A serving of thoughts on the side

Around here, because we generally go to church on Saturday evening, Sundays aren't the organized days they were when I was a child and we had to be sitting in Sunday School, turned out in our best and in a Jesus state of mind by nine-flipping-thirty a.m., despite the fact that my dad was grumpy because he hadn't had a second cup of coffee and the chance to read the sports section of the Sunday Indianapolis Star as thoroughly as he wished, and my brother was grumpy because he had to stop running little cars down that orange Hotwheels track laid across the living room furniture so that the cars could crash into the fireplace hearth and I was grumpy because that's just who I've always been.

My mother was grumpy because it was her job to make sure we were all ready to head out the door by nine-twenty, plus put a roast covered with Lipton onion soup mix into the Crock-Pot, and we all fought her every inch of the way, including the meat and the little foil packet the soup mix came in.

So these days, things are much calmer and there's plenty of coffee and no one cares about the Sunday newspaper and dinner is a much more laid-back affair notable for its lack of silver flatware, good dishes and nice glasses, which all sensibly stay where they're supposed to, which is in the china cabinet. They make grudging cameo appearances on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter because they can't be put in the dishwasher.

Here are some of the thoughts swirling around in the calm of the day:

1. The annual argument that pits my husband against me and the girls began today, with opposing sides voicing strident opinions on on whether or not the furnace should be turned on. My husband contends that it is mid-September and mid-September is too early to have the heat on. The girls and I offer rebuttal by pointing out that it is rainy and chilly outside, a weather pattern more common to mid-October, which is a perfectly reasonable time to employ the use of central heating.

2. Today is the first Sunday for making a snack to accompany the afternoon's football, so we are having Game Day Taco Dip with tortilla chips. I really like this dip because it's easy to throw together, can be served warm or cold, and it a relatively sensible snack if you make it with neufchatel cream cheese, nonfat refried beans and reduced-calorie shredded cheese - and these little fixes happily are unnoticeable and the dip tastes the same as it does when all the fattening stuff is used. SCORE!

3. I bought a new top yesterday because the hanger on the store's rack had one of those little plastic bead-type things with my size printed on it, but when I got the blouse home, it turned out that it was a size smaller than the size noted on the hanger. Thankfully, I still have the receipt, but wouldn't you know that the store is one out-of-town?

4. Aisling found a piece of piano sheet music in the piano bench today, a copy of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and said, "Where did you get this?" I sat for a moment, looking at the music, bemused. That sheet music brought back one of my worst memories, a memory of the night when my friend Lori was being installed as the leader of the Rainbow Girls in New Castle's Masonic lodge. She'd asked me to play this music, which had great personal meaning to her, to accompany another friend of ours, Dave, who had a gorgeous tenor voice.

It was a very dressy affair and I was wearing an outfit of my mother's, one in the late-seventies peasant style, but made with a gorgeous satiny blouse in watercolored lavender, turquoise and lapis, slightly off-the-shoulder and paired with a long, gauzy tiered cream skirt, the tiers banded with the same satiny fabric as the blouse. It was very, very Stevie Nicks. I felt like a fairy princess in that outfit and my mom even let me wear her little diamond stud earrings.

I had practiced on that music for weeks and weeks, both with my piano teacher and with Dave and everything went really well until that night, when even the confidence I'd gained from wearing that beautiful outfit leaked out through my toes once I saw the lodge's ballroom, with chandeliers and lots of chairs set up and a grand piano, all surrounding a highly polished dance floor.

I had a moment of choking stage-fright, worsened by the fact that, in a moment of pee pee-nerves, I somehow managed to flush the entire back of that gauzy skirt down the toilet. I hauled it, hand-over-hand, out of the potty, frantically picking pieces of wet toilet paper out of the hem. There was no time to take a breath and regain my composure because I was due to be sitting on that piano bench in about half a minute. So I wrung out the skirt, which then showed a distressing tendency to cling to the backs of my legs, and tearfully exited the bathroom, only to find that in my absence, all the seats had filled up. I had to walk across that entire huge room under the inquisitive gaze of a big herd of people, all by myself, the heels of my taupe suede Candie's mules click-clacking on the dance floor and my skirt billowing gracefully in the front, but stuck to me in the back from my bottom down to my ankles.

Do I even need to tell you how "Bridge Over Troubled Water" went?

Let's just say that Dave intrepidly sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water," but I was playing something totally different, like maybe a tuneless rendition of "Cecilia" or even "Scarborough Fair." It should have been more along the lines of "The Sound of Silence." Huh.

I was utterly mortified, Dave was nonplussed, and poor Lori. Poor Lori. Here was her shining moment of becoming the rainbowiest Rainbow Girl of them all and there I was, a piano student of TEN YEARS, whacking and thumping desperately around on the keyboard like a possum trying to get out of a cage.

