Mrs. Hullings Banana Cream Pie

by 👩‍🍳 Cooking With a Southern Vibe in Music City USA 👩‍🍳, February 29, 2012

This is simply the best banana cream pie you will ever eat.  I get lots of people inquiring about my post for Lawry’s Coconut Banana Cream Pie, and while it is simply amazing, Mrs. Hulling’s recipe knocks it out of the ballpark.  If you click on the image it will enlarge.  My mother wrote out this recipe from a newspaper years ago, and we’ve made it countless times.  This is a scrapbooked page I made using her handwriting.

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Campbell’s Soup Frosted Meatloaf

by 👩‍🍳 Cooking With a Southern Vibe in Music City USA 👩‍🍳, February 29, 2012

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A few years ago, my friend Veronica and I went to lunch at Red Geranium Restaurant in New Harmony, Indiana.

We were both dieting, as usual, and we ordered some silly rabbit food, and then we both positively salivated when the ladies at the next table were served thick pie shaped wedges of this wonderful meatloaf frosted with mashed potatoes.  We were just drooling!

Veronica was able to obtain the recipe from a friend, but now that dish is no longer on the menu and we have both regretted not eating it.  But we are going to make it, and when we do, we’re going to enjoy every delicious morsel of it and take pictures to document that we finally got to taste it.

The moral of this story, if you’re out with a girlfriend, forget the calories, if you really want something, just eat it!

~ jan

Make your own Greek Yogurt for a fraction of the cost of Fage!

by 👩‍🍳 Cooking With a Southern Vibe in Music City USA 👩‍🍳, February 29, 2012

I didn’t realize that Greek Yogurt was just yogurt with the whey extracted.  It sounds so exotic, but it’s a really simple process.  It takes no equipment, just some time and the results is wonderful!

Before I start this post, I have to give credit to Paula at Salad-in-a-Jar, I followed her techniques, and she made it so simple.

The first time is the hardest, but it’s really not that difficult, ladies.  I went to Amazon to price yogurt, 17.6 ounces of Fage Total Greek Yogurt is $6.99.

The weight of my yogurt was 18.8 ounces, and it cost me approximately $1.50 – I used a half a gallon of milk, and I paid $2.99 a gallon for the milk at Aldi’s.  Now I did have an initial investment of $1.69 for a tiny single-serve container of Fage Unflavored Yogurt, but I’m not counting that, because I will never have to buy this again, as I can save a couple of teaspoons of each batch when I make more.

To make yogurt you need a half a gallon of non-fat milk and 2 teaspoon of live yogurt culture.  Buy unflavored non-fat yogurt and look on the side of the container to make sure that it has live yogurt cultures.  I bought Fage, I’ve also heard that Dannon non-fat has live yogurt cultures, as well.

I have an 8 cup measuring bowl, so I poured 8 cups of milk into the bowl and put it in the microwave to heat to a temperature of 175-180 degrees.  This is much easier than doing it in a saucepan on the stove because you don’t have to constantly watch it.  Paula said that it took 17 minutes in her microwave, in mine it took 18 minutes, 20 seconds to reach a temperature of 175 degrees.

Big_Green_Egg_Digital_ThermometerI have a Polder Digital Thermometer which makes it really simple to tell what temperature your milk is, but a candy thermometer would work just as well. 

I started putting my thermometer into the microwave and testing at 16 minutes, I repeated this several times as I had never done this before and didn’t want it to get too hot.  The next time I do this I will know how long it takes and it will be much easier.

It looked like this when I took it out of the wave.

 

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You need to let this sit and cool to a temperature of between 110-120 degrees, it will take about 30-45 minutes to reach this temperature.  I was anxious to get on with the process, patience is not a virtue for me, so as soon as the thermometer registered 120 degrees I was ready to proceed.  I whisked in 2 level teaspoons of the Fage Unflavored yogurt and went to the next step.

This is where it got tricky for me, I didn’t know how to keep my yogurt at 100 degrees.  I preheated my oven to 170, as low as my temperature allows, for less than a minute, and my temperature had already risen to 110 degrees, so I opened the door until it backed off to 100 degrees.  I left on my oven light, sealed my mixing bowl of yogurt with aluminum foil, wrapped it in a towel and put it in the oven to “ferment.”  Some ovens can be set to 100 degrees, if you’re one of the lucky ones that has that feature this would be much easier to regulate.

It takes anywhere from 6-12 hours to make yogurt, the longer you leave it, the more sour it gets, and I like it mild so I checked mine after 6 hours, and it wasn’t gelatinous, so I put it back into the oven and pulled it after 8 hours.  It still seemed thin, and I was pretty skeptical at this point, but I whisked it, covered it and put it in the refrigerator overnight. 

A lot of people ferment their yogurt overnight, but I made mine mid-day, as I didn’t know how to regulate the temperature.  I found that my oven stayed at a pretty consistent 105 degrees with the light on, occasionally it would start creeping up to 108 and I would panic and open the door until the temperature backed off to 100 degrees.  

This morning I took the yogurt out of the fridge, it still seemed runny, I didn’t whisk it again, I just poured it into my makeshift strainer.  You need a really fine mesh boullon strainer for yogurt, they are pricey $60 on Amazon, but you can pick them up for $30+ on eBay, but I don’t have one so I had to make my own.

I have a strainer that sits over the sink, it’s wide, so I think it takes less time to strain, I lined it with a tea towel, and then put several folded layers of paper towel on top of the towel, as I didn’t want to yogurt to touch the tea towel and let it strain.

