Creamy Macaroni Salad

I like to have a big bowl of this on hand for 'HOT' days (you know the kind-- hot and humid!) when I don't want to heat up the kitchen by cooking or baking-- boiling water included!   

Once you have the macaroni and 

sauce together (the first eight ingredients), 

you can add exactly what you like...

INGREDIENTS:

1. 4 cups UNcooked elbow macaroni 
2. 1 cup mayonnaise
3. 1/2 cup salad dressing (like Miracle Whip)
4. 1/4 cup distilled white or red vinegar
5. 2/3 cup white sugar
6. 2 and 1/2 tablespoons prepared yellow mustard (I sometimes use honey mustard).
7. 1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
8. 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Add what you like of the following:

• 1 medium onion, finely minced (or, some snipped/chopped chives?)
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, seeded and chopped (sweet red pepper can be used, and adds color).
• 1 cup of cubed ham
• 1 cup of cubed cheese
• 1 cucumber, seeded and cut into chunks 
• 4 radishes, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup grated carrot
• 1/2 cup frozen petite peas, uncooked
• Small cherry or grape tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons chopped pimento peppers

DIRECTIONS:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil.  
2. Add the macaroni, and cook until tender, about 8 minutes. 
3. Rinse under cold water and drain.  Set aside.
4. In a large bowl, mix together the mayonnaise, salad dressing, vinegar, sugar, mustard, salt and pepper.  Stir with a spatula/scraper  until you can feel the sugar has dissolved or lost its graininess.
5. Stir in whatever else you like (see the list above).  Mix well.
6. Add the cooked/cooled macaroni and gently mix until all is coated.
7. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving, but preferably overnight.

You can also make this salad have a very different taste by substituting the cubed ham with canned/drained tuna, bacon pieces, canned/drained white chicken chunks, imitation crab, or ???

Rhubarb Cream Cheese Squares

I was having "RHUBARB moments" yesterday...

Above:  Yes, yesterday was a "Rhubarb Day"-- 
sort of.  I made two kinds of Rhubarb 
desserts, not all for me/us, though!   
First, I made my family's favorite Rhubarb 
Custard Dessert (shown in the back) and, 
then,  something I'd never made before--  
Rhubarb Cream Cheese Squares 
(shown in the front).  

The recipe for the dessert below is one 
that's "around" on the Internet...

For this, I followed a recipe found in 
a blog entitled "a farmgirl's dabbles"*--   
except that I doubled it to make a 
9x13 dish of this.

Below:   After it cooled overnight, I 

drizzled caramel sauce over 

the top to make it "different"...

These are quite "rich" and quite "sweet"--  I think

a "not big" piece (half the size shown?) is best.

INGREDIENTS: 

• 2 and 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 2 packages (8-ounces each) cream cheese, softened
• 1 and 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 3 cups finely chopped rhubarb (chopped to little 1/4" pieces)

DIRECTIONS:

1. In my food processor, I combined the flour, brown sugar, cold butter and pulsed it until I had what looked like a crumb mixture.  At that point, I added the old-fashioned oats and hit "pulse" ONLY a couple of times so as to not totally break up the flakes of oats.
2. Remove 2 cups of this crumb mixture and set aside for the topping.
3. Gently press remaining crumb mixture into the bottom of a greased or sprayed 9x13" baking pan.  Set aside.
4. For the filling: In a small bowl, beat softened cream cheese and sugar until very smooth.  
5. Beat in salt, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg.
6. Add eggs, beat on low speed just until combined.
7. Stir in finely chopped rhubarb.  Pour mixture over crust.
8. Sprinkle batter with reserved crumb mixture, and very gently press down.
9. Bake at 350-degrees for about 50 minutes or until set/very light brown (check after 45 minutes).  Cool on a wire rack for 1 hour.  The baking time for just 1/2 this recipe baked in a 9x9" pan was listed at 35-40 minutes.
10. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  Cut into squares (or bars).

*http://www.afarmgirlsdabbles.com/2013/05/31/moms-rhubarb-cream-cheese-bars/

Derby Pie (w/Chocolate Chips - Pecans)

 If you like chocolate, you may 

like this a lot.  If you like pecans, 

you may like it even more!  

(Otherwise, ...not so much.)

This time, ... I made TWO of these!!!!

Today was Kentucky Derby Day.  I think that more than anything else about this day each year, I like seeing all the fancy, and sometimes "far out", HATS worn by those who attend it in person.  WOW!!!-- there are some real "WINNER HATS" in the crowd-- and it looked like it was a WINDY day there.  Windy enough that a lot of people had to literally HOLD ONTO THEIR HATS!!!!

If you want to see some of today's hats for yourself, click on this link.  It will take you to an analysis of the "best and worst" picks for today:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2048169-kentucky-derby-hats-best-and-worst-of-2014

Going along with the theme of today, I decided to make something  that is quite famous in Kentucky around this time of the year... it's a pie with "today's event" in its name.  Word has it that the original name of the well-known pie is "OWNED" and can't be used by others who try to imitate the pie in any way.  

So,..... in my opinion, I'd name this as a Chocolate Chip - Pecan Pie.   I guess it could be named "Racing Day Pie" or "Horse Race Pie" or whatever you choose to name it-- just so you don't name it in a way that the "name owner" doesn't like.

INGREDIENTS:  

• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar  (I am so sure this amount could be cut back to suit your liking, maybe to 3/4 cup?)
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped pecans (may use chopped walnuts)
• 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I used half milk chocolate chips)
• 1/4" teaspoon salt
• 1 ready-made UNbaked pie crust

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 325-degrees F.

Combine flour and sugar in a mixing bowl.  

Add the beaten eggs and melted butter; mix to combine.

Stir in the vanilla, chopped pecans OR walnuts, chocolate chips, and salt; mix well.

Pour mixture into the unbaked pie crust.

Bake for just under an hour.  (Check for appearance after the first 30 minutes.  This is when I usually cover the top edge of the pie crust with a strip of foil to prevent it from becoming too000000 brown.  Then, I continue baking until it is done.  I checked for doneness with a wooden toothpick.)

  Mine looked like this at 45-50 minutes:

Cool.  Then, ...serve plain... with a glass of cold milk, or ice cream, or a dollop of whipping cream.

When recipe is followed AS listed above, it is QUITE sweet!
Because of that, I keep the "serving size" quite small.

* The recipe I STARTED to follow is listed here:  http://americanfood.about.com/od/desserts/r/chocwalnutpie.htm  

Then, because a lot of the "Derby" pies call for Bourbon, 
I decided to follow the following recipe and make this one my 
KEEPER!!!...  http://cupcakesandkalechips.com/kentucky-derby-pie/