That was in 1978 and here today, thirty-three years later, I still felt a miserable sense of "Dear God, if you love me, please kill me right now," only this time, my undies weren't wet.

What a terrible memory. I wish I'd never brought it up.

5. If you are a lady who goes to a gym to work out, and if you shower there after you work out, but haven't yet taken that small moment of time required to stop at the front desk and rent a locker, be aware that there is going to come a reckoning, a time not specified, when either your shampoo, conditioner or body wash will come open in your gym bag and make a hellish mess that will convince you that it might just be better to pitch the whole mess into the garbage bin and start over, with new sneakers and everything.

6. I love Sundays when you can do things just because you want to, rather than because you have to. Which is why I just put together a loaf of oatmeal bread with sunflower seeds and diced apricots (excellent for ham sandwiches) and am sitting here typing a blog post....instead of working on lesson plans for my Shakespeare and Brit Lit classes. Which I have to do. Right now. So goodbye, and enjoy the rest of your day.

RECIPE: Freshencan Salsa

Salsa, I have heard, is the most popular condiment in the world. I know it gets a lot of use at our house, the hotter the better. Taking "better" to "best" requires homemade salsa, though, so it's a good thing homemade salsa is very easy to make.

I have a couple of friends who make their own salsa, and I think one of those uses everything fresh from her garden and puts it up in cans, which for those of you who aren't from the midwest United States means that she first grows the vegetables and then picks the vegetables and hauls them inside to wash the vegetables then makes her salsa, then boils some glass jars and metal lids and rings and packs the salsa into the jars being careful to leave, I don't know, air space? Then the jars are sealed and set on a shelf in the pantry and it is a long, thankless and sweaty process undertaken in the kitchen in the hottest part of the summer. If I ever attempted it myself, my entire family would be dead from botulism by the time you finished reading this paragraph.

I do the shorter method and use some canned ingredients and some fresh ingredients, hence the name "Freshencan Salsa." I don't think it's quite as good as the total-freshness of self-picked garden vegetables, but it isn't bad. In fact, it qualifies as "pretty darned good."

This recipe makes a lot of salsa, so if you don't want a lot, cut the recipe in half.

FRESHENCAN SALSA

Ingredients:
4 can tiny-dice tomatoes (I like the kind with green chilies or garlic/onion), undrained
1 can white corn, undrained
1 large white onion, finely chopped
2 jalapeno peppers, washed and finely chopped (use at your discretion, depending on how hot you like your salsa - better to add too little to begin with than to set your tonsils aflame)
approximately 1 1/2 cups chopped cilantro
4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
the juice of two limes (real limes, not that crap in the plastic lime-shaped squirter - don't make me come find you)
1 tablespoon salt
1 dashes hot pepper sauce

Directions:
Open tomato and corn cans and dump them in a large mixing bowl. Get out your food processor and throw the onion, jalapenos, cilantro and garlic into it - process until finely chopped. Scrape out of food processor into mixing bowl. Add lime juice, salt and hot pepper sauce; stir.

Allow flavors to blend for a couple of hours. Add more salt if needed. If the tomatoes are a little acidic, throw in a pinch of sugar. Serve at room temperature with chips that have been warmed in the oven (I throw a bag of chips in my roasting pan, spritz them with cooking spray, toss them, re-spritz, give them a sprinkle of salt, re-toss, and then put them in the oven at 250 degrees for about fifteen minutes.)

RECIPE: Spicy Snack Mix

 

A lot of people, me included, like to take little gifts of food to people at holiday time, whether the gift is a bottle of wine for a hostess, a festive package of Christmas cookies for the neighbors or a box of chocolates for the piano teacher. There's just something about a gift of food that seems very friendly and welcoming.

In my mind, it's even better to give gifts of homemade food because it can be made with love (which my family claims to be able to taste), and possibly put together much more cheaply than you could get it at the grocery or one of those little gourmet kiosks at the mall. The cost in dollars can be minimal -- unless you insist on making gifts with saffron imported from Spain or white truffles imported from France or if you soak your fruitcake in Courvoisier L'Esprit (approximately $6,800 per bottle) or something -- so your time is probably the most costly thing that goes into heartfelt homemade gifts.

But what if you have some weird friend who has no appreciation for Mexican Wedding Cookies or those peanut butter cookies with a Hershey's kiss in the center or candy canes and pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate? WHAT DO YOU DO WITH PARTY POOPERS LIKE THAT??

