We hope you’re ready for a picnic! In this episode from 2006, Arlene is making baked beans with sausage, potato chip crusted pork chops, peanut butter triangle cookies, potato salad, and more! Plus, she shows how to pack everything up so it’s easy to carry to your favorite picnic spot, including a special trick to make sure you have some hot dogs that are hot and ready by the time you get there.
And there’s a special treat at the beginning of the program. Arlene is joined by her producer Linda Wilson, her daughter Christie, and her new granddaughter, Mia. It’s a sweet moment you don’t want to miss. Mia was only three weeks old at the time this show was filmed, but by now she’ll be almost grown up! Time sure flies…
Picnic Baked Beans
Ingredients
- 1 can baked beans. extra large can
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1/3 cup molasses
- 3 Tbsp yellow mustard
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/3 cup chopped onion
- 1 lb chorizo sausage, sliced into 1/4 inch slices
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Spray a casserole dish with Pam.
- In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and place in prepared casserole. Place in preheated oven and bake about 35-45 minutes or until heated through and the top is crusty. Makes 6-8 servings. Enjoy!
Chip Dip Pork Chops
Ingredients
- 6 boneless center cut pork chops
- 1 bag barbecue potato chips, crushed
- 3 Tbsp sour cream
- 2 cloves garlic
- 6 tsp butter
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease baking dish.
- Cover each pork chop with sour cream and then dip into crushed potato chips. Place into prepared baking dish, single layer.
- In a small saucepan, place butter and garlic and allow to melt and cook just one minute to bloom the garlic. Then drizzle over pork chops. Bake in preheated oven for 30 to 40 minutes, or until tender. Makes 6 servings. Enjoy!
Chocolate Peanut Butter Triangles
These cookies are so fast and delicious!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
- 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
- 4 cups flour
- 3/4 cup finely chopped peanuts
- 4 squares semi-sweet baking chocolate, melted
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cookie sheet with foil.
- Beat butter and sugar in mixing bowl with mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add flour, beat on low speed until well blended. Add peanuts; mix well.
- Divide dough into 4 equal portions. Flatten each portion into a 6-in circle on prepared pan. Cut each circle into 16 pizza shaped portions. Do not separate pieces.
- Bake 14-16 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool on baking sheet 5 minutes. Cut into triangles and place on wire racks and let cool completely. Drizzle evenly with melted chocolate. Let stand until chocolate is firm. Makes 64 pieces. Enjoy!
- Note: Place chocolate in microwaveable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 2 minutes or until chocolate is almost melted, stirring after each minute. Spoon into small ziploc bag and roll up bag to push chocolate into corner. Cut tiny piece off one corner and drizzle chocolate back and forth over cookie.
Thermos Hot Dogs
Ingredients
- 5 hot dogs
- boiling water
- 5 hot dog buns
- Condiments: ketchup, mustard, relish, onion
Instructions
- Take a wide mouthed thermos bottle and place hot dogs in standing up. Pour boiling water into bottle almost to the top. Seal lid and cup.
- Pack buns and condiments in basket. When you arrive at the park, the hot dogs will be perfectly cooked and ready to eat. Makes 5 servings. Enjoy!
Arlene’s Favorite Potato Salad
Ingredients
- 3 lbs red potatoes
- 8 large eggs, hard-boiled, cooled, and shelled
- 1/2 cup chopped onion
- 1/2 cup chopped celery
- 2 Tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/2 tsp celery seed
- 1 cup mayonnaise
Instructions
- In a Dutch oven, place potatoes and cover with cold water. Place over medium high heat and cook until just tender enough to pierce with a fork. Drain and rinse with cold water. Allow to cool completely. Peel skins off potatoes and cut into 1/2 inch cubes. Place in large mixing bowl.
- Chop or mash hard-boiled eggs and add to potatoes. Add rest of ingredients and mix very well. Taste and adjust seasonings as needed. Cover and refrigerate thoroughly before serving. Makes 6-8 servings. Enjoy!
Transcript
- Hey family, how are you today? We’re so glad you came by the kitchen of the “At Home” family. And I have a new member to show you of our family. Linda Wilson, who works with me. She’s now grandma, come on in, Linda. Come on in, Kristy. And look here. Here’s Kristy’s, look at this baby. This is Mia Jean. Oh my gosh, is she gorgeous? She’s how many weeks old?
- [Kristy] Three and a half.
