Well everyone, we've gone through a week of bantering about this forum, and I for one am bored. Soooo! let's see if we can get you all off that track, or back on track. How ever you want to look at it. This is my very feable attempt to turn the forum tide, sorta speak. Here goes nothing.

Our 4-H club is having a year-end BBQ today and I thought I would share our favorite recipe. The story is kinda cute. I have to make this dish every time. I told the club leader I really do know how to make a lot of different things besides beans and I could bring something new. Her reply,"That's nice, but we don't care what else you can make, just bring the beans, and a double batch would be great." I think I shall take that as a compliment.

Jump in and share your favorite summertime recipe.

5 Bean Cassrole

8 slices bacon, chopped 4 onions, halved, sliced 1 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup vinegar 2 Tbsp dry mustard 14 ounces catsup

1 15 ounce can of the following beans (do not drain beans) kidney garbanzo butter lima 1 large can (24 or 28 ounce) baked beans in molasses (we use S&W or Bush)

Mix all together in a large cassarole dish or soup pot and bake at 350 until it thickens (it takes several hours).

I usually tranfer to a crock pot and put on low so they will be warm at serving.

Bon Appitite and have a great summer!

-- jennifer (schwabauer@aol.com), June 23, 2001

Answers

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

Good Idea, I always take potatoe salad, course there are lots of ways to make it.I got from a cook book called the black family reunion cook book. I like how this potatoe salad tastes. 6 med, red potatoes, 3 tablespoon of cooking oil,2 tablespoons of cider vinger. 1 teas green onion tops chopped fine. 1/2 teas. sugar, 1/2 teas. salt, 1/8 teas.pepper. 1/3 cup chopped celery. 1/3 cup chopped onion,2 hard cooked eggs. 2 tbs.fresh snipped parsley. 3/4 cup mayonaise.2teas. prepared mustard. cook potatoes until tender. drain.cool. peel and slice potatoes.place in med. bowl. combine next 6 ingredients.in small bowl. stir untill blended, pour over potatoes.cover and refrigerate about 2 hrs. Add celery, onion, eggs and parsley. mix well, Combine mayonaise,and mustard,in small bowl,Stir into potatoe mixture,cover refrigerate at least 2 hrs, The flavor soaks in and it really tastes great. So happy 4th of july picnic, Irene

-- Irene texas (tkorsborn@cs.com), June 23, 2001.

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

My vanilla pudding is always a winner at picnics.

Put half a gallon of skim milk into your biggest glass mixing bowl in the microwave. Heat to boiling. Meanwhile, whisk together in another bowl; 1 heaping cup flour, 1-1/2 cups sugar, 1 tsp salt. When milk is boiling, take it out of the microwave and whisk the dry ingredients into the milk. Whisk vigorously while adding. Return it to the microwave to nuke while you whip up 4 eggs, 4 tsp vanilla, and 1/4 cup of butter together. Take the pudding out and whisk the egg mixture into it. Nuke it some more, just till it is cooked. DO NOT OVERCOOK. Set into the fridge overnight. Next day, whip a cup or two of cream and fold the whipped cream into the pudding. Layer it into a pretty glass bowl with crushed graham crackers or vanilla wafers. Banana bread is good, too. Top with whipped cream, and a few crumbs.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), June 23, 2001.

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

At all the cubscout potlucks one mom brings a crock pot of hotdogs and they always are the biggest hit with the kids,go figure! My favorite dish is to bring a crockpot of meatballs in stroganoff sauce, I cheat and use the frozen meatballs and the packet of stoganoff sauce from the store and just add more water and sour cream if needed, they are always gone!!

-- julie (nelson3@bright.net), June 23, 2001.

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

Since we are doing the recipe thing(I love the ones you neat people have posted, gonna try 'em too!).I guess I was the last person in the world to learn this one, however if there is one other person out there who hasn't found it yet, this one's for you! Summer Jello Medly: Combine one tub of Koolwhip, thawed(don't change brands),one tub small curd cottage cheese, one envelope lime Jello, one can mandarin oranges,drained, one can crushed pineapple, drained ,and one cup mini marshmellows. for a large batch use "large" of everything. Over the years I have tried different flavors of Jello and different fruit combos but this is the classic. :-)

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), June 23, 2001.

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

jennifer, Your bean recipe sounds a lot like the one I use called Calico Beans.

Calico Beans: Cut 5 Strips bacon, add 1lb. ground beef, medium onion chopped, and brown all.

Drain fat. Add 1 cup catsup, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1 tsp dry mustard, 4 tsp vinegar (I usually leave that out figuring there is enough in the catsup), 1 can pork and beans, 1 can big butter beans, and 1 can of kidney beans. Use juice from kidney beans.

Simmer till you're ready for it. I've made this substituting TVP for the hamburger and it's fine.

Here's another favorite of ours that utilizes a lot of garden fresh stuff.

Tabouli (You can vary the amounts of any of the ingredients according to your likes/dislikes.) Also, I've made this with couscous and it is great. Most of the time I've made this I have not waited overnight to put the dressing on but just mixed it all up together the same day. And, since I rarely have green onion on hand, I like to use 1/2 a red onion chopped. Since there is no mayonaise in this salad, it doesn't spoil quickly at a picnic and the lemon juice helps to retard spoilage.

1 1/4 cups bulgar wheat 1 t salt 1 1/2 cups boiling water

Pour boiling water over the wheat and salt, leave for 20 minutes while preparing the rest of the ingredients.

