St. Patrick's Mint Brownies

St. Patrick’s Mint Brownies
Dorcas Annette Walker

I’m always collecting recipes that catch my eye that I stash in a pile to try out sometime. While browsing through my recipes, I saw a recipe for mint brownies and my imagination kicked in. I changed the brownie recipe to honor St. Patrick’s Day and whipped up a batch using my husband as a taste tester. He didn’t want to stop with one brownie. I had to admit these brownies were not only colorful but luscious too.

St. Patrick’s Day honors St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland who died on March 17th. Interestingly enough St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated with greater fanfare here in America than over in Ireland. The total number of immigrants from Ireland lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent resident since 1820 is 4.8 million. The first St. Patrick’s parade, made up of Irish soldiers serving in the British colonial army, took place in New York on March 17, 1762. In 1995 the Irish government struck by the strange paradox of America, Canada, and Australia making a bigger holiday out of St. Patrick’s Day than the Emerald Isle itself began a national campaign to transform St. Patrick’s Day into an authentic Irish celebration. Corn beef and cabbage is the traditional Irish meal for St. Patrick’s Day. Today people celebrate St. Patrick’s Day by wearing the color green, shamrocks, and clover with three leaves in memory of Ireland.

Brownies are easy to make as a quick dessert or snack. These St. Patrick’s Mint Brownies are rich and moist topped off with a cool tasting creamy icing. Preparation time for my St. Patrick’s Mint Brownies is close to 45 minutes (baking time included) and serves around sixteen.

St. Patrick’s Mint Brownies

1 box of Brownie Mix
1pkg thin chocolate mints
Mix up and bake a batch of brownies as directed. As soon as brownies are done spread a layer of chocolate mints on top. Cover and let the mints melt.

Icing:

2 c powdered sugar
½ c shortening
¼ c milk
¼ tsp peppermint extract
¼ tsp almond extract
couple drops of green food coloring
Beat together with Wisk until smooth. Spread over cooled brownies. Cut into squares and serve!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a freelance writer, author, columnist, and photographer from Jamestown, TN. If you have any cooking tips or favorite recipes you are welcome to contact me by mail at: Dorcas Walker, 929 Wildwood Lane, Jamestown, TN 38556 or email me at: dorcaswalker@yahoo.com. For more information about the Walker family and Dorcas’ books check out her website at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com or htpp://dorcasannettewalker.blogspot.com for other Creative Mountain Cookin recipes.

Split Pea Soup

Split Pea Soup
Dorcas Annette Walker

March is always unpredictable weather wise. The month tantalizes a person with warm spring days that make you itch to get outside and begin gardening, only for the weather to turn wintry and cold overnight. You never know from day to day just what the weather will be like. For a blustery chilly day Split Pea Soup is a great dish to warm you up and tide you over until the weather turns warm again. In honor of St. Patrick’s Day I’m going to be using green foods in my recipes this month.

Split Pea Soup is made of dried, split peas, which have a great source of folate, fiber, iron, and protein as well as being low in fat. Here in the United States Split Pea Soup is merely one of many kinds of pea soups. Some people eat Split Pea Soup with corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day to celebrate the color green. England gave us a well-known nursery rhyme about pea soup, which appeared first in 1765; Pease porridge hot. Pease porridge cold. Pease porridge in the pot. Nine days old. Pease is the archaic form of the word pea. Pea soup is a common dish throughout Germany and the Netherlands often containing bacon, sausage, or smoked pork and eaten with rye bread. According to one source the Greeks and Romans were selling hot pea soup in the streets of Athens around 500 to 400 BC. The second week in November is National Split Pea Soup week. One cookbook alone features over one hundred and fifty recipes using split peas.

