Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin: October 2009

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Popcorn Balls

Popcorn Balls
Dorcas Annette Walker

October is National Popcorn Month so I thought I’d give Popcorn Ball recipes for you to enjoy. It wasn’t until I married into the Walker family that I became acquainted with real popcorn eaters. They eat it by the bag, uh, not those little bags the microwave popcorn comes in, but the ole fashion large brown grocery store bags. The first time I saw my husband’s parents filling up an entire brown bag, I thought that the rest of the clan was going to appear. Believe it or not that huge bag of popcorn was just for the four of us and yes it all was consumed. I told my husband later that now I understood why my father-in-law was so hyperactive. He was full of popcorn.

Popcorn was originally discovered by the Native Americans. Popcorn became popular as a snack food in the Great Depression. During World War II, sugar rations slowed down candy production causing Americans to eat more popcorn than before. Today popcorn is one of America’s favorite snacks with US consumption of popcorn at 73 quarts per person each year. One out of every ten Americans is a popcorn fanatic.

Popcorn is a type of corn, which explodes when heated as each kernel contains a tiny drop of water. The expansion of the water causes the corn to pop. Some strains of corn are now cultivated specifically for popping corn. Almost all the popcorn consumed throughout the world is grown in: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio.

Popcorn facts: popcorn can pop up to three feet in the air, the English Corn Laws passed in 1436 were actually about wheat, Colonial housewives served popcorn with sugar and cream for breakfast- the first “puffed” breakfast cereal, January 19th is National Popcorn Day and April 7th is Carmel Popcorn Day, the peak season for popcorn sales is in the fall, and the world’s largest popcorn ball was 12 feet in diameter containing 2,000 pounds of popcorn, 40,000 pounds of sugar, 280 gallons of corn syrup, and 400 gallons of water. Now that’s what you call a popcorn ball!

Popcorn Ball combinations are endless making popcorn a guaranteed snack pleaser for any family as you can mix and match ingredients to please even the fussiest eater in your household. You can make healthy Popcorn Balls by using a variety of dried fruits, cocoanut, and other nuts or load your Popcorn Balls with any small colorful candies, white, chocolate, or butterscotch chips, and mini marshmallows. The sky is the limit. Also any flavor of popcorn can be used as well. Both recipes can make about a dozen popcorn balls.

Popcorn Balls

2 bags of popped pop corn
1 (10 oz) bag of regular marshmallows
1 stick of margarine
¼ c peanut butter (optional)

Microwave marshmallows, margarine, and peanut butter until melted. Add popped corn and any other ingredients. Shape into balls and let harden!

Ole Fashion Carmel Popcorn

2 bags of popped corn
1 stick of margarine
1 c brown sugar
½ c milk

In a small saucepan boil margarine, brown sugar, and milk for five minutes until thickened. Let sit for five minutes and then drizzle over popped corn!

Weekly tip: The best way to store popcorn is in a plastic or glass airtight container as even a 1% drop in moisture will affect the quality of your popped kernels. Avoid storing popcorn in the refrigerator!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcaswalker@twlakes.net. For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com

Davy Crockett Brownies

Dorcas Annette Walker

While up in Kentucky I came across Davy Crockett Brownies. The ingredients for these brownies are as varied as the man himself. David Crockett, born here in Tennessee, is celebrated as a legend, American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier, and politician. He roamed throughout most of Tennessee and parts of Kentucky as a backwoodsman, hunter, and trapper, who died at the Battle of the Alamo.

It was here in the mountains of Tennessee that my husband was introduced to raccoon hunting. A couple of fellows in our church were avid coon hunters. They raised coon dogs and competed among each other which hound was first-rate and the best spots to hunt coon. They assured my husband that it only took a couple of hours to coon hunt and they would easily be back by midnight. Invariably though, every time they went out into the woods to hunt coon they managed to get lost and wouldn’t get home until two or three in the morning after walking up and down innumerable mountainsides and wading through all kinds of brush and briars. One morning they brought home a record-breaking sized coon, but didn’t have the slightest idea where they were when they caught it. One hunter’s excuse, “When you get forty and plum and don’t know where you’re at that’s when everything happens and the dogs strike a trail.”

One of the hunters had a blue-tick hound named Ole Blue that he tried in vain to train. Ole Blue had a habit of sitting and barking at empty trees. His owner would threaten the dog by saying, “Blue, you come away from that tree or I’m going to sandpaper your rear end.” When the dog wouldn’t move his owner would calmly break off a branch, go over to the dog, and start switching the hound saying, “I told you I’d sandpaper your rear end for you if you didn’t get off that tree and come on.” Another time as they idled along an old road in a pickup waiting for the hounds to start baying signaling that the dogs had treed a coon, Ole Blue, kept stopping in the middle of the road and squatting instead of going into the woods and hunting. His owner told him, “Blue, old scudder, you stop in the road one more time and I’m going to run you over.” Ole Blue stopped and squatted again and the owner, who was driving, took off after the dog with his pickup. Ole Blue headed for the bank to escape frantically clawing its way up a steep embankment with the pickup truck roaring right behind him as his owner yelled, “I told you I’d run you over if you didn’t get out of the road and go to hunting.” The owner finally sold Ole Blue to another hunter in disgust. Ironically Ole Blue became a first-rate hunting coon dog and even won some ribbons.

