Trouble's Brewing
Page 31
1 8-ounce can crushed
2 teaspoons baking soda
pineapple, drained
2 teaspoons ground
2 cups grated carrots
cinnamon
½ cup raisins
¼ teaspoon salt
Combine brown sugar, egg substitute, buttermilk, pineapple, carrots, raisins, vegetable oil, and vanilla in large bowl. Next, combine flours and baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Pour batter into 9-by-13 pan coated with vegetable cooking spray. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done. (Test with toothpick.) Cool in pan. Once cool, spread with frosting. Cover and chill.
ORANGE CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
½ cup low-fat cottage cheese
1 8-ounce package reduced-fat cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon grated orange rind
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
Process cottage cheese in blender till smooth. Add cream cheese, vanilla, and orange rind and blend. Next add powdered sugar and blend till smooth.
Vonnie’s Cook’s Notes
With my Fred’s cholesterol on the rise, I’ve been looking for ways to make old favorites a little more diet friendly. Besides, carrot cake is a comfort food, and right now, I can think of several people who need to be comforted, starting with a big slice for me.
Smothered Pork Chops
cooking oil
6 thick pork chops
16-ounce can stewed tomatoes with basil
1 large onion, sliced
1 green pepper, sliced
2 tablespoons margarine
1 can mushrooms
1–2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup cooking sherry
Coat bottom of frying pan with oil. Brown chops on both sides. Remove from pan. Melt butter and sauté onion, pepper, and garlic for five minutes. Add tomatoes, mushrooms, and sherry. Place pork chops on top and simmer for forty minutes. Spoon vegetables over chops and serve over rice.
Lizzie’s Cook’s Notes
It doesn’t get any easier than this.
Fruitcake Cookies
1½ cups sugar
1 cup butter, softened
3 well-beaten eggs
1 teaspoon soda dissolved in cup hot water
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
1 large box raisins
1 pound pecans, chopped
1 cup coconut
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon salt
1 box diced dates
1–2 slices candied pineapple chunks
½ cup candied cherries, chopped
Cream sugar and butter, then add the beaten eggs and dissolved soda. In separate, large bowl, add dry ingredients, a few at a time, and mix well. Batter will be stiff. Drop dough by spoonfuls onto a nonstick cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 8–10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack.
Lisa Leann’s Cook’s Notes
When it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, at least around the Lambert household, it’s time to decorate my Christmas trees and start my Christmas baking. These fruitcake cookies top my list for Christmas cookie fun. Some folks might add a splash of bourbon, but as I’m a good Baptist, I don’t.
Gingerbread
1 cup soft butter
1 cup sugar
2 well-beaten eggs
2¼ cups flour
1 teaspoon cloves
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons ginger
1 cup dark cane molasses
1 cup boiling water
1 teaspoon soda
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs. Sift flour and spices together. Add to butter mixture. Alternate with molasses. Dissolve soda in boiling water and add to mixture (which will be thin). Pour into greased 9-by-13 or Bundt pan. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes or until done. Cool. Dust with powdered sugar or whipped cream and cherries.
Evangeline’s Cook’s Notes
Mama used to make this at Christmastime. There’s not a year gone by since her death that I have not baked it, filling the house with warmth and love, floating on the scent of ginger.
Sour Cream Coffee Cake
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup sour cream
2 cups sifted cake flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
TOPPING
powdered sugar
¾ cup chopped nuts
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Cream together butter, sugar, and eggs. Fold in sour cream and vanilla carefully. Add sifted dry ingredients. Spoon ½ batter into greased and floured 10-inch angel food cake pan. Cover with half the topping. (To make topping, mix the nuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon.) Then repeat both. Bake at 350 for 55–60 minutes. Cool. Sprinkle top of cake with powdered sugar. Top cake with the rest of the topping. Bake another 30–35 minutes.
Goldie’s Cook’s Notes
One of my favorite things to bake for a party or just to nibble on at home is sour cream coffee cake. The scent of cinnamon and vanilla wafting through the house just cries out “home, sweet home.”
One-Pot Spaghetti
1 pound ground beef
1 tablespoon instant minced onion
8-ounce can tomato sauce
15-ounce can or jar spaghetti sauce (with mushrooms)
1½ teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups water
7-ounce package spaghetti
3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Brown ground beef in Dutch oven over medium high heat until brown. Remove fat. Stir in minced onion, tomato sauce, and spaghetti sauce. Add salt, sugar, water, and spaghetti (uncooked). Heat to boiling over medium high heat, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking. Cover and simmer over low heat about 15 minutes or until the spaghetti is tender. Remove from heat and stir. Sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese before serving.
