Arlene cooked with a lot of friends over the years, but one of her most common kitchen helpers was Patti Macy. This wonderful episode from 2011 features Arlene and Patti cooking a relaxed and easy dinner together, sprinkled with happy conversation. On the menu is a crock pot dinner with potatoes and sausage, green beans with mushrooms, yummy applesauce, and a banana bread cobbler for dessert!
Fresh Green Beans & Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 4 cups fresh green beans, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 1/2 lb sliced mushrooms
- 1 Tbsp corn oil
- 1/4 lb sliced onions
- salt & pepper, to taste
- toasted breadcrumbs or grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Instructions
- Wash and drain beans, do not dry!
- Place a 12-inch skillet over medium heat. Add all the ingredients into the skillet. Cover tightly with lid.
- Cook over medium heat 15 to 20 minutes. Shake skillet occasionally to prevent foods from sticking. Once beans are tender, transfer to a serving dish. If desired, top with breadcrumbs and/or cheese. Makes 4 to 6 servings. Enjoy!
Yummy Applesauce
Ingredients
- 6 cups apples, peeled, cored & chopped
- 1/2-3/4 cup water
- 1/8 tsp cinnamon
- 1/8 tsp cloves
- 1/3-1/2 cup sugar
Instructions
- Combine in saucepan and cook over medium high heat. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes.
- Stir in sugar and simmer 5 more minutes. Mash with potato masher if desired. Serve warm or cold. Really good next day. Enjoy!
Arlene’s Sausage and Potato Crockpot Dinner
This recipe is so easy and delicious!
Ingredients
- 3 lbs red potatoes, quartered
- 1 lb Hillshire's smoked sausage, cut into chunks
- 1 pkg cream cheese, softened (8 oz)
- 1 can cream of celery soup (15 oz)
- 1 envelope ranch dressing, dry (1 oz)
Instructions
- Place all ingredients into a crockpot and cook on low for 6 to 8 hours.
- Serve immediately with a loaf of crusty bread. Makes 4 to 6 servings. Enjoy!
Banana Bread Cobbler
Typically you think of cobblers with blueberries or cherries, but this banana twist is great!
Ingredients
Streusel Topping
- 3/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
- 1/2 cup self-rising flour
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup uncooked regular oats
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Cobbler
- 1 cup self-rising flour
- 1 cup milk
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 4 medium ripe bananas, sliced
Instructions
- Stir together brown sugar, flour, and butter until crumbly, using a fork. Stir in oats and pecans. Makes 3-1/2 cups. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 375°. Whisk together flour and next 2 ingredients just until blended; whisk in melted butter. Pour batter into a lightly greased 11-x-7-inch baking dish. Top with banana slices, and sprinkle with Streusel Topping.
- Bake in preheated 375 oven for 40 to 45 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly. Serve with ice cream. Makes 6 servings. Enjoy!
- NOTE: If you don't have self-rising flour, you can make your own by just adding 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt to each cup for regular flour.