My Davy Crockett Brownies are a soft moist brownie filled with chocolate chips and crunchy nuts that are quick to make up. These Davy Crockett Brownies take only ten minutes to prepare and this recipe makes twelve brownies.

Davy Crockett Brownies

In a large bowl beat together:
2 c self-rising flour
1 c sugar
1 c br sugar
½ c vegetable oil
3 eggs
1½ tsp vanilla
Then add:
1 c oatmeal
1 c chocolate chips
1 c nuts (your choice)

Thoroughly mix all the ingredients together and pour the stiff batter into a 9 x 13 greased baking dish. Bake at 350º for 30 minutes. Cool and serve!

Weekly tip: If you always spray your baking pans or trays over the sink with your cooking spray you won’t mess up your counters!

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Whoopie Pies

Dorcas Annette Walker

During the school year bake sales were popular years ago when I attended school. Every family would donate homemade baked items to sell to raise money for some school project. Baked sales were always exciting as us school kids had the privilege of selling the baked goods at a designated spot with a few motherly souls keeping an eye on things. Not only did the experience teach us how to count money and give change, but we learned the art of public relations, salesmanship, working as a team, patience, and the rewards of hard work. It also was an opportunity for gaining experience at home in the kitchen. Today car washes and selling Girl Scout cookies seem to have replaced the old fashioned bake sales. I feel sorry for school kids today that don’t get the chance to participate in a bake sale. One item that always was popular and a big seller at bake sales was Whoopie Pies.

Whoopie Pies are a baked item made of two, round, cake-like cookies with a sweet creamy frosting sandwiched between them. Whoopie Pies are considered a Pennsylvania Dutch tradition with its origins in the Amish Lancaster County. These cake-like goodies were considered a special treat made from leftover batter. According to Amish legend, when children or farmers would find a Whoopie Pie in their lunch they would shout “whoopee”. Whoopie Pies spread up to New England and today they are one of Maine’s best known and loved comfort foods. In Maine Whoopie Pies are about the size of a large hamburger and eaten with a glass of milk. The original and most common flavor is chocolate, but today Whoopie Pies can be made in almost any flavor of your choice. I found recipes of other flavors besides chocolate: mint, gingerbread, pumpkin, red velvet, banana, orange, lemon, chocolate chip, maple, oatmeal, peanut butter, raspberry, strawberry, and chocolate/peanut butter.

My Whoopie Pies recipe has the original chocolate flavor with a modern twist. Instead of using the old homemade recipe of several ingredients, I substitute a cake mix thus saving time. Also by using a cake mix different flavors of Whoopie Pies are instantly available and easier to make for a beginner. These Whoopie Pies have a soft chocolate texture with a creamy filling that is finger lick’n good. Preparation time for my Whoopie Pies is about thirty-five minutes (not counting baking time) and this recipe makes eighteen Whoopie Pies.

Whoopie Pies

1 Devil’s Food Cake Mix (or any other flavor)
1 c cold water
3 eggs
¼ c cooking oil

Slowly mix all ingredients until combined then beat on high for two minutes. Place heaping tablespoons of batter on a greased tray. Bake at 350º for fifteen minutes. Transfer baked cookies on a clean towel and let cool.

Frosting:
½ c self-rising flour
1 c milk
1 c sugar
1 stick of margarine
½ c shortening

In a small saucepan cook flour and milk stirring with a Wisk until thick and smooth. Let cool. In a mixing bowl combine sugar, margarine, shortening, and cooled flour paste. Beat on high for three minutes until the frosting is smooth and creamy. Spread a heaping tablespoon of frosting between two chocolate cookies. Wrap up each Whoopie Pie in saran wrap!

Weekly tip: To transfer a heaping spoonful of batter without the batter dripping everywhere: dip the spoon into the batter until it is submerged, lift up, twist the spoon completely in a circle by rolling the handle quickly around in your fingers, and then transfer the batter to its designated spot!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Apple Danish

Dorcas Annette Walker

The month of October heralds autumn at its best here in the Tennessean Mountains. The warm temperatures drop, frost arrives, and leaves change into many hues setting the mountains ablaze with brilliant colors. Gardens die and the last bustle of canning and preserving is done to save remaining crops. Apples are in abundance and there is nothing like the tantalizing aroma of spicy apple butter cooking slowly or apple pie filling being made. While I’m busy in the kitchen I always like to pop something in the oven. When I work with apples I usually end up making an Apple Danish somewhere along the line.