In my opinion, you stir up a batch of Party Snack Mix, line a cute tin you purchased at Dollar Tree with some parchment paper or plastic wrap and gift away, my friends. This Spicy Snack Mix recipe makes a very cute gift for those who don't have a sweet tooth (yes, I agree that they should probably be shunned by society, but just keep saying "peaceonearthgoodwilltowardsmen" and sooner or later you'll be able to hand them a tin of snack mix without thumping them on the head with it first.) It also makes a nice crunchy/salty snack for Sunday afternoon football or a nice little dish of nibbly something to set out at your party while guests are drinking their mulled cider, soda pop or beer. For some reason, this snack mix just doesn't seem to lend itself to a glass of wine. I think it must be too rustic, a little too hearty, for vino.

SPICY SNACK MIX

The beauty of this stuff is that you can throw just about any type of pretzel or other doo-dad from the snack aisle at the grocery (we like Bugles) and unsweetened cereal into this stuff and you have a winner. I've used roasted soy "nuts," sesame sticks, wheat or rice Chex cereals....make it your own! Here's what I used in the photograph above:

INGREDIENTS:

6 cups of Corn Chex

4 cups of Cheerios

4 cups of Bugles

3 cups of dry roasted peanuts (or mixed nuts if you want a more elegant snack mix)

2 cups of tiny twist pretzels

2 cups of colored goldfish crackers (I used the neon ones in the mix above and I don't think they're as cute)

two sticks of butter
2 tablespoons of Tony Chachere's Original Creole Seasoning

(The nuts can be omitted; just substitute 3 cups of of something else.)

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat over to 250 degrees. Stir all the snacks and cereals together in a large -- and I mean LARGE -- roasting pan. Turkey-sized would be a wise choice, because you do not want to be stirring this stuff on an oven rack and having bits of it fall overboard into the bottom of your oven because your smoke detectors will be going off with wild abandon before you can say "Cheerios smell funny when they're burning."

In a two-cup Pyrex measuring cup or similar, melt two sticks of butter. When it is melted, stir the seasoning mix into it until thoroughly combined. Pour the butter/seasoning combination over the snacks and cereals in the roasting pan and stir. Place roasting pan in oven and set timer for fifteen minutes. At the end of fifteen minutes, stir the mixture carefully. Continue with the cooking/stirring for 45 more minutes. At the end of one hour, remove the roasting pan from the oven and allow the snack mix to cool completely. Sneak a little bowl for yourself and enjoy with a cold Diet Coke (my pref) or a cold beer. Scoop snack mix into lined tins and seal tightly. Any remaining snack mix can be stored for a week or so in an airtight container, but it probably won't last that long, truth be told.

RECIPE: Sausage-Cheddar Balls

Bisquick Sausage-Cheddar Balls have been around for a long, long time. They are a staple at my family's annual Christmas Eve get-together, the one where all the ladies in the family make different kinds of appetizers for everyone to munch on while the kiddies open their gifts. The best thing about them, other than the taste, is how easy they are: Just a few simple ingredients stir up into a very tasty little snack.

Bisquick, the powdery baking mix that can be found on just about every pantry shelf, has been around since 1931. It was "discovered" in 1930 by an executive from General Mills who was traveling by train to some destination and who found that the dining car chef had taken a short cut in making his delicious biscuits by pre-mixing the flour, lard and baking powder. Bisquick was born and has been helping home cooks make things like Impossible Cheeseburger Pie and Busy Day Cobbler and Sausage-Cheddar Balls (things that frequently appeared on the dining room table in my childhood) ever since - it's very versatile.

The origins of the actual Sausage-Cheddar Ball recipe are fairly dim. In doing a little hasty research on the internet, the most information I can find is that they have been around "since the 1970s," which gave me a hideous mental image of a furry-chested man with thick sideburns and tinted eyewear leering at a Florence Henderson-haired woman in an orange halter mini-dress and frosted peach lipstick while they shared a be-toothpicked Sausage-Cheese Ball and a thimble of Drambuie. While listening to the music of Burt Bacharach playing in the background...STOP. STOP. STOP. I really want Sausage-Cheddar Balls to have originated in the more innocent 1950s, where they'd be produced on a china platter by a Marian Cunningham-type of Mom in a frilly apron. She'd be serving them to her afternoon bridge club with a thimble of sweet sherry and there'd be no hint at all of a goldfish bowl full of car keys lingering about the place. Ew.

SAUSAGE-CHEDDAR BALLS

INGREDIENTS:
1 pound of spicy sausage, cooked and drained and patted dry between paper towels
2 cups of baking mix
2 cups coarsely shredded sharp cheddar cheese
enough milk to moisten the mixture(approximately 2 tablespoons)

DIRECTIONS:
Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients in a medium-sized bowl, using enough milk to moisten the mixture easily. Shape mixture into walnut-sized balls; place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown. Best if served hot -- it's easy to keep them piping if you put them in an electric skillet set on Warm -- but also delicious if served at room temperature on a pretty plate garnished with parsley. Very retro, very Middle America.

