Cucumber Spread

My mother loves sandwiches made with this cucumber spread and I'm pretty fond of it, too.  She ate some that a friend had made, then went home and figured out how to make it herself.  I have to admit that grating the cucumbers by hand is not much fun and can even be painful on your fingers.  Next time I'm going to get out the food processor and let it do the work.

One of the main things to remember in this recipe is to drain the cucumbers.  They are very watery and if you don't drain them after grating, your spread will be a liquid mess.

Slather this between 2 slices of bread and you've got a nice little sandwich.  Cut the crust off and cut into small finger sandwiches for parties.  Use it as a spread/base for a turkey sandwich or any other type of sandwich you like or top a cracker with it. 

Cucumber Spread

4 oz. cream cheese, softened or use soft cream cheese
2 cucumbers
1/8 - 1/4 c. onion
Salt and pepper to taste
Garlic powder to taste
Onion powder to taste

Peel the cucumbers and slice lengthwise into 2 halves.  Use a spoon to scoop out all the seeds.  Grate cucumbers and onion with a hand grater or food processor.  Place the grated cucumber in a strainer to drain all the liquid.  Mash it down with your hand to get the water out.  Let this drain for at least 15 minutes.  Mix the cream cheese with a mixer to get it nice and smooth.  If you are using the soft cream cheese in a tub, you can skip that.  Add all other ingredients and blend.  Refrigerate.

Chocolate Peanut Clusters

A choir friend named Delores gave me several candy recipes a few years ago.  They are all good recipes, but she told me that one in particular was really a hit.  Her recipe is called Slow Cooker Peanut Clusters, but heaven knows I am much too impatient to wait hours for a slow cooker to produce candy for me to eat.  I tried it in the microwave and what-da-ya-know, it worked!

As my mother would say, "it makes a car-load" (92 if you want to get technical about it), so have friends to give them to unless you want to make yourself sick and eat them all.  I usually make them before Christmas, keep them in tins and give them in goodie bags with other cookies and candies.  They keep for a long time, especially if you put them in the refrigerator.

 

Chocolate Peanut Clusters

1 bar German Chocolate
2 - 11.5 oz. bags chocolate chips
1 - 20 oz. pkg. Chocolate Almond Bark
1 - 20 oz. pkg. Vanilla Almond Bark
2 - 16 oz. jars salted dry roasted peanuts

Place all ingredients except peanuts into a large, microwave-safe bowl.  Cook on high for 2 minutes.  Stir.  If not melted completely, cook at 30 second intervals until melted and smooth.  Add peanuts.  Drop by spoon or large cookie scoop or ice cream scoop (depends on how big you want them) onto wax paper.  Cool.  Makes 92 when using large cookie scoop.  Keep in airtight tins or ziploc bags.

Variations - add or substitute raisins, cranberries or other dried fruits or nuts.

 

 

Butter Cookies

This recipe is not from my family or anything my mother made.  It's just a good recipe for cookies that you can decorate.  I love to decorate cookies for special occasions.  I had some of these at a gathering and found out that the recipe came from the old Betty Crocker cookbook.

Butter Cookies

1 c. butter, softened
2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
(original recipe also calls for 1 c. finely chopped walnuts, but I don't use them)

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine all ingredients; blend well.  Roll on floured board to 1/4 inch.  Cut with cookie cutters.  Place on ungreased baking sheet (or one covered with parchment paper).  Bake 10-12 minutes or until set but not brown.  Cool on rack.  Frost cookies.  Decorate with sprinkles and/or sanding sugar. 

Butter Icing

1/2 c. butter, softened
3 c. sifted confectioners sugar
3 T. heavy cream (approximate)
1&1/2 t. vanilla

Blend butter and sugar together.  Stir in cream and vanilla until smooth.

To make chocolate butter icing, add 3 melted squares of unsweetened chocolate (3 oz.).

Pecan Pie

It doesn't get much more southern than good ole pecan pie.  "If I had a nickel for every..." (one of my mother's favorite sayings)...pecan pie I've seen Mother make, I'd be laying on a cushy lounge chair on my yacht with a hunky deck hand fetching me a tropical drink with an umbrella in it.  Non-alcoholic, 'cause that's how I roll.  I digress - back to the pie.

This is one of the easiest desserts you can make, especially if you're like me and use store-bought crust.  I love to bake, but I don't love to roll out dough.  Heck, you can make people think it's not store-bought by letting it thaw to room temperature and pinching the edges to make it look homemade.