Dressing: 3 T olive oil 3 T lemon joice 1/2 t. oregano 1 to 2 T. fresh mint, finely chopped 1 clove garlic, finely chopped 6 T. fresh parsley, finely chopped 3 green onions, finely sliced

Mix Dressing ingredients together, pour over bulgar wheat and mix. Leave it overnight.

The next day add: 1 large fresh tomato, chopped 1/2 cucumber, chopped 1/2 green pepper, chopped.

Serve with Whole Wheat Pita Bread.

Enjoy!

-- L.B.D. , Maryland (lavnderbluedilly@hotmail.com), June 23, 2001.

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

jennifer-as I was reading your message and just before reading your recipe, I was thinking to myself that whenever my family gets together, they always ask me to bring my "beans" and triple the recipe (nothing else).I call them Calico Beans.

-- jeanne (jat@ncis.net), June 23, 2001.

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

5 barley loaves 2 fish 1 Prophet

feeds about 5000

-- me (nospam@no.com), June 24, 2001.

Response to Summer Favorites (Non-Religious, Non-Political, Non-Argumentative)

Riiiiight. I'll whip up a meal for 5000 directly here.

In the meantime, this is so simple its hardly a recipe, but its one of my favorites. My version of home fries.

Some bacon grease (some - don't you love accurate measures?)

4 medium or 2 large onions (I REALLY like onions but if you don't you might want to cut that in half).

4 medium or 6 smallish potatoes.

Slice the onions. Melt the bacon grease. Throw in the onions and saute over a medium heat. I use a 12" saute pan that doesn't have a lid, and upend a mixing bowl over the sauteing onions for a few minutes until they are about half cooked. Then I turn up the heat and fry them until they're starting to turn brown. It'd probably be really good to carmelize them but personally it smells so good by now (I REALLY REALLY love onions) I don't have the patience to wait that long. In fact, if I'm hungry while I'm cooking I may not get any further than this step right here ... LOL!

OK, when the onions are fried enough for you, remove them from the pan leaving as much of the bacon grease as possible in the pan (you could dump them into a metal sieve and let them drip but I usually just scoop them out carefully).

You could optionally saute some green pepper slices with the onions but I typically don't have those on hand. Onions and potatoes I get by the bagful, green peppers don't usually keep too well.

You should still have a fair amount of bacon grease in the pan. If not add "some" more.

While the onions were cooking you were with forethought slicing the potatoes. Add the sliced potatoes to the bacon grease. Turn the heat back down to medium. Upend the bowl over the potatoes and let cook. When the potatoes are just starting to soften just a little bit take the bowl off, turn them over, and turn up the heat a little bit. Fry, turning to keep them from sticking and burning (if they stick too much or burn too fast your heat's too high - or you're not paying attention LOL!) until they're brown enough for you. They'll finish cooking the rest of the way through this way. I know, most home fries recipes I have seen say to use already cooked potatoes but that never works for me. They always go mushy. Anyway.

Turn the heat down to medium again, dump the onions back in, stir slightly, salt and pepper to taste. Optionally drop your favorite cheese on there and cover with the bowl (or a lid if you're cooking equipment is fancier than mine is LOL!) long enough to melt the cheese.

YUM!

-- Sojourner (sojournr@missouri.org), June 24, 2001.

My most requested summer time recipe is for Rice Salad. Add some nice crunchy home-made bread and it's a complete meal. Even better the second day if it stays around that long.

4 cups cooked rice 1 small can crushed or chunck pineapple raisins 1/2 green pepper diced 1/2 red pepper diced 2 cooked chicken breasts cubed

Dressing: Sour Cream Mayonnaise Pineapple juice

Combine all ingredients reserving pineapple juice. Mix juice with 1/2 cup mayo & 1/2 cup sour cream. Pour dressing over rice mixture and mix well. Garnish with pepper strips and almond slivers if desired.

The dressing can be adjusted to suit your taste.

I got this recipe from an East Indian lady I met while we were living in Italy.

-- Dianne in Mass (dianne.bone@usa.net), June 24, 2001.

Even if you don't like broccoli I pretty much promise you will love this salad. It's so simple and so good, perfect for a Sunday afternoon get together. Broccoli Supreme Salad 1 bunch fresh broccoli(cut into little bite size pieces), 1/2 lb bacon (about 10 slices), 1 cup of golden or regular raisins, 1/2 cup sunflower seeds, 1/2 cup finely chopped red onion - mix it together, set aside. 1/4 cup sugar, 1 cup mayo, 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar- mix it together, add this to the broccoli mix...mix well, refridge over nite and enjoy the next day. Now for me, it will be "Calico Beans" tomorrow night.mmmm.

-- claudia (cooleys1995@yahoo.com), June 24, 2001.

COOL Dessert Beat 1/3 c. sugar into 8 oz. soft cream cheese, fold in 8 oz. "cool whip", put in oreo pie crust, refrigerate. I use all the lite type & generic brand.

-- DW (djwallace@ctos.com), June 24, 2001.

fresh green beans boil them let them cool add sliced onion (red is prettier) , chunks of tomatos, olive oil, salt and vinager.

Or

sliced tomatos topped with sliced mozzarella drizzle of olive oil and dash of salt top with basil leaves

or noodles with fresh tomato sauce (tomatos, salt, a drizzle of olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic, a small handful of basil or parsley blended in the blender or chopped on the food processor - OK OK - you can do it by hand if you like!!)

all very simple.

-- (kellytree@hotmail.com), June 25, 2001.