RECIPE: Delicious Hot Crab Dip

Ugh, I am having so much trouble with pictures lately. I'm not sure who it is: me or the camera. Actually, I'm kind of betting on me, but still....How complicated could a point-and-shoot camera be? Isn't the whole point that you point and then shoot and your pictures turn out lovely no matter how much of an idiot you are?

Okay, that's it. I'm blaming the camera.

At any rate, here's what remains of the Delicious Hot Crab Dip I made for our Super Bowl fête and I can attest that it does indeed live up to its name. I put it together from a recipe at Allrecipes.com and one I found in an old church cookbook, casting out chili sauce and adding a little mayonnaise, doubling up the lemon juice and throwing in four dashes of hot pepper sauce.

Also, the original name of the recipe? Fantastic Hot Crab Dip. I took the liberty of inserting a different adjective. To, you know...make it all my own. You can use whatever adjective you'd like, but I hope it will be a complimentary one.

This recipe is particularly nice because it should be made the day before you plan to serve it, which means when you're expecting company, all you have to do is pull it out of the fridge, let it rest on the counter for a few minutes and then put it in the oven to warm. The overnight fridging allows the flavors to really develop -- and it's worth it -- but if you're pressed for time and need a really simple hors d'oeuvre, it can be made right before serving.

DELICIOUS HOT CRAB DIP

Ingredients:

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, well softened
4 tablespoons butter, well softened
6 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon salt (or to taste...I used just a bit more)
2 pinches ground black pepper
4 dashes hot pepper sauce

6 green onions, finely chopped
12 ounces fresh crabmeat or "imitation" crab meat (which is actually half crab meat/half whitefish), chopped or flaked into small pieces

Directions:

In a medium mixing bowl, mix cream cheese, butter and mayonnaise until smooth. Blend in the Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, lemon juice, salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce. Add the green onion and crab meat and stir thoroughly.

Spray a small casserole dish with non-stick spray. Scoop the dip into it and pat down; cover with plastic film and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Remove casserole dish from fridge and take off plastic wrap. Allow dish to sit on counter to warm up a bit before plunking in the oven -- I had a bad experience with this once that just marked me, oh my goodness it was a horrific mess and broke one of my favorite casserole dishes, too -- maybe for about twenty minutes or so. Place dip in oven and warm for about 20-30 minutes. This thick mixture won't get bubbly, but it will get nice and soft.

Remove from oven and serve immediately with celery sticks, crackers, buttery crostini, pretzel twists, bagel chips...whatever sounds good to you.

RECIPE: Zucchini bread

Ah, August! The time of year when all those people who planted their zucchini seeds in the ground and then carefully nurtutured them last May are now frantically scrambling their arms around from beneath the pile of zucchini they're buried under, searching for a gun to shoot themselves with.

"Why did I PLANT all these?" one friend moaned to me, clutching a huge Old Navy shopping bag bursting with the small summer squashes to her chest. "Was it some kind of sickness? Some mental disorder?"

"A love of zucchini muffins?" I suggested.

She eyed me coldly. "Well, obviously. But they're COMING INTO THE HOUSE."

"I wish I could help you out and take a few thousand off your hands, but I just bought some," I admitted.

"You BOUGHT zucchini? In AUGUST? In INDIANA? Are you STUPID?"

I thought that was very rude. I am not stupid, and if I'd known she was growing them, I would have been over at her house with a basket and an acquisitive gleam in my eye, getting some free zukies. Because that's me: ALWAYS THINKING OF OTHERS.

Anyway, here's a recipe I found online and tinkered with a little. It will produce two deliciously moist loaves of zucchini bread, whether your zucchini were purchased, grown in your own garden, or given to you by a frenzied friend with dirt under her fingernails.

ZUCCHINI BREAD

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon

3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups unpeeled shredded zucchini
1 cup chopped walnuts (if desired)
1/2 cup raisins (if desired)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325^o F. In a medium-sized bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugars, oil and vanilla. Stir in the shredded zucchini, walnuts and raisins. Sift in the dry ingredients and mix until combined.

Pour batter into two oiled loaf pans. Bake for 55-60 minutes. Remove from oven; allow to cool for about 15 minutes. Remove from loaf pans -- you may need to run a knife gently around the edge of the pans so that the loaves will release. Turn out onto a baking rack and cool completely.

These loaves freeze very well if carefully wrapped and placed in freezer bags. Or just sit down and have a big ol' slice right now.