Serves 6.
Donna’s Cook’s Notes
Vonnie has made this dish for me since I was a little girl. I often stayed over with Vonnie and Fred when my daddy had the evening shift. Sometimes I would stand on a chair and help Vonnie stir in the ingredients. It always brings back warm and happy memories.
Orange Roughy with Tarragon
1 pound orange roughy fillets
¼ teaspoon salt
1½ to 2 tablespoons butter, melted
½ teaspoon snipped tarragon or ? teaspoon dried tarragon leaves
paprika
Place orange roughy fillets on greased rack in boiler pan; sprinkle with salt. Drizzle with butter; sprinkle with tarragon. Set oven to broil. Broil with tops about 4 inches from heat until fish flakes very easily with fork and is opaque in center, 5–6 minutes. Sprinkle with paprika. Serves 4.
Evangeline’s Cook’s Notes
Everyone in Summit View knows I hate to cook. Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, so let me rephrase that. Everyone in the Potluck Club knows I hate to cook. So, for me, the simpler the better. That’s why, if I have to cook, I go for quick and simple. Like this recipe.
Red Velvet Punch
2 quarts cranberry juice
6 ounces orange juice concentrate
2 cups grape juice
2¾ cups lemon juice
3 cups pineapple juice
1 quart ginger ale, chilled
Mix together. Makes 12 cups of punch.
Lisa Leann’s Cook’s Notes
This quick and easy punch serves me well at weddings, baby showers, and even church potlucks. I make it several times a year. Come to think of it, I made it for Mandy’s wedding as well.
Acknowledgments
The authors send a special, love-filled thank-you to our wonderful editors, Jeanette Thomason and Kristin Kornoelje. Without your help and encouragement and especially your wisdom and prayers, we
would not have been able to pull this off!
Thank you! Thank you! And thank you to our exceptional recipe artists: Connie Salmen, Barb McCauley, Betty Purvis, and Gayle Scheff. Write on, ladies!
Also a special thanks to the women of AWSA (Advanced Writers and Speakers Association). We’ve appreciated your love and prayers as we wrote our second Potluck book. You ladies rock, and it’s a privilege to be a part of your lives.
Linda writes: A special thanks to my family, Paul, Jimmy, and Laura, for your patience, love, and support. I am so blessed by having you all in my life.
Another shout-out to the women in ministry who subscribe to the Right to the Heart of Women electronic magazine. You’ve not only become readers, you’ve become friends. I so appreciate the work you do in your church and communities.
And again, a big thanks to my dear friend Eva. We’ve laughed, cried, and prayed our way through this manuscript. You are a true friend.
Eva writes: Thank you to my husband, who releases me into the cold tundra of Colorado every year for the writing escapades Linda and I manage to get ourselves into. Thank you to my dear family and friends (especially my Bible study group!) who have prayed me through some tough times this year. You da best!
And, of course, thank you to my coauthor and friend, Linda “E.S.” There were days (and nights) I could not have gotten through this year without your love, encouragement, prayers, and snoring. (Okay, heavy breathing …)
About the Authors
Linda Evans Shepherd has turned the “pits” of her life into stepping stones following a violent car crash that left her then-infant daughter in a yearlong coma and permanently disabled (see LindaAndLaura. com).
Linda is the president of Right to the Heart Ministries and is also an international speaker (see ShepPro.com), radio host of the nationally syndicated Right to the Heart radio, occasional television host of Daystar’s Denver Celebration, the founder and leader of Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (see AWSAWomen. com), and the publisher of Right to the Heart of Women ezine (see RightToTheHeartOfWomen.com), which goes to more than ten thousand women leaders of the church.
She’s been married twenty-six years to Paul and has two teenagers, Laura and Jimmy.
Linda has written more than eighteen books, including Intimate Moments with God (coauthored with Eva Marie Everson), Tangled Heart: A Mystery Devotional, Grief Relief, and Right to the Heart of Prayer.
Award-winning author and speaker Eva Marie Everson is a Southern girl who’s not that crazy about being in the kitchen unless she’s being called to eat some of her mama’s or daddy’s cooking. She is married About the Authors to a wonderful man, Dennis, and is a mother and grandmother to the most precious children in the world.
