons vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

• Boil up the pasta to the al dente stage.  Drain, rinse, and set aside to cool.

• Slice the Gouda cheese wheel in half and cut into pie shaped wedges.

• Then, dice up those wedges into small bite-sized pieces.

• Admire it just a bit because it is beautiful, fragrant, and good-a!  
• Slice half the purple onion and dice the slices up into little yummy pieces. (Save the rest for salads later in the week ahead.)

• Slice and dice half the green pepper and put the rest in the fridge for another recipe.

• Pick three beautiful green onions from Mike's garden and wash them up in the sink.  Well, you might want to pick yours from somewhere else but make sure you wash them up somewhere.  Then, snip them up into tiny little pieces. Yep, the whole thing - green and white as well.

• Drain the black olives in your favorite little colander spoon thingy.

• Drain, rinse, and chop the artichoke hearts - right in the heart of them.

• Rinse the grape tomatoes.  It's okay if you eat a couple, too.  Then, slice them in half.

• Open the jar of diced pimentos and pat yourself on the back that you thought to get the diced ones which will save you a bit of chopping.

• Plop each of the veggie pieces on top of the al dente pasta in a big old beautiful bowl.  Do it in an arranged way so that the colors look beautiful for a photo.

• Now mix up a little tangy and sweet dressing for this beautiful concoction.  Start out with a cup of mayonnaise.

• Add some home-made sweet pickle relish - about two tablespoons.  (If you don't have home-made relish, it will be okay to use some of the bought kind.)

• Plop in a couple of tablespoons of red pepper jelly to add some tang to it.

• Pour in a little bit of vinegar - two to three tablespoons.  I used some out of my home-made bread-and-butter pickles so it would have a bit more bite to it.  Then, stir all this together and admire the beautiful little flecks of wonderfulness inside.

• Sprinkle in some salt and pepper to taste and plop this right smack dab in the center of the bowl of veggies and pasta.

• Toss everything together making sure to coat all of it with a bit of the yummy dressing.

• Cover with some clear plastic wrap so you can admire the colorful beauty of it as you set it in the fridge for all the flavors to marry together for a couple of hours or so.  Give it a quick, refreshing toss just before you serve it!

(It is quite alright if you dish yourself up a spoonful to eat with some left-over chicken livers as a late lunch so long as nobody - well, at least Mike - knows.  After all, somebody has to taste it to make sure it is going to be alright for the pot-luck!)

Cornbread Salad

This is a dish my Mama makes from time to time and I love it.  Like so many other things Mama makes, I cannot duplicate it and make it taste as good as hers.  So, if you make it, after you taste it, just add a notch or two to the goodness of it and you will have the taste of my Mama's!

Ingredients:
Cornbread
Beans, a can, drained (Mama uses pintos or kidneys)
1/2 cup chopped red bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped green bell pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 package Ranch Dressing Mix
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayo
2-3 tomatoes, diced
1 can whole-kernel corn
2 cups grated cheese
1 pound bacon, fried till crisp

Preparation Instructions:

• Plop a half-cup of sour cream into a mixing bowl with your pretty red spatula.

• Add a half-cup of mayo.

• Dump a package of Ranch Dressing Mix on top.

• Stir till well blended and set aside for the flavors to mingle.

• Crumble the cornbread into a dish.  I had six corn muffins left from last night's take-out dinner from Nana's Diner.

• Rinse and drain the beans.  I had some left-over October beans from dinner a couple of nights ago.

• Layer the beans on top of the crumbled cornbread.

• Dice up a half-cup of red bell pepper and put it into your antique measuring cup.

• Realize you don't have a green bell pepper and dice up a half-cup of yellow bell pepper and put it into your antique measuring cup.

• Admire the beauty of the colors of your diced bell pepper in your antique measuring cup.

• Go out to Mike's garden and get some green onions and wash them up good.  (Well, you might not want to go to Mike's garden to get your onions.  You might want to get yours somewhere else because he might get a little mad if loads of people came over and started pulling up all his onions.)

• Snip them into little pieces and sprinkle them over the pepper layer.

• Realize you don't have any tomatoes left.  Decide that Mike doesn't usually like tomatoes on his salad and skip dicing those up and spreading over top of the onion.

• Realize you don't have any corn.  Decide that you don't really need that either and skip draining it and spreading over top of the onion.

•  Get some of Mike's yummy bacon.  (You can get some of that from Mike because he would love to sell you some!)  Fry it up after you finish frying what you want to eat for breakfast.  

• Crumble it up and put it on top of the vegetable layers.  Then, remember that it is supposed to go on top and pick about half of it off and put it back on the plate.  (You can skip this step if you are smarter than me and have fewer interruptions.)

• Spread the Ranch Dressing mixture over top of the veggie layer.

• Spread the grated cheese over the top of the dressing mix layer.

• Sprinkle (what is left of) the bacon over the top of the cheese layer.

• Cover and chill for at least three hours.  

• Serve it up and eat it up with a big old smile on your face!

• (Thank Mama for the recipe the next time you talk to her.)