OFF TOPIC blog

For the better part of two decades we have enjoyed a food referred to as ‘egg rolls’. We get them as a side when we buy a oriental dinner. Comes with the take out just like the fortune cookie.

Turns out that what they call ‘egg roll’ is actually just a deep fried cabbage roll. We have discovered that you can make your own without too much effort.

All it takes is cabbage, spices, some canola oil, a large frying pan and soft flour tortillas.

Start by cutting the cabbage in half through the core stalk. Then cut the cabbage off the stalk a bit at at time until you have a pile of shredded cabbage.

Pour a little oil into the large frying pan and bring up to temperature on low heat. Drop the shredded cabbage into the pan. Fill it all the way to the top and more. It will look like a lost cause but the cabbage cooks down considerably. Put a lid on the pan while it is cooking.

Add salt and pepper. Maybe some chili powder, cumin, sage, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, curry powder and anything else you think might make it taste better. Or just do the salt and pepper. Once cooked the cabbage taste pretty well overpowers all other seasoning anyway.

Let the cabbage cook for about ten minutes or so, then turn it. Use a spatula to bring the oil soaked cooked cabbage up to the top and let the uncooked cabbage contact the hot frying pans surface. It should take about twenty minutes or less to cook the cabbage. Do not let it scorch or burn. Let is simmer on low or medium heat. When the cabbage is no longer crunchy, it is done.

After the cabbage is cooked transfer it to a convenient container and let it cool. It is easier to make these rolls with cabbage that is cool.

Clean the frying pan and add fresh cannola oil to the pan to a depth of about 1/8 inch or less. Let the oil heat with the burner adjusted to medium heat. While the oil is heating, take a tortilla round and load about three tablespoonfuls of cooked cabbage onto the tortilla. Bring up one edge of the tortilla to capture the cabbage and roll it as you might a cigar or cigarette. Push in the ends of the tortilla to keep the cabbage from falling out. Insert a tooth pick to keep the roll from unrolling. Place the roll into the pan of hot oil.

If the oil is hot enough the roll will bubble in the oil and start to cook. Watch it carefully. We are looking for a golden or dark golden brown, not charcoal black. If it burns to black, throw it out and start over.

Carefully turn the roll so that it can cook fairly evenly all the way around. Once it is a golden brown, remove it from the pan and let it cool on a plate.

If you have a deep fat fryer, use it. We have a deep fat fryer too but we prefer to cook this in a pan with a thin layer of oil because we do not want to use all the oil needed by the deep fryer.

One 10 inch tortilla makes a ten inch long roll. That is about twice the length of what we get at the take out so we cut it in half. If you do cut it in half, wait until it is fully cool or the cabbage might fall out.

A hot cabbage roll seems to taste better than a cold one. You can reheat it in a microwave. Just set the microwave on high and timer for 30 seconds. If that does not get it hot enough, do it again for another 30 seconds.

Or you can go to the oriental take out and buy them ready made. The last time I checked they were asking a buck each for ‘egg rolls’. If you need more than a couple, you could save some coin by making them yourself.

We should eat more fruit and vegetables, so say the nutritionists.
We probably would eat more fruit and vegetables if they were prepared in a tasty way. Fruit is usually not a problem, but vegetables need help.

This vegetable salad has a sweet sour taste that is fresh and clean and very easy to make.

Start with a quarter cup of vinegar in a large bowl. Add three tablespoons of Splenda or sugar, a teaspoon of salt, and a teaspoon of pepper. Mix using a whisk.

Add three tablespoons of olive oil or salad oil and whisk the mixture until it is well combined. The oil is optional. You can leave it out without effecting the taste all that much.

Add a can or corn, a can of peas, a finely chopped onion, half a bell pepper (chopped), A finely chopped tomato, and a can of green beans. Mix everything with a spatula. Set aside in a refrigerator for an hour or two before serving.

Makes about 8 servings.

Most of the vegetables used here are soft vegetables. No carrots, turnips, or radishes. There is no reason why those other vegetables could not be used if you like them. Other possibilities are mushrooms, olives, squash, cherry tomatoes, lettuce, and cabbage. The lettuce and cabbage should be shredded fine to mix better with the other vegetables.

You can also spice it up a bit by adding red pepper, chili powder, and other spices. The additional spices should be added to the dressing before adding the vegetables. That way the spices get more evenly distributed.

If you like fish, you might like this dish. It is a very economical talapia and vegetable dish. Fish, potato, and carrots all garnished with dill and garlic. Lots of garlic.

I used to think that talapia fillets were super thin. I guess the ones I bought were. Recently we bought some talapia loins at sam’s. These were about half an inch thick. More like the whitefish I like at a talapia price.

