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.)

Easy Carrot Cake

Last week we got together with family and it was suggested that I bring a cake or something sweet.

So...I did both!

I had seen somewhere that a creative blogger had created an Easter Egg Fruit Salad.  (Sorry I don't recall my inspiration source!)  So, I decided to give that a try.  It was easy and turned out beautifully!

Thinking of Easter and spring and bunnies, I decided to make my cake something that I haven't baked in a long, long time... Carrot Cake!

Look at all that decadent deliciousness!  

Doesn't the orange-y beautifulness of those carrots look great?

Ingredients:

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1/4 cup applesauce
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup pecans
2 tubs cream cheese frosting

Instructions:

First, I thought you needed to enjoy a beautiful photo of the rich, orange carrots pre-cake style!

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

And...another look at those beautiful carrots!

• Grease and flour two nine-inch round cake pans and set aside.

• Using the food processor, grate the carrots to a rough chop.

See, they are still beautiful even after they are grated to a rough chop!

Another angle of that beautifulness!

• In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt till combined and set aside.
• Beat the sugar and oil till smooth in the bowl of an electric mixer.
• Add the eggs one at a time and beat well.
• Stir in the applesauce and vanilla.
• With the mixer on low, slowly add the flour mixture to the egg mixture.

• Stir in the carrots and nuts.

Again, don't those carrots just look beautiful?

Even before it is baked, this cake looks absolutely beautiful!

• Divide the batter evenly between prepared cake pans.
• Bake about 40 minutes or till a tester comes out with only a few small moist crumbs attached.
• Let cakes cool in pans on wire rack for about fifteen minutes
• Carefully turn cakes out of pans onto wire racks to finish cooling completely.
• When cakes are completely cool, set one of the cakes rounded top side down in the center of an heirloom round ironstone platter that you inherited from your Granny.  (If you don't have said platter, any beautiful round cake plate will do.)
• Plop a couple of tablespoons of the frosting onto the cake and spread it out to where it is just beginning to ooze over the edge of the cake.
• Place the other cake on top of this layer of the frosting with the rounded top up.  
• Spread frosting around the sides of the cake.
• Then, cover the top of the cake with frosting blending it down to the edge of the sides.

Enjoy each morsel of yummy, chewy, goodness!

Easter Egg Fruit Salad

It was suggested that I bring something sweet...a cake to the hubs' family Easter gathering.  So, I did both!  The first thing I did was search for inspiration.  I found somewhere that a creative blogger had created an Easter Egg Fruit Salad.  (Sorry I don't recall my inspiration source!)  So, I decided to give that a try.  It was easy and turned out beautifully!

Ingredients:

2 pints of Strawberries
1 pint of Blueberries
1 Pineapple
4 Kiwis
1 large oval platter

• Wash and drain the strawberries.

• Wash and drain the blueberries.

• Peel and slice the kiwis.

• Cut the pineapple into chunks.

• Gather the fruits together and admire the beautiful vibrant spring-like colors!

• Bring out the beautiful white ironstone oval platter with the chip on the handle.

Start with one of your fruits - I chose the Kiwi - and lay it across the center of the platter in a zig-zag design.  (I wound up quartering the slices so that I could more easily make that zig-zag pattern.)

Continue adding fruits to fill the platter holding the zig-zag design as you pile them onto the platter.

• From any angle it looks like a bright and delicious Easter Egg!

UPDATE: We are going to my parents' for a belated Easter celebration today and I decided to take Easter Egg Fruit Salad again.  So, here is Take 2 with Madarin oranges instead of Kiwi...

Which do you think looks prettier?  Which do you think tastes better?  I know I have my opinion!

Jessica's Spicy Crackers

This recipe was introduced to Mike and me back in the fall when Bryan, Jessica, and Harris brought us dinner.  We had delicious chili and these crackers.  My effort did not turn out as delicious as those were  - even after several calls and texts to worry Jessica for clarification, but then, I never can make anything taste as good as the original.

These are tasty with a bowl of chili or soup or stew but they are also a delicious munchy snack for anytime!

Ingredients:
1/2 box (2 sleeves) Saltine Crackers
1 cup oil
1 package dry Ranch Dressing Mix
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes

I doubled the recipe!

• Unwrap crackers and set on end inside a plastic sealable container. 

• Pack them in tightly!  I doubled the recipe for this large container.

The OCD in me didn't like it 

but I even filled in the crack between sleeves/rows to pack them tightly.

• Whisk together oil, Ranch Dressing Mix, and pepper flakes.

• Pour mix over the top of the crackers.

• Put the lid on the sealable container and flip upside down to allow seasoning to thoroughly coat the crackers.

• Set aside for about an hour and flip again.

A plate of crunchy, yummy, goodness!

Roast and Root Vegetables

My favorite main dish has always been a good beef roast!  This is one of the best and easiest recipes I have EVER used!

The recipe is one from The Pioneer Woman called Perfect Pot Roast.  Yum!

Ingredients:

• 4 Pound Chuck Roast
• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 2 Onions
• 6-8 Carrots
• Salt & Pepper to Taste
• 3 Cups Beef Broth
• 3 sprigs Rosemary

I followed Ree's recipe instructions except I cooked mine in the Pampered Chef 12" Skillet with glass lid.  Ree's directions are spot-on for a tender and delicious roast and root veggies.  Her photos are great, too!