Candied Orange Sweet Potatoes

Candied Orange Sweet Potatoes
Dorcas Annette Walker

Last Sunday our home church had its annual home coming. Along with the huge crowd there were all kinds of casseroles, meats, salads, and desserts that overflowed several tables in our church fellowship hall. Even after everyone was stuffed there were enough leftovers to make another church meal. The sight of tables filled with food always captivates me with the possibility of discovering a new recipe. I think the one thing all good cooks have in common is curiosity. Just let a different dish appear before us or a familiar one with a new twist to it and our noses start to twitch. Not only is the taste of delicious food one grand delight, but chatting with all the other cooks and discussing recipes is the main highlight of church dinners. I’ve made more new friends discussing ingredients to a casserole or dessert over the years than in any other way. No matter what area of the United States I’m in as long as there is food around it is always an instant ice-breaker. Food has a way of breaking down any age or culture barrier. It was Granny in her nineties, who passed this recipe along to me a couple of years ago. What a joy to know that if I live to be a hundred years old I’ll still be interested in trying new recipes.

Our first frost up here on the mountain recently signaled that it was time to begin harvesting the sweet potatoes in my garden. My Candied Orange Sweet Potatoes recipe is a new twist on the sweet potatoes casserole topped with marshmallows. No matter how you prepare sweet potatoes whether by baking, frying, microwaving, simmering in butter and brown sugar, doing up in pies, or making into casseroles you can always be assured of a tasty and nutritious dish. I always keep a supple of canned sweet potatoes in my pantry. Not only do the jars give off a bright orange color, but they are available for instant use.

My Candied Orange Sweet Potatoes gives a hint of summer with its mild citrus taste and embodies the fall season with its bright orange color while the topping of toasted marshmallows is reminiscent of sitting around a campfire. This casserole is quick and easy to make and can be made up ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator until ready to pop into the oven for baking. Preparation time for my Candied Orange Sweet Potatoes is ten minutes and this recipe serves eight.

Candied Orange Sweet Potatoes

1 qt cooked sweet potatoes
½ c orange juice
¼ c syrup
½ tsp ginger
3 tb margarine
pinch of salt
cinnamon
10 oz bag of marshmallows

Mash the sweet potatoes in a medium-sized bowl and add the next five ingredients stirring until well mixed. Pour into a buttered 7 x 11 baking dish. Sprinkle with cinnamon and top with the marshmallows. Bake at 350º for 30 minutes until the marshmallows are puffy and browned. Serve hot!

Weekly tip: To can sweet potatoes: cook the potatoes until almost tender and ready to peel, then cold pack the potatoes in quart jars with a medium syrup (3 c sugar to 4 c water), and can for thirty minutes!

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

PA Dutch Apple Butter

PA Dutch Apple Butter
Dorcas Annette Walker

Autumn has finally arrived up here in the Tennessee Mountains with chilly nights and warm days. I’ve been keeping a fire in my woodstove relishing the warmth of a crackling fire. The smell of wood smoke wafting on the air, dried leaves swirling downward, and the popping sound of acorns hitting the hard ground somehow makes one feel energetic once again. Even our ancient chocolate lab, Sandy, kicks up her heels and rolls around on her back in the grass as if to savor the last bit of warmth from the earth. Now is the time for gathering in the last bit of garden vegetables before the first frost hits while pumpkins and apples finish ripening. Although my pantry shelves are overflowing with canned goods, like the squirrels outside, I still want to put up more food. The sight of baskets filled with colorful apples in the market draws me like a magnet.

This is the time to make up a big batch of my homemade apple butter using an old Pennsylvania Dutch recipe. Just like it takes a mixture of the right kinds of apples to produce good cider so does the blending of certain spices make high-rate apple butter. Once you have tasted the PA Dutch Apple Butter you will never be satisfied with what they sell in the stores now-a-days. My Mennonite grandmother made apple butter in huge black pots over a fire out in her yard that she would put up and sell in their market. I enjoy keeping the family tradition going. There is something captivating about the smell of apple butter slowly cooking on the stove sending out a spicy aroma that makes all the hours it takes to prepare well worth the effort.

