Wednesday, May 21

3 Layer Delight

In keepin with my recent theme of delightful entries, here is an absolute classic as far as Midwestern desserts go. I've seen this not only at every potluck, picnic, and social I've ever been to in my entire life, but this particular item pops up on restaurant buffet tables with unbelievable frequency. Anyway, before I stopped eatin Cool Whip, I even enjoyed it once or twice myself.

This particular version comes from Deb Wesley of Immanuel Lutheran. Thank you, Deb, for spellin "delight" correctly in your recipe title.

Ingredients:
1 c. flour
1 stick butter or margarine
3/4 c. nuts
1 large pkg. Philadelphia cream cheese (room temperature)
1 c. confectioners sugar
1 large carton Cool Whip
1 large pkg. Jello instant chocolate puddin
3 c. milk

Oven temp: 350 degrees

Pan size: 9x12 bakin dish

How to:
Melt butter and mix with flour and nuts. Pat into a 9x12 inch pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 to 20 minutes. After crust has cooled, put on second layer of cream cheese, confectioners sugar and 1/2 large carton of Cool Whip. Mix chocolate puddin and milk for third layer. top off with remainnin Cool Whip and garnish with remainin nuts. (Hold up. So, you aren't supposed to use all the nuts in the crust? Nice. Thanks for tellin me. AFTER THE CRUST IS DONE AND I USED UP ALL THE STUPID @$%# NUTS!!!!!)

Friday, May 16

Noodle Puddin Delight

I've mentioned before my distaste of misspellin the word "delight" as "DELITE". Well, this recipe gets the spellin right, but I'll be damned if it gets anythin. Else. Right. At. All.

Like, when I read this recipe I literally puked and swallowed it. WHO would eat this? It's like somethin they'd serve in Gitmo to torture prisoners. It's like a dare. It's like, as loyal reader Ballz McCracken said, "they started a recipe, went to turn the page and some pages were stuck together, so they ended on another recipe." I couldn't agree more.

And does anybody want to guess who supplied this recipe to me? Yep. It was good ol' Mrs. Tairy Greene. Rats off to ya, Mrs. Greene! Keep on cookin!

Ingredients:
2 c. medium wide noodles
2 eggs
3 tbsp Heinz tomato ketchup
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
dash salt
1 tsp vanilla (eh?)
3 tbsp salad oil
1 can crushed pineapple, drained (what? WHAT?!)
1 c seedless raisins (raisins and ketchup? oh, HELL no!)

Oven temp: 400 degrees

Pan size: 1 1/2 quart casserole

How to:
Cook noodles in salted boilin water until tender and drain, rinse. Beat eggs with next 5 ingredients until well blended. Add drained noodles; stir in salad oil. Add pineapple and raisins; turn mixture into greased 1 1/2 quart casserole or individual casseroles. Bake 40-45 minutes or until set. (oh cripes, that does it.) Serve hot. Makes 6-8 servins. (I had to read the recipe twice before I realized where the "puddin" comes from. There's no puddin in it - the coagulated ketchup-egg-pineapple-oil-raisins mix makes its OWN puddin. Lunch ladies of the world, here's your new Friday special.)

Thursday, May 15

Spud Bars

Yes! Two things that Midwest Cookin just couldn't exist without: bars and potato buds!

These actually sound kind of good. I may have to break down, buy some 'buds and give these a shot...

Ingredients:
2 tbsp. diet margarine (what? yecch. I think I'll use butter.)
1/4 c. granulated sugar (I wonder what "non-granulated" sugar is?)
1/4 c. brown sugar (packed)
6 packets granulated sugar substitute (equal to 1/4 c. sugar) (oh god, yuck! chemicals! why not put another damned 1/4 c. sugar in these for cryin out loud!? it's not like a little more sugar's gonna kill ya...)
1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. bakin soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 c. potato buds

Oven temp: 350 degrees

Pan size: 8x8 bakin dish

How to:
In a large bowl, with electric mixer at medium-high speed, cream together margarine, granulated sugar, brown sugar and sugar substitute. (hell no. cut that out.) Beat in flour, bakin soda, salt an dcinnamon until well blended. With spatula, stir in egg and vanilla, then potato buds. Pour batter into non-stick 8-inch square bakin pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cut and remove from pan while still slightly warm. Makes 16 tow-inch square bars, about 75 calories each. (Oh, so these are some sort of diet spud bars? Hence the diet margarine and nasty sugar substitute? Well, why didn't you say so in the title of the recipe!? I guess with my little changes to the recipe they'd be no longer diet, but they'd definitely taste better.)

Wednesday, May 14

Tang Punch

Well, it looks like it's finally goin to get warm around here. Mother Earth is takin her sweet time, but I'm sure one of these days here we'll have summer weather. And I, for one, can't wait!

Yes, I have summer fever. I'm all ready to go to the pool, grill out, and sip cold and tasty beverages on my little patio. So here for your sippin pleasure is a punch recipe from Karen Freudenberg of the Immanuel Lutheran Dorcas Society.

Ingredients:
2/3 c. powdered Tang (personally, I'm not a fan, but then again, I don't think I've tried it since my tastebuds matured at age 22. Maybe a second try would change my mind?)
1/2 c. sugar
2 c. cranberry juice (Ocean Spray brand) (yes, god forbid you buy the Hy-Vee brand)
3 c. water
1/4 tsp. almond extract (WTF?)
1 qt. ginger ale

Pan size: Get thee a punch bowl. I found a lovely glass one at Goodwill last winter for less than 5 bucks.

How to:
Mix Tang, sugar, water, and cranberry juice together. Freeze in a round ring or ice cube trays. When ready to serve, add almond extract and ginger ale to punch bowl. (Huh? How the hell is that punch? Ginger ale with a frozen chunk of Tang floatin in it does not a punch make. I really feel like somethin is missin from these instructions...Anyway, if you do decide to make it, I bet it would be really good with some vodka added to it. Just sayin...)

Tuesday, May 13

Drunch Lunch

Hey everybody! I'm back after a long hiatus. But school's out now, so the recipes again will flow. I know you've all been clamorin for them.

This here recipe is called "Drunch Lunch," and it comes to us from Shirley Pries of Immanuel Lutheran Church. I have no idea what a "drunch" is. Maybe it's like a cross between "drench" and "lunch"? Or maybe "drunk" and "lunch" (because you'd have to be drunk to enjoy this)?

Either way, it really doesn't seem much like somethin you'd eat for lunch. This seems pretty breakfasty to me.

Hell, maybe "drunch" is just "brunch" spelled wrong.

Ingredients:
1 lb. sausage
4 slices bread (please people, make it white sandwich bread, mkay?)
1 c. cheese (grated)
6 eggs
1 c. milk
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. dry mustard

Oven temp: 350 degrees (but not until tomorrow)

Pan size: 9x13 bakin dish

How to:
Saute 1 lb. sausage; drain off grease. (GROSS - drainin grease is yucky) In a 9x13 pan, cube 4 slices of bread. Sprinkle sausage over bread and sprinkle 1 c. grated cheese on sausage. Beat eggs and milk, salt and dry mustard. Pour over sausage. Refrigerate overnight. Next mornin, bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. (Y'know, there's somethin awfully familiar about this recipe. I bet if you changed the sausage to bacon in this one and made them both you could do a pretty sweet taste test type thing for your friends and family. You could call it the Drunch Brunch Lunch Casserole Challenge.)