Recipes « Just Another Writer

How to Make Hooch January 12, 2008

Filed under: Life, Metablogging, Recipes — Just another writer... @ 10:09 pm

So Google decided to put an end to my dream of saving for a down payment on a house. My pagerank is now ZERO. But, I still have my thousand dollars! I can still get a house, it will just be a much more modest one. Sorta like this:

Photo by Cindy47452

Now, you know the importance of fitting into one’s neighborhood, keeping up with the McCoy’s and all that, right? I figure if I buy into that hood, I need to know how to make some hooch. I mean, there’s probably not a Wine and Spirits store right down the street, right? So I looked into it, and I think I know the minimum to meet my entertaining needs for my housewarming party.

Here’s what I’ll need:

A trash bag

warm water

fruit or fruit juice

raisins or tomatoes

yeast

sugar or powdered milk

Now all I have to do is mix the stuff together, put a tube of some sort in the top of the bag before I tie it off, and wait 3-7 days. Yummy! My new neighbors will be delighted and I’ll fit right in, at least after I steal a few pit bulls. Actually, this particular recipe came from the book, You Are Going to Prison, by Jim Hogshire, but it’s okay that it’s prison hooch, cuz that’ll give me street cred in my new hood. That is, if there are any streets.

For those of you who were hoping to avoid the prison stuff, you can find a good (?) hooch recipe over at How To Do Stuff. He uses grape juice. Thinks he’s better than the rest of us, I guess…

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There’s Nothin’ Like Good Homemade Chicken Pot Pie January 11, 2008

Filed under: Recipes — Just another writer... @ 11:44 pm

Photo by DawnsRecipes

Sometimes I get a craving for chicken pot pie. As a kid, I loved those frozen ones that you can still buy two for a dollar at the grocery store. Now that I can read ingredient labels, I don’t go there. I’ve tried KFC’s Chicken Pot Pie, but it just doesn’t cut it. It shouldn’t even be called chicken pot pie as it denigrates the very name of this delish Southern dish.

If you want something gooood, try making your own. Here’s a recipe I’ve modified:

1 pound deboned chicken
5 carrots, sliced
1 cup frozen green peas, the baby kind
3 stalks celery, sliced
3 Tbsp butter
1 small chopped onion
1/3 cup unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 3/4 cups chicken broth (use the broth from the chicken you boiled)
2/3 cup whole milk
2 (9 inch) homemade pie crusts (It’s just not homemade if you use the storebought kind!)

How Ya Do It

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C.)
2. In the saucepan over medium heat, cook onions and celery in butter until soft and translucent. Stir in peas, carrots, flour, salt, pepper, and ceyanne. Slowly stir in chicken broth and milk. Simmer over medium-low heat until thick. Remove from heat and set aside.
3. Place the chicken mixture in bottom pie crust. Pour hot liquid mixture over. Cover with top crust, seal edges, and cut away excess dough. Make several small slits in the top to allow steam to escape.
4. Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Cool for 10 minutes before serving.

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Diversify: Having Recipes on Your Blog is a Good Idea December 21, 2007

Filed under: Metablogging, Recipes — Just another writer... @ 11:52 pm

One reason that recipes are a good idea is that everyone eats. At some point, almost every is interested in cooking something. Going with this theory, I’ve been posting the occasional recipe over here. I like to cook, so it made sense. Within a day of posting my best fudge ever recipe, I got more than fifty visitors looking for fudge recipes. Specifically, they were looking for “best fudge ever” recipes, for the most part. This drove home the point that the headline you choose for each post is important. Of course, what this means is that I should have named this post “Brittney’s Sister is Pregnant”. Oh well.

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Contest: Good Luck for the New Year! December 21, 2007

Filed under: Contests, Recipes — Just another writer... @ 2:49 am

Start your New Year out right with some good luck, or at least a healthy diet. One diet I haven’t tried yet is the Good Luck Black-Eyed Pea Plan, but you might want to. At any rate, here in the South we believe that eating black eyed peas on New Years is a sign of good luck. Apparently, the black-eyed peas represent coins, and the greens we eat with them represent the other kind of currency. Hoppin’ John is a popular dish to eat this time of year–here is a recipe.

* 2 cups dried black eyed peas
* 6 cups water
* 3/4 cup onion — chopped
* 1/4 cup celery — chopped
* 2 pounds ham hocks
* 1 cup brown rice — uncooked
* 1/4 teaspoon pepper

Soak peas in the 6 cups of water overnight or boil for one minute and let sit for an hour.

Transfer soaked peas and soaking liquid to a large pot and add onions, celery, and ham hocks. Cover and cook over medium heat until peas are tender but still whole, about 45 minutes. Add rice and pepper, cover, and simmer for about 1 hour, or until rice is tender.

Remove meat from ham hocks and discard bones and fat. Mix meat into peas and rice. Serve hot.

What you need to do to win is to simply link to my contest, and then come back here and leave a comment letting me know.

Photo by loumcf

The winner will receive a 12 pack of Eden organic black-eyed peas and, if in the US, cornbread baked by yours truly. If you live in the South, you know that you never eat black-eyed peas without cornbread. It just ain’t right.

If you would prefer to pass on the black-eyed peas and cornbread (or if you live outside the US), you may opt for a $25 gift certificate.

The contest ends at 12:00 PM Central on January 15, 2008, so you can pump up your yearly good luck before the end of the month!

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Tis The Season For Fudge December 19, 2007

Filed under: Recipes — Just another writer... @ 2:23 am

The fudge recipe was so good that I decided to make some more. Just for kicks, here are some things that you can add to a basic recipe of two packages of chocolate (or other) chips and a can of evaporated milk:

chopped Andes mints

nuts

marshmallows

chopped pieces of caramel

Reese’s Pieces

candied pineapple, or other candied fruit

cinnamon

cayenne pepper

roasted coffee beans

I’m sure there are a lot of ingredients that could be added to this list. What do you put in your fudge?

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Recipe! The Best Fudge Ever! December 15, 2007

Filed under: Recipes — Just another writer... @ 11:11 pm

Photo by greenisgo2000

So at the writing group, there was food. Every single activity I go to here in rural East Texas features food. This is not always a good thing, at least not for my hips. Especially when there is fudge. The fudge at this writing group was the best I’ve ever had. Here’s the recipe:

1 pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips
3/4 pkg. butterscotch chips
1 can condensed milk
1 tsp. vanilla
optional–nuts

Pour the first three ingredients in a bowl and heat in the microwave until chips are melty. Stir, and add vanilla and/or nuts. Pour in a 9″ x 11″ pan and let cool.

That’s it. The butterscotch makes these special, and you can’t tell by looking that it’s there. People will just wonder why they are sooo good.

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On A Diet? Like Pie Filling? December 12, 2007

Filed under: Recipes — Just another writer... @ 12:24 am

jen d. cox

I love strawberry pie. My hips do not. Fortunately, I’ve been able to create a recipe that I love that tastes great without the calories. It’s simple!

Nuke one bag strawberries (or other berry) for six minutes in the microwave. Meanwhile, mix 1/4 cup juice with 4 teaspoons cornstarch and 6 packets Splenda. After the six minutes is up, mix in the cornstarch mixture and cook for another 4 minutes.

That’s it. No crust to make. The crust is the bad part. I’ve figured out that even if you ate the whole thing, you would only be eating around 200 calories. Of course, my older son warns me that my brain will rot because of Splenda. But my thighs will be slimmer…

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