GOOD COOK

Coloring Easter Eggs is one of our family’s favorite traditions and activities.   According to my grandma, they have been coloring eggs this way in Santa Clara for as long as she remembers, so we assume the tradition came over from Switzerland with the pioneers.

It’s a pretty easy and fun way to color.  You want to give yourself plenty of time to do it, though, so you can relax and have fun with it.  Maybe it just takes a while for our family because we all want our own dozen eggs for the Egg Bust (Read about that here.)

So here we go……

The first thing you have to do is gather up all your brown onion shells.  You can get these from the grocery stores if you don’t remember to save yours during the winter months.   You also have to dig up some red root.  Red root looks like an obnoxious weed that you’d dig up.  They grow wild along the ditch banks here in Santa Clara, but since they got rid of our ditches and went to a city water source, we have to track them down in the fields.  Here is what they look like:

And here are the roots

You can see how they are reddish in color.  You have to take the roots and wash them really good with the hose to get all the dirt off.  Then grandma usually takes a rock and smashes them a bit.  I kind of twisted mine to break them apart.  Then you put them in an old pan and put water in them.  These pans we use are grandmas old pans that we have used for years.  They are only used for eggs, so if you have an old pan you want to throw out, save it for Easter eggs. =)  Here is the pan of red roots covered in water.  You need to start them simmering for a while to bring the color out of the roots.

Here is the pan of onion shells.  You’ll need to put quite a few in.  Cover them with water, as well, and start them simmering to get the color out.

You can get your pots ready a day or more ahead of time if you’d like.  Just keep them refrigerated after cooling.  Or you can just simmer them while you are wrapping your eggs.  We pass these pots around to the whole (extended) family.   We all take turns using them and coloring our eggs on different days.

Because we color so many eggs, we have two pots of each going at the same time.

Now to color the eggs:

Before you start coloring eggs, you have to gather up your weeds, flowers, and leaves.  We give all the kids a grocery bag and send them off in search of these items.  Things that color nicely are peach tree leaves, dandelions, the dried shriveled up iris blooms, holly hock leaves, lilacs, carrot fern, etc.  We just wander through up and down our street and pull a few leaves off any trees, bushes or plants we walk by.  We try not to take too many if we are pulling them off neighbors property and we never take flowers from our neighbors.  Weeds make some of the best designs, so if you find an open lot or such, getting weed leaves and tall grasses are good to color with as well.

Here’s our layout of weeds, leaves and flowers:

You can see that we decided to try some strawberry tops this year.  They actually colored nicely.  The foxtails leave a neat imprint and so do those snowball flowers off my uncle’s snowball bush. =)  I like using the really big holly hock and ivy leaves.  Then I can wrap a whole egg in them.  They really color pretty.

With the leaves spread out, we put our eggs in a bowl of water.  The reason we do this is because we found the leaves stick on them a little better if the eggs are wet.

The eggs will dry quickly, so you can just dip your leaves in the water to keep them sticking.  As soon as you get all your leaves, weeds and/or flowers on your egg, you take your spool of thread and start wrapping.  Here are a few tips.  It helps if you have all different colors of thread to help keep track of your eggs somewhat.  When you start to wrap, first tuck the thread under your thumb where you can hold it as  you wrap your egg.   You need to wrap the egg tight, but not so tight that you break the egg.  You’ll get used to the tension amount as you keep doing it.  The last trick is to just let your thread go and fall if you need to.  You can gather it up off the ground when you finish your egg.

When wrapping your egg, you want to wrap your thread around the ends and edges of your leaves and petals so that it will leave the full imprint.  If you don’t, the water seeps underneath them and you can’t see the outline.  Here is a video where my family is wrapping their eggs.  You will notice that once we get them wrapped, we just bite off the end of the string.  Demonstrated beautifully by my hubby. =)  The political discussion is a bonus. ;o)

Here are some pictures to show you more wrapping.  Remember to use the black sharpie to put your initials on them, cuz if you don’t EVERYONE will claim the prettiest eggs as theirs. ;o)  (Not that that has ever happened before at our house.)

Putting initials on.