Here's a helpful hint for pie crusts.  Have you ever eaten a pie that had a soggy, almost raw bottom crust?  You can insure that won't happen.  When you're baking a pie, pre-bake the crust for about 5 minutes at 350 degrees.  You might need to cover the edges in foil or with a pie crust shield. 

 

Pecan Pie

3 eggs
1 c. sugar
1 t. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. white syrup
1/4 c. maple syrup (pure maple syrup tastes best)
1 t. pure vanilla (never use imitation!)
1 c. pecan halves
2 T. melted butter
1 pie shell, pre-baked for 5 minutes

Pre-heat the oven to 425 degrees.  Beat the eggs, then add all other ingredients except pecans.  Pour into pie shell, then add pecans and stir carefully.  Cover the crust edges with foil or pie crust shield.  Bake 10 minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce to 350 degrees and bake 30 minutes or until set.

 

The Thing-a-ma-bob

 

What in the world is this thing-a-ma-bob?  I've had it so long that I can't remember where I got it or even what it's called.  I had to Google it to find out that it's called a Sauce Master Whisk or a Coil Whisk.  Whatever you want to call it, JUST BUY ONE!  This handy-dandy gadget can get lumps out of anything you're making (well, almost anything).  It works so much better than a regular whisk.  I use it every time I make one of my husband's favorite things - coconut cream pie, any type of pudding, gravy or sauce.  If you put flour into a recipe and you get clumps, get to whipping it with this whisk and POOF, those pesky lumps are gone! 

Where can you buy one?  Google it and you'll find many sources.  GET ONE!!!

Jello Cake

This, my friends, is a Jello Cake.  Not one of those Poke Cakes like you get when you look up Jello Cake on Google.  This is the original Jello Cake from the hills of Tennessee.  Mother made this cake as long as I can remember.  When I was growing up, you were always needing to take a cake somewhere - to a new neighbor, to a pot-luck supper, to a PTA meeting or to a sick friend.  Yes, we actually did all those things back in the day.  Showing kindness with a cake is a dying art.  This is an easy recipe and one that you might have all the ingredients for in your pantry.  Ok, so the eggs are not in your pantry.  But you know what I mean. 

The cake pictured is lemon and I used lemon Jello and lemon cake mix, but you can use any combination of flavored cake mix and Jello that you like - orange, strawberry, lime - you name it.  Publix sells what they call Creme Cakes, and this cake reminds me of those.  But heavenly days, we all know that a homemade cake beats a Publix cake by a country mile!

Jello Cake

 

1 small box of Jello (any flavor)
1 box of cake mix (any flavor)
3/4 c. vegetable oil
3/4 c. water
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a tube pan with Pam for baking and put a parchment paper in the bottom of the pan (or do it the old fashioned way and grease and flour the pan).  Sift the cake mix and Jello together to remove any lumps.  Add remaining ingredients.  Beat at medium speed of mixer about 2 minutes.  Pour into pan and bake for 25-30 minutes.  Baking time is approximate - check it at 20 minutes.  The cake is done when a cake tester inserted comes out clean.  Cool cake in the pan for 15 minutes on a cooling rack.  Remove from pan and let it completely cool on a cooling rack.  Make the glaze.

Glaze

4 heaping tablespoons sifted powdered sugar
4 tablespoons juice
(Try to use the flavor of the cake you're making.  For lemon cake, I use lemon juice.  Orange cake - orange juice, etc.)

Mix well with a small whisk or better yet, use the Sauce Master Whisk shown above.  Spoon over cooled cake, letting it run down the sides and middle.





Welcome!

Welcome to Mama P's Pantry.  I am a southern gal who was raised by a mother who loved to cook and bake.  The older I get, the more I appreciate the rich heritage of cookin' and bakin' I inherited, and the more I cherish the old recipes.  A lot of people won't share their recipes.  They want to keep them closely guarded like a family secret.  I've decided that if I don't want these recipes to die with me, I need to share them with the world.  Lord knows the world needs more good southern cookin'!  So here I am doing a blog, something I never thought I'd do, but this is my humble attempt at sharing good ole country cookin' with you.  I'm no expert and I have never taken a cooking class.  I just have the life experience of being the daughter of one of the greatest southern cooks/bakers ever.

Here's a shout-out to the FMHS Greenwave band kids, who always called me Mama P.

I dedicate this to my 2 favorite cooks/bakers:  my mother, Virginia, and my maternal grandmother, Ora.  My grandmother would be so proud that I am carrying on the tradition of southern cooking.  At 88 years old, my mother calls baking "my therapy."  She is crippled with arthritis and other ailments, but she sits on her walker by the stove when the urge to bake becomes more important than the pain.

Mama P