One of my all-time favorite Little House on the Prairie episodes was the one when Laura offered to cook a romantic dinner for Almonzo and Nellie---and she spiced up the cinnamon chicken dish considerably.

After watching that recently, I decided to try my own cinnamon chicken recipe and it was a hit with the kids.  Enjoy!

4 chicken breast halves

1 cup buttermilk

cinnamon, salt, pepper, and oil

1. Flatten chicken breasts halves between two sheets of waxed paper. Cut each breast in half with kitchen scissors.

2. Put in a Ziploc bag with the buttermilk overnight.

3. Heat oil to depth of 1" in an iron skillet.

4. Drain chicken, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and cinnamon and fry till done. Great with sweet carrots and baked potatoes.

Yum--this is so good! And it's a delicious way to use up overripe bananas.

3 eggs, separated

1 1/2 c. sugar

1/2 c. buttermilk

1/2 c. margarine

2 c. all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp soda

2 tsp. baking powder

3 medium bananas, ripe and mashed

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts

2 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a large rectangular glass baking dish and sprinkle with flour to prevent cake from sticking.

2. Mix egg yolks, sugar, buttermilk, margarine, bananas, vanilla, peanut butter and walnuts.

3. Sift [twice] the flour, soda, and baking powder. Add this to egg yolk mixture.

4. In a cold, stainless steel bowl using a mixer, beat the egg whites until they are stiff and white. Gently fold into the cake batter. Spread in a large rectangular  glass baking dish.

5. Bake for 1 hour or until toothpick in center comes out clean.

Enjoy!  It's great with a cup of English Breakfast tea or a cup of coffee.

MMMM!! One of my families top three favorite desserts is banana pudding. Here's my recipe:

Pudding:

1 quart milk

4 egg yolks

2 cups sugar

1/3 cup all purpose flour

2 tbsp butter

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

In large kettle, mix the sugar and flour. In a separate bowl, blend milk and egg yolks. Add liquid to dry ingredients and mix well. Turn the heat to med/hi and start stirring. Don't leave the pudding. Stir until it's thick, but be careful not to overcook.  When it's pudding consistency, remove from the heat and add the butter and vanilla.

Layer one third of a pack of vanilla wafers in the bottom of a bowl [ovenproof if you want to add merangue]. Add two sliced bananas, and one third of the pudding. Repeat these layers two more times.  

If you want to add merangue, take the egg whites and let them set until room temperature. Add 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar. Not sure of the science there, but it seems to help the egg whites fluff even when it's humid. Beat the eggs until foamy. Don't overbeat or they will become clumpy instead of smooth and whipped. Add 1/4 cup Splenda or sugar after the egg whites start to turn white. Adding the sugar too soon will give you syrup instead of merangue! Spread the merangue over the pudding top, seal to the edges of your bowl.  Brown for about five to eight minutes in a 425 degree oven.  Some people like banana pudding hot, some like it cold, but the twelve people I've served in the last two days with two of these things like it period. Enjoy!

Perhaps I should clarify the title --this a recipe for nut-cake, not a biographical entry. [I'm sure I'll be asked.....]  Here's a nifty little cake that tastes like a peanut butter cookie. Enjoy!

• Don't preheat the oven, but do grease a 12 cup bundt pan and set aside. you can dust it with flour if you like.  
• Cream two sitcks butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Be sure you use real butter not margarine.
• Chop in the blender [ on low or you'll have peanut butter] 2 1/2 cups mixed nuts. [about 1 small can].  Add 1/2 cup flour to the nuts and set aside.
• Alternately add 6 eggs and 2 1/2 c. self rising flour to the butter/sugar mixture. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla, then fold in nuts.
• Spoon batter into the pan, bake at 300 degrees for an hour and half. Cool  for an hour in the pand and unmold. YUM!

One of my favorite foods is the corn pudding from Calhoun's restaurant in Lenoir City, Tennessee. That and their fried green tomatoes and buttermilk sauce---umm, umm good. Those two items and the chicken and dumplins from Cracker Barrel are the only restaurant foods I can handle.  The rest of the Doehill crew are fans of the corn pudding, too.

So last night, I decided to try my own version. And the picky Doehill clan liked it as much if not more than the Calhoun's version.  Hope you like it too.  BTW--this recipe serves 4.

Ingredients:

1 can whole kernal corn, undrained

2 tbsp. butter

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 c. Splenda sugar substitute

1/2 c. quick cook grits

1/2 cup yellow cornmeal

1/2 c. water

1/2 to 3/4 c milk

DIRECTIONS:

Empty the can of corn in a hot skillet and add butter, s & p. Get the contents hot and add the grits, cornmeal [you can use all cornmeal if you prefer a smoother texture], and Splenda. Stir well and add water and milk a little at a time, just enought to keep it smooth, allowing the liquid to be absorbed by the grits and meal.  Cook to a pudding consistency.  

This is nice served in individual bowls that are broiled for a minute or two to give the top a nice crunch---just like Calhoun's.

Enjoy!

Some people say that fruitcakes are the worst food of the holiday season. I beg to differ.

Jello desserts with cottage cheese are yucky.

Let me repeat, jello desserts with cottage cheese are yucky. 

Especially green ones.  Runner up for worst holiday food is any kind of casserole with canned biscuits, cream soups, and mayonnaise as the three main ingredients. Toss in a casserole with broccoli, cheez whiz,  cheezits, and cream of chicken soup and you have the worst offenders in church fellowship dinners.  Has the Barna research group ever studied the effect of poor potlucks on church growth rates? [Perhaps the National Institutes of Health would be a better group to conduct the study....]

