Chicken Divan

3 - 4 chicken breast, skinned and boiled in salt water for 1 1/2 hours.  Drain and de-bone
1 package frozen broccoli
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp curry powder
bread crumbs
shredded cheese
butter

Butter a casserole dish and preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Cook broccoli according to package directions.  Drain any liquid and place broccoli in the bottom of buttered casserole dish.  Shred chicken and place over broccoli.  Mix together the sauce:  cream of chicken soup, mayonnaise, lemon juice and curry powder.  Pour sauce over chicken.  Sprinkle bread crumbs over sauce and top with shredded cheese.  (cheddar, longhorn or Velvetta will work)  Bake for 25 minutes.

If my husband were reviewing this recipe he would have just one thing to say....Yuck!  He doesn't care for this dish and I'll tell you why.  When we were dating in high school and he would come over for dinner, 9 times out of 10 this was the meal we were having.  He calls this dish Chicken On A Couch.  I think that in the beginning he might have liked it a little, but after having it served to him over and over and over he now almost all but refuses to eat it.  (He's getting it for dinner tonight whether he likes it or not!)  The rest of the family really likes this dish.  It's easy to prepare and looks and taste like you went to a lot of trouble to make it.  Serve it with a salad and garlic bread and you'll be a hit with your dinner crowd.  It's really very good especially if you appreciate the taste of curry.  We have been married for 29 years, 1 month and 22 days and this is the first time I have ever made this dish for my family.  THAT's how much my husband does not care for the dish.  I'd be willing to bet that he eats a second helping.  Usually when I make something he is not a fan of I try to disguise it as something else.  Like the times when we were on a budget and I made Hamburger Helper for dinner.  I would make it look as attractive as possible making sure to throw the box away so he wouldn't catch on.  He would usually eat it without any suspensions.  One thing I can't get by him is instant mashed potatoes.  He can spot those babies a mile away.  No matter how much I try to mask what they really are he always knows when they are instant.  Anyway, don't let his opinion of this dish sway your vote.  Try it, you will be pleasantly surprised.

P.S.  I stand corrected.  He only ate one helping.  He really does dislike it!

Grandmother's Lemon Meringue Pie

1 1/2 cups sugar
4 heaping tbsp flour
3 egg yolks, well beaten
3 egg whites, stiffly beaten
grated lemon peel of 2 lemons
1 1/2 cups hot water
juice of 2-3 lemons
1/4 sugar

Stir together sugar and flour, be sure there are no lumps in flour.  Add grated lemon peel to mixture. Add hot water to sugar/flour mixture, set over low heat.  Add egg yolks to mixture stirring well and cook and stir until very thick.  Remove from fire, cool quickly in cold water bath.  Add the lemon juice slowly, stirring as you add. Pour lemon mixture into baked pie shell.  Beat egg whites to frothy and add 1/4 - 1/2 cup sugar then continue beating until very thick and shiny.  (I add more sugar and 1 tsp of vanilla to my meringue)  Spread egg whites on top of lemon mixture and bake in a 450 degree oven until meringue starts to brown.

First of all let me tell you that I LOVE Lemon Meringue Pie.  I especially love it when it's been made by my grandmother or mother.  Now my grandmother was the pie expert in the family and hers turned out perfect every time.  Well, except for this one time which I will get to later.  Anyway, whenever I make a pie like this, for some reason I can never get the filling thick enough. When you go to eat it the pie I made you have to use a spoon instead of a fork.  I just don't have that magic touch when it comes to pies.  So for this review I will tell you that taste wise this pie is awesome.  Sweet, tart and topped off with just the right amount of sweetness in a fluffy meringue.  Appearance wise, before cutting into it, it looks fantastic.  Once you cut into the one that I've made, however, I'm sorry to report that it runs all over the place.  My mother says that the key to a thicker pie is to really heap your heaping tablespoons of flour when you make this pie so listen to her when you make it!!!

Now, back to the story about my grandmother and her perfect pies.  There was this one time, according to my daddy,  when my grandmother's home made pie didn't turn out so perfect.  It probably looked and smelled as good as any other pie she had ever made but it had a little something extra.  My daddy took a bite out of a slice of lemon meringue and was surprised to fine a not too pleasant bonus inside.  Grandmother must have had a headache or something when she was cooking that day and may have reached for a bottle of Aspirin.  The cotton that they put in the top of pill bottles somehow fell into the pie unbeknownst  to my grandmother and turned up in the slice of pie that my dad had just bit into.  Needless to say, this gave him some useful leverage that no mother-in-law wants a son-in-law to have rights to.  Every time we have lemon pie this story always comes up and we get to remember grandmother and her Lemon Meringue "Cotton Ball" Pie.