Here are some apple facts for you. Apples were the favorite fruit of the ancient Greeks and Romans and have been around since 6500 B.C. The pilgrims planted the first apple tree in Massachusetts. In colonial times apples were called winter banana or melt-in-your-mouth. The crabapple is the only apple native to North America. 2,500 varieties of apples are grown in all fifty states making apples available year round. The Red Delicious apple is the most popular apple here in the United States. The apple blossom is the state flower of Michigan and Arkansas. It is the state fruit of: Minnesota, Rhode Island, New York, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Illinois. One out of every four apples harvested in the U.S. is exported.

Apples are members of the rose family. Most apple blossoms are pink when they first open, but gradually fade to white. Apple trees can grow over 40 feet high and live over 100 years. Apple trees take four to five years to bear and it takes the energy of 50 leaves to produce one apple. Today most apples are still picked by hand. Fresh apples float because 25% of their volume is air. The largest apple weighed three pounds. The longest apple peel was created by a New York sixteen year old girl in 1976. The peel was 172 feet and 4 inches long.

Americans eat 19.6 pounds of fresh apples annually. Apples are fat, sodium, and cholesterol free; a medium apple contains 80 calories and 5 grams of fiber. Don’t peel your apple as two-thirds of the fiber and antioxidants are found in the peel. Two pounds of apples make a one-inch pie. A bushel of apples will yield 20-24 quarts of applesauce while it takes 36 apples to create one gallon of cider.

Apple Danish

3 c self-rising flour
1 c shortening
¼ c sugar
1 egg
½ c cold milk
2 qt apple pie filling
2 c powdered sugar
¼ c shortening
1 tsp vanilla
¼ c milk

To make the pastry mix together the first five ingredients until a ball forms. Divide in half and roll dough out thin in a rectangular shape on a floured surface. Place the crust in a greased large tray. Spread the apple pie filling over the crust. Roll out the second crust to match, fold in fourths, and unfold on top of the apple filling. Bake at 350º for 45 minutes.

Glaze:

Beat together in a small bowl the powdered sugar, shortening, vanilla, and milk until smooth. Ice the baked crust with the frosting and garnish with cinnamon! Preparation time is around 25 minutes (not counting baking time) and this recipe makes 24 pieces.

Weekly tip: To ripen an apple store at room temperature in a paper bag. Otherwise keep apples in the refrigerator or cool cellar. Just make sure that the apples are firm and don’t have any spots or bruising!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Cheesy Sausage Burgers

Dorcas Annette Walker

It was another night following a church revival and we were at the parsonage for a snack afterwards. I was in the kitchen helping the pastor’s wife and immediately became intrigued when she made up a batch of Cheesy Sausage Burgers. Not only did they taste delicious and were filling, but this snack was so simple to make. I quickly jotted down the recipe and have used it ever since.

The word sausage comes from a Latin root meaning prepared by salt as in the ancient time people did not have refrigeration to preserve their meat. Sausage is classified as prepared food consisting of ground meat, fat, salt, and spices. The Greeks had a comic play entitled “The Sausage” around 500 BC and mention of sausages date back to China in 589 BC. Sausage is considered a traditional food preserving technique using curing, drying, cooking, or smoking. Different countries and cities developed and became known for their own type of sausages. Today three European countries are famous for their sausages: Germany, France, and Hungary. Sausage making has become an art. Over 200 different varieties of sausages are made in the United States alone. Sausage recipes also include seafood and vegetarian blends.

Sausage facts:
- Hot dogs are the most common pre-cooked sausages in the United States and Canada.
- Sausages were called bangers during World War II because they contained so much water they exploded when fried.
- 83% of sausages are made of pork.
- More sausages are eaten on Saturday than any other day of the week; 18% eaten for breakfast and 44% in the evening.
- Every day 5 million Britons will eat sausages.
- Sausage is the ultimate Finnish fast food.
- Seafood sausages are popular in Asia.

My Cheesy Sausage Burgers are finger-licking good with a melting cheesy spicy sausage taste. These burgers are very versatile as you can use any type of sausage from mild to hot or substitute hamburger for the sausage, use any kind of cheese whiz or dip and for the crust bread, buns, or biscuits can work. Leftover Cheesy Sausage Burgers can been frozen and microwaved for later. Preparation time for my Cheesy Sausage Burgers is twenty minutes and this recipe makes one dozen.

Cheesy Sausage Burgers

6 hamburger buns
1 lb of sausage
1(16 oz) jar of cheddar cheese dip

Brown the sausage in an iron skillet until crumbly, drain, and add cheese. Heat until the cheese melted. Then divide and spread the cheesy sausage mixture on top of halved hamburger buns. Bake at 350º for 15 minutes. Serve hot!

Weekly tip: Salad tip #4: Allow greens to stand at room temperature no longer than 15 minutes before serving. Tossed salads with dressing should be served immediately or add the salad dressing at the table. Too much dressing will also make salads soggy!