Boo!
Trick or treat… I’ll take the treat!
This Halloween special is a custom creation from Jennifer Matsubara, owner of Shelby Lynn’s Cake Shoppe in Springdale, Arkansas.
My sister loves anything from Shelby Lynn’s. Jennifer is extremely talented and her cakes are as good as they look!
Growing up in Immokalee, Florida, I can remember each Halloween visiting the home of Orville & Margaret Rainwater. Mrs. Rainwater would spend many hours making candied apples for the countless kids that would ring the doorbell and belt out… ‘trick or treat’.
In these store bought days of bulk candy from wholesale clubs, it makes my memories of Mrs. Rainwater’s homemade Halloween treats all the more special. Of all the nice things I remember about Mr. & Mrs. Rainwater, this memory is one that lasts a lifetime.
Old Fashioned Candied Apples
2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups corn syrup
1/3 cup cinnamon candy
1 cup water
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp cloves
3/4 tsp red food coloring
6 apples
Remove stems from apples, wash, and pat dry. Insert a wooden skewer in each apple, running through the apple from stem end to base without protruding all the way through the bottom end.
Combine sugar, corn syrup, cinnamon candies, and water in medium-sized saucepan. Cook until candies dissolve, stirring constantly. Be careful not to boil. Add cinnamon, vanilla, cloves, and food coloring. Mix thoroughly. Boil mixture to 300F using a candy thermometer without stirring.
While mixture is boiling, generously prepare a baking sheet with cooking spray so it’s ready ahead of time. As soon as mixture reaches 300F, remove it from heat and quickly dip each apple-one by one-into the mixture until it is thoroughly coated.
Set coated apples, standing on their bottoms with skewer pointing up, on baking sheet until mixture hardens. Let apples reach room temperature before eating.
Instead of potato chips these Sweet Potato Oven-Fried Chips are a great accompaniment. There are lots of different versions of these; my favorite so far is from “Burt Wolf’s Menu Cookbook”, published by Doubleday.
Sweet Potato Oven-Fried Chips
One large sweet potato makes two servings, double this recipe to make 4 servings, and so on.Preheat oven to 400 degrees (F)For easy clean-up, line shallow rimmed baking sheet(s) with foil, brush with about a tablespoon or so olive or canola oil. Then slice a sweet potato approximately 1/8-inch thick (peeled, or not, your choice).
Place the slices in a single layer on the oiled foil lined sheet(s), and brush with a little more oil, lightly coating each slice throughly.*
Here’s where you can get creative! Season with kosher salt & freshly ground pepper, and add a bit of dried ground ginger, cinnamon, a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, or almost any favorite herb.
Place the tray in the hot oven for about 25 to 30 minutes until they are tender and lightly toasted, turning the slices over every 10 minutes until done to your liking. If some begin to brown before the others, remove those from the baking sheet as they become done, keep warm until all are finished baking. The longer they are allow to bake, the crisper they will become, some like them just tender while others like them more crisp.
*If you don’t want to bother with brushing the slices with oil, simply put the slices in a bowl, and toss with the oil & your choice of seasonings, then arrange them in a single layer on the baking sheet and bake. Enjoy!
Thanks to Once Upon A Plate for this recipe.
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This recipe was awarded the status of Grand Champion at the 1987 Illinois State Fair — perfect for an interesting twist this holiday season.
Pumpkin Lemon Pie
Pie Crust:
3 cups flour
1 cup Crisco
1 egg, beaten
5 tbsp water
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp salt
Pie filling:
2 eggs, slightly beaten
16 oz pumpkin, canned
2/3 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
1 1/3 cup half and half
Sour Cream Layer:
1 cup sour cream
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp lemon peel, grated
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
Pie crust:
Add water, vinegar and salt to beaten egg; mix well, set aside.
Cut Crisco into flour until it resembles coarse crumbs. Add liquid and mix until dough forms. Roll out or store in icebox.
Pie filling:
Mix all ingredients of pie filling. Pour into pie shell. Bake 425F for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F for 45 minutes. Cool 20 minutes.
