9 C rice Chex
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/3 stick butter
1 t peppermint extract
1/4 t salt
1 C unsweetened cocoa powder

Put the chex in a very large bowl. In a double-boiler or microwave, melt the chocolate chips and butter together, being careful not to overheat. Stir in the peppermint extract. Pour over the cereal and mix gently, coating the pieces. Allow to cool, then put it into a very large plastic bag. Sprinkle the cocoa powder and salt over the cereal in the bag, close it up, and shake to coat.

1 lb ground beef
1 large onion, diced
29-oz can tomato sauce
6-oz can Italian-style tomato paste
1 C water
1 t salt
8-oz package oven-ready lasagne noodles
16-oz pkg grated mozzarella cheese
12 oz ricotta cheese
1/2 C grated parmesan cheese (plus extra parmesan to sprinkle on the top)

In a skillet, saute the beef and onion until the meat is no longer pink. Combine the cooked beef with the tomato sauce, tomato paste, water, and salt.

In a large, 5-quart slow cooker, spread a quarter of the tomato sauce mixture on the bottom. Arrange a layer of 1/3 of the noodles on top of this. There’s no need to boil the noodles, but you may have to break them to make them fit. Combine the three cheeses and spread a third of the cheese mixture on top of the noodles. Repeat the layers two more times, then put the last of the tomato sauce mixture on top. Sprinkle some extra parmesan on top of the whole thing.

Put the lid on the slow cooker and cook for 4 or 5 hours on low heat. Serves 8.

In a large crockpot, combine everything but the frozen veggies and biscuits. Cook on high for 5 hours.
Add the frozen mixed vegetables and cook for one more hour.
During the last hour, make the refrigerator biscuits as directed on the package.

To serve, split biscuits, set on a plate, and ladle hot stew over top. You can also set half a biscuit on top, for a right-side up “pot pie.”

1-1/2 C rolled oats
3 ripe bananas
1 C unsweetened applesauce
1/2 C raisins
1/3 C nuts (mixture of walnuts, pecans, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, poppy seeds, sesame seeds)
1/4 t cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350. Combine all ingredients. Put spoonfuls on a greased baking sheet or silicone mat. Bake for 35 minutes.

Unroll and spread one can of crescent rolls on the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish. Combine softened cream cheese, sugar, and the vanilla. Spread over crescent roll layer. Unroll second can of crescent rolls and spread over cream cheese layer. Drizzle the butter over top of crescent rolls. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon-sugar or vanilla-sugar.

Bake for 20-30 minutes in 350 degree oven until bubbly and lightly browned. Let cool for at least 10 minutes, then cut into squares.

Streusel Topping
1/2 C brown sugar
2 T flour
2 t cinnamon
2 T butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 F. In a small bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking powder. In a larger bowl, cream together the softened butter and the white sugar. Blend in the milk and egg, then the dry ingredients, mixing gently until just blended.

Grease an 8×8 baking pan and spread the batter evenly into it.

Combine the streusel topping ingredients and sprinkle them over the cake batter. Use a fork to swirl the topping into the dough. Don’t stir it all the way in, just make some patterns through the top inch or so, leaving most of the streusel on top.

Bake for 25-30 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Optional: Add chopped pecans, walnuts, or almonds to the streusel topping.

Line a large baking sheet with plastic wrap. Char the chiles over a stove burner until blackened on all sides. Then place them in a paper bag and let them steam for about 10 minutes. Remove the stems, seeds, and peel. Dice the peppers finely.

Place the peppers and all remaining ingredients in a large bowl and mix gently with your hands. Form them into 1-T balls and place on the baking sheet.

Soup
1 T olive oil
2 minced garlic cloves
1/2 onion, finely minced
2-3 T chili powder
2 t cumin
9 C beef broth, preferably low-sodium
1/2 t oregano
1 C grated zucchini
1/4 C white rice
1/4 C cilantro, chopped
Fresh lime juice to taste
Salt to taste

Saute onion and garlic in oil until soft. Add chili powder and cumin and saute a little longer. Add the broth and the oregano and simmer for about 10 minutes. Stir in the zucchini and rice, then increase heat to medium and add the meatballs, one at a time. Cover and cook until the meatballs and the rice are cooked through, stirring once in a while. It should take about 20 minutes. Add the cilantro, lime juice, and salt.

