A nice hot dinner on a winter’s day, not to mention a way to use up some leftover turkey. Preheat oven to 350 degrees; Butter a 2-quart casserole dish. Cook wild rice according to package directions; set aside. Brown sausage and onion; drain. Add vegetables and cook until tender. Add flour, pepper, broth, and milk; cook until bubbly and thickened, about 1 minute more. Add … Continue reading Sausage and Wild Rice Casserole
Carla has a late December birthday, and amidst the long, dark days loves to have a bright and sunny salad of butter lettuce, mixed greens, mandarin oranges, sliced almonds, and poppyseed dressing with whatever she picked as this year’s main entree. Mix all ingredients thoroughly, but wait to add the poppyseeds until just before serving. Continue reading Poppyseed Dressing
When we were children, Mom bought canned spiced peaches for a side dish at every Thanksgiving dinner but they’ve now disappeared from store shelves. We miss them terribly, but the filling in this pie tastes deliciously like those spiced peaches. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line 8- or 9-inch pie pan with pie crust. Put a colander over a large bowl and drain peaches; reserve … Continue reading Winter Spiced Peach Pie
Oh, my gosh, is this pie good. Don’t count on leftovers, ever. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 8- to 9-inch pie pan with one pie crust. Blend sugar, brown sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and cloves; set aside. Peel, core and slice apples. Melt butter in large nonstick skillet; add apples, lemon juice and sugar mixture. Cook until juice thickens slightly. Cool apples for about … Continue reading Brown Sugar Apple Pie
Delicious, not too sticky or sweet, and we’ve never had a fail with this recipe. Preheat oven to 325 degrees; line an 8- or 9-inch pie pan with pie crust. Mix all ingredients except pecans and pour into pie pan. Top with pecans (you can spend a lot of time arranging them prettily, or just plop them on), and lightly dunk the pecans in the … Continue reading Kate’s Pecan Pie
Despite what we said in the introduction, we know our cheesecake recipe has previously appeared in a copyrighted work; but even though Nela’s Cookbook was a wonderful combination of recipes and memoir, we have no idea whether Aunt Nela got the recipe from Mamcik, or vice versa, or whether they both got it from someone else. Aunt Nela was our paternal grandmother’s younger sister – … Continue reading Cheesecake
Mom’s favorite. No contest. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine all ingredients except cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla and pour into baking pan.* By the way, the walnuts were never optional in our house – Mom loved walnuts. You also can use pecans, if you prefer them. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour 10 minutes. While cake is cooling, cream butter and … Continue reading Carrot Cake
Melt chocolate over hot water, or in the top of a double boiler; remove from heat. Stir in sugar and corn syrup. Next, blend in the bourbon. At this point, you may need a larger bowl. Combine the crushed wafers and chopped nuts, and pour the chocolate mixture over them. Mix well. It’s usually wise to lightly coat your fingers with the softened butter at … Continue reading Mom’s Bourbon Balls
Oh, man, we loved this when we were kids. We also loved it when Mom made us afterschool treats of anchovy paste on buttered toast points … yes, we also loved chocolate chip cookies and Lucky Charms, but Eastern European treats have so much of that lovely salty fatty umami that one just craves sometimes. We honestly thought this was lost until the kids came … Continue reading Mamcik’s Paté
Around Our Table 