Blend sour cream, brown sugar, lemon juice & lemon peel. Spread mixture over pie. Bake 10 minutes. Sprinkle top with chopped pecans.
Serve warm or cold.
Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake
Sunday Night Dinner brought us this cake, click here for the very easy recipe.
Oooh whee! Chunky wedges of tender fresh apple, embedded in a delicious cinnamon-vanilla scented cake. Then enrobed with caramel, loaded with toasted walnuts, then lightly showered with a coarse-flake sea salt finish, which peaks the flavor of both the walnuts and caramel.
Click here for the recipe.
When baking, if you need to ‘plump’ raisins before adding to cakes and cookies, soak them in Coca-Cola instead of water. Water leaches out the flavor of the raisins, but Coke adds spiciness and intensifies the flavor.
Mary
Enfield, Middlesex
ENGLAND
If you have leftover barbecue like chicken or steak, put meat in a pan with a can of Coke and reheat in oven, the meat stays extra tender without ruining the grill flavor.
Sarah
Tennessee
USA
My uncle, who is a retired chef, always marinates steaks in Coca-Cola before barbecuing. It works as a great tenderizer.
Janae Knight
Long Beach, California
USA
When preparing a pot roast, use Coke instead of water – it tenderizes and imparts a unique flavor.
Ron
Nevada
USA
I had a friend who made the best homemade barbecue that I can remember. He mixed 50/50 Coca-Cola and Heinz ketchup together, and slathered on meat.
Tony Miles
Riverside, California
USA
For more most interesting uses of Coca-Cola, check out Barefoot Lass’s website.
My mother makes an awesome meat loaf. However, few others in the family eat it. I can remember my first trip home from college and my mother had meat loaf prepared just for me… and everyone waited for me to arrive before sitting down as a family for dinner… at almost 10pm! Subsequent trips home often included leftovers, but the first trip back to Immokalee was especially memorable.
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In a televised interview at Graceland, Priscilla Presley said that for years Elvis would eat meat loaf, mashed potatoes and black eye peas for dinner every night without fail… even when he was on the road. A request was made known that this was to be his dinner, and local cooks would do the honors.
Coca-Cola’s Matchless Meat Loaf
About 1 1/2lbs. ground beef
1 1/2 cups fresh bread crumbs
1/4 cup minced onion
2 tablespoons finely cut parsley
1 egg
1/2 cup Coca-Cola®
2 tablespoons Heinz Ketchup
1 1/2 tablespoons prepared mustard
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon basil leaves
1/8 teaspoon pepper
In a bowl, break up meat with a fork; add crumbs, onion and parsley, mixing well.
Beat egg, mix with remaining ingredients.
Pour over meat. With fork, toss lightly to blend thoroughly. Mixture will be soft.
Turn into a 9×5x3-inch loaf pan. Bake in a moderate oven, 350F, 1 hour. Let set about 10 minutes before slicing.
Makes 6 to 8 servings.
*This loaf will be moist and tender if you mix it lightly with a fork.
Growing up in Immokalee, Florida we did not have much excitement, especially during the summer months. Although we knew everyone in town, entertainment often came in the form of seeing and greeting others. As kids, we were not allowed to ride all over town on our bicycles, however, we would often ride to the neighborhood grocery store, Shopworth.
The Vickery family owned this small store for years. Growing up, we would always buy our meats there as they were of the finest quality. The store probably had a total of five or six aisles and could never compare to the current day Winn Dixie, Publix, Ralphs or Bruno’s. Shopworth was typical of most small Mom & Pop stores, they issued the green stamps, had bag boys to take groceries to your car, and kept a list of folks having written bad checks at the two cash registers.
Shopworth did have something extra special… a vending machine that kept the bottles freezing cold. A Coke was our drink of choice and they always had ice crystals inside and it was somewhat akin to drinking a slush. Best I recall, the Coke’s were only a dime, and if we didn’t have any money, Mrs. Vickery would put it on our charge account.
For those who remember these machines, I think we would all agree that our knuckles were busted each and every time trying to pull the bottles out of their slots. I feel certain that these machines would never pass the legal departments of today’s cola companies.
