Thursday, November 23, 2023

Fantasy Fudge - original recipe used by Grandma

 


  •  
  •  
  • 3 cups granulated sugar
  • ¾ cups butter
  • cups evaporated milk
  •  1 package (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
  •  1  jar marshmallow cream 7 oz.
  • 1 cup (117 g) walnuts, chopped 
  •  1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

  • Grease or spray a 9x13 pan or similar size so the fudge comes out easily.
  • In a large saucepan over medium heat mix  sugar, butter, and evaporated milk.
  • Bring the mixture to a steady rolling boil and boil for 5 minutes. If you have a candy thermometer, the temp should be. 234 F.
  • Remove from heat and stir in chocolate chips and marshmallow cream until smooth and evenly colored.
  • Stir in the nuts and vanilla.
  • Pour mixture in pan and make even with a spoon and holding pan and shaking lightly.
  • Wait three or four hours (if you can) for the fudge to set up and then cut in small squares and put in a Tupperware container or similar.   
     
    Grandma Allene Myer used to make Fantasy Fudge at the holidays. She used black walnuts in hers, because they had black walnut trees on their land. 
    We started making a similar recipe with peanut butter chips for a different flavor fudge.
    These quick-to-make fudges are  very creamy and delicious. 
    My son, Eli Wittum, made the fudge in the photo.

Sunday, August 20, 2023

Black Walnut Cake from Appalachian Mountains

 This recipe was in the comments on Facebook and sounds very good. I'll post after I make one. I'd like to get fresh black walnuts.
 
Calvin Gross
Mom McGee's Black Walnut Pound Cake
• 1 c butter, room temperature
• 1/3 c shortening (I use coconut oil)
• 3 c sugar
• 5 eggs
• 3 c all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 c milk (I use heavy whipping cream)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 - 3/4 cup black walnuts, finely chopped
1. Do NOT preheat oven.
2. Beat butter and shortening until smooth and creamy. Add sugar and beat at medium speed for 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until well blended.
3. In a small bowl combine the flour with the baking powder. Add slowly into the butter/sugar mixture, alternately with the milk until just blended.
4. Stir in vanilla. Fold in the chopped walnuts and pour into a greased, floured 10-inch tube pan or bundt pan.
5. Place in a cold oven and bake at 325 degrees for 1 1/4 or 1 1/2 hours until done. Test for doneness with a toothpick. Cool in pan for 30 minutes. Remove from pan and continue to cool on a rack or turn out on a cake plate. Glaze if desired.

 

Friday, July 14, 2023

Betty Feezor Brownies retro WBTV Charlotte

Betty Feezor Brownies

By Cyndi Allison

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 eggs

½ cup cocoa

2 cups plain flour

1 cup pecans or walnuts (we used pecans, because we had a pecan tree)

Mix together butter sugar, vanilla, eggs. Add cocoa and flour. Fold in nuts.

Bake in preheated 350 F oven for 18-20 minutes.

Makes two 8x8 square cake pans.

Betty Feezor had a cooking show out of Charlotte. She was on TV in the afternoons and was very popular in this area. She made these brownies when I was in middle school. I got paper and a pencil and wrote the recipe down. My brothers and I made these brownies for years, and they were family favorites. You can find Betty Feezor cookbooks in the reference room at Rowan Public Library headquarters, Salisbury, NC and sometimes you can find copies at ReStore Rowan. 

I like these, because they are very rich and chocolatey. The edges are especially good. 

 

Sunday, February 26, 2023

How to Make Easy Chicken Pie Southern

 

Easy Southern Chicken Pie

Ingredients for casserole:

1 chicken cooked and diced (save the broth from cooking the chicken for the broth in the recipe)

1 1/4 cup chicken broth 

1 can 15 oz Campbell's cream soup (my favorite in this recipe is cream of mushroom)

Directions:

Cook your chicken down in a pot and use the broth, or get a rotisserie chicken and pick that off and just buy broth. 

Heat the broth and soup in a small pan until smooth.

Break up or dice chicken while soup mixture is heating.

Put chicken in a casserole dish. Mine here is 8 x 11. Pour the soup mixture over the chicken and smooth or shake casserole dish lightly. 

Ingredients for the crust:

1 cup plain flour

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper (I like to add more)

2 teaspoon baking powder

1 stick real butter, softened

1 cup milk

Directions for crust:

Mix the salt, pepper, and baking powder with the flour.