My first introduction to Split Pea Soup was at my grandmother’s table. She would simmer on the stove all afternoon a huge pot of Split Pea Soup filling the house with a mouth-watering aroma. As a finishing touch my grandmother would drop spoon biscuits into the boiling soup that would rise to the top and puff up. It was a hardy and filling dish. My Split Pea Soup recipe takes three hours to make serves around eight, and leftovers can be frozen. You can also make Split Pea Soup in a crock-pot on a busy day. Put in all ingredients of my recipe (reduce water to fit crock-pot) in a crock-pot and cook on high 4 to 5 hours or on low 8 to 10 hours until all ingredients are cooked and soft.

Split Pea Soup

Take one meaty ham bone and cover with around 16 c water in large pot.
(I freeze leftover ham bones and meat scraps for soups.)

Add:
1 lb of dried split peas
1 tb dried onions or 1 small fresh onion diced
1 tsp salt.
Bring to a rolling boil and cook for 2 hours stirring often.

Add to soup:
5 carrots peeled and sliced
4 medium sized potatoes peeled and diced
Cook until soft and simmer for another hour or until ready to serve. (Add water if soup gets too thick.) Serve hot with homemade bread or rolls. Garnish soup with carrot curls!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a freelance writer, author, columnist, and photographer from Jamestown, TN. If you have any cooking tips or favorite recipes you are welcome to contact me by mail at: Dorcas Walker, 929 Wildwood Lane, Jamestown, TN 38556 or email me at: dorcaswalker@yahoo.com. For more information about the Walker family and Dorcas’ books check out her website at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com or htpp://dorcasannettewalker.blogspot.com for other Creative Mountain Cookin recipes.

Ole Fashion Pickled Beets

Ole Fashion Pickled Beets
Dorcas Annette Walker

This month I’ve used recipes with red foods. For the last week I’ve chosen pickled beets that can be used as a salad. I usually can pickled red beets during the summer to store in my pantry. For those of you who don’t have pickled beets on hand I’ve broken down my pickled beet recipe using store-bought canned red beets that is quick and easy to make. A family favorite is adding hard boiled eggs to the pickled beets. Every time my sister and I make up red beet eggs we are reminded of our mother and her colored eggs.

Like I’ve said before our mother didn’t do a lot of cooking as we grew up due to working fulltime to keep our family going. Once in a great while my mother would make up pickled beets with hard-boiled eggs as something special. One Easter she decided to make up pickled beets and eggs as a secret to go along with the Easter dinner. My sister and I were thrilled. My father’s background was Mennonite and we were raised very strict about observing holidays. No Christmas trees or Easter egg hunts were allowed in our home. I’ll never forget the look of triumph as my mother brought the dish of pickled beets and eggs to the table with a flourish to crown our simple meal and set it down before my father. He took one look and sternly asked, “What is this?” My mother looked surprised and replied, “Why pickled beets and eggs, dear.” My father frowned and pointed an accusing finger at the dish. “We don’t believe in coloring eggs for Easter. How worldly can you get?” In trying to make our Easter dinner festive, my mother had done the unthinkable. She had colored eggs! My father refused to eat the colored eggs and wouldn’t touch the pickled beets. Even today, years later with my father gone, every time I go to eat a pickled egg I remember my mother’s colored eggs.

The garden red beet is one of the most important vegetables due to its high fiber including riboflavin, iron, vitamins A, and C. Wisconsin, New York, and Texas are primary beet producing states, although beets are grown extensively from Michigan to Idaho and out in California. Beets are grown during the cooler months to yield dark red roots and is used as crop rotation. While the red beet is mostly grown for its fleshly root both the foliage and roots of the red beet are edible. Four distinct types of beets are grown. The leaf beet, known as Swiss chard, with its leafy green tops are highly nutritious. The mangel-wurzel red beet is a succulent feed for livestock. The root is used as fodder in Europe and Canada. The foliage is also used as feed. The sugar beet with selective breeding provides about one third of the world’s commercial sugar production. The extracted beet sucrose, dissolved in water, is refined and granulated- much like sugar cane- to make sugar.