RECIPE: Game Day Ranch Snack Crackers

Well, okay, the games my husband is watching right now feature the Cincinnati Reds rather than the Cincinnati Bengals, but the sentiment is still the same. The only problem is that those Reds play a whole lotta games, where the Bengals tend to confine themselves to Sundays and Mondays and some other day. Thursday? Well, whatevs. Anyways, snacks are called for in the summer as well as in the winter.

These snack crackers are just unaccountably delicious. I mean, oyster crackers are the main ingredient, and what could possibly be more boring and tasteless than a dry, salt-free oyster cracker? This recipe jazzes those little buggers right up. You just wait.

This recipe makes, like, a ton, because I always send some to work with my husband, or over to the next door neighbor, or divide into little snack-sized plastic bags to take to the pool. They are a universal favorite of young and old, but please be warned: Your breath will be capable of slaying vampires all by its ownself, with no help from any crucifixes or hastily decanted holy water you might happen to have around.

RANCH SNACK CRACKERS

3 10-12 ounce bags oyster crackers
1 6.6 ounce bag Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers

1 cup light olive oil or canola oil
4 packets ranch seasoning mix (in salad dressing aisle)
2 teaspoons dill weed
4 teaspoons garlic powder

Pour the crackers into a large bowl with a tight-fitting lid -- I use a Rubbermaid cake carrier. In a small mixing bowl, whisk the ranch seasoning, dill weed and garlic powder together with the oil until combined.

Stir every ten minutes for one hour. Serve with a toothbrush and toothpaste on the side, or at least some gum. This makes A LOT, so you can cut the recipe in half if need be.

RECIPE: Pat & Angie's Queso con Carne

Pat and Angie often bring this queso dip to family gatherings: It is the most widely-requested food item that appears at such celebrations as birthday parties, Christmas Eve snack time and the occasional Mexican Feast. It is just sooooo gooood.

They generously shared the recipe with me recently, so I thought I'd share it with all of you. Serve it with warm, salty tortilla chips and a side of sliced jalapeño peppers.

PAT & ANGIE'S QUESO CON CARNE

2 # ground beef, browned, rinsed and drained*

2 packets Old El Paso Hot & Spicy Taco Seasoning Mix

1 box Velveeta cheese, cut into cubes

1 24-oz bottle Pace Medium Salsa


Mix browned, rinsed and drained ground beef in a skillet with the taco seasoning mix according to the directions on the packets. Allow to simmer on low heat for ten minutes.

Meanwhile, coat a slow-cooker's crock with non-stick spray; pour in salsa. Toss in the cubes of Velveeta on the salsa; add the simmered ground beef on top. Heat on LOW for approximately two hours, stir, and serve with warm tortilla chips.


*In my mind, it is absolutely imperative to rinse the ground beef very well with hot water and then drain off the water and grease together. Otherwise, you will end up with a queso dip that has a layer of unappetizing orange grease in it. Yuck.

RECIPE: Game Day Salsa and Guacamole Dip

According to my husband, there's been a lot of good football on today, which is something I consider a bit of an oxymoron, as I don't understand how the words "good" and "football" work together, like, at all.

But anyway, he's been very happy today and so have I. I've been fiddling around in the kitchen with two new and very inexpensive but delicious recipes that have made Game Day very festive and fun.

I found the two original recipes on Allrecipes.com and Recipezaar.com and then worked with them until I found what suited our taste.



The first is for homemade salsa. The thing I like about it is that you can make a very nice winter version of this recipe using tiny-dice or pureed canned tomatoes (unless you live someplace where tomatoes are ripe off the vine right now out in your yard, and in that case, just hush yourself -- the rest of us don't need to be taunted with our sub-freezing temps that grow nothing but icicles) and regular canned peaches. You can substitute half of a very ripe large mango for the peaches, if you'd like. Or you can omit the peaches entirely, if you'd like, but I'll warn you -- you'll be missing something special. The peaches take down the insane heat of all those jalapeno peppers very nicely and add a slight hint of sweetness that also removes the extreme acidity from the tomatoes.


SPICY GAME DAY SALSA

2 cans tiny-dice tomatoes OR 2 cans tomato puree (substitute four medium-sized fresh tomatoes, deskinned by dropping them in boiling water for 30 seconds and then plunged into ice water for another 30 seconds; the skin will slip right off)

1 medium onion, diced

2 cloves garlic, diced

juice of one lime

3 fresh jalapeno peppers, finely chopped OR 1/3 cup of sliced jalapenos, finely chopped

2/3 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

1/2 cup canned peaches, drained and chopped OR 1 medium very ripe fresh peach, deskinned (using manner above per tomatoes) and chopped

1 teaspoon sea salt

1/2 teaspoon ground pepper

4 squirts Tobasco sauce


Mix all ingredients together in a medium sized mixing or serving bowl. Cover with cling film and chill in fridge for two hours or so to allow flavors to blend. Serve with tortilla chips, of course!

