Red White and Green Jello

Originally the green jello was blue. This was a fourth of July recipe, but since I am going to an Italian Catholic Federation dinner tonight, I thought I'd change blue to green and make this the colors of the Italian flag. This works for Hungary, Bulgaria, and any other country with a red, white, and green flag, though you may want to change the order the jello is layered in.

USA Jello Mold Recipe

3 3/4 cups boiling water
1 pkg. (8oz serving size) red flavor gelatin
1 pkg. (8oz serving size) green flavor gelatin
2 cups cold water
1 pkg. (4oz serving size) lemon flavor gelatin
1 pint vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt, softened

STIR 1 1/2 cups boiling water into red (8oz serving size) and the green gelatin (8 oz serving size) in separate bowls until dissolved. Stir 1 cup cold water into each bowl.

POUR red gelatin into USA mold. Refrigerate 1 hour or until set but not firm. Reserve blue gelatin at room temp.

Meanwhile, STIR remaining 3/4 cup boiling water into lemon gelatin in bowl. Spoon in 1 pint vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt, softened, until melted. Spoon over red gelatin in mold. Refrigerate 30 mins. or until set but not firm. Refrigerate green gelatin 30 mins.

SPOON green gelatin over lemon gelatin in mold. Refrigerate 4 hrs. or overnight until firm. Unmold

Beef Tongue

I know. Beef tongue. Who wants that, it's been in somebody's mouth already? Well so what? Do you know where beef tenderloin has been? Yeah....Beef tongue sounds really good NOW, doesn't it? It really is delicious!


Beef Tongue

Beef tongue between two and three pounds
1 large onion, sliced
4 cloves of garlic
two bay leaves
two pinches of salt

Place ingredients in the crock pot. Cover with water and cook on LOW for 7-9 hours.
Let the meat cool, then peel the skin off of the tongue.
Slice. Can be eaten like that, or fried in butter. YUMMY!

Cranberry Sauce

Okay, I have a confession. I got this recipe from the back of a package of cranberries, except I substitute Splenda for sugar. I know it sounds lazy, but my best friend told me it was an easy recipe and turns out great, so I trusted her, and she proved to be right.

12 ounces of cranberries
1 cup of water
1 cup of Splenda

Boil the Splenda and the water. Add the cranberries and bring to a gentle boil for ten minutes. Stir occasionally. When done, put in a dish to cool, and refrigerate until you want to serve.

I like to make this a day ahead of time.

Sweet Potato Casserole

I love the fact that this is made in the slow cooker. It frees up the oven and stove burners, and makes the timing a lot more laid back. While this is not my momma's recipe, she is a big fan of it.


Sweet Potato Casserole
4 medium sweet potatoes, peeled and mashed (I usually bake them, but you can boil them if you prefer)
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
1 cup of canned crushed pineapple
2 large eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons of Splenda
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup of mini marshmallows

Lightly spray slow cooker with cooking spray. Mix the sweet potatoes, melted butter, pineapple, eggs, sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Spoon half of the mixture into the slow cooker. Cover with ½ cup of marshmallows. Cover with the remaining sweet potato mixture. Cover and cook on high for 1 to 2 hours, or until hot in the center. Sprinkle with the remaining ½ cup of marshmallows on top, cover, and cook 5 minutes longer or until melted.

Mom's Turkey Stuffing and Broth

Today is your lucky day! I have decided to share my mom and dad's (they worked on it together for years to perfect it) turkey stuffing. Up until now, the only ones blessed with this recipe besides myself has been anyone who bought the Church Cookbook last go around. Now, I give it to the world! Bon Appetite, and start drying out the white bread now.


Mom’s Turkey Stuffing
3 cups of rice
10 eggs
1 loaf of Buttermaid white bread, minus 3 slices, dried and cut into cubes
1 Large onion, fried until golden brown
1 ½ cups of turkey broth (I guess I should include the recipe for thism huh?)
Salt, pepper, and paprika
Cooked turkey stomach, liver, and gizzard, from the turkey broth, chopped.