Here’s a bunch of eggs wrapped and ready to boil.  You can see the ones done with loose thread and only wrapped in one direction.  Most likely, that thread will fall off during the cooking process and they will have a plain egg.  These would be the younger kids’ eggs or my impatient boys who could care less how they look.
Here’s some that are wrapped more correctly.  You can see how the thread goes in all directions, laying the leaves and flowers down to get the pattern.

Now we’ll cook them. You’ll notice in the video how my sister is making a little hole in the pot to put the egg in.  She will move around the pot, creating spots for the eggs.  You may have to add water after a few batches to make sure the water is covering the eggs.  If you do it in between batches and let it cook a little more, then you won’t weaken the color.  Often we notice it as we are putting eggs in and add water.  The dye will be a little lighter on those batches when we do that, but that is okay, too, because it gives you different shades of purple/pink and orange/brown.

Once all the eggs are in, you set your timer for 20-25 minutes.  They need to simmer, not boil.  If the water is boiling, it will crack the eggs, so you just want them to cook on a nice lower temperature.  Make sure you set the timer so that your eggs boil all the way.  If you don’t then you have runny eggs at the egg bust and that is not only gross, but embarrassing.  (Not that we’ve ever done that before, either!) ;o)

When the eggs are all done, gently use a slotted spoon to lift them out.

Get a bowl of cold water and put next to your pan to put them in.

Then you will place the bowl of eggs in your sink.  You will grab the loose threads in the water and gently pull on them as demonstrated in the video below.   Have the garbage or a bag close, as you will throw away all the thread and cooked weeds into the garbage before dumping the water out.

You can see that you only put a few eggs in the bowl at a time or have plenty of water in there  so they don’t hit the other eggs and crack.

At our house, we then take the empty cartons and write everybody’s name on them.  When we get them unwrapped, we look at the initials and put them in that person’s carton.  As I stated before, we like to each have a dozen eggs to use at the egg bust.

The last step is to shine the eggs.  You can get a little square of cloth or some paper towel and rub it in some shortening.  Then you rub the egg to make them shine.  Here is the video below.  And yes, I used real butter.  Not the cheapest way to do things, but it was all we had and no one could run to the store because we were wrapping/cooking/unwrapping.  It’s a process that we love!

I apologize for my lovely nail polish.  Evidently a manicure was not in my plans.  At the end of the video, I show you a few of the designs that the leaves have left.  (And you get to hear some awesome discussion in the background of each video.  I hope you enjoyed that, too.)

And there you have it!  Beautifully colored Swiss Easter Eggs!

I will say that one year I wanted to experiment with other natural dyes.  I tried purple cabbage, tumeric or saffron, and green onion stems.  I remember one year, one family used pecan shells and got a really pretty brown color.  What I found was that it the other dyes didn’t color as well as the red root and yellow onion shells.  The green ones were either too light, or colored similar to the leaves, so it was harder to see imprints.  The cabbage was not dark enough– too pale.  The yellow was also different either too pale or blended again with the leaf colors, so it didn’t imprint well.  If anyone has any other suggestions for natural dyes or what they like to use to color with, I’d love to hear about it!

I hope you all enjoy coloring some Easter Eggs in a different way this year!

I like doing Holiday dinners for my family just to make things a little more fun and breaking up the meal monotony.  For St. Patrick’s Day, I always do some kind of a “green” dinner.  I have done the traditional corned beef and cabbage.  The kids don’t like it too well, but I think it’s pretty good if you cook it right.  Here are some “green” things I do to go along with it:

Green jello

Green Veggie Tray

Green kool-aid OR

Green sherbet with Sprite

Green Salad

Last year I did a “lite” dinner because we didn’t want the corned beef and cabbage thing.  So here is what I did:

This included Zucchini Bisque Soup (it’s YUMMY!), Green Salad, Green Veggie Tray,

Shamrock Corned Beef Sandwiches (recipe to follow) and

Green Koolaid.

It was a fun, lite meal that we could all enjoy!

If you are looking for cute breakfast ideas, I found these two:

This one.  Click HERE for link.

And THIS one.  Aren’t they darling?  I may try one of these this year.  I really like the rainbow fruit idea!  Usually it is best for me to do a dinner, though, so I have a little more time to prepare it.

Here is the recipe for the cute Shamrock Corned Beef Sandwiches:

The first thing you need to do is to remember to order green bread from your grocery store bakery the day before you make them.  Then you can pick up your fresh green bread on St. Patty’s Day.

