Home Cooking With Trisha Yearwood: Stories and Recipes to Share With Family and Friends (21 page)
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Authors: Trisha Yearwood
Tags: #food.cookbooks
From left to right:
“Miss” Fannie Newton, Lynn Newton Deraney, and “Miss” Sara Martin.
Daddy always said this recipe made a blue million. That’s a lot, for those of you who are wondering!
Venita’s Chocolate Chip Cookies
chocolate chip cookies
Everyone has a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, but this one just might replace yours! This is
the
signature cookie for Beth’s friend Venita. It takes a little extra time to blend oatmeal and grate chocolate bars, but trust me—it’s worth it! These cookies are a staple for family gatherings, college care packages, and beach potlucks.
MAKES 6 DOZEN COOKIES
¾ cup (1½ sticks) butter, room temperature
¼ cup vegetable shortening, such as Crisco
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2½ cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (about 1 cup)
1 5-ounce Hershey’s chocolate bar, grated or chopped
1½ cups chopped pecans (optional)
Preheat the oven to 400°F.
With an electric mixer, cream the butter, shortening, and sugars until smooth. Add the eggs and vanilla, mixing well. In a blender or food processor, process the oats to a fine powder. Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and oatmeal and, with the mixer running, gradually add to the creamed mixture. Stir in the chocolate chips, grated chocolate bar, and pecans, if using.
Roll the dough into golf-size balls and place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 7 to 8 minutes. With a spatula, loosen the baked cookies from the pan and allow them to cool on the cookie sheet. Serve warm.
teacakes
My parents’ first apartment was in a lovely old home in Monticello, Georgia, owned by the town librarian, Miss
Mary Murrelle. When my folks built their first house, it was just down the street and “Mamie,” as we called Miss Mary, had become a lifelong friend. She made the best teacakes, which were soft and had a cakelike texture. My mom, sister, and I have collected recipes for years trying to replicate that teacake. These come close! Just make sure you don’t overwork the dough. The less you work the dough, the lighter and fluffier the cookie.
MAKES 3 DOZEN TEACAKES
3½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
1½ cups sugar
2 large eggs
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
¼ cup sour cream
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Grease 2 large (14 × 16-inch) cookie sheets with solid shortening.
Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Using an electric mixer on medium speed, combine the butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add the sour cream and mix well. On low speed, gradually add the flour mixture until well blended. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board, and pat with floured hands to a ¼-inch thickness. Cut with a 2-inch round, floured cookie cutter and place on cookie sheets about 1 inch apart. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the teacakes are lightly browned. Do not overbake. Using an egg turner, remove the cookies to a rack to cool.
The dough is sticky, but be careful about adding too much extra flour when shaping the teacakes. By using care, patience, and a floured egg turner when patting and cutting, you will be rewarded with tasty, tender teacakes.
shortbread
This past Christmas, we came home from Christmas Eve church service to find a pan of this shortbread sitting on the steps. Thank goodness Beth’s cat Ferrari (don’t ask) is 100 years old and has long ago lost her sense of smell. We devoured the shortbread in short order (I know, pun intended). “I’ll bet
Vicki Walker brought this by,” Beth said. By the way, Vicki, I’ll be at my sister’s house again this Christmas … I’m just sayin’.
SERVES 16
1 cup self-rising flour
½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
¼ cup granulated sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9-inch pie pan with cooking spray.
With an electric mixer, mix the flour, butter, and sugars together until fully combined. Spread the mixture in the bottom of the pie pan. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool and slice.
A slice of shortbread with a hot cup of coffee is one of my favorite afternoon snacks during the holidays.
salad
This is a popular salad in Georgia. A family friend,
Bobbie Jean Ozburn, first took it to a
Monticello Woman’s Club luncheon and it became known as “That Woman’s Club Grape Salad.” There are a lot of versions of this salad out there. It’s called a salad, but it’s really more of a dessert.
SERVES 12
2 pounds seedless green grapes
2 pounds seedless purple grapes
1 8-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1 8-ounce container sour cream
½ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup pecans, finely chopped
Wash the grapes and dry thoroughly with paper towels. Put the dry grapes in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, stir the cream cheese until it is smooth. Add the sour cream, granulated sugar, and vanilla. Mix well. Pour this mixture over the grapes and toss together until all grapes are coated. Pour the grapes into a 9 × 12-inch pan. Refrigerate overnight.
Just before serving, sprinkle with the brown sugar and pecans.
squares
This is the first thing I ever made that had confectioners’ sugar in the crust. I could eat this crust all by itself! Our youngest daughter, Allie Colleen, is the aspiring cook in our family, and this is one of her specialties.
MAKES 15 SQUARES
Crust
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup confectioners’ sugar
Filling
4 large eggs
5 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (from about 2 large lemons)
2 tablespoons grated lemon zest
2 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
Confectioners’ sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Spray a 9 × 13 × 2-inch pan with cooking spray.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter. Remove from the heat and add the flour and confectioners’ sugar, mixing until a dough forms. Press the mixture firmly into the pan. Bake the crust for 25 minutes.
While the crust is baking, with an electric mixer, combine the eggs, lemon juice, and zest until smooth. Add the granulated sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt, and beat until smooth. Pour the mixture over the baked crust. Bake for 25 minutes more. Remove the pan from the oven and let it cool completely. Sprinkle the top with confectioners’ sugar. Cut into squares and serve.
pecan tassies
Bess London is a friend of mine. Garth and I have known her son Emmett for years, and when I moved to Oklahoma, she was one of the first people I met. She’s in her nineties and still as active and lively as ever. She is a true inspiration and the kind of woman I want to be. She raised three boys in rural Mississippi and has so many great stories about them. Even though they are grown men now, Bess can still embarrass them with a good story from childhood. She is also an amazing cook, and believes, like me, that one way you can show people you love them is to cook for them. The first treats Miss Bess ever made for me were these Pecan Tassies. I have to say that, even following her recipe to the letter, I find that hers are lighter and tastier than mine. It must be all of that love!
MAKES 24 TASSIES
½ cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature, plus 1 tablespoon butter, melted
1 3-ounce package cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 large egg
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
½ cup pecans, finely chopped
With an electric mixer, beat the ½ cup butter and the cream cheese until smooth. Add the flour and beat until fully combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray a mini-muffin pan with cooking spray.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the melted butter, egg, brown sugar, vanilla, and salt until smooth. Set aside.
Shape the chilled dough into 24 balls, about 1 inch in diameter. Press each ball into a cup of the muffin pan, then spoon 1 teaspoon of the pecans into each muffin cup. Fill each cup with the egg mixture until evenly distributed. Bake for 25 minutes, or until the filling is set. Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then remove from the muffin pan.