Recipes

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Sweet Potatoes with Pineapple Sauce

If you’ve been at all conscious lately, you realize that Thanksgiving is a mere twenty days away. I like being helpful, so I thought I’d share one of our family’s Thanksgiving recipes. About ten years ago, in an effort to eat a bit healthier, I decided to trim a lot of fat and sugar from the  traditional “Candied Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows” that most of us grew up on. In spite of the lack of sugar high, everyone liked my alternative so much that I received nary a complaint. I’ve served it every year since.

The recipe is easily doubled, but allow more time for the potatoes to cook (a bigger pot with more water takes longer to heat).

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Company Meals

The phone rings about three o’clock on a busy afternoon. Pete wants to bring someone home for dinner. Is it all right with me? With a hurried look at my to-do list, and a quick prayer for help, I agree. He hangs up happy, and I start wracking my brain. I’m suddenly feeding someone I’ve never met before. What should I serve?

This is actually a pretty common scenario at our house. Pete collaborates with ministries all over the world, and he frequently invites out-of-town visitors for a home-cooked meal. As hostess, I want to make these guests feel welcome, while filling them with good food. With years of practice, I’ve learned some helpful tips, which I now pass on to you.

For the most part, you can serve your company the same food you’d normally eat. It is their part to be gracious and thankful for whatever you offer. Don’t feel pressured into putting on a special feast, or spending a lot on expensive ingredients. Not everyone is a gourmet chef.

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A Better Carrot Cake Recipe

After a summer of salads, the cooler weather has me wanting to bake again. Autumn always makes me think of the color orange, and what is more orange than carrots? I really like this recipe for carrot cake because it is chewy and moist but not greasy. The sugar content is under control, and you don’t need frosting—a dusting of powdered sugar is enough to give it a finished look. Try making it for your small group meeting or as the finale to a special dinner.

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I Love Chocolate

I love chocolate. I admit it. I’m one of those people you could find wearing a T-shirt reading, “Hand over the chocolate and nobody gets hurt.” It’s definitely one of the major food groups. I could hug the scientist who named the cacao plant Cacao theobroma—literally, “chocolate God-food.”

There has been plenty of research now indicating that chocolate (sans the sugar) is actually good for you, but a little more encouragement can’t hurt. I recently read an article containing the phrase, “The incidence of fatal heart attacks correlated inversely with the amount of chocolate consumed.”[1] In other words, eating chocolate reduces your chances of dying from a heart attack. Pass the Toblerone!

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Moroccan Tomato & Eggplant “Salad”

Vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh eggplant (that haven’t hiked all the way here from Mexico) are two of my favorite things about late summer. Here’s an unusual recipe that uses both. Don’t be put off by the eggplant. My husband, an avowed eggplant-avoider, loves it this way. (Be sure to read down for tips on picking out an eggplant.)

The traditional way to eat this stuff is with your fingers. Please do this. Somehow, it just doesn’t taste the same with a fork or spoon. Provide warm water and towels to guests for cleaning up afterward.
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Fresh Tomato-Basil Soup

Harvest is beginning. In spite of our recent hail, my garden is actually producing some edibles, and the farmers’ markets are overflowing. How to take advantage of all this fresh produce? Tomato-basil soup is a delicious way to use lots of tomatoes and fresh basil.

If you’re familiar with canned tomato soup—this is nothing like that. No modified food starch, only a minuscule amount of sugar… this is the real thing. Don’t worry, you can still serve it with grilled cheese sandwiches. Just make them with a hearty whole wheat bread and a more interesting cheese than American!

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Jeremy’s S’mookies

How much sugar can you cram into one gooey, delicious mouthful? Quite a lot, apparently. My creative son-in-law, Jeremy, came up with this new camping dessert while we were enjoying a weekend in the mountains.

To make one serving (note: Jeremy downed a number of these, so maybe this only makes a partial serving):

  • 2 large marshmallows
  • 2 squares of chocolate bar
  • 2 large, gooey, chocolate chip cookies

Build campfire. Wait until flames are mostly gone, and coals glow red. Toast marshmallows until thoroughly melted, and brown on outside.

Scrape melted marshmallows off skewer onto a cookie. Shove chocolate into marshmallows to melt. Top with other cookie. Stuff into mouth. Repeat.

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Kreny’s Hoisin Chicken

Time for a recipe break. With a long-delayed Spring finally arriving in our part of the world, it’s time to fire up the grill. While our son-in-law is a BBQ chef extraordinaire, I too have a few recipes that are family (and guest) favorites.

Corinne Chan Straume“Kreny’s Hoisin Chicken” is one such family tradition. “Kreny” (my college roommate and good friend, Corinne) taught it to me [insert codger voice] way back in ’75. Pete and I enjoyed it at the BBQ following our wedding rehearsal, almost 30 years ago. Then our daughter Karin, and her fiancé, Ian, requested I grill some Kreny’s Hoisin Chicken for their wedding rehearsal three years ago, not knowing we had done the same thing. Last year our other daughter, Teri, and her fiancé, Jeremy, asked me to make it for their wedding rehearsal dinner. Yes, it’s that good.

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My Favorite Salmon Dip

Adapted from Best Recipes of Alaska’s Fishing Lodges, by Adela Batin

  • 8-oz. pkg. low-fat cream cheese
  • ½ C low-fat sour cream
  • ¾ tsp. minced garlic
  • ½ tsp. dried dill weed
  • 1 Tbsp. minced parsley
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • ½ tomato, diced
  • 3 green onions, chopped
  • 8 oz. smoked salmon or 7½-oz. can salmon with skin and bones removed + ½ tsp. liquid smoke flavoring

Combine cream cheese, sour cream, garlic, dill, parsley, and lemon juice; blend together until smooth. Break salmon into flakes. Gently fold salmon, tomato, and green onions into cream cheese mixture. Serve with crackers or baguette slices.

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Chicken Paprika

After 10 days in warm, sunny Arizona, we arrived back in Colorado just in time for a blizzard. The thermometer is at 28 and falling. While the snow accumulates outside, I’m craving something warm and comforting to fill up my insides. Tonight I’m making this Chicken Paprika, with wide noodles, steamed broccoli and lots of hot tea.

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