This comes to us from our friend Karen! She says: I made my Mexican chicken soup yesterday, and it’s awesome. For some reason, I haven’t made it in several years. I invented it years ago when I was married, and had just tried turkey legs for the first time. I made them into a simple soup, then fell in love with Mexican food, so I kept changing the recipe and it evolved into what it is now.

• 2 whole chicken breasts or one whole chicken, cut up
• 1/2 to 2/3 lb.Velveeta cheese, or to taste
• 3 10 oz. cans low salt chicken broth, or 30 oz. homemade
• 1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes, low or no salt
• 1/4 C chopped onion
• 1/2 C carrots, sliced thin
• 1/2 C rice
• 1 small pkg. frozen corn, plain
• 1 C Pace Medium or Old El Paso Hot salsa or picante sauce (Pace is my favorite)
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder, or crush a clove or two
• 1/4 tsp. black pepper
• a bit of fresh cilantro, chopped (Optional)

1. simmer chicken, covered, in broth with garlic powder and pepper 1 hr. or so, or until tender

2. saute onion in a little peanut oil ’til transparent

3. remove chicken from broth, let cool

4. add sauteed onions, sliced carrots and rice to gently simmering broth, cook for 10 min.

5. While the above is simmering, remove chicken from bones and pull meat into bite sized pieces

6. add tomatoes and corn to simmering soup, cook another 7 min. or so

7. add cheese and picante sauce, stir ’til cheese melts, then add chicken and stir ’til it’s bubbling a bit, but don’t burn it.

Serve with corn chips and garnish with cilantro.
Use a good quality corn but cheap tomatoes are okay.
I love this stuff so much I can’t believe I’m sharing it here. LOL

Tim Dineen

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 5 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter
• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1/3 cup raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 400°F. Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in large bowl. Add butter; rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles fine meal. Gradually add 1 cup cream, mixing until dough comes together. Pat to 1/2-inch thickness. Cut scones into wedges. Cut horizontally halfway through scones; fill with 1 teaspoon jam. Transfer to baking sheet. Bake scones until brown, about 18 minutes. Serve warm.

Tim Dineen

• 1 1/4 cups flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup rolled oats
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup milk
• 1 tbsp butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Mix in the oats and raisins. Mix together the egg and milk; slowly add to the dry ingredients, stirring just until moistened. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead gently 5 or 6 times. Roll to a 1/2-inch thick circle. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Cut into wedges and brush with the melted butter. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown.

George and Suzanne

George says this is one of the easiest – and best – breads he’s ever come across. The basic recipe is first, and his variations follow.

• 3 cups self-rising flour
• 2 tbsp sugar (raw sugar works best)
• 12 oz beer

Use a 4″ x 8″ bread pan. Mix and bake at 350° about 1 hour. Top with melted butter*

*This means melt a cube of butter and pour over the unbaked dough in the pan. Then bake for 1 hour. It is best to put the bread pan on a cookie sheet.

Variations:

• Use 1 1/2 – 2 cups whole wheat or rye flour.
• add 1 tbsp caraway seeds or flax seeds
• add 3 tbsp cranberrirs, currants, etc.
• Use different beers, stouts, or ales.

In 2023, I updated the recipe a bit. Here’s the link to the newer Pumpkin Rolls.

I make these just about every year for Thanksgiving… They’re extremely easy and really good.  I use the food processor to blend the butter and 2 cups of flour together and then add it to the rest of the flour and follow the instructions as written.

• 1 package dry yeast
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup warm milk
• 7 to 8 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup cold unsalted butter
• 1 egg
• 2 cups pumpkin
• egg wash made by beating 1 large egg yolk with 1 tablespoon water

In a mixing bowl proof the yeast with 1 teaspoon of the sugar and the milk for 5 minutes.  Combine 7 cups of the flour, nutmeg, salt, and the remaining sugar and blend in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal. Add the egg, the pumpkin puree, and the yeast mixture and mix until it is combined well.

Using a dough hook, knead — adding as much of the remaining 1 cup flour as necessary — for about 10 minutes or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Form the dough into a ball, transfer it to a well-buttered large bowl, and turn it to coat it with the butter. Let the dough rise, covered in a warm place for about 1 hour, or until it is doubled.

Turn the dough out onto your counter, divide it into 24 pieces, and form each piece into a ball. Place the balls onto a buttered sheet pan and let rise, covered with a kitchen towel, in a warm place for about 45 minutes or until they are almost double in size.

Brush the rolls with the egg wash and bake them in the middle of a preheated 350° oven for 35 to 45 minutes or until they are golden brown.

Dorrie Medeiros Kimkaran

The Portuguese make this bread only at Easter (I do any time I want…LOL) and always give a loaf to friends. Makes excellent toast. Recipe makes 4 large loaves but can be cut in half to make 2 loaves.

