FRIDAY FRUIT SALAD WITH LEMON-YOGURT DRESSING

This is a great accompaniment to a holiday meal, especially when oranges and grapefruit are delicious and plentiful.  I love to serve it when I am making breakfast for company also.  Of course, there is nothing better than treating your family like company—they will really appreciate your efforts!   Serve this fresh fruit salad with the lemon-yogurt dressing recipe or just use your favorite ready made yogurt for the dressing (key lime or vanilla is good)!

Ingredients:  double or triple the amounts based on how many you are serving

2 oranges, peeled and sectioned

1 grapefruit, peeled and sectioned

1 banana, sliced

1 cup fresh strawberries, sliced

2 kiwifruit, peeled and sliced

Instructions:

Combine fruit in a large bowl and toss gently.  Serve with lemon-yogurt dressing

Lemon-Yogurt Dressing:  Combine ingredients

1 cup plain yogurt

1 and ½ T. sugar

1 t. fresh lemon juice

SOUTHERN WEDDING COOKIES

Every culture seems to have their own version of these delightful confections.  I have heard them called Mexican Wedding Cookies and Snowballs!  Whatever you call them, I hope you enjoy making them and enjoying them with your family.

Ingredients:

¾ cup margarine or butter, softened

½ cup brown sugar

1 T. Ice water

1 t. Vanilla

2 cups flour

1 cup pecans (very finely chopped)

Powdered sugar

Instructions:

*Heat oven to 350 degrees.

*Cream margarine and sugar.

* Add water and vanilla.

* Sprinkle 2 Tbs. Flour over nuts.  Add rest of flour to creamed mixture.

* Stir in nuts.  Mix lightly.

* Shape into balls. 

*Bake on greased cookie sheet 20-30 minutes or until slightly brown. 

*While warm, roll in powdered sugar. 

*Store in an airtight container.

CARROT SOUFFLE'

Children love this dish (maybe because it’s the consistency of baby food), and adults think it is sweet potatoes.  It is great as a side dish for most entrees.   It’s really yummy!

Ingredients:

1 pound carrots, peeled and trimmed

1 stick margarine or butter

3 eggs

¾ cup sugar

3 T. flour

1 t. vanilla

1 t. baking powder

Instructions:

*Boil  carrots until tender and drain.

*Add margarine.

*Puree in blender. 

*Pour puree into mixing bowl.  Let the puree cool if it is still hot.

*Add eggs, sugar, flour, vanilla and baking powder.

*Pour into a square pyrex baking dish that has been sprayed with PAM.

You may also bake into individual servings, using ramekins and a bain-marie.

*Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.  Then reduce heat to 325 degrees and cook and additional 20 minutes.

*Serve hot.

PECAN PIE

We have had more “discussions” with friends and family concerning how to pronounce the word PECAN, than I’d like to admit.  For the record, the way I pronounce it (and therefore—the correct way) is “puh-cahn”!  I am available if you should need me for pronunciations of other words.    Anyway, you will LOVE this recipe (my grandmother used to call them receipts)!

Ingredients:

3 T. margarine, softened

½ c. sugar

1 c. white corn syrup (Karo)

4 eggs, beaten

2 t. vanilla

½ t. salt

1 c. pecans (broken into pieces or left whole)

One 9 inch deep dish pie shell, unbaked or a refrigerated pie shell that you place into a pie plate.

Instructions:  You may use an electric mixer, but I usually use a whisk.

*Cream margarine and sugar.

*Add corn syrup, beaten eggs and vanilla.

*Add pecans.

*Pour into pie shell.

*Bake at 325 degrees on the lower half of the oven for 50 minutes or until set.

Cook longer if pie is still excessively jiggly after 50 minutes.

*Remove from oven, cool and store in the refrigerator.

TWO SOUPS---CHICKEN NOODLE AND CREAM OF BROCCOLI

Today I will be posting two soups, chicken noodle and cream of broccoli.  These are so much better when you make them from scratch and I hope you will give them a try.   The chicken noodle soup is very similar to my chicken and dumpling recipe that I posted earlier.  You will notice that a number of my recipes start with boiling chicken, so I hope you are getting a lot of experience with this.

The cream of broccoli recipe is great but if you want to use asparagus instead, that would be delicious also.  Have fun making soup sometime this week.  Just add a salad, fruit and some delicious bread.  Enjoy!

CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken or 4-6  chicken breasts,  boiled and chopped

4 quarts Chicken Stock (homemade or from cartons)

2 T. butter

2 T. olive oil

2 c. diced sweet onion

2 c. medium-diced celery

2 c. medium-diced carrots

4 cups wide egg noodles

½  c. chopped fresh parsley

Kosher salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions:

*Boil chicken ahead of time.  Cool and chop into bite size chunks.

*Saute onion, celery and carrots in butter and olive oil.  Don’t let these get brown, only soft and translucent.

*Bring the chicken stock to a simmer in a large pot and add the onion, celery and carrots.

*Add noodles.  Simmer uncovered for 10 minutes until the noodles are cooked.

* Add the cooked chicken chunks and parsley and heat through. 

Season to taste. 

*The amounts and ingredients are only recommendations.  Add more or less according to your tastes. 

*Add rice or different noodles if you prefer—instead of the egg noodles.

CREAM OF BROCCOLI SOUP

Ingredients:

3 cups chicken broth (homemade or from cartons)

1 cup chopped onion

4 cups fresh broccoli florets

4 T. Butter

4 T. flour

Kosher salt

Black pepper

2 cups milk (whole milk, or at least 2% is best)

Instructions:

*In a saucepan, combine chicken broth, chopped onion and broccoli.

Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

*Pour the mixture into a heat safe blender (1/2 at a time), cover and puree.

*In a saucepan, melt the butter.  Stir in the flour, salt and pepper with a small whisk. 

*Over medium heat, add the milk all at once and whisk constantly until blended.

*Continue whisking as you cook and stir the milk, flour mixture until it becomes thick and bubbly.  Congratulations you have just made a roux, which is the  thickening agent of any cream soup and is made from butter and flour.  Reduce heat if necessary so that the roux does not burn.

*Stir in the blended broccoli mixture.

*Cook and stir until soup is heated through.

*Add more salt and pepper if you wish.

**Variation---substitute asparagus for the broccoli.