Margaret Makes: Tapioca Pudding

Welcome to our first installment of Margaret Makes --the cooking show where Mom shows us her secret methods of making our childhood favorites. Be sure to submit ideas for future episodes.

Here's the video we shot a couple of weeks ago. (Forgive the unpolished editing; this is more of a family history project anyway.)

Check out this measuring spoon. Pretty sure that's the secret to all of Mom's cooking.


And this is the brand of tapioca she uses.


Minute Tapioca the Way Mom Makes It (She triples these amounts for her large pot)

3 T Minute Tapioca
2 3/4 cups milk, divided
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Mix tapioca and 2 cups of milk in large saucepan or pot. Add sugar and let sit for 5 minutes to allow the tapioca to soften a bit. Beat egg in bowl and mix in remaining milk. Add egg/milk mixture to pot. Stir until combined. Bring to a full boil over medium high heat. Boil and stir constantly for 10 minutes until full and foamy. Add vanilla. Pudding will thicken as it cools.

If you remember a time when Mom separated the egg and beating the whites and folding them in later, she did indeed do that. Mom prefers a denser pudding so she doesn't do that anymore.

And I'm pretty sure it's the law that it's eaten out of these fancy dishes.

Big thanks to Mom for being such a good sport. I told her I wanted a picture of her eating the pudding and this is what she did for me. It makes me so happy and her pudding really is this good.

What would you like to see Margaret make next?

Raspberry Yogurt Salad

Or "Salad so easy your kid can make it" No measuring, just dump and stir. This is perfect for a summer barbecue or Sunday dinner.

This is what it looks like freshly made when the berries are still frozen. Once the berries thaw and you stir it up, it gets bright pink. It's delicious to eat both ways.

32 oz vanilla yogurt
1 large box vanilla pudding
8 oz container Cool Whip
1 bag frozen raspberries

In a large mixing bowl, mix the vanilla pudding powder into the yogurt unit there's no powder lumps.
Fold in the Cool Whip and raspberries. It's good right then, even better in a few hours, and sooo good the next day.

Cheddar Bacon Ranch Dinner Quiche

Quiche. It's not just for breakfast. We have quiche for dinner a couple of times a month because it's easy and super cheap. The recipe below is a combination of a couple of recipes I've found. You could omit the cheddar/bacon/ranch and add whatever else you have on hand. Vegetables, canned beans, and green chilies are good too. The possibilities are endless. We usually complete the brunch for dinner with muffins and fruit.

Ingredients
6 eggs
1/4 c flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 c. butter, melted (sometimes I just use the bacon grease)
1 cup cottage cheese
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/2 cup ranch dressing
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in flour and baking powder. Stir in melted butter (or bacon fat) and cottage cheese. Add shredded cheese, ranch dressing and bacon. Combine just until blended. Pour mixture in greased 9x9 baking dish or pie plate and bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 and continue baking about 30 minutes. Cut into wedges and serve hot. Makes 6 servings.

French Onion Pasta

So Rachel and Lisa were discussing pasta recipes that weren't made with tomato-based sauce. This is one of my go-to recipes since Sarah doesn't like "red sauce" either and it is really easy. But if you don't like onions, this isn't for you.

I made the sauce in an oven-safe pan to cut down on dishes to wash later.

Adapted from Stephanie Cooks.

2 cups of uncooked penne pasta
1 to 1.5 cup of chicken broth
1 packet of Lipton's Onion Soup mix
1 shallot, finely diced
2 cloves of garlic, smashed
4 tablespoons of cream
1 tablespoon of flour
1/4 cup of shredded mozzarella cheese
1 tablespoon of EVOO

Directions-
1- Boil water for your pasta. While the noodles cook, prepare the rest of ingredients.
2- In a saucepan, heat the EVOO. Add the scallions and garlic, stir continually until soft and fragrant.
3- Add the chicken broth, scraping the bottom of the pan to remove any stuck on pieces of onion.
4- Add the soup mix packet, allow to cook on low for about 20 minutes.
5- Stir in flour, whisking continually until well incorporated and thickened.
6- Add the cream, mix well.
7- Add the pasta to the sauce, stir well.
8- Pour into an oven safe dish. Top with the mozzarella cheese.
9- Set it under the broiler until the cheese gets a little crispy.

Dijon Grilled Chicken Thighs

I make this a couple times a month and Justin always tells me I should have made a bigger batch.  Even my picky kids scarf it up. This is so easy to put together, especially since I just eyeball most of the ingredients.

Dijon Grilled Chicken Thighs

1 1/2 - 2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs (I've used bone-in)
4 tsp minced garlic
1 tsp dried parsley
1 Tbsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1/3 cup dijon mustard
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 tsp dried rosemary

Combine all ingredients except for chicken. Mix well. Pour over chicken (I use a ziplock bag) and let marinate for 1 hour or up to overnight. Remove chicken from marinade and grill until done (165 degrees - this takes us around 10-12 minutes).
from http://www.plainchicken.com/2011/08/dijon-grilled-chicken-thighs.html

4th of July Popcorn

Kenny created this for our fireworks party tonight and it's fun and yummy, so I wanted to share.  We did this recipe twice, once with cherry Jello, and once with berry blue Jello.  When they were both cooled off, we mixed them together.

*We did add a few drops of blue food coloring to the blue jello to give it a more patriotic blue hue.

Ingredients

1 c	sugar
1/2 c	powdered sugar
2 Tbsp	light corn syrup
1/4 c	water
3 oz	package of jello
1/2 c	unpopped popcorn

Directions

1.  Pop popcorn into a large bowl, set aside.

2.  In a medium size sauce pan, mix together, sugars, jello, water, and corn syrup. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly until lightly boiling. Don't over cook.

