Mmmmexican Rice

• 1/2 small onion, diced into blendable chunks (the original recipe calls for white, but I prefer red onion because it's prettier)
• 1 tomato, diced 
• 1 garlic clove (I use garlic paste or minced garlic in a jar)
• 1 envelope Sazon Goya Seasoning con Culantro y Achiote (It will say on the box. You can find this either on the spice aisle of the grocery store or in the hispanic food section.)
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 2 cups chicken broth OR water

• 1 cup white rice (I use Basmatti)
• vegetable oil (enough to coat bottom of pan)
• 1 can shoepeg corn (drained)

Start by making the sauce. Throw all but the last three ingredients into the blender and blend well. Set aside.

Fry uncooked rice in medium skillet in oil over medium heat. Fry until good and browned.  Be careful not to burn it. Drain off any excess oil.

Pour the contents of your blender (the sauce you set aside earlier) and the corn into the skillet with the rice. Bring it back to a boil, then turn down the heat to a simmer, cover and cook until all liquid is absorbed (just like you make any other kind of rice).

Feeds about 6, but could be more like 4 or 8 depending on how big a portion you decide to dole out. I find this recipe to be better than any rice I've ever had in a restaurant. I like to serve it with a sprinkling of cheese on top or inside a burrito. Maybe one day I will remember to take a picture before I eat all of it.


The title of this recipe when I received it was "Eden's Rice." I got it from my fabulous cook-friend Bekah. Now that I've made it a couple of times, made whatever little tweaks I felt were good for my cooking style, and adopted it as my go-to Mexican rice recipe, I'm posting it here as part of my cook book.

Cranberry Salad

• 1 lb Cranberries
• 1 2/3 or 2 cups sugar
• 1 big or 2 small apples
• 1 small can or 1 cup crushed pineapple
• 2 oranges
• Grated rind of 1 orange 

Grind all ingredients together.

Jell-o Salad

• 1 large package cherry or strawberry Jell-o (sugar free or regular)
• 1 can strawberry pie filling (sugar free or regular)
• 1 carton Cool Whip, thawed
• 1 package cream cheese, softened

Make Jell-o according to directions, and let it chill until set.   Add pie filling, cream cheese, and thawed cool whip.  (If you are going for low sugar, you can skip the cream cheese and use light Cool Whip.) Stir ingredients together very well.  Then put mixture into a pretty bowl.  Refrigerate until ready to serve.  This is deliciously sweet and really more of a dessert than a salad, but I cheat and call it salad on holidays.

Chinese Vegetable Casserole

• 2 cans french green beans
• 1 ½ cans mushroom soup, undiluted
• 1 can mushrooms (stems and pieces)
• 1 can water chestnuts (sliced thin)
• 1 can bean sprouts
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 tsp soy sauce
• 1 can French fried onion rings
• 1 cup grated cheese 

Drain all vegetables thoroughly. Chop Onion. Add soy sauce to mushroom soup. Mix all vegetables in a large bowl.

Make a layer in a casserole using half the vegetables—sprinkle with salt and pepper and all the cheese.

Make a second layer of vegetables—sprinkle with salt and pepper. Cover with mushroom sauce.

Bake for 20 minutes uncovered at 350°.  Remove from oven and cover with crushed onion rings.  Bake uncovered for 10 minutes – or until onion rings are lightly browned.

CAUTION! The onions burn easily!

Daddy's Mashed Potatoes

• Idaho potatoes (5-10 lbs)
• Water
• Butter (2-3 sticks)
• Milk
• Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Peel and quarter potatoes. Boil in a large pot with enough water to cover them well.  Cook until they are soft.  Drain in a colander.  Put into a large mixing bowl and add a lot of butter (about two sticks) and some milk.  You can add this while you are beating them with a mixer until fluffy.  After they are fluffy and look like mashed potatoes should, add salt and pepper to taste.  Then put Pam in your crockpot and add all the potatoes.  You may want to add some butter on the top.  Turn the crockpot on and keep them hot until it is time to serve them.  You can get them ready a little ahead of time and not have them get cold or burn them if you put them in the crockpot.

Squash Dressing Casserole

• Squash (5 or 6 medium, yellow)
• Butter (1 stick)
• Cornbread Stovetop Stuffing (1 box) 

Prepare 1 package Stovetop cornbread dressing as directed on the package.  Slice 4 medium or 5 small yellow summer squash into 1/8 inch slices (approximately).  Put about 1 tbsp butter in frying pan and sauté the squash until soft and done.  Mix in with the warm dressing.  Add the rest of a stick of butter to the mixture until it melts.  Put into baking dish and bake about 30 minutes.  Don’t get it too dry.  Cover it if you need to leave it in longer than 30 minutes.  You can microwave this if you need to instead of baking it in the oven.  My mother put cut up sautéed onions in this, but I don’t make it that way because my husband hates onions.

