May and June 2012 Menu Ala Ruse

May:

Tues, 1- Raspberry chicken, baked potatoes

Wed, 2- Egg rolls, soup, rice, green beans

Thurs, 3- Out/Pretzel dogs

Fri, 4- Pizza- grilled?

Sat, 5- Bean tacos

Sun, 6- Creamy crockpot nachos

Mon, 7- Ravioli

Tues, 8- Bruschetta chicken, bread, cottage cheese, salad

Wed, 9- Mini meatball sandwiches

Thurs, 10- Out/Chips and cheese

Fri, 11- Pizza

Sat, 12- Reubens

Sun, 13- BBQ sundaes

Mon, 14-Crockpot Meatloaf, buttery potatoes

Tues, 15- Cream cheesy quesadillas

Wed,  16- Grilled cheese sloppy joes

Thurs, 17- Out/Tacos

Fri, 18- Pizza

Sat, 19- Snausages, crackers, cheese

Sun, 20- Special grilled cheese

Mon, 21- Roast and veggies

Tues, 22- OBB burgers

Wed,  23- Chicken BBQs, coleslaw

Thurs, 24- Out/Waffles

Fri, 25- Pizza

Sat, 26- Pizza rolls

Sun, 27- Grilled something, potatoes, salad

Mon, 28- Memorial Day!- ?

Tues, 29- Dorito taco bake, rice/beans

Wed,  30- Micah's Birthday!- ?

Thurs, 31- Out/Dogs and beans

June

Fri, 1- Pizza

Sat, 2- Special grilled cheese

Sun, 3-Mexican layered ranch dip

Mon, 4- Ungrilled chicken, potatoes

Tues, 5- Quick tamale pie

Wed,  6- French dip

Thurs, 7- Out/Chicken nuggets

Fri, 8- Pizza

Sat, 9- Taco ring

Sun, 10- Sour cream noodle bake, garlic bread, salad

Mon, 11- Uncle Stew's chicken potato piles

Tues, 12- Chicken pita pockets

Wed,  13- Texas Burgers

Thurs, 14- Out/Giant pretzels, dips

Fri, 15- Pizza

Sat, 16- Quesadillas

Sun, 17- Grilled something, twice baked potatoes

Mon, 18- Crescent taco bake

Tues, 19- Mini puffy pancakes, hash browns, fruit, French eggs, sausage

Wed,  20- Ranch style chicken sandwiches

Thurs, 21- Out/Pig in a blanket bubble bread

Fri, 22- Pizza

Sat, 23- Torquitos

Sun, 24- Grilled  something, crockpot potatoes

Mon, 25- Sour cream enchiladas

Tues, 26- Chef's salad

Wed,  27- Chicken patties

Thurs, 28- Out/Quesadillas

Fri, 29- Pizza

Sat, 30- Burgers

Mexican Wedding Cake

Yum!  This has to be one of the easiest from-scratch cake recipes out there.  Make it a couple times in a row and you can memorize the ingredients too!  It's a good one for kids to make.  Jer and Kristina made one a few weeks ago that we fed to friends.  We forgot to take any pictures of it, so we had to make it again.  Rats.  : )  We also have to get a copy of the recipe to the friends because it was a big hit.

(See my alterations below.)

2 eggs

2 c sugar

2 c flour

2 t baking soda

20 oz can crushed pineapple

1 c nuts, optional

Frosting:

8 oz cream cheese

1/2 c butter

2 c powdered sugar

1 t vanilla

Combine cake ingredients.  Bake at 350 degrees for 40ish minutes.  (It will look fairly dark, but it's not burnt!)  Beat together frosting ingredients and spread on cooled cake.

OK.  So with our first cake I felt like it was almost eye wateringly sweet, and the frosting is pretty thick.  So the second time around I cut the sugar down a half cup and did more of a whipped cream cream cheese frosting, and reduced all the ingredients and added some whipping cream.  It was good still.  If you like really thick frosting don't mess with that part of the recipe, although I might try just reducing the sugar there next time.  It's a pretty flexible recipe.

Spring Fruit Tapioca

Mom has fed us this for many a year!  No rhubarb season is complete without it.  Unless you are scared of tapioca.  Good grief.  Anyway, this is intended to be eaten plain, from a bowl.  Right?   Remember that time when the church was at our house and Mom served an ice cream sundae bar, and Spring Fruit Tapioca?  And James put the SFT ON his ice cream???  We were shocked.  WHAT was he thinking???  Well, it turns out that this makes a really good ice cream topping too!  And, in spite of being a rhubarb dish it is pretty sweet, so you can mess around with the sugar amounts.  Or you can do what we did.  Micah made this particular batch.  I read him the recipe from the other room while he cooked.  I doubled the rhubarb because 2.5 cups?  Not very much.  Besides doubling it meant that it would use a whole can of pineapple.  I forgot I was doubling it, and all that got doubled was the rhubarb and the pineapple.  It was still quite sweet, so go ahead and double the rhubarb if you want!

1/4 c minute tapioca

1 1/2 c sugar

1/2 t salt

2 1/2 c chopped rhubarb

2 1/2 c water

1 c crushed pineapple

Cook everything but the pineapple over medium heat until mixture boils, stirring more or less constantly.  Cool, add pineapple.  Chill.  Or eat it warm like we did. : )

Kindergarten Crust

This is my favorite pie crust.  It's shortbread, folks, what's not to like!  Mom often had the little kid of the family mix this up.  It doesn't get any easier.  Or tastier!

