Okay, so next week when I have money to buy groceries, I'm trying out Gwen's enchilada recipe. I'm trying to cook more, so y'all share your best recipes... please?

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2000

Answers

Here's the only things I know how to cook at all: (note: few of these have exact amounts because I cook them in varying quantities. But they're not like cakes or anything and pretty hard to screw up)

Lemon Pepper Chicken
Chicken breasts
Flour
Melted Butter/margarine/whatever (I've used I Can't Believe It's Not Butter Spray in a pinch)
Lemon pepper seasonings

Put some flour in a ziploc (or paper) bag. Stick the chicken in there too. Close it up, and shake it around until the chicken breast is pretty well coated in flour. Pour melted butter/margarine/whatever on both sides, and then shake lemon pepper seasonings on both sides. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or so.

Chicken and Dressing
My favorite meal as a kid.

Chicken breasts
Cream of Mushroom (or Celery, or Chicken... they all work) Soup
Pepperidge Farm dry stuffing
Melted butter/margarine/whatever

Chop up the chicken breasts into pieces, place in a casserole dish. Cover with soup. Cover that with the stuffing, and pour the melted butter on top. Bake at 350 for about half an hour.

Twice Baked Potatoes
Potatoes
Sour Cream
Butter/Margarine/Whatever
Grated Cheese

Bake the potatoes at 350 (covered in tin foil, w/holes poked in them) for an hour. Then take them out and arrange them on a cookie tray. Scoop out most of the insides into a bowl (leaving a potato shell, if you will) and mash in the sour cream, butter, and cheese. Then re- fill the potato shells with this mixture. Add more cheese on top if you want. Bake some more at 350 until they seem done.

Yellow Squash Casserole Serves 8-10
2 pounds yellow crookneck squash, sliced
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons melted butter
1 1/2 cups thinly sliced celery
1 cup finely chopped onion
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
9 slices cooked bacon, crumbled

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook the squash in boiling salted water until tender. Drain well and mash. Transfer the squash to a large bowl and mix with the eggs, cream, and melted butter. Saute the celery and onion in the remaining butter until transparent. Add to the squash together with the salt, pepper, and 3/4 cup of the cheese. Pour into a 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle with remaining cheese and top with the bacon. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve immediately. Or else.

-- Anonymous, September 26, 2000

well, I ain't much of a cook, but I did just throw together a soup yesterday that was wonderful. Chicken vegetable soup. Chicken stock, like 4-6 cans, salt, pepper, some mysterious seasonings in this jar of patricks that he bought at the wholefood store,basil, thyme, stuff like that maybe.....1/2 cup chopped onion, sauted, 1/2 a spaghetti squash, cooked, 1/2 cup celery, 1/2 cup carrots, a coupla cauliflower stalks (hey, it was cleaning out the vegetable tray time!)...and then some chicken bits scavenged off of patricks left over bird carcass from the previous nites dinner.

voila!

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2000

Y'okay, this is the easiest meal ever, and can be done while trying to do several things at once. It is also a good base for a bunch of different recipes:

2 cans white navy or kidney beans (red kidney beans are okay too)
1 onion
1 green pepper
5 or 6 medium tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
bay leaf
basil
oregano
salt pepper
olive oil

sautee onions, garlic and green pepper in oil over medium high heat for a few minutes. Add beans, tomatoes and seasonings. Heat through and let simmer until it thickens a little (20 mins). Eat. Add a bit of liquid and rice to make it a complete protein (before boiling down) or morph it into a curry by adding curry paste with the tomatoes. Hell, add a cup of frozen mixed vegetables too just to add to the range of nutrients. Serve it in wraps. Throw it in the fridge and eat it cold as a salad.

DH and I are both incredibly lazy, so we eat stuff like this a lot (if it can't be resurrected in a different way the next day, we don't make it).

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2000

I also admit to having very little cooking prowess, but there are a couple of simple dishes I've managed to pick up, which you can try at your own risk. Here's one ...

Oceora Casserole

Ingredients: 2 cubes of oceora, 1 med. partidi (peeled and cubed), 1 grevatte (sliced), a handful of young (ie. not green) cucubas, 2 large yabs, a pinch of furthinot, ground maskille, and a tablespoon of loppy oil.

Instructions: heat the loppy oil and furthinot together, before adding grevatte. Fry on a low heat until the furthinot has turned orange and the grevatte makes its distinctive gurgling noise. Add the partidi and yabs together, being careful to keep them moving. When the yabs are transparent, add the maskille. Wait until the liquid produced by the yabs has been reduced and then transfer to a saucepan, adding the oceora, and simmer for twenty minutes.

For an added twist, try serving topped with a few sprigs of alfie (if you can get it).

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2000

Yummy, easy, and oh-so-fattening:

Baked Ziti:
1 box ziti (or shells)
spaghetti sauce of your choice (from a jar or homemade)
blocks of mozarella cheese, sliced
shredded parmesan cheese
Cook the ziti. Mix with the sauce. Cover the bottom of a casserole dish with the ziti and sauce. Cover with a layer of mozarella slices and shredded parmesan. Add another layer of ziti and sauce. Cover with a thick layer of cheese.
Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until the cheese on top is melted and turning brown. Let stand for about 10 minutes before digging in.
You can make this less damaging by using fat-free cheese. But, really, what's the fun of that?

One of the easiest and richest dessert-type-thingies ever:

Chocolate-peanut clusters:
12-oz. bag chocolate chips
12-oz. bag butterscotch chips
3 cups Spanish peanuts (the ones with the red skins)
Melt the chocolate and butterscotch chips in the top of a double boiler. Add peanuts and mix. Drop by spoonfuls onto wax paper and chill.
(These are very rich and delicious if you like chocolate and peanuts. They can make you sick if you eat too many of them at once, though. Voice of experience.)

