Conference moira::parenting_v3

    Apple-Butter Bars - Parents, April, 1990
    
    A graham Cracker Crust is the secret to these easy bar cookies
    
    Preparation time:  5 minutes
    Cooking time : 30 minutes
    
    2 cups graham cracker crumbs
    3/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
    1/2 cup all-purpose flour
    1 cup apple butter
    
    1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease 9" square baking pan.
    
    2.  In medium bowl stir graham cracker crumbs, butter and 
        flour together until well mixed.  Reserve 1 cup of 
        the mixture for topping.  Press remaining mixture evenly
        into bottom of prepared pan.  Bake about 15 minutes or
        until golden.
    
    3.  Remove crust from oven and spread with apple butter. 
        Sprinkle reserved crumb mixture over apple butter.
        Continue to bake 15 minutes longer.  Cool completely
        on wire rack before cutting into squares.
    
    Yield:  16 squares
    
    Nutrition per square:  183 calories; 2 grams protein
                           10 grams fat; 22 grams carbohydrate
                           191 milligrams sodium; 0 milligrams cholesterol

Another MORONICALLY easy recipe for cookies I made last night for my
son's daycare's cookout today. They are quick, easy, and you can make
them any flavor you like (I do chocolate!) :

	Simple Simon Cookies

	1 - 8 oz. or 2 - 4 oz. packages of instant pudding mix
	3 sticks margarine, softened
	2 1/2 C. flour

        Cream pudding mix and margarine.  Add flour.  Roll into small
        balls and place on a cookie sheet.  Flatten the balls with a
        fork.  Bake at 375 for 15 minutes.

    RE: .2   This may be showing my culinary ignorance, but what is apple
    butter?  Do you buy it at the store?  Do you make it at home?  The
    recipe sounds great and I'd like to try it out.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Donna
    

    Apple butter is pureed, sweetened apples -- like applesauce only
    ground finer and cooked longer. 
    
    Fruit butters used to be part of every good cook's repertoire. 
    Peach butter was the traditional favorite, but for some reason
    only apple butter appears to have survived into the prepared food
    age.  
    
    --bonnie

    Thanks for the info.  I'll try out the recipe this weekend.
    
    Donna
    

    For a quick easy way to cook an inexpensive fish such as scrod,
    we use this recipe in the microwave.  It comes out really moist
    and tasty and even my 13 month old daughter loves it this way. 
           
    We just need to be VERY careful not to give her pieces with any
    bones so we give her very small pieces that we've checked carefully
    and she loves to eat this with her fingers.
    
    		
    		Put some chopped onion and garlic in a casserole 
    		dish with 2 tbl. of margarine.
    		Cover and cook in the microwave on high for 4 minutes.
    
    		Add one can (16 oz.) of tomatoes and some mushrooms
    		(optional).  I usually slice up the tomatoes a little.
    		Cover and cook again in the microwave on high for 4 minutes.
    
    		Add some fish, for 3 of us we use about 1 lb. of
    		scrod or other white fish.  Spoon the tomatoes and
    		onion mixture over the fish.  Sprinkle some basil on top.
    		Microwave on high for about 10 minutes until the fish is 
    		done and flakes.
    
                
    
    

    Here are the directions for cooking fresh pumpkin for pumpkin pies:

    You need a pumpkin -- the little round kind is about right for one
    pie; a leftover jack-o'lantern usually yeilds two or three -- and
    a large kettle that has a close-fitting lid. 

    Cut the pumpkin into small pieces. Peel them (a potato peeler
    works well).  Dump the pieces in the kettle.  The smaller the
    pieces are, the easier they are to mash and the quicker to cook,
    but the longer it will take to peel.  

    Add about a cup of water.   Bring the water to a boil.  Cover and
    turn down the heat until it's just simmering.  Cook until the
    pieces on top are tender -- usually about half an hour, if they're
    of average thickness.

    Drain the pieces in a collander.  Using a slotted metal spoon,
    lift a few pieces at a time into a large bowl and mash them with
    the potato masher. 

    It takes about 2 cups of mush to make an average pie, about 1 cup
    for pumpkin muffins or pumpkin bread.  You can use it fresh, or
    freeze it -- I usually make one pie fresh and save another batch
    for Thanskgiving.

