Most read recipes from our weekly feature in 2015

These ten cooks or cooking pairs were the most read online stories in our “Look Who’s Cookin’” over the past year.
There’s no way to tell which recipes were downloaded or copied from these ten, just that the stories and recipes were looked at, so we picked a recipe from each one.

Tara Terrell

•Tara Terrell, of Vardaman, was featured in an October issue of The Journal.
Tara said she likes cooking in the fall and her recipes of homemade creamy chicken noodle soup, crockpot loaded potato soup and peanut butter bars are ones she likes best.
Crockpot Loaded Potato Soup
3 cans chicken broth
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/4 cup chopped onion
Pepper to taste
Bag of hashbrowns
8 oz. cream cheese (for later)
Cook in crockpot on low for six hours. Add cream cheese an hour before eating. Serve with sour cream, bacon bits, shredded cheese and green onions.

•Alison Nichols, of Calhoun City, appeared in a July issue of The Journal.
Many of Alison’s favorite recipes come from her grandmother, Bobbie Blount, of Pittsboro, including this one:

Squash Puffs
2 cups cooked squash
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 cups meal
2 eggs
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 large onion chopped fine
Mix all together and drop a spoonful at a time into hot oil. Brown like hush puppies. Drain on paper towels.

Joe Boy and Jace Tunnell

•Joe Boy Tunnell, of Bruce, was featured in June in Look Who’s Cookin’. He likes his food spicy, and many of his recipes included Slap Ya Mama Seasoning, Lavender’s Greek seasoning and smoked paprika.

Crawfish Pies
In skillet, melt half stick butter. Add some flour and stir until flour browns. Add 1/2 can chicken broth and cook ‘til it makes a cream. Set aside. In a skillet, saute two bell peppers, three jalapenos and 2 lbs. pre-peeled crawfish tails. Pour into a bowl and add 1 1/2 cans of chicken broth for liquid, can of English peas and carrots (drained), can of corn (drained), chopped onions, mushrooms and the cream mixture.
Season with powdered shrimp and crab boil, Slap Ya Mama, Cavender’s Greek seasoning and smoked paprika to taste. Mix all together and pour into a frozen deep dish pie crust.
Add grated cheese on top. Place an unthawed pie crust on top of pie and bake at 350° until pie crust is done. (Makes 5-6 pies.)

•Tracy England King, of Calhoun City, appeared in an April issue of The Journal in Look Who’s Cookin’. She said many of her cooking experiences have come from sweet friends, such as Wanda Meadows, Ann Langford, Geraldine Clark and the late Corrine Massey.

Sprite Biscuits
4 cups Biscuit mix
8 oz. sour cream
1 cup Sprite
Mix Sprite and sour cream together. Add biscuit mix gradually. Roll out dough on floured surface and cut with a biscuit cutter. Bake on lightly greased baking sheet at 400° for 20 minutes or until golden brown. (I sometimes add butter/garlic to the top of these biscuits when they come out of oven.) Can easily half the recipe.

•Taylor Blue, of Vardaman, was featured Look Who’s Cookin’ in February. The culinary student wants to make a cookbook of her original recipes and their family recipes which she said are taped to the inside of their kitchen cabinets.

Skillet Steak
Olive oil
3-4 1” chuck steaks
Blackened seasoning
Salt and pepper
1 large onion, sliced
Heat cast iron skillet over high heat. Cover bottom of skillet with olive oil. Coat meat with blackened seasoning and salt and pepper on both sides. Sear meat quickly in prepared pan until a crust forms. Remove meat from skillet and cover to keep warm. Add sliced onion to skillet and cook until brown and caramelized. Return meat to skillet and continued cooking over medium heat until desired degree of doneness.

•Cooper Caviness, of Calhoun City, was also featured in February in The Journal. Cooper, a student at Calhoun Academy, is famous for his Crack Sticks and Pumpkin Cheesecake. He said he has always wanted to be a chef.

Cooper Caviness

Crack Sticks
1 loaf of sliced bread
1-8 oz. cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 cup butter, melted
Remove crust and flatten bread. In bowl, combine cream cheese and confectioners sugar. In another bowl, combine granulated sugar and cinnamon. Spread cream mixture on bread. Roll up. Dip in the melted butter. “Batter” in sugar/cinnamon mixture. Place on ungreased sheet. Bake at 350° for 20 minutes or until golden brown.