My PA Dutch Apple Butter has a thick dark-brown sweet smooth texture of intermingling spices that can be used in different ways: to make a filling apple butter sandwich, spread on one slice of bread, used for filling in stack cakes, and on top of fried squash. While there are recipes that cook apple butter in microwaves, ovens, or the Crockpot, I prefer cooking mine on the stove in large roaster pans like I’ve always done. Preparation time for making up a batch of PA Dutch Apple Butter is three to four hours and this recipe makes seven pints.

PA Dutch Apple Butter

12 c of unsweetened applesauce
6 c sugar
1 tb cinnamon
½ tsp cloves
½ tsp allspice

Mix all the ingredients together with a wooden spoon in a large roaster pan boiling slowly for at least three hours until thickened. Pour into pint jars and can for ten minutes to seal. Let cool completely before serving!

Weekly tip: One bushel of apples quartered, cooked, and processed into applesauce will be enough to quadruple (four times) this recipe yielding thirty pints of apple butter with one quart of applesauce left!

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

Southern Green Beans

Southern Green Beans
Dorcas Annette Walker

One main introduction to southern cooking was beans when we pastored in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Each meal had at least one dish of cooked beans. The kind of beans one grew in the garden and ate was of major importance. At every church dinner you could count on at least one table being full of nothing but all kinds of beans. Up until that time I had never encountered so many beans in my life. Thus began my education in southern-style green beans. I soon was canning and filling shelves of white half-runner string beans just like the rest of the church folk. Since then I’ve ventured out and even grown foot-long string green beans.

The common bean has been cultivated dating back to the ancient Egyptians. There are over 4,000 classifications of beans on record in the U.S. alone. There are three main types of beans: snap, string, and green (string-less) beans that grow as pole or bush beans such as: Kentucky Blue, Kentucky Wonder, and Blue Lake. You can choose between a rainbow of colors: green, purple, yellow (wax), red, black, red-striped, white, and navy beans. Other varieties include: lima or butter, kidney, pinto, and soybeans. With some beans the tender pods are eaten, others you let dry out and store for soups (Shelly or fall beans), while bean sprouts are used in stir-fries. Oriental, Mexican, Southwestern, Middle East, and Southern folk all use different kinds of beans in their cuisine. One recipe called Fifteen Bean Soup is made up of fifteen different types of beans. Field beans are mostly bush and used for stock feed.

Green beans are available year round as canned, frozen, or fresh and are cooked by boiling, steaming, or baking. Some restaurants serve battered and fried green beans. Beans continue to be one of the principal sources of protein for vegetarians and are a healthy food alternative for the poor. Green beans are low in calories, have an excellent source of vitamin K, C, and A, contain fiber, potassium, folate, iron, magnesium, thiamin, copper, calcium, phosphorus, protein, omega-3, and niacin.

My Southern Green Beans are easy to prepare and make a colorful addition to any meal. Some southern cooks use shortening or fatback instead of bacon grease. I have also added small chunks of ham or bacon in my green beans. Preparation time for my Southern Green Beans is around twenty minutes and this recipe serves four.

Southern Green Beans

1 quart canned green beans
Water
1 tb bacon grease
1 tsp chopped onion

Rinse green beans and dump into a medium-sized saucepan. Almost cover the beans with water. Sprinkle on the onion and add the bacon grease. Cover and bring to a boil. Uncover and let boil for at least ten more minutes until most of the water is gone. Serve hot!

Weekly tip: My recent Lemon Squares recipe had the (three eggs) omitted from the listing of the first six ingredients that you creamed!