This makes such a nice, spicy salsa (cut down on the peppers if you don't have cast-iron stomachs like we do) and it is so inexpensive to make. This is good for people like us who do everything but use salsa as hand lotion and hair conditioner. We can eat one big jar of Pace salsa, which is nearly six dollars, in the space of one afternoon.


SPICY GAME DAY GUACAMOLE

I love guacamole so much, and it makes it even better that avocados are so good for you. Every time I eat one, I feel that my complexion is nicer, my hair shinier, my nails longer. Or maybe that's just an excuse to eat the entire bowl of guacamole? Hmm. Must think on this. While I do, here's the recipe:

3 large extremely ripe-to-the-point-of-squooshiness avocados (I like Haas; usually by the time the avocados are ripe enough to make guacamole the way I like it, they've been marked down sharply in the produce department)

juice from one lime

1 medium onion, chopped

1/4 cup tiny-dice canned tomatoes

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

1 tablespoon jalapeno pepper juice (from jarred jalapenos)

1 teaspoon sea salt


Cut avocados in half, removing pit and scooping avocado meat into a medium mixing bowl. Mash avocado with a fork. Add lime juice and stir. Add remaining ingredients, stirring until well combined. Cover and refrigerate for one or two hours before serving to allow flavors to blend. Serve with tortilla chips or as a filler for tacos, burritos, etc.

RECIPE: Game Day Caramel Corn

My family loves caramel corn, but I think it is fairly expensive to buy - something like $2.38 for a cardboard box that holds a cellophane packet inside that is half-full of caramel corn, which takes the four of us approximately half an hour to plow through.

So I was very pleased to find today that homemade caramel popcorn is a lot cheaper to make on your own, and easy, too.

I don't think I've made caramel popcorn for about sixteen years or so. I remember that the last time I made it, I was still teaching. My sixth graders held a bake sale in the cafeteria every Friday afternoon to raise funds for a class trip to Chicago, and I frequently made caramel popcorn balls in various cute ways, such as with a little bit of candy corn stirred in (adorable for fall) or with red and green M&Ms stirred in for Christmasy corn balls, or even with plain old milk chocolate chips. I packaged them in pieces of cling wrap and tied them with coordinating colors of curling ribbon and they always sold very well.

As I wracked my brain trying to remember what recipe I used, it came to me that the one I used for those popcorn balls was one from the church's first cookbook, published by the Ladies' Auxiliary. Even though I no longer attend that church, that cookbook is one of my favorites and many of the recipes therein were submitted by old friends whose faces I can still see in my mind's eye.

So here, with a few tweaks, is one of the easiest and most delicious caramel popcorn recipes you'll probably ever find. You can add little candies to the finished product, as I mentioned above -- let your imagination run wild -- or you can leave it plain. You can put on some kitchen gloves (so that you won't burn your dainty fingers) and form the popcorn into popcorn balls. It is a very versatile recipe.

GAME DAY CARAMEL POPCORN

1 cup unpopped popcorn (makes about two gallons of poppped corn)
canola oil
2 cups packed light brown sugar
1 stick butter
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda

Pour half of the popcorn kernels into the bottom of a large, heavy saucepan on stovetop. Add canola oil just to cover. Over high heat, pop popcorn, shaking saucepan frequently to allow kernels to fall to the bottom of the pan. Repeat with the rest of the popcorn kernels.

When popped, pour all popcorn into a paper grocery bag; set aside.

In a medium-sized saucepan, melt butter and add corn syrup, brown sugar and salt. Allow mixture to come to an easy boil; cook for two minutes, stirring continally. Reduce heat to medium-low and allow to simmer, stirring at the end of one minute. Repeat. At the end of the second minute, add the baking soda and stir, allowing the caramel mixture to foam up.

Pour half the mixture over the popcorn, fold bag over and shake vigorously. Open bag and pour remaining caramel over the popcorn; shake again, turning the bag upside down and sideways, taking care to hold it shut.

[At this point, you would be a VERY SMART PERSON if you took that saucepan you just made the caramel sauce in and filled it with hot soapy water. Because, caramel sauce? It hardens like LAVA on the insides of your cookware and it will make you wonder if it wouldn't be easier to just throw your saucepan in the garbage can outdoors than to try to chisel off all that hardened candy coating. Just trust me on this.]

When the popcorn has been thoroughly shaken, fold the bag over and place in the microwave; cook on high for 1 1/2 minutes. Remove bag from microwave and shake thoroughly. Put bag back in microwave and cook for another 1 1/2 minutes.

