delicious recipes

Rightfully Ours Recipes

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Unlike in Stay With Me (Rebecca Rhodes) and Ornamental Graces (Grandma Malone), no character in Rightfully Ours is known for baking. Mrs. Mueller can apparently make a mean casserole and a delicious apple dumpling, but Paul and Rachel are preoccupied by things other than what hits the dinner table – namely each other and the search for buried treasure.

Still, Rachel fills a boring afternoon by making lentil soup and a batch of chocolate chip cookies. Both of these recipes are delicious and simple enough for any teen to make!

I shared my lentil soup recipe at CatholicMom for Meatless Fridays.

The chocolate chip recipe is my go-to cookie recipe, which is easily adapted to make jumbo or bar cookies. The recipe can be found in Betty Crocker’s 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook. I typically use butter rather than margarine, milk chocolate chips instead of semi-sweet, and forego the nuts.

Meatless Friday: Lentil Soup

Chocolate Chip Cookies

3/4 c. granulated sugar

3/4 c. packed brown sugar

1 c. margarine or butter, softened

1 egg

2 – 1/4 c. all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 c. coarsely-chopped nuts (optional)

1 pkg. (12 oz.) semisweet chocolate chips

Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Mix sugars, margarine, and egg. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt (dough will be stiff). Stir in nuts and chocolate chips. Drop dough by rounded teaspoonfuls about 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until light brown. (Centers will be soft.) Cool slightly; remove from cookie sheet. Yield: about 6 dozen cookies; 90 calories per cookie.

Guest Posts: Savory Soups for Cold Nights

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CatholicMom.com

Meatless Friday: Butternut Squash and Cider Bisque (January 6, 2017)

“Delicious and very pretty with its rich orange color, I served a bowl of this soup with some artisan bread and butter. And while there’s some chopping involved, it’s so easy to make.”

Meatless Friday: Potato Leek Soup (December 16, 2016)

“The fact that the potatoes do not need to be peeled makes makes preparation of this soup quick and easy. Chop your vegetables, throw them in the Dutch oven or soup pot and take care of something else while your soup simmers.”

Ornamental Graces Recipes

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Unlike Rebecca in Stay With Me, none of the characters in Ornamental Graces are avid bakers or cooks. But they do bake and cook, and I couldn’t help collecting some of their recipes.

Emily’s sister-in-law Elizabeth is known to be a good cook. Dan and Emily get better acquainted over some of her lemon meringue pie, which happens to be my favorite kind of pie.

Mile-High Meringue Pie

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/111886371969068621/

Emily’s no slouch in the kitchen either. She cobbles together dinner for her and Dan after raiding Robert and Elizabeth’s refrigerator, pantry, and garden. I know people joke about having too many zucchini, but I think I could eat it daily and never grow tired of it.

Balsamic Grilled Zucchini

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/111886371969158218/

These pumpkin Snickerdoodles are delicious and perfect for fall weather, though Emily brings them to a summer picnic. These are my oldest daughter’s favorite cookies, and she recently made a batch herself to take to her brother’s boy scout meeting.

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/111886371979332115/

We never get a glimpse of this strawberry pretzel Jell-O salad that Dan’s sister makes the day after Thanksgiving because Dan and Emily are, uh, otherwise occupied when it’s served. I was introduced to this recipe in the early 1980s by my sister-in-law. I love the sweet and salty combination!

Strawberry Pretzel Salad

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/111886371968608296/

Finally, Emily and her family are Polish, so I wanted to incorporate something true to their heritage. I have yet to make these on pierogies, but with these step-by-step instructions, I intend to give it a try.

Polish Pierogies

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/111886371968383868/

My mother is German, not Polish, but for decades, she made nut rolls (along with prune-poppyseed rolls) very similar to these every Easter. She’d even ship them from Pennsylvania to Florida to her sister-in-law. As I wrote the brief scene in which the rolls are mentioned, I recalled grinding nuts by hand for my mother when I was a little girl.

Polish Nut Rolls

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/111886371968432179/

Ornamental Graces Pinterest Board

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Want to see Dan’s three-legged dog, Gomer? How about that creepy Gollum puppet Emily mentions? Would you like to see Willam Adolphe Bouguereau’s L’Innocence? Maybe you’d like to try Emily’s recipe for pumpkin Snickerdoodles. Take a peek at all that and more!

https://www.pinterest.com/castfalk/ornamental-graces/

Stay With Me: The Recipes, Part III

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Stay With Me will be available in only two months (Kindle pre-orders in one)! In May, I wrote about the music that inspired the book, and in April, I blogged about the settings. In June, I shared several of the recipes for the delicious treats mentioned in the book. The second round of recipes posted in July, and this is the final recipe installment!

Homemade Peach Pie

This seasonal treat serves as dessert for the first dinner Chris prepares for Rebecca. It is perfect for this time of year in Pennsylvania. Here’s a tip: Ripe peaches peel easily after being dipped in boiling water for 10-20 seconds.

I have not yet mastered the art of making pie crust from scratch. I admit I find it simpler to pick up a refrigerated, store-bought crust. That’s what I used for this recipe.

Peach Pie

Homemade Peach Pie a la mode

Direct link to Homemade Peach Pie. Continue reading →

Small Success Thursday

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Small Success Thursday

Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. Here’s my paltry offering for the week.

  1. Baked, baked, and baked some more. I killed my hand mixer, and my oven is liable to rebel from extreme overuse. It started with chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles for the junior high youth ministry. I suspected their energy levels might be depleted after zip lining and rolling around in an OGO ball.

    I moved on to blueberry muffins and gingerbread cake for an upcoming blog post featuring more recipes from Stay With Me. Next came banana bread (see #3). And finally, I baked six-dozen heart-shaped beauties for the cookie table at my niece’s wedding next week. What? You don’t know what a cookie table is? I dare you to Google “Pittsburgh wedding cookie tables,” look at the images, and not salivate. Continue reading →

Great Banana Bread

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Great Banana Bread1/2 cup soft butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup mashed, ripe bananas (about three bananas)

1/2 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Sift dry ingredients and combine with butter mixture. Add sour cream, banana, and vanilla. Blend well. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into well-greased loaf pan. Bake one hour. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. Cool on wire rack.

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