Carrot or Vegetable Casserole (an old, vintage church cookbook style, grandma recipe)

 

A older, 'vintage' Grandma recipe that I've been making off and on in various ways for years now (since my own kids were itty bitty) that can be varied with whatever you want or whatever you have on hand.

I posted this recipe in 2008 using all carrots from the garden: https://www.housewifebarbie.com/2008/10/carrot-casserole.html

Carrot Casserole

2 pounds carrots, cubed, chunks or sliced
1 c water
1 medium sweet onion
2 T butter, melted
1 1/2 c shredded cheddar cheese
1 c Ritz Crackers, or similar buttery flavor cracker, crushed
salt and pepper to taste
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbed
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 c more buttery crumbs for a topping (optional)


Combine the carrots and water in a saucepan and cook about 15 minutes until just tender. Drain and mash just a little bit to give it a mixed texture. Saute' onion in butter until translucent but not brown. Combine all ingredients in a greased casserole dish. Sprinkle with 1/2 c crumbs if preferred, bake uncovered at 350 for about 40 minutes until hot completely through and golden.

Later I posted the recipe again using many vegetables I had on hand, like zucchini and yellow squash.

Vegetable Casserole (Use;  Yellow Squash, Zucchini, Onions, Carrots)

2 - 3 cups squash;  either yellow or zucchini or a mixture of both, sliced and cooked just tender

1 medium sweet onion like Vidalia, chopped and added to the squash cooking the last 3 minutes

2 carrots, sliced or grated (if sliced, add to the cooking squash or use a can of sliced carrots if you need to substitute)

1 egg, slightly beaten

3 T butter

1/2 c mayonnaise

1 T sugar or substitute

1 c cheddar cheese, grated

1 - 1 1/2 cups crackers, crumbled such as TownHouse or Ritz

Dash Cayenne pepper

salt and pepper

Put the well drained zucchini or yellow squash and onions into a mixing bowl.  Add the carrots, egg, butter, mayonnaise, sugar, half the cheese, half the crackers crumbs and the cayenne and salt and pepper.  Mix gently.  Put into a buttered casserole dish.  Top with the remaining cheese and cracker crumbs.  Bake at 350 for about 25-35 minutes until warmed through and golden.

 

 
Last night for dinner we had this casserole and again, improvising what I was wanting to use up, and what we had to work with.

The carrots are the the final ones in the bag of carrots given to me in November (?).   They are locally grown, and may have originally been part of a food bank, or maybe just gifted to someone.  They don't eat or use carrots and they gave them to someone else.  They also didn't use or cook with them so they gave them to someone who gave them to my daughter.  A whole bag of fresh garden carrots, but she doesn't love carrots and never cooks with them (nor wanted to clean and cut these for fresh with ranch) so she gave them to me.  I've been using a few here and there ever since but they needed to be used up as a couple were starting to get a bit soft. 

So, carrot casserole it was!  I didn't quite have enough, so I grabbed a jar of home canned carrots as well.
I had some leftover green onion tops from a few weeks ago that needed to be used up from the fridge.
The egg was powdered whole egg.
The butter, home canned.
The crackers were dry canned from the pantry (food sealed with a dry canning attachment sealer)
Mayo and spices I have. 
Cheese is from a block of cheddar I had in the deep freezer.  It's my last one, so I'll have to switch to freeze dried in the future when this one is used up.

 

dry sealed crackers - I used Keebler Butter Flavor

home canned butter - canned back when butter was affordable!

powdered egg

canned baby carrots when I had a bunch to 'use up'

The original plan for this recipe/dish - using up the fresh carrots and some leftover green onion tops

 

Mixed the egg powder in with the mayo and spices - and water to reconstitute the egg per directions (I think 2 1/2 T)

Lots and lots of cheddar on top as I grated too much but just decided to use it all.  We love cheese so it's all good.

Birthday Cake Coffee Creamer

 

 

 

Quick photo of mixing up some coffee creamer yesterday.  I don't use creamer in my hot coffee, but I do when I have iced coffee.  My husband likes peppermint mocha creamer in the winter time, but yesterday I was thinking Birthday Cake flavor sounded good.  It's a 'taste and adjust to your own likes' type thing though - so if anyone is reading this and wanting to make it, just keep tasting it and adjust your flavors based on what you have on hand and what you like best.

Base:   1 can sweetened condensed milk
Add about 1 cup worth:  Whole milk, half and half, cream - (shelf stable, powdered made into milk, cream powder with water, etc.)
Extract:  Cake flavor and vanilla;  OR a mixture of vanilla/almond;  OR   vanilla/almond/butter extract; OR LorAnn Princess flavor with a dash of extra vanilla

Shake well or use an immersion blender briefly to mix.  Store in your refrigerator.  Use as you wish in any coffee drink, or even hot chocolate drinks, or hot milk. 

 

 

 

 

 

Raspberry Macadamia Cheesecake Cookies

 

I made two sizes - these are the larger 3-4 inch size, warm with a fresh raspberry glaze

 

Valentines Day is coming up this week, so it seemed like a good time to make the family some cookies.  These are cheater cheater cookies - (cheater cheater, cookie eater) because they use a cake mix instead of having to come up with the flour, sugar, etc.

Raspberry Macadamia Nut Cheesecake Cookies

1 white cake mix
1 egg or equivalent egg powder/water to equal one egg

1-2 t vanilla
1 - 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese or powdered cream cheese with water to equal 8 oz.

