Poor Man's Steak & Gravy

Poor Man’s Steak & Gravy
Dorcas Annette Walker

For Father’s Day I am going to repeat a favorite recipe that all the guy chefs have responded to the most and something that my fellows love as well. All the men in the Walker clan have enormous appetites when it comes to food. Something I quickly discovered when a couple of weeks after getting married part of the family arrived and spent most of the summer with us. Thankfully, although I was only seventeen years old, I had grown up cooking and enjoyed spending time in the kitchen. Even so I wasn’t prepared for the Walker appetites. I’ll never forget the first meal. Wanting to make a good impression on my in-laws, I got out my largest cooking pots, and went to work carefully setting the table with my best dishes. With the meal prepared and dessert finished I summoned everyone to the table. My confident smile disappeared when the food barely made it around the table. I felt guilty that I couldn’t offer seconds, but breathed a sigh of relief that I had made a cake for dessert. To my amazement the entire cake (which in our family lasted for over a week) disappeared just as fast. The couple pieces left from the initial round were fought over and eaten. With loud praises for my cooking ringing in my ears, I sat in stunned silence at the deserted table staring at all the empty plates. Doubling my recipes was useless against the Walker clan’s huge appetites. I decided on the spot to triple or quad-triple them.

It was my mother, who gave me the original recipe for Poor Man’s Steak & Gravy. The only problem was that sometimes in my tight schedule of traveling with my husband and getting company soon after arriving back home I would plan to make Poor Man’s Steak & Gravy only to forget to prepare it the night before. One day as I was frantically racking my brains for something else to fix, I browsed through my freezer and I spotted a box of frozen hamburgers. Presto! A light bulb went off in my head. Why couldn’t I use frozen hamburgers instead? No one seemed to notice the difference. It was a quick and easy version of the original Poor Man’s Steak & Gravy recipe and became an all-time favorite. I discovered that frozen hamburgers stick together better than the original version of raw hamburger mixed with crackers when cooked. You can also fix this recipe in a crock pot. Just brown the hamburgers and pour the liquid ingredients over the meat. Poor Man’s Steak & Gravy always brings a smile to my fellow’s faces every time I serve it even though I’ve made it endless times. Preparation time for the Poor Man’s Steak & Gravy takes around an hour and this recipe serves four.

Poor Man’s Steak & Gravy

4 frozen hamburger patties
½ c self-rising flour
3 tb shortening
salt & pepper
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can water
1 can milk

Melt shortening in a large iron skillet. Roll hamburgers in flour and brown. Shake on salt and pepper. Mix together soup, water, and milk. Pour over browned meat and simmer for thirty minutes. Serve with mashed potatoes, stove-top dressing, and a vegetable!

Weekly tip: Always freeze meat after buying it at the store unless you plan on using it up the next day. Not only will this prevent the meat from spoiling, but you can buy larger packs on sale as well!

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.webs.com

Hardy Man's Biscuits & Gravy

Hardy Man’s Biscuits & Gravy
Dorcas Annette Walker

All you have to do to get my husband, son, and son-in-law drooling is to tell them that you are making biscuits and gravy for breakfast. I confess the problem is that I am not a big breakfast cook. It’s all my husband’s fault of course. I was prepared when I got married to faithfully get up every morning and cook breakfast for my husband. Imagine my shock when I found out that Dana didn’t eat breakfast. Just between you and me, it also was a relief as first thing in the morning the last thing I want to eat is something that will weigh heavy on the stomach and be full of cholesterol. Instead I always start my day off with a bowl of cereal.

Six years later we moved into the mountains of Tennessee and Dana was introduced to the mountain style breakfast of biscuits and gravy. Suddenly he felt like he had been deprived all his life. By then I was stuck in my morning routine of eating cereal with the kids. Like a good wife I also was concerned about my husband’s weight problem. So biscuits and gravy became reserved for special occasions. I began taking notes and talking with different mountain cooks in order to make my brown gravy taste like theirs. My daughter grew up and married Granny’s grandson, who is known for her gravy and biscuits. One of the first things Dawn set out to do after she was settled in her own home was learn how to make biscuits and gravy like Granny. Then my son married and his mother-in-law makes biscuits and gravy every Sunday morning. So even though my children were not raised on biscuits and gravy they somehow survived. With today’s hectic work schedules most mountain families now only prepare biscuits and gravy on weekends.

