By Nancy Prince Jackson   Merry Christmas to you and your families! I would like to share this recipe from my sister-in-law. We tried it last night and it was oh-so-easy and DELISH!   Crock Pot  Chicken & Dumplings   3 lg. chicken breasts 1 can of cream of mushroom soup 2 cans of cream of chicken coup 1 box of chicken stock Dash of salt & pepper … [Read more...]

I came across a Kraft recipe for a Mexican dish that is just plain yummy. I am not a huge fan of TexMex stuff, but this I like – and so do kids. It’s called a Layered Enchilada Bake. It takes about 25 minutes to prepare and cooks in 40 minutes -and it will feed 6 hungry hombres. You’ll need: 2 pounds of lean ground beef 1 large onion chopped 2 cups Thick ‘n Chunky salsa 2 cans black … [Read more...]

Sherman Shifflett and I were reminiscing recently about great recipes from our past, particularly foods that are special come Christmas time and he mentioned gingerbread with lemon sauce. We used to have that as a kid. A neighbor baked it and gave it to us at Christmas each year. Boy, was that good stuff! Both Sherman and I remembered eating and enjoying it. So Sherman went to work and found an … [Read more...]

Last week, I offered my opinion that the Krusteaze Vanilla Butter Sugar Cookie mix made the best sugar cookies you have ever put in your mouth. Not so, says Doris Huff. Doris, who supplies husband Bob with his sugar cookie fix, says that Betty Crocker sugar cookies are by far the best out-of-the-box sugar cookies on the market. Bob says there should be a bake-off and he will decide which is … [Read more...]

They may be the best cookies you've ever put in your mouth and they come from a mix. They're easy to bake, they are beyond delicious and Christmas is coming. Time to bake a batch of Krusteaze Vanilla Butter Sugar Cookies. I had never bought any Krusteaze mixes till early this spring when I tried their Blueberry Muffin mix. They were so good, I have since bought several mixes including muffin, … [Read more...]

My cucumber patch gave out long ago, but the grocery store cukes have been decent – until recently. For the last month or so, the regular slicing cucumbers I have purchased have been over-ripe with huge seeds and generally poor. So recently I tried the English cucumbers instead and they have been excellent. They have also been on sale on several occasions, once for a buck apiece – a terrific … [Read more...]

Italians are serious about food, especially when it comes to pasta. While some chefs may settle for a couple versions and shapes of pasta, Italians seemingly have a different pasta for each dish. To the Italian palette, it makes a difference. Take rigatoni, for example. Rigatoni is a tube shaped pasta with ridges. Rigatoni in Italian roughly means “lined ridges”. Rigatoni pastas are larger than … [Read more...]

By James Friend Dickerson   Thanks to Jason, a commercial fisherman we knew, we enjoyed some sea scallops at Kamp Karen.  For dinner, we cooked the scallops with fresh asparagus, vegetables and a little pasta. With the addition of a side salad, it was a tasty meal. It’s easy, so try this yummy pasta dish for dinner sometime. To begin, I chopped a link of Italian sausage to sauté with … [Read more...]

Everything is better with a Ritz cracker – raw oysters, smoked salmon, cheese spreads and especially peanut butter. I also use Ritz crackers instead of breading or cracker meal when frying foods. Last week, I was at Kroger’s trying to come up with a tasty meal that would not add weight to my bathroom scales the following morning when I saw a package of boneless, skinless thighs for about four … [Read more...]

It’s deer season in Virginia so I’ll be spending some time in the woods hunting instead of showing property. We enjoy cooking with venison at Kamp Karen. I’ve had requests for my Venison Stew recipe, so hear goes. I used to make this following the Bourbon and Buck Stew recipe found in the L.L. Bean Game & Fish Cookbook (currently out of print). Over the years someone borrowed without … [Read more...]