• 3 yeast cakes
• 1 cup lukewarm water
• 12 cups flour
• 1 T salt
• 3 C sugar
• 12 eggs, well beaten
• 1 pint lukewarm milk
• 1/2 lb butter, melted

Dissolve the yeast in the lukewarm water and set aside. Sift the flour and salt together into a large pan. Mix the sugar and eggs with the lukewarm milk. Add the mix to the flour. Sir in the yeast. Knead until dough has the consistency of bread dough. Now, add the melted butter, kneading a little more, and adding more flour as necessary. Cover and let rise until doubled. Divide dough into round, slightly flattened loaves, roll the loaves in flour and place in buttered pie pans. On top of each loaf, if desired, press into dough a raw egg in its shell. Place 1 or 2 strips of dough over the egg and let loaves rise again until doubled. Bake in a 350° oven until golden brown and done, about 45 minutes.

Tim Dineen

• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 6 tablespoons butter
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1 package dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 6 cups flour
• Olive oil

Place sugar, salt and butter in a bowl. Add boiling water. Cool to lukewarm.

Dissolve yeast in 1 cup lukewarm water. Add to sugar and shortening mixture.

Add 3 cups of the flour and beat until smooth. Gradually add remaining flour. Knead the dough.

Grease a bowl with olive oil. Place the dough in the bowl and put in a warm spot until dough is doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and divide in half. Shape each into a round loaf and put on an oiled cookie sheet. Cover and let rise until doubled. Bake at 400° until golden.

Mike Amason

This recipe (as all great recipes do) comes with a great story – and pictures!

Rural South Carolina during and after the Great Depression was a lot like a third world country.  There was little to eat if you didn’t produce it on the farm.  Everyone had a few chickens and a couple of hogs, both very efficient animals at producing meat from whatever could be foraged.  Lots of farms had a single cow for milk and butter.  With chickens came eggs.  The only groceries that were purchased were coffee, flour, salt, corn oil, and on occasion a bag of sugar.  Everything else was grown at home or done without.

Many farms had small patches of corn of a variety suitable for grinding at the grist mill for grits and cornmeal (My grandfather grew a white corn called “Hickory King” just for this purpose).  The miller ground and bagged your corn and kept a portion as his payment which he later sold.  Biscuits ruled at breakfast, but cornbread was the staple quick bread for lunch and dinner.   Many a child in the South in the 30s and 40s went to school carrying a pint jar of buttermilk and a large slice of cornbread for lunch, with a slice of fried fatback if times were good.

The secret to the crust:

This is the way all six of my great aunts and my grandmother made it, baking it in a cast iron frying pan which gives it a crust like no other bread in the world. Cast iron holds heat better than anything else, and that is really the secret of this bread.  You can make suitable cornbread in a roasting pan or a casserole dish if you have to, and some modern cookware may be up to the task, but I have never been able to get this crust from any other cookware I have owned.  Other materials simply lose too much heat while you are pouring the batter into the pan.  If you don’t have a cast iron pan, you can pick one up at a junk store or thrift shop for a couple of dollars.  I use a 7” pan for mine, but an 8” works just as well.  My Mother still uses a 6”pan she bought in 1944 for fifteen cents, and her cornbread beats mine every time.  But I think she cheats.

Serves 6-8    Quick breads are only good the day they are baked.  Leftovers don’t freeze well for reheating to eat, but should be frozen to use later in pan dressing to go with chicken or turkey.  If you already have a freezer full, toss the leftovers out for the birds.   They love it.

Ingredients:

Preheat oven to 450.

• Two cups self-rising white or yellow cornmeal, or add 3 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt to plain cornmeal
• 1 Tbsp sugar
• One egg, beaten
• 3 Tbsp vegetable oil or melted fat
• 1-1/4 cups buttermilk (or plain milk with 2 tsp vinegar to sour it)
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil to coat pan

Take the 1/4 cup of the vegetable oil and put it in the frying pan.  Turn the pan to coat the bottom and sides well.  Too much is better than not enough.  You should be able to see a shallow pool of oil in the bottom of the pan.  Put pan in oven to heat.

Put dry ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Add the wet ingredients all at once and stir to make the batter.

When the oil is HOT! (smoking slightly), pour the batter into the pan and enjoy the sizzle.  Return it to the oven for 20 minutes.  It is done when a knife inserted into the top comes out clean.

Turn out of pan upside-down onto a plate.  Stand and be amazed at the reddish brown crackled crust approximately 1/8” thick covering it.   Do not sample at this point if you plan to serve for dinner.  You may not have any left by the time everyone gets to the table.  It slices better when it cools for a few minutes, anyway.

Outstanding with any vegetables (especially a thick vegetable soup!) or by itself with butter.

WARNING:  South of Pennsylvania it is illegal to serve collard or turnip greens or any type of beans without cornbread.

It is a capital offense in some states to serve black-eyed peas and collards with pepper vinegar on New Year’s Day and not cook a cornbread to accompany them.  And it well should be.