My Hardy Man’s Biscuits & Gravy is a filling mountain breakfast that will bring a big smile of satisfaction to the man of your house. Some serve fried eggs and potatoes along with the biscuits and gravy. You can also fold in small pieces of bacon, sausage, or shredded cheddar cheese to the biscuits before baking for a special treat. Using store biscuits saves time and what I used in the Hardy Man’s Biscuits & Gravy. Preparation time for my Hardy Man’s Biscuits & Gravy is about thirty-five minutes and this recipe serves four.

Hardy Man’s Biscuits & Gravy

1 (12 oz) pkg pork sausage- any brand
1 (16 oz) can jumbo buttermilk biscuits
½ c self-rising flour
4 c milk
½ tsp salt
pepper

Cut the pkg of sausage into ten pieces and fry in a large iron skillet until brown. Drain on a plate with a paper towel and cover. Place the biscuits on a baking sheet and bake at 350º for fifteen minutes until golden brown. Meanwhile stir the flour with the sausage grease and brown. Add milk, salt, and pepper to taste. Stir briskly until smooth and bring to a boil until thickened. Serve hot over biscuits and with sausage!

Weekly tip: The mountain women use the metal spatula that was used for frying and turning the sausage to also stir the gravy as well!

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.webs.com

Five Minute Pork N Beans

Five Minute Pork N Beans
Dorcas Annette Walker

Continuing through the month of June I am going to give recipes catering to the fellows that are some favorites of my guys and are easy to make. Since my husband is a hardy meat eater most of the recipes will feature some kind of meat. I have to confess that I didn’t have a written recipe for my Five Minute Pork N Beans until now. I had to make up a batch of my pork and beans in order to write down the exact measurements. Throughout the years I have tweaked ingredients around -with my family member’s critiques- until I achieved what I remembered of my grandmother’s homemade baked beans- she also didn’t use a recipe.

I’ve made baked beans from scratch for years, but it is a long process as you have to first soak the beans, then cook them, flavor the beans, and finally bake them- unless you skip the cooking time and add more hours of baking. Since I often found myself running short on time when my kids were small I figured that there had to be a way of using canned beans as a shortcut without sacrificing the taste of homemade baked beans so I began to experiment around. When my daughter, who only goes by exact measurements as she cooks, got married and wanted my recipe for pork and beans she was quite frustrated when I told her that all you had to do was pour in some catsup until it changed the color, add a dab of mustard, sprinkle on some brown sugar, pour in some syrup until it tasted right, cut up the hotdogs, and bring to a boil. My son also wanted more precise instructions when he called me the other day so I decided it was time to write down a recipe for my pork and beans.

My Five Minute Pork N Beans dish is perfect for picnics or family reunions, but is also great year round with its old fashioned taste of homemade baked beans. You can add fried hamburger or bacon for an extra special meat lover’s delight or pop the pork and beans into the oven baking for a couple of minutes to produce a crusty top. Five Minute Pork N Beans is good to eat hot or cold and make great leftovers- if there are any left over. You might want to double the recipe. Preparation time for my Five Minute Pork N Beans is only five minutes and this recipe serves six.

Five Minute Pork N Beans

2 (16 oz) cans of pork & beans (any brand)
1 (12 oz) pkg hot dogs (any brand) cut into ½ inch pieces
¼ c catsup
¼ c brown sugar
¼ c dark syrup or molasses
1 tsp mustard

Mix all the ingredients together in a large microwaveable bowl. Heat in the microwave for five minutes. Stir and serve. You can garnish with bacon bits if desired!

Weekly tip: Whenever measuring brown sugar for a recipe always pack the brown sugar firmly in the measuring cup!

