Grandma Patton's Potato Salad

One of my all time favorites!

Grandma Patton's Potato Salad

Unfortunately, I don't have measurements for the ingredients on this either but I'll try to give you some estimates to get you started. The rest you have to use your taste tester to figure out :)

Ingredients:
Potatoes (for the 3 of us, I might use a 5 lb. bag mainly because I always want leftovers of this; for a family gathering I'd use at least a 10 lb. bag)

**Side note, my mom always said when making potatoes (like mashed, potato salad, etc) you peel 2 for each person & throw in a couple for the pot. That works for normal people, but I have an addiction to potatoes so I usually throw in a few more just because :) **

Other ingredients:
Mayo (you truly have to eyeball this to get the consistency of potato salad you want)
Relish - dill not sweet, (2-4 Tblsp., maybe a little more)
Eggs (2-3)
Onion (1/4-1/2 cup, chopped)
Salt & Pepper to taste
American Cheese Slices (2-4)

Dice, cook & drain potatoes. Lay the cheese slices on top of the hot potatoes. Cover & allow cheese to melt. Add remaining ingredients & mix. Enjoy!!

Mom's Pea Salad

Mom's Pea Salad recipe has been a much requested hit at our family gatherings for years. She always made it in one of those ginormous Tupperware bowls. You can actually halve the recipe & make it in a smaller bowl.

Mom's Pea Salad

Layer the following in a large, non-metal container.

Head of lettuce (torn into pieces)
Chopped onions
Grated carrots
Celery
Green peppers
2 (16oz) bags of frozen peas, thawed
2 cups salad dressing spread over the peas (use more if needed to cover the peas entirely)
Bacon, crumbled or bacon pieces
6 hard boiled eggs
Parmesan cheese
Grated cheddar cheese

Refrigerate over night.

Stir well before serving the next day. Makes 20 servings.

**Now you'll notice that there are no measurements for many of these ingredients. You can thank my mom for that. She's one of those....the eyeballers, dash of this, pinch of that, "until it looks right" type cookers. So,  basically for this recipe you're making a layer of each item in the bowl. If you like onions, make a thicker layer. If you hate carrots, omit them or make a thinner layer. You get the picture. Sorry that's not much help when you are buying ingredients for the 1st time, is it?**

This is a pretty & delicious side dish. Enjoy!

Crack Potatoes

I originally found this recipe here after coming across it on Pinterest. It sounded like it made several servings so I was waiting for a family function that I could test it out share it at. That opportunity came in the form of Christmas at my Mom's. Turns out they were a BIG hit so here's the recipe.

Crack Potatoes

2 (16 oz) containers of sour cream

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

2 (3 oz) bags real bacon bits

2 packages Ranch Dip mix

1 large bag frozen hash brown potatoes

Before baking...

Combine first 4 ingredients, mix in hash browns. Spread into a 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 400 for 45-50 min. 

**Personally, I thought this dish was WAY too salty. Everyone else said it was just fine to them. Regardless, I think I'll try it next time with 1 Ranch Dip mix & 1 Ranch Salad Dressing mix (because the dressing mix is less salty).**

After baking...
picture thanks to http://www.plainchicken.com/2011/01/crack-potatoes.html
because mine were gone so fast I didn't have time to snap a picture! 

Crockpot Baked Potatoes

Pinterest is quickly becoming one of my very favorite internet past times. (As if I needed another way to waste time on the internet! HA!).  I have found some really great ideas & recipes on there. Today I tried something I read on there a couple weeks ago....baking potatoes in the crockpot.

You can read about this technique at the original place I found it (if you like) here...

Or I can just briefly tell you how it works :) 

Wash potatoes

Wrap in aluminum foil

Place in crockpot

Cook on high 6-8 hrs

Remove from crockpot, unwrap & load 'em up with all your favorite toppings!

Doesn't get much easier than that, does it?!? No heating up the kitchen with your oven & no waiting your turn to microwave your potato while everyone else is eating (and, I have to add, these are WAY better than microwaved ones anyway!)

*Note: you have to wrap them in foil & you do NOT add any water to the crockpot...this seems to be the 2 main questions asked over at the blog linked above*

Broccoli Salad

This recipe I got from Livi's Grandma King.  I always forget I have it, but it's one of our favorite salads.

Broccoli Salad

2 bunches of broccoli, cut into bite-size pieces

1# of bacon or 1 pkg of real bacon bits (no imitations here :) 

small pkg of shelled sunflower seeds

2 small onions (or to taste), chopped

1 cup of Miracle Whip

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup vinegar

Cut bacon into small pieces & fry (if not using real bacon bits)

Combine broccoli, bacon pieces, onions, sunflower seeds; toss. 

Mix Miracle Whip, sugar & vinegar. 

Pour over combined ingredients. 

Refrigerate overnight.

Best Baked Beans

It's funny how we can grow up loving a food & then one day decide we want to fix that food & have no recipe for it.  That's where I was with baked beans.  I LOVE baked beans (well any bean really) and a year or so ago I thought I'd make some for a BBQ we were having.  I went to digging through my recipes only to realize I didn't have a baked bean recipe.  Enter the internet (which has been this cook's saving grace more than once).  I started searching for a recipe that wasn't fancy, was easy to make, but tasted like the homemade baked beans I remembered eating.


I found this recipe on allrecipes.com.  As with most recipes I find, I did a little tweeking.  The result was some awesome baked beans.  I always get compliments on this recipe & even Toby (who despises all things bean) really likes these.  

Best Baked Beans

1 (28 oz) can of baked beans - I always use Bush's original baked beans for this recipe

1/2 pound bacon, cut into small pieces

8 oz. brown sugar

chopped onion to suit your family's taste (can be completely omitted if you want)

Preheat oven to 400

Pour beans into a 2 qt casserole dish

Place bacon in a skillet, completely covering bottom of pan. Spread brown sugar over bacon & cook over medium heat. Add onions to this mixture if you are using them. When bacon grease starts bubbling up through the sugar, transfer to the casserole dish & mix with beans.



Bake for 45 min.

Serves 5.


Did you see that?

"Serves 5".  
How many of you have a big BBQ for 5 or less people at a time?  Around here the answer is VERY seldom.  Unfortunately, this recipe doesn't multiple well by just taking the ingredients times the number of batches you want to make. (Yes, that's the voice of experience talking :) The bacon becomes an issue.  You end up with WAY too much bacon & WAY too much grease.  


So for a triple or quadruple batch (which will easily feed 20-25 people), here's what I do:


I use 4 or 5 cans of Bush's Original Baked Beans (28 oz).
12-16 oz of bacon (I use Oscar Meyer Center Cut because it has less fat which means less grease)
32 oz. of brown sugar (Yeah, you read that right.  I never said they were healthy baked beans :)
3/4- 1 cup of chopped onion


I prepare it as instructed above, but rather than heating up the kitchen to bake them, I throw it all in the crock pot and cook on low-med. for 4 or 5 hours. Of course, if you're in a time crunch you can always bake them as instructed above.