Ole Fashion Pickled Beets

Place in glass bowl:
2 cans of red beets with juice
Microwave for two minutes or until dissolved:
1 c sugar
1 c vinegar (white or dark)
Add to red beets and stir. Mix in:
¼ tsp cloves
For colorful red beet eggs add peeled, hard-boiled eggs to pickled beets. Cover and chill for a couple of hours before serving. My Ole Fashion Pickled Beets recipe takes around five minutes to prepare and this recipe serves six.

Dorcas Annette Walker is a freelance writer, author, columnist, and photographer from Jamestown, TN. If you have any cooking tips or favorite recipes you are welcome to contact me by mail at: Dorcas Walker, 929 Wildwood Lane, Jamestown, TN 38556 or email me at: dorcaswalker@yahoo.com. For more information about the Walker family and Dorcas’ books check out her website at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com or htpp://dorcasannettewalker.blogspot.com for other Creative Mountain Cookin recipes.

Homemade Chili

Homemade Chili
Dorcas Annette Walker

Cold winter days invariably finds me at my kitchen stove making up a big pot of chili. Not only does a bowl of chili warm up one’s insides, but there is something tantalizing in the aroma of handling dried herbs that brings back summertime memories of growing gardens and fresh flowers. As I mix and cook with herbs I am encircled in a cocoon of warmth despite frigid temperatures outside my kitchen window.

There are many debates and contests on the best way to make chili as well as heated arguments on exactly where chili originated. The earliest description of chili written down was by J. C. Clopper of Houston, Texas. General consensus dates the beginning of chili to the mid 1800’s with the Texas trail cooks who had to feed hungry cowboys using whatever ingredients was on hand; beef, buffalo, venison or rattlesnake that they mixed with chilies, wild garlic, onion, and herbs. Nonperishable trail food was made by pounding dried meat, fat, Chile peppers, and salt into chili bricks that could be soaked in water and cooked up making a hearty stew. One tale is told of a range cook who collected wild oregano, Chile peppers, wild garlic, and onions to make his chili. To ensure he had the native spices wherever he went he planted gardens along the paths of cattle drives in patches of mesquite to protect his herbs from marauding cattle. On the next trip he would harvest his herbs hanging peppers, onions, and oregano to dry on the side of his chuck wagon blazing a trail of spicy gardens across Texas.

My introduction to making homemade chili came shortly after I was married when a friend’s cousin came to visit the college campus, where my husband and I lived, from a culinary school up in New York. He cooked with herbs I had never heard of before and loved to experiment. As soon as we met I was intrigued. When he found out that I cooked mainly from scratch he began asking me all kinds of questions about my recipes. The rest of his visit consisted of one big cook-off in my kitchen where we huddled over the stove all day experimenting with mixing various herbs, debating the merits of different blends of foods, and trying out new recipes that my husband and his college friends devoured. It was pure bliss. All too soon his visit ended. I’ve long forgotten the fellow’s name, but my love and fascination with herbs has stuck throughout the years.

Chili recipes are as diversified as microwaves. No two are the same. Everywhere I’ve traveled each bowl of chili tastes different. Cooking up a batch of homemade chili is an excellent time to experiment with herbs personalizing the recipe to match your taste buds. My Homemade Chili recipe is considered mild. Preparation time for my Homemade Chili is around an hour and this recipe makes almost two gallons (around 28 servings). Chili freezes well and makes a ready-made meal for busy days. A slice of homemade bread or hot cornmeal muffins goes well with a bowl of chili.

Homemade Chili

Brown 2 lbs of hamburger in the bottom of a two gallon cooking pot with:
1 tb dried chopped onion or 1 small fresh chopped onion
1 tsp garlic salt
shake in salt and pepper

Add:
6 quarts pureed tomatoes
2 cans of hot chili beans
¼ c sugar
1 tb dried parsley
1 tb dried oregano
1 tsp crushed dried red pepper
Bring to a boil and cook for at least an hour (cook longer if you prefer a thicker soup). May garnish with sour cream and shredded cheddar cheese!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a freelance writer, author, columnist, and photographer from Jamestown, TN. If you have any cooking tips or favorite recipes you are welcome to contact me by mail at: Dorcas Walker, 929 Wildwood Lane, Jamestown, TN 38556 or email me at: dorcaswalker@yahoo.com. For more information about the Walker family and Dorcas’ books check out her website at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com or htpp://dorcasannettewalker.blogspot.com for other Creative Mountain Cookin recipes.

