Cheese Ball

Mom usually made this cheese ball for big family parties. This recipe is easy and should be made in advance. It can last in the frige for a while and it can even be frozen.

Mom recently hosted the family for Labor Day. Just the day before, I was flipping through Mom's recipe box when I came across this gem. It has been years since I have tasted this cheese ball, but it tastes just as I remember. Mom and I are pictured here enjoying the cheese ball before anyone else had even arrived at the party.

Mom usually used nuts with this recipe to coat the cheese ball, but the recipe states that you could use parsley or paprika instead. I used almonds when I made this cheese ball because I like almonds and had some around the house. Mom seems to think that she used walnuts, but any nut would work. Mom also remembered using parsley and paprika, so I will have to try those another time.

Cheese Ball 

• 1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
• 1 jar (4.5 oz.) mushrooms
• 1 Tbsp. dried minced onion
• 1 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts

Drain and finely chop the mushrooms. Mix the cream cheese, mushrooms, onion and sauce. Chill for about one hour. Form the cheese into a ball and roll in the nuts. Serve with crackers. Enjoy!

Fried Bologna Sandwiches

Yes, you read that title correctly. Mom occasionally made these simple sandwiches for dinner. Really, there is no need for a recipe. Simply fry up some bologna in a frying pan and serve on bread. In my memory, Mom always made the sandwiches with basic white sandwich bread. I remember putting a slice of processed American cheese and mayo on my sandwich. I used thin sliced bologna for these sandwiches, but I seem to recall the bologna being thicker in my childhood than what I found in the grocery store this week. I used classic beef bologna, but I saw turkey, pork and chicken bologna at the store. You could use any type of bread, toasted or untoasted. Of course, there are many potential condiments--consider mayo, ketchup, mustard, pickles or even barbecue sauce. You could even make these sandwiches super fancy by adding lettuce and tomato. There is nothing to stop you from turning a simple bologna sandwich into a masterpiece.

These sandwiches are good even for picky eaters, like MDS, who like the sandwich in spite of himself. He was skeptical, but, ultimately admitted that he enjoyed his sandwich, which he had on toasted bread with mustard. In fact, MDS observed that the sandwich would be better with even more bologna on it. So, next time I make these sandwiches, I will make them with extra bologna.

Fried Bologna Sandwiches

• Bologna (3-5 slices per sandwich)
• sliced bread
• cheese
• condiments

Spray a frying pan with cooking spray. Heat pan with medium heat. Place a layer of bologna in the pan and cook for 3 to 5 minutes per side, or longer, if you prefer. 

Place the fried bologna on bread, add condiments or other toppings. Enjoy!

Broccoli with Cheese Sauce

Whenever Mom made broccoli, she made it with this cheese sauce. I suppose covering broccoli with cheese was Mom's way to get us to eat vegetables. It worked for me because now I love broccoli even without cheese sauce.

MDS, who often claims to dislike cheese, even liked this broccoli with cheese sauce. So I guess that proves that Mom's cheese sauce tastes good to just about everyone.

Recently, when talking with Mom and Megan about this dish, Mom seemed to think that she used her imitation hollandaise sauce with broccoli. But, Meg and I clearly remember that Mom always used this cheese sauce with broccoli and her imitation hollandaise sauce with cauliflower. Nevertheless, this cheese sauce would be tasty with any vegetable. And, stay tuned for cauliflower with imitation hollandaise sauce, which will appear in a future post.

Broccoli with Cheese Sauce 

• 1-pound broccoli
• 2 Tbsp. butter
• 2 Tbsp. flour
• 2 Tbsp. milk
• 4 slices American cheese

To prepare the broccoli, cut the broccoli into spears. Add broccoli to boiling water. Cook for about 8 to 10 minutes. Drain and rinse with cold water. Place the broccoli in a casserole.

While the broccoli is cooking, make the cheese sauce, by melting the butter in a small sauce pan over low heat. Whisk in the flour. Continue stirring the flour and butter. Add in the milk and blend together. Allow to cook for a few minutes. Then slowly add in the cheese until melted.

Pour the cheese sauce over the broccoli. Bake at 350 for 15 to 20 minutes. Enjoy!

Wheat Pizza

Mom occasionally varied her recipes to try to make them healthier. A prime example is Mom's wheat pizza. The recipe is the same as regular pizza, just substituting wheat flour for regular flour. Wheat flour has more nutrients and fiber. For this recipe, I used only wheat flour, but you could also use half wheat flour and half regular flour, or any combination of the two flours.

I know certain siblings were not fans of wheat pizza. As for me, I really like it. The wheat flour gives the pizza a nice flavor that is distinct from standard pizza. You can get standard pizza at just about any pizzeria, but I do not recall seeing wheat pizza on any pizzeria menu. To enjoy wheat pizza, give this recipe a try.

Just as with the regular pizza, Mom usually just used rectangular cookie sheets, so that is what I used here. Although, I do vaguely remember that for a time, Mom did have a round pizza pan. But any kind of pan will work just fine.

Wheat Pizza 
(yields 2 pizzas)

• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water (110 degrees)
• 2-3 cups wheat flour
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 tsp. sugar
• Sauce (16 ounces of tomato sauce seasoned with garlic and oregano)
• 2-3 cups mozzarella cheese
• toppings such as cooked sausage (about one pound), veggies, etc.
• grated parmesan cheese

Dissolve yeast in the warm water and let stand for about 10 minutes until foamy. Combine flour, olive oil, salt, sugar, and yeast mixture in a large bowl. Stir well until the dough comes together and is stiff. Add additional flour, if needed. Cover dough and allow to rise until dough has doubled, about 1 to 2 hours. When the dough is almost done rising, cook any of the toppings (such as sausage) that need to be cooked. Turn out dough on floured surface and form into pizza crusts. Grease the pans and sprinkle with semolina flour. Place dough into pans and create a slight edge with the dough. 