Lemon Ice Box Pie

1 graham cracker pie shell
1 can Eagle Brand sweetened condensed milk

1 small can sweetened lemonade (frozen)
1 small carton Cool Whip

Mix milk and lemonade thoroughly.  Fold in Cool Whip.  Chill at least 6 hours.

How easy is that?!  I am making this recipe today for my Grandmother.  Today is her birthday and I can't think of a better way to remember and honor her than making something sweet from her recipe box.  To give you an idea of how old this recipe is, on the recipe card next to the "1 graham cracker pie shell" it says "I buy the 39 cent ones at the store".  How long has it been since a graham cracker crust was 39 cents?  How long has it been since you could get anything at the store for 39 cents?

As you know she loved sweets!  She would rather have an ice cream float for dinner instead of a complete meal.  Who wouldn't?  I'm trying to eat healthy these days but I am for sure going to have a piece of this pie.  If only I had inherited her metabolism.  She could eat sweets all day and still stay thin.  I can just think of something sweet and gain weight! Anyhow, here is to my Grandmother, a wonderful, sweet and loving lady who I miss dearly!  Happy Birthday!

P.S.  Yes, that's me in the clown suit.  Hard to decide if the smile on Grandmother's face is from delight or embarrassment. :)

Mexican Chocolate Bundt Cake

1 package devil's food cake mix
1 tsp cinnamon
1 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs

1 cup semisweet chocolate mini-morsels, divided
2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
3 tbsp milk
1 tbsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp shortening
2 tbsp sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine first 5 ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Beat at medium speed for 2 minutes.  Stir in 1/2 cup chocolate mini morsels.  Pour batter into a greased and floured 12-cup bundt pan.  Bake for 33 - 35 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.  Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes, remove cake from pan and cool completely on wire rack.  Cook butter, brown sugar, and 2 tbsp milk in a heavy saucepan over medium-low heat, stirring constantly until sugar is melted.  Remove from heat, stir in vanilla.  Gradually stir in powdered sugar; if glaze is too thick add remaining 1 tsp milk, stirring to desired consistency.  Drizzle glaze over cooled cake.  Microwave remaining 1/2 cup chocolate morsels and shortening in a small bowl on high for 30 seconds or until melted.  Pour melted chocolate into a small zip-top bag.  Snip 1 corner of bag and drizzle over brown sugar glaze.  Sprinkle almonds on cake.

This cake is easy to make, looks impressive and will sure cure your chocolate craving.  You can drizzle as much or as little icing on it as you want.  It's sweet and rich so sometimes less is more on the icing.  The hint of cinnamon is what puts it in a class other than typical chocolate cake.  I made this yesterday for some dear friends who came over for dinner and I'm blogging about it right now to get my mind off the fact that my baby just left to go back to school for the semester.  I'm bummed, I'm sad, so I'm about to have a good cry now and a piece of this cake!

Grandmother Moody's Spaghetti and Meatballs

Meatballs:
1 lb ground meat
1/4 cup canned milk
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp basil
1 egg
2 tbsp corn meal
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 onion, chopped fine

Mix all ingredients together, form meat into small balls about the size of a walnut.  If meat is lean use a small pat of butter in your skillet, if not, the fat it makes will do.  Brown in skillet 10-12 minutes, drain off fat after cooking.

Sauce:
1 3/4 cups ketchup
3/4 cup water
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp basil
1/4 tsp oregano

In a dutch oven, mix sauce ingredients until bubbly.  Add cooked meatballs and heat through.  Serve over spaghetti.  Double recipe if needed.

The thing you have to remember about these recipes from my Grandmother is that they are very old and very simple.  Not a lot of ingredients and not a lot of steps to create one of the most flavorful, stick to your ribs meals you'll ever eat.  Today I am strictly "chewing" and "reviewing" and not cooking this time.  My mother cooked this meal for us last night and it was fantastic!  She made a huge pot and I think we ate all but 5 meatballs!  It was just like my Grandmother use to make.  Mom said she baked the meatballs in the oven this time instead of browning them in the frying pan as some of us are trying to watch what we eat.  We could not pass up homemade spaghetti and meatballs and nothing taste better than a meal made by Momma!  Try it!  It's easy and oh so good!!!!!!

Ranch Style Beans - From the Little Tin Box

2 lbs pinto beans, cooked
4-5 lbs ground meat, cooked until done but not browned (I used 3 lbs)
3 tbsp chili powder
2 large onions, chopped (I used medium sized)
2 tbsp butter


Sauce:  2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 bottle of ketchup plus one bottle of water (20 ounce bottle will do)
1 can tomato paste
2-3 dashes of Worcestershire sauce (I used 8)

Prepare and cook beans until tender.  I cooked mine in the crock pot on medium high for about 4 1/2 hours.  In a large skillet brown ground meat until cooked and pink is gone but not browned crisp.  Drain fat and set meat aside.  Chop two large onions and saute in butter until transparent but not browned.  Add meat back to the skillet with the onions and add 3 tbsp of chili powder mixing well.

