Hot Chicken (or Turkey) Salad

Some of you may be having turkey for dinner on Christmas, and some of you may have more leftover turkey than you know what to do with on Monday.  After Thanksgiving, we had a lot of leftover turkey, so I decided to try something a little different.  There's a hot chicken salad that we grew up eating and it was one of our favorites (though our mom rarely ever made it).  It calls for a lot of chicken, which makes it a somewhat expensive meal, but I wondered if I'd be able to make it with leftover turkey in order to greatly reduce the price.  So I used my family as guinea pigs and, thankfully for them, it was excellent!  If you find a great sale on whole chickens, you could cook them in the slow cooker, then use the meat to make this for a delicious meal!  It does contain Provolone cheese, croissants, and a lot of meat so it's not the most inexpensive meal, but it feeds a lot of people and is oh-so-yummy!  It can be made cheaper by buying items on sale or clearance (meat, cream of chicken, Provolone, and potato chips).

Hot Chicken (or Turkey) Salad
8 cups chicken or turkey, cooked and cubed
2 cups thinly-sliced celery
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 cup mayonnaise
1/2 tsp salt
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 can cream of chicken soup
12 oz. provolone cheese, grated
1 cup crushed potato chips
Parmesan Cheese
Croissants, sliced in half lengthwise (to make sandwiches)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Mix first 7 ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Put mixture into a 9 x 13 casserole dish, spreading evenly.  Cover with provolone cheese.  A note on the cheese - I found Sargento sliced provolone on sale and had a coupon for it, making it rather inexpensive for Provolone.  The slices can easily be substituted for grated cheese - just lay the slices in a layer to cover the chicken mixture.  Next, add a layer of crushed potato chips, and finish the casserole with a sprinkling of Parmesan.  You don't have to buy fancy Parmesan cheese for this.  The cheap stuff works just fine!

Bake, uncovered, for 30-35 minutes, or until the top is bubbly and browned.  Serve on the croissants (I usually get my croissants at Sam's Club, as they're usually cheaper than regular grocery stores).

Mmmm...the crunchy top is the best part!

Yum, yum, yum!

Doris's Sweet Potato Casserole

Remember my Near-to-Nothing grandmother’s cousin Doris?  She’s the one who makes the cranberry-orange relish I shared before Thanksgiving.  Well, she also makes a very popular sweet potato casserole that would make be the perfect accompaniment to your Christmas meal.

Now, I’m not much of a sweet potato person.  The only way I really like them is as tempura (hopefully to be posted after New Year’s).  But Robbie loves this casserole.  And it’s so easy to make!  You can even assemble it ahead of time and bake it when you are ready.

To address the sweet potato/yam confusion, I’m going to direct you to my baby food post where I discussed it earlier this year.  And henceforth I will continue to call this dish “sweet potato casserole” regardless of the fact that I used “red garnet yams.”

Before baking

Canned sweet potatoes or yams (not candied) will do, though I always start with fresh ones.  The recipe calls for 3 cups of mashed sweet potatoes which is about 1¾ pounds.  Considering skin waste and water loss during cooking, you will want to start with about 2 pounds of fresh sweet potatoes or yams.  If you have a little more than 3 cups, just throw it all in—a little extra won’t affect it.

Baked Sweet Potatoes or Yams

Pierce each potato or yam with fork multiple times; place on foil-lined baking sheet.  Bake at 400° for 45-60 minutes or until soft.  Let cool until able to handle; peel off skin.  Place flesh in large bowl; mash with potato masher.  Can be frozen.

Doris’s Sweet Potato Casserole

Sweet potatoes

3 c. mashed sweet potatoes

1 c. sugar

2 eggs, beaten

½ c. evaporated milk

½ tsp. salt

2 tsp. vanilla

2 Tbsp. butter, melted

Topping

1 c. brown sugar

½ c. flour

¼ c. butter

1 c. chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 400°.  In large bowl, combine all sweet potato ingredients; stir until well-combined.  Spread into 9”x13” pan; set aside.

In medium bowl, combine brown sugar and flour for topping.  Cut in butter until crumbly; stir in nuts.

Spoon topping over sweet potatoes.  Bake 30-40 minutes, until top is golden brown.

It really does look a lot better than this.  The sun had gone
down and I was shooting under my awesome
fluorescent lights.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

As we pause from our busy lives to reflect upon our blessings and thank God for all His mercies, we'd like to thank all of you, our loyal readers!  What started as chit chat between two sisters has blossomed into a year-and-a-half food adventure.  Our readership continues to grow, mostly due to all of you sharing Near to Nothing with your friends and family.  So thank you very much!

