1 bunch broccoli
3 green onions, chopped
1/3 red onion, chopped
1/3 cup raisins
5 strips bacon, cooked and chopped
2 tbsp sunflower seeds

Remove stems from broccoli and put the broccoli florets into a bowl. Add remaining ingredients and toss together.

Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp vinegar

Combine dressing ingredients in a small bowl and mix well. Then stir into broccoli mixture. Refrigerate for at least an hour for best flavor.

Serves 4

This Apple Strudel recipe is one of the easiest dessert recipes I know. This recipe takes advantage of some already prepared ingredients to create an outstanding apple pastry dessert.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

2 sheets frozen puff pastry dough, thawed
1 21-ounce can apple pie filling
3/4 cup prepared mincemeat filling (portion out the rest of the jar of mincemeat into plastic freezer bags and freeze for future use)

1 egg
Sugar and cinnamon for sprinkling

Lay out the sheets of puff pastry dough onto plastic wrap or parchment paper to avoid sticking. Divide the apple pie filling between the two sheets of puff pastry dough and heap into a line down the middle of the dough. Divide the mincemeat filling between the two sheets of dough and arrange along the top of the apple pie filling.

Fold the dough over the filling lengthwise and seal by applying a few drops of water to the dough. Seal the ends of the dough the same way.

Carefully flip the apple strudels over onto a greased cookie sheet. The seam side should be facing down and the sealed ends should be tucked under.

Break the egg into a small bowl and whisk vigorously with a fork to break the yolk. Use the whisked egg and brush onto the entire exposed surfaces of the apple strudel dough.

Sprinkle the apple strudel with sugar and cinnamon.

Bake for about 14 minutes or until well browned in the oven. Watch closely because it can over-brown very easily.

Remove from the oven and slice when ready to eat. Serve hot with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on the side.

1/2 cup chopped celery
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1 small jar chopped pimentos (2 oz)
1/2 cup chopped onion
32 oz jar sauerkraut, drained
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
Salt and pepper to taste

Combine the above ingredients and stir together.

Dressing:
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup vinegar

Combine sugar and vinegar and bring to a boil to dissolve sugar. Pour this dressing over the sauerkraut salad and stir to combine. Refrigerate salad for 2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes or so to distribute the dressing evenly.

This is one of the easiest salads ever. In the history of all time. The hardest part is juicing the lemons but if you use prepared lemon juice *gasp* then that step goes away. It is called a salad but it doesn’t exactly fit the mold of regular salads. It could even be served as a dessert.

20 ounce can crushed pineapple, drained
14 ounce can whole-berry cranberry sauce
1/2 cup lemon juice
14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup chopped pecans
8 ounce container Cool Whip, thawed

Simply combine all ingredients in a large bowl and stir to combine. Pour the mixture into a 9″x12″ pan and freeze overnight. Set out for 5 minutes before serving.

I know it sounds like an odd combination but cornbread salad is one of those delicious surprises that I discovered here in Texas. No where else have I come across cornbread salad but I am sure it is all across the South since Paula Deen even has a version of it.

My Mississippi family practically wrote the book on cornbread. My grandmother cooked a cake of cornbread every single day. And a pan of biscuits. She always called it a cake of cornbread. Her cornbread was baked in a hot iron skillet. She would put a dollop of real lard in her skillet and place it in the oven to get hot while she prepared her batter. No measurements were required for her cornbread batter since she had been making it for so many years. And it always turned out perfect.

I make cornbread salad as a layered salad in a glass bowl. The combination of tart sour cream/mayonnaise dressing combined with the cornbread and crunchy vegetables is delicious.

1 8.5 ounce box of cornbread mix, prepared and baked according to directions on the box
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 medium red onion, diced
4 Roma tomatoes, diced
2 green onions, diced

Dressing:
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 sour cream
1/4 cup cider vinegar
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix the ingredients for the dressing and set aside. Then crumble the cornbread into a small bowl.

In your large glass bowl, put a layer of the cornbread crumbs. Then add a layer of bell pepper, red onion, tomatoes, and green onions. Top with a layer of dollops of the dressing. Continue adding layers of the ingredients until all ingredients are completely used.

Place the salad in refrigerator and chill for a couple of hours prior to serving. This salad should be eaten within one day of preparing.

Serves 6.

I decided to make my own drinking chocolate. It is rather like hot chocolate but infinitely richer and more chocolatey. Do you remember the novel Chocolat by Joanne Harris? They made a movie based on it starring Juliette Binoche.

When I read that book, I spent the entire time craving chocolate. And one of the things discussed in the book was drinking chocolate. I was intrigued. But I never really got around to learning to make it myself. But now I have!

When you make and drink this chocolate, do not worry for a second over the high fat content. Don’t read the nutrition labels. DO NOT substitute low-fat milk. Make it exactly like this recipe and don’t worry about the calories. This is meant to be an indulgence.

In a heavy bottomed saucepan combine:

12 ounces heavy cream (1 1/2 cups)
2 cups whole milk
3 entire bars of Lindt Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa (the 3.5 oz size bars), coarsely chopped

This may seem like a lot of chocolate but it makes the drink just perfectly chocolatey. Turn the burner on very low under the saucepan and stir constantly as the mixture heats and the chocolate melts. You want to be sure and warm this drink very slowly.

Once the chocolate is completely melted and incorporated into the milk, increase the heat briefly to bring the drinking chocolate up to the temperature you would like to drink it.

Serve immediately. Serves about 4 people. Or maybe 2 chocoholics.

You can experiment with different chocolates. Try darker chocolate. Or maybe half dark chocolate and half white chocolate! I have also seen variations on this where you add a little vanilla and cinnamon for flavor.

This is how I spent my Friday evening. Making whoopie pies. I had a few bananas that needed to be used and instead of my fall-back recipe of banana bread, I decided to break out and make whoopie pies for the first time in my life. They turned out to be delicious.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup milk
3 bananas, mashed
8 oz cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup powder sugar
1 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder, and baking soda. In another bowl combine butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and milk. Add the butter mixture to the flour and stir to combine well. Stir in the bananas.

Spoon rounds of dough onto prepared baking sheets in circles about 3 inches in diameter:

Bake for about 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and place on racks to cool.

In a medium bowl combine cream cheese and powder sugar. Mix well.

Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave. Then on one side of a cookie, spread cream cheese filling. On the side of another cookie, spread some melted chocolate.

Place a chocolate-filled cookie atop a cream cheese-filled cookie to form a Banana Whoopie Pie.

These are best if you chill them overnight covered in the refrigerator and then serve them cold.

Makes 8 Whoopie Pies.