Cover the dough with sauce, toppings and mozzarella cheese. Sprinkle pizza with grated parmesan cheese. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes, or until pizza is golden. Enjoy!

Grandma's Carrot Cake

When I was in fourth grade, Mom's parents moved in with us. Grandma and Grandpa had their own "in-law" apartment in our house, but we still spent a lot of time with them, especially hanging out on the front porch. I feel lucky to have grown up and spent so much time with Grandma and Grandpa. Today, July 31, would have been Grandma's 94th birthday. In her memory, here is a terrific cake straight from Grandma's recipe box. This blog will still focus on Mom's recipes, but there are a number of other family recipes that deserve to be here. I know that you will enjoy this one.

Grandma had a serious sweet tooth, which I definitely inherited from her. She made this cake often and so did Mom. The recipe is quite simple. For this post, I used grated carrots, but pumpkin could just as easily be used. Now, when I gave Mom a piece of this cake, she was disappointed that there were no nuts in the cake. Grandma regularly used nuts in the cake. While I like nuts, I usually do not like nuts in cake. And, as you can see from Grandma's own handwritten recipe, you can add nuts if you want. Grandma's recipes were typically direct and without full explanation of the steps. But, also, there is no need to follow a strict recipe; the cake will come out just fine no matter the method used to mix the ingredients together. Use a bundt pan, or as Grandma noted, a tube pan. Also, the recipe for the frosting is not written on the recipe here, but Grandma used the cream cheese frosting recipe noted below for this cake (whether carrot or pumpkin).

Carrot or Pumpkin Cake 

• 3 cups flour 
• 2 tsp. baking soda 
• 5 tsp. baking powder 
• 1 tsp. salt 
• 2 tsp. cinnamon 
• 2 cups sugar 
• 1 ½ cup oil 
• 4 eggs 
• 2 cups pumpkin or grated carrot 
• Add nuts if you want

Mix together all the ingredients. Bake in 350 over 25 to 30 minutes in a bundt pan.

 Cream cheese frosting 

• Cream cheese, softened
• 1 tsp vanilla 
• 2-3 cups powdered sugar
• milk to thicken 

Blend all ingredients until smooth. Frost cake after it has fully cooled. Enjoy!

Patti's Mock Chicken Cordon Bleu

For over a year now, I have been regularly preparing, taste-testing, and posting about Mom's classic recipes. And, while I will continue to post Mom's recipes, I will also now expand to post other family favorites. Feel free to send me ideas.

This first expansion recipe is a Smith family classic. Since the age of eight, MDS has had this chicken dish for his birthday dinner. In honor of his birthday today, I now present to you Patti's Mock Chicken Cordon Bleu, a tasty recipe from my mother-in-law. This recipe will feed a crowd, or better yet, make for terrific leftovers.

The recipe is quite simple, but I do have a few tips that may be helpful. The recipe calls for dried beef. I find it difficult to locate dried beef, so I often use Carl Buddig beef lunch meat. I use an entire one-pound package of bacon. Also, I use a pint of sour cream, so that there is extra sauce for extra rice.

This recipe has it all--chicken, bacon and beef. But the chicken is the star and always comes out very tender. I think it is the combination of being cooked in bacon and sauce. I typically use six large chicken breast which seem to just barely fit in the pan. But some of the chicken breasts are so large, that they could easily feed two people or one very hungry birthday boy.

Mock Chicken Cordon Bleu

• 6 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
• 12 slices of bacon
• 1 jar dried beef (2.4 - 4 oz.)
• 1 can cream of mushroom soup
• 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
• cooked rice (about 4 cups)

Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Chop the beef into small pieces and scatter the pieces into the bottom of the pan. Wrap each piece of chicken in bacon and place the chicken in s single layer in the pan. In a bowl, mix the soup and sour cream together. Then, spread on top of the meat to completely cover the meat. Bake, uncovered, for 3 hours at 275 or for 2 hours at 350. Then remove the chicken to a platter, but leave the sauce in the pan. Stir in the rice into sauce and add black pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Slow Cooker Hot Dogs

If you need to feed a crowd, consider these slow cooker hot dogs--they could not be easier. Simply line up a whole bunch of hot dogs along the wall of your slow cooker. The key is that each dog has contact with the wall or bottom of the slow cooker. Set the slow cooker to high and let the hot dogs sit for several hours. You may want to occasionally turn the hot dogs so that they darken on all sides. No need to add anything else.

On the Fourth of July, the family got together at Mom's, and she made these tasty hot dogs. She cooked these for about 2 hours. Cooking them longer will get the outside even crispier, which Megan and I particularly enjoy. The taste of these slow cooker hot dogs is unique--crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. When I was a kid, I always put ketchup on my hot dog. Some say that mustard reigns supreme and that ketchup has no business being on a hot dog. But you can put whatever you want on your hot dog and I won't argue with you.

Slow Cooker Hot Dogs 

• Hot dogs (enough to line your slow cooker)
• Buns
• Your favorite hot dog toppings

Line the hot dogs up along the wall and bottom of the slow cooker. Set on high and let the slow cooker so the work. Rotate the the dogs to evenly brown all sides. Cook the dogs for several hours. Enjoy with your favorite toppings.