You’ll also need some shaved corned beef from the deli, cream cheese, mayo, and an onion.

First, put your softened cream cheese and some mayo into a bowl with about 1-2 teaspoons of grated onion.  I can’t remember if I put any other seasonings in here.  I think the corned beef is quite salty, so I didn’t.  But if you taste it and it seems a little bland, then add a little bit of seasoned salt to it.

Stir it until it is blended.

Next, take your shaved corned beef

And chop it up.  Add it to the cream cheese mixture and your filling is ready.

Then take your shamrock cookie cutter and cut them out of your green bread.  I also did white, too, for some color variety.

Spread your filling on your shamrock and top  with another slice of shamrock bread.

And there you have these cute little shamrock sandwiches!

And your nice light St. Patty’s Day Meal is complete!  Soup, Salad, Sandwich and some side veggies and fruit!

Have a great St. Patty’s Day dinner!

My daughter, Mykelle, made this one up one Sunday several years ago when she was a teenager.  It has been our favorite ever since.  We pretty much eat it almost every Sunday.  I’m pretty sure you’ll love it!!

Here’s the ingredients:  Butter, Sweet White Corn, Cream Cheese and Montreal Steak Seasoning.

Melt 1 -2 Tablespoons of butter in your pan over low heat

Add 2 oz of cream cheese and stir until melted somewhat

Like this….

Add your corn and start stirring the cream cheese in.

Sprinkle with Montreal Steak Seasoning.  We just kind of guess at the amount.  I’d start with 1 teaspoon then adjust.

Stir it all together and you’re all done!  Simple and YUMMY!

Here’s the recipe:

1-2 T butter

2 oz Cream Cheese

2- 12 oz bags Super Sweet White Frozen Corn

Montreal Steak Seasoning

Melt the butter in a pan on low heat.  Add the cream cheese and stir until melted.  Add frozen corn and stir the cream cheese in.  You can turn the heat up after you add the cream cheese.  Add the seasonings and cook until warmed through.

*Just a note here.  The super sweet white corn is the best with this recipe.  I haven’t like the regular corn as well.

I love ham roll ups.  They are easy to make and have great flavor.  That is a good combination for me.   Here’s the cast of characters:

The first thing you are going to do is make the stuffing according to the package directions.

Melt the butter in the water.

Add the stuffing.

Put on the lid and let it steam.

Then take your ham and put the swiss cheese slices on top.  You can use any kind of deli ham for this.  You can see I have a couple of different varieties here.

Put a heaping tablespoon of stuffing in the center.

Then roll them up and secure them with a toothpick.  *Side note here:  If you make these earlier in the day, you can stack them on a plate and cover them with saran wrap and keep them in the fridge until you are ready for dinner.  If you do that, they “set up” so that you can really take the toothpick out of them, which is kind of nice.  If you are cooking them immediately, keep the toothpick in so they don’t unravel.   (Evidently I did not put toothpicks in these– could have been out, or just trying to see if it would work with out them. I test rules like that.) ;o)

When you have them all rolled, put your breadcrumbs on a plate.

Then make your egg wash with egg and milk.

Dip the ham rolls in the egg,

and then into the bread crumbs.

Melt your butter in a pan (I do prefer real butter to the other stuff you saw in the picture.)

and place the ham roll ups seam side down in the pan.  This seals them and keeps them from popping open.

Load your pan up.  Then turn them after a few minutes, browning them on all sides.  It does not take too long for them to brown up and the cheese to melt.

YUMMY!  These don’t look quite as good as some of my others.  But they still taste great!!  If you’re one of those picture perfect cookers, this is a great little meal idea to use when you have to take dinner into someone.

This is probably my kids favorite breakfast. They love it. I love it, too. It is easy to prepare and tastes yummmy! Here’s what you’ll need:

Cresent rolls, sausage, eggs, milk, cheese, & pepper. (I threw salt in the picture, but you don’t need it.)
First, preheat your oven to 400 so it’s heating up while you get it all ready.

Then brown your sausage. If you heat your pan first, it goes a little faster.

While the sausage is browning, unroll the cresent rolls into a 9×13 pan. You don’t neccessarily have to spray the pan but can if it makes you feel better.

Then push the seams together and push it up the side a little bit.

