Quick and Hearty Black Bean Soup ~ page 53

This was definitely quick to throw together. I didn't have much in the fridge or pantry to work with when planning dinner the other night. But I usually keep canned beans and tomatoes around for emergency dinners like this. The recipe says to add 1.5- 3 cups of chicken broth. Well, the one can of black beans is fine if you only add 1.5 cups of broth. But if you add 3 cups like I did, then you need to plan on adding in one more can of beans to add more substance. It sure had a great flavor that was even a little hot for my kiddoes since I used a can of Rotel instead of diced tomatoes...it had quite a little kick. Adam got all creative with his bowl and added a dollup of sour cream and said it was fabulous. Below you will see a pic to prove his happy face while eating it! --Carissa

Next-Day Brisket ~ page 165

Yesterday my house smelled like Adam's Granny's house as this brisket simmered away in the oven! It was heavenly! I made this ahead of time to take to a dinner party tonight. It reheats great and tastes even better the 2nd day anyway. I did it like Granny, slicing the brisket then layering it in a casserole dish and pouring the thickened gravy over the top.
Above is a picture of the brisket getting prepped for its bedtime marinating in the fridge. This is a great comfort food that is super easy to do. I bought another one to freeze for a rainy day. --Carissa

Banana Pineapple Muffins ~ page 306

Like I said in a previous post, I am currently cleaning out my freezer. I have to do that every year so I can tell what is really in there. In all my reorganizing of the frozen food I found bags and bags of frozen bananas. Everytime a banana gets brown spots on it..I peel it and toss it in a freezer bag and into the freezer it goes. The other day I found enough to make several batches of these muffins. I make most of my muffins in a mini muffin pan that way you can eat 3 without feeling guilty, and they fit so nicely in my kid's school lunch bags.

Evelyn insists on helping whenever she knows I am baking. She just learned how to crack an egg, which thrills her to no end.

Aunt Judie's Swedish Limpa Bread ~ page 274

I have been on a mission lately to clean out my freezer of all the random baking that I have accumulated over the year. Colder weather is around the corner, which means I will feel like baking again. So I must clean out last years baking to make room for the new baking! This was a loaf of Limpa bread that was.... get ready for this....10 1/2 months old! I know this because the last time I made this bread was 2 weeks before last Thanksgiving since that is what I was assigned to bring to the big meal. I pulled it out of the freezer to go with dinner tonight. I just had to write a post about it to share how good it was almost a year later! It really was delicious...made me feel like I was at Thanksgiving dinner at my mom's house. So don't be afraid of the freezer for baked goods, just wrap everything well, and use good freezer bags. --Carissa

Microwave Peanut Brittle ~ page 256

This is so good, I made it twice this weekend! Peanut craving I guess.

A large glass measuring cup made the job easy. I know that different microwaves can do different things depending on the wattage, so I searched around online to find cooking times that matched my microwave (mine is 1100 watts and required less time in the first 2 steps - I didn't want to risk burning it).

I just poured it onto a sheet of parchment paper and helped it spread with a non-stick sprayed spatula. Yum! I wish I could have tried it with pecans but I just don't have any right now.

Janice's Buttermilk Biscuits ~ page 299

I made these for breakfast the other morning after Ben commented the night before "I love going to bed at night because there's always breakfast to look forward to in the morning!" It's his favorite meal. So I took that as "make me something good for breakfast." And I knew he'd appreciate some of mom's biscuits and gravy, which I have finally mastered (at least in our house) thanks to Janice!

The only round cutter I have is from my plastic kids set and it's 2 3/4" round. This made 10 larger biscuits instead of 12. But a biscuit's a biscuit when they're Janice's buttermilk ones :)

Spinach Salad ~ page 75

I have always made this as a side salad until the other day, when I wanted a light supper after a big meaty lunch, so I made this spinach salad as our meal. It was perfectly satisfying and delicious. The hard boiled eggs, sliced almonds, and crisp bacon pieces add a little protein, and the mandarin oranges bring a bright sweetness to the hearty baby spinach.

