I live 5 miles from Ponchatoula, the Strawberry Capitol of Louisiana which hosts the second largest festival in the state every April. Strawberry season here is early and short lived but berries are purchased by the flat and are frozen or made into jams and jellies. My mother and I used to make strawberry pies throughout the year but the best time to make this 'no cook' recipe is when it's hot outside. I hope you will enjoy this recipe as much as I have!
Mama's Strawberry Pie (makes 2 pies)
Ingredients:
8 oz Cool Whip
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup strawberries, mashed
1 cup pecans (or nuts of your choice), finely ground
3 tablespoons lemon juice
2 pre-made graham cracker crust pie shells (or make your own by following the recipe on a box of graham cracker crumbs)
Mix the first five ingredients, blending well by hand or with a hand mixer set on the lowest setting. Pour equal amounts into each graham cracker crust. Top with shaved chocolate, fresh peppermint leaves or more nuts if you want to 'fancy it up'. Refrigerate for 24 hours before serving.
http://my2.tupperware.com/deenorred
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Baby, it's hot down in Dixieland!
I am NOT a morning person. I like to stay up late and sleep in until my joints start aching, which is somewhere around 8 a.m. What does that have to do with it being hot here? With temperatures reaching the low 90s by 9 a.m. and climbing steadily to well over 100 F by mid-afternoon most days, going outside is like walking into a sauna. It literally takes your breath away. All of the blackberries that grow wild around our property shriveled up and died on the vine. Our figs would have suffered the same fate, had I not checked to see why the birds were not flocking to the trees to steal our crop. Even with daily watering, our grapes are hard and green one minute and black and split open the next. Heck, even the weeds are dying which seems to be the only positive effect to our landscape.
Since the middle of June, south Louisiana has suffered above average temperatures and little to no rain. In fact, we are experiencing a drought, a word rarely heard or used in an area that averages 65 inches of rain annually. Our parish (county to everyone else) has requested that we limit our water usage and not water our lawns between noon and midnight. Water our lawns? Who would have ever thought we would have to water our lawns here? Usually we are moaning and groaning when it rains because we know that when it dries up, we will have to pull out the mower before we are overtaken by a jungle of grass and weeds!
My dogs are probably the most unhappy with this situation. Pugs are just not built for a hot climate and I have four of them that live here in my office. Yes, I said four. Add a 5 month old German Shepherd to the mix and it's a recipe for disaster. The pugs spend most of their days grouching at one another and at the behemoth pup that keeps trying to herd them into a nice, neat little puggie pile. I spend most of the day screaming, "Tank! Off! Tank! No!"
So, in the interest of saving my sanity and my meager crops of figs, tomatoes, and herbs, a change is in order. I vow that I will try to go to bed a little bit earlier. I vow to set my alarm for 6:30, get up and make some extra strong coffee, and get my plants watered while the dogs are out running off some pent up energy. I'll even try to not bite anyone's head off if they should accidentally speak to me before I've drank my first cup of coffee. There is one thing I refuse to do though --- I refuse to like it! They say the early bird gets the worm but this is one Southern chick that could live without worms......zzzzzzzzzzz.
Stay cool!
Dee
Since the middle of June, south Louisiana has suffered above average temperatures and little to no rain. In fact, we are experiencing a drought, a word rarely heard or used in an area that averages 65 inches of rain annually. Our parish (county to everyone else) has requested that we limit our water usage and not water our lawns between noon and midnight. Water our lawns? Who would have ever thought we would have to water our lawns here? Usually we are moaning and groaning when it rains because we know that when it dries up, we will have to pull out the mower before we are overtaken by a jungle of grass and weeds!
My dogs are probably the most unhappy with this situation. Pugs are just not built for a hot climate and I have four of them that live here in my office. Yes, I said four. Add a 5 month old German Shepherd to the mix and it's a recipe for disaster. The pugs spend most of their days grouching at one another and at the behemoth pup that keeps trying to herd them into a nice, neat little puggie pile. I spend most of the day screaming, "Tank! Off! Tank! No!"
So, in the interest of saving my sanity and my meager crops of figs, tomatoes, and herbs, a change is in order. I vow that I will try to go to bed a little bit earlier. I vow to set my alarm for 6:30, get up and make some extra strong coffee, and get my plants watered while the dogs are out running off some pent up energy. I'll even try to not bite anyone's head off if they should accidentally speak to me before I've drank my first cup of coffee. There is one thing I refuse to do though --- I refuse to like it! They say the early bird gets the worm but this is one Southern chick that could live without worms......zzzzzzzzzzz.