Eva’s writing career and ministry began in 1999 when a friend asked her what she’d want to do for the Lord, if she could do anything. “Write and speak,” she said. And so it began.
Since that time, she has written, co-written, contributed to, and edited and compiled a number of works, including Sex, Lies, and the Media and Sex, Lies, and High School (co-written with her daughter, Jessica). She is a Right to the Heart board member and a member of a number of other organizations, and is a mentor with Christian Writers Guild.
A graduate of Andersonville Theological Seminary, she speaks nationally, drawing others to the heart of God. In 2002, she was one of six journalists chosen to visit Israel. She was forever changed.
Join the Potluck Club
To read more about the authors or to find additional recipes, visit www.PotLuckClub.com
A Sneak Peek
at the Next Adventure of the Potluck Club
Some days you’d just as soon wish away. Turn back the hands of time. Jump into bed, pull the covers over your head, and pretend they never happened. Such was this day.
It’s not that I haven’t had bad days before. The good Lord knows I’ve had some pretty bad ones. You can’t be married to an unfaithful man for nearly thirty years and come away unscathed.
But this one … this one was the worst of all. This one was such a slap in the face; I thought I’d never recover. What had started out as a cold and crisp December morning touched with a hint of promise, followed by an evening of dining and laughter with one of my best girlfriends, had turned into a night filled with despair.
Despair and anger.
Fury.
Remorse.
Oh, why did I ever say I’d go away for a weekend with my estranged husband, Lord? What in the world was I thinking?
“Charlene Hopefield is out of your life,” Lizzie had said.
But she wasn’t. Isn’t. Not by a long shot.
Lizzie hadn’t been gone five minutes when my doorbell rang. I’d already stepped into the small bath adjoining my bedroom and begun to scrub my face when I heard the gentle chime. Grabbing A Sneak Peek a hand towel, I patted my face dry as I moved toward the front of the condo, calling out, “I’m coming.”
When I got to the front door, I switched on the porch light and peeked out the peephole. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight on end. It was Charlene Hopefield. No store to walk out of or street to cross, I thought as I drew back.
“What do you want?” I called through the closed door. I peeked through the hole again.
She wrapped her arms around herself as though she were freezing to death. “Goldie, I need to talk to you. Please. It’s very important.”
I stared at her for a long moment. What in the world did that woman think she had to say that would be of any interest to me?
“My name—as far as you’re concerned—is Mrs. Dippel.”
I watched her roll her eyes. Even in the dim overhead porch light, her disdain for me was evident. “Whatever. I need to speak with you. It’s important. I’m being nice here. Nice enough to come to you instead of going over to Jack’s and talking to him.”
I flipped the lock and jerked the door open. “You stay away from my husband,” I said.
She just stared at me. “May I come in or not?”
I stepped aside. “May as well.” I looked down at her snowcovered boots. “But wipe your feet; I don’t need your slushy mess on my carpet.”
Charlene pounded her feet on the front mat for a few moments, then looked back up at me. “Will that do?” she asked, arching an eyebrow.
Cocky little thing.
“I guess.”
She stepped over my threshold, pulling her long dark wool coat from her somewhat pudgy body. She held it toward me, as though she actually expected me to take it, then threw it across the chair behind her. “Is that coffee I smell?” she asked. “Decaf? Because I can’t have regular.”
“It’s stale,” I answered, crossing my arms over my middle. “What do you want, Charlene?”
She turned toward the sofa and extended her arm a bit. “May I?” she asked.
I arched my brow. “May you what?”
“Sit? I’m exhausted,” she said, sitting in spite of the fact I hadn’t invited her to do so. “Not to mention I’ve been waiting across the street for your friend to leave. My gosh, what do you people have to talk about so long? My back end was going numb from sitting in my car that whole time.” She paused. “Please sit, Goldie.”
I coughed out a snicker. “I beg your pardon? I’ll decide when or if I sit down. This is my home.”
She nodded, looking around. “So it is. It’s … nice. Certainly not the home you left, but it’s … nice.”
On that note, I sat in the nearest chair, one I’d picked up cheap at a thrift store down on Dyer Street. “You know nothing about my home.”
She slid herself back on the sofa like a plump goddess, crossing one leg over the other. “Oh, Goldie, Goldie, Goldie.” She laughed, sounding more like a cat than a woman. “Silly, silly Goldie.”
I flushed red with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. If Jack had brought that woman into my home, he could take her and Summit Ridge and all the years we had between us and choke on them as far a
s I was concerned.