Transcript
- Well, hello and welcome today, family, we’re so glad you just dropped into our “At Home” kitchen. I don’t know if everybody knows, but a few weeks ago I lost my brother, Ron, who had passed away, he’d been sick for a little while, and I just am saying that today to tell you that all of you that have sent sympathy cards, I mean, a lot of sympathy cards, I want you to know that I really, really, really appreciated that. And you know, you don’t realize the comfort they bring until you receive them at a time when you’re going through a struggle, and our family appreciates your prayers and your thoughts and the cards that were sent that we don’t take that lightly, I thank you very, very much. You’re a wonderful family, and I appreciate it. And I just wanted to show you, I just grabbed this little picture, ’cause this kinda shows Ron with one of his grandkids. This is the kind of a grandfather he was, he was able to take an early retirement at 54 from federal banking. And so, for his next 18 years in retirement, he was able to do all the things that grandfathers love to do, travel with the kids, go to all their games, take them golfing, go on vacations together, anything they wanted to do, let’s go see if Pappy wants to go. And he had six grandchildren, and they all loved him dearly. And he was a great guy, and I miss him dearly. But I just wanted to thank you for all that you’re concerned and you’re caring for our family during that time, and your sentiments and the kind thoughts. And those of you that came to the funeral home, I really appreciate it. And I wanna say thank you from my family and from Paul and me, we really appreciate that so much. So today, we know he’s in heaven with the Lord, we know that he’s rejoicing with those that have gone on before. But today we’re gonna go ahead and make some quick and easy meal in a Crockpot. You know, the more I’m using it, the more I like it, because you put that stuff in there in the morning, forget about it, come home, or later in the day, just open up that lid, and everything’s ready to go. Put a salad with it, or some vegetables, you’ve got supper, and I’m liking that. That’s what we’re gonna do today, Patty’s gonna make us an incredible dessert called a banana cobbler. Mm, banana bread cobbler. Can’t wait for that. So stay with this, we’ll take our hint, and it’s an interesting one, so be sure to listen to it, and when we come back, we’ll get started with our Crockpot meal for today. Here’s today’s At Home Hint, save leftover slices of bread, rolls, biscuits, and cinnamon rolls, and put it in Ziploc bags and place it in your freezer. Bring them out and use them when making stuffing, bread puddings, homemade bread crumbs, and crumb toppings for your casseroles, economical, delicious, and convenient. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we wanna hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone TeleVision, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Well, Patty, here we are again, making a Crockpot dinner.
- I love Crockpot dinners.
- They’re awesome.
- They’re amazing.
- Yeah, they are. We’re gonna be showing you some from time to time, and you’re gonna do a banana bread cobbler, and what are you gonna do to start it?
- Start with a streusel topping.
- That’s the topping that goes on the cobbler after.
- On the cobbler after, yes.
- Okay.
- And all you do is mix together a three-quarter cup of firmly packed brown sugar, and a half cup of self-rising flour.
- Self-rising, don’t forget that, because it’s not gonna work well if you use regular flour, so you don’t wanna do that.
- All right, and then we put our butter in it, which is about half a cup, yeah, half a cup of softened butter, and you make a crumb topping with it.
- So you don’t want that to be smooth?
- No, you want it crumbly.
- Crumbly, yeah.
- This is gonna be crumbly.
- It’s gonna be crumbly because it looks like the butter’s still a little…
- Yeah, it’ll be good.
- You can even get in there with your hands if you need to, because it works well. You actually want that little morsels, ’cause that’s what that crumb topping is. It’s good that way.
- I do amazing things with a fork.
- I know, you’re good, you’re good.
- This is good.
- Now, what I’m doing here while she’s crumbling is not necessarily crumbling, but here’s the whole deal with this Crockpot, it’s so simple it’s embarrassing. You have your Crockpot, three pound of potatoes, these are little red ones, and we quartered them. You want them about this size? Cut ’em in half, cut ’em in half. And you rinse them off with water, throw them in the bottom of the Crockpot. Leave a little moisture on there, that’s okay. There you go. Now you have a one-pound ring of smoked sausage, beef, whatever kind you like, garlic, whatever, that goes in next. And you cut it in chunks, like that, that’s fine, kind of distribute it all around. We need some cream cheese here. I think we still have that in the fridge.
- There we go.
- Oh, thanks Patty. There we go. Thank you very much.
- You’re welcome.
- You wanna keep this kind of cold, because we’re gonna cut this.
- ‘Cause if it’s soft it’s a mess, huh?
- Exactly. That you don’t want. So we just cut this up, just like that. How you doing over there?
- I’m doing good.
- Is it crumbling?
- Yeah, it’s starting to crumble. The brown sugar was a little bit hard in a spot, so that’s why I’m trying to break up the brown sugar a little bit.
- All we’re doing here is just dropping this cream cheese all over the top of our potatoes and our meat. Did you ever have a banana bread cobbler like that?
- No, but I love cobbler and I love banana bread.
- So what’s not to like, huh?
- Exactly, this is gonna be one wonderful dessert.
- Yeah. And we’re gonna serve it with ice cream too, a vanilla ice cream on top.
- Oh, yeah. And anything with a stressful topping, I’m in.
- Exactly. This is so simple, I’m telling you, you don’t even salt and pepper, because what we’re gonna put on is gonna take care of the seasoning, so you don’t even have to worry about that. I mean, if you left a message for your kids to put this together, they could, if you had everything ready to go, they could do this, it would be no big deal. Okay, that’s done.