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

Toasted Banana Pudding

Toasted Banana Pudding
Dorcas Annette Walker

Every time my mother made toast we made sure to be in the kitchen. The object that kept us enthralled was a tall thin metal appliance. When plugged in a conveyer belt would start to move. My mother would put a slice of bread at the opening and inch by inch the bread would enter the tunnel-like entrance. As soon as one slice of bread disappeared, she would put another slice at the opening until it looked like a train of bread moving through a tunnel. What was even more captivating was the tiny glass window about the size of a quarter in the middle on either side of the toaster where one could see the bread as it slowly moved through the toaster. We would take turns catching the toasted slice of bread waiting until the last second before it began to fall. It wasn’t until my high school years that I discovered that nobody else had a toaster like ours. Whenever I’d invite a friend home with me they always wanted to make toast sitting spellbound besides my mother’s toaster watching as slice after slice of bread got toasted. Today it is rare to find a toaster like my mother’s even at an antique store.

People have toasted bread since the Romans era over an open fire with a simple metal frame or long-handled fork. The word toast comes from the Latin word, “tostum”, which means scorching or burning. The first electric toaster was invented in 1893 in Great Britain. In 1909 the first American toaster only toasted one side of the bread at a time. In 1913 the Copeman toaster was patented, which automatically turned the bread. Then during World War I, Charles Strite, tired of the burnt toast served in the company cafeteria invented a pop-up toaster. The first fully automatic pop-up toaster was invented in 1926 by Toastmaster one-A-one and was considered a prized wedding gift. When the first pre-sliced bread when on sale in 1928, toaster sales skyrocketed by 1933.

Toaster facts:

- In Norway, every other Tuesday, people gather and pay homage to the almighty god “Tohstre”.
- An estimated 75 million Americans eat toast every day.
- The average person spends 35 hours a year making toast.
- Toasters are the subject of a 2005 Kaiser Chiefs song.
- Toasters cause 95% of deaths in children under 5.

My Toasted Banana Pudding captures the last days of summer with its light texture and mild banana taste. Preparation time for my Toasted Banana Pudding is thirty minutes (not counting cooling time) and this recipe serves fourteen.

Toasted Banana Pudding

1 baked angel food cake
4 bananas
2 (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding
2 c milk
2 c plain yogurt
cool whip

Cut up the angel food cake into inch-size pieces, spread on a large tray, and bake at 350º for 15 minutes; turning every five minutes with a large spatula. Spread toasted cubes in a 9 x 13 dish, slice bananas, and layer on top. Mix up pudding as directed and add yogurt. Pour over bananas and stir until everything is covered. Refrigerate for a couple of hours until firm. Garnish with cool whip and serve!

Weekly tip: A toaster uses almost half the energy as an oven; energy is wasted if a toaster is left unplugged after use!

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

Salsa Dip

Salsa Dip
Dorcas Annette Walker

It seems like yesterday that our house phone buzzed nonstop with teenage conversations- back in the dark ages before cell phones and wireless phones. In fact I seldom answered the kitchen phone as there was always a teenage grabbing the headpiece as soon as the phone rang, with a surprised look of amazement when a caller actually wanted my husband or me. Since I didn’t believe in letting my teenagers have a phone of their own, much less in their bedroom, the cord was stretched to maximum tautness with the headpiece attached to my daughter’s ear as she’d walk down the hallway talking nonstop. Those were the days when the constant ringing of the phone became normal background noise. My younger son complained that all his sister ever did was talk and giggle on the phone with her friends. He thought it was quite boring and dumb. When Dawn started going with Randy, who lived in Nashville, the only communication we could get with our daughter was between intense private talks on the phone that somehow she managed to stretch to her closed bedroom doorway. Each chat with her boyfriend meant more analyzed and dissected discussions of feedback from her closest friends. It probably would have been more appropriate to have had the florist use phone cords instead of trailing ivy in our daughter’s bridal bouquet.