Stay cool!
Dee
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Mrs. Miller's Baked Beans
Mrs. Miller was my high school boyfriend's mother. I raved so much about her baked beans that she allowed my mother to have the recipe and it is one that I've enjoyed many times over the years. Mrs. Miller - salute!
Mrs. Miller's Baked Beans
Ingredients:
16 oz can pork and beans
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1/4 of a large onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup of ketchup
2 tablespoons molasses
2 drops of Tabasco Sauce or hot sauce (I prefer more so I use 2 shakes, not drops)
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
Pour pork and beans (do not drain) in an oven proof casserole dish and set aside. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat; add chopped onion and cook until onions are transparent, stirring continuously. Blend in ketchup, molasses, hot sauce, brown sugar, salt, and dry mustard. Increase heat and bring to a gradual boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and let simmer for one to two minutes. Pour mixture over pork and beans and mix well. Bake, uncovered, at 375 F for 45 minutes.
Enjoy! Dee
Mrs. Miller's Baked Beans
Ingredients:
16 oz can pork and beans
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1/4 of a large onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup of ketchup
2 tablespoons molasses
2 drops of Tabasco Sauce or hot sauce (I prefer more so I use 2 shakes, not drops)
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
Pour pork and beans (do not drain) in an oven proof casserole dish and set aside. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat; add chopped onion and cook until onions are transparent, stirring continuously. Blend in ketchup, molasses, hot sauce, brown sugar, salt, and dry mustard. Increase heat and bring to a gradual boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and let simmer for one to two minutes. Pour mixture over pork and beans and mix well. Bake, uncovered, at 375 F for 45 minutes.
Enjoy! Dee
Generation X: Are we the last generation to learn to cook at a young age?
Is it just me or does it seem that those of us in our late 30s to mid 40s were the last ones to learn to cook when we were just barely tall enough to see the countertops without standing on our tippy toes? Perhaps we were too busy with working outside the home and too tired when we arrived home to take the time and find the patience to teach our children to cook. Perhaps, as in my case, we have boys and they were not interested in cooking once they were old enough to think that it's not 'cool' to cook if you are a male.
I started helping out in the kitchen when I was old enough to reach the pots and pans and I started really learning to cook somewhere around the age of 8 years. Our meals were simple. There were no racks of cookbooks to refer to, no fancy ingredients to buy, no exotic spices, and worst of all, no automatic dishwashers! We rarely measured anything unless we were making cookies or a cake. My mother was and still is the master of 'dump' cooking . . . "Yep, that looks like it will be enough. Just dump it in there and stir it!"
Today cooking seems so complicated. Go into any bookstore and browse the cookbook section. The selection is simply overwhelming! Better yet, read through some of the recipes. Really, just what in the heck is crème fraiche and where in the South do you find that? Then again, some would scratch their heads if I told them about my grandmother's squirrel jambalaya or her fig pizza!
In this blog, my aim is to pull out some old family recipes (yes, I actually do have some written down on old lined cards that are stained with use) and get back to basics. I hope you will pull out the standard staples, throw out the crème fraiche, and cook along with me.
Dee
I started helping out in the kitchen when I was old enough to reach the pots and pans and I started really learning to cook somewhere around the age of 8 years. Our meals were simple. There were no racks of cookbooks to refer to, no fancy ingredients to buy, no exotic spices, and worst of all, no automatic dishwashers! We rarely measured anything unless we were making cookies or a cake. My mother was and still is the master of 'dump' cooking . . . "Yep, that looks like it will be enough. Just dump it in there and stir it!"
Today cooking seems so complicated. Go into any bookstore and browse the cookbook section. The selection is simply overwhelming! Better yet, read through some of the recipes. Really, just what in the heck is crème fraiche and where in the South do you find that? Then again, some would scratch their heads if I told them about my grandmother's squirrel jambalaya or her fig pizza!
In this blog, my aim is to pull out some old family recipes (yes, I actually do have some written down on old lined cards that are stained with use) and get back to basics. I hope you will pull out the standard staples, throw out the crème fraiche, and cook along with me.
Dee
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