And since this is a food blog, we have to have a recipe.

April Sandwich
1 Mommy
1 Aunt
1 April (any other child will do)

Position April between Mommy and Aunt.  Place puckered lips of Mommy and Aunt on cheeks of April.

If you like April sandwiches, you should also check out April burritos!

Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes

I have a Thanksgiving confession:  I could do without the turkey.  It’s not that I don’t like turkey, because I do enjoy it.  But I’d rather fill my plate with the side dishes.  I just love stuffing, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes!

We are not hosting Thanksgiving dinner this year, so we are only providing one dish.  I asked Robbie which of my classic Thanksgiving dishes he wanted me to make, and he requested my mashed potatoes.  My goal when making mashed potatoes is to make them so flavorful that no butter or gravy is needed.

These really are Thanksgiving mashed potatoes and not everyday mashed potatoes.  A lot of the flavor comes from butter, cream cheese, and sour cream, and never the low-fat or fat-free versions.  And I never add milk.  Yummy, but not the healthiest.

I always use Russets.  Not only are they the cheapest potatoes, but the mealiness produces a great texture in the finished product.  I leave the skins on (adds a little more nutritive value), but feel free to peel them.

If I plan ahead, I like to use roasted garlic.  If I don’t have any garlic roasted ahead of time, I use fresh garlic.  Sometimes when I’m really pressed for time or out of fresh garlic, I use garlic powder.

Fresh chives definitely contribute better flavor than dried chives, but they are expensive.  I have garlic chives growing in my herb garden so I just go out and snip them fresh.

Regardless of what kind of garlic or chives you use, the absolute key to really good mashed potatoes is to taste as you go.  It actually kind of frightens me to put this recipe in writing, because I always make my mashed potatoes by the taste-and-adjust method.  And remember, you can always add more, you can’t take away, so start out conservatively and add in small increments.

Thanksgiving Mashed Potatoes

about 3 lb. Russet potatoes

½ c. butter, softened

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

about ½ c. sour cream

about 4 cloves fresh garlic, minced, or 6 large cloves roasted garlic, or ½ Tbsp. garlic powder

½ Tbsp. salt, more or less to taste

½ tsp. pepper, more or less to taste

1-2 Tbsp. chives

Wash and peel potatoes if desired.  Cut potatoes into chunks.  Boil until tender; drain.  Place butter and cream cheese in same pot while it is still hot.  Pour potatoes back into pot.

Add sour cream, garlic, salt, and pepper.  Mash with potato masher until desired texture.

Stir in chives.  Taste and make necessary adjustments, adding more sour cream for a thinner consistency.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread

One of the things that makes Thanksgiving Thanksgiving and Christmas Christmas is Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread.  We grew up eating it every year for Thanksgiving and Christmas, and it continues to be one of our favorite holiday treats.  The recipe we usually use is a secret, so I'm not sharing the recipe we grew up with.  Sorry!  However, I did find a recipe that is very similar to the one we grew up with, and I even made a couple small changes to make it even more similar.  It still isn't exactly the same, but it's pretty close and I think you'll like it!

One of the nice things about this recipe is that it's versatile.  You can make large loafs, mini loafs, muffins, or mini muffins.  You'll just need to adjust the baking time depending on what you're making.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Bread
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup water
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and flour bread pans or muffin tins (or line muffin tins with cupcake wrappers).

In a large bowl, combine sugar, pumpkin, vegetable oil, water, and eggs; mix well.  Add flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt.  Mix until combined, being careful not to over mix.  Gently fold in chocolate chips.  Pour batter into prepared bread pans or muffin tins.

Makes 1 large loaf or 3 small loaves.  I honestly can't tell you how many muffins or mini muffins it makes, as I've never counted.  Sorry!!!  If you're making muffins, fill each muffin tin 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full.  For 1 large loaf, bake for 75 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  For 3 small loaves, bake 50-60 minutes.  I don't have the times for the muffins, but next time I make them, I'll let you know!

Waiting patiently for the bread to bake!

Sometimes it doesn't come out of the pan very well.  It could be due to the fact that I've reused these disposable bread pans so many times.  Maybe it's time to invest in some real bread pans!

Yum!  So moist; so delicious!

Cranberry-Orange Relish

Before Kimiko and I were married, with families of our own, we spent every Thanksgiving with Doris, our Near to Nothing grandma’s cousin.  Now that we try to split our holidays with in-laws, unfortunately we only get to spend about every other Thanksgiving with her.  Yes, our great grandmother still has living cousins!