1 stick butter (1/2 cup) (canned, or butter powder/liquid to equal)
1/3 c freeze dried raspberries
1/2 c macadamia nuts (you could use white chocolate chips if you wish)
optional:  sugar to roll the dough balls in

3/4 c powdered sugar

1 T corn syrup
1 t raspberry extract or emulsion (or use more freeze dried raspberries if you don't have this)
vanilla - dash
milk, cream, coffee creamer or anything similar, even water in order to thin the glaze


Mix the cake mix, egg, vanilla, soft cream cheese and butter.  It will be thick and sticky.  Stir in the nuts and raspberries.  Form balls or scoop to size, roll the dough into granulated sugar before placing it on a greased or parchment paper lined pan.

Bake at 350 for about 11 minutes.  Let the cookies on the cookie sheet for about 3 minutes, remove to a wire rack to cool.

Mix the glaze and spoon or drizzle over the cookies, either letting it drip, or smooth it out with the back of a spoon or butter knife, etc.  Let cool completely and let the glaze harden.

Just barely stir in the raspberry pieces - too much and they'll break down and turn your cookie pink.

 

Warm from the oven, with fresh glaze... I made 2 sizes.  These are the small 1 1/2 inch size.

 

A couple of the ingredients from the pantry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last night's dinner - steak and potatoes, and homemade Texas toast

Draining the 3 jars of potatoes

 

Last night's dinner was a splurge.  After 2 months of hell, we had a tiny bit of good news and I guess I felt the steel band around my chest loosen just enough that I decided to raid our deep freezer and pull out some frozen steaks.  I'm so happy and blessed that prepped and stocked our freezers when we could!  These steaks were from Sam's with a date of August 2023. 

Paired them with the last of a bottle of Dale's Seasoning and Marinade I had in the pantry.  I do have another bottle in the 2-3 year food storage pantry as it's almost exactly like my 'homemade' marinade I've been using since 1996.

Steaks marinating

The potatoes:  Regular readers know that for the past 20+ years we've chosen to be primarily and usually not only sugar free but low carb and typically keto.  But God put it on my heart to can potatoes for the days ahead - so strongly that I couldn't ignore it.   We love potatoes!  We just don't eat them often in our regular daily meals because of the starch and sugar. 

But I knew that if and when we felt it was time to eat from our food stores, I would be so happy to have potatoes!  So can, I did!  They have been so awesome to have on hand over the past 2 months! 

 

Last night, with the steaks brought out and thawed from the deep freezer, I made roasted potatoes faux 'Lipton Soup Mix' style.  We've been making them this way for about 30 years now - first with the store bought envelopes of the soup mix and over the past 20 years, with the homemade faux version - ever since I learned the ingredients in a lipton onion soup mix and how easy it is to make my own version.

Grilled the steak, roasted the potatoes and cut up the homemade daily bread in nice, thick 1" slices, slathered them with home canned butter and grilled those as well for a side of Texas toast.

 

 

I first posted a homemade version of an Onion Soup Mix in February of 2008.  Since then I basically make it the same except no sugar, and I started to add celery seed almost immediately - and sometimes parsley if it was going in a dish that the green flakes added a visual perk to. 

Basically you just need these for a homemade Lipton Onion Soup Mix

 
Dried minced onion - about 1/4 cup
Beef bouillon granules or pounded cubes - I use about 1 or 1 1/2 T beef base or use about 4-5 cubes, crushed
Onion powder - 1/2 teaspoon or so
Celery Seed - 1/4 - 1/2 t will do
Option:  a little sugar or parsley

 

About 10 years ago I started to keep a container of dehydrated onion in my pantry in a jar.  When I can use these, I crumble or chop them instead of store bought dried minced onion because the flavor is better and bumps it up a notch. I don't measure anything anymore, but the above measurements are pretty close.  You can add a dash of sugar if you usually eat sugar as the typical American palate is used to sugar or corn syrup being in literally almost everything so you might be used to it having just a dash (1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon) in your mix.

Toss your diced potatoes with oil, the season mix and some salt and pepper if you wish - bake at 400 until golden brown and as crispy as you like yours.

 

 

 

 

 

Homemade Pizza - under 40 minutes

It was late afternoon, super busy, The Littles underfoot and no plans yet for what I was going to make for dinner.
My 'daily bread' to the rescue!  

"My Daily Bread" is the bucket I keep in the refrigerator that I've placed 3 cups flour, 1-2 t sugar, 1/2 - 1 t yeast, 1 t salt and 1 1/2 - 2 c hot water.  I use this every day to make a new loaf of bread (or rolls, pizza, etc.)  As I pull it out each day to use it for bread or whatever, I immediately replace it with more, mix and put it back in the fridge.

• I pulled out the dough, and grabbed a pan. 
• Swirled a bit of olive oil from the pantry, and plopped about 3/4 of the daily bread dough into the pan. 
• Using my fingers to poke and press, flattened it out with dimples to cover the bottom of the pan. 
• Added some pizza sauce (homemade from the freezer, made from food storage items a week or two ago) and then topped with pepperoni slices from the freezer (when that is gone, will switch to the pepperoni bites I have in long term storage in a #10 can) and lastly, mozzarella. 

Oven was preheating to 425 degrees while I got out the bucket from the fridge, and pressed and poked the dough into the pan and then made the pizza.  Baked about 25-ish minutes at 425 or until golden brown.