- Three and a half weeks old, look at this. And is she a pumpkin or what? Look at her, look at her looking around. Don’t you just love it? How precious is this? The best little thing that God dropped into this family is Mia Jane. And you know, when these little ones come along, you realize that God entrusts you, her and her husband, Denny, and Roger, Linda, of course you know them. But God has entrusted this little one into this family, for them to raise and nurture, and just look, I have to show you these. These are her capri pants. No, these are not short jeans, Grandma. These are capri pants with ruffled socks. This is just, when I look at a baby like this, this is a gift and a miracle from God. And you know that more than anybody, Mama, because you carried her for all those months. We’re just so thankful. This is a time to celebrate. When a life is entrusted to you, this is a time to celebrate. We’re so happy for you. Bless you and Denny, and bless you and Roger.
- Yes, he has.
- And we’ll be giving you updates as the pictures come along in the weeks to ensue. But we’re just so thankful for Mia Jean today. Thanks for dropping by. We really appreciate it. Thank you for dropping by, ’cause today we’re doing a picnic. We’re gonna show you how to pack a picnic, and maybe Mia Jean could come with us, huh? We’ll be right back in just a minute, right after the hint. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Never place vegetables in cold water, and then bring it to a boil. If this is done, some vegetables can lose up to 10 to 12 times their vitamin C content. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Don’t you just love babies? There’s something about a baby in the house or a baby in your life or a baby in your family that just brings such hope with it. ‘Cause you know that God’s blessed your home, and that you have that opportunity to really create in that child all the things necessary for life, and hopefully teach them about a relationship with God, which is the most important. Well, today we’re doing picnic stuff. We’re gonna pack it here and take it to the park. We’re not cooking outside. We’re cooking everything at home. And the first thing we’re gonna do is make some knockout pork chops. I have six, let me turn this down here a little bit. Got some butter melting there. I have six pork chops, boneless, skinless pork chops. Beautiful. And what we’re gonna do, see, aren’t they nice? About a half inch thick. We’re just gonna drop them into some sour cream and paint that all over the pork chop, one side and the other. Then we’re gonna drop that into a bag of barbecued potato chips that we have crushed up, just like that. You want to make sure that you press that in good and tight so it sticks well. Cover it well. Then you’re gonna put that on the pan that has been sprayed with Pam. Okay. So, six pork chops. Easy to do. Paint it quickly with just some sour cream. Drop them. This is a great pork chop. We’ve done this with chicken in the past. And I got thinking, why don’t we do this with pork chops? And they could go on a picnic, because you can do these early in the day and let them chill down. Yum, yum. So, better finish these babies up. Get them outta there. Some of the fondest memories I have of a kid, is mom and dad and my two brothers going to North Park. I was probably about six or seven. And my dad and brothers, they had their fishing rods and the reels, and my dad had the tackle box, and they had everything you can imagine to catch fish. They had the bait, they had dough balls. They had worms. And Mom and me, they were down by the lake, and Mom and me, we were still up there putting everything together, playing games at the table while the guys fished. So my mom said, “Go down and get your brothers and your dad. It’s time to eat.” So I went down and they looked like they were having such a good time fishing. I saw this little piece of like line there, little branch on a tree, so I picked it up. Knotted it on the end of the branch, tossed it in there. I don’t even know if I had bait on it or not. Wouldn’t you know I caught a sun fish about six inches long? The only fish that was caught that whole day, and my brothers never let me forget about it, nor my dad. They were not too happy. I had this little piece of fishing line. They had all the fancy stuff that you buy. Now, there’s a moral in this story. Use what you got. Don’t worry about getting all the fancy stuff. You got a rod and a reel? Try it. Don’t need the big fanciest one. Shows the little kid can catch it. Okay? All right, so we have them all done. Here I have a little bit of butter. I’m gonna add either fresh garlic or garlic salt. And we’re just gonna mix that around, in your melted butter. And then we’re gonna drizzle this right over the top of the pork chops. That’s gonna make them so good. That garlic gives such flavor. Now, you can use any kind of potato chips you want. If you want to use like green onion or whatever, make yourself at home, whatever you like. Okay, but you want to, yummy, yummy. All right. These go into a 350-degree oven for about 30 to 40 minutes. Okay, we’ve got the oven good and hot. Make sure you preheat it. We’re gonna drop those on the lower shelf because next we’re making some wonderful beans. Now, let me get rid of some of this stuff outta here. These beans are gonna step above your regular baked beans. And they’re so good, and they’re great to take on a picnic. Okay? First of all, get rid of that. We have one can of the big pork and beans, any kind you like, but it has to be this great big can. Okay? And we’re just going to put them in our bowl. Like that. Okay. And we’re gonna use this casserole. I’m gonna go ahead and spray it now. So that it doesn’t stick as it bakes. I