Keep stirring your sausage, then put the 4 eggs into a bowl and add a little milk– about 2 T, and sprinkle in a little pepper.

When your sausge is browned, then pour it into your pan.

And spread it around even, like so.

Then pour the eggs over the top and make sure they spread evenly through the sausage and around the pan.

Then sprinkle it with cheese. I think the recipe says 1 cup, but we like a lot of cheese, so I just cover it all.

Then put it in the oven to bake for 15 minutes.

Taa Daa! There it is!! It smells yummy while it’s cooking and is even yummier to eat!! This is nice for the kids throw on a napkin and eat while running out the door. (Not that we’ve ever done that before.)

Here’s the full recipe. Hope you love it like we do!

Breakfast Pizza
1 lb. Pork Sausage, cook and drain
1 tube (8oz) refrigerated cresent rolls
4 Eggs
2 T. Milk
1/8 t. pepper
3/4 C. Shredded cheese

Unroll cresent rolls into a lightly greased 9×13 pan. Press dough ½ in up sides and seal seams. Sprinkle with browned sausage. In a bowl, beat eggs, milk and pepper pour over sausage. Sprinkle with cheese. Bake, uncovered at 400 for 15 min. or until the crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted.

Yield: 8 servings or more. It does feed 8 of us unless some are really hungry.

This is one of my favorite meals my mom made. Very simple, but good. I’ve shortened down the time spent by using my bottled beans, but you can still soak them overnight and throw them in your crockpot the next morning, or you can simply by some cans. The flavor is much better when you use your own bottled or soaked ones.

Here’s the recipe:

Bottled tomatoes, bottled beans, hamburger and onion (sorry forgot to add those to the pic), and chili powder, salt & pepper.

First, brown your hamburger with onion. I didn’t have an onion on hand, so I threw in about a 1/4 c of some dried onion. Add salt and pepper to your hamburger.

Dump your tomatoes in your crock pot.

If you like chunky tomato chili, just leave it. If you want, you can mash your tomatoes with a potato masher, or if you like it smooth and not chunky for those picky eaters, do what I did and stick your immersion blender in and blend them up. If you don’t have an immersion blender, you can blend them in your regular blender then dump them in. I recommend getting an immersion blender. I love mine!!

Rinse off your beans. (Sorry about the lighting, the sun was coming through the window by the sink and I don’t have blinds there yet.)

Add your beans to your pot.

Add a couple of tablespoons of chili powder.

Stir it up and add salt and pepper to taste. Cook on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 2-5. You can start on high, then lower it. If you make it early in the morning, then set it for low and just let it cook until you get home. If you don’t get started until after lunch and want it for dinner, put it on high. That’s my rule of thumb. You can always turn it down on low. This is really my favorite chili. Not too many flavors competing. I love to smash up saltine crackers and put it in. I know, I know, it’s a weird thing I did as a kid, but I still love it!

Easy Homemade Chili
2 qts bottled tomatoes
1 qt bottled pinto beans
1 lb hamburger browned
1/2- 1 onion, diced OR a 1/4 of dried onion
2 T chili powder
Salt & pepper to taste

Brown hamburger with onion. Season with salt and pepper. Add tomatoes to crock pot. Blend if desired. Rinse beans. Add to crock pot. Add browned hamburger to crock pot. Add seasonings and adjust them to taste. Cook on high 2-5 hours or on low 6-8 hours.

If you need to feed more people, add another bottle of beans, increase your hamburger and tomatoes. Quite simple and delicious.

It’s that time of year when I have to figure out what we are having for Halloween dinner. Do I do the “orange” theme, the “pumpkin” theme, or that whole “gory fun food” thing?

In case you are looking for some ideas, here’s what the Webster’s had last year. We had a body.

Starting at the top, but hard to see is the hair. That was made of salad.

Deviled Egg Eyeballs. Use an olive in the center and dip a toothpick in red food coloring to make veins on it, if you want.

The lips were wax lips. Throat was a cucumber sliced but not quite all the way through.

