Funeral Food

Well, in all seriousness, this recipe really was prepared to accommodate our relatives following a family funeral. We just could not think of a better title.

Our dear Papa Bob passed away unexpectedly in January. We spent several extra days after the funeral baking and cooking for the relatives living in his hometown. We relished the time we were able to spend with our family by relaxing and helping through our cooking.

We decided Ree's Chicken Spaghetti (p. 130) would be the perfect comfort food to prepare. We had been busy cooking all day, so this dish had to wait until about 10:00 p.m. We'll just say that's the reason we didn't use a whole chicken...it was late...not that we're squeamish about handling a whole chicken. It was late. Got that? Good.

We began by dicing very un-threatening chicken breasts, and sauteing the meat in a skillet.

Next we diced green pepper, a small onion and added a small jar of pimentos to the mix.

We prepared our pasta.

Once the pasta was done, we placed it in a dish and mixed it with two cans of cream of mushroom soup and a whole lotta cheddar cheese. That's how much: a whole lotta.

See the red spoon in the above photo? Yeah, we broke it. How? Well, it was just a left-over large, plastic spoon you might use at a picnic. We are starting a "Replace Queenie's Spoon Fund" if you would care to donate. Queenie is Jo's mother. And we love her dearly. She is an incredibly organized and put-together woman, yet she doesn't care a lick about cooking. She does a fine job at cooking; she simply doesn't care about replacing a plastic, red spoon.

Next we added our veggies to the pasta mix. Also added was the cooked chicken and chicken broth.

The entire dish was seasoned with salt, pepper and Old Bay seasoning. Ree's recipe calls for cayenne pepper, of which we did not have on hand, so Old Bay came to the rescue. This was stirred together, and we oohed and ahhed over the pretty colors. Maybe we were just a little delirious from being tired, but it really is a colorful dish.

All of this was poured into a rectangular baking dish and topped with more cheddar cheese. This baked at 350-degrees for approximately 40 minutes. We highly recommend trying this dish, whether you use a whole chicken or wimpy chicken breasts, like we did. And, boy, did it make for a really nice snack at 11:00 p.m.

Happily full,

Why did we put this one off so long?

For the past six months we've been meaning to do P-Dub's Oatmeal Crispies (p. 227), but we just finally got around to doing the recipe in the past couple of weeks.

This has become one of our new, favorite cookies. We would even rank it among our top ten favorites. And that's saying something. These are our vehicle of choice for ice cream at the present time. And, they make the house smell like a cinnamon sugar candle. Yum.

We began by chopping pecans with a large knife.

Next we mixed granulated sugar, brown sugar and shortening.

We beat two eggs and a smidgen of vanilla. The egg mixture was added to the sugar.

We combined our dry ingredients of flour, baking soda and salt. In a moment of inspiration, we decided to add a dash of cinnamon. You can't go wrong with cinnamon in this recipe. We gradually added the flour mixture into the sugar concoction.

Next, we folded in our oats and pecans. Don't you just want to eat the dough right now? We wanted to, and we did.

We formed two logs and wrapped them in Saran wrap, placing them in the refrigerator to chill.

When we were ready, we cut the logs into cookie-sized pieces. Note, these cookies do expand quite a bit, so make your log of dough long and thin if you'd like smaller cookies. Ours, however, became monster cookies. Not that we're complaining.

These were baked for approximately 10 minutes at 350-degrees.

And we were so excited to eat them, we do not take a final picture of the baked cookies. Please trust us when we say that they were delicious and make for great ice cream sandwich cookies. Hopefully, the following picture of The Bean will suffice.

The oatmeal crispies are like oatmeal raisin cookies, but with pecans instead. We all agreed, between bites, this cookie was a great variation off of the classic oatmeal raisin cookie.

Happily full,

Roasted Corny-ness

With the extra-mild winter weather we've been experiencing, our men had the itch to smoke some meat. So they did. Uncle He-Man and Lou brought some baby back ribs to share. Mmm...tasty.

The task left to Lou and Jo was to decide on what dishes to serve along with the wonderful ribs. We decided upon Katie's Roasted Corn Salad (p. 26).

Since the grill was being occupied by the ribs (Hallelujah! - corny style), we began by roasting our corn on the broiler pan in the oven. It was prepared with olive oil and roasted for approximately 10 minutes.

Next we sliced red onion, red bell pepper and yellow squash. These were prepared for roasting, with olive oil, just as the corn was.

We sliced two roma tomatoes while the veggies were roasting.

Next we made our dressing. We mixed oil and balsamic vinegar.

We cut basil leaves - chiffonade style (we were wearing our fancy pants). This is done by rolling a stack of basil leaves length-wise, slicing the leaves width-wise to form long strips. See? We really were wearing our fancy pants.

To the dressing we added salt and minced garlic. All the ingredients were whisked together.

We sliced the corn kernels off the cobs.