When the caramel popcorn is finished in the microwave, remove bag and carefully pour the popcorn into a large roasting pan -- it will be VERY HOT. Stir to make sure all pieces are coated and allow to dry, stirring every now and then. If you want to stir in candy pieces, chocolate chips or nuts, this is the time to do it. You can also form the popcorn into balls at this time. If you don't want to make popcorn balls, break the popcorn up into smaller pieces.

Store in an airtight container. Serve in a ceramic dish shaped and painted to look like a football.

This recipe makes a lot of caramel popcorn, so take some to a fellow football lover.

I love this recipe because the worst part of the mess is on the inside of that paper grocery bag. Yay, Team Snackage!

RECIPE: Game Day Snack Crackers

These are very delicious and delightfully snacky, but they will give you really, really bad breath, so plan to brush your teeth thoroughly after every handful.

You can eat these as is, or add a cup or so to a big bowl of hot popcorn. You can make variations on this recipe by adding a cup of cashews or using cheddar flavored goldfish crackers or tiny pretzels as well.

GAME DAY SNACK CRACKERS

1 12-ounce bags oyster crackers

1 cup canola oil

1 tablespoon dill (heaping)

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 packet ranch dressing mix

Instructions:

In a 2-cup measuring cup, combine the canola oil and the three remaining ingredients and stir to combine. Put the packages of crackers into a bowl with a tight-fitting lid; pour the canola oil mixture over them and gently stir to coat. Flip the bowl upside down and allow the crackers to rest for half an hour. At the end of that time, flip the bowl again and allow to rest for another half hour.

Serve in a large snack bowl (or package in tins to give as gifts.)

RECIPE: Game Day Taco Dip

My husband was watching some television commercial that featured women -- not women wearing skimpy underwear or using their feminine wiles to get you to buy a Cadillac a la Kate Walsh -- but presenting their husbands with special Football Sunday snacks and treats, holding up sheet cakes decorated like football fields, which is anathema to me. I think it might have been a Kroger commercial, so remind me to go to their dairy section a drop a carton of eggs on the floor. It was that goofy.

Anyway, he gave me this wistful look out of his melting brown eyes and said, "I sure wish you would make some special game day food."

I trumpeted a scornful laugh through my nose and said, "I suppose you mean things like Rice Krispie treats with orange and black M&M's stirred in for the Bengals?"

He looked discomfited. "Well...yes. That's just what I meant."

Apologetically, I said, "I'm sorry, honey. I thought you were being satirical."

"I don't know how to do satirical. I can do sarcastic, gloomy, hopeful underdog, pulling-for-them-in-the-clutch and maniacal fan shouting and jumping around the living room, spilling beer on the couch and grinding Doritos into the carpet, but I can't do satirical."

"I think I can come up with a few things, then. And they won't be inspired by satire."

My main requirement for Game Day Snacks and Treats is that they would do beyond just opening a crackly bag and a carton of french onion dip, but also that they would be very easy, since I consider Sunday afternoons and evenings my own personal time out. Of the kitchen, that is. So when I found this really delicious recipe for taco dip, I knew it was a champion.

GAME DAY TACO DIP

1 can traditional refried beans

1 8-oz package cream cheese

1 packet taco seasoning

1 1/2 cup salsa

1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (sharp cheddar, colby, colby-jack, whatever your preference)

4 green onions, finely chopped

approx. 10 grape tomatoes, very thinly sliced (optional)

1 small can sliced black olives, drained (optional)

sliced jalapeno peppers (optional, to taste)


Instructions:

1. Place the refried beans and the cream cheese in a microwave-safe dish and warm them in 30-second bursts to soften, about 2 minutes total. Add the taco seasoning packet; stir to combine.

2. Spread the beans/cheese/taco seasoning combination in the bottom of a 9x13 baking pan.

3. Pour the salsa over the beans and spread to the edges

4. Evenly sprinkle shredded cheese over the top of the salsa

5. Add the green onions and the tomatoes, black olives and jalapeno pepper slices, if desired.

6. Serve as is (room temp) or chill and serve with tortilla chips. Makes around eight servings.

RECIPE: Christmas favorites from our house

Now, before I get started, let me just tell you that we are not highbrow foodies at our house; much to Susie's glee, we still sprinkle paprika on deviled eggs around here, a practice which she assures us went out with Donna Reed as she falls laughing about the kitchen. If we're feeling really fancy, we garnish them with half of a stuffed green olive.