The prices were good on carrots and potatoes too. Dill is an herb and you are going to be out two or more bucks for a bit of dill. We splurged and got on the those large containers of dill.

The vegetables are baked. Line a pan with aluminum foil. Drizzle in some oil to cover the bottom of the foil. Cannola is fine. Olive is better. Slice up some garlic cloves. I know everyone says to crush them. I find slicing them thin works too. Peel one large russet potato and cut in half lengthwise. Cut one half in half lengthwise again and cut quarter inch thick slices from it. Save the other half of the potato for some other time.

Peel some carrots. Four medium sized carrots will do. Cut them into sections about two inches long. If the carrots are bigger than an inch in diameter cut them in half lengthwise.

Now put all the vegetables in the pan. You should have as many carrots as potatoes. Cover the vegetables with the thinly sliced garlic. Sprinkle everything with dill and bake in the oven at 350 degrees F for half an hour. Cover the pan with aluminum foil.

Pour a small quantity of oil into a large skillet and heat it on low. Add some thinly sliced garlic to the oil and let it heat until the garlic starts to fry. Now add the fish. Give it about five minutes per side and cook it with a lid on the skillet. Season the fish lightly with salt and pepper. Both sides. When the fish is turned over in the skillet sprinkle it with dill. One side only.

The fish could have been baked along with the vegetables. The only problem is that the vegetables need thirty minutes and the fish only takes ten minutes. I don’t care for over cooked food.

Fish and vegetables are quick and easy to fix. Everything tastes better with dill on it. This recipe serves two. Cost is about three dollars a serving and the food is every bit as good as what you would expect at a fancy thirty dollar a plate dinner.

I have always been partial to thin and crisp when it comes to pizza crust. This weekend I added about six tablespoons of olive oil to the dough. The result was a much finer and smoother texture. More like cake dough and much more suitable for thick crust pizza than the usual thin crust we have made in the past.

A couple of loaves of bread were made from the excess dough. They seemed softer and more like cake too.

We normally have pork chops with mashed potatoes and a green vegetable. This weekend I discovered a new way to prepare the dish using rice.

Although we say pork chops we are actually using medalions of pork loin. There is nothing magic about pork. You could just as easily substitute beef loin or chicken breasts without changing anything else. I bet it would even work with thicker fillets of fish.

The meat is first fried in a skillet. Set the burners to low, add a little canola oil, roasted and mashed garlic, let it come up to temperature, then add the meat. The meat should be cut into sections approximately half an inch thick. In the case of chicken breasts, use them as is.

While the meat is browning, open a can of Campbell’s condensed mushroom soup. Empty the can into a small sauce pan and add one can of water. Mix thoroughly. No need to heat we just want the condensed soup to be more of a sauce so that it will not burn when added to the meat in the skillet.

Check the meat and brown on both sides. Remove the meat from the skillet and add the mushroom soup to the skillet. Stir to reclaim all the browning drippings from the meat. Combine them with the mushroom soup to form a light brown gravy.

Notice we have not added any seasoning. There is plenty of salt in the mushroom soup. No need to add anything.

Cut the meat into half inch wide strips. Then cut the strips into half inch square chunks. Add the meat back into the sauce in the skillet and let it simmer for an hour or two on low heat. Stir every so often to make sure the mixture does not stick to the bottom of the skillet and burn.

The rice can be prepared normally with water. We use plain rice and avoid the instant stuff. Use about two to three cups of water per cup of rice. You can also use chicken broth in place of water. We make our own chicken broth and store it in the refrigerator in salvaged Prego jars. The chicken broth already contains seasonings. Salt, pepper, sage, and rosemary are added to the chicken carcass as it is boiled to make the broth. One chicken makes three to four jars of broth. One jar of broth is enough to cook one cup of dry rice.

Bring the water or broth to a boil in a large saucepan. Pour in the cup of dry rice and stir. Keep the burner on high for a few minutes and let the rice and liquid boil. As the rice cooks it will swell and absorb the liquid. When it appears that is what is happening, turn the burner to low and put a lid on the pan. Let it sit and steam. Check on it periodically to make sure it is not burning. The idea is for the rice to absorb all the liquid so that at the end we have very little liquid in the pan. If there is too much liquid, turn up the heat and boil it off but be careful not to scorch the rice. Scorched rice has a very bad taste even if it has been carefully seasoned.

Serve the meal in a medium sized bowl. Three to four large spoonfuls of rice followed by three large spoonfuls of meat and gravy.

It should be obvious that this is a very versatile dish. In place of the rice, you could use mashed potatoes, or noodles. In place of the meat you could use fish or shrimp. I have not tried this using canned tuna or salmon but I bet it would work that way too.

