Favorites: Vegetables

 We love vegetables around here.  We usually prepare them very simply, but here are five of our favorite fancier vegetable recipes:

1. Yam Souffle'  This is a favorite Thanksgiving dinner recipe.

Hungry Hintons: Yam or Sweet Potato Souffle'

2. Honey-Glazed Carrots:  I make these several times a month.  They are one of our favorite vegetables.

Hungry Hintons: Honey Glazed Carrots in the Microwave

3. Green Beans with Carmelized Onions  I don't make these often enough, but they are really good.

Hungry Hintons: Green Beans with Caramelized Onions and Almonds

4. Rot Kohl   This is a delicious dish John introduced to the family after serving a mission in Germany.  It has been part of our Thanksgiving feast ever since.  Cindy has really perfected the recipe.

Hungry Hintons: Rotkohl

5. Creamed Corn  This is a very delicious slow cooker recipe.

Hungry Hintons: Crockpot Creamed Corn

Favorites: Side Dishes

 Choosing five side dishes kind of blends with vegetables and salads.  Some of these could go in those other categories as well.  But here are five of our favorite side dishes:

1. Summer Tomatoes:  Truth be told, when I make this, which I do every summer at least once, it is the main dish.  We love this yummy dish made with fresh garden tomatoes.  Sometimes I serve it over pasta, but usually I serve it with a crusty bread, like this one, and we just dip it.

Hungry Hintons: Summer Tomatoes

2. Cole Slaw:  We both love cole slaw.  This is a yummy recipe for it.

Hungry Hintons: Super Simple Coleslaw

3.  Pickled Cucumber and Red Onions:  I grew up eating this salad.  This is a really good recipe for it that my sister, Joan found when we did a Heritage Dinner (we ate Norwegian foods.)

Hungry Hintons: Pickled Cucumbers and Red Onion

4.  Pico de Galo:  I got this recipe from a friend and make it often as side with Mexican dishes.  It is delicious on my chicken enchiladas.  It also is great with tortilla chips.

Hungry Hintons: Pico de Gallo

5. Baked Beans  Everyone has a favorite baked beans recipe.  This is mine.  Nery a summer goes by that I don't make these.  They are great for a potluck.  I recently made them for a family reunion and everyone, including the kids, loved them.

Hungry Hintons: Patty's Baked Beans

Favorites: Salads

I shouldn't be doing this post.  All three of my daughters are salad people.  I am not.  I don't usually like main dish salads much (please don't pull my girl card.)  Shonna, especially is the queen of salads and there are a lot of jar salad recipes on this blog from her.  But I will post the salads we eat the most around here.  Hers, I'm sure are better and much healthier!

1. Creamy Orange Jell-o Salad:  I got this recipe from my sister-in-law, Ada many years ago.  Truth be told, it is the salad I make most often.  It is often served at Hinton family gatherings.  It is a side dish.  I usually make orange, but strawberry is also delicious.  It has virtually no nutritional value, but my husband loves it.  So that gives it value, right?

Hungry Hintons: Creamy Orange Jello Salad

2. Cucumber Sour Cream Salad.   I fairly recently discovered this salad recipe and I make it frequently.  We both love it.  It helps me recall my Scandinavian heritage.

Hungry Hintons: Cucumber/ Sour Cream Salad

3. Curried Chicken Salad.  I watched Ina Garten make this salad years ago on television and have been making it ever since.  I love it!

Hungry Hintons: Curried Chicken Salad

4. Pasta Chicken Salad  I got this delicious recipe from Michelle's mother-in-law, Cynthia.  It makes a huge amount, so it is great to serve at party, shower, family gathering, etc.  

Hungry Hintons: Bow Tie Pasta Chicken Salad

5. Chicken Taco Salad;  This is a delicious main dish salad. 

Hungry Hintons: Pantry Pick of the Month: Salsa/ Chicken Taco Salad

Favorites: Comfort Foods

 This is a category I had to add so I could include more of our favorite main dish recipes.  These are some of our favorite down- home meals that are delicious, nostalgic, and long-time favorites.

1. Sunday Meat :  Because we had it often on Sunday, our kids started calling it Sunday meat.  It is my mama's meatloaf and it is delicious.  She learned to make it from a black woman who cooked for them when she lived in Detroit (where she was getting her master's degree.)

Hungry Hintons: Mama's Meatloaf or Sunday Meat

2. Mad Hatter Meatballs:  This is probably the recipe I have been making the longest of all my recipes.  I got Betty Crocker's cookbook for children when I was a child.  This dish was in there and I made it then and have been making it since.  It, for me, is truly comfort food.

Hungry Hintons: Mad Hatter Meatballs

3. Ritzy Baked Chicken:  This was a favorite of our kids when they were growing up, one of a handful of dishes that everyone liked.  We often had it on Sundays.

Hungry Hintons: Ritzy Chicken

4. Skillet Beef Stew Over Noodles:  I found this recipe in a magazine years ago and have been making it ever since.  It is quick and easy and yummy.