Cut the stick of butter into the flour mixture. You can use a fork if you don't have anything else to cut butter with.

Pour in the milk and mix. Don't over mix. It is fine to have some lumps in the batter.

Pour the  batter on top of the chicken and soup.

Bake at 325 F for 40 minutes or until the top is golden brown.


This is a recipe from the Woodleaf Methodist cookbook that Mrs. Ratledge for high school graduation in 1980. I am sure you can do math. At this posting, the cookbook is 43 years old and counting. I've used the cookbook so much that it is falling apart, and this is one of my favorite recipes in the book.

I like that this is easier than a lot of chicken pie recipes, and it also tastes great. My favorite part is the crust with the bite of baking powder and kick of black pepper. I usually sprinkle a little extra black pepper over the top at the end. 

This crust works fine for any kind of casserole dish that has a top crust, so that's nice too. One of these days I will make a from scratch cream with the chicken, but it is nice to have a pour and go recipe that requires almost no work.




 



Saturday, February 18, 2023

Lava Java Cake - crock pot dessert recipe

 

Chocolate Lava Java Cake – in the Crock Pot
Cyndi Allison
 

Ingredients:
 

1 box of chocolate fudge cake mix – 15.25 ounces
½ cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 ¼ cup fresh brewed coffee still warm but not hot (or can use water)
1 box instant chocolate pudding mix – 3.9 ounces
2 cups milk
12 ounce bag semi sweet chocolate chips
 

Directions:
 

1. Mix together the cake mix with oil and eggs. Mix a couple of minutes and slowly add in the
coffee. Don’t overmix here, or the cake will be tough. So, it’s fine to have some lumps.
2. Mix together the pudding mix and milk in another bowl and let it sit to thicken up a bit. This
does not take long.
3. Spray your larger size crock pot with non stick spray and then pour in the cake mix. Shake the
pot lightly so that it evens out.
4. Put the pudding mix on top of the cake mix. Use a big spoon and just put dallops of the pudding
around on top of the cake batter.
5. Sprinkle the chocolate chips around on top of the pudding/cake batter.
6. Cover and cook for three hours on high. Do not lift up the lid while cake is cooking.

Serve hot plain or with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.


I always like to say a little about the recipes I put here on Half Fast Cook. These are family favorites or ones I try out and really like for various reasons.

Lava Java Cake was made for a pot luck at the west branch of Rowan Public Library. All these years, we never had a library. Now we do. YAY!

The librarians at west branch are really phenomenal. They help with check out ideas and plan up programs and are just all 'round great. One ongoing program that I especially like is the pot luck that Lyndsey puts together. Neighbors sign up with recipes to bring, and Lyndsey collects and prints up recipe booklets with all the recipes.

This month (Feb 2023) the theme was crock pot. I thought about Taco Soup (which I need to post here), but I thought someone else might bring that one. It is a popular crock pot meal in the area. Then, I thought about a dessert. I'm not supposed to have sugar (or not much), so I don't make sweets often now. With a pot luck, I could make the dish, and then most of it would be eaten (assuming it tasted decent).

I thought about things I make in a crock pot, and I could not think of a dessert that I've made. I'm sure I have made some, but they must not have been memorable. So, I dug in online and with my cookbooks and found several cakes that sounded interesting. The lava cakes seemed perfect for a crock pot, so I honed in on those. I had to flip a coin between chocolate and chocolate/cherry. Since I made Cherry Yum Yum for a pot luck earlier, I thought chocolate would be a good pick.

I decided to use coffee in place of the water in the cake part of the recipe. I bought some coffee pods that must have been designed to wake the dead - way too strong for me. I pulled one of those out and brewed a cup for the cake and mixed that in with the mix, oil, and eggs. 

One thing I know for sure is that my house smelled amazing. I could even smell coffee and chocolate out in the driveway. I only hoped the cake would be as good as the smell.

On my way to the pot luck, I swung by the Food Lion (which is new in town) and got Cool Whip. I kind of wish I had planned ahead and whipped my own cream, but the Cool Whip was fast and easy, and it was good on the cake.

The best I can describe Lava Java Cake (a name I just made up) is ooey-gooey - as a lava cake should be. The batter set up nice and was moist, and the pudding made little puddles of chocolatey goodness all through the cake. Think of the center of a chocolate cream doughnut - something like that. 

