ruthcooks

Homemade applesauce...use several apple varieties and you probably won't have to add any sugar at all. Puddings or custards would be good, very little sugar there but they won't freeze. My grandparents liked canned tomatoes (their own canning) either plain or scalloped with bread cubes or croutons, a little sugar, maybe some thickening. Bake the meatloaf in muffin pans. And bake some muffins in the pans too.

Just what distinguishes a butter cake from a yellow cake or a pound cake?

Yeah, but what's even more reasonable is for the dolt to tell her in advance he's not going to eat. She can hold THAT against him.

Re: bologna "ham salad" When I was a kid in the 40s and 50s, bologna/baloney was known as "minced ham" and ham salad made with it was a very popular sandwich filling. I absolutely loved it, but in defense of my taste buds they don't make bologna like they used to. It's now less meaty and more mushy, and shouldn't be made into salad, if indeed it is eaten at all. Ham salad, chicken salad and egg salad are still on my favorites list.

Mississippi Mud Cake Key Lime Pie Kentucky Bourbon Pecan Cake/Butter Cake Moon Pies (homemade, of course) Just because a Southerner grew up eating certain foods doesn't mean the foods are Southern food, so you might have some 'splainin to do about some of your choices. Apple pie, strawberry shortcake and oatmeal cookies, for example, are more likely to be classified as American desserts than Southern desserts. Scottish Shortbread? English Trifle?

Buy a cheap hotplate and locate it on the table or counter where he is sitting doing prep work. He can then cook as well as prep, and quite a lot can be accomplished this way as long as someone else gathers ingredients, utensils, etc. for him.

Fixer upper? This house looks like someone has already fixed it. I'd put in a nice glass French door to the back porch and leave the rest as is. Looks like maximum use has already been made of the space.

Here is an old catering trick used especially for thick slices of prime rib which have been pre-cooked: line a baking sheet with leaves of iceberg lettuce, top with beef in a single layer and cover with more lettuce. Reheat in medium oven. The moisture from the lettuce will keep the beef from losing its red or pink color.

Here you go, Danielle. I started making this in the mid-60's. With all this sour cream, don't eat it just before seeing your OB GYN! (And somebody tell me if it's not Kosher...) Rice, Green Chilies and Cheese Casserole

Rice, Green Chilies and Cheese Casserole Serves 6 as Side. This recipe came from a blind Mexican cook in California, Elena Zelayeta, back in the days of James Beard and Helen Evans Brown. She said it could be made with macaroni, noodles or hominy as well, but I have only had it with rice. Really holds nicely for a buffet. Not really meant to be hot and spicy. 3 c sour cream Salt and pepper 2 cans chopped green chilies, rinsed and drained 3 c cooked rice 12 oz shredded or grated Monterey Jack cheese 1/2 c grated cheddar cheese (or more Monterey Jack) Lightly salt and pepper the sour cream, and stir in drained chilies. If the rice is not well seasoned, salt and pepper it as well. In a buttered or sprayed 1 1/2 quart casserole, layer rice, sour cream, cheese, rice, sour cream, cheese and a final layer of rice. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until heated through. Sprinkle with the cheddar or additional Monterey Jack and bake, uncovered, for a few more minutes until cheese is melted. Keywords: Side, Kosher, Mexican, Vegetarian, Main Dish ( RG1343 )

Rice, Green Chilies and Cheese Casserole Serves 6 as Side. This recipe came from a blind Mexican cook in California, Elena Zelayeta, back in the days of James Beard and Helen Evans Brown. She said it could be made with macaroni, noodles or hominy as well, but I have only had it with rice. Really holds nicely for a buffet. Not really meant to be hot and spicy. 3 c sour cream Salt and pepper 2 cans chopped green chilies, rinsed and drained 3 c cooked rice 12 oz shredded or grated Monterey Jack cheese 1/2 c grated cheddar cheese (or more Monterey Jack) Lightly salt and pepper the sour cream, and stir in drained chilies. If the rice is not well seasoned, salt and pepper it as well. In a buttered or sprayed 1 1/2 quart casserole, layer rice, sour cream, cheese, rice, sour cream, cheese and a final layer of rice. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until heated through. Sprinkle with the cheddar or additional Monterey Jack and bake, uncovered, for a few more minutes until cheese is melted. Keywords: Side, Kosher, Mexican, Vegetarian, Main Dish ( RG1343 )

When I lived in Nashville, the best hamburger in town was at Rotier's: a cheeseburger with grilled onions on sourdough. Nothing else. Someone recommended it to me and it's all I ever ordered there. I always (in 25 years, anyway) found the Nashville restaurant polls to be ludicrous. People eat at chains and vote for chains. In a related topic, I've never understood the great interest in procuring recipes from restaurant chains there is on the web: it's cheap, why don't you just go there and eat it if you like it? My favorite barbeque place was Herbert's in Franklin, which sadly is now closed. Not the best Q, but good potato salad, deviled eggs and divine fried peach pies if you were lucky. They also had some of the sweetest cornbread I ever ate; corn "light" bread baked in a loaf.