We diced the remaining vegetables.

Once these were combined, we drizzled the dressing over the mixture. This was thoroughly folded into the salad.

We chilled the salad for a short time, allowing the flavors to mingle and marry. Katie's Roasted Corn Salad is good by itself or served with tortilla chips.

Happily full,

Mr. Fabuful's Egg-in-the Hole

Whelp. So, as we're sure you've guessed, we're blogging about our cooking Ree's Egg-in-the-Hole (p. 46). This is quite possibly the simplest recipe in the book, but we'll make it as astoundingly exciting as we can.

In a land far, far away (Central Kansas), many moons ago (about three weeks) a band of weary pilgrims made their way home from their pilgrimage (church). Road-weary and starving (not really) they decided they were in great need of sustenance (low-blood sugar). They had heard of a legendary food that could fill 'em up real good. This mystical dish was known as Egg-in-the-Hole.

Back to reality. Egg-in-the-Hole is a good and fast meal, especially if you're a fan of fried eggs. Oddly enough, Lou and Jo are not fans of fried eggs, but our husbands are. Isn't that fun? Husbands used in the plural. Woot.

We started by melting butter in the skillet. Then we used a mason jar to cut a hole in the bread.

We placed the bread in the buttered skillet, allowing the bread to soak up some of the butter. We cracked one egg, dropping it into the hole in the bread.

We waited until the underside of the egg was fully cooked, then flipped the bread and egg to the other side.

Once the second side finished cooking, we plated it and topped the Egg-in-the-Hole with shredded cheddar cheese.

Mr. Fabuful enjoyed his good, quick lunch. Uncle He-Man enjoyed the Hole minus the bread, as he is doing a low-carb regimen.

Happily full,

Bacon + Hamburger + Ketchup = Undeniably Tasty

We're begging you to try this meatloaf recipe. Mr. Fabuful said this was his favorite meatloaf ever. And he is a bit of a meatloaf connoisseur.

As you can tell, we were making Ree's Meatloaf (p. 150).

To start this recipe, one places six slices of bread in a bowl and covers it with one cup of milk to soak.

That's what's supposed to happen. In the typical Lou and Jo fashion, we got started and quickly saw that there was no milk to be found on the premises. We thought water would be kinda gross, and the only other liquidy thing in the meatloaf portion of the recipe was eggs. So, eggs immediately became the substitute for milk, and we moved on.

Next, we combined two pounds of ground beef, some Parmesan cheese, seasoned salt, parsley, pepper and salt.

Jo massaged the mixture (because she's braver than Lou) until the ingredients became a smorgasbord of lovely colors.

We lined the broiler pan with aluminum foil. This helped catch the drippings from the meat during the cooking process and made for a very easy clean-up. Thanks for the tip, Ree!

Jo transferred the meat to the broiler pan and formed it into a loaf. One thing we learned was the meatloaf will cook more evenly and quickly if the loaf is somewhat flat. Our loaf was a good 2-1/2 to 3 inches thick. We suggest making your loaf 1-1/2 to 2 inches thick.

Next comes the awesome-est part. We wrapped this puppy in bacon. We swore we heard angels sing. Okay. It was The Bean hollering for another episode of "Shaun the Sheep". But, close enough.

Then we prepared our tomato gravy by whisking ketchup, brown sugar, dry mustard and a wee bit of Tabasco together.

A portion of the sauce was brushed onto the meatloaf. This was placed in the oven at 350-degrees for 45 minutes.

We removed the meatloaf, basted it again, and let it continue to cook until it was no longer pink in the middle. This dish is definitely worth the time.

It was a success with our fellas and guests. We appreciated being able to simply roll up the messed foil and throw it away to clean up. Truly, this is a very tasty dish.

Happily full,

Hot Dip for a Cold Day

Does anybody have a little WD-40? We're feeling a bit rusty.

Between the holidays, organizing a new home and growing a little person, we're a touch out of it. Thankfully, Ree's Hot Artichoke Dip (p. 30) is so easy to make. This is the perfect snack food for a cold winter evening - or even for the upcoming Super Bowl. We made it as an appetizer when friends came over for supper. It was an automatic hit.

We started by combining one can of drained, chopped artichoke hearts, mayonnaise and one block of cream cheese into the food processor. This was followed by two, chopped green onions, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper. We pulsed this mixture several times to blend lightly.

Next we added about a cup of Parmesan cheese and gently blended this with the mix.

We then chopped our second can of artichoke hearts.

These were folded into the processed mixture. We then plopped this into a 9x9 baking dish and baked it for approximately 20 minutes at 350-degrees.

We love this hot artichoke dip because of the well-balanced combination of creamy cheeses and tangy mayo and artichokes. This will easily curb your guests' hunger as your main course finishes cooking. Or, it makes for an excellent supper. Just remember, you have to share.

Happily full,