Certain grocery items can be purchased as store brands. For instance, in the case of a can of peas, the store brand may have Kroger on the label instead of Libby’s.

Store brands are generally less expensive offering five to ten percent savings. Unfortunately, when you open that can of peas, you may discover what was done to offer you the savings over the brand name.

If the item is to be used as an ingredient in a recipe and is just one of many with most of the many being herbs and spices which are mainly responsible for the ultimate flavor of the dish, you may never realize that a store brand was used.

If, however, the store brand item is it, meaning it is the dish itself, there may be greater potential for disappointment.

Some store brand items that have been disappointing have been mustard, pre-cooked sausage patties, some condensed soups, and canned vegetables.

The store brand mustard was thinner, more acidic, and had a funny taste when compared to French’s.

The store brand sausage patties had more fat content and a decidedly gamey taste when compared to Jimmy Dean patties.

The store brand condensed mushroom soup did not seem to be as condensed as the Campbell brand.

Lastly, the store brand canned peas were decidedly inferior to LeSueur brand peas. That may be an unfair comparison. LeSueur peas are the caviar of canned vegetables.

I have been putting off posting this because I don’t have the pictures ready yet, but this stuff is so good I decided not to wait any longer.

First off, you have to like shrimp. If not, forget it.

The sauce is thick and full of shrimp, both whole and cut up. It is intended to be used as a topping for noodles but works on rice too.

Start off by cooking up some shrimp. I buy a big bag of 30-40 medium sized raw, in the shell, shrimp. They have been de-vained and cleaned but are still in the shell. Dump them all into a big pot of boiling water. No need to thaw. Let them cook until they turn pink. Don’t over cook.

Pour off the water and save it. Strain the water to remove any shells and other unwanted debris. Then save the water and use it to cook rice or noodles. You will be surpised at how shrimpy the rice and noodles taste when they are cooked in shrimp water.

In a large sauce pan, prepare the soup stock for the sauce. One can of condensed mushroom soup, two cans of water, half an onion (diced), and six to twelve garlic cloves, fresh and minced or finely diced. Stir well to mix all that stuff together and let it simmer while the shrimp are shelled.

Shell the shrimp. There should be about three to four dozen shrimp. Take half the shrimp and cut them into smaller pieces and add them to the sauce. Add the rest of the shrimp later but leave them whole.

Season the sauce with salt for taste, pepper, and basil (if you like it). Add some more water if the sauce is too thick. You don’t want the sauce to stick and burn, so add water if needed. Simmer the sauce on low to medium heat for a one to two hours or until the onion and garlic is cooked into the sauce.

If the sauce is too thin at the end, add some flour to thicken it. Don’t just dump in the flour. Mix a tablespoon of flour at a time in a cup with water. Then add the mixture to the sauce. The sauce should be hot and close to the boiling point as you add the flour. The heat will cook the flour and thicken the sauce. Mixing the flour with water before adding prevents clumping.

This recipe makes enough sauce for four to six generous servings. Use it immediately or pour it off into jars for later use. I find that two salvaged Prego jars are enough to hold and save one recipe.

I have never been to Pennsylvania to have a cheese steak, so I cannot comment on how good they are. I have had the IHOP style of cheese steak sandwich and I have to admit it is very good.

Not being one to eat out on a regular basis I decided to see if I could duplicate the IHOP sandwich.

I started off by baking some bread. I needed a couple of fairly soft rolls formed into submarine sandwich buns. The trick to making them soft is to bake them at high heat (400 degrees F) for a short amount of time. Just long enough to get them done. Stick them with a toothpick or fork to check doneness. If the toothpick or fork comes out without dough sticking to it, the baking is done. Also, I found that using two packets of yeast makes for a lighter dough. More bubbles in the mixture and it rises faster and farther. Use a couple of tablespoons of sugar when blooming the yeast in warm water. Let it bloom until it has a well established head before adding flour. The sugar allows the yeast to make alcohol and adds flavor to the bread.

Once cool, split the bun lengthwise and dig out shallow troughs in both halves. Butter both halves and broil them in the oven, buttered side up to get just barely toasty. I like to use a mixture of olive oil and roasted garlic instead of butter. The roasted garlic is homemade, and mashed to a paste before it is mixed with the oil. I like lots of roasted garlic. Your tastes might differ.

Keep an eye on the toasting buns. You want them just barely toasted. Golden brown is too dark. We are looking for a golden yellow.

Now sautee some onion in a skillet. The sandwich is just fine without the onion but if you like onion this is how to do it. Sautee in butter or oil until the onion is soft. We are not making onion rings here. Just soften so they won’t fall out of the sandwich. Onion cut into rings is fine. I like white onion but red onion works fine too. Pile the onion into both troughs in both halves of the bun but leave enough room for the steak.