Lava Java Cake is at its very best when hot - very decadent. The Cool Whip just melts and adds that nice dairy extra to the cake. It's also good warmed up in the microwave and even just  room temp or cold. 

I had to add Lava Java Cake here with my favorites, and I am sure I will make it again when I'm feeding a group. It's super easy to make and comes out perfect at three hours at high with no lifting the crock pot lid.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

How to Make Old Fashioned Southern Cherry Yum Yum

 

This is one of my all time favorite desserts. It is a very luscious dessert, it's super easy to make (no baking). It also looks so pretty with the red and white colors.

I was thinking back to when I first made this dessert, and I'm pretty sure it was during college, so I've been making it for 40 years, and it wasn't a new recipe when I got it from one of the church ladies. It's been a while since I've made it, and it is just as wonderful as I remembered. 

The only confusing part of the recipe might be the pack of Dream Whip. DW packs come in a cardboard box with four pouches of dream whip powder. That is what I use, but I would imagine you could buy the Dream Whip in the plastic containers. They may not have made it in containers when the recipe was first going around. Not sure on that. 

I'm sure you could use other pie fillings like blueberry or strawberry with this recipe, but I love the pie cherries which I could eat with a spoon out of the can. 

I hope you love Cherry Yum Yum as much as I do!

Cherry Yum Yum Recipe

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup melted butter

¼ cup sugar (for the crust and 3/4 cup later for the Dream Whit mixture)

1 pack  Dream Whip 4 oz size (This is a pack of powder and usually comes 4 pouches to a cardboard box.)

½ cup milk (I use whole milk.)

¾ cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 pack of cream cheese 8 oz (Let it sit out a while, so it will mix easier.)

1 can of cherry pie filling 22 oz

 

Directions:

Mix together the graham cracker crumbs, ¼ cup sugar, and melted butter. Save ¼ cup or so of the mixture to sprinkle on top.

Press the crumb mixture in the bottom of an an oblong baking dish – size around 8 x 12. It's easier to use your fingers to press down the crumb crust.

Use a mixer to whip the milk and package of Dream Whip until fluffy and shiny.

Add ¾ cup sugar, vanilla, and cream cheese to Dream Whip mix and mix until evenly distributed.

Layer the Dream Whip mixture and the pie filling. First layer is half the DW on top of the crust. Then, use a spoon to dallop half of the pie filling on top. Add the rest of the Dream Whip and spread out. Dallop the rest of the cherries. Top with the saved graham cracker crumb mix.

Chill for a couple of hours or overnight.

Tuesday, November 29, 2022

How to Make Pecan Goat Cheese Truffles (Goat Cheese Balls)


 

This recipe is from Sue White who lived across the road from me when I was growing up and still lives there to this day. Sue was and is one of the best cooks/bakers in town.

Sue made these treats for the library recipe swap 2022. Everyone loved her goat cheese balls, and Allison and I made the recipe for Thanksgiving. Well, mostly Allison made them, and I rolled them in the nut mix.

It can be a little bit of a challenge to find the goat cheese around here, but it is worth looking for it. The goat cheese gives a kind of rich bite that contrasts really well with the tart cranberries. The pecans and parsley add texture and color.

 

Cranberry Pecan Goat Cheese Truffles Recipe (Goat Cheese Balls)

 

Ingredients:

1 package of goat cheese 10 oz

1 pack cream cheese 6 oz

2 tsp cinnamon

3 tbs honey (plus extra for garnish if you want)

1 ½ cups chopped pecans

1 cup diced dried cranberries

½ cup minced fresh parsley

Stick pretzels

 

Directions:

1.      Cream together with mixer the cheeses, cinnamon, and honey.

2.      Fold in ½ cup chopped fine pecans

3.      Combine the rest of the nuts, cranberries, and parsley and spread on a large piece or parchment paper on cabinet.

4.      Make small balls (between 15 and 20) with the cheese mixture and roll in nut mixture on parchment paper.

5.      Chill cheese balls.

6.      Put stick pretzel in each cheese ball to serve. 

 

NNotes:

YYou can make this as a large cheese ball instead of the individual balls. The small balls are a little hard to roll. It might be a good idea to chill them mix a while before rolling them up.