Cucumber Sandwiches and Croutons

When I was a teen and had been living in the cities for a few years I took a trip with my mother to visit my Grandparents. After a 9 hour car ride we arrived tired and hungry.

My Grandmother lived through the Great Depression and learned to use and reuse everything so that nothing went to waste. It turned her into a packrat, but that is another story.

When we got to their home my Grandmother graciously asked if I would like a tomato sandwich. "A tomato sandwhich?" I thought. "Really? What about some bacon and lettuce to go with that?"

I politely declined. Inside I don't think I was so polite.

I had grown up somewhat poor compared to others but nothing compared to those of the depression era, and that is something that I realize now as something that could seriously affect my children more than me if another collapse happens.

I am pretty sure they too would choose to starve for awhile.

Years later I saw a TV show where someone was serving cucumber sandwiches and I instantly thought about my Grandma. There had to be some reason these sandwiches would attract the attention of TV writers. Then a few years later I was visiting my husband's Aunt and she was about to have a party for her garden club.

She was at a loss as to what food to make.

There she was in the kitchen with a pile of cucumbers straight from her garden on the kitchen counter and a few loaves of bread in her freezer, and it hit me.

I told her that I would make cucumber sandwiches. It was a risky move.

She was excited at the idea, though it was something that she had never had.

The only problem was that she didn't have any salad dressing. Not even ranch.

However she had made some coleslaw dressing and had some extra in the fridge so I decided to try that.

Now I wish I had her recipe for that because it was amazing!

The sandwiches were a big hit!

So here I am to bring back the cucumber sandwiches and make some croutons for salad later.

Pretty simple stuff here!

Cut off the crust of the bread and dice for croutons.

Peel and slice the cucumbers.

Put coleslaw dressing on the bread and place the cucumbers.

Slice in quarters. They are best as little sandwiches!

Take your cubed bread crust and add a pad of butter. Use the heel of the loaf while you are at it for more croutons. I know many people discard this but they really shouldn't!

Mix the butter and bread crumbs and sprinkle lightly with a season salt of your choosing. Or get creative and use a cheese powder or tomato powder with a little basil.

Place in the oven and set for 300 degrees F. Once the oven reaches 300, turn the oven off and leave the door shut for at least one hour. Then try a crouton. If it is crunchy all the way through it is ready. They should not be as hard as store bought croutons, but they should not be soft inside.

Let cool completely. I am not sure on the storage of these yet since we used them up on salad before dinner. I know that if you put them in anything too soon they will get soggy and with butter on them they should go in the fridge or freezer.

After you try this you may never buy croutons again. 

If you leave the seasonings off you can have your own bread crumbs for stuffing or crab cakes.

These are comfort foods and for good reason. When you are so very hungry any food will comfort that pain. Grandma knew this and her children lived it. A tomato sandwich, or fried gizzards, or cucumber sandwiches can bring you back to a time when things were hard and you were grateful that your tummy no longer hurt. 

I hope you found this to be helpful.

Please share with others if you did!

Thank you for stopping by.

Dee Dee

My Indoor Burger Recipe

While I love to grill things, sometimes the weather just does not cooperate.

I have come up with a really good indoor burger recipe that is very tasty!

If you are on a diet, don't even bother messing with this one.

One thing that I have noticed with ground beef is that if you mix it like you are kneading bread it will become stiff when you cook it, so now I use a fork to separate the hamburger while incorporating the fixings into it.

I am making Mushroom Swiss Burgers here, if you don't like mushrooms or Swiss cheese you can use any kind of cheese in it's place. Cheddar is a wonderful substitute.

After you've forked up your meat, add onion flakes to taste (I like a good heaping Tablespoon per pound of meat), 3/4 package of Au Jus gravy mix, 2 tablespoons of water and one Cup of shredded Swiss cheese. The Cheese is not green, the bowl is!

Fork it up!

Cover and place in fridge.

I like to use fresh mushrooms whenever possible. Slice and saute mushrooms in butter until they scream "Yummy!"  Well, maybe they won't actually scream, but your taste buds may argue a bit.

Sprinkle some onion flakes in.

Mix the rest of the Au Jus gravy packet into 1/2 cup of water and pour over mushrooms. Simmer until reduced and thickened. After the burgers are done you can also add the drippings and simmer that down.

Form your burgers and place on a foil lined baking sheet.

Bake at 350 degrees F for 25 minutes.

With 10 minutes left toast your buns. I do this like a grilled cheese sandwich.

When your burgers are done place on buns, add another slice of cheese (if you are a cheese junky like I am) smother with the mushrooms and serve with a napkin. These are deliciously messy!

If you want to wow your family, this could do it.

This last picture was taken before the cheese had a chance to melt.

This is just the kick off to our holiday weekend.

Thank you for stopping by.

If you enjoy this recipe please share it with others.

Dee Dee

Cooking Camp Bread

Few things are more satisfying than eating freshly baked bread when you are out camping.

