Winter Veggie Salad

This is such a great salad to make in the winter. It keeps up to 4 weeks, so they say! It's never lasted that long in this house! I made it today for a potluck for my last class at the Studio this year. Luckily, there was some left to take a picture (or attempted to at least!)

Winter Veggie Salad

1 can French style green beans

1 can Shoepeg corn (I used white corn--what is shoepeg, anyway?)

1 can petite young peas

1 jar pimentos

1 red onion, finely diced

1 green pepper, diced

1 c. celery, diced

Put all these veggies in a colander and let drain completely. I used my hand to squeeze all that I could out of them. Put the drained veggies in a container, I used a glass wide mouthed jar (the decorative kind you can get at Christmas time). Then pour dressing over the veggies.

Dressing:

1/2 cup white vinegar

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. pepper

Mix all in a cup until sugar is dissolved. Pour dressing on veggies. Put lid on jar and shake. Store in the refrigerator. Best if made a day ahead of time to let the flavors blend.

Best Chocolate Oat Chip Cookies

My hubby is a HUGE fan of the standard Toll House chocolate chip cookies. Don't deviate because he just don't like any others....until....these. He still likes his standard cc cookies, but these will do as well. I love how chewy they are..so yummy.

Chocolate Oat Chip Cookies

1 ¾ c. all purpose flour
1 t. baking soda
½ t. salt
1 ¼ c. packed light brown sugar
1 c. (2 sticks) butter, softened
½ c. granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 T milk
2 t. vanilla extract
2 ½ c. quick or old-fashioned oats
2 c. (12 oz package) Nestle Toll House semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 c. coarsely chopped nuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a small bowl – set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat brown sugar, butter, and granulated sugar until creamy. Beat in eggs, milk, and vanilla. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in oats, morsels, and nuts. Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake at 375 for 9 to 10 minutes for chewy cookies or 12 to 13 minutes for crispy cookies. Let stand for 1 minute; remove to wire racks to cool completely. Dip in soy milk and enjoy. J

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

I use an ice cream scooper instead of a rounded tablespoon – if you leave the mound high, they’re really chewy in the middle. When you take them out of the oven, they will probably not look too done, but they will taste great!!

Oh, and if any of you make them, I need to be the judge if you baked them the right way.



Recipe given to me by my daugher, Cortney..and I copied it directly from her. I told her that SHE needed to make them for ME first, so I would know if it was worth my time! And she did add that little bit about dipping them in SOY milk! As if....

okay..it was worth my time and they are best dipped in very, very cold SKIM milk ;)

Golden Sweet Cornbread

I'm not a huge fan of cornbread, but I do love it when it's moist, a bit sweet and has corn in it. Hoggy's Restaurant has the best. The old standby Jiffy just doesn't cut it anymore. I made it a few weeks ago and it was hard, crumbly and just plain blah. So I went searching for another recipe. I found one on allrecipes.com but it had lots of comments such as: good, BUT I'd do this or that or whatever. So, I thought, I'll just pick and choose which changes I thought would be good and try it. And I think we have a winner!! It was moist, crispy on the edges and full of good corn flavor!

Golden Sweet Corn Bread

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 small can corn niblets, drained well


Preheat oven to 400° F. Put 2 TBSP. butter in a 9" round cake pan and put in oven to let it melt. (this is what makes the yummy crust!). In a large bowl, combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder. Stir in egg, milk, corn and melted butter until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

recipe adapted from allrecipes.com