Revisiting Forgive Me, Father, For I Have Sinned- Remember my sinful, shameful indulgence of a can of caramel sweetened condensed milk? And I confessed to also buying a can of the chocolate. No, I actually cooked with the can of chocolate flavored, liquid decadence. This recipe only has 4 ingredients and is a cinch to put together. College Man says they’re really good. And in the Exile’s Kitchen they’re served with hot coffee.
Ingredients:
1 can Chocolate Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk
2 cups Heart Smart Bisquick Mix
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 stick melted butter
What to do:
Spray a casserole dish with vegetable spray and preheat the oven to 350°. In a medium size bowl, mix together first 3 ingredients. This dough will not be very stiff, kinda loose actually. Take a big spoon and drop the dough like you would for cathead biscuits. Now, don’t call the SPCA on me. South of the Mason Dixon line we use that term to describe the size and shape of dropped biscuits, meaning biscuits that aren’t rolled out and cut. No felines were harmed in the making of these chocolate biscuits. Once you’ve filled the casserole with your biscuits, evenly pour the melted butter over all of those brown catheads.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Chocolate Sweetened Condensed milk makes biscuits magical.
My apartment is humming this morning. Saturday is chore day. The laundry room is warm from the tumbling clothes dyer and smelling of Purex and dryer sheets. I have always enjoyed doing laundry: It was an act of service that I did for my family. One chore this moring, however, I had to force myself to do. Unloading the dishwasher. Loading the dishwasher I don’t mind, but unloading it, I’d almost rather take a beating. Am I alone in that sentiment?
One chore I hate.
Tomorrow night, weather permitting, will be our church Fall Fest. Our church invites the surrounding neighborhood for free hot dogs, cotton candy, games and just plain fun. The small group that I am a part of uses this time to have a party within a party. We all bring something to share for supper. Cajun Pralines will be my contribution for our fellowship, as we take turns manning our Fall Fest booth.
Cajun Pralines 2 cups light brown sugar 1 cup white sugar 1/2 stick of butter 2 generous tablespoons sorghum syrup 5 ounce can of evaporated milk 2 cups pecans
Now, before I even get started on how to make these, we need to revisit correct pronunciation of a few words. It’s pecan not peecan. A peecan is what? That’s right- something an environmentalist takes with him to the woods. We put pecans in pralines. It is pronounced ‘prawleen’. Please do not put a y after the a. I don’t know what a prayline is, unless there’s no room in the sanctuary and you have to lean against the wall to do your praying.
Place everything except the pecans in a two quart pot, over medium high heat. I like to cook with stainless steel pots that have aluminum clad bottoms. They cook like aluminum pots, but aren’t as heavy. Stir the ingredients together and keep slowly stirring till the mixture starts to boil.I don’t use a candy thermometer. A Pyrex dish filled with ice water is how I test to see if candy has reached the correct stage.
Stir candy in circles or figure eights till it reaches the soft ball stage. Take a little bit of the sugar mixture and drop it in the ice water. If you can mold it into a soft ball, it’s time to add the -the what? That’s right! The pecans. Stir them in well and remove from the heat.
Now you will get an arm workout in. I hear Michael Jackson singing Beat It. At this stage you’ve got to whip enough air into the candy to cool it down so it can be dropped into patties and also so the pralines will be creamy. Clear a good sized space either on your kitchen counter or table. Spread out parchment paper and give it a light spray of Pam. With a tablespoon also sprayed with Pam, drop the candy mixture evenly onto the paper. Test a few at first. Don’t drop the whole pot of candy. Make sure they are setting up. If they are, work quickly. If they’re not setting up, beat the mixture a few more minutes. Be careful at this stage of the game. The candy will start to crystallize around the sides of the pot. A little is okay a lot means you’ve about waited too late to drop your pralines. If that has happened don’t you dare throw away that lump of sugar, milk and pecans. Scrape it out of that pot, break it into pieces and sprinkle it over ice cream or over the top of a sweet potato pie during its last few minutes of baking. Do not just throw it out.
That one, there, second from the bottom-perfect!
It took me several tries, as a newlywed, to finally learn when to quit stirring the candy pot and drop pralines at just the right time. I hope these make it to the Fall Fest tomorrow night. Cajun Pralines and a cup of coffee sounds great right about now.
The ceiling heights were at least twelve feet high. Fine crafted millwork graced the windows and framed doorways. Above each door were transom windows, permenately caulked and painted shut. Sitting at a long, antique pine table, I waited for the divorce mediator to come back in to ‘our side’. I looked up to the transom windows, one faced the front reception area (which was probably the old grand foyer to the Victorian house turned law office) and the other gave light from the front porch. Not much could be seen through the wavy glass – just the beaded board ceilings. I began to think…
At around age twelve, I started collecting things for my hope chest. Now, I didn’t literally have a wooden chest, just started gathering and setting aside some lovely pieces of depression glass and crocheted doilies. They were things which would be used to one day set a pretty table, my table, in my home.