You don’t need to use steak to make this sandwich. Good quality roasting meat will also work. Once the meat is roasted to your liking, cut it into thin strips (like you might get on an Arby’s sandwich) and pile it onto the bun. The thinner you can cut the meat, the lesser quality of meat you can use, while still making it edible. Brisket is a little greasy, but flank steak and roast work well. Of course there is nothing preventing you from using real steak.

Now pile the meat into both troughs of both halves of one bun. Use at least enough to fill the troughs. It does not have to look like an overstuffed Quiznos as shown on the TV ad.

Slice some swiss cheese into strips that are as wide as the bun. Lay these strips onto the meat on one of the bun halves. A single layer of cheese is fine. Use more if you like cheese or are shy on the meat.

Put the two bun halves together, put on a microwave safe plate, and set it in a microwave. Microwave on high for about one minute. Maybe less. We do not want to toast the cheese or have it melt to the point of running down the sides. We just want the cheese to melt and glue the two bun halves together.

Steak sauce can be added as a side. This sandwich is consumed with knife and fork as though it were a real steak. You may find it is too good to doctor with steak sauce.

The IHOP version I had came with a side of home fried potatoes. You can make home fried potatoes very easily at home. Cut a large (or small) potato into strips about one-quarter inch thick, one inch wide and three inches long. cover the bottom of a baking pan with a thin layer of oil (cannola or olive) and add the potato strips. Move the strips around so each has a full coating of oil. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are half way cooked. Leave the oven at 350 but shift it to broil and let the potatoes cook for another 15 minutes or until they turn a light golden brown. No need to turn them over to broil the bottom side. They will be sufficiently brown all over if they are done. These are not french fries, so don’t try to turn them into fries. Light golden brown is fine. If they end up crunchy, they are overcooked. Remove from oven and lightly salt.

We used to use Prego or Ragu. Now we use tomato paste. Why? Because a can of tomato paste costs about 20 cents while a jar of Prego or Ragu is more that 2 dollars.

You save about 1.50 per jar. Say you have spaghetti or pizza once a week and use one jar of sauce a week. Fifty-two weeks in a year times 1.50 is $78.00 saved over a years time. Not much right? Okay, then send me a check for that amount and see if you miss it.
The savings is not the only reason to make your own sauce. If we make it ourselves, we can control the amount of salt in the sauce.

The actual cost of turning a can of tomato paste into a jar of spaghetti sauce is a little more than 20 cents. You have to add basil, onion, garlic, and sugar or splenda. The actual amounts as follows.

One can of tomato paste

Three cans of water.

Two healthy pinches of basil

Two healthy pinches of minced garlic

Two table spoons sugar or splenda

One quarter medium sized onion minced.

Heat in a sauce pan after all has been added and combined. Heat it at a simmer until the onion cooks into the sauce. Add some chopped green bell pepper at the end for taste. Same for pepper, and other seasonings you might consider appropriate.
Takes about an hour or two to finish cooking. Then let cool and pour into an empty Prego or Ragu jar. Refrigerate.

Want to make some potato chips? I guess the million dollar question is why? So much easier to buy them. True, but if you don’t want or can’t go to the store right now, here is a way to get your chips without leaving the house.

Of course you will need to already have at least one potato and some cooking oil. Might help to have a deep fat fryer too.

I first hit upon this idea while peeling some potatoes. The potato peeler I use is a popular one. It cuts very thin slices. Thin slices prefect for making crispy potato chips.

Pictured here is one potato reduced to chips with the potato peeler.

Cook them a few at a time. I put enough in to just cover the bottom of the basket.

Bubbling away as they cook. Don’t leave them unattended. Takes about 3 mins or so to get them crispy. Stir them with a fork or spoon while they are frying to keep them from sticking together .

I used one potato. Took three batches to cook the entire potato.

Doneness was judged by color. Black is crispy too but golden brown tastes better. They stay white for a long time before turning brown, but when they turn, they do so very quickly and need to be removed from the oil immediately.

I don’t use a thermometer. I don’t have one. I just heat the oil on high heat to the point where the food fries with vigerous bubbles as it cooks.

It turned out pretty well. They stayed crispy until supper. They probably would have stayed crispy longer but we ate them all at supper time.

On Thanksgiving two years ago we began a tradition of having two turkeys, one smoked, the other roasted normally.

Our first grandson was born on Thanksgiving so, for us, it is a double celebration. Thanksgiving and a birthday.

This year will be the same except for a slight difference in preparation of the turkeys.