Thankfully, the women at Friendship are excellent cooks. Not that that should be a reason to choose a church, but it is a delightful side benefit, to be sure. Marie's coconut cream pies and Miz Ruby's chicken and dumplings and Gail's banana puddings are the stuff of legend at Friendship.

I once had to eat green jello salad at a local church fellowship hall---notice I didn't say it was my church----with a smile to avoid a scene. It was a have-to case. This sweet lady was bound and determined not to take leftovers home and came around to tables spooning out green jello sludge [forgive me] onto every plate with some empty space. Slighting a Baptist woman's favorite dessert dish is just something not done. I don't think it lessens rewards in Heaven, but it may shorten lifespans, if you get my drift.

My mother would have turned in her grave had I hid my plate and ran [what I really wanted to do.]  No, I was raised to take my green jello with cottage cheese and smile anyway.

Bless her heart, she was so grateful for my smile that she sent the rest of the bowl home with me. May the Lord , that determined church lady,  and the great state of Tennessee forgive me, but that spot on Highway 411 South where I dumped it out still won't grow grass.....well, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit....

Jello salads with cottage cheese are yucky UNLESS they are made by my Mamaw Mayme, now with the Lord, or Miz Ruby--my 91 one year old dear friend that I'm so glad to have. This woman can do anything. She's planning on trying to do a little gardening if she can get one of her 74 grand- or great-grand children to plow  her garden in the spring.

Everyone ought to have a friend like Miz Ruby. She knows her Bible backwards and forwards, she's funny, she's the ideal Mamaw, and she's my Titus 2 mentor. Oh, she doesn't call herself  that, but she takes the job of instructing younger women in the faith  and matters of the home very seriously.

And at her age she's got the credentials to do it, too. After sixty years of marriage, eight children, grand-great- and great-great grandchildren, and several local churches that all claim her as the "honorary Mamaw",  I'd say that Miz Ruby is certainly a Titus 2 woman. She is my dear friend. I've spent a lot of time with her on the phone just prasing the Lord, talking about the Bible, or letting her teach me how to REALLY cook. [She just told me this weekend the secret to her almost coveted chicken and dumplings--and I'm not telling until I'm her age!]

Merry Christmas, Miz Ruby. I love you.

Oh, here's Miz Ruby's Lime Salad recipe.  Whip some cream cheese and add a box of lime jello, small can of crushed pineapple [partially drained] , some chopped pecans, and a tub of sugar free cool whip. Spread it in a rectangular baking pan to "set up" . It sounds suspiciously  like the ingredients in all those other jello sludgy--treats. Must be the Mamaw touch that makes it so good.

Well, I won't be blogging for the next couple of days. I've got two family dinners to cook for---that's my present, I love fixing food for dear ones---and will be just celebrating the Lord's birth rather than blogging. Merry Christmas one and all! 

I love these--my favorites are from Market Street Sweets in Charleston, SC. My pal Donna is down there now with family celebrating Christmas. What a place Charleston is-----grits, cheese, shrimp [sorry, dear Maker's Diet readers], chocolate, benne wafers, and PECAN PRALINES.

I made some pralines that my husband--sweet expert that he is--has pronounced as just as good as MSS'. High praise indeed.

2 cups pecans

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup buttermilk

good pinch of salt

2 tablespoons butter

3/4 tsp baking soda

Cook all ingredients EXCEPT SODA in a large iron skillet. After the sugar is dissolved, cover it with a lid or pizza pan to "wash down" sugar crystals from the sides--won't take long in a skillet. Stir and bring to a boil. I don't stand and stir mine constantly, just enough to keep it from burning. Cook it on low to medium until the mixture reaches soft ball stage. Then take the skillet off the eye and add the soda. Beat the mixture with a wooden spoon and drop by spoonfuls onto baking sheets lined with wax paper. Stick them in the fridge to harden. When they are completely cool they'll come off the paper easily.

This is what Mom called her  potato peanut butter candy  because she knew we wouldn't eat candy that had peanut butter and potato in the same name. Here's my recipe:

1 medium potato, peeled and boiled whole

1 teaspoon good vanilla

2 -3 lbs. of powdered sugar

2-3 tbsps. milk

1 bag white chocolate chips

1 large jar of peanut butter

Now how simple is that?   Mash the spud with vanilla and milk, adding confectioner's sugar a little a t at time. It will be soupy at first!  Then add the white chocolate chips. Keep adding sugar until the mixture is  "rolled dough" consistency. Roll out the dough on a clean cloth dusted generously with confectioner's sugar into a long rectangle. Spread the peanut butter on and roll up, long side to long side. Let it set in the towel for half an hour in the fridge and then slice. Prepare for a major sugar buzz!

To spoil my crew a little bit, I made them peach cobbler tonight. I'd share a picture of it but it is GONE! The glass scraped and the fingers licked--it is GONE! It's good , fast and VERY easy.

Here's the recipe:

2 large cans peaches, sliced or halves

1 stick butter

1/2 cu regular Splenda

1/2 c. brown sugar Splenda blend

1 cup flour

1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place stick butter in oblong baking dish and place in hot oven to melt butter.  Mix sugars, flour, milk--batter will be thin. When the butter is melted, remove the dish from oven and pour in batter. Then pour in two cans peaches. The crust will rise and be vey crispy on top. Let bake for 35-40 minutes