Mix the rice, eggs and bread together. Add onions and cooked stomach, liver and gizzard and mix. Add Turkey broth ½ a cup at a time, until the stuffing reaches the moistness you desire. Add salt, pepper, and paprika to taste (the stuffing MUST have a nice pretty orange color in order to make sure there is enough paprika in it). Stuff inside the turkey.


Mom's turkey broth is made with the wings, neck, and stomach liver and gizzards from the turkey. Of course you rinse them before putting it on a high fire with your chosen soup veggies and about two quarts of water. When you get a brown foam at the top, start skimming it off. Keep skimming the foam, even when it becomes white foam. Now cover it, and put it on low on a back burner for about three hours, and you'll have turkey broth and boiled innerds for your stuffing. You can also eat the broth with noodles or rice before your turkey dinner.

Apple Pie

I am not a dessert person per se only because I prefer meat and potatoes or a bowl of chips and salsa over chocolate any day of the week. But, if I have one signature dessert to my name it's apple pie. My mom made the best apple pie ever and over the years I've added 'this and that' to make it my own and it's safe to say that I can make a mean pie. Although, I never put my pie in a traditional pie dish, just because they are never deep enough. I prefer a good old fashioned 13 x 9 dish, but I have whittled this down to fit in either a deep dish pie pan or an 8x8 baking dish. Your choice. (And just so you know, I normally make a pie crust but today I cheated since I didn't have enough time.)

Oh, and make sure you have some vanilla ice cream on hand because you're going to need it.


Annie's Apple Pie
6 Large Granny Smith Apples - cored, peeled and sliced
1/2 cup Old fashioned oats
3/4 Cup white sugar
1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon ground allspice

3/4 Cup packed brown sugar
1/2 Cup all-purpose flour
1/4 Cup butter
1 pastry for a 9 inch single crust pie

Preheat oven to 375. Place the pastry in an ungreased 8x8 baking dish, and press along the bottom and half way up the sides. Set aside. In a large bowl, combine apples, sugar, cinnamon, allspice and oats. Pour apples into baking dish and sprinkle with nutmeg.

Using a fork or pastry knife, mix together the flour, brown sugar and butter until it is crumbly. Sprinkle mixture on top of apples.

Bake 40-50 minutes and cover half way through baking to keep the topping from getting too brown. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

Chicken Noodle Soup

Today was definitely a chicken soup day. The wind was blowing, it's been colder than heck, my son ended up staying home from school with 'the fever' again, my DH was feeling crummy as well and requested some chicken noodle soup. So I did what I normally do on days like today and whipped up some homemade soup. There are a ton of short cuts for making soup that includes using store bought broth. This is something I just can't bring myself to do when making this soup, only because homemade stock is so easy to make.

When it came time to throw the soup together, I had the luxury of heading out to my garden and to pull some of the carrots that are still in the ground. There is nothing like fresh carrots in chicken noodle soup.

So here's the recipe from start to finish the truly homemade way.

Chicken Stock
1 3-4 lb Whole Chicken
5-6 Cups water
1 Onion coarsely chopped
1 Teaspoon salt
1/2 Teaspoon ground pepper

Place whole chicken in a stock pot and add water. Add onions, salt and pepper. Place on stove over high heat, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove chicken from pot and set aside to cool. Strain broth and set in refrigerator for 6-8 hours. Once chicken is cool, remove meat from bones and refrigerate meat until ready to use in soup.

Chicken Noodle Soup
3 Medium Carrots, diced
3 Stalk celery, diced
1 Medium onion, chopped
3 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tablespoon butter
Chicken stock
Cooked chicken, diced
6-8 Oz. wide egg noodles
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large stock pot, melt butter over medium heat. Add garlic, carrots, onions and celery. Cook until vegetables are softened, about 5 minutes. Add chicken stock. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer covered for 15 minutes. Add chicken, cover and cook an additional 10 minutes. (You can add a few cups of water if needed.) Add egg noodles and cook until tender. Salt and pepper to taste.