The food network is not our favorite cable channel but it does have some useful information most of the time. Of the programs on the food network, good eats with Alton Brown is a favorite because of good recipes as well as background information on what makes them good. This season Alton is pushing brined turkey. Not sure, he may also have been suggesting soaking the bird in salt last season but this is the first season we have decided to take him up on his suggestion.

We are following his recipe but changing the method just a little. Instead of stuffing the turkey into a five gallon bucket we are using the original plastic bag the bird was packaged in as means of holding the brine. The turkey, in the plastic bag is situated vertically in a large pot and braced with paper towel packing so that it remains vertical and can’t fall over. Then the brine is poured into the body cavity until it overflows and fills the rest of the plastic bag to the top.

The whole assembly is then carefully set into the refrigerator and left overnight. The following morning, the bird is removed, washed, stuffed with the prepared aromatics, and either roasted or smoked.

The first one is going to be smoked. We use a smoker. It is a five year old Brinkman Smok’n Grill Smoker. It is a dome shaped metal can that holds a tray of charcoal. Just above the charcoal sits a pan of water. One grill is located right above this pan. A second grill is located just above the first grill.

The charcoal provides the heat. The water turns to steam and the steam as well as the smoke cooks the meat. For a more distinct smoky flavor we add hickory wood chips and wood strips that have been soaked in water overnight. The hickory is placed into an open aluminum foil pouch that sits on top of the hot charcoal. That makes for lots of smoke and lots of flavor.

The smoker runs for about ten hours after which the turkey is removed and baked in the oven at 350 degrees for another hour to ensure it is fully cooked. We normally smoke chicken and allow about six hours of smoking for a chicken. The turkey is about twice to three times the size of a chicken, hence the extra time.

Cut into the meat to determine doneness. We do not trust the pop out temperature indicators, don’t own a meat thermometer, and like our poultry well done. Cutting into the breast and inspecting is the surest way we know of determining if it is fit to eat.

We have never brined or used the aromatic stuffing before this season. It will be interesting to see if it make a significant difference.

It is a good thing that I don’t mind the taste of chicken. ‘It tastes sort of like chicken’ is a phrase you hear often enough to make you realize that nearly everything tastes like chicken.

Chicken is okay and it is inexpensive. We usually load up on whole chickens when we find them on a special sale. One whole chicken is enough for a whole week of suppers for two if you are careful about preparation and portion size.

We normally start by cutting it up. Legs, thighs, breasts, and wings are removed. I am partial to wings, thighs, and legs but also have never been known to reject a chicken breast.

Chicken is also good roasted whole or smoked. Smoked chicken is excellent but you may not care for it in soup.

Once those parts are removed, you are left with a carcass that still has some meat on it but nothing in sufficient quantity to make a couple of meals. So, we boil the carcass in a big pot with lots of water and herbs. Rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, bay leaf, sage, or whatever you consider makes stuff taste good. Let it boil for an hour or two. Then turn off the heat and let it cool.

When cool remove the carcass and pick off the cooked meat. Cut the meat into small pieces and set aside to make soup.

Use a ladle to skim off the liquid chicken broth and pour it into jars, a ladle full at a time. I use Prego jars. One carcass will make enough broth to fill three jars and still have enough fixings left over to fill three more jars with chicken rice soup. Or you can use noodles.

Once the three jars of broth have been filled, pour what is left in the pot through a strainer to remove all solids. Pour the strained liguid back into the pot, add several diced sticks of celery and a diced carrot. Add water until the pot is half full. Add back the cut up chicken meat. Bring this to a boil. Turn down the heat so that it is still at a boil but just barely. Add one cup of dry rice. Not instant rice! Just normal dry rice. Let that simmer for at least half an hour. Stir it every ten minutes or so. Let it cool and pour it into Prego jars.

You should now have three jars of chicken broth and three jars of concentrated chicken rice soup. Each jar of soup can be used to make four servings. The chicken broth is handy for use as soup stock, stew stock, rice flavoring.

The stocks are self explanatory. The rice flavoring might need some explanation.

There are lots of ways of preparing rice. Most of them involve the use of hot water. One of my favorite ways of preparation is in a large skillet. Cover the bottom of the skillet with a drizzle of olive oil. Bring to temperature with the burner at medium heat. Pour a cup of dry rice into the skillet. Stir while it is cooking. Cook until it is light brown. Be careful not to let it get too dark. Stop the browning by pouring in a Prego jar full of chicken broth. Lots of noise, lots of steam. Stir well and put a lid on it. Let it sit for five minutes and check back to stir some more. The idea here is to let the rice cook completely and absorb the chicken broth. Add diced onion, diced bell pepper, diced carrots, diced tomato, or whatever vegetable you like. Or don’t add anything at all. If you don’t let this dish burn, there is no way to ruin it.