1 c flour

1/2 c butter

1/4 c sugar

Dump everything into your pan.  Smoosh it all together with your hands, press to cover the bottom of a 9x13, or bottom and sides of a pie pan.  I don't remember Mom using this for anything but 9x13 pumpkin pies, but it could probably handle most anything.  

As a side note, it seems that spell checker can not handle everyday words like "smoosh".  It recommends "smooch" or "smooth".  What is this world coming to?

Raisin Bars

These were a family staple for years.  Mom still makes them a lot.  Maybe because they are so quick?  I don't know of too many other bars that bake for 15 minutes.  OK, I don't know of any.  Now note that my bars look kind of thin and scraggly.  Nice, huh?  That's what happens when you bake them in a slightly too big pan and then cut them while hot.  You may not want to imitate me.  On the other hand they tasted good!  These always seem a tad bit on the rubbery side to me.  So I experimented by leaving out 1/2 cup of flour.  They were fine, maybe a little teensy bit less rubbery?  Maybe that's why they were thinner?  : )

Sooo, you need:

1/2 c butter, melted

1 c sugar

1 egg, beaten

2 1/2 c flour

1 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1 t cloves

1 t salt

1 c raisins

1 1/2 c water

1 t baking soda

1 c nuts, optional

Boil raisins in water in a small pan until reduced to 1 cup water, drain, save water.  Beat butter, sugar and egg together.  Combine dry ingredients and nuts, add to wet.  Add raisins.  Add soda to saved hot water, add to batter, stir well.  Pour into a greased 10x15 pan.  Bake at 375 degrees until firm, 15ish minutes.  Remove, drizzle with glaze.

Glaze:

1 c powdered sugar

1 t vanilla

enough hot water to make a thin icing.

Oatmeal Muffins

Made by Jer.

Another old family recipe. We ate these a lot! I know I made many dozen, but I was on muffin duty a lot, I assume others of us made them too?

Make time for the long soaking step in these- they are good even if you mix them up right away, but they improve with each minute they soak... more or less. : )

1 c rolled oats
1 c buttermilk
1 large egg
1/2 c brown sugar
1/3 c butter/shortening
1 c flour
1 t baking powder
1 t salt
1/2 t baking soda

Soak oats in milk for 1 hour. Beat in egg, sugar. Mix dry ingredients, add to wet. Melt butter, stir in. Bake 20 minutes at 400 degrees. Makes 12 muffins.

Orange Salad

This one comes from Mrs. Mast. : ) Last time they had all of us over I asked for one of her recipes. She handed me a binder and some recipe cards, and flipped to this one and said "This one is good, you write it down too." When a cook like Mrs. Mast tells you you need a recipe, you don't argue. I loved the Masts a ton and it makes me happy to be able to use several of her recipes. Now you can be happy eating orange salad too! You might want to play a round of Catch Phrase afterward.

3 c water
1 pkg cook and serve vanilla pudding
1 pkg cook and serve vanilla OR orange tapioca pudding
1 pkg orange jello
1 can mandarin oranges
8 oz whipped topping

Combine water and 3 mixes, bring to a boil, cook until thick, cool. Add oranges and whipped topping.

If you are one of the strange people in this family who labor under the delusion that you despise tapioca : ) , here are some thoughts. First, although the tapioca is visible when the cooking step is done, I don't recall any texture issues when it was completely done. I also can't see why you couldn't substitute plain vanilla pudding. Also, I usually use whipped cream in recipes calling for whipped topping, and it worked beautifully in this. However, I noticed that if you did use the whipped topping, you would have a pretty much dairyless recipe, which might be your thing if dairy is not your thing! : )

Calico Beans

On with the Harry family originals! Here's the next in my stack I'm working my way through. Remember eating these? We were always delighted with the outrageous HUGENESS of butter beans!

First a word or 20 on my (Becky again) personal opinions on baked beans. : ) You may have the same opinions as I do, and therefore my ... deep wisdom will speed you on the road to happier living. Haha.

OK, so I dislike really sweet beans. I like desert that IS dessert, not dessert that is beans. (That was pretty much stolen from a book wherein a guy says that he "likes cats is cats, not cats is women." So when I made these did I put in 1 1/4 cups of sugar (don't forget all the additional sugar in the ketchup and the pork and beans!)??? Nope. I dumped in less than a 1/4 cup. And I was happy. But if you like your beans sweet, you go ahead (my little squirts would say "go INhead", drives me NUTS!), and throw it all in there! Do what you want! I mean really, what am I going to do with half a leftover can of lima beans?!? I used them all. And when Tina (who loooooves beans), claimed to not like these, and while yet announcing her dislike stabbed a lima bean on her fork, James said "No Tina! Don't eat the green ones, they're the yucky ones...", and was interrupted by her going on to say that "these green ones are the good ones though.", she kind of lost credibility. And James's childhood torture-by-lima bean came out again. : )

1 lb hamburger
1 lb bacon
1 c chopped onions
1/2 c ketchup
3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 t salt
2 T cider vinegar
1/2 c white sugar
2 T dry mustard
1/2 can green lima beans
1 12 oz can pork and beans
1 can kidney beans (rinsed and drained)
1 can butter beans

Cook bacon, add hamburger and onions, cook and drain off the fat. Add everything else and mix well. Bake at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes, or throw it all in a crockpot, or I'll do it in a pot on the stove when I'm in a hurry.

This is great for potlucks, and can be a satisfying main dish too!