The tangy sweet dressing for this salad can be made days ahead if you like--and you can make the whole recipe and have plenty for other salads, or cut the recipe in half (which will still give you some extra). I used a little blender gadget I have to mice up the onion and mix the dressing. But you can do this by hand if you want to.

One more note on the salad dressing--people often ask what extra virgin olive oil I use: this is the one I like best for salad dressings. The price is reasonable, and it is readily available--even at Walmart.

I know this recipe does not give you an amount on the bacon--it just says "bacon bits." I would probably use 1 strip per serving --however, for a salad meal like I made, I used 2 strips per serving.

Now here is the cool part about this salad--at this point, you can refrigerated all the parts of the salad separately, then transport it to a pot luck or to a friends house, or just put all the parts in the fridge for a fast salad later in the day--or even the next day.

When you are ready, dump everything in with the spinach, add as much of your dressing as you like, and serve up a wonderful salad that you are sure to get compliments on.

Salmon and Noodle Bowl ~ page 184

This is one of those meals that you can't believe something so simple and fast is so delicious! I love one-dish meals that can stand alone. I did change a couple things up in this recipe--there is lots of room for creativity here. I had some Chinese noodles I got from the Asian market that I substituted for the fettuccine, and I was very pleased with how well they compliment this dish.

I also changed up the salmon a bit, because I had the time to do something a little snazzier with it than a simple pan sauté. I have been wanting to try an Orange Basil Marinade to use on grilled salmon, and I decided it would work well with this recipe. Here is the marinade I used:
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/3 cup chopped fresh basil leaves
2 teaspoons grated orange zest

I poured the marinade in a zipper-top bag with the salmon and put it in the fridge for two hours, turning it occasionally. Then I had David fire up the grill and cook the salmon, covered, on the grill for about 8 minutes each side. That was all the time it took to mix up the rest of the recipe. Oh, one more thing--if you don't have a balsamic vinaigrette salad dressing on hand, it is easy to just mix one up to use in this recipe. Here is the simple vinaigrette I whisked together:

• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoons dark brown sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon chopped garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• You probably wont need all of this on your hot noodles--just use what looks good to you, and save the rest for a future salad. I wish we had leftovers of this meal to eat cold the next day like Carissa suggests in this recipe, but it was so good we ate it all up. ~Janice

Cinnamon-Sugar Dipped Blueberry Muffins ~ page 295

I bought some blueberries the other day. I was so excited about eating them on my morning cereal, but they weren't very sweet, so I thought the best thing to do with these berries is to put them in some muffins where the sweet muffin could hide a little of the tartness. It worked great. These have sour cream in them which gives them a luxurious taste, and adds a richness that tastes like it came from a little coffee shop somewhere.
Can you tell my muffin tin has been used 1oo's of times? It is old, but it still produces perfect muffins unlike the new expensive ones I tried buying a couple years ago. Wish I knew what brand this one was. It was a wedding gift I think.
Above is the melted butter that you dip the baked muffins in, then the cinnamon sugar afterwards. This leaves an almost crunchy crust on top, very yummy. The cookbook doesn't say exact amounts...I'll blame that on my mother since it is her recipe. :)

I used 1/4 cup of butter melted, then 1/2 cup white sugar mixed with 1 1/2 teaspoons of cinnamon. Luckily I hid these in my freezer already or I would have eaten several for breakfast! --Carissa

Sausage-Cheddar Quiche ~ page 301

Like the recipe says...this is a great recipe for guys! It is loaded with meat! This isn't a delicate egg quiche with a sprinkling of sausage through out. I didn't use spicy sausage like the recipe calls for since I had two kids eating it, but that would have been yummy too.
Above is the quiche before the egg mixture, and below is right out of the oven.
If I was making it for a group of ladies I would probably take out 1/2 to 3/4 cup of sausage to make it a little lighter. Either way I think it is delicious! My kids gobbled it up, the 3 year old even had 3 helpings! I used my mom's pie crust recipe on page 265, it was so easy.