- That’s what’s like, sometimes, if you’re going to work, and you don’t have a lot of time, you can throw that together in the morning.
- Ten minutes, you got it together, yeah, no problem at all. Let me get rid of some of this stuff.
- And I’m getting ready to throw my cup of uncooked regular oats and a half cup of chopped pecans in for the streusel.
- Pecans, okay, sounds good.
- Oh, yeah.
- Now, take my Crockpot, this is a can of cream of celery, cream of celery soup, and all you do is just take this, and you spread it on the top. This is so simple, so simple and so easy. And then I just kinda spread it around so it gets distributed all around in the Crockpot, ’cause this is gonna make a wonderful gravy. Yummy. Let me get it outta here. There we go.
- Amazing how much moisture, when you cook with a Crockpot, adds to it, that do you think you’re gonna need to add something to it and you don’t.
- It doesn’t evaporate, yeah- And especially potatoes.
- Oh yeah,
- Because I’m thinking, how’s that gonna cook the potatoes?
- Oh, it does.
- Trust me, it does.
- Beautiful.
- You’re gonna love it. This will serve probably four to six people. That’s it for that. And then you’re gonna take one envelope of Ranch’s dressing, just right out of the bag, just like this, and you’re gonna sprinkle it just on the top. Now, you’re gonna put this on high for about six hours. If you’re gonna be gone for eight hours, I’d do it on low. But you wanna mix it as soon as you get in the house to make sure that everything is incorporated. Put the lid on, put it in the crock pot.
- You want me to put it in for you?
- Would you? That would be nice. Thank you.
- And you’re welcome.
- That’s all. Is that simple or what? It’s ridiculously simple, but that’s what we like, we like it easy like that. Now, over here, which I thought would be nice to make with that, we’re gonna make some homemade applesauce. We have about three pound, let’s see here, get that flame going here. Well, let me put my water in here while I’m doing my, I have three fourths of a cup of water, just in the bottom. We’ve chopped up three pound, I use gala apples, but you really can use any kind you want, okay? Yeah, there we got the flame now.
- Do you have one that’s the best?
- I like Galas because I think they cook up nice. And they’re good eating apple, so you could either cook with them or just eat with them, either way. Okay, so we’re gonna let this come up to a boil. They’re just chopped up apples. You know, as simple as this is to make, why would you ever buy a jar or a can? It’s so easy
- And it’s so good.
- I make it, and my kids go crazy over it.
- Absolutely. Now, I’m gonna add some seasoning, but I’m not gonna add my sugar. I’m gonna add about an eight of a teaspoon, this is cinnamon, if you like it, fine, if you don’t, don’t add it. And then I have ground cloves, go lightly with this, this is really only about an eighth. That’s about all I’m gonna do in there, ’cause cloves are potent. And then we’re usually gonna let that baby go, and it’s gonna cook down, and then we’re gonna mash it to the consistency that we like. Well, we’re gonna take a break, when we come back, more of “At Home,” with our Crockpot dinner, and great dessert. We’ll be right back. Okay, Patty, what are you doing over there, lady?
- I’m finding your knives.
- We’re back. The family’s back in the kitchen.
- Found you a bunch of knives.
- Let me see what your streusel topping looks like.
- Look how beautiful.
- Looks nice.
- Doesn’t that look good?
- Very nice. Now you’re gonna make the actual cobbler. Right. I got just a variety of knives too.
- Wow, you sure did.
- You make your pick.
- Okay.
- Okay, and the cobbler’s real simple, you whisk together flour, which is a cup of the self rising.
- So always use the self rising, please remember that.
- And then you put in a cup of sugar.
- Sugar.
- And cup of milk.
- That’s all?
- Yeah, we gotta whisk it, with a handy little whisk here. I like whisking. Sometimes it’s a pain using a mixer all the time. When you can handhold something it’s easy.
- Yeah, we got a lot of beans here to clean.
- Oh, yeah, a lot of beans.
- There’s a ton of beans.
- I love green beans.