If that twelve year old girl had been able to turn her proverbial hope chest up on its side and stood tippy-toed on it, to peer through the transom window of the closed door of her future life, would she have liked what she saw? Would she have been content with the choice her heart would make just a short eight years later? Eleven years after that first Louisa patterned piece of glass was bought she would become a mother. Many joyous experiences would come her way, but great sorrow and a wanting to give up would splash forcefully in amongst those happy times. Happiness is fleeting, it never stays for long. Not the things offered up in this world. Would the good have been greater or at least enough to endure the bad, if she could have seen her future? Would that twelve year old girl have shaken her head and jumped down from her perch and said, “No, thank you!”
That twelve year old girl’s ideals still stand. I still believe in Biblical marriage. I believe in enduring love. I believe in family and friends and that both can be both. There’s a progression to life’s events. Had I not married the one I did, I wouldn’t have had my three sons. Had I not had them, I would not have my sweet six year old grandaughter, nor would I be anticipating the birth of my first grandson in February. I cannot imagine my life without these gifts.
The music group Switchfoot has a song called Souvenirs. It sounds a little bitter, till the very last line. Those ending words turn the negativity into something beautifully positive. They say, “I wouldn’t trade them for anything -my souvenirs”.
I’m so glad that I didn’t know my future. The good does outweigh the bad.
Caramel! Caramel for crying out loud. I have no shame. Yep, popped the top, got a spoon out of the kitchen drawer, plopped down on the couch in front of an episode of Property Brothers and devoured the whole can. Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.And these add the other three corners of that decadent box of indulgence that I sometimes climb down into.
Don’t judge me. He/She who is without sin cast the first stone. :○)
It’s always in the back of the cookbook, right before the index of recipes and kitchen tips: Miscellaneous. They are those how-tos and recipes that don’t quite fit a particular category. Aunt Martha’s Red Hot Hot Sauce, Great Grandma Sue’s Apple Cider Punch, or Homemade Honey Marshmallows: all great recipes, but where to place them in the cookbook? Maybe they’re the only recipe of their kind submitted for the church or family cookbook, so they get shoved to the back.
This twelve months of waiting has been my Miscellaneous Year. Life has been the tab in the back of the book, where nothing really jumps out at you. Great family experiences have taken place, but there has been a shadowing over them or maybe I’ve watched them through a scrim, like the dream sequence in a play. Each event has had meaning and value, but where they will all come together in my life as puzzle pieces to form the big picture, well… Insert shoulder shrug and nonplussed expression.
This morning I put together my favorite midmorning, work-week snack. If included in a cookbook, it would be placed behind the miscellaneous tab. Trail Mix. There’s no cooking for this one. The only seasoning comes from the dry roasted cashews and that flavor is a great compliment to the sweet raisins and chocolate covered craisins. Maybe one day the pieces of my life in transition will come together and I’ll see the bigger picture and taste all of the trail mix- the savory and the sweet in one big mouthful.
Chocolate covered craisins, pecans, walnut pieces, raisins and dry roasted cashews equals Trail Mix.Dump everything in a great big bowl and toss with your fingers till everything is mixed up evenly.Storing in an air tight container with an easy shake out spout, makes for easy dispensing.
We were teased with a hint of Fall last week, with morning temperatures down in the 60s. This weekend it’s back to being warm, not too hot, but still warm. The skies have been glorious from horizon to horizon; blue like only September can create. Pots of mums sit along the porch railing, like old friends come to visit. The hummingbird feeder has been getting lots of buzzes, as the migration has started.
I’m cooking like crazy this morning. First was banana nut bread for the college man to take back to his dorm. As that was baking, I put together one of my favorite recipes for Fall: Ms. Hudy’s Apple Cake. Mrs. Hudora Lewman is a long time member of our church and local historian.This recipe was included in our church cookbook in 2012. The cookbook was compiled for a fund raiser and also to celebrate the congregation being together for 150 years.
Ms. Hudy’s Apple Cake recipe straight from the cookbook. It calls for a glaze, and even though the cake is perfect without it, go ahead and gild that lily.
The most important step in the whole recipe is to grease and flour the pan. This cake is very dense and could stick to the pan without this step.
Grease and flour the panIt’s apple season. This recipe calls for 3 mellow apples. I used Gala apples because they’re a good apple for cooking and have a slight lemon flavor. As the apples were on the small side, I used 4 instead of 3.
This cake bakes for an hour and ten minutes; don’t fudge from this step either. The apples need every minute to bake- this cake is so good and will make any house smell like home.