Lovers Raspberry Cream Pie

Lovers Raspberry Cream Pie
Dorcas Annette Walker



Valentine’s Day is the time of year when thoughts revolve around ones sweetheart. In our culture hearts, valentines, roses, and candy, have become symbols of expressions of love. I remember as a young bride baking a heart shaped cake. Later on I made a red velvet cake for Valentine’s Day. Somewhere along the line my valentine cakes evolved into a red, cherry cheese pie. Then I discovered what I call Lovers Raspberry Cream Pie and fell instantly in love.

Some claim that our valentine holiday originated from the pagan Roman fertility celebration where boys drew names of girls and the couple exchanged gifts on the festival’s day. Another theory is that Valentine’s Day began with the Norse who had a St. Galantin- the G pronounced with a V sound- while the French say that the word valentine comes from their word galantine meaning lover or gallant. Germany is credited with creating fancy elaborate borders in the eighteenth century that make up our valentine cards today. Italy had a spring festival where young singles gathered in gardens to listen to love poetry and romantic music. In England it was the custom for young men to draw a girl’s name to be his valentine for the next year. In 1477 Margery Brews from England sent the oldest known written valentine to John Paston. The celebration of Valentine’s Day did not come to America until 1629 against strong opposition by church elders. One hundred years passed before it became common to leave valentine notes at the doorstep of your sweetheart.

Red raspberries are perfect for a valentine dessert with their bold red color. They belong to the rose family and are considered a delicate fruit. The scent of the raspberry has been described as being the most perfumed among its sort of fruits and its flavor as rich and exotic. In medieval Europe the juice of the wild berries were used for paintings and manuscripts. By the seventeenth century British gardens abounded with berries. The settlers dried berries for preservation and ease of transportation. George Washington cultivated berries in his extensive gardens and by 1867 over forty different varieties were known. Today the leading producers of raspberries are Washington, Oregon, and California with Washington producing sixty percent of the crop topping nearly 70,000,000 pounds per year.

Today I have my own raspberry canes. They are hearty, easy to grow, and will produce continuously up to the first frost. I love freezing raspberries fresh off the vine to use throughout the year. Lovers Raspberry Cream Pie is an easy dessert to make. The smooth, creamy filling is topped by a distinctive raspberry topping making it a feast for both the eye and taste buds. Preparation time for the Lovers Raspberry Cream Pie equals around fifteen to twenty minutes and serves eight.

Lovers Raspberry Cream Pie

1 baked deep dish 9 inch pie shell

Raspberry Topping
½ pint red raspberries
¾ c sugar
2 tb corn syrup
½ c water
3 tb cornstarch mixed with ¼ c water
Cook in saucepan until thick and clear. Set aside to cool.

Cream Filling
2 pkg cream cheese
1 c sugar
8 oz container cool whip
Beat together with mixer until smooth- will be stiff. Spoon in bottom of cooled pie shell. Pour cooled raspberry topping over cream filling. Chill for 2 hours before serving.

Dorcas Annette Walker is a freelance writer, author, columnist, and photographer from Jamestown, TN. If you have any cooking tips or favorite recipes you are welcome to contact me by mail at: Dorcas Walker, 929 Wildwood Lane, Jamestown, TN 38556 or email me at: dorcaswalker@yahoo.com. For more information about the Walker family and Dorcas’ books check out her website at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com or htpp://dorcasannettewalker.blogspot.com for other Creative Mountain Cookin recipes.