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.webs.com

Pan Fried Steak & Gravy

Pan Fried Steak & Gravy
Dorcas Annette Walker

May is the International Trade Month for cattle. Years ago when our children were young we raised a calf for our freezer. The jersey calf was adorable with big brown eyes. We quickly fell in love with it even though my husband didn’t allow us to name it. It was a terrible day when it came time to butcher our cow. Our daughter cried and refused to eat any beef. I too decided that I preferred my beef to be packaged and bought at the store. Thankfully we don’t have pasture land available or my husband would try to raise another calf.

Beef has long been a popular meat in the United States. Columbus introduced cattle to the New World on his second voyage in the 1500’s, but it wasn’t until the 1880’s that the cattle industry began to boom. In the 1890’s herds of buffalo were gone and cattle was owned by small and large producers. By 1898 the cattle industry was almost entirely in the West. Today the United States is one of the four largest consumers of beef and the third largest exporter. Beef comprises 21 percent of the overall U.S. retail food market. Popular breeds of cattle include Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn or Wagyu- a Japanese breed.

Cattle are natural grazers, but at the end of World War II an economic incentive was created to finish beef on corn for optimal levels of production. The top three categories for graded beef are prime, select, and choice ranked by decreasing amounts of fat within the muscle. Only two percent of all graded beef meets the qualifications of prime. Since 2003 animal health issues have become very important. To ensure beef safety the USDA now has a database and tracking system to identify all animals to the source in the event of an animal disease outbreak occurs.

The demand for organic or pasture-fed beef is growing in the United States, but marketing is one of the most daunting challenges farmers face as trade is critical for profit. There are many farmers who would like to produce organic beef, but there are few processors who can link from animal to retail as small processors are hit hard when it comes to government food safety regulations. Fewer USDA inspection facilities entail higher transportation and processing costs. Some farmers choose direct marketing whereas others opt for cooperative.

My Pan Fried Steak & Gravy makes a hearty meal especially when mashed potatoes, vegetable, and a salad are added. The Pan Fried Steak & Gravy is a meat lover’s delight something that always brings a big smile to my husband’s face. Preparation time for my tender well-done Pan Fried Steak & Gravy is about an hour and ten minutes and this recipe serves three.

Pan Fried Steak & Gravy

3 tb shortening
4 tb self-rising flour
½ lb ½ inch thick steak
sliced small onion
garlic, regular salt, and pepper
6 c water
brown gravy mix
½ c corn starch

Melt shortening in an iron skillet. Rub both sides of the steak with flour, browning both sides on high, and add onion. Sprinkle with salts and pepper. Pour in one cup of water. As soon as the liquid begins to boil, lower the heat, and cover. Let simmer for an hour adding the other cup of water as needed.

Brown Gravy: When the steak is cooked put on a meat platter and cover. Add four cups of water to the skillet and increase the heat. Mix brown gravy and corn starch together with a small amount of water. Add to the liquid stirring with a Wisk. Bring to a boil and immediately turn off the heat. Serve hot with the steak!

Weekly tip: To help cut costs on your grocery bill buy marked down meat and immediately freeze!

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.webs.com

Grandma's Rice Pudding

Grandma’s Rice Pudding
Dorcas Annette Walker

I beg your indulgence as I continue to reminisce while giving another recipe of my grandmother. My English grandmother’s big bowl of Rice Pudding was a dish that I always knew I’d find at her house whenever we would visit her. Along with a cup of tea, we would eat a bowl of rice pudding as a dessert or in between snack as this one of my mother’s favorite desserts. A few occasions I got to be with my grandmother and help her make Rice Pudding. I was fascinated seeing her stir the Rice Pudding with a wooden spoon as it slowly baked in the oven because the wooden spoon in our house functioned for a totally different purpose.

The wooden spoon in our household was used for discipline starting at an early age. I grew up in the dark ages where children were expected to obey their parents. I don’t know if my grandmother also employed the wooden spoon for correction or if my mother started the tradition on her own. I do know that when my children came along I soon found the wooden spoon to be very handy not only for baking, but as an ideal aid for obedience. My husband called me “Machine Gun Kellie” whenever I applied the wooden spoon. My daughter, who hated the sound of my kitchen drawer opening when she knew I was getting out the wooden spoon now, uses a wooden spoon of her own. When Dwight worked in the body shop he told about his wooden spoon experiences growing up and was asked to make a wooden spoon for one of the fellows. Dwight toyed with the idea of going into business making and selling “Mom’s Wooden Spoons”.

