A salad and dessert

I have about 5 posts ready to do on here and haven’t taken the time. I’ll start current and go backwards over the next few days. Starting with supper tonight…

Grilled Chicken Breast Salad

Well, ok, this time it’s not actually grilled, just done in the frying pan. BUT, it’s much better when it’s grilled! Probably partly because Shannon is better at seasoning stuff than me!

We have this quite a bit. The salad varies as far as what goes in it… usually depends on what all I have on hand.

Lettuce
Carrots
Fresh mushrooms
Tomatoes
Shredded cheese
Croutons
Bacon
Italian seasoning
Chicken breast, grilled or fried, seasoned to taste, and cut into strips
Dressing

chicken brst salad  Yeah, I left the croutons in the oven a little too long.

Serve with rolls and/or soup. 

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And this is dessert that we had for supper last night with the Martins. It’s sorta made up, although there is a tweaked recipe involved. Kinda weird with all the recipes around here, to make something up.

We’ll call it…
Cream Cheese Angel Food Cake Roll   … well, that sounds sorta long… maybe Cream Cheese Cake Roll would be better.

Angel food cake mix

Mix according to directions. Pour HALF of it in jelly roll pan. Add 1/8 cup cocoa to the other half. Mix well and pour into the other end of the pan. Spread both to meet evenly in the middle … 2 spatulas, one in each hand, would be good here (that’s why there are no pics of this process… my hands were full and the 2 people able to take pictures were taking Sunday aft naps  ).
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Bake for about 18 minutes. Get it out of the oven and flip it over onto a towel or parchment paper or something.
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Let it cool a few minutes, then roll it up and let it cool about an hour (that’s how long I did and it seemed to be about right).     Unroll and spread with cream cheese filling (the stuff left over from making the Raspberry Cream Cheese Rolls (Dec 11, 2006 post)… you didn’t forget about them, did you?!   Then, spread with Danish dessert …recipe taken from the Derstine cookbook.
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1 1/2 Tbsp. cornstarch
1 1/2 cups juice or water
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup jello, any flavor
1/3 cup sugar

Heat to boiling 1 cup liquid. Combine jello, sugar, and cornstarch. Make a paste of it with remaining 1/2 cup liquid. Stir into boiling juice until thick and clear. Cook about 1 minute. I did it to here, then added about a cup of strawberries pureed in a food processor (because some people at supper just like the ‘goo’ and not the ‘chunks’). When it was chilled, it wasn’t as thick as I wanted it (I was afraid it would just run down off the top of the roll), so I put about a 1/2 pack of unflavored gelatin into 1/2 cup boiling water, mixed it in and when it was chilled, it was thicker. Anyway, here’s the rest of the written recipe for Danish dessert if you ever want to make it for something else: Pour over mixture of drained canned fruit and chill well. For delicious strawberry danish dessert, add 2 to 3 cups frozen strawberries.

Roll the cake back up.
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Cut it where the 2 colors meet. Put the 2 rolls side by side on a round platter. Pour rest of Danish stuff on top…. why am I telling you all this, you can see it on the pictures!
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Now it’s time for the Cool Whip… just do something fancy with it. I opted for the zigzag-it-across-the-top technique, then I still had some left over in my ‘decorator bag’ (which was actually a plastic 1 gallon storage bag with the corner snipped off), so I just made little piles, one on each end.  Yeah, whatever, but hey, it worked. The dessert got licked clean and I heard some good compliments on it. I also heard comments about the chocolate one looking like meatloaf with ketchup and sour cream on top! They were making jokes about how it would be a good April Fools thing… serve it with potatoes and watch people’s reaction.  So, my advice would be not to mess around with the cake mix and just leave it all white.
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Valentine’s Day is this week!

I just thought about it that I should’ve done a little Valentine’s meal in advance in case anyone wants ideas. For as long as I can remember, Mom made a heart-shaped meal every Valentine’s Day. Even after we children started getting married, it has stayed a tradition and we still get together for it. It’s often heart-shaped meatloaf, scalloped potatoes with heart-shaped potato slices on top, salad with heart-shaped cheese and meat in it, bread slices cut out in heart shapes, red punch, candy favors and jellos beside each plate, and a chocolate cake with caramel and white mtn icing. But, we’re not stuck on the same menu. One year we made heart-shaped pizzas. Here are a couple pictures of the table from the last couple years. I didn’t have good pictures of the food… I wasn’t into food photography then yet.   When we have our meal this year, I’ll be sure to get good pictures and put them on here.
vtines05  2005
vtines06  2006 
Krista and Lexi with their Valentine chocolates from Grandpa.
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And now for a couple recipes…  We had carry-in/fellowship meal/potluck at church today. I, wanting to be in the Valentine’s mood, made a couple things that were red and pink. I was on for salad and dessert.

Easy Cottage Cheese Salad    …From the Magnolia Cookery cookbook.

This is not kidding when it says ‘easy’! Here are the ingredients:
salad ingred   A can of pineapple, a 3 oz box of jello (any flavor), a carton of Cool Whip, and a carton of cottage cheese.
One thing that makes it easy is that everything is all measured for you because you use it all. Mix cottage cheese with dry jello. Mix well. Let set 5 min. Drain juice from fruit, then add to cottage cheese. Fold in the Cool Whip. Best when refrigerated 1 hour before serving. I really like this stuff!!!! But, no other comments from the other people in this household, please… they don’t feel quite the same about it as I do.
salad done