Valentine Swan Cream Puffs

Valentine Swan Cream Puffs
Dorcas Annette Walker

Cream puffs are an old fashioned delicacy that you don’t see around today. The filled donut has taken its place in our culture. Even the dictionary’s definition of a cream puff, a sweet pastry made of a flaky shell filled with whipped cream and dusted with powered sugar, sounds more like filled donut- quite different from the old fashioned cream puffs of yesterday. Recipes for cream puffs are almost non existent.

History wise the Wisconsin State Fair has been home of the original cream puff- an icon dessert food at the fair- for eighty-two years made by the State Fair Dairy Bakery. This bakery sells forty-five cream puffs per minute through six windows. They sell nearly 400,000 cream puffs during the eleven day fair and generate close to one million dollars.

My introduction to cream puffs came as a youngster when my mother decided to make some for a church dinner. The reason it remains vivid in my mind is because my mother, who worked full-time as a nurse to keep our family afloat due to my father being handicapped from severe hemophilia, rarely baked. Making cream puffs was quite a departure from her usual cake. My mother’s announcement clued my sister and me in that this was something we did not want to miss. Seeing her look of concentration, as she studied the recipe muttering to herself, increased the importance of cream puffs in our mind. No scientist ever measured out ingredients with more precision than my mother did that day. The fact that we could only stay in the kitchen if we stayed out of her way and didn’t talk made us more determined not to miss a thing. First she cooked something on the stove, mixed in flour, and then added eggs. The way she kept looking worriedly from her recipe to the mixture in the pan intrigued us. Next she spooned globs of sticky dough on cookie sheets in neat rows. Then instead of leaving the kitchen while the cream puffs were baking, my mother hovered near the oven, rechecking her recipe, peeking in the oven, and frowning at the clock. My sister and I giggled behind our hands. This was better than a cake any day. With bated breath we watched her pull the first batch out of the oven. The cream puffs were doughy. The next batch was overdone. Finally with great relief the third batch was pronounced just right. By the time the cooked pudding gave the finishing touch to the cream puffs my mother’s nerves were at the breaking point. It was my mother’s first and final attempt at making cream puffs.

My Valentine Swan Cream Puffs are a mixture of the old shell recipe using instant pudding and cool whip for the filling. These cream puffs make excellent place settings as decorations. I’ve used them at banquets and special dinners. Not only do these mini culinary masterpieces look good, but they also taste delicious. The couple hours spent in the kitchen preparing Valentine Swan Cream Puffs is well worth the effort. This recipe makes about fifteen swan cream puffs.

Valentine Swan Cream Puffs

Bring to a boil in a saucepan:
1 c water
½ c margarine
Stir in vigorously using a wire Wisk until mixture thickens:
1 c self-rising four
Remove from heat and beat in four eggs until smooth.
Drop by tablespoon on greased cookie sheet flattening the top for bodies. To make the heads squeeze out dough- using an icing bag- to make the shape of a question mark on a separate greased baking sheet. Bake at 375º until beads of moisture are gone. Bodies: 30 minutes; heads: 10 minutes.

Filling
Mix together:
1 box instant vanilla pudding
1 ¼ c milk
Add:
8 oz container of cool whip
½ tsp almond flavoring

To make Valentine Swan Cream Puffs:
When cool cut off the tops of the bodies and fill with pudding. Stick head at front. Use icing for eyes. Cut the top piece in two lengthwise for wings. Stick wings in pudding on either side of body. Garnish using a valentine doily!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a freelance writer, author, columnist, and photographer from Jamestown, TN. If you have any cooking tips or favorite recipes you are welcome to contact me by mail at: Dorcas Walker, 929 Wildwood Lane, Jamestown, TN 38556 or email me at: dorcaswalker@yahoo.com. For more information about the Walker family and Dorcas’ books check out her website at: www.dorcasannettewalker.com or htpp://dorcasannettewalker.blogspot.com for other Creative Mountain Cookin recipes.