We had real ribs this year and a nice intestine. (I’ll have to post the rib recipe soon.) The intestine is a pie crust that is stuffed with anything you like. You can do a meatloaf, potatoes, or veggies. Just pinch the pie dough together in a tube and lay it in a 9 x 13 pan. After it’s cooked, put some red food coloring in some water and brush it on. Add veins by dipping a toothpick or fine paintbrush in blue and red food coloring and drawing veins. Looks good, huh?? (I think mine is stuff with seasoned mashed potatoes. Since I have some children who will die if they don’t eat mashed potatoes with their Sunday meal.) Just to make you feel a little better, I bought these pie crusts. Not enough time to make my own. Here’s the link if you want the original recipe.

The legs are made with breadsticks. I think I bought this dough, too. Depending on how long you want your bones, you can either tie a knot on the end of each strip or you can use a separate piece and just attach it to the long length of dough.

I used cauliflower for the wrist and ankle joints and turnip halves for the knee caps.

Toes are vienna sausages and fingers are baby carrots. I did find this cool gummy hand so used it.

My favorite attraction this year was the homemade jello heart, complete with gushing blood. I thought it looked pretty cool. Here’s the link for the original recipe. Since I didn’t know what grenadine was, I tweaked the recipe. And I didn’t have a mold, so I made one out of a bread bag or sandwich bag. I’ll have to post my made up instructions.

It appears from the background of this picture that I did throw in the traditional drink of orange sherbet with orange soda over the top. (Orange float if you will.)

I’ll have to post pictures of the cool Halloween dinner we did when Wes cut his finger off. We had all “finger foods” that year! It was pretty cool!

So what are you all having this year? Give me some ideas!

I love this soup recipe.  It is especially fun when I do my “green” St. Patrick’s Day dinner.  It is a nice flavored soup and even some of my picky ones will eat this one.  It’s a fairly quick and easy one to make, too.

Here’s the cast of characters for this soup:

First, slice your onions.

Melt your butter in your soup pan.

Add your onions to the melted butter and saute until clear and tender.

While the onions are cooking, wash your zucchini and trim the top and bottom off.  Slice your zucchini.  I like to use the mandolin slicer because it gets them a little more uniform and thin….and it is fast when slicing so many. I like to slice mine fairly thin so they cook faster.  Have you figured out that I’m an impatient cooker yet?

Stir your onions off and on while slicing zucchini.  Can you see how they are clear now?  This means they are ready for you to add the broth and zucchini to the pot.Like so.  Can you see how the zucchini is fairly white and solid looking?  Keep your eye on the zucchini.  When it turns clear then you know it is ready for the next step.

It takes about 10 or 15 minutes.  You can see in the top right one zucchini that isn’t quite as cooked as the rest.

Here’s a little closer view.  I’m hoping you can see how the onions and zucchini are clear and soft.  If you get impatient and don’t let them get quite as cooked, then you have chunky soup.  Not that I’ve done that before.  More than once.  Because I’m impatient.

Once the veggie’s are soft, then you want to blend it.  I have done this in my blender one or two cups at a time.  You can only do a small amount and you have to be careful because when you turn your blender on, it will explode and shoot hot zucchini stuff everywhere and you will burn your hands.  Not that I’ve done that before.  More than once.  Because I’m impatient. It’s messy, trust me.  Yet, it is the way I had to do it before I got an immersion blender, which happens to be my favorite way of blending most things.  It is one of my favorite kitchen inventions.  It is so simple and I don’t have to mess up more dishes.  I used to have to mess up a bowl to pour the soup in, then the blender, then back to the pot.  That’s TWO extra dishes to wash.  NO likey. Immersion Blender.  Get one.  You’ll be happy you did.  It’s is also a great whipper of cream.  Yet, I digress…….

Here are the seasonings and spices.  I think the recipe said to put them in before you blend, but I got excited to use my immersion blender, so I just added them after.  And you can probably tell that I didn’t measure the pepper or the salt.  I’m that way.  I just throw a little in, then keep adjusting until it has the flavor I want.

After the seasonings are in, add the half and half.  You don’t want the soup on high heat after you blend.  You just want to keep it at a low temperature.  Especially when you add cream, half and half, or milk.  By the way, you can substitute any of these if you don’t have half and half.  I’ve done that before, as well.  I do prefer the flavor with the half and half the best.

Cream is all mixed in.  Isn’t is pretty.  It is a nice light green color.  Taste it and adjust your salt and seasonings.
Put it in your bowls and sprinkle with cheese.   Oh, the cheese makes it yummy!!!  Once it melts, it returns to it’s joyful light green color.  If you are serving it for St. Patty’s Day, and want it a little more green, I suppose you could add some food coloring to it.  Frankly, I had so much green stuff I worried about my family’s skin turning green.