You can make the rice as fluffy or as soupy as you want. Just don’t let it burn. Burn it will too if you cook off all the liquid and let it sit without stirring. Soupy rice is best for use in casseroles. Pour the soupy rice into a casserole dish and cover it with a few fillets of fish seasoned with salt, pepper, and dill. Or use chicken breasts with the salt, pepper, and dill. You may also want to try to add a can of condensed mushroom soup to the rice. That makes for a very rich casserole but still fairly low calorie. It just tastes rich. Tastes good too, if you like mushrooms. If you really like mushrooms, just add a can of mushrooms to the rice and forget the condensed soup.

Put that in an oven at 350 degrees. Let bake for an hour or so. Remove from the oven and melt a couple of patties of butter on top of the meat. Serve. Given the amounts of rice used this will make four generous portions.

While this dish in not really new, it is different from anything that has previously been tried here using pork chops.

On a recent trip to visit family, I decided to cook supper. There were plenty of pork chops in the freezer so pork chops it was.

Intending to fry them after breading, I decided that baking was a better plan. I put them in a casserole dish, added some unpeeled potatoes, and onion. I was ready to begin baking but those potatoes crowding the chops just did not look right.

I removed the potatoes, but the dish looked like it needed something. I diced a quarter section of a bell pepper and added that. Then added a diced tomato. Added some more onion, and finally emptied a can of concentrated mushroom soup on top of everything else. No water. Just the concentrated soup.

All that went into the oven set to 350 degrees and stayed there for an hour.

The potatoes were cut up, boiled and mashed and a can of corn was opened for the vegtable part of the meal.

Mashed potatoes covered with the mushroom soup mixture, baked pork chops, and corn.

The end result was pretty tasty and it was just as good as left overs two days later. The bell pepper contributed most of the taste and there was more than enough salt in the mushroom soup concentrate. Probably will add some pepper to spice things up when we try this again.

We have been cooking Tuna Casserole to these directions for more than 20 years. It always turns into a reasonable meal. The main variation is in how soupy or dry the end result becomes. The amount of moisture is controlled by the amount of noodles and the amount of time it spends in the oven.

Start by hard boiling three eggs in a large saucepan. Set the eggs aside, pour the water out of the sauce pan, empty the contents of one can of condensed mushroom soup into the saucepan.

Fill the soup can half full of water and stir to get the rest of the condensed mixture. Pour that into the sauce pan and stir to mix.

Add one tablespoon of yellow mustard. Add two tablespoons of mayonaise. Add two tablespoons of pickle relish. Stir to mix.

Open two cans of tuna fish. Don’t drain. Add the tuna and liquid into the sauce pan by flaking the tuna with a fork or spoon to break it into small shreds. Stir to mix.

Peel the three eggs and cut them in half lengthwise, turn 90 degrees and cut again, then cut them crosswise to end up with diced hard boiled egg. Add all diced egg to the saucepan.

Dice up four 1/4 inch thick wedges of Velveeta cheese and add them to the sauce pan. Heat the mixture on low to let the cheese melt and stir to mix. It is okay if the cheese does not melt all the way. It is not okay to let the thick mixture settle, get hot, and burn at the bottom of the saucepan.

Dice one medium sized onion. Add the onion to the mixture and mix. Dice one small, green, bell pepper. Add the bell pepper to the mixture and mix. Let it simmer on low and boil some egg noodles.

Boil water in a large pan to which a couple of teaspoons of salt have been added. Add three to four cups of dry egg noodles to the boiling water and let them cook until soft. They do not need to be very soft. Firm is good.

Drain the water from the noodles and pour the cooked noodles into a large casserole dish. Pour the heated mixture from the saucepan over the noodles and mix. Sprinkle some fried onion topping onto the tuna casserole. Cover the casserole dish and place in an oven set for 350 degrees. Let it bake for one hour.

Remove the dish from the oven and let it sit on the counter for another hour or so. Serve.

Here is another tasty way to prepare chicken.

I usually buy a whole chicken and cut it up before roasting. Line a metal baking pan with aluminum foil. Salt and pepper all the chicken pieces and place them in the foil covered pan. Roast in the oven for 15 minutes. Then remove, turn the chicken over and roast the other side for 15 minutes. The oven is set at broil or 500 degrees and the pan of chicken is place in the center of the oven. Half way between the top and bottom. The chicken should be brown on both sides after the roasting.

While the chicken is in the oven, prepare the lemon sauce. I use a 3/4 cup of lemon juice. Add that to 1/4 cup of olive oil (canola oil works too). Wisk to combine. Add two teaspoons of salt and one teaspoon of pepper. Add one table spoon of vinegar. Add one half teaspoon of oregano. Combine all ingrediants by wisking some more.