The recipes I'm getting ready to type all come from that magical era of 1930s-1940s United States culinary magnificence that nearly drove 1950s foodie humorists Peg Bracken (The I Hate To Cook Book, A Window Over the Sink) and Betty MacDonald (The Egg and I, Onions in the Stew, the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series) to the brink of despair. But we love them. They are fattening, laden with cholesterol and unrepentantly bad for you. But if you die while eating these things, you will die with a small onion-scented burp on your smiling lips, happy and replete. If you don't like fattening, artery-clogging treats at Christmas, then go gnaw on a celery stick, Mr. Scrooge. I just don't want to hear it.

Smorgasbord Cheese Ball

2 8-oz packages cream cheese

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 4-oz tub crumbled bleu cheese

3-4 dashes bottled hot pepper sauce

3-4 dashes Worcestershire sauce

1 cup chopped pecans (toasted, if you prefer)

Soften the cream cheese and combine the next four ingredients. Shape into a ball; chill for 3-4 hours. Roll in chopped pecan pieces. Serve with crackers, celery sticks or toast soldiers. Garnish with breath mints on the side.

Sister-in-Law Angie's Cousin-by-Marriage Debbie's Beef and Onion Cheese Ball

2 8-oz packages cream cheese

3 2-ounce packages chipped beef, diced into very small pieces

6 scallions, chopped in small pieces (I usually just call them 'green onions,' but 'scallions' is just so fun to type. It has that Julia Child je ne sais quois that I simply can't resist.)

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

2-3 dashes Worcestershire sauce

Soften cream cheese; combine remaining ingredients in bowl. Shape into a ball and chill for 3-4 hours. Serve with crackers, veggies, etc. Keep those breath mints handy from the first cheeseball recipe.

Scotch Shortbread

1 cup butter, softened, and if you use margarine, I will personally come to your house and harm you. Don't think you can get away with it, either, because I. Will. Know.

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 300F. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy; add almond extract and mix to combine. Add flour gradually, mixing to form a soft dough. Roll out on a pastry sheet to a nice thickness, thick enough to make a nice, chewy cookie and not so thin that you come out with a Scotch cracker. It's Christmas; be generous. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with colored sugar, or better still, touch each cookie with a little dab of homemade frosting; we like Vanilla Buttercream or Lemon Buttercream. This is what we like to leave out for Santa. Heh.


Nanny's Christmas Breakfast Casserole

2# spicy sausage, browned and drained

12 slices bread, broken

12 eggs

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese

2 T. dried mustard

2 small onions, finely chopped

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl and transfer to greased 9x13 casserole dish. Refrigerate overnight. On Christmas morning, carefully gauging the time when everyone will be done unwrapping presents and is beginning to feel hungry and maybe a little cross from being up too late and rising too early, slide into a preheated 350F oven; bake for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown on top. Serve with coffee, icy cold orange juice and maybe some cinnamon rolls or sour cream coffee cake.

Nanny says that we have had this casserole every single Christmas Day since 1982. She gets really annoyed if anyone tries to make it on any other day of the year. Somehow, perhaps in the same way that I. Will. Know. If you're using margarine on that Scotch Shortbread instead of God's true butter, she can sense that I am making it for a Saturday night treat dinner from 35 miles away.

The phone will ring. I will answer with trepidation.

"Sunshine?" she'll say in a grim, portentous voice.

"Yes, Mommy?" I say meekly.

"You're making It, aren't you?"

"I do not know what you're talking about."

"Has the calendar completely escaped me? Is this Christmas Day? Are you at my house? Did you fill out a form in triplicate and submit it to the proper department before attempting to concoct this controlled substance?"

"No, I did not. But I halved the recipe and I'm baking it in an 8x8 casserole. It isn't the same."

"It is the same thing. And I raised you better than that. No more! Understand, rubber band? Eat it and sin no more."

RECIPE: Tomato sandwiches

I first became acquainted with tomato sandwiches through reading Harriet the Spy when I was little. For years, I would only eat tomatoes this one way, other than tomato soup, which is the best soup ever invented.

Yesterday, the girls and I stopped at a roadside stand and bought five pounds of tomatoes and came home and made sandwiches, the first of the season, for some reason. To make a tomato sandwich, you lay out the requisite slices of bread and spread them generously with mayonnaise, right out to the edges of the bread. Then you slice as many tomatoes as you have people, making each slice as thin as you possibly can without adding blood to the tomato juice.

Layer the tomato slices on each person's first slice of bread, salting and peppering each layer vigorously. Top with the second slice of bread and cut each sandwich into quarters, resigning yourself to the fact that you're going to be wearing either 1) a bit of tomato; 2) a splodge of mayonnaise; or 3) a drip of tomato juice on your top before all's said and done.

The tomatoes are best if they're still warm from the ground.

This is my favorite sandwich and I do not sully its purity with basil leaves or slice of mozzarella or sprinklings of oregano. They are perfect as they are.