I missed the gathering of my "Farkle Friends" last month, so it was good to see everyone last week when we met at Friend Barb's house. Everyone in the group wasn't able to come, but with summer coming, attendance varies as members start traveling.
For dessert Barb served us this delicious Key Lime Pie. She used the called for Key Lime juice but used 3/4 cup so it was nice and tart. She admitted to me that next time she thought she would just use 1/2 cup so that is what I indicated for the recipe.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE A PRINTABLE VERSION OF THIS RECIPE, CLICK HERE.
BARB'S KEY LIME PIE
1 8 - oz pkg cream cheese
1 14 - oz can sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup Nellie & Joe's Key West Lime juice
1 teaspoon lime zest
1 9 - inch graham cracker crust
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Beat cream cheese until creamy.
Add condensed milk and beat to mix into cream cheese.
Add egg yolks and beat well.
Add lime juice and beat in til smooth.
Pour mixture into pie crust and evenly distribute.
Place pie on cookie sheet and then into oven for 15 minutes - until filling begins to set.
Remove from oven and allow to cool on rack at room temperature - then place in refrigerator at least one hour. (Barb made her pie the day before and stored overnight in refrigerator.)
Cut into 8 servings and top with whipped cream, if you like.
With Granddaughter Madison playing softball twice a week and Grandson Tyler playing T-Ball twice a week (different days), I haven't had much time to cook dinner. This past weekend they went camping and we had to go to their house to feed the dog and let him run around outside several times a day, I decided I would just take the ingredients to their house and make a casserole. Then I could put it in their refrigerator to heat up for leftovers when we went back each night.
This recipe for Tostado Casserole sounded quite tasty and just what I was looking for. Annabelle Kratz of Clarksville, MD and Hyattsville Mennonite Church shared the recipe in The Best of Mennonite Fellowship Meals Cookbook by Phyllis Pellman Good and Louise Stoltzfus.
I followed the recipe as given except for one little thing...I put the crushed chips and cheese on top of the casserole before I baked the casserole for 25 minutes. It worked out okay. The cheese "overcooked" as you would expect it too, but I just added a few more crushed chips and added a little more cheese and then put it back in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese. My husband wanted more chips and so we finished the bag when we ate from it the first time. Fortunately I bought two bags of chips so we had more chips for leftovers. I also served some whole kernel corn with it and my husband thought it would have been good if I had added it to the casserole.
TOSTADO CASSEROLE
1 lb ground beef
1 15 - oz can of tomato sauce (I used two 8 - oz cans)
1 pkg taco seasoning mix
2-1/2 cups corn chips (or more if you prefer)
1 15-1/2 - oz can refried beans
1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded (I used a taco blend of shredded cheese)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Brown ground beef in skillet. Drain, if necessary.
Add 1-1/2 cups of the tomato sauce and the taco seasoning together.
Add to the cooked beef and
mix thoroughly.
Place about 2 cups of the chips in the bottom of a 7 x 11 - inch baking dish. (Personally it is hard to measure chips so I just made sure the bottom of the dish was generally covered.)
Spoon the ground beef mixture over the chips in the baking dish.
Combine the refried beans and any sauce you have left. (I just emptied the beans and the little sauce I had left in the measuring cup I had used to measure the sauce originally and then mixed with the taco seasoning mix. That way I could mix in the mix that remained in the cup.)
Spoon the beans over the ground beef mixture.
BAKE in oven for 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and sprinkle top with the 1/2 cup of crushed chips and sprinkle shredded cheese on top.
RETURN to oven and bake a few more minutes to melt the cheese.
Serve with additional chips, if you like.
I'm not going to tell you how many jars of applebutter I have bought to make several recipes that called for applebutter only to throw them out because the "use by" date had passed. This time though I looked at the jar early enough to be able to use it in this recipe for Applebutter Cake from the Amish-Country Cookbook, Volume 1 that I told you about yesterday. This recipe was shared by Meda Bontrager, a waitress at the Das Dutchman Essenhaus (Restaurant) in Middlebury, IN.
It sounded like it would be a good cake to make the night before and take to Hillcrest Thrift Shop the next morning. I like to do that and after storing it in the refrigerator overnight, it is supermoist the next morning. I think it was gone within an hour. Volunteer Jerry said it was so light tasting. It was really, really good.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE A PRINTABLE VERSION FOR THIS RECIPE, CLICK HERE.
APPLEBUTTER CAKE
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar (I used stevia)
4 eggs, beaten
2-1/2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup sour or buttermilk (I used buttermilk)
1 cup applebutter
Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease or spray a 9 x 13 - inch pan.
Beat together shortening and sugar.
Add beaten eggs.
Sift together the flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg.
Add dry ingredients alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
Mix in applebutter.
Pour into pan.
Bake for 40 minutes or until done. Cool on wire rack.
