Diving into a church cookbook, plus muffins with veggies
Welcome to Fare Exchange. You are welcome, as always. This morning our requests are broad-based: Help fatten an up-and-coming cookbook and provide grainfree treats for certain pooches.
Mary Monroe’s dog must have treats, just like us humans, and the vet says her dog’s treats must be grain-free. The ready-made versions, she has found, “are “expensive and rare. I will appreciate information from your readers.”
Debbie Pataky is a loyal member of Payne Chapel United Methodist Church on Lookout Mountain and she seeks your help.
“We are beginning to get recipes compiled for our recipe book project to build up the building fund for our church. We also have a Bible study breakfast for our Sunday school hour. I’d love to have some breakfast ideas from your readers and any additional submissions for our cookbook.”
You may go straight to her at debroskyp@gmail. com or send them through this column for the rest of us to enjoy as well. It’s no surprise to her neighbors — and I am one of them — that Pataky gave us a taste of her church’s recipes as a fair swap. The first two of those recipes follow:
Audrey Murray’s Chicken Casserole
2 packages Stove Top
Cornbread stuffing mix 8 ounces sour cream 1 can cream of chicken
soup 4 bone-in chicken breasts, boiled, cooled and chopped
Spray an 8-by-10-inch Pyrex dish with Pam.
Layer 1 box cornbread mix on bottom of dish.
Mix together sour cream, soup and deboned, chopped chicken. Pour over layer of cornbread mix.
On top of chicken mixture, sprinkle other box of cornbread mixture
Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes in a heated oven at 350 degrees.
Mary Adams Strickland’s Blueberry Congealed Salad
2 (3 ounce) boxes grape
Jell-O 1 small can crushed
pineapple, drained 1 (15 ounce) can blueberries, not drained 1 cup chopped pecans
Pour 2 cups boiling water over Jell-O. Dissolve, then mix in other ingredients and chill. When mixture is firm add topping (recipe follows).
Topping
8 ounces cream cheese, softened 8 ounces sour cream 1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Dash salt
Mix well in mixer and spread over firm Jell-O mixture.
MORNING MUFFINS
Mary Sterling of Calhoun, Ga., offered a bowlful of variations in the Morning Glory Muffin recipe that follows. Although the recipe does not follow a strict vegan diet, it is indeed full of carrots and celery and other nourishing things, and only whole wheat flour.
“Here is a recipe for muffins I enjoy making, sharing and eating,” she noted. “They freeze wonderfully. I usually do the chopping the day prior to baking. The batter is too stiff for a mixer; just use your hands. Sometimes I play around, leaving out some sugar and oil and replacing with applesauce. Nobody can guess that there is celery or carrots in a breakfast muffin.”
Morning Glory Muffins
2 ½ cups sugar 4 cups whole wheat flour, or half whole wheat and half oat flour 4 teaspoons cinnamon 1 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 cup vegetable oil 6 eggs, beaten 1 cup coconut 1 cup raisins 4 cups shredded carrots 2 finely chopped apples 2 cups chopped pecans 1 cup chopped celery
Sift together sugar, flour, cinnamon, salt and baking soda. Blend in other ingredients. Batter will be very stiff.
Bake in Pam-sprayed muffin tins or spoon into paper muffin cups set in muffin tins, for approximately 20 minutes at 325 degrees. Makes approximately 36 muffins. They may be frozen.
COOKING COUSINS
A college student in our readership became a cook in the far country of her college dorm, and before long she got her high-schooler cousin into swapping recipes. The one that follows is not from the elder cousin, but the younger. So we will call them older cousin cook and younger cousin cook, and next time it will be the elder who contributes her recipe.
Caprese Balsamic Chicken
2 pounds chicken breasts Salt and pepper 3 tablespoons olive oil 2-3 cloves minced garlic 1 cup low sodium-chicken
broth ½ cup balsamic vinegar 3 tablespoons Truvia Brown Sugar Blend, or about 6 tablespoons regular brown sugar Sliced tomato Sliced mozzarella Fresh basil leaves
In between two pieces of plastic wrap, pound chicken breasts to ½-inch thick. For large chicken breasts, cut them in half horizontally. Salt and pepper both sides.
Heat oil in saucepan on medium-high. Brown chicken on both sides. Reduce heat to medium-low and add garlic. Cook until garlic is tender, being careful not to burn it. Add broth, balsamic and Truvia. Turn heat up to medium-high and simmer for 10-12 minutes, covered, until chicken is cooked through.
Heat broiler. Line baking sheet with parchment. Place each chicken piece on baking sheet. Place a sprig of basil on top of each breast, then cover with a slice of mozzarella.
Broil until cheese is slightly melted. Add tomato slice on top. Heat again until tomato is warm and cheese is melted. Add a basil leaf for decoration.
Serve as is or with a little extra sauce from the pan drizzled on top.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In a recent conversation on writing a suitable obituary, a local woman was making her list of what should be said. And although I have not seen her list, I certainly hope that she lists not just her community accomplishments but her kitchen creations. She is, after all, given to front yard picnics and dining room extravaganzas that are thoroughly Southern and beautiful as well as tasty. Why not throw a recipe into the obituary?
“Here’s the potato salad she swore she would take to her grave. She changed her mind.” Or maybe this? “He was the vice president of such-and-such, and more importantly, he always put a little sage in his squash casseroles. They were so good that he was frequently asked to bring squash casserole to the neighborhood pot luck.”
Just a thought. We live and die by the meals we make and the meals we share. Or at least we live and thrive, if those meals are worth sharing.
So let’s keep sharing. I want to know what obituary-worth delicacies you are cooking up or, for that matter, what you will cook tonight to celebrate the gift of being alive this very day.