Allan first tried this popcorn when his mom made them for a trip he took with his father. He enjoyed it so much that he made sure that we got the recipe. The recipe called for pressing the warm mixture into a pan and letting cool before cutting into bars.
I have never made this into bars. I much prefer to bake it little to get rid of some of the stickiness and enjoy it as caramel corn. To make it just a little different, add 2.5 tsp cinnamon to the caramel just before pouring over the corn.
Cornbread goes with so many meals, but it is especially good with chili! This recipe makes a very small batch, but you can double it and bake in larger pan if desired.
This is a sweet, but not overly sweet shortcake. It makes a great base for strawberries or other favorite berries. While we often use whipped cream with this, vanilla ice cream also works well.
I learned how to make elephant ears in high school cooking class. But I never made them again until after we went to the fair in 2009.
The kids all wanted elephant ears and we were on a tight budget. I told them that we could make elephant ears at home. So we researched recipes and made them.
We often make them after the fair now.
This is a family favorite recipe. It is a very adaptable. Add cheese to the gravy if desired, adjust the amount of onions, use different seasonings if you wish. We usually enjoy it as written.
Use your favorite biscuit recipe, but we prefer it with large buttermilk biscuits. Since this is a heavy meal, a simple fruit salad served alongside is wonderful.
These are super easy biscuits to make. I often start the dough ahead of time and place it in the refrigerator. Then I pull it out and finish it just before I want to bake the biscuits.
These are our favorite biscuits to serve with gravy.
This is our favorite sugar cookie recipe. It is a flat, crisp cookie that is great for decorating. We usually use lemon extract (or 1/2 tsp lemon peel), but almond extract is good in these cookies also.
When we were overseas, we could not find graham crackers. We found a lot of other really good cookies and crackers, but sometimes I just wanted a graham cracker to dunk in milk or a good base for a s’more.
Cutting into long thin rectangles, and then baking the crackers until crisp, we often used these for when the children were teething. As they grew older, we cut them into small animal shapes for “animal crackers”. They also enjoyed these cut into large hearts and stars with shaped cut out from the middle.
The recipe makes a lot, but if stored in a cool dry place, they last for weeks. Unless your family enjoys them as much as mine, then the crackers only last a short while.
One of the first recipes that Andrea “invented” on her own. She wanted chocolate chip cookies and Audrey wanted peanut butter, so she experimented and came up with these.
I do not remember ever having biscuits and gravy growing up. However, my parents would make us “Shmooey on Toast”. It is the same idea as creamed chipped beef on toast–S.O.S. as soldiers called it according to my dad– but without the chipped beef. A little research and I learned if you use a chopped hard boiled egg, it is called Eggs à la Goldenrod.
I asked Dad where the name “Shmooey” came from. He said that shmooey sounded a lot better than “S.O.S”. With a little more research, I discovered why my parents swapped names for us kids. I agree… shmooey is a lot more kid friendly!
Following is the recipe we always followed for Shmooey, along with some variations.