need to do that, that’s important. And then we’re gonna add all kinds of goodies. Now, we have some brown sugar. We’re gonna add that to our beans. We have some mustard. Just good old yellow mustard. Picnic mustard, I call it, hot dog mustard. We have some molasses, a third a cup of molasses. That stuff is gooey and sticky, but it’s good. We have some ketchup. Okay. We’re gonna add a little salt and pepper. A bit of salt and some pepper, as much as you want. And then we’re adding what I have already prepared. It doesn’t say this on your recipe, but this is something you can or can’t do. You don’t have to. I just took my onion and the Kielbasi. Chorizo sausage, Kielbasi, hot dogs. I just brought ’em up. Let them cook a little bit, get some flavor to them. Now we’re gonna add that into the beans. Oh! When you’re cooking that, they’re gonna come in the kitchen and say, “What are we having?” ‘Cause it smells so good. Okay. And then we just mix it up. Now, this. Ah! You’re gonna love it. Just mix it up really well. Get rid of these. Now we’ll put them in our baking dish. And this is gonna bake a good 35 to 45 minutes, 375, 350, you can kind of judge it. Like that. And just pour them in. Oh yeah, well, you want a crust on the top of these. That’s how you’ll know they’re done and they’re ready to go. Okay? And there we are. They’re going in the oven. You’re gonna take a break. We come back, we’ve got some more dishes just for you. The beans are in the oven for our wonderful picnic day. The pork chops are in the oven. Now we’re gonna make a great cookie that you can take with you. No fuss, no muss, no worrying. It’s just simple and easy. In here I have 1 1/2 cups of butter, the soft, I have 3/4 cup of creamy peanut butter. If you have your newsletter, make sure that you put on that that that’s where that goes in with the butter. ‘Cause I left it off. So you want to add the peanut butter and the butter together. And then the cup of firmly packed brown sugar. They’re nice and creamy, you can see, just the way you want them. Now we’re gonna add four cups of flour, which will give us the dough. I’m gonna add it pretty much all at once. Okay? Get most of that in there. I like to hold back just in case I’ve over calculated. So I hold back fourth of a cup. Then this is 3/4 cup chopped peanuts. This, my dear, is a wonderful cookie. And what it is, I’m gonna go real slow here just till it gets started. What it is is like a shortbread with a peanut butter flavor, and we’re gonna bake these, make them into discs. This will make four discs, okay. We’re gonna cut them like in pie wedges. And then when they bake and cool, we’re gonna add chocolate drizzled across the top. This is a great cookie recipe. This’ll be great for any time, but this is great for a picnic ’cause you can put ’em in a box. Take them everybody, you don’t have to cut. You don’t have to wax paper, none of that. That’s what we’re looking for when we go on a picnic. We want picnic materials that don’t take a lot of work and serving and laboring. That’s no fun. Okay. Get the lock off of this. That looks good. Nice dough. Peanuts in there. What you’re gonna do, get rid of this. You’re gonna form this into four discs, about six inches in diameter, in about half to a fourth of an inch thick. Okay. We have a foil pan here. Foil-lined cookie sheet. Actually this might be a little bit too much. It’s good to divide the dough, but I’m in a hurry. So just make sure you divide your dough evenly, press it out. Like so. Then we’re gonna cut this. We’re gonna use our pizza cutter. You’re gonna go one, two. Whoops. Let’s try that again, because I kind of went a little cockeyed on that. Okay, let’s try it again. Here we go. No laughing over there. Then we’re gonna keep cutting them till we get them to the size that we really want. Okay? These go into an oven, and they’re gonna bake… for. Make sure I see here now, 14 to 16 minutes in a 350-degree oven. Now let me show you. I have one here that we’ve already finished. Let me move this one out of the way. Let me show you. Come on down here. Here are the ones we’ve already baked, already cut. You don’t pull them apart to cut them. You leave them like that. Now we have some chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate. Get your little Ziploc bag. Just cut the very end of it. Okay. Now you’re gonna push your chocolate to the end where you’ve cut, and you’re just gonna go back and forth like that. Isn’t that nice? Looks good too, that little bit of chocolate. And then you’re gonna do the other one. This will give you four of these. Actually this makes a lot of cookie. I’m surprised. This is a great thing. When you’re done with it, throw it away. That’s all you have to do. Okay, so that’s your cookie. That’s, we have the beans. We have pork chops. We need a potato salad. Okay. We have our eggs in the bottom of our bowl. This is just plain old potato salad, but it’s always a winner. You’ve done your potatoes. Boiled, peeled, cut them up. This is about three pound. I’ll add a few more, ’cause we’ve got the hungry crew. You know how they are. Okay. Chopped celery, finely chopped celery. Finely chopped onion. Okay. Fresh parsley, about a tablespoon, chopped fine. And we have some celery seed. Fine little celery. Okay. Actually that looks like salt. The seed’s a little bit, but it’s okay. Either one will be fine. Because it’s potatoes, you really want to be sure that you give it some salt. And of course pepper. Now, some people put all those, some people put pickles. It’s yours, you can put whatever you want to it. But this is what we make. This is what Mom always made, so this is what I make. And then we’re just gonna add, let me mix this up a little bit to get the eggs to the top. While I’m adding