    You will notice that the fresh stuff is a lot sloppier than the
    stuff you get out of cans.  You can cook the puree over low heat
    to reduce the moisture content if you'd like, but I usually just
    reduce the amount of milk I add to the pie.  About 1/3 C. less is
    usually right.

    You'll also notice that a pie made from fresh pumpkin isn't
    orange.  It's sort of a rusty yellow.  If this really bothers you,
    add some orange food coloring (or red + yellow) before you bake
    the pie. 

    --bonnie

    I made this one over the weekend and just realized it's so ridiculously
    easy I just have to share it.  
    
    Creamed corn casserole:
    
    Take a premade piecrust, either the ones frozen in a tin dish,
    or the Pillsbury allready, and put this in a glass pie plate (to
    microwave later)
    
    In a medium bowl cut up 1/2 to 2/3 pound each of swiss cheese and ham.
    The variation on this could be almost any kind of hard cheese and
    perhaps add cut up chicken, turkey or tuna, just keep the two
    ingredients equal.
    
    Add a can of creamed corn, (I like the Delmonte brand it tastes better)
    
    Add 2 eggs slightly beaten
    and a teaspoon of dry mustard, or the stuff in the jar if you don't
    have the powder.
    
    Mix all this together and pour it into the pie shell
    
    Bake at 350 for 1 hour, or until the crust is brown and the pie bubbly.
    
    It freezes well, and is variable according to what you've got for
    leftovers, or what you want to try.
    
    
    Here's another
    
    Boil a half box of egg noodles,
    
    While this is boiling sautee chopped celery, onion and musrooms, canned
    mushroom work just as well.  Do this in the pot you'll use to assemble
    the casserole to save work.
    
    When the veggies are "clear" and the noodles cooked and drained mix
    them together and add about 2 tbs of marjarine or butter and about a
    quarter cup of milk, stir till the butter melts, and add one can of
    water packed tuna, and half a large jar of cheeze whiz, more if you
    want.
    
    Mix it all together and serve as is, or turn into a Pam sprayed
    casserole cover with bread crumbs and bake just until bubly.
    
    This too freezes well, and I've had rave reviews at Pot luck suppers.
    It's a whole lot cheaper than buying Tuna Helper!
    
    Enjoy!
    Lyn
    
    
    

    Here is an easy Microwave fish recipe!
    
    Prep/Cooking time approx. 10 minutes
    
    1/2-1 LB.  Cod
    Ritz Crackers or any butter type cracker of choice
    Butter or Margarine
    
    
    Rinse fish and put it in a glass/microwave pan
    
    Crumble Crackers, and sprinkle on fish.  I usually use 1 waxed paper tube, 
    but you can use as many or as few as you like.  I also crumble them
    while they are still in the wrapping.
    
    Put pats of butter or margarine over the fish, I use 4 or 5 tablespoon
    size, but again this is to taste.
    
    Cover with plastic wrap and cook on High for 5 minutes or until fish is
    flaky.
    
    I am not a fish lover, but this tastes really good and my 21 month old
    loves it too!
    
    Betty Rainville
    
    
    Put Pats of 
    

    
    This is moronically easy and yields 4 servings, a great nap time
    recipe.
          
    4 split chicken breasts
    1 cup of white rice
    1 can cream of chicken soup
    1 can french onion soup
    
    Spread rice across a 13x9 casserole dish. Mix in fr. onion soup.
    Place chicken breasts on rice mixture. Spoon cr of chicken soup
    over chicken breasts. I also try to cover any rice showing so it
    doesn't dry out when cooked. Bake in 325 oven for 1 hr and 15 minutes.
    It is too good to be true!
    
    Good luck,
    Kathy

    Kathy,
    
    Looks goods, but I have a couple of ????'s  Is that cooked rice?
    Do you bake covered?  Is that boned chicken??
    
    Thanks,
    Roberta

    ...And is it condensed soup (cans of Campbell's, for instance) without
    the H2O?
    
    Mmmm, and maybe topped with some of those canned crunchy onion rings?
    
    Leslie

    Does this recipie work with turkey???
    
    This is a desperate request, I "engineered" a dinner for a social group
    Sunday for 40 (no comments please!) and had a whole, aprox 12 lb turkey
    left, intact plus some scraps from the other 3 turkeys.  The other
    people helping me didn't want to take anything home so guess who got
    stuck?
    