Enjoy this yummy soup!!  PS.  Gable House used to be a really nice restaurant in town that had delicious food.  But the good old days are gone.  I can’t even remember who gave me this recipe, but I’ve had it for a LONG time.  It’s still a favorite around here!

Here’s the full recipe

Gable House Zucchini Bisque

2 medium onions

2 tablespoons butter or margarine

1 1/2 pounds zucchini

3 cups chicken broth

1 1/2 cups half-and-half

1/3 teaspoon pepper

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Pinch cayenne pepper, optional

Grated cheddar cheese

Chop and cook onions in butter until clear and soft, but not browned.  Wash and slice zucchini.  Combine onion, zucchini, and chicken broth in heavy saucepan and bring to boil.  Simmer for 15 minutes or until squash is tender.  Add seasonings and put mixture into blender to puree until smooth.  (I put blended mixture in a bowl until all is blended, then put back in pan.  Or use and immersion blender.)  Add half and half, adjust seasonings to taste.  Reheat, but do not boil.  Serve immediately with grated cheese.  Serves 6-8.

I call this Angie’s Chicken because after I had had one of my babies, this dear neighbor named Angie brought a pan of this to my family.  It was all I could do to not eat the whole thing by myself.   Serious.   Some of you may relate to the ravenous appetite you get after having given birth.  I would first drink about 25 gallons of juice in the first day or two, then the appetite would kick in.

Needless to say, this chicken hit the spot and is probably the favorite meal of the whole family.  It is one of the two items I can only eat as leftovers.  It is the one that I serve when we have company.  It is the BEST!  I’m telling you– the BEST!

And it’s EASY.  Which adds to the bestness of it!

Here’s what you’ll need:

Chicken, butter, milk, eggs, flour, lemon juice, nutmeg, salt, pepper, bread crumbs (why aren’t they in the picture?  I don’t know.)

Now you can either pound your chicken down or not.  I like to pound mine down for a couple of reasons.  1.  It makes your chicken cook more evenly when it is all the same thickness.  2.  Since my first pregnancy where I couldn’t even look at or think of the word “chicken” without getting sick, I now do so much better when the chicken is in thinner portions than in big chunks.  It’s just what happens.  Those of you who have been pregnant and couldn’t eat, smell or look at certain things will understand me here.  So I like to pound my chicken, unless I’m in a mass hurry.

Here’s the best way I’ve found to pound chicken.

Place your chicken in a ziploc bag.  You can use the quart size.  I was out and just had gallon.

Start pounding at the smallest/thinnest portion of your chicken, then work your way to the thicker portions, pounding until you get a uniform thickness like this:

This will make the portions very large, so I cut them down into serving size portions.  Big eaters can take two. ;o)

See my sweet boy cutting them in half for me?  The other thing that is nice about pounding your breast is that you can get more servings out of your chicken that way.

Here’s a finished cut piece.  See how large it still is?  You can cut them even smaller if you have small kids so that they are portioned according to your family needs.  (See how versatile I am?)

Now we’re going to get our coatings ready.  First we take the eggs and crack them into a bowl.  I always add a little milk to make it go a little further.  I probably add about  1-2 tablespoons.

Here’s the breadcrumbs.  You can add a little salt and pepper to it.  You may have to add more bread crumbs depending on how many pieces of chicken you are doing.  You can also used the Italian style bread crumbs.  I use whatever I have in the house.

Start your butter melting in your pan and spread it around to cover the whole pan.

Line your coatings up next to your cooking pan.

Dip your chicken into your egg wash.  (Those are my boys hands.  He’s such good help to me!)

Then dip into your bread crumbs.

Flip it over to coat the other side.  (I’m sure this was obvious, but I was happy to be taking pictures!)

Place in your pan.  (See how impatient I am.   Didn’t even wait for the butter to melt entirely.)

Continue with remaining pieces until you have them all in the pan cooking.  (I always have two pans going to feed our bunch.)

Once they are browned on the first side and you can see the sides of them turning white, flip them over to finish cooking them.  It really doesn’t take too long for them to cook through, maybe 5-7 minutes on each side.  That is if they are pounded down.  If you don’t want pound them, just make sure they are cooked all the way through before you remove them from the pan.  Speaking of which…..