Hungry Hintons: Skillet Beef Stew

5. Whole Chicken:  Comfort food at its finest.  I've been making this in the slow cooker for years, but recently adapted it for the instant pot.  

Hungry Hintons: Instant Pot Whole Chicken

Harry and David Cheese Spread

 I can't believe I haven't posted this recipe before.  It is such a favorite around here.  I'm not sure you can even call it a recipe.  It is just mixing two things together: 1 8 oz bar of cream cheese and 1 jar Harry and David pepper and onion relish (I order it online):

Mixed together

You just mix them together as best you can.  The cream cheese is not a very good joiner and doesn't want to mix.  But that's okay.  Then spread it on ritz crackers or use it as a dip.  I have even used it in omelettes.  It is so delicious.

Ugly Duckling Pudding Cake

 This is a delicious, moist, old-fashioned cake.  I got the recipe from my sister-in-law, Ada.  I have seen similar recipes called fruit cocktail cake.  Whatever it is called, it is delicious.  

Ugly Duckling Pudding Cake

1 package yellow cake mix

1 small package instant lemon pudding mix ( vanilla also works)

1 16 oz can fruit cocktail

1 cup coconut

4 eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 chopped pecans

Blend all together except the brown sugar and nuts.  I blend the fruit cocktail in my little bullet blender, but you don't have to do that.

Beat for four minutes in your stand mixer at medium speed.  Pour into a greased  9x13 pan.  Sprinkle the brown sugar and nuts over the top.  Bake at 325 for 45 minutes.  Cool in pan for about 15 minutes. Then combine 1/2 cup each of butter, sugar, and evaporated milk.  After the butter is melted and it is boiling, boil for two minutes.  Stir in 1 1/3 cup coconut.  Spread it over the cake.  Let cool.

Favorites: Bars

 Some of our very favorite desserts fall in the category of bar cookies.  All five of these recipes are winners.  Actually, there are seven really good recipes.  I think I will put them all on here.  I just can't decide which two to cut.

1. Magic Cookie Bars:  If I named my children what food I craved when I was pregnant with them, Kristen's name would be Magic Cookie Bar.  I have loved these that long!  They are easy and delicious.

Hungry Hintons: Magic Cookie Bars

2. Banana Bread Bars:  Of late, these are by far our favorite bar cookies/ cake.  The frosting is to die for.

Hungry Hintons: Banana Bread Bars with Browned Butter Frosting

3. Sugar Cookie Bars:  All the joy of a frosted sugar cookie, but SO much easier.

Hungry Hintons: Sugar Cookie Bars with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

4.  Butterscotch Cookie Bars:  When I first tasted these, I thought I had died and gone to heaven.  They are unlike anything you have had before.

Hungry Hintons: Butterscotch Cookie Bars

5.  Three-Layer Mint Brownies:  One of  my best all-time recipes for which I am known are these three-layer mint brownies.  I got the recipe from a college roommate years ago and have made them many, many times since.  Color the frosting green for Christmas or pink for Valentine's Day.  I even made them for Michelle's reception.

Hungry Hintons: Three Layer Mint Brownies

Honorable Mentions:

 6.  Blueberry Dance Bars:  I got this recipe from my sister, Joan years ago.  They were actually Cherry Dance Bars, but we prefer the blueberry.  The only thing is they are a bit tricky to bake the right amount of time.  They can be too gooey if you don't bake them long enough, and dry if you bake them too long.  But, if you get it just right, they are delicious!

Hungry Hintons: Blueberry Dance Bars

6.  Lemon Bars:  Everyone's favorite bars!

Hungry Hintons: Patty's Lemon Bars

Favorites: Breads

 Here are five of our favorite bread recipes.  I may tack on an honorable mention or two as well.

1.  Relief Society Buttermilk Bread:  Easily my favorite bread recipe.  I make it all the time.  It makes two loaves.  I put the second one in the freezer or share it.

Hungry Hintons: Relief Society Buttermilk Bread

2. Peasant Bread:  This recipe is fairly new to my repetoire.  Michelle made it for us, and I've been making it ever since.  It is so easy and is the perfect bread for dipping oil and vinegar and serving with soups.

Hungry Hintons: Peasant Bread

3. Dinner Rolls:  Ever since I discovered this recipe, I am not afraid of making rolls any more.  These are so delicious!

Hungry Hintons: Dinner Rolls

4. Whole Wheat Bread:  This is the best whole wheat bread recipe in the world.  So, so good!

Hungry Hintons: Perfect Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread

5.  Whole Wheat Muffins:  Kristen put this recipe on the blog years ago.  These muffins are crazy good.  Her kids used to call them fuffins, so that's what we call them. 

Hungry Hintons: Whole Wheat Muffins

Honorable Mentions:  I have to add two recipes that are part of our family traditions:

Pumpkin Bread:  We have this every Halloween.

Hungry Hintons: Pumpkin Bread

Christmas Morning Rolls:  Our Christmas morning tradition has us eating this.  There are three different versions on here.  This is the one I usually make, but the others might be better?

Hungry Hintons: Christmas Morning Rolls- a Crown for a King