I like to mix all the dry ingredients together and put in plastic bags to be able to have a couple of loaves or bread sticks. You can add your water right into the bag and mix the dough in the bag.

We have made stone ovens to bake in, which can be a lot of work, and the bread turns out much like what a brick oven makes. Good stuff!

You can tote in a camp oven, which is a heavy and bulky addition to a backpack. These can be nice as they have a temperature gauge.

But let's get primitive for a moment.

I am talking bread sticks with a twist, literally.

The way to make bread sticks for over a fire is to wrap your bread dough around a stick that has had the bark stripped off (make sure you use a good wood for this as some woods can be poisonous) and then you can roast if over hot coals.

I like to use Y shaped branches stuck into the ground on each side of the fire to cradle the bread stick stick on. It makes it easy to turn the stick for even heating and lets me work on the other foods for the meal.

And then there is Ash bread.

Ash bread is where you start a fire on a fairly flat rock and once that goes to coals you move the coals aside, place the dough (well floured) on the rock, put a layer of hot ashes on the dough and then hot coals on top of the ashes. Once it is done you just brush off the coals and ashes. You can even cook roasts this way. Ash gives a wonderful flavor.

Most campers like to bring bannock for bread making. Bannock is quite wonderful and less complicated than my camp bread recipe, and quite possibly more versatile. There are several recipes for bannock out there or you can use Bisquick.

It is good to bring extra plain flour and some salt when you go primitive. Don't forget the butter, cooking oil/grease and a fry pan for the fried fish fillets to go with your bread!

I will update this post later with pictures and put my bread recipe on another post.

Thank you for stopping by.

Grab a warm slice and be cozy!

Dee Dee

Spice of Life

Spices and herbs play such an important part of our lives.

Beyond just seasoning our foods, some have medicinal values which I will not go into since making any claims of health benefits will get you in trouble with the FDA, sad but true, so I just want you to look into them on your own and see how beneficial herbs are.

I will try to stick with flavors here even though I would love to direct you to sites like http://www.naturodoc.com/library/nutrition/herbvit.htm and http://www.advance-health.com/fourthievesvinegar.html

which will bare disclaimers as they should.

I started cooking with herbs more after I started growing them in my garden and because of my garden I became a better cook. Tarragon is chicken's friend! Basil, parsley, lemon balm, mint, dill, oregano, rosemary, thyme and sage fresh from the garden can be a culinary dream.

Baking Soda (is better than toothpaste) and vinegar are great cleaners.

Having a big selection of spices, herbs, cooking wines, vinegars, sauces and oils will provide you with what you need to make small wild game lose a bit of that "gaminess" that turns people away so often. Raw, organic apple cider vinegar is a good thing to have on hand.

There has been so much negative talk about salt that many people are staying away from it even when they shouldn't. The truth is we need salt. I choose sea salt. Soon most people will look at salt as they do raw milk.

Garlic has medicinal properties but since I would prefer it not to be regulated by the FDA as one I can't tell you how to use it for healing .

Like Garlic, onions also have a use in the medical world. If you accidentally put a freshly cut slice of onion on a bee sting you will see what I mean, but stay away from chopped onions at a buffet style salad bar. Never let a sick person near chopped onions that you intend to eat. Do feed a sick person foods with raw onions and/or garlic.

Why? I wish I could tell you. Please try to learn about these things while you still can.

I came back to this post this morning hoping to finish it right, but I honestly can not.

I am sorry that I feel I can not freely give you information on these things that may lead you to better health, but I don't live in a land of free speech anymore. A major food contaminator (GMO) is in deep with the FDA and has been working to silence those with natural knowledge to keep their drug (pharmaceutical) making friends happy.

Okay, now I can't even talk about flavors because thinking about the restrictions has left a bad taste in my mouth. Yes, there are those that want to steal what keeps us cozy. That is why I push to learn how to make things and cook things that are so easily gotten from a store. It may take longer to do and that is fine. I take pride in what I can do and they can't take that away.

Thanks for stopping by.

Dee Dee

Chicken Chimichangas from Home Storage Part 2

Finishing the chimichangas, you put the hot meat filling on the flour tortilla with a layer of sour cream and cheese (Monterey Jack is best but I used Co-Jack) and first fold the ends up and then fold up the sides. Secure with a toothpick and either put in a deep fryer or use a skillet with a few inches of oil, turn when golden brown.

Be careful you don't burn your finger like I just did. Oil spatters if you don't turn the food carefully, and sometimes even when you do.

If you store the meat mixture in the fridge, heat it before putting on the tortilla or it may not be hot enough after frying.

This is not a high end restaurant recipe, but it really is quite good for stored foods. I don't have a recipe for a topping sauce yet because they get eaten to fast to experiment with that, but there are sauces that you can put over it. I haven't felt a need for a sauce either.

I put the pictures on in reverse order so that the finished product would be seen first. I am sorry I couldn't show pictures of how to roll it up but that would require more hands than I have and there are youtube videos on how to wrap a chimichanga. I hope this helps to add to your use of stored foods.