Variations:

1) Any type of onions are great chopped and sautéed for a couple of minutes before adding to the batter.  The result is like a hush puppy but not as greasy.
2) A chopped jalapeno pepper added to the batter improves any bland side dish.
3) ½ cup whole corn makes a good addition. Drain whole corn well if you use it.  For creamed corn, use ¾ cup, reduce the milk to 3/4 cup and reduce sugar to 1 tsp.
4) ½ cup finely chopped broccoli florets gives the bread a flavor that surprised me the first time I tried it.
5) Cracklins.  Many people have never heard of them.  These are bits of pigskin (cured bacon rind) that have been chopped and cooked and are available in groceries all over the South. ½ cup of them make a cornbread you will talk about for years.

Dorrie Medeiros Kimkaran

• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 T fine chopped lemon balm (leaves)
• 1 T fine chopped lemon thyme
• 2 C flour
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 6 T butter, soft
• 1 C sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 T grated lemon zest

Butter 9×5 pan. Oven is at 325. Heat the milk with the chopped herbs and let steep until cooled.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. In another bowl, cream butter and gradually beat in sugar. Continue beating until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in lemon zest. Add the flour mix alternately with herbed milk. Mix until batter is just blended.

Bake for about 50 minutes until pick inserted in center is dry. Remove from pan, pour a lemon glaze over still hot bred. Decorate with few sprigs of lemon thyme.

This bread is great…lovely lemon yellow with green flicks (herbs) making everyone wonder what’s in it?? Enjoy with tea. If you start to grow lemon balm it grows fast, but well (like mint but won’t take over garden..grows in cluster shape). You can also make a great tea from lemon balm leaves…very refreshing and great chilled.

Tim Dineen

The beauty of this bread is its simplicity, and it is best to keep it simple. A key ingredient is the butter. Irish/European butter has a higher butterfat content than American butter – and it does make a difference in baking!

For best results, try and find Kerrygold Irish butter, or use Plugra, a European-style butter. It is well worth the effort!

Also – use a light touch. You don’t want to overmix this!

• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1/2 cup wheat germ, toasted
• 2 tsp honey
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tsp butter, room temperature
• 1 large egg
• 2 cups buttermilk (about)

Preheat the oven to 400º.

Spread the wheat germ on a baking tray and place in the hot oven for 3-5 minutes until it is lightly toasted.

Mix all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. Whisk together the egg, honey and about ¾ of the milk.

When the wheat germ is done cool a bitand add to the dry ingredients.

Cut the butter into small pieces and with the tips of your fingers rub it into the flour.

Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the milk mix. Quickly bring the flour in from the edges and mix with the milk, until all the ingredients come together into a soft slightly wet dough. (It should not be overly wet – you should feel you could pick it up without it running through your fingers, but it should be soft enough that it sinks slowly down and takes on the shape of the bowl.) If it is too dry add a little more buttermilk.

Put into a buttered 9″ x 5″ loaf tin, Place in the preheated oven and bake for 50 minutes. The bread should be nicely browned, have a good crust and sound hollow when you tap it. If it seems a little underdone, put it back in for about 10 minutes.

Cool completely in pan.

Leslie Christman

Blend 3/4 cup butter with 1/4 cup flour. Chill

Soften 1 cake yeast in 1/4 cup lukewarm water. Add 1 tbsp sugar. Let stand 5 minutes

Beat 1 egg (reserve 1 tbsp for topping) Add 3/4 cup cold milk, 2 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp salt and softened yeast.

Blend 2 1/2 – 3 cups sifted flour gradually until dough leaves side of bowl.

Roll out to 12″ square.

Roll out chilled butter mixture between sheets of waxed paper to 10″ x 4″ rectangle. Place in center of dough.

Fold each end of dough over to overlap.

Turn dough one quarter way around and again roll to 12″ square.

Repeat folding and rolling 2 more times.

Wrap in waxed paper and chill 20 minutes.

Make filling.

Roll out chilled dough to a 24″ x 12″ rectangle.

Cut lengthwise into 2 24″ x 6″ rectangles.

Spread with filling.

Roll as for jelly roll. Moisten edge, seal well.

Place on baking sheets and shape intopretzel shapes. Flatten to 1/2″ thickness with rolling pin or hands.

Brush with reserved egg and sprinkle with 1/4 cup brown sugar mized with 1/4 cup finely chopped almonds.

Let rise in warm place 85° – 90° for 25 minutes or more.

Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until deep golden brown.

Any bubbling of filling won’t hurt coffee cake!

Tim Dineen

These are quick and easy!

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup milk
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 1/2 cups cotn frozen, thawed or fresh
• powdered sugar or syrup

Sift flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Combine eggs, milk and butter. Mix in dry ingredients, add corn. Drop by tablespoons into hot oil and deep fry about 5 minutes or until golden brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or serve with syrup.