    We started with turkey sandwiches for everyone at our house Sunday
    night, lunch Monday, turkey dinner Monday night, and sanwiches for
    lunch yesterday, and there's still over 3/4 of the bird left, plus a
    pan of stuffing and some veggies (but husband views eating peas as
    something up there with a death sentence).
    
    Any ideas on what else we could do with 10-12 lbs of turkey, and two
    more birds coming soon to my freezer from our fine company!!
    
    Lyn

    After Thanksgiving we always do one or two meals of curried turkey over
    rice. You can throw the peas in with that too. I guess you could do it
    with potatoes, (like a shepards pie) or spagetti if you wanted...
    
    Also, we have left over bread stuffing with eggs for breakfast (may
    sound gross, but it's ok)
    
    Good luck - turkey is my favorite meat ! Wish I could help you !
    
    
    
    

    I'm sure the cooking conference has lots of turkey stuff;
    All I did was go in, do a DIR/OUTPUT=filename.ext and exited,
    edited the file, and did a search (MUCH quicker than doing a 
    search in the conference).
    
    What about freezing the cooked meat in portions so that you can
    put off being creative with the leftovers until another time?
    
    I noticed too that a lot of recipe books have poultry recipes for
    some cooked and some uncooked meats; take them chicken recipes and 
    substitute turkey for them! 
    
    Bread stuffing can also be a side dish (as a starch) for other meals.
    
    some ideas.....
    
    Monica
    

    re 19.12,.13,.14
    
    	The chicken is split breasts with the bone and skin. The rice
    is NOT pre-cooked. You may pre cook it if you like but I never do.
    I have made it SEVERAL times and sometimes the rice comes out dry.
    My suggestion is to add some water to the rice/fr onion soup and
    mix it, or add white wine if you have some. The cr. of chicken is
    not diluted. That's part of the beauty of the recipe. It is a matter
    of opening cans and chicken, putting it all together and then cooking.
    Another trick to keep the rice from drying out is to cook it covered
    with foil for the last 1/2 hr. 
    	Sorry for the late reply. I haven't looked at the notes for
    a week. Hope you enjoy. I'll have some more throw together and cook
    recipes next week...and am always looking for more of these as I
    send them to my new mom friends.
    
    Kathy

    I was making this, to take as refreshments to a function, and suddenly
    it dawned on me that this one falls into the category of "super easy",
    it almost so easy you could just about let any kid do it themselves,
    and it's got flexibilty.  Let's face it, the holidays are staring us in
    the face!
    
    Lyn
    
    
    7 (or 8 more or less) Layer Squares
    
    (rich, mega calories, sugar buzz-bigtime!)
    
    Take a 9 x 13 glass pan, 
    
    Melt one stick butter in the microwave, right in the pan.
    (I do use real butter, sometimes I use the unsalted kind)
    Over this pour one cup of graham cracker crumbs, buy them already
    "crumbed" or just put them in the food processor, about half of a waxed
    package=1cup
    
    Pull out a one cup measuring cup for the rest of the ingredients:
    Next spread a layer of coconut, (the one cup more or less)
    Spread a layer of one cup each
    Chocolate chips (semi-sweet), Peanut butter chips, and/or butterscotch 
    chips.
    I've been using Chocolate and PB chips, but use at least two of the
    above, if not all 3.  (chocolate mint chips, or white chocolate chips
    work well here too) they don't have to be "name" brands, store brands
    are just as good.
    
    Next open a can of sweetened condensed milk and just drizzle over
    what's in the pan, use the whole can, it doesn't have to be absolutely
    covered, just relatively even.
    
    Top it off with a layer of chopped nuts, I've used walnut, pecans and
    almonds.  All are equally good, even a combination of nuts.  I would
    steer away from peanuts, personally.
    
    Bake for 30-35 minutes let it cool and cut into squares. 
    
    I had AJ helping me with this, he had a ball, and I had a real
    "warm-fuzzy" feeling as we did this.  It doesn't have to be precise,
    just dumped in.  Total prep time might have take 10 minutes.
    I usually will spray the pan with PAM or other non-stick spray, just
    because of the nature of the ingredients
    
    You will have at least enough leftover ingredients for another, I keep
    all the opened bags of chips, coconut and crumbs in plastic bags in the
    freezer, they store well that way.