Red Velvet Cake     …From an Easy to Bake, Easy to Make recipe card

2 1/4 c. flour
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, softened
2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 large eggs
1 c. buttermilk
1 Tbsp. white vinegar
1 Tbsp. red food coloring
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cans (16 oz each) prepared cream cheese frosting, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350. Coat the bottoms of two 9″ round cake pans with cooking spray. Place 1st 6 ingredients into large bowl of electric mixer. Mix on low speed, scraping bowl, until mixture resembles moist crumbs. Add eggs, buttermilk, vinegar, red food coloring, and vanilla and mix on low speed until dry ingredients are moistened. Beat on high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.  (I wish I would’ve taken a picture of the unbaked batter, it looks pretty neat.)   Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake until toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean, 25-30 minutes. Remove cakes from oven and cool in pans on wire racks for 10 min. Turn cakes onto racks to cool completely. Stir frosting in cans to fluff the contents. With a spatula, loosen cakes from pans. Invert one layer onto plate.
red1 You can tell part of it is cut away… I do that to make it as level as possible. Plus, it gives some extra cake to make crumbs to go on top.  Spread with 2/3 cup frosting. Place second layer on top.
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Spread top and sides with remaining frosting.
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red4  It is SO good! People rave about it every time! It’s moist and soft. I usually make my own cream cheese frosting, but this time (because I like to try to make things as accurately as possible to feature on here) I bought it, like the recipe says. And, it just isn’t as good as homemade frosting!

I thought about baking it in heart-shaped pans, but didn’t then. If you make it for V-tines Day, you could do that OR bake it regular, then cut out heart-shaped pieces with a cookie cutter, then layer and frost them for individual serving sizes. That would look kind of cute sitting beside each plate.

Salad and dessert for a potluck

We had a carry-in/fellowship meal/potluck/whatever you call it at church today. I tried one new recipe and one old faithful. These 2 recipes would be well worth your time. Both are just great! The new recipe sorta turned out as a flop for looks, but was just delicious! I know now what happened, so I’m going to try it again sometime.

First of all, the new one… This recipe comes from the Treasured Recipes for our Mothers cookbook. Recipes submitted by Mr. Kolb and the 3rd and 4th grade class at the Lebanon Valley Christian School. We got this cookbook as a wedding gift from Elvin Martins.

Banana Split Ice Cream Dessert

3 bananas
1/2 gal. vanilla ice cream (in a square box)
1 c. nuts (I used walnuts , not chopped… more crunch that way!)
1 c. chocolate chips
1/2 c. butter
2 c. 10X sugar (in WI, we call it powdered sugar )
1 1/2 c. evaporated milk
1 t. vanilla
1 pt. whipping cream or Cool Whip (I used Cool Whip)
1 1/2 c. graham crackers
1/4 c. sugar
1/4 c. butter

Cover bottom of 11″ x 15″ pan with graham cracker crust made from last 3 ingredients. Save 1/2 cup crumbs for top. I don’t have an 11×15 pan, so I put it in a 9×13. It worked fine, but the pan was full to the top… and that’s not why it flopped.

Slice bananas and layer over crust,
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slice ice cream in 1/2″ slices over bananas,
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sprinkle nuts over ice cream.
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Freeze to firm. Melt the choc chips & 1/2 cup butter, add 10x sugar and evaporated milk. Cook mixture until thick and creamy, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Cool, spread over ice cream, freeze until firm. Whip cream until stiff (unless you’re using Cool Whip ), spread over choc layer and top with remaining crumbs. Store in freezer. Remove about 10 min before serving. Will keep several weeks!

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My take on it: Absolutely tops! Definitely on my “would make again” list!!! It’s also fun to make, esp the slicing the ice cream part.  With all those ingredients together, you know you can’t go wrong!!!

Now, the ‘flop’ details… There’s a misprint in this cookbook. In the directions above, it says ‘cool’ instead of ‘cook’ until thick and creamy. That was very confusing to me, how you’d cool it, then remove it from the heat! So, anyway, my choc mixture never did cook, thus it never got very thick. But I poured it over the ice cream anyway and then panicked as it worked it’s way down into all the cracks and slowly but surely, traded places with the i.c.layer!  Then I was laying in bed stressing about it and a lightbulb came on in my head that it prob meant cook instead of cool! But it still tasted just GREAT and nobody at church probably knew anything was wrong with it.

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And now the old faithful…  This is something my mom used to make when I was still at home (and still does). I remember requesting it for my birthday meals. It comes from the Taste of Home Recipe Book Second Edition . This cookbook was also a wedding gift, from Lee Rhodes’.

Four-Fruit Compote

1 can (20 oz.) pineapple chunks
1/2 c. sugar
2 T. cornstarch
1/3 c. orange juice
1 T. lemon juice
1 can mandarin oranges, drained (we’ve never made it w\ oranges, and always sub 2 c. of grapes instead)
3 to 4 unpeeled apples, chopped
2 to 3 bananas, sliced

Drain pineapple, reserving 3/4 cup juice. In a saucepan, combine sugar and cornstarch. Add pineapple juice, orange juice, and lemon juice. Cook and stir over medium heat until thick and bubbly; cook and stir one minute longer.
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Remove from the heat; set aside. In a bowl, combine pineapple chunks, oranges, apples, and bananas.
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 Pour warm sauce over the fruit; stir gently to coat. Cover and refrigerate. Yield: 12 - 16 servings.

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This can be made a day ahead, except the bananas should be sliced into it right before. They start getting brown and mushy after a few hours, but the apples hold up great. If you like glazed fruit salads, you’ve gotta try this one! It’s been my favorite as long as I can remember.   Sometimes Mom would add marshmallows or raisins.

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Recipe Request

For the one who asked for a rice crispie roll recipe , I looked in about 15 of my cookbooks, including all my Taste of Home and Quick Cooking, and didn’t find one. So, I went online and found this one . It’s great… there are detailed step-by-step instructions with pictures and they look SO neat!!! I just might have to try them myself! Hope that’s what you were looking for!

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