My D who lives on the east coast brought the calico beans to her thanksgiving gathering. She said they were a big hit but no one there had heard of them. That’s why I wondered if the dishes I mentioned were Midwestern.
My sister for Christmas made the green bean casserole. Which I never make because my H likes plain food and does not want vegetables in a sauce. It was a ride back to childhood Lol! Tasty but not something I want more than every once in a while.
Here’s my one and only fake ingredient recipe: Marida’s Mousse, from the old Sugarcraft web site discussion group.
Whip together one box (the standard 4-serving size) of instant pudding mix with 2 cups heavy cream. Makes a mousse filling for cakes that will not water out or collapse, without having to fiddle with gelatin. You can add things to it to punch up the flavor. For example, use lemon pudding mix and stir in lemon curd to intensify the lemon flavor. Add a couple TBS of dark rum to a mousse made with chocolate pudding mix, and/or dissolve some instant espresso in some of the cream.
I use it when I’m making a really large cake for a lot of people (like 70). Combined with a good scratch butter cake and good chocolate glaze or (real) buttercream it makes a delicious mousse cake.
I have a recipe for rice, corn, and bean salad that I got from either Food & Wine or Gourmet a long time ago and made some changes to. (For one thing, I use black beans.) It is great for potlucks, because it is served at room temperature. People used to ask me for the recipe, and I’d give it to them. Eventually, I saw it reappear when filtered through someone else, and it was invariably awful. Like, a person would dump a can of black beans into it WITHOUT draining and rinsing them. Shudder. Luckily, they were attributing the recipe to the person I gave it to, not me. B-)
I thought that adult people were taught to share in nursery school. When someone asks me for a recipe (if ) I will gladly give it to them with the caution that I am giving them the original…I do make substitutions. I will invite them over the next time I make it. Best part: good or bad we have friends over for dinner or brunch or whatever.
Around here everyone adds grapes to our Brocolli salad.
@Consolation there is a similar recipe for Rice, Corn and Bean Salad on the BeachBody Blog. And I agree it is terrific - delicious,healthy and so easy to prepare. Their recipe is pretty free flowing – you just mix basmati rice with black beans, red onion, corn and red peppers in any proportion that suits you. I dress it with simple olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a splash of agave.
I grandmother had recipes written down but my mom was always sure that she probably left something out when giving it to someone else. The main reason was that church pot lucks were a big thing long ago in her town and you just couldn’t let a good recipe go if you didn’t want it repeated over and over. Another theory is that she was just an excellent cook and it was hard to duplicate her expertise. Probably a bit of both…
I make a pretty killer key lime pie but although I started with a simple recipe it would be hard to write the recipe down I use now because I’ve been adjusting it for so long.
The broccoli salad around here uses golden raisins or regular raisins and not grapes.
Not nearly as tasty when people neglect to blanch the broccoli.
I’ve only seen calico beans at summer picnics (Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day) - delicious with brats, hotdogs, burgers.
My great-grandmother had a recipe box. My great aunt, who was a “women’s section” writer for the Seattle Times back when there was a “women’s section” in the newspapers, published a cookbook based on those recipes. Based on her recipes, I would say that there are three secret ingredients in all good cooking:
*if it’s a savory recipe, it’s bacon fat.
*if it’s a sweet recipe, it’s much more sugar than anyone in their right mind would use.
*if it’s a cake recipe, it’s whipping cream.
I now routinely substitute whipping cream for the liquid AND the butter in all sweet breads and cakes. It’s amazing.
@dmd77 now that’s what I’m talking about! Those are the same “rules” I abide by when cooking for an audience. Nothing like bacon fat and a bunch of C & H to kick up a recipe. oh, and butter!!!
Isn’t mine and when I asked for it, I got the ‘can’t share this one’ spiel. His wife called me, later… said he wouldn’t give it up because the base was just cheap Kraft bbq sauce.
2 c Kraft original bbq
1 c water
2 tbs ketchup
1 c cheap hot sauce (Tabasco, if you’re in a part of the country that doesn’t carry the off-labels)
Whisk in 2 tbs of yellow mustard at the end.
No longer a sweet bbq sauce. Good with pit chicken or for dipping french fries.
@catahoula, did you really mean one CUP of hot sauce or was that a typo? :-& 8-X >:)
One cup. I use Crystal or Texas Pete or whatever else is on sale.
I started to mention it was a little piquant but forgot to. It’s the vinegar taste that appeals to me, so I think you could sub 50% white vinegar if you don’t care for the heat. That and add a little salt.
Love the vinegar in bbq, still haven’t found a good Carolina recipe,if anyone has one (and it’s not a secret.)
My mother was a dreadful cook. Every evening we ate: London broil (always overcooked), chicken under the broiler top sirloin (see London broil), lamb chops with mint jelly…except for stuffed cabbage (she took that recipe to the grave) and chicken soup (which I watched her make) that was it. Always accompany with overcooked and/or canned vegetables…I learned to cook by doing…Growing up and certainly now we never had a potluck…those casseroles sound so good. But here: too much fat, not gluten free, vegetarian or vegan, no carbs…or the worst…Its FATTEN
ING.
FaTTENING…oh, and I forgot: allergies.
Cookies are my jam, and my secret to them isn’t in the ingredients.
Helping my grandmother make cookies as a kid, and then later watching Alton Brown on TV (he is a revelation!) and finally understanding that cooking=chemistry. So, I have a powerful kitchenaid stand mixer, and I always cream the butter and sugar together at high speed for a full five minutes, then add the eggs and beat for another five minutes. It’s really loud and time consuming, but it makes the cookies crispy and melt in your mouth every time.
All of my cookbooks have “improvements” written into the margins by me, except for the italian risotto cookbook-that one was too pretty to write in, and the recipes were too perfect to fiddle with :).
One of our potluck staples is Roosevelt Baked Beans. We were eating at the Roosevelt Lodge in Yellowstone and my wife asked for their baked bean recipe. It is so popular they have it pre-printed on cards to hand out.
Bacon, hamburger, keep all the fat, sugar, canned beans and some other flavorings. The recipe is widely available.
My mother was an excellent cook, grew up cooking for the family and hanging out in the kitchens of all the Ligurian relatives. I asked her for her spaghetti sauce recipe and it had never been written down before. For her, if it does not taste garlicky enough, add more garlic. Same goes for oregano, onions, basil, rosemary, pepper and other flavors. Cook until it gets to be the “right” color. If you follow mom’s recipe, it does not taste like mom’s sauce so I try to add other stuff until it does.
@lookingforward , great North Carolina style recipe in Steve Raichlen’s book The Barbecue Bible. It’s a slightly tomatoey piquant vinegar sauce as opposed to a mustardy one, so I guess it depends which part of Carolina you had in mind.
Roosevelt baked beans are the ones I was talking about. The only thing I change is dry mustard instead of yellow mustard. And I just could not leave all that meat fat in.
Yes, vinegar, not mustard or smoke flavors. And I think, though I’m not sure, white, not apple cider. I first had it it a hole in the wall in Trenton, NJ. Thanks, Consolation.