- I do too. I just think this would be a nice combination to go along with the Crockpot, because there’s not a vegetable in there, there’s meat and potatoes, and a gravy, but I like to have a vegetable to go with them. So here’s what I do, and I’m doing green beans, and I got a lot to do, I line ’em up, chop the ends off, get rid of them, and then cut the beans or snap them. So that’s what we’re doing here.
- I’ve got my batter, I just added my butter.
- So that’s the batter for it.
- A half a cup of melted butter, and that’s that’s the batter. And all you do with this is really simple.
- [Arlene] It’s amazing.
- ‘Cause I pour it into this… I love these easy recipes, I really do. When you’re busy-
- Well, that’s what “At Home”‘s all about, Patty, we don’t do complicated, if it’s got a ton of, of ingredients or unusual things that nobody even knows what-
- What’s the sense?
- Who does it?
- Yeah, exactly.
- We don’t do that.
- I need a spatula.
- And I’m just checking my beans, gonna cut those tips off.
- And all I’m doing is pouring this in here.
- All right. Now, that’s gonna come up nice and thick, because remember, that’s self-rising flour, so that’s gonna come up nice and high, hopefully.
- I like that, hopefully.
- Well you never know, sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. You want it to, so make sure that your self-rising flour’s pretty fresh.
- Well, if you didn’t have self-rising flour, is there something you can use with it?
- Well, yeah, you can look in a cookbook, it’ll give you a combination of what to add to regular flour, but I figure if they’re asking for self-rising, there’s a reason, and that’s what we should use.
- And then all I do is slice up some bananas, and put them on top, and then sprinkle it with your streusel topping.
- Oh, you do the bananas first. Okay, cool.
- Yep.
- Laurie, you think you could come and help us with these? Maybe just cut off some of these. ‘Cause we got a lot to do here. Take some of these and I’ll take some. If you do some back there, you can take this whole, there you go, girl. I’ll cut these-
- What should I help with?
- You can take this one. Thank you. Laurie helps us out when we’re in a pinch, because there’s a lot to do here. I didn’t realize we had this many beans, but this is-
- A lot of beans.
- A couple pounds, yeah. But you know what, I love beans, and they cook down, and we like to make enough so that everybody can enjoy. And I love these even the next day, I like the green beans, because you can put them and a little bit of butter in a skillet, warm them up, they’re delicious. So again, we’re gonna cut off the tips, and just make them about one-inch cuts, and then we’ll drop them in there. I can hear those apples are really cooking over there. I love the smell of apples in the house. I love the taste of apples, anytime of the year, it doesn’t have to be fall for me. I’ll fall for them anytime.
- They just, I don’t know, it gives it that warm, homey feeling.
- Yeah, and it’s good for you, they’re good for you.
- And cinnamon’s supposed to be super good for you.
- Very good.
- I’ve seen something on TV about it.
- Very, very good.
- So when I’m eating those cinnamon rolls, I don’t feel so guilty.
- You feel like you’re doing something-
- Health food.
- Yes, this is medically good. Not so, but…
- I could pretend.
- You know, I think moderation is the key in everything. I feel like-
- Yeah, I think you’re right too. That’s what God expects us to, I think that’s the key to living a good Christian life, is moderation.
- And when you start omitting everything, then you start craving it.
- Oh yeah, and you can’t, you know, life is too short to deny yourself of everything, unless you absolutely have to. If you’re under doctor’s care, then that’s what you need to listen to.
- Right.
- So, I’ll have to keep that in mind, but I’ll tell you what, I’ve never spent so much time cutting these green beans as I am today. Sorry to inflict this on you, ’cause you all know how to cut green beans, I’m sure. This is exciting, riveting television for you, but it’s okay. We gotta do it, we gotta do it.
- Right.
- We were busy doing other things beforehand, I said, oh, we’ll just do them, my call, we’ll do them on the air, and let everybody just see how easy it is. Yeah, well, we didn’t figure it would take the whole program.
- It’s time consuming.
- It is time consuming, But the finished result is something you’ll be glad you did.
- Right, exactly.
- These bananas are going on nice.