One of Doris’s specialties is cranberry-orange relish.  I am generally not a cranberry person, so I usually pass on the relish.  But everyone else always raves about it!  And I can tell you, it definitely looks a lot better than that can-shaped gelatin stuff.

As I was making this the other day, the boys were watching me and tasting ingredients.  To my surprise they really liked the fresh cranberries by themselves.  When it came time to try the finished product, they were both very hesitant, almost refusing.  But as soon as the first little morsel hit their tongues, their mouths turned up in huge smiles, and they gulped down the rest of the spoonful.

The key (and benefit) to this recipe is that it should be made the day before.  Not only does the resting time let the flavors meld together and mellow out, but who doesn’t appreciate a make-ahead Thanksgiving dish?  I made mine on Monday—that’s a week-and-a-half before Thanksgiving.  No problem!  I just tossed it into the freezer and will put it back in the fridge a day or two before the big feast.

Cranberry-Orange Relish

2 oranges, peeled, seeded, and quartered

1-12 oz. pkg. cranberries

1 c. crushed or chunk pineapple, drained

2 c. sugar

Place orange pieces, cranberries, and pineapple if using chunks in food processor.  Pulse until chopped to desired texture.

Transfer to bowl.  Stir in crushed pineapple if using and sugar.

Refrigerate overnight.  Yield:  about 5 cups.

There will be a lot of air bubbles in the freshly chopped
and stirred relish.  A night in the fridge will transform
the foamy mixture into...

...a colorful, appetizing turkey accompaniment.

Thanksgiving Is Right around the Corner!!

Jacque's pumpkin pie cake

Only one more week until we all pause for a day to reflect on our blessings!  And of course, that means only one more week to prepare for the Thanksgiving feast!  As you make lists, go shopping, and start chopping and cooking, we'd like to offer a few reminders to help your holiday go more smoothly:

• A frozen turkey always takes longer to thaw than you would think.  You can find turkey tips here.
• If you are hosting, be willing to accept help.  When someone asks, "What can I bring?", don't let your pride get the better of you.  Avoid saying, "I've got it covered."  Every dish someone else prepares is one less thing on your shoulder.
• If you are going to someone else's house, ask what you can provide and get it as table-ready as possible before arriving.  Keep in mind fridge and oven space will be limited.  Take your cold dishes in an insulated carrier with ice packs.  Heat your hot dishes at home and take them in an insulated carrier with heating pads.
• Let the kids help!  Set them up with age-appropriate jobs like peeling potatoes, cutting vegetables, setting the table, making table decorations and place cards, answering the door and taking coats.  Not only will this keep them occupied, it will teach them about the work that goes into a family gathering.
• Plan and do ahead so you can get out of the kitchen and spend time with your family.
• Don't get wrapped up in having the "perfect" Thanksgiving.  Turkey overdone?  Pie crust not flaky?  Kids spill gravy on your carpet?  It's all part of the experience.  Enjoy the day.  Be thankful you have kids/nieces/nephews/grandkids with whom to share a meal and spill things on your floor.
• Above all, remember to give thanks to the One from whom all blessing flow!

To help you out, we've provided links to our previous Thanksgiving recipes.  We will continue to post more, including our family's cranberry-orange relish, so be sure to keep checking back!

Mashed potato casserole

Mashed potato casserole
Roasted garlic mashed potatoes
Pie crust
Pumpkin pie cake
Loaded Thanksgiving stuffing
Black Friday casserole (aka leftover casserole)

Loaded Thanksgiving stuffing

Tender and Flaky Pie Crust

Easy as pie?  For a lot of people, this saying doesn’t make sense.  Just the thought of making a pie crust can scare even experienced home cooks.  And I can’t blame them.  There is a lot that can go wrong; and if you don’t know what’s going wrong, you can’t fix it.

The ingredients themselves are very simple:  flour, salt, shortening, and water.  Some recipes call for sugar to make the crust itself sweet.  I prefer to let all the sweetness come from the filling.

The process of putting those simple ingredients together is where it gets tricky.  An ideal pie crust is tender and flaky, yet holds together.  To achieve this, it is necessary to get thin layers of fat (shortening) sandwiched between thin layers of flour.  All the techniques involved in making a good crust have this goal in mind.

Black=flour, orange=shortening
You can tell I'm not the artist of the family.