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I quickly realized that I didn’t actually need the towel, I used an old one, it looked icky, so I just removed it and it worked fine to let the yogurt drain on the layers of paper towel.  You can also use cheesecloth for this, but then you have to wash it, paper towel is easier, you just toss it.

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You can see that the yogurt has gotten really thick, look at the difference between picture 1 and picture 2, I let it drain for almost 3 hours.

Then I put it in mother’s old stainless steel bowl, my very favorite thing in the kitchen, but you’ve all heard before about how much I love this old bowl, and you can see how thick this is.  You could slice it with a knife, it’s so thick.

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Then I whisked it, and it turned into this fluffy, wonderful yogurt.  Some people add a bit of skim milk at this point to make it even creamier, but I want it really thick, so I didn’t add milk back in.

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I’m going to have a scoop of this on a baked potato tonight with some fresh chives from my garden.  Oh so good!

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I put it in my Ball jar and the finished product yielded a little over two cups.  I’m amazed by the fact that it reduces so much, but you’re taking out all of the liquid (whey) which some people use for different things, they use it instead of water for cookies veggies, for homemade bread, some people even water houseplants with it.

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And here’s the weight, you’re probably thinking “this is a lot of work,” but it seriously isn’t, once you figure out how to do this, it’s going to be really simple.

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If you’re interested in this, Paula has a video, explaining it all.  You can access it here.

Note:  Some recipes called for powdered milk to give added protein and make it richer.  I was going to put it in, but I noticed a notation on salad-in-a-jar website that said she no longer does this, as she likes the texture better without it, so I left it out.

It’s healthy, it’s good for your gut, it’s cheap, it’s totally natural, it’s Yogurt!!!!!!!

Happy Birthday sweet daughter-in-law…

by 👩‍🍳 Cooking With a Southern Vibe in Music City USA 👩‍🍳, February 21, 2012

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John baked Deanna her Hershey’s Perfectly Perfect Chocolate Cake last night for her birthday today.  This is the ultimate chocolate cake, fudgy, moist, it’s the wonderful chocolate cake we all remember from our childhoods, and it is perfect!  My buddy V told me  about it a few years ago, I made it for the family, we we all adored it, and it’s now one of our favorites.

And tonight she requested Pioneer Woman’s Chicken Fried Steak with mashed potatoes, gravy and biscuits.  Oh, be still  my heartRed heart

Happy Birthday Deanna, I wish we were with you to celebrate wth you.  Your father-in-law is absolutely salivating at the thought of that chicken fried steak! 

The absolute WORLD’S BEST Poppyseed Dressing

by 👩‍🍳 Cooking With a Southern Vibe in Music City USA 👩‍🍳, February 10, 2012

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This recipe is serious stuff, the thickest, yummiest, best salad dressing you will ever eat.  My friend Ramona gave the recipe to me years ago, and it’s delightful.  This dressing is nectar of the gods, pinkie swear it is.  You will love this!

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I have modified this by using Splenda instead of sugar.   You can add nuts and fruit to your greens, strawberries, grapes, mandarin oranges, feta cheese, slices of grilled chicken breast is good, too, and it’s wonderful with just onion and mushrooms.  It’s the best salad dressing I’ve ever tasted.  Enjoy  ~ jan

Poppy seed dressing:
3/4 C. (sugar) Splenda -I cut this back a bit, i think 3/4 cup of Splenda is too sweet, so I use a heaping half cup of Splenda
1 t. dry mustard
1/2 C. chopped onion
1 t. salt
1/3 C. balsamic vinegar
1 C. mazola oil
1 1/2 T. poppy seeds - always store poppy seeds in fridge, they get rancid easily, if you have them open in your pantry they are probably rancid, throw them out and buy fresh.

To make dressing:


Whisk together all ingredients until you can no longer feel the sugar grains (because they have dissolved in the liquid) and the whisk leaves a trail in the thickened mixture.

Makes about 3 cups, so you will have leftover dressing.

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It is the color of molasses, and after it’s refrigerated it’s as thick as molasses, it’s just incredible.

NOTE: When I make this, I find it necessary to blend dressing ingredients in my food processor to get the silky smooth, honey like consistency.  If you just whisk it, sometimes it’s a bit gritty.  I add my ingredients and just pour the oil thru the tube until it is incorporated, don’t overmix it or it will be foamy.  You can also do this in the blender, just don’t overblend it.  It should look like the above picture when it’s finished.

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It fits perfectly in a pint jar.  I like to use jars because you can spoon out the amount you want, and since I’m a FoodSaver Fruit Jar Sealing Fanatic, I always seal mine in the fridge to keep it fresh.

Growing onions on your windowsill

by 👩‍🍳 Cooking With a Southern Vibe in Music City USA 👩‍🍳, February 09, 2012

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I’m fascinated by this concept from DIY.  I found it here and decided to try it.  What you are looking at are three scrawny green onion roots.  You just put them in water in a sunny place, change the water every few days and watch them grow.  I have mine on my computer desk in the sunroom with a western exposure.  Here’s more pictures from another blogger who was successful with it. 

I’m pretty skeptical but I will be fun to see if it actually works. 

Egg in a pepper ring

by 👩‍🍳 Cooking With a Southern Vibe in Music City USA 👩‍🍳, February 07, 2012

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Isn’t this a great idea, kind of like “toad in a hole” but with a yellow pepper ring instead of toast.  I saw this idea a couple of weeks ago, but I can’t remember where so I can’t give credit to the original poster, but it worked great and was really yummy.  I microwaved my pepper slice for a minute to soften it, then broke the egg in it to cook.  I flipped mine, but next time I’m going to cover it with a lid so the top cooks without flipping. 

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