Dust with powdered sugar before you are ready to serve it. I covered the cake and stored it in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning before I was ready to cut it in squares, I dusted it with sifted powdered sugar.
With fresh strawberries so plentiful right now in the grocery stores, I had some left after making two batches of strawberry jam. I decided to search out recipes using strawberries in some of my cookbooks. This recipe for Strawberry Yum-Yum actually calls for frozen strawberries, but I figured I could use fresh ones instead.
Well, the fresh berries worked perfectly. I even had an interesting experience using my scales to weigh out 10 ounces. Make sure you read all the way to the bottom of this post, so you can see what I mean.
The recipe was contributed by two different ladies - Esther Hershberger and Betty A. Hershberger who was a "Grill Cook" at the restaurant. Amish-Country Cookbook, Volume 1 Edited by Bob & Sue Miller is my latest Amish cookbook. Unfortunately, Volume 2 and 3 were no where to be found at the estate sale. Bob and Sue Miller from Sugarcreek, Ohio purchased a 24 - hour truck stop in Middlebury, Indiana in 1968. After renovations, they reopened it as a six-day-a-week Amish restaurant with Amish and Mennonite cooks and wait-staff called Das Dutchman Essenhaus on January 1, 1971. It has since expanded to much more than just a restaurant. If I ever make my road trip through Amish country, this will definitely be on my bucket list for places to check out. Back to the cookbook...the Millers compiled three cookbooks containing their own original recipes and others gathered from their employees, many never published before. I am sorry volumes 2 and 3 were not there for me to purchase.
IF YOU WOULD LIKE A PRINTABLE VERSION OF THIS RECIPE, CLICK HERE.
STRAWBERRY YUM-YUM
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened or at room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped nuts
2 egg whites
1 cup sugar (I used stevia)
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 10 - oz frozen strawberries (I used 10 - oz fresh strawberries)
1 pkg Dream Whip
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix the flour, butter, brown sugar, and nuts until crumbly. (I did this quickly and easily using my stand mixer.)
Press mixture into an 8 x 8 - inch square pan.
Bake for 20 - 25 minutes. (I baked mine the full 25 minutes.)
Cool and break into crumbs.
(I used a fork.)
Combine the egg whites, lemon juice, sugar or stevia, and strawberries and
beat at medium speed for 15 to 20 minutes.
Place crumbs in the bottom of a 9 x 13 - inch pan that has a cover, if possible.
Spread strawberry mixture over the crumbs,
cover, and freeze.
Serve frozen. (Cut into squares using a sharp knife. The squares will come easily and nicely out of the pan.)
The dessert is thin in a 9 x 13 - inch pan. I think I will use one of my Pyrex rectangular dishes that is 8 x 12 next time. Then the strawberry mixture will be a little thicker. Don't get me wrong, it is fabulous in the 9 x 13 - inch pan if you want to stick with the recipe. Love the crumb crust also.
When I decided to use fresh strawberries instead of a 10 - oz package of frozen strawberries, I thought I would use my niffy kitchen scales with a container "bowl". I didn't think about seeing how much the bowl weighed because it was so light. Well, I added a handful of strawberries and couldn't believe they weighed over half a pound. I was just about ready to just use more when I decided I would remove the berries and see how much the bowl weighed. Surprise, surprise! It weighed a good 6 ounces! So I added berries until the container (with strawberries) weighed 16 ounces.
The 10 - ozs of strawberries...
I quickly softened the stick of butter in this exciting way I recently discovered. You can read about it here.
When my husband saw me making the Fluffy Strawberry Pie, he showed his disappointment that I wasn't making it for us. To appease him, I told him I would make something just for us.
I marked this recipe for Funny Cake Pie months ago when I got the Favorite Family Recipes from the Mennonite Community Cookbook by Mary Emma Showalter, but just hadn't gotten around to making it. I had this recipe for the Pat-in-Pan Pie Crust that Friend Carla had made with her Fresh Strawberry Pie. I thought since I didn't have a picture of it to share with her Strawberry Pie that I would make it myself and then I could share it in a post. It just seemed like the perfect time to make the pie and the pie crust.
There was no explanation with the recipe as to why it is called Funny Cake Pie, but it is fitting. The chocolate layer gives it a pie taste and the top layer looks like a cake. No matter what it is called, we really liked it. And the Pat-in-Pan Pie Crust was really good also. I'm sorry I missed Carla's Fresh Strawberry Pie.
FUNNY CAKE PIE
Top Part:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup shortening
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
Lower Part:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/3 cup hot water
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
Pastry for 1 (9 inch) crust.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Mix top part like cake batter, creaming the fat and adding the sugar and egg.
Add milk alternately with the dry ingredients that have been sifted together beginning and ending with flour.
For the lower part, combine the sugar and cocoa.
Add the hot water and vanilla.
Line the 9 - inch pie plate with pastry.
Pour the lower part into the crust.
Pour the top part over the lower part.
Bake for approximately 40 minutes.
