Archive for the ‘Nany Knows’ Category

• Orange/Lemonade

  Date: 2009.05.27 | Category: Entertaining, Nany Knows | Response: 4

  I promised you Nany’s heavenly orange/lemonade previously and came home from work this evening craving it!  (Yes, I know I am delayed in talking to you today.  Thank’s for keeping me on the ball!)  It took me all of 10 minutes to make and I promise you it’s more refreshing than anything you have pressed to your lips.  Tart yet sweet and perfect for the summer…because Nany Knows!

  Ingredients:

  6 oranges
  2 lemons
  sugar to taste
  water to fill your pitcher

  Squeeze fruit into pitcher.  Slice squeezed fruit and toss into pitcher.  Add water to just shy of lid.  Add sugar to taste.  Stir.  Pour over ice and relax with it on the front porch.

• Beet Red

  Date: 2009.05.22 | Category: Cooking, Entertaining, Nany Knows | Response: 3

  Deviled eggs v. pickled eggs.  It’s an age old debate that divides families at their annual picnics.  My brother and I have not spoken for years over this debate.  I kid, I kid.  Both egg recipes are a delicious addition to any picnic.  Nany makes both very well and of course mine never taste as delicious as her’s.  You give it a shot as here is her recipe for pickled eggs.  The deviled will rear their head on Independence Day.

  Ingredients:

  1 large can beets
  1 c. vinegar
  3 Tbsp. sugar
  6 hard boiled eggs

  Heat beets, vinegar and sugar just long enough for the sugar to dissolve.  Add eggs and refrigerate overnight.  Make sure eggs are completely covered in juice.  The longer they marinate, the more yummy they are.  Pickled eggs rule.  Down with deviled eggs, Garnet.

• Ole Settlers Bake Beans

  Date: 2009.04.30 | Category: Cooking, Nany Knows | Response: 0

  Nany makes the best baked beans.  This recipe is one I remember from my youth when Nany would make it for those larger than life family picnics.  You know the ones where relatives come from all over and you forgot about them until they arrived?  Those picnics.  Nany would fry the chicken, make the potato and macaroni salad, beans, brownies, cakes, and tons of pies.  She would have fresh peaches and berries from our family fruit stand.  A nice melon would sit at the end of the picnic table.  Her homemade lemon & orange ade is thee most refreshing summertime drink (promise the recipe soon).  Nany seemed to bring everything needed to feed those massive amounts of people.  Now again, I was 7 or 8 so it seemed like an army.  Anyway, summer is here and I think we need to have tons of options for those family gatherings.   This recipe is truly very basic.  A few items from the pantry tossed in with the beans and you have a delicious three bean baked dish.  Once again, a recipe that Nany Knows.

  Ingredients:

  1/2 lb. ground beef
  1/2 lb. bacon (chopped)
  1 onion
  1/3 c. brown sugar
  1/3 c. granulated sugar
  1/4 c. catsup
  1/4 c. BBQ sauce
  2 Tbs. prepared mustard
  2 Tbs. molasses
  1 tsp. chili powder
  1 tsp. salt
  1/4 tsp. pepper
  1 large can red kidney beans
  1 large can pork & beans
  1 large can buttered lima beans

  Preheat oven to 350.  Brown beef, bacon and onions.  Add all except last 3 ingredients and mix well.  Pour all–including beans (the last three ingredients)–into baking dish.  Bake for one hour.

  Nany noted in her recipe that this recipe “serves a lot and is good for a picnic”.  That is yet another reason why Nany Knows!

• Corny Pot Luck

  Date: 2009.04.11 | Category: Cooking, Nany Knows | Response: 0

  

  Mom, Aunt Barb, and Nany all make this recipe at our family gatherings.  As a matter of fact, I usually pout if it doesn’t show up on the table. It’s a great dish for a pot luck meal, family gathering or in my case, just for me with a giant spoon.  My brother and I love it so much, my mother always makes an extra dish just for he and I to share.  “Just in case the others eat the entire dish before you two can get some” (that is a direct quote heard many times from Mommie).  Like many of my favorites, it has tremendous staying power and could even be better the next day.  It’s not a corn cake like many of you enjoy, it has a fluffy feel to it.  Many call this a souffle because of the eggs but we have always called it baked corn.  This recipe can be made the night before and then warm it up at 250 the following day in preparation for your pot luck or ?

  Ingredients:

  1 can cream style corn
  1 c. milk
  2 eggs
  2 Tbs sugar
  2 Tbs flour
  lump butter
  salt & pepper

  Preheat over to 350.  Heat milk and butter until butter is completely melted.  Combine all ingredients adding a dash of salt and pepper in the process.  Bake for one hour.  Serves 4 (with seconds for some ☺).

  I double this recipe for holiday meals when expecting company.  Enjoy!

• Noodles or Rice? Beef or Chicken?

  Date: 2009.04.08 | Category: Cooking, Nany Knows | Response: 1

  It’s a chilly rainy morning here; perfect weather for soup.  Nany makes a thick, belly filling soup with either beef or chicken and noodles or rice and its a perfect meal for days after it’s made.  Leave your laptop right now and get to the kitchen to make this simple, yet delicious soup.

  

  Ingredients:

  1 small piece of beef (or chicken) with bone, cooked
  1/2 c. rice or noodles
  1 carrot, chopped
  1 celery stalk, chopped
  1/2 of very small onion chopped
  parsley to taste

  Boil meat in large stock pot.  Once the meat is falling apart and off the bone remove meat and bone.  Cut meat up into bite size pieces and return to the broth.  Add rice, carrot, celery, onion and parsley.  Simmer slowly at a low heat for a good long time.  Which means until you taste it and it warms the cockles of your heart.  Nan says if you don’t think it is thick enough, add a little more rice/noodles.  Okay Nany.  Now will you just make it for me so I don’t have to?

• Nany Knows

  Date: 2009.04.02 | Category: Nany Knows | Response: 3

  My 85-year-old grandmother whom I call Nany knows everything.  She is thee most humble person I have ever met so she would dispute this fact but I know in my heart and mind she knows everything.  Anytime I need something, Nany has the solution, knowledge, instinct.  I hope to share some of the lessons she has taught me, knowledge she has given me, and recipes she has shared with me as we travel along this journey.  Each time you see this picture of Nany in the garden as a young woman, I hope you recognize that the post is a “Nany Knows” piece.

  I will begin with my favorite sweet treat Nany makes for me when I travel home–Angel Food Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting.  Now I know what you are thinking.  So what on the angel food.  Everyone makes that.  Well Nany’s secret is the homemade peanut butter frosting.  It is sweet, rich and decadent.  I could just take a spoon to the frosting.  Nany utilizes the oldest rule in baking cakes/cupcakes.  Only one of the two (frosting or cake) can be super sweet.  In this case, the light angel food cake balances the rich frosting….and vice versa.  Nany Knows.

  Ingredients:

  1 box Duncan Hines Angel Food Cake mix (prepared as directed on box and cooled)
  1 box 10x sugar
  1 lump butter (size of a walnut)
  1 tsp. vanilla
  1 lump Crisco (size of a walnut)
  just enough milk to make the frosting spreadable
  1/2 pint of peanut butter

  Mix all sugar, butter, vanilla,  and Crisco at a medium speed.  Add the peanut butter and mix very well.  Then add milk a tiny bit at a time while the mixer is at a low speed until you reach the spreadable consistency.  Either spread on the angel food cake or get a spoon and go at it!