Granddad Franklin's Potato Salad

10 white potatoes, still warm
2 medium peppers
2 celery stalks
1 onion
1 large tomato
1 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp mustard
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tbsp celery seed
4 oz pimentos
1 cup sweet pickle relish

Cut and mix? I haven't made this yet--maybe I'll sit down with Grandma tomorrow and figure some more detailed directions out. She is apparently the only family member (aside from Great-Granddad Franklin himself) who can make this potato salad right.

Engine-Revving Baked Chicken Wings

1 cup hot sauce
1 tsp garlic salt
24 chicken drummettes
2 tbsp butter or margarine
1 cup Bisquick baking mix
3/4 tsp onion salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
Blue cheese dressing

Stir together hot sauce and garlic salt until blended. Pour over drummettes; cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours but no longer than 24 hours.

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Melt butter in 15-1/2" x 10-1/2" x 1" pan in oven. Stir together Bisquick mix, onion salt and peppers. Remove chicken from sauce; discard sauce. Coat chicken with Bisquick mixture. Place in single layer in pan.

Bake 25 minutes; turn and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes or until chicken is golden brown and juice is no longer pink when centers of pieces are cut. Serve with chunky blue cheese dressing and celery sticks.

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I also cooked some potatoes to go along, using cumin and cayenne with a sweet potato, a red potato, and a russet potato. I burn-fried half in a skillet and cooked the rest in our little toaster oven. I never quite managed to make them crispy; I guess you have to deep fry them for that. I cut them into all sorts of fun shapes that mostly fell apart when I cooked them, but there were some hearts and stars and flowers that looked more like H's and even some little potato smilies!

The wings I used were rather large, so it came out more like spicy southern-baked chicken, which was very tasty. My parents were doing the 'kids crowding the kitchen' thing and they couldn't keep their fingers out of the pan once I pulled it out of the oven. =) Guess smell is the best advertising, and they'd been smelling the hot sauce since at least 6.30 this morning. Boy, that'll wake you up.

This isn't the only recipe I'll try for buffalo chicken, but it was a decent one I found at about.com last night that didn't involve deep-frying. Definitely good; I'll get some smaller drummettes next time and try another recipe.

I've been wrapping up their little tupperware bentos (have I done my lock&lock pitch yet?) using colorful bandanas as furoshiki and doing the basic wrap with the extra corner folded in. I used to do the four-tie wrap, but it never comes out looking quite as neat or seems to cover the entire top. Plus, with the basic wrap you can tie the ends again (like in the watermelon wrap) to make a little handle. Kawaii! So I'm going to dig around downstairs or go to Walmart and buy some pretty fabrics to do the same with. I'd like to make some insulated bags so I can keep things hot inside them, but I need to do a little research first.

Evelyn's Meatloaf and Sweet Potato Fries

makes 6-8 servings

From Mennonite Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley:
Meat loaf:
1 1/2 lbs. ground beef or 1 lb. ground beef and 1/2 lb. fresh bulk sausage
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/4 tsp. dried sage
1/4 tsp. poultry seasoning
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. dry onion, or 1/4 cup chopped onion
1/2 tsp. celery salt
3 slices bread, torn into small pieces
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup milk
1 egg

Topping:
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup ketchup
3/4 tbsp. prepared mustard

Mix together all meat loaf ingredients. Shape into a loaf and place in a 5x9 baking dish. Mix together topping ingredients. Spread over loaf. Bake at 350° for 1 hour.


From CountryLiving.com:

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2 large (about 1 1/2 pounds) sweet potatoes

In a small bowl, combine cumin, salt, and pepper. Set aside. Preheat oven to 400°. Peel potatoes, cut each in half lengthwise, and cut each half into 6 wedges. In a large bowl, combine the cut potatoes, oil, and spice mixture. Toss until potatoes are evenly coated. On a baking sheet, arrange potatoes in a single layer and place on the middle shelf of the oven. Bake until edges are crisp and potatoes are cooked through -- about 30 minutes. Serve immediately.

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I found out that if you cut thinner fries, you only bake them like 20 minutes. I baked a batch and also pan-fried some, and most of them were burnt. Still tasty though. I'm also finding out that while this cooking every day thing is a lot of fun, it's really easy to just eat alllll the time. I think I've eaten like six meals today, not to mention all the snacks while making them! At least when I was at school I didn't have time to eat this much...