Serve topped with more cilantro and tortilla chips, or fried strips of corn tortilla.

Serves 4 as a main course, or 6 as a first course.

Preheat oven to 450 F. In a 10-inch diameter tart pan with a removable bottom or a shallow pie pan, press the pie crust onto the bottom and up the sides. Prick the crust all over with a fork and bake until golden brown, about 12 minutes. Spread marmelade or preserves over the warm crust.

Chop the fruit coarsely. Toast the nuts, either in the oven or in a dry skillet, and chop them coarsely.

In a heavy saucepan, heat the cream to a simmer. Reduce the heat to low and stir in the chocolate chips until melted. Remove from heat and stir in the fruit, nuts, and salt. Spread this mixture into the prepared crust.

Optional: Garnish with toffee bits or crushed butterscotch candies.

Chill for a couple of hours until set and serve at room temperature.

Mariani sliced almonds used to make almond flour

Here’s an amazing original cake recipe from Philip Wilson. He serves it with King’s Cupboard Three Chilies Chocolate Sauce, a decadent treat we introduced him to.

1-1/2 lbs Sliced Almonds
4 C hot water
3 eggs
1-1/2 C sugar
1 T baking powder
1/4 C potato flour
2 t vanilla extract

Grind almonds in food processor, at least 30 seconds/batch until all 1-1/2 lbs have been ground to flour.

Put almond flour into a large bowl

Add 4 cups hot water, stir, and let set in a warm place for 4 hours

Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Batter should be similar consistency as pancake batter, somewhat thixotropic.

Put batter into buttered and potato-floured 9-inch round cake pans

Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 30 minutes. Cool and build cake.

3-layer almond flour cake by Philip Wilson

Makes 1.8 gallons

1-1/4 lbs beef
1-1/4 lbs pork
1-1/4 lbs chicken

6 oz chicken broth
1/2 lb onions
1/2 lb sausage

The following canned vegetables should not be drained:
15 oz can diced potatoes
38 oz canned diced tomatoes
15 oz can cream corn
15 oz can whole kernel corn
15 oz can small lima beans
15 oz can small peas

4 oz liquid smoke
1/4 oz cayenne pepper
1/4 oz black pepper
6 oz lemon juice
6 oz Worcestershire sauce
4 oz seasoned salt
1/4 t salt

Cook diced onions and sausage in chicken broth and vegetable liquid until onions are very tender. Add meat and tomatoes cook until warm. Add vegetables and seasoning. Season to taste. Cook until very hot. Let sit overnight.

Lisa's chocolate pecan love pies

Ingredients:

1 Large Bucket Filled to the Brim with LOVE!!
1 unbaked pie shell
1-1/2 C pecans
1/2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 C sugar
1/2 C light brown sugar
1/4 C Steen’s 100 percent Pure Cane Syrup
1/4 C corn syrup
1/2 t vanilla

(If you can Not find Cane Syrup just double up on the Corn Syrup — NOT the sugar!!)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spread the pecan pieces and the chocolate chips evenly on the bottom of the pie shell remembering to add in some of the LOVE!! In a mixing bowl, whisk the remaining ingredients together. Pour the filling over the pecans. Bake for about 1 hour or until the filling sets. Remember to Serve with ALL of the LOVE that remains and don’t be too surprised when you discover that the Bucket has somehow Filled itself again!!

Most Importantly however is to Never Ever let ANYONE Know just How EASY this Pie is to make!! Your guests will just assume that you spent LOTS of Time on this because it just Tastes SO Very Yummy!!! Enjoy!!

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE!!!

That Saturday morning in November, I’d gone looking for the tiny Brunswick, Georgia farmers’ market, and instead stumbled onto a city-wide event, the Brunswick Rockin’ Stewbilee. The highlight of the event was the stew-tasting, 35 booths offering a sample of the stew that was named for this small city.

Or was it? One of the first people I spoke with was a woman who told me, “We do this every year, because Brunswick stew was named after Brunswick.” She laughed. “But it might have been named after Brunswick County, Virginia. They make a lot of stew up there, too.”

I asked the young man in the chef’s hat, “What’s in Brunswick stew?”

“Chicken, pork, beef, lima beans, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, spices…it’s a fridge-cleaning stew.”