Remove the chicken from the oven and pour off any fat. Pour the lemon sauce over the chicken. Cover the chicken with foil and return to the oven. Set the oven for 300 degrees and let the chicken cook for another 30 mins or more.

The result is a super tender, par broiled, peppery, lemon flavored chicken dinner. Serve with rice and vegtables or even mashed potatoes. We have been known to just eat the chicken and leave the sides alone.

One medium sized chicken will feed four people or two people twice.

There are already a large number of bread recipies available to anyone who is interested in making their own bread. Here is one more. It is more of a how-I-do-it than a formal presentation of measured ingredients.

This is white bread. I dont care for whole wheat. Not that I wont eat whole wheat, I just find whole wheat more difficult to make. Whole wheat does not rise as much. At least not in my kitchen.

I take a plastic bowl. Maybe large enough to hold half a gallon or more. I start with four cups of hot tap water, add two table spoons of sugar, add one package of dry yeast, stir, then let sit for a few hours.

Check it and make sure it has a fluffy, frothy head on top of the liquid. If not, start over. This time with fresh yeast.

Start adding flour a cup at a time while running a mixer in the bowl to combine ingredients. While the mixture is still fairly liquid, add a couple teaspoons of salt. Mix some more and add flour until the dough thickens to the point where the mixer bogs down.

Add a couple cups of flour on top of the dough in the bowl and start mixing with a plastic or wooden spoon or ladle. After the mixture begins to take on the consistency of wet dough, clean the dough off the spoon, add another cup or two of flour and begin to kneed by hand.

It will take another four to five cups of flour before the mixture becomes thick enough to be dough. You are done when the stuff no longer sticks to your fingers. It is fine if it is wet and sticky just not so sticky that you cant touch it without it clinging to your hand.

I dont remove the dough to kneed it. I leave it in the bowl. I find things remain cleaner that way.

Form it into a ball, brush it with oil or butter, leave it in the bowl, cover it, and set it in a warm place to let it rise.

You can speed up the process by putting the bowl in an oven set to warm but keep an eye on it. Even at the warm setting my oven gets too hot for this. If I use the oven, I set the timer for 15 minutes and remove the bowl from the oven, placing it on top of the refrigerator for the remaining duration of the first rise.

It takes one to two hours for the dough to rise. It will rise to about double the original size. Punch it down and remove it from the bowl.

Dust a board or table top with flour. Plop the dough onto the dusted surface. Now we have to decide what sort of bread sizes we want. I usually divide the dough to make a couple of small loaves as well as some hard rolls. I use a knife to cut the dough in half, and then in quarters. I shape two of the quarters into fat cigar shaped loaves and put them on a flour dusted cookie sheet. No forms needed.

The remaining two quarters are divided in half two more times and formed into balls by rolling them between the palms of my hands. Dough balls the size of hens eggs will make a roll large enough to be used as a quarter pounder hamburger bun.

The rolls are added to the cookie sheet. The whole affair is covered with a cloth and set asside to rise once more. If the oven was used to heat the dough for the first rise, it is probably still warm and the cookie sheet can be set into the oven and the dough allowed to rise once more.

Dough size will double again on the second rise which will take another hour or two. After the second rise, brush the surface with oil or butter, sprinkle lightly with salt, adjust the oven to 400 degrees farenheit, set the timer for 20 minutes, and let the bread bake. Check on it after 20 minutes. Stick it with a needle. If dough clings to the needle when you withdraw it, give it another 10 minutes to bake. You can also check it for doneness by thumping it with your finger. If it makes a dull hollow sound, it is probably done.

If the crust is not a golden brown, go to broil and give it a few minutes at broiling temperature. Keep a very close watch on it so it does not burn.

Remove from the oven and let it all sit on the counter to cool. Dont cut or try to taste it until has cooled close to room temperature.

If you have been keeping track of time we are now 3.5 to 6.5 hours into our baking project depending on how much time we allowed the yeast to bloom and the bread to rise. Dont start a baking session like this unless you can finish it and that will take a minimum of 5 hours.

This same recipie can be used for making pizza. The only difference between bread and pizza dough is how thin it is rolled.

You can use this marinade on chicken, beef, turkey, pork, and probably any other meat that can be marinated. Marinating is the process of imparting flavor into the meat by soking it for a length of time in herbs and spices.

You can buy Teriaki sauce at the grocery store. It is not expensive a 12oz bottle is priced at under five dollars. If you really want to cheap out, you can always make your own. You wont really save all that much money out-of-pocket but you will have two times or more the amount of sauce for the same price.

Soy sauce, onion, and ginger are the main ingredients of Teriaki sauce. Add grated onion and one grated section of ginger to a bottle of soy sauce and one bottle of water. If the soy sauce is not low sodium or ‘lite’, you may want to add an additional bottle of water.