The fist step is to start with the correct amount of flour and incorporate air into it by sifting.  Contrary to popular belief, the main purpose of sifting flour is not to get the lumps out, though that definitely is one result.  The number one reason to sift is for consistent and accurate volumetric measurement.  If you measure one cup of packed flour, you will end up with more by weight than if you measure sifted flour.  Considering I have four kids and a crazy buys life, I generally skip the sifting step and just stir the flour with a chopstick before measuring.  But not when making pie crusts—they are just too delicate and fussy.

I prefer the crank version of a sifter rather than the spring-
loaded tricker kind--it's not as tiring.
I usually do this right in the flour canister...

...thus preventing this.

Level off with a chopstick of the backside of a knife.

Don't have a flour sifter?  Use a sieve.

I keep my leveling chopstick in the canister and use
it to aerate the flour when I'm not sifting.

Second, you want to cut the shortening into the flour, not mix it in.  The result of cutting in is small pieces of shortening, each coated with flour.  After rolling, these pieces will end up as the thin layers of fat in the above diagram.  A pastry blender is the best tool for cutting in flour.  Some cookbooks instruct you to use two knives if you don’t have one.  I suggest buying a pastry blender.  The results are so worth it and you can use it for any recipe requiring cutting in (e.g. biscuits, streusel topping).

I would guess the third step is where most people make a mistake.  You need to incorporate some water, but you want to do so without mushing all those shortening pieces and flour together, ending up with a homogenous, gooey mixture.  Using ice-cold water will help prevent this by firming up the shortening.  You also do not want to stir the water in.  Rather, drizzle the water in slowly while tossing the flour mixture with a fork.  Purposefully drizzle the water on dry particles and use as little water as possible—there will still be some dry pieces.  Avoid the temptation to add too much water, mix the dough, or overwork it!!!

To be sure the water is as cold as possible, I get it ready
before I gather up any of the other ingredients.  I added
another cube to this bowl a few minutes before using it.

You should toss while adding the water, but I just can't do
both of those things and take a picture at the same time.

Avoid the strong temptation to toss more than this!!

Even once the dough is correctly mixed, it can still turn into a flop if it is not properly rolled.  To once again firm up those fat particles and prevent mushing, wrap your pie crust dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least half an hour before rolling.

Yes, it's supposed to look crumbly.

Carefully, with as little manipulation as possible, form the chilled dough into a ball and place on a lightly floured surface.  Roll away from you with firm pressure.  Lift the dough and turn it a quarter turn, giving your surface a light dusting of flour if necessary.  You can also lightly dust the top of the crust if it is sticking to the rolling pin.  Roll away from you again, make a quarter turn, dust with flour, and repeat.  Continue rolling until your crust is about one-and-a-half inches larger than your inverted pie plate.

I use my Pampered Chef shaker to get a fine, uniform dusting.

After first roll...

...quarter turn, dusting of flour...

...second roll, repeat.

As the dough gets to large to lift to dust underneath, simply
fold over half, dust, then fold back the other way
to dust the other half.

If you get tears, holes, thin spots, or just a weird shape, DO NOT start over!  This will result in overworked dough and a tough pie crust.  Simply cut off an extra piece and patch it together with the next pass of the rolling pin.

Definitely not the ideal pie shape.

Cut off from here...

...add here.

Once the dough is large enough, carefully transfer it to your pie plate.  I do this by wrapping it around my rolling pin then unrolling it into the pie plate.

Be careful not to let the weight of the rolling pin
mash one edge into the other.

Cut off excess dough so that you still have a quarter-inch left around the top.  Tuck the edge under and flute, if desired.

There are tools to do this.  You won't find one in my kitchen.

Baking temperature and time will vary depending on the filling.  I filled mine with strawberry and added a top crust.  Rather than using a second large sheet of dough for the top, I cut out hearts and slightly overlapped them.  A lattice top would work too.  The main key is to leave gaps for steam to escape.

If you attempt a pie crust and it doesn’t turn out, don’t give up!  The more you make, the better they will get.  Pretty soon they truly will be easy as pie!

Tender and Flaky Pie Crust

2 c. sifted flour

1 tsp. salt            

⅔ c. shortening

6-8 Tbsp. ice water

Mix flour and salt in medium bowl.  Cut in shortening.  Drizzle in ice water 1 Tbsp. at a time while tossing with fork until most flour is moistened.  Divide dough in half and wrap each half in plastic wrap.  Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.  Form into ball, roll to desired size on lightly floured surface.  Transfer to pie plate and bake according to filling directions.

*Of course you can’t let all the scraps go to waste.  Make pie crust cookies!  I give Keanna the extras and let her go at it.  Cut out desired shapes, sprinkle with sugar, bake at 400° until golden brown.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a photo before they all got eaten.