At that point, I decided to talk to the chefs and find out whose fridge they were cleaning out. I walked up to a couple of guys and asked them, “I heard this is fridge-cleaning stew. If so, whose fridge are you cleaning out?”

“That would be mine, I guess,” said Tom, a retiree from the pulp mill who was on the stew crew of the hospital auxiliary. When he worked for the pulp mill, they used his recipe, but since they’d switched to someone else’s, the hospital was now using his recipe in the competition.

It was a lively competition. When you purchased a ticket, you were given two votes to cast for the People’s Choice award. There was also a Judge’s award, selected by local celebrities, and a Presentation Award. The teams represented not only restaurants, but local businesses, clubs, and a few dedicated families.

One local business was giving away schwag with their samples. “Are you trying to bribe the voters?” I asked. “Oh, no, ma’am, I would not stoop that low!” said the volunteer. He turned to hand a stew sample and a frisbee to a woman, saying, “Here, go taste that and then come back and give me your vote.”

I made my way around the booths, looking for the trophies indicating previous award-winners. One group, from the Ole Times Country Buffet, had several 2nd- and 3rd-place trophies. They were attracting a lot of attention by making the most noise in the place, ringing ear-splitting cowbells every time someone tasted or voted for their stew.

“We tried that last year,” said a woman from the hospital auxiliary. “It backfired on us, and we didn’t get as many votes as the year before.” When I cast my vote for Tom’s recipe, she picked up a cowbell and rang it rather gingerly. “There’s a sleeping baby behind you,” she said, by way of explanation.

I wandered from one booth to the next, tasting and asking questions, trying to figure out what makes an award-winning Brunswick stew. More than one person told me, “It’s about balancing the flavors.” Among the samples I tried, the chicken, pork, and tomatoes were consistent, but the flavors ranged from sweet to salty to spicy to bland. The top award-winner, from a group called Renessenz, was the sweetest one I tasted, and I suspected their secret ingredient was sugar.

That was before I looked Renessenz up on the internet. According to their website, “Renessenz produces a wide range of integral ingredients for fragrance, flavor, coolant and industrial intermediate applications.” Their site lists 47 products, unpronouncable chemicals ranging from “dihydromyrcene” to “tetrahydromuguol.” Perhaps their competition is using ingredients like sugar, salt, and pepper, but is the key to Renessenz’s award winning stew was something a little more disturbing?

The truth is, the secret ingredient in Brunswick stew isn’t really a secret. Everyone was proud to tell me their “secret”: “Tender-loving care,” “You know how Grandmother used to cook? That’s my secret.” The county commissioners admitted that they didn’t cook the stew, their staff did. “Our secret is teamwork.”

The simplest, best secret ingredient was that of Gateway Behavioral Health Services, a group that had won many awards over the years, including the People’s Choice, the Judge’s Award, and the Presentation Award. These folks had given their stew a name: Happy Stew.

“Love is the secret ingredient in our stew,” said a volunteer named Jeff. When I pressed him for details, asking how they measured how much love to put in, he replied, “We measure it by the width of unicorn hairs, and the intensity of the dreams of pregnant mermaids.”

Another volunteer, Barbara, chimed in, “It’s a tablespoon of happiness…”

“No,” said Jeff, “it’s half a tablespoon. We were a little too happy last year, we had to cut it back. People started a drum circle, started playing Age of Aquarius, and we decided that was just a little too much for around here.”