Mixed Bread Dressing

• 1 loaf of white bread, toasted in the oven until kind of crisp but not burned and then torn into bits
• 3 packages of Jiffy cornbread muffin mixed, prepared and baked according to directions on package and then crumbled
• 1 large container of chicken broth or cook a whole chicken in several quarts of water; remove chicken, refrigerate broth, and then skim off fat. Use the broth.
• 1 big bunch of celery, trimmed and sliced and cooked in butter until soft
• 2 large sweet (Vidalia if possible) onions, chopped and cooked in butter
• 1 stick of butter, melted in pan to cook the celery and onion

Mix all but the broth together in a big bowl.  Pour the chicken stock over it (warm it up if it is refrigerated).   Put it into casserole dishes and bake for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees.  You can make it the day before and bake it right before dinner.

BEST EVAH! Sweet Potato Casserole

• 4-5 sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup butter (I use the real stuff)
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup real maple syryp (Do not use store-brand maple syrup. If you can't get the real Grade A stuff, don't bother making these. Seriously.)
• 1/2 bag of mini marshmallows

The day before you're planning to serve...

Peel sweet potatoes and dice into chunks. My chunks are usually about 1.5 to 2-inches. Larger chunks will take longer to cook, but you don't want the chunks to be so small that your sweet potatoes disintegrate on their own.

Put sweet potatoes in a pot and cover with water. Boil on medium-high until potatoes are soft enough to mash.  You'll know they're done when you can stab a piece with a fork and it slide right out without picking the potato up.

While potatoes are boiling, cut up a stick of butter (into about 8 pieces) and spread around the bottom of an 8x8 or 9x9 glass dish. When the potatoes are done, drain them using a colander, then dump them into the glass dish with the butter. Now add the brown sugar and the maple syrup and mash up the mixture so that it's fairly uniform and only somewhat lumpy. Yes, yes, I know. That description isn't particularly scientific, but it's how I do it, so deal with it.

Top with about 1/4-bag of mini marshmallows, and bake uncovered at 350 for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven, stir the marshmallows into the casserole, re-smooth the top of the casserole, let cool, then cover and refrigerate over night.

About an hour before you serve...

Preheat the oven to 350. Remove the cover and top casserole with 1/4-bag of mini marshmallows. Bake for 45 minutes. Serve hot.

Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the sounds of people stuffing their face, murmering little sounds of contentment, and exclaiming that this is the best sweet potato casserole EVAH. I promise it will happen. It always does for me.



As a note, of all the recipes I've ever posted, this one is the most mine. My grandma used to make something like it, but I've tweaked it and messed with it over the years and this recipe is the final coup d'etat. I really hope you get the same results I do from it. Because I swear it doesn't get better than this.

Thanksgiving Corn Casserole

• 1 stick of butter, melted
• 1 can of whole kernel corn
• 1 can of creamed corn
• 12 oz. cornbread mix (I like Jiffy corn muffin mix)
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl.  Dump mixture into 9x13 dish. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until edges start to pull away from sides of pan and top begins to brown.

I pretty much stole this recipe, in whole, from allrecipes.com (Baked Corn by Rhonda Mellott).  I'm only relisting it here so I don't end up forgetting which recipe I fell in love with.  I'm willing to bet this would be pretty delicious with low-fat butter (or Brummel and Brown), egg whites, and light sour cream.  That would cut PointsPlus value tremendously.  I'm going to try the lighter version for Christmas this year, so I'll let you know how it turns out. Might just have to "healthify" this one permanently if it works out like I hope.

Five Cup Salad

• 1 (11 ounce) can mandarin oranges, drained
• 1 (8 ounce) can crushed pineapple, drained
• 2 cups miniature marshmallows
• 1 cup flaked coconut
• 6-8 ounces sour cream

Combine all ingredients.  Stir until well mixed.  Refrigerate.  Serve cold.

I had Five Cup Salad a couple of years ago at a Thanksgiving gathering.  It was absolutely delicious, and I asked what was in it, but I didn't get the recipe.  Yesterday, I searched for recipes and found this one on allrecipes.com.  I used 8 ounces of sour cream (instead of 6), and I think the next time I make it, I will cut the coconut down to 1/2 cup and crush up the mandarin oranges.  The flavors are delicious, but the balance didn't seem just right. 

This is the easiest side dish ever, and if I can get the balance right, it might become my "dish of choice" when I'm asked to bring food to a potluck.  So nice to spend 5 minutes on it with only one or two dirty dishes instead of spending an hour or more and having a whole kitchen to clean when the baking is done.

Yeilds about 12 servings at 2 Weight Watchers PointsPlus per serving.