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2000

I've burned hot dogs before.. In the microwave. So believe me when I say that the following are something your average 3 year old could probably whip up...

1. Pot Roast in the Crockpot. Get a 3-4 lb Roast. Cut up 3 or 4 carrots, 4-5 red potatoes, 1/2 an onion, some celery. Place veggies in the bottom of the crockpot. Put the roast on top of them. Sprinkle Onion Soup mix and about 1-1/2 cups of water. Set it on low for 6-8 hours. Then yer done. You can add cornstarch or other things to make the juice into gravy, but..heh heh, that's a little "complicated" for me.

2. It's not Digiorno, it's...

Get a plain cheese, self-rising crust pizza and add your own ingredients. Some really yummy additions:

*browned italian sausage (take it out of the casing and brown it like ground beef)

*artichoke hearts

*fresh mushrooms, sauteed in wine&butter (I didn't say it was lowfat)

*red/yellow bell peppers

etc. Just add your own stuff. I've added Taco meat and hotsauce for a Mexican Pizza, canadian bacon with pineapple and so on. No, it isn't that different from ordering a pizza, except you get to really be creative and use fresh ingredients.

3. Quesedillas.

If you own a George Foreman Grill, there is nothing easier. Just add whatever ingredients you want between two tortillas, sprinkle them with shredded cheese and stick them in the GF grill for like 2 minutes (or til the cheese melts.)and cut diagonally into 4-6 slices. Incidentally, a waffle iron also works pretty well... Or you can do the Classic Quesedilla technique which actually requires that you use a spatula and a griddle, but that usually invites injury in my case.

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2000

Pale Blue, How did you get our secret family recipe?! I just love Mom's Oceora Casserole!

-- Anonymous, September 27, 2000

The only way I can get my kid to eat a vegetable:

Ziti with Asparagus

Steam one bunch of asparagus and cut off the stalks. Give the stalks to your dog, he will love them.

Cook one small box of ziti.

Cut one 8 oz. pkg of ham (sandwich meat slices) into strips.

Warm a half-pint of cream in the same pan you cooked the ziti in. Toss in the ziti, asparagus tips, and ham. Mix in a 3 oz. pkg of shredded parmesan cheese.

Very easy, very good, and even the pets are happy.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2000

Even though I'm a housewife, I'm lazy as hell so I never cook anything difficult. The other day I had a bunch of leftover mashed potatoes, with the gravy poured over them, in a pot in the refrigerator. I cooked some chicken breasts and then cubed them. I mixed the chicken, the potatoes and gravy, and random frozen vegetables, and poured it all into a pre-made pie crust. (The Pillsbury ones that come flat in a box.) I put the other crust on top and cooked it all til the crust was done. It came out really good. I was surprised.

Something I love to eat is picadillo. (Except it's not really "picadillo" because real picadillo is spicy, but who cares, right?) You brown a pound or two of hamburger meat. Then you drain it and put it back on the fire. Then add a few potatoes that you've peeled and diced, a little can of tomato sauce, salt, pepper, minced garlic, ground cumin, and whatever other spices you want. If you have to, put in a tiny bit of water, but not a lot because you want it to be thick like chili or sloppy joes. Cover the pot and cook til the potatoes are soft. Then use the picadillo for taco filling, or just eat it in a bowl or whatever. If you want it spicy, you can add jalapenos.

That's a major comfort food for me, but I haven't eaten it in more than a year coz I'm trying to stop serving red meat here.

-- Anonymous, September 28, 2000

Gwen, piccadillo is one of my comfort foods, too. Pistachio Cloud
two boxes of pistachio instant pudding
two cans of crushed pineapple
two tubs of Cool Whip

Open the cans of pineapple & dump 'em in a big bowl. Open the boxes of pudding and dump 'em in the pineapple. Mix well. Fold in the Cool Whip and chill for at least two hours. Everyone loves this dessert, and it requires like .1% effort. Just make sure you only use crushed pineapple - cubes are too heavy and they sink to the bottom. Fried cabbage
two medium heads of cabbage
one medium onion
1/2 package bacon

Using kitchen scissors, cut bacon in 1" pieces. Place in cold, large skillet. Cook over medium heat until it's almost crispy & there's plenty of grease in the pan. Scrape any brown bits up from bottom of pan so they're floating in the grease. Add onions (and some garlic too if you like), cook until it starts to become translucent. Core the cabbages, and chop 'em up into shreds. Add cabbage to skillet a handful at a time; stir it into the bacon and onion until it's limp, then add the next handful. When all the cabbage is in the skillet, cook (stirring often) for about 5 minutes, more or less according to taste. I like to serve this with cornbread (my family's Jiffy mix recipe, y'know). You don't need a meat dish with it!

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2000

My famous mac-n-cheese

1 lb elbow macaroni
1/2 lb cheddar cheese, shredded
1/2 lb mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/4 lb pepper jack cheese, shredded
2 eggs
1/2 cup evaporated milk
2 cans Campbell's cheddar cheese soup
seasoned salt, garlic, pepper, grated parmesan to taste

Boil pasta. Beat eggs with milk & seasonings. Drain pasta, return to pot. Add cheddar cheese soup to pasta; stir well. Add egg & milk mixture, stir well. Put one layer of pasta mixture in large lasagna dish; cover with most of the cheddar and mozzarella cheese. Repeat pasta layer, top with remaining cheddar and mozzarella; finish layer with pepper jack. Bake in 350 degree oven for 25 minutes or until cheese is golden brown on edges and very bubbly. I usually buy the big foil lasagna pans to make this in - especially since I'm required to bring it to every function I'm invited to!

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2000

Wow, y'all. I might just have to cook something this week.

-- Anonymous, October 01, 2000