the mayonnaise, we’re gonna take a break. When we come back, we’re packing that picnic and we’re going to the park. We’ll see you in just a minute. Well, we’ve got the picnic just about ready to go. We’ve been cooking and baking today, getting things ready to take to the park. Now I want to show you how to put it all together. If you’ve got kids that want to eat soon as you get there and you don’t even have time to put the stuff out, here’s a little hint. Take a wide-mouth thermos bottle like this, pack it full of hot dogs. You got that? Look there, Larry. Take boiling water and just pour right in there. Almost to the very top, to where you can see the water. Okay? Put the lid on. By the time you get to the park, those hot dogs are gonna be cooked perfect. You have a little bag like this. I call this, this is the recovery bag. You put your hot dogs. We have eight hot dogs, eight buns, little packs of ketchup. There’s some napkins and a little fork and knife. These kids will be leave you alone so you can put out the regular picnic. Good idea. Think about it the next time you’re going to the park. Okay? That’s just another little added hint for you. Okay. Now, let’s show you what we did today. Here are the baked beans. Now, this is the way I like to pack them up. You get a box just a little bit bigger than the bowl or the casserole. Put some paper in there, so you can see this dish isn’t gonna be moving anywhere. It’s gonna stay right where it’s at. And then you put your lid on. Set this between some cushions in your car or someplace where it’s not gonna move around in transportation, okay? Okay. Here are our peanut, chocolate peanut butter wedges, triangles. They’re awesome. We put them in a container like this. These containers are a lifesaver, believe me. It’s worth the investment. I just put wax paper between them. Put the lid on them. I’m gonna put them in my cooler, which I have my beverages in, and I have all iced down. Put that right in there. ‘Cause you don’t want that chocolate to melt if it’s a really, really hot day. Now we have, there’s the pork chops. We put them two, and then we put a piece of paper towel just to gather any drippings. That goes right in there in the cold. We want to make sure that everything gets on ice. And of course the potato salad absolutely. Makes a nice lot of potato salad. Okay, put all them in there, right on the ice. You also put your ice bags like these around it to keep everything good and cold. Here’s your cooler, that easy. Okay, now, the other things you want to take, of course you have your survival kit. You want to take your tablecloth, little throwaway one. It’s easy to do. Take some garbage bags, put them on the table first, put this on top. Then it comes time to clean up, you have a garbage bag to put all the junk in. Don’t forget serving utensils for everything you made. Utensils to eat with, some little goldfish for the kids. Pack some fruit in there, get the kids to eat fruit. That’s great. We have our dishes in there, salt and pepper, all these little things, and look, this is really, we have everything in this, this, this, and of course this, ’cause you have your beverages right in here. Now I want to tell you, picnics can be fun and they can be easy, if you plan ahead. You don’t want to take like, oh, let’s see. I’m gonna make, how about if I make some kind of special lasagna or pasta? Not on a picnic. On a picnic, think of kids sitting, holding something to eat. You want things that people can pick up and eat, not that they have to keep getting plates and forks. You don’t want that. When you’re going to a park and you have to make the food, you don’t want to be dragging everything with you. Keep it simple, keep it delicious. And I think this is a really, really delicious picnic. I hope you try it. I wanted to remind you that there’s always people on our 800 number, 888 number, who are there to pray for you. That’s what this is really all about. We have fun doing “At Home.” We love it. We celebrate life. We celebrate when someone graduates to glory. But what we really, really, really want you to know is that during your life you can have victory, and you can have that, if you don’t know how, that number on the bottom of your screen will tell you, to call that number, and someone, a prayer partner, someone who loves God, who knows how to pray, who knows how to touch God for you and your need, they will be more than happy to pray with you. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year, they’re there for you. So don’t sit there in your depression, in your discouragement and thinking, “I don’t know what to do. Life has dealt me a really bad deal.” You know what? It doesn’t have to be that way. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. And if you’re struggling in your life, if you’re worried and you’re troubled, if you feel like the burden is so heavy that you don’t know what to do, I have the answer, his name is Jesus. And when you pray a simple prayer that just says, Jesus, forgive me of my sin, come into my heart. I accept you as my Lord and Savior, He will turn your life around. He has a plan for your life and it’s a good plan. It’s not for evil, it’s for good. And everybody’s plan is different, and only you can fulfill the plan he has for your life. So I would ask you, if you’ve not made an important decision today, go to the telephone and call that number on the bottom of the screen. 1-888-665-4483. It will change your life. Thanks, family, for dropping by at the “At Home” kitchen today. Be sure to join us the next time, because it just wouldn’t be the same without you here “At Home.” 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.
- [Man] Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
Add comment