•Barry Black, of Calhoun City, appeared in a January Look Who’s Cookin’ feature. He calls himself strictly a homemade cook. He is a dedicated Cooking Channel guru and does most of the cooking at their house.

Oven Ribs
2 racks of either baby back or St. Louis ribs
1 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp. chili powder
1 Tbsp. season salt
1 Tbsp. dry yellow mustard
1 Tbsp. garlic salt
1 Tbsp. paprika
1 tsp. cumin
1 tsp. pepper
Combine all ingredients and mix together well. Cover ribs on both sides and wrap in foil. Bake in the oven for two hours at 350°. Remove ribs from foil and baste with favorite BBQ sauce. (I use Baby Ray’s Honey Style). Broil ribs on each side until BBQ sauce cooks into ribs. For even better taste, baste ribs and finish on grill instead of in the oven.

Kristi Shelton

•Kristi Reid Shelton, of Bruce, was also featured in January. She shared “cherished recipes” of her grandmother, the late Tula Vance. She once told her grandmother she wanted a copy of her recipes, and about a year later for Christmas, Mrs. Tula gave her a notebook holding handwritten copies of them including the popular Butter Roll.

Butter Roll
2-3 Tbsp. water
2 2/3 cups sugar
2 sticks butter
2 ½ cups self-rising flour
½ gallon sweet milk
2 tsp. vanilla flavoring
½ cup shortening
Mix 2 cups of flour and the shortening until crumbly. Add water until it has consistency of pie dough. Make 2 balls. Roll out each ball on floured surface as thin as you can get it.  Spread 1 cup sugar and 1 stick butter (sliced) on each rolled out ball of dough. Roll each up and slice into ¼” pinwheels. Place one layer of pinwheels in bottom of baking pan. Mix remaining flour and sugar together and cover the first layer with half of the flour/sugar mixture. Repeat with  remaining pinwheels and flour/sugar mixture. In a saucepan heat milk and vanilla to boiling, remove and pour over pinwheel layers. Bake at 350° until golden brown. Make 10-12 servings.

•Alison & Phillip Beaty, of Bruce, were also featured in January. Phillip always tries to duplicate recipes of his Korean mother, but the pair also cooks Southern, some Mexican and Italian.

Shrimp Fried Rice
3 cups cooked rice
4 eggs
3 cups peas and carrots (frozen tastes best, cook in microwave until tender, do not overcook)
Soy sauce
1 Tbsp. toasted sesame seeds
Butter
1 bag cooked, peeled salad   shrimp, thawed and rinsed
Cook rice in rice cooker (don’t use minute rice). In large wok, melt about a dollop of butter, add eggs. Scramble and cook until lightly browned. Add rice, peas and carrots, toss adding butter a tablespoon at a time until rice is not sticking together
Pour about ¼ cup soy sauce and toss until light brown. Add shrimp and continue to toss. Sprinkle sesame seeds.

•Jeff & Susan Patton, of Bruce, were in the Look Who’s Cookin’ feature in March. Both say each other is a natural cook, but she says he is the better cook. Jeff likes to try to duplicate restaurant foods. He says he sometimes looks at a recipe, but will then go off in his own direction.

Chicken Enchiladas
1 lemon pepper rotisserie chicken- deboned
1 pack enchilada seasoning
1 cup water
Several large flour tortillas
1 can refried beans
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Shredded Mozzarella cheese
1 can red enchilada sauce
Shredded lettuce
Sour cream
Salsa
Heat oven to 350°. In iron skillet, cook and stir chicken, seasoning, and water until seasoning and chicken are well blended and chicken is shredded. Remove from heat. Spray 9 x 11 glass baking dish.
On a plate, assemble enchiladas: On a tortilla, put refried beans, chicken, and cheeses in a line down the center. Fold  tortilla closed and place into the baking dish.
Continue this until you have used up all the chicken. On top of the enchiladas, pour  the red sauce, then top with more cheese. Cover with aluminum foil, and bake 30 minutes or until steaming hot. Serve garnished with shredded lettuce, sour cream and salsa.

We are always looking for cooks with recipes to share. You don’t have to be a gourmet cook to be featured. Many times the shared recipes are very simple. Call us at 662-983-2570 or email: calhouncountyjournal@gmail.com