When they are cooked through, take them out of the pan and place them on a plate while you make the sauce.

In the same pan, (don’t you love not having to mess up more dishes?!), melt another 6 tablespoons of butter.  Stir and  loosen up the bits on the bottom.

Add your flour to the pan and stir in.  It will kind of foam up and start to thicken.

Then add your milk and cook and stir until it thickens.  Only takes a minute or two.

Add your lemon juice and stir some more.  If you like a little more tangy and lemony flavor, I recommend using the juice of half a real lemon.  If you like it a little more mild, use the 2 teaspoons of bottle lemon juice.  They are both good.  I may be leaning to the fresh juice a little more now, though. I’ve also used lemon essential oil, too. It has good flavor. Start with 3 drops for mild flavor, 4-5 for stronger lemon flavor.

Sprinkle on your nutmeg.  See how thick it gets?  I have to turn my heat down at this point, if not sooner, to keep it from getting too thick.

You have a choice here.  You can be fancy and place the chicken on a serving dish or on individual plates and pour the sauce over it.  Or you can do what I do…..Place your chicken back in the pan with the sauce.

Then flip them over so they are coated nicely with the sauce.  I like them covered in sauce.  Sauce = happiness and joy and yummy in my tummy!

They are ready to serve at this point, or you can keep them on low and warm until ready to serve.

Trust me when I say “eet’s thee best!  I looovee eet!” (In your best Nacho voice.)  We had twice baked potatoes (yet again) and Doodle Bug’s Creamed Corn.  Hey!  Why didn’t I get pictures of that??  Okay, I promise, I’ll get that one up.  You’ll love it.  It’s her own creation and not like any creamed corn you’ve ever had!

Enjoy!!

This is an easy and great meal.  Perfect in the summer or winter. What you’ll need: 1-2 Racks of ribs, kosher salt, pepper, garlic powder, ketchup, liquid smoke, and brown sugar.

Get your large cookie sheet and a piece of tinfoil long enough to wrap around and seal the ribs.  Make sure the tinfoil is really heavy duty.  I get mine at Costco.  If you do not have the really heavy stuff, you will probably need to double wrap it. I also got these ribs at Costco.  They are the pork ribs and have two racks in a package. I place them on the tinfoil to keep the mess confined to one spot.

Take the ribs out of the package and sprinkle both sides generously with kosher salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  I tried to show you the amount sprinkled on, but it soaked in quick.  Just get plenty on there.  Pork needs the seasoning to be good.

Kind of stack them back up….

Then wrap them up.   Go ahead and wear your sweats.  I’ll feel better.

Fold it over this way….

Add a piece of tinfoil if your’s is not long enough….

Then seal up the sides….

Now put them in your 300 degree oven  to cook for 3 hours.

Make your BBQ sauce by mixing ketchup, brown sugar, and liquid smoke.

Before you get ready to serve theribs, take them out to your grill.  It was raining, so I didn’t dare go out with my camera.  So use your imagination here until I cook them again and add these pictures.

Take the whole pan to the grill and unwrap it.  Take your rack of ribs and place them meaty side down first and let them cook for about 5 minutes.  Flip them over and slather on your BBQ sauce and let them sit for another 5 minutes.

When they are done cooking, you can set them right back on your tinfoil pan and bring them back in the house.  Ready to eat!!  YUM!  Keep some extra BBQ sauce on had just in case you need a little more while eating.

BBQ Ribs

1-2 Racks of ribs Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder

Generously season both sides of ribs with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Wrap in tinfoil and bake on cookie sheet in 300 degree oven for 3 hours.

Remove to grill and brown meat side down for 5 minutes.  Turn over and cover with BBQ sauce.  Grill 5 more minutes.  Slice between bones.

BBQ Sauce

1 C Ketchup

1 C Brown Sugar

1 t Liquid Smoke (Can add more if you’d like)

Here is another Sauce recipe from my friend, Jill, who showed me how to do these ribs.  She said that she makes her sauce using equal portions of ketchup, honey, and brown sugar.

For example:

1 C Ketchup

1 C Brown Sugar

1 C Honey

Try them out and see which one you like best and let me know!