I am going to go try to knit with my burned finger now.

You all take care and cook safely.

Thank you for stopping by.

Dee Dee

Chicken Chimichangas from Home Storage Part 1

I start here with some very basic talk about preparedness for those of you who may not be storing foods and may think it is not necessary.We buy canned chicken by the cases to have in our storage pantry. I also buy the cans of Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles by the case as well.

It's best to have a years supply of food on hand of foods that you eat for many reasons. Gardens can fail, storms can wipe out nearly everything, jobs can be lost in a flash. Then there are reasons so frightful to think could happen like a disruption to the power grip by an EMP which would bring our current way of living to it's knees.

I hope none of these things happen, but if they should I will not be one of the people racing to the grocery store to clean out the shelves there.

So now we come to rotating the cans so they don't expire. When loading the shelves put new cans behind older cans. Learn to use your canned goods so that you don't just stare at the cans wondering what to do with them.

Here is the recipe I created for Chimichangas.

2 9.75oz Cans of White Chunk Chicken breast

1 10oz Can of Diced Tomatoes with Green Chiles

1 teaspoon Dried Ground Cumin

1 teaspoon Dried Minced Garlic

1 Tablespoon Dried Onion Flakes

Substitutes.

You may substitute the canned white chicken with re-hydrated freeze dried chicken, though I am unsure of what the measurements would be. You would have to add more water as well.

Put all of the ingredients in a skillet, including the liquids from the meat and tomatoes. Add half a can of water (use tomato can as measure) mix well and bring to a boil. Turn temp down to simmer until meat is shredded and most all of the liquids are gone. This took nearly three hours on medium low heat.

It's ready to use for Chimichangas or for putting on Nachos.

I will have part 2 up shortly.

Thank you for stopping by.

Dee Dee

Hamlet, A Very Easy Recipe

Out of longing for a different and easier kind of omelet, I let my dyslexic tendencies emerge one day and I put the egg in it's place!

My youngest was always asking for cheese omelets and I have been trying to get her to eat eggs prepared differently but to no avail, until I did this.

Heat a fry pan on medium heat and melt a small amount of butter in it.

Lay a slice of honey ham or brown sugar ham flat on the bottom of the pan.

While this is heating, check your egg to be sure it is good by filling a cup of cold water and putting the egg in it. If it floats, throw it out! If it sinks it is good.

Then crack the egg and put it right on top of the ham.

Use your spatula/turner to break through some of the egg WHITES leaving the yolk intact.

As the whites turn white sprinkle some Colby/Jack cheese on top.

When the cheese starts to melt fold the ham in half over the egg. You may need to use another turn to hold it folded for a moment and then move it to the side of the pan to help hold it shut.

Let it cook for a few minutes and push the cheese back inside as is oozes out.

Flip it to the other side and cook for a few more minutes.

Sometimes you will have the yolk break when you flip it and that really isn't a problem.

You need to experiment with your stove and times for how you like your egg cooked. I can't stand any of the whites to be runny but I do like the yolks on that side. It may take until the ham browns slightly before it is done.

The egg in these pictures ended up to be medium soft cooked.

I make this expecting my husband to have this for breakfast and he had earlier grabbed a couple slices of cold pizza so he wasn't hungry, so I ate it and it was everything I dreamed it would be.

For a little more taste bud pleasure you can drizzle a little bit of Hollandaise sauce on it.

And that my friends, is a Hamlet!

Thank you for stopping by!

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Dee Dee

Marinade Recipe for Chicken Breasts

Tonight my husband's band was over so I made food samples (experiments) for them.

I made beef kabobs with the recipe that I posted earlier and I also made my own marinade for chicken that I wanted to get feedback on.

One 11 oz can of Mandarin Oranges with the juice.

4 Tablespoons of Brown Sugar

4 Tablespoons of Soy Sauce

1 Tablespoon of Olive Oil

Dash of salt to taste

1/2 teaspoon French Tarragon

Put these ingredients in a bowl and mix with an egg beater.

I mixed the marinade up yesterday and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The smell and taste told me that this would not be good for beef so this morning I put a frozen skinless chicken breast in the marinade bowl and let it defrost like that.

I placed it on a rack on a baking pan and basted with more of the marinade.

every 15 minutes while baking I would spoon more marinade over it. I cook it until the meat thermometer reached 170 degrees F.

Take out of the oven and let sit for 10 minutes before slicing.

I will tell you that if it wasn't good I would not have posted the recipe but I have asked the band to visit here and leave comments so you don't have to take my word for it.

One thing I would have done differently is buy fresh chicken. The chicken I got was as tough as an old stew hen. Had it not been for the marinade it would not have been very easy to eat.

I haven't decided what sides would be best with this, but since I had made kabobs with different things I did not need to worry about a full course plan.

I spent the entire day cooking and later I will be sharing another recipe with you.

Thank you for stopping by!

Dee Dee