Chicken Cacciatore ~ page 110

Years before Carissa and I wrote down all our recipes for What We Cook, we talked about writing a cookbook of dishes that are good to take to a church pot luck, or to a friend that needs a meal. We never wrote that cookbook, but if we ever do, this will be one of the recipes in it. This is a wonderful, comforting meal to take to a friend that has had a hard week. Be sure to make enough for your own family though, as the smells from your kitchen will draw them in wanting some!

Start by browning your chicken pieces. I sort of doubled the recipe, so I browned chicken in two batches.

I had these little colorful sweet peppers, so I threw some of those in with the veggies. Be sure to cut your chunks of vegetables into pretty big pieces, so they don't get lost in the sauce.

Remove the browned chicken, and add the vegetables to the pot to sauté.

My granddaughter, Lillian, wanted to stir...

But as soon as I turned my head, she did some tasting...unfortunately, with a big blop of red sauce down her white shirt! We tried to clean it up before her momma saw it...

At the very end of the simmer time, add in the black and green olives. I didn't have green olives, so I used capers, which have kind of the same flavor as a green olive. The olives are what makes the flavor of this dish really stand out.

Here is the full meal I put together--I added the Green Bean Toss ~ page 97, and the Rosemary Dipping Bread ~ page 287.  This is a light, but warm and tasty dinner that will pack up easily to take to the home of someone that could use a good meal at the end of a challenging week.

Crispy Bakes Monte Cristos ~ page 65

These are fun to make--they are easy, but deliciously different--a wonderful way to pump up a sandwich. Serve them with a fruity syrup. (I used a peach jam my daughter-law, Julia, made...that didn't quite set, so was perfect for syrup!) A sifting of powdered sugar on top is nice too.

Set up an assembly line with your bread, cheese, meat, crispy rice cereal, and egg and milk mixture.

After you make your sandwiches, cut the crusts off.

I cut this recipe in half for two people. I did run short of the crisped rice for my last sandwich half, as you can see. But that is easy to fix: just pour out some more cereal! Be sure to wet and coat all the sides of each sandwich half, not just the top and bottom.

Here are my sandwiches, ready for the oven. One last note...I made these on the healthy side with whole wheat bread, but they would be very delicious from a nice white bread like Pepperidge Farm. And one more optional step for special occasions when you are ok with a few extra calories: drizzle the tops with melted butter before browning in the oven. I didn't do this on these, and they were still great, but probably for company, I would use the white bread and butter, just to make them snazzier. Either way, this is a great sandwich.

Chocolate Chip Muffins ~ page 310

Oh so yummy! If I was gonna open up a Bed and Breakfast, this is the muffin I would serve in the mornings. They are like little bite size coffee-cakes. I made mine in a mini muffin tin, so I have lots of these little guys.
The brown sugar that you sprinkle on top adds a nice little crunch, but be careful not to get to sloppy in sprinkling the sugar on the tops, I got alot on the actual muffin tin and it caramelized and took lots of scrubbing to get off! I'll blame me being hurried on the screaming newborn I had in the other room while I was making these. Oh, and I used mini chips since I made mini muffins...the mini chips would be nice in the big muffins also, that way you get a little more chocolate in each bite. I'm getting hungry just looking at these pictures of the muffins, you gotta try these. --Carissa

Janice's Absolute Best Chocolate Chip Cookie ~ page 195

These cookies are simple and comforting to make, because they are no fuss. This recipe is mixed by hand. Sometimes it just feels good not to pull out the big mixer, but rather simply stir up a batch of cookies in a big bowl with a wooden spoon, like you might imagine your grandmother did.

I add pecans to my cookies, just because my husband, who doesn't really like cookies, can be won over if there are pecans in them!

The butter is melted first, so mixing the wet with the dry ingredients is as easy as a few stirs.

Look at these wonderful big chocolate chips from Ghirardelli (60% cacao) which are more like chocolate chunks! I am embarrassed to say I ate quite a bit of this raw dough before I then ate quite a few cookies. But I had a purpose--I was tasting each pan-full, as I have a new oven, that unlike my old oven that cooked fast--this one cooks slow! So I was experimenting with times and temperatures. So if you have to fiddle a bit with your timing and temp of this recipe--go ahead--do what you need to do to bake these homey, moist, and utterly delicious cookies.