For the sauce, combine in a separate bowl, sugar, pepper, oregano, paprika, garlic powder, 1 bottle of ketchup plus a bottle of water (use same ketchup bottle), tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce.  Whisk all ingredients together, pour into onion/meat mixture and mix well.  Strain beans and add to meat mixture.  I salted and added a little pepper to my beans before I added them into the meat mixture.  Carefully fold together the meat mixture and beans so not to crush and destroy the means.  If you mash the beans then your dish will come out mushy.  Add any additional salt, garlic powder, chili powder, pepper or Worcestershire sauce as needed to taste.  This makes a huge pot and is good served on a chili day with cornbread!

My mother use to make this dish quite often when we were growing up.  Ground beef and beans were pretty cheap and this made a lot and would last us a couple of days so it was a good, cheap meal to feed a family of five.  It was one of my favorite dishes that Momma would make when we were kids.  Sometimes she would serve it with soft fried potatoes and onions and of course cornbread.  These beans are so good we didn't mind eating on them for a day or two.  I don't know where my Grandmother got this recipe or if she made it up but I sure am glad that she made it for her family and handed it down to ours!

Grandmother Moody's Pound Cake

1 cup butter or margarine
1 3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 scant nutmeg
1 cup of eggs (about 5)

Cream sugar into butter, add eggs 1 at a time alternately with flour.  Add nutmeg to last part of flour, add vanilla.  Bake 1 hour at 325 degrees or until done in center.

Scant, don't you just love how they use to use cooking terms like that?  I actually have a set of measuring spoons my mother gave me that have the measurements of dash, pinch and smidgen.  I suppose scant falls somewhere between dash and pinch or a sqoash more than smidgen. I have to say that this is by far the most appropriate recipe to start off from the "little tin box".  Her pound cake was infamous!  She use to make these and bring one with her when she came to our house to visit.  It is so buttery and nutmeggy, soft on the inside and had this incredible crust on the outside that I am sorry to report cannot be achieved by anyone else in the family but her.  We can come close, but not like Grandmother use to make.  I'll probably eat half of this cake by tomorrow.  It's good with coffee, hot tea, water, air, etc.  You can't go wrong.  A true comfort food!

Note:  If you haven't read about my Grandmother, keep reading the next post!

My Grandmother's Recipe Box

Well it's a new year and I need a new challenge and I've been sitting at the computer all day trying to brainstorm what could be my next big cooking project.  I've also been trying to rearrange my pantry today and while I was digging around on the top shelf among my cookbooks I spotted my grandmother's recipe box. I started to look through it and realized that it was full of old recipes collected over the years from magazines, books, church friends and relatives and some of these recipes are from as far back as the 1920s.  I decided I had to share them on ChewIt ReviewIt so I hope you will enjoy them as much as I will enjoy exploring her little tin box.

Who was Eula?  My grandmother passed away suddenly back in 1991 at the age of 84.  She was the most angelic like person I have ever known.  She was a Sunday school teacher, an antique dealer and an artist.  She, at the request of my grand daddy, would cook for a group of hungry hunters just getting in at 1:00 in the morning from a hunting trip and still deliver the Lord's word at Sunday school the next day.  She enjoyed the outdoors and hunting trips to Colorado with my grand daddy.  The outdoors and roughing it didn't bother her a bit and she was always in style with the latest spring and fall fashions.  She could cook up a mess of chicken fried venison like no body's business.  (So I've heard)  Oh yes, and you had to call her "Grandmother".  Nothing else was acceptable and nothing else seemed appropriate for such a wonderful, loving lady like her. My cousins called her Aunt Pete which I find funny being that her name is Eula Lavada Brown Moody! She enjoyed cooking and pies and sweets were her specialty.  Most of the time she had something sweet for her dinner instead of a meal.

How I came to own the little recipe box:  She had moved to Amarillo to live with my aunt a few years before she passed away and then not long after that my aunt moved to the hill country.  After my aunt passed away my mother and sister and I were at my aunt's house collecting family treasures and I happen to spot my grandmother's little tin recipe box sitting on my aunt's kitchen counter.  I quickly latched onto it before my mother or sister spotted it and felt as if I had found a pot of gold!  Inside this little tin box was some of my grandmother's culinary secrets that I am now passing on to you.  I miss her so very much but I know that I will feel close to her as I explore each recipe.

Now I know I said in an earlier post that I needed to focus more on healthy recipes to help me achieve my "Look Too Good To Be 50" goal for this year so most of these recipes that I'll be trying will have to be eaten in moderation.  Most of them are sweets and I'm sure high in sugar but my grandmother was a very slim and trim lady so I figure if she can eat cake for dinner and stay thin maybe it will work for me to!  Ha!