My husband and I thought that after our daughter was married we would once again have the use of the house phone to ourselves, but lo and behold if our son, who usually didn’t talk much, hit the teenage stage and he became attached to the phone head piece. All kinds of friends called for long and debated conversations ranging around car and truck parts and how many miles a gallon a certain vehicle got. Interestingly enough when I compared all the earlier girl giggles to the present boisterous boy laughter they seemed just about evenly matched and the length of the phone calls remained just the same. So after our son got married it was quite a shock to suddenly discover that when the phone rang we had to answer it. Since then our house has been quite silent without the continual ringing of a phone in the background.

The only way I survived those hectic teenage days was with my Salsa Dip and plenty of tortilla chips during sleepovers. Today there are a variety of tortilla chips that you can use. You can also add or substitute chopped red & green peppers, mushrooms, onions, sausage refried beans, black olives, or serve with sour cream. Heat the dip in the microwave or keep in a Crockpot on low for instant use. My Salsa Dip takes about fifteen minutes to prepare and this recipes makes around six cups of dip.

Salsa Dip

1 lb hamburger
1 pint of medium salsa
15.5 oz jar of salsa cheese or cheese whiz

Brown, chop fine, and drain hamburger. Mix together in a medium bowl the hamburger, salsa, and cheese. Store any leftovers in the refrigerator!

Weekly tip: Use mugs or foam cups instead of bowls or plates for dips, and paper towels as an alternative to napkins for holding chips!

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

Chocolate Oatmeal Lunchbox Cookies

Chocolate Oatmeal Lunchbox Cookies
Dorcas Annette Walker

Another school year has started and the Labor Day weekend is upon us- the last holiday of the summer signaling the beginning of a new school and work year. I vividly recall the days in yesteryears hurrying down a gravel road to meet the school bus each morning; walking through crisp autumn leaves hoping the bus would be late, shivering and stomping my feet on the snowy ground while turning one’s back to fierce winter gales praying that the bus would hurry up and arrive, to the delight and wonder of spotting the first blooming violet announcing that spring was on its way all while waiting for bright yellow school bus. Today children rush out the front door and hop on the school bus at their doorstep hardly noticing the weather.

Arrival at school meant reuniting with old school friends that you hadn’t seen all summer, checking out new students amidst the confusion and uproar of shouting and laughter, coordinating the labyrinth of different schedules, teachers, and classrooms, inhaling the intoxicating smells of thick textbooks that soon would become familiar companions, and writing down the first word in a brand new notebook.

But I think the biggest change today is the absence of lunchboxes. How important one felt starting out the school year with a brand new metal lunchbox without any dents or scratches. While I am thankful that today’s school child gets a free nutritious lunch, I feel a pang of sympathy for school children that don’t know the joys of trading sandwiches or cookies with other school chums during the lunch hour. Lunchboxes have become a relic of the past sitting in dusty corners of antique shops forgotten and forlorn. Even the working man and woman of today seldom carry a lunch finding it more convenient to buy from a fast food place. I know that time marches on, but in the hurried rush of today I’d love to once again snap open up a metal lunchbox, unwrap a sandwich folded in wax paper, nibble on some homemade cookies, and take a crunchy bite out of an juicy apple.

My Chocolate Oatmeal Lunchbox Cookies are a soft and chewy cookie dusted in sugar with a double chocolate taste. You can add raisins or walnuts to these cookies if you prefer. Either way these cookies are delicious and filling with a cold glass of milk. Preparation time for my Chocolate Oatmeal Lunchbox Cookies is twenty minutes and this recipe makes about four dozen cookies.

Chocolate Oatmeal Lunchbox Cookies

2 c sugar
1 c shortening
1 egg
1 c milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1½ c self-rising flour
1/3 c cocoa powder
3 c uncooked quick oats
6 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips

Cream 1½ c of sugar, shortening, egg, milk, and vanilla together. Mix in flour, cocoa, and oats thoroughly. Fold in the chocolate chips. Form dough the size of a large walnut, roll in remaining sugar, and place on a greased cookie sheet. Flatten slightly and bake at 350º for ten to twelve minutes. Let cool slightly and store in an enclosed container!

Weekly tip: For softer and chewier homemade cookies substitute honey for part of the sugar called for in the recipe!

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