My favorite recipes of my mother's are now mine, as I've adopted or adapted them over the years: Swiss steak, meatloaf, frosted soft orange cookies, her vinegar cole slaw. One thing I have never duplicated is Mom's homemade egg noodles. Hers were tough and chewy; she despaired over them and I loved them. Mine are always soft as butter after cooking 2 minutes. I remember her fried chicken, but back then chicken always tasted better because it was raised on the farm. Many other wonderful recipes came not from her, but from the people she knew in card club, neighborhood club, church socials: Fern's scalloped chicken and pineapple icebox cake, Mary's coffeecake and asparagus casserole, Linda's cranberry salad, and the family recipe for ice cream which I finally tracked down to my great aunt Enid. Mom is 87 now, and doesn't cook at all anymore. The only food she truly loves is cookies!

Salt, pepper, butter. Not a pat of butter, a RIVER. Now you can use a spoon.

"Chicken Salad Jello" is evidently a bastardized jellied dish which used to be called pressed chicken. The only gelatin involved was in the reduced chicken broth. The chicken pieces filled a loaf pan and clear, fat-free broth was poured on top; other items such as celery, onion and/or parsley could be added. The chicken was then weighted down so that the most chicken and the least broth (jelly) was used. This was chilled overnight, turned out, sliced onto a lettuce leaf and served with mayonnaise. Because the chicken was all "free range" back then, and home cooked, it was quite flavorful. The dish was de rigueur at summer luncheons and good for invalids, like calves foot jelly was purported to be. Jellied consomme was of the same ilk. I have served a similar French dish, Ham Persillade (ham, parsley, broth) with a mustard mayo and good bread as an H'D. It is a mystery to me why so many people think all jelled/jellied dishes are Jell-O and therefore to be avoided at all costs. For that matter, not all Jell-O dishes are bad. IMO they can be quite refreshing in warm weather. And why does the Midwest get all the bad press? Practically all Southern luncheons used to--and may still--include Jell-O, only Southerners serve it under the revolting name "congealed salad." BLOOD congeals, not gelatin.

My biggest sandwich was a homemade French loaf sliced into three horizontal slices. The bottom layer was homemade chicken salad and the top layer was BLT. Served at a small party; the rest of the menu is lost in memory, but the loaf was memorable.

In the quad cities (Rock Island, Moline, E. Moline, IL and Davenport IA) circa 1954, there was one of the first fast food places ever. I think the name was Chicken Delight. The dinner consisted of fried chicken, French fries (?) and a little cup of cranberry sauce. I remember it being quite good, and putting a nice finish to an evening with a date I didn't particularly care for.

Are you going to have a little "hamburger meat" with those "spaghetti noodles"? Redundant in both cases. I don't like what Americans do to foreign words (crepes, au jus, scones, bruschetta), but find I'm much less likely to be judgmental if I learn the correct pronunciation after I've been accustomed to the bastard version.

My mother made her cole slaw with just sugar and vinegar; she sometimes put the leftover cole slaw into lime jello. My kids used to call it "the dreaded lime jello." So sue me, I like it eaten with mayo and still make it occasionally.

I once made a meatloaf which turned out too dry because the fat content was so low. I had frozen half, so I let that half thoroughly defrost and mixed in 1/4 cup soft butter with a meat fork (I mix meatloaf with a two pronged fork only, hands never touch the meat). Wonderful!

Next to a BLT with the first summer tomatoes, I like a turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, lettuce and mayo on some kind of sourdough or other sturdy white bread. It's fragile, so none of that hard crust stuff. The so-called artisan bakeries usually carry a potato-dill which is perfect (I've never tasted the dill, however). Same kind of bread with herb-marinated, grilled portabello slices, roasted peppers and provolone. Tomatoes also if they're good. Maybe onions, too. Chicken salad my way (finely cut chicken and hardcooked eggs, homemade lemony mayo, and just a touch of finely cut celery) with or without grapes on wheat bread. There's a big thread on sandwiches lurking about somewhere.

But are these figures "washed" or "pre-washed"? I'll bet they quote the numbers before any food preparation is done. How much pesticide remains after washing? Peeling? (I never eat peach skin, fuzzy weird sensation.) This table appears meaningless except to people who eat everything straight from the grocery. And they're asking for it: pesticides are not the worst thing you might find on the produce.

I'm with Sencha...love noodles, don't care for most pasta, especially spaghetti and lasagne. I make my carbonara (which I love) with fettucini.

I clicked on JiLS's "another site" and was amused to read--first post on the page--poster GAF proclaiming "Who eats bacon today?" All he/she has to do is read eGullet for a while to know who.

Sam, maybe you can tell us later what you would have cooked, had you been able. Surely food ideas have been rolling around in your head even through your misery. Marlene, very creative menu. Perhaps the corn cakes and sauce could be adapted without so much hot stuff for us non-chile heads, they sure look good. Are you going to enter the recipe? Please do. Thanks both of you for your efforts.