I like pizza.  I also have more time than money.  The thought of making my own at 20 percent the cost of takeout appeals to me.

I make as much from scratch as I can.  The following is a short list of ingrediants and special sundries/utensils.

Flour - white general purpose
Yeast - any brand.  shop for best price
Water - kitchen faucet
Olive oil - any cooking oil can be used
Tomato Sauce - Ragu or Prego
Cheese - grated. mix of mozzerella and cheddar is best
Seasoning - salt, pepper, McCormik Montreal Steak seasoning is good
Pizza stone
Parchment paper
Large mixing bowl
Pizza cutter
Whisk or mixmaster electric mixer

Toppings
Just about anything you would put on a decent sandwich.     Including, but not limited to: pepperoni, sausage, onion,
bell pepper, tomatoes, ground beef, jalapeneo pepper slices,
grilled tuna.

The secret to a good pizza is plenty of toppings, not better
ingrediants.

Seasonings

There is no substitute for salt.  There are plenty of
alternative seasonings, but there is nothing like NaCl.
If you are on a low sodium diet, don’t use salt. Note:
reducing the salt used per pizza from three teaspoons to
one teaspoon does not qualify as low sodium.

I usually make the dough the night before I make the pizza.  Here is what is required.

Fill the mixing bowl with three cups warm water.  Add one package of yeast, one teaspoon of salt, one teaspoon of sugar, and one cup of flour.  Mix.

Add another cup of flour, mix.

Add another cup of flour, mix.

Keep adding flour and mixing until the mixing becomes too difficult for the whisk or power mixer.  Then continue to add flour and mix/kneed by hand until the dough no longer sticks to your fingers.  You should end up with a ball of slightly sticky dough about five inches in diameter.

Remove the dough ball, sprinkle a little flour into the mixing bowl, put the dough back into the bowl and sprinkle a little flour onto it.

Put the dough and bowl in a warm place. Allow the dough to rise for about an hour.  I put the bowl of dough in the oven, set the oven to warm, and let it warm for 10 mins.  Then I turn the oven off and let the dough sit for another 50 mins.

The dough should rise the dough ball to at least twice its original size. Remove and kneed the dough ball.  Divide the dough ball into sections so that each section makes a tiny pizza shape about 4 inches in diameter by about 1/2 inch thick. ( this is for medium sized, thin crust pizzas )  Stack the sections with aluminum foil or parchment paper seperating them and put them in the refrigerator. The recipe above makes enough dough for five thin crust pizzas.

Now to make the pizza itself.  Put the pizza stone in the oven and let it preheat to 400 degrees.

Prepare any meat toppings first.  Ground beef and sausage needs to be browned and cooked in a skillet.  Cured ham, sandwich meats, and pepperoni can be used as is. Vegetables should be diced. It is very convenient to put each prepared topping into its own bowl for further use.

Cut a section of parchment paper to a size slightly larger than the pizza you will be making.  Lightly flour the paper and the disk of dough.  Use your fingers to spread the dough out on the paper initially, then a rolling pin to roll it out to finished size.  No need to sling dough and make a mess.

Pour out a blob of olive oil onto the center of the pizza dough.  Spread the oil evenly over the surface of the dough.  The oil prevents the tomato sauce from soaking into the dough.  If you like your crust soggy with tomato sauce, don’t use the oil.

Salt and Pepper keeping in mind that Prego and Ragu also contain salt and spices.

Pour out a blob of Prego or Ragu onto the center of the pizza dough.
Spread the sauce evenly over the surface of the dough using the backside of a teaspoon.

Sprinkle grated cheese over the dough.  Sprinkle toppings over the grated cheese.

Pickup the raw pizza by grabbing the edges of the parchment paper and carry it to the oven.  Place it on the hot pizza stone.  Cook for 15 to 20 mins.

Repeat until all the dough and/or ingrediants are used up.  It takes about two hours to make and cook five pizzas.  About three hours if you include the time to prepare the dough.  This time includes the time required for clean up.  It does not include the time required to eat five pizzas.

If you have ever done any cooking on a stovetop, have you ever wondered why a gas stovetop seems to cook so much better than an electric? I have.

I think I now know why. Gas heats by flame. The gas flame engulfs the pan or cooking untensil imparting heat by direct contact.

An electric cooktop heats by having the utensil be in contact with a heating element. There is heat all around the element but for maximum heat transfer the cooking utensil needs to be very flat so as to make as much contact as possible with the heating element.

Not so with gas. The heat is in the flame and the flame can conform to any shape. Hence you get better heat transfer which results in better, more predictable cooking results.