I am totally against child abuse. I was taught that a child’s will was not to be broken, but molded in the right direction. I’ve noticed that it is often the parents who don’t discipline, but let their children run all over them or slowly do the countdown eventually reach a breaking point and end up abusing their children. Instead of children being seen and not heard, now-a-days you hear children while shopping before you ever see them inflicting havoc on everyone’s nerves. I often wonder what the harassed mothers of screaming children, who inform everyone that she can’t do anything with her young’un, will do once the child reaches his teen years. In such cases I often wish I had a wooden spoon to hand out.

My Grandma’s Rice Pudding is an old fashion filling creamy dessert that can be served by itself, with canned fruit, or cake. Raisins or other dried fruit can be added for color or taste. Preparation time for Grandma’s Rice Pudding is fifteen minutes (not counting baking time) and this recipe serves ten.

Grandma’s Rice Pudding

2 c cooked rice
1 c sugar
2 (12 oz) cans evaporated milk
Nutmeg

Butter a large baking bowl. Mix the rice and sugar together. Pour each can of milk in a 4 c measuring cup, fill up with warm water, and microwave for three minute- twice. Add to rice mixture and stir. Sprinkle nutmeg on top and bake at 350º for one hour stirring at least once. Serve warm or cold. Garnish with a sprinkle of cinnamon!

Weekly tip: Quick ways to butter a baking dish is to partially un-wrap a stick of margarine and rub along the sides of the dish or use an empty margarine wrapper!

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.webs.com

Canned Cream Corn

Canned Creamed Corn
Dorcas Annette Walker

Each week I eye the rows of tender cornstalks that have grown another inch in my garden envisioning fresh corn on the cob this summer. Since I don’t have fresh corn, I decided to prepare a substitute I always loved of my mothers. I grew up eating mostly canned vegetables as we didn’t have a garden to give us fresh vegetables and frozen vegetables were an expensive rare occurrence. My mother turned a plain can of corn into a tasty dish using simple ingredients. Every time I make up a dish of Canned Creamed Corn I think of my mother.

I never realized how pampered my background was food-wise until I was grown and traveling around with my husband eating at different households across the United States. Even my husband, Dana, who never hesitated to eat a hearty meal whenever any type of food was set before him, would sometimes ask me later why a certain dish didn’t taste right or what was missing. Blessed were the times I’d stay with a cook that loved to prepare food ending up having a marvelous time comparing recipes and helping out in the kitchen. I’ve noticed throughout the years that good cooks aren’t afraid to be nosey, ask questions, or experiment with food. And while there are a few cook that hold tight to secret recipes- not realizing that anyone who is around food a lot can usually figure out what is in any prepared item- most cooks are generous in sharing tips or their favorite recipes.

One of my greatest joys was encouraging timid cooks to branch out and try new ideas. After spending years in the kitchen I still love to try something different while keeping my tried and true recipes as the backbone of my menus. You will find certain blends of spices or herbs to be what you and your family prefers, but you never know what new recipe will end up being a winner. As my grandmother often said, If you put enough good ingredients together its bound to turn out delicious!

My Canned Creamed Corn is an exciting alternative to standard corn year round with its smooth creamy taste of summer that can be fixed quickly in the microwave. Its soft yellow color will blend in with just about any other prepared item giving you another vegetable to add to your menu that everyone will love. You can double or triple this recipe to meet the needs of your family. Preparation time for my Canned Creamed Corn is five minutes and this recipe serves three.

Canned Creamed Corn

1 (14.5 oz) can of creamed corn
¼ c evaporated milk
1 tsp sugar
½ stick margarine
salt & pepper

Mix all the ingredients together in a small microwave bowl and microwave for three minutes. Stir and serve in a crystal bowl. May garnish with a pat of butter!

Weekly tip: Turn a regular can of corn into creamed corn by pouring the entire contents into a blender and pureeing. Older or tougher ears of corn from the garden are also perfect for making creamed corn likewise- just add a little water when pureeing!

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.webs.com