3.  Pour jello mixture over popped popcorn stirring continuously until evenly covered. Continue stirring until popcorn has cooled down and dried to keep popcorn from sticking together. Popcorn should have a sugary, crispy coating, not gooey. 

Baked Smores

I found this recipe on Pinterest, made them and dream about them a lot. I bought the ingredients to make more just days after we finished off the pan. It was so easy too.  Here's the link to the blog where I got it, complete with pictures. I followed the recipe exactly and made it in a 11x7 pan.

Baked S'mores
Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/3 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (approximately 5 full graham crackers)
1 tsp baking powder
2 or 3 super-sized (5 oz.) chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey’s)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme/fluff (or mini marshmallows if you must!)


Directions


Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom of pan.

In a large bowl or stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt.

Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined.

Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. Two 5 oz. Hershey’s bars should fit perfectly [for 8 by 8] side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer. [use 3 Hershey's for 12 by 8 pan]

Spread marshmallow fluff evenly over the chocolate layer.

Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the creme. This is most easily done by putting the second half of the dough in a gallon size freezer bag. Use your palms or rolling pin to flatten it out, and then use scissors to cut down both long sides of the bag, so it will open up book-style. Open it up carefully, and the dough will stick on one side of the bag. Then place the bag, dough side down, on the other three layers. From there peel the bag up and carefully spread the dough where it is uneven.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely or almost completely for the melty factor before cutting into bars.

Enjoy!

Chopped Ham BBQ Sandwiches

This was soooo easy to put together. You can see the original recipe here including pictures. I halved the original recipe and used shredded cheddar cheese instead of Velveeta mostly because I couldn't find it in the store and my kids were acting up. And I don't love Velveeta so I didn't really care.

Chopped Ham BBQ Sandwiches

2 lbs ham, chopped
4 hard boiled eggs, chopped
8 oz Velveeta cheese, diced
1 (12 oz) bottle chili sauce
12 sandwich buns

1. Preheat oven 350. Mix ham, eggs, cheese and chili sauce in a large bowl.  Make sure it is well coated with sauce.

2. Spread on buns.  Wrap them individually in foil and place on cookie sheet. Bake for 30 minutes.

Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken BBQ (Or Pork)

This is my modified version of a recipe from Maceys. My modifications are in blue.
3 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts I used country style pork ribs. I think a beef or pork roast would work too. Why not?
1 18 oz bottle BBQ sauce
1/2 cup Italian dressing or 1/2 packet Italian seasoning mix plus 1/8 c. vinegar. (Dry seasoning is like 20 cents and makes 1 cup of dressing.  There's plenty of fat in the meat so I omitted the oil from the packet directions and used half the vinegar required).
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 Tbs Worchestershire sauce

Place meat in crockpot.  In a bowl, mix BBQ sauce, Italian seasoning and vinegar or 1/2 cup Italian dressing, brown sugar and Worchestershire sauce.  Pour over chicken.
Cover and  cook 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low. (I cooked my ribs on high for 6 hours)
Shred meat with 2 forks.  While you're shredding the meat, pour the liquid from the crockpot to a saucepan and bring to a boil to reduce. This will make a nice, thicker sauce. Return meat and sauce to crockpot.

Serve on toasted buns.

Mexican Quiche

Easy. Cheap. Marginally healthy.  Need I say more?
5 eggs
1/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter melted (I used oil)
1 (7 ounce) can of green chilies (I just used a 4 ounce can)
1 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup chopped onion (I would use less)
1 tbsp butter
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in flour and baking powder. Add the 1/4 c melted butter, chilies, and cottage cheese. Saute onion in the 1 tbsp butter; add to mixture, along with cheese.  Combine just until blended.  Pour mixture into a greased 9x9-inch baking dish or pie plate and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.  Reduce heat to 350 degrees and continue baking about 30 minutes. Cut into small squares or wedges and serve hot. Makes 6 servings.  (We ate this with corn tortillas.)

From The Essential Mormon Cookbook

Pancakes

I love anything you can put maple syrup on.  And I especially love these.  Justin and I were on a quest for the perfect pancake recipe.  I've always been partial to Bisquik but after doing a little cost comparison (I just thought about it for a second really), homemade pancakes are practically free and Bisquik is a little pricey per pancake.

Back to the quest. We tried 2 recipes out of our cookbooks and one I had in my recipe box from who knows where since who knows when.  Yesterday I went to the web and typed in "pancake recipe".  This is the very first one that came up from allrecipes.com.  We loved it.  It helped they were cooked in the fat from the bacon we just fried.  So it was a short quest but nontheless triumphant.

This makes about 8 pancakes so those of you with larger families, I'd double it. Or if you like leftovers for the freezer.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons butter, melted (I used oil)

Directions

1. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk, egg and melted butter; mix until smooth.
2. Heat a lightly oiled griddle or frying pan over medium high heat. Pour or scoop the batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

Bacon Wrapped Cream Cheese and Green Chile Chicken

The name pretty much says it all. Rachael Ray says to roll it up and cook on the grill but we lost a lot of filling that way and burned the bacon.

Serves 6

3 chicken breasts, butterflied and pounded flat (so now you have 6 pieces of chicken)
1 pkg cream cheese
1 can diced green chilies
6 strips of bacon

Mix cream cheese and green chiles in a bowl until smooth.  Put a big glob in the center of each chicken piece.  Roll the chicken up.  Wrap with bacon.  Secure with toothpicks if you need to and place in a baking dish. Bake at 375 until done. 

The bacon under the chicken doesn't get browned so I didn't eat it.  It might be better just to lay the bacon only on top of the chicken so it all gets nice and crispy.