By then, I’d already cast my two votes, one for the hospital auxiliary and one for the students at the culinary college. But my real vote goes to the folks with the Happy Stew. It doesn’t really matter what ingredients you put in there, as long as you cook your Brunswick stew with love.

~~~

Wanna clean out your fridge? Try my Quick and Easy Brunswick Stew recipe. I admit, it’s nothing like the ones in Brunswick, Georgia. I’ll remedy that, the next time I make it. I’ll add a full tablespoon of happiness.

1-2 C chopped cabbage (2-3 large leaves) or spinach leaves
2-4 T finely diced onion (more if you use sweet onion, less if you use yellow onion)
1/2 green or red pepper, finely diced
1/2 a large apple or a whole firm pear, finely diced
1 small or medium can of chunk chicken, flaked with a fork
Big handful of sunflower seeds, slivered almonds, or peanuts
Small handful of dried cherries, raisins, or diced dried apricots
Optional: Can of mandarin oranges, drained (you can substitute this for the dried fruit, if you don’t have any)

Toss all of the above ingredients together in a large bowl.

For the dressing, whisk together:

2 T sesame oil
2 T vegetable oil
2 T vinegar
1 T honey or sugar
Big pinch of salt or splash of Tamari
1/2 t black or white pepper

Toss the dressing with the salad and serve garnished with either sesame seeds, or poppy seeds, or flax seeds… or nothing. It’s very pretty as it is.

5 C sliced rhubarb (if it’s not very red, you can mix it with a few drops of red food coloring)
1 3-oz package strawberry gelatin
1 C sugar
3 C mini marshmallows
1 box white cake mix (we substituted Bob’s Red Mill Gluten-Free)
12 oz Cool Whip
4 C blueberries

Generously grease a 9×13 glass baking dish. Place the rhubarb in the pan. Sprinkle the gelatin and sugar over top, then the marshmallows.

Following package instructions, mix the cake batter. Pour it over the marshmallows and bake at 350 F for about an hour.

Remove from oven and let sit for a couple of minutes. Flip it onto a cookie sheet and let it cool completely. Top with the cool whip and then the blueberries.

8 eggs
2 T bread crumbs
1/2 grated Parmesan or other hard cheese
2 T melted butter
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Cover eggs with tap water and boil for 4 to 6 minutes. Put them under cold running water until they are cool, then peel them under running water. Cut in half lengthwise. Set the whites aside and put the yolks into a bowl.

Use a fork to mash the egg yolks and mix in the crumbs, cheese, butter, salt, and pepper. Using a teaspoon, form this mixture into balls the size of an egg yolk. Put them into the egg white halves.

Place in a baking dish, cover with foil, and bake for 10 minutes, until heated through.

In a bowl, marinate the fish in the lime juice, garlic, cilantro, and salt for at least a half hour.

Transfer everything to a large pan, arranging them in one layer. Cover with onion, green pepper, and tomatoes. Mix the coconut milk with the tomato paste and pour over everything. Sprinkle the olive oil over the top. Let sit fo

However, I later found out that local folks never, ever ate them raw — they cooked them and made stuffing to go with their Thanksgiving dinner. I wondered if I was the only person in the world who ate them raw. Luckily, I found this Brazilian recipe, so now I know I’m not the only one.

2 chayotes, peeled seeded, and grated
3 oranges, peeled and sectioned (save the juice)
1 bunch of scallions, just the white parts, diced
1 T olive oil
Juice of 2 limes
Salt and pepper
Garnish: Fresh cilantro, parsley, or mint

Mix chayote, oranges, and scallions in a bowl. Make a dressing with the orange juice, olive oil, lime juice, salt, and pepper and toss it with the salad. Chill for a half hour to allow flavors to blend. Stir before serving and garnish with fresh herbs.

In a saucepan, heat the milk with the rice flour, sugar, and salt, whisking until dissolved. Remove from heat before it boils and set it in a pan of boiling water. On low heat, keeping the water simmering, cook for 15 minutes, stirring constantly.

Pour into a buttered serving bowl. Let cool, then chill in the refrigerator. Serve well-chilled with fruit conserves, jam, or compote.

Peel and chop the avocados. Place in a small bowl and sprinkle with lime juice and sugar. Cover and chill for 15 minutes. In a blender or food processor, blend the avocado mixture with the milk and salt until smooth. Pass through a sieve, pressing with the back of a spoon. Stir in the port and serve, well-chilled, in dessert glasses.

1-1/2 C tapioca flour
1/3 C sugar
2/3 C grated coconut
1 C milk
Pinch salt
1/2 to 1 C water
Oil for deep-frying
Cinnamon
Powdered sugar

n a bowl, mix the tapioca flour, sugar, coconut, milk, and salt. Add enough water to make a smooth paste and let stand for 15 minutes.

Using plenty of tapioca flour to dust surfaces, roll it out on a floured board, about 1/2-inch thick. Cut disks with a cookie cutter or a glass that are about 2 inches across.

Deep fry the disks in hot oil until golden brown. Drain and sprinkle with cinnamon and powdered sugar.