- Yeah, and you would want to use pretty ripe bananas. In other words, bananas that are not real green, because those green bananas will have a green taste when you bake them. Now let me just walk you through what we’re gonna do with these green beans if we ever get them all cleaned, we’re putting them into, we have a nice big skillet, and we have some olive oil, we’re gonna drop that in there. And the beans that we already have cleaned, we’ve rinsed them off. Thank you. And we’re going to just drop those in. And you want a little bit of water to be left on the bean, leave some water on the bean, because that’s what’s gonna help to steam it. Okay. Thanks Laurie. Laurie’s got some more done. Good. And then we’re gonna add some onion. This is what I like, just put it all in there at one time. And let’s see, half a pound of sliced mushrooms.
- Oh, yeah.
- Oh, yeah.
- Nothing like fresh mushrooms.
- You’re telling me. That all goes in there at one time.
- Okay, I’m getting ready to pop this in the oven.
- How long does that go and what temp?
- About 40 minutes, 375.
- 375 for 40 minutes. And you want your oven to be good and preheated, that’s necessary.
- Yeah, good and hot.
- Just throwing salt and pepper on these vegetables. And then what you’re gonna do, you’re gonna put this on, and then you’re putting the lid on, and you’re timing it for 15 minutes, and you don’t look at it, you don’t do anything, except every once in a while you just kinda shuffle the pan to make sure nothing’s sticking. You wanna use a non-stick skillet when you do that. And when we come back, these are already cooking down really nice, you can see. When they get so mushy and soft that they’re falling apart, we’re gonna add about three-fourths of a cup of sugar. And then, we’re gonna take our potato masher, and we’re just gonna mash them up to the consistency, some people like to put in their food processor, or in the blender or whatever to make it, I kinda like mine chunky. And adjust your seasoning, if you want more cinnamon, put it in then, or whatever. So you know what? We’re pretty much there with this meal. When we come back, we’ll show you everything we’ve made today. Here’s how you can get all the recipes, and even more. Now don’t forget, you can get those recipes either by going to our website at www.ctvn.org and subscribing there for just $15 for the whole year, or you can subscribe through the US mail for $25, you send once and they automatically send it to you for the whole year, a hard copy of our Enjoy newsletter. I know you’ll be glad that you did, because it’s so full of all kind of good things, comments, things that we don’t even talk about here that we talk about there, so you might wanna do that. Well, Patty, we had a good time making our goodies today. We have a Crockpot dinner right there in the front, look at that, potatoes and chunks of smoked sausage and a cream sauce, that’s awesome, and smells incredible. Next to it, we have our green beans with mushrooms. Now, there’s a little P.S. to the recipe, if you already have it, you wanna add a couple of tablespoons of seasoned breadcrumbs and a fourth of a cup of grated Parmesan cheese to that recipe after the 15 minutes, just mix it in, that just tightens it up. Oh, they’re wonderful. And then next to that, is what you made, Patty.
- Yeah, banana bread cobbler.
- Banana bread cobbler. And that has that streusel topping on top, with oatmeal and butter and flour-
- And nuts.
- And nuts. That’s gonna be awesome. That’s gonna get served with, it’s a little hot, we just took it outta the oven, it’s gonna get served with some vanilla ice cream. And then, here’s our apple sauce, Doesn’t this look good?
- Oh, yeah.
- I like chunky apple sauce, and that’s what we have here. But you can see the consistency, if you like it thinner than that, pop it in your food processor or the blender, and make it as smooth as you like. This can also be baby food, if you’ve got a little one in your house and you need stuff, make some homemade baby food for them, they love apple sauce, and it’s good for them. And you know what, family, you’re good for us. We’re always so glad when you come by, it’s always a treat when you drop in the kitchen, we’re so thankful that God has added you to our family and you watch faithfully. Thank you that in our 20th year, we’re celebrating our 20th year of “At Home” being on the air, that you are a part of what makes it all possible. Thank you. We hope that you’ll join us the next time, because you know what, without you, it wouldn’t be worth making the programs, it wouldn’t be worth anything, you make it all worth something. So be sure to join us the next time, ’cause it just wouldn’t be the same without you. We’ll see you then.
- [Announcer] Furnishings provided by Levin Furniture, featuring Lane’s Country Living Collection. Food provided by Jordan Banana Company, wholesalers of fresh fruit and vegetables, in Dravosburg, Pennsylvania.
- [Announcer] Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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