Frog Eye Salad

Recently we invited to a family gathering where the hamburgers and hotdogs would be provided, and we were asked to bring a side dish.  This gave me the chance to make Frog Eye Salad, my wife received this recipe years ago from her aunt and it continues to be one of our favorite salads.  This recipe that makes a very large quantity of salad, and we only make it when there will be quite a few people present to consume it.  This salad is very easy to make, though it does require some preparation the day before it is to be served.

Frog Eye Salad Recipe:
   1 package Acini Di Pepe No 44 Pasta
   ½ teaspoon salt
   1 2/4 cup pineapple juice (drained from cans of pineapple)
   ¾ cup sugar
   3 tablespoons flour
   3 eggs
   2 cans chunk pineapple, 16 ounce (drained, save juice)
   1 can crushed pineapple, 16 ounces (drained, save juice)
   4 cans Mandarin oranges (drained, one can for garnish)
   1 cups small marshmallows
   1 cup coconut
   12 ounce Cool Whip

Directions:

1. Cook entire box of Pasta per directions on package with the ½ teaspoon of salt in a 3-quart pan.  Rinse cooked pasta in cold water and cool.
2. In a medium saucepan, mix the 1 ¾ cups of pineapple juice, ¾ cup of sugar, 3 tablespoons flour, and 3 eggs.  Cook on medium heat stirring constantly until thick (approximately two minutes after it starts to boil).
3. Mix the sauce with the pasta and refrigerate overnight.
4. Mix remaining ingredients and mix with the pasta, garish the top with the remaining mandarin orange slices.

Because we were traveling to Seattle for the function, I decided to start the salad the night before we left home; I cooked the pasta with the salted water in a large stockpot.  Once the pasta was completely cooked, I drained the pasta and placed it in a large ceramic bowl in the refrigerator to cool.

While the pasta cooled, I drained the cans of pineapple and mixed the ingredients for the pineapple sauce in a medium saucepan.  I placed the saucepan on the range on medium heat and started stirring.  It took about ten minutes to bring the mixture to a boil.

I noticed that some of the egg whites where starting to cook together, but I just stirred a little more to break up the clumps.

I used a large mixing bowl and stirred the warm pineapple sauce into the cool pasta then I returned the pasta to the ceramic bowl and returned the pasta to the refrigerator for the night.

The next day we drove to Seattle where we spent the night.  In the morning, I mixed the remaining ingredients into the pasta.  The container of Cool Whip was only available in 20 and 10-ounce sizes, so I purchased a 20-ounce container and only used part of the contents.  The cans of pineapple were also larger than specified in the recipe, but I went ahead and used the entire cans of pineapple in the recipe
.

We divided the salad into two bowls and garnished the top of each bowl of salad with the fourth can of mandarin oranges.  I neglected to take a photo of the finished salad, so you will have to use your imagination.  We divided the salad because in the past, when we serve one large bowl, sometimes only a small amount of the salad gets eaten (people think it is cottage cheese), so we decided to put out one bowl and if was eaten, we would put out the second bowl.  As it turns out, there were only enough people at the event to eat the one bowl, so we ate the remainder with our family the next day.

If you need a salad to serve a large number of guests, Frog Eye Salad and a great salad to make.  However, you might want to set out a small card with the ingredients, so people know exactly what they are eating.  We will continue to make the salad, and over time, we may put out less and less so that there is more for us to eat after the party!

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Quick Artichoke Salad

Now that summer is here with very hot days, I didn’t want to heat up the house by using the oven and at 90 degrees, it is too hot to be outside grilling dinner.  I went to my stack of recipes to try that I print after watching programs on the Food Network, and I found the recipe for Quick Artichoke Salad by Sunny Anderson.

I already had all the ingredients in the pantry and I could see the only item to heat would be the boiling water for the bowtie pasta.  I gathered all the ingredients and started to work.  The recipe calls for ½ pound of the bowtie pasta, and the bag that I had contained a full pound, so I went ahead and cooked the contents of the entire bag.  Because I was using twice the pasta, I doubled the remainder of the recipe.  While the pasta boiled, I sliced a full can of black olives, chopped a small red onion (the onion I didn’t double), 8 sun dried tomatoes (I used dry tomatoes, not the ones soaked in oil).  I used the remainder (about half) of a supersized jar of artichoke hearts, making sure all the pieces were quartered.

Once I prepared each ingredient, I dumped it in a large mixing bowl.  When the bowtie pasta were cooked, I drained the water from the pan and added the pasta to the rest of the ingredients in the bowl.  I added twice as much of the lemon juice, red wine vinegar, and olive oil on top of the rest of the ingredients and stirred to mix.  I covered the salad with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator to cool and for the flavors to mingle for about thirty minutes until we were ready to eat.

While the salad cooled, I sautéed a chicken breast in the liquid left over from the jar of artichoke hearts.  At dinner time, I served the salad and found that I should have used a large spoon to mix the salad instead of the large fork, because the onion and garlic were still at the bottom of the bowl.  Fortunately, when I served the salad, I used a large spoon and mixed everything together to get a good distribution of ingredients.  We had a great dinner of the sautéed chicken breast and artichoke salad.  We were surprised at how much of the dressing the pasta absorbed and I ended up adding even more lemon juice, red wine vinegar and olive oil to the remaining salad.

The artichoke salad was very sweet tasting: possibly due to the red wine vinegar.  My wife had some feedback for me on the salad.  She really liked the taste and ingredients, but she would like more dressing, some additional color interest like raw broccoli and maybe some julienned Italian salami.  I realized when I was writing about making this recipe, that I forgot to add the chopped parsley leaves, which would have added some nice color to the salad.

Neither one of us liked the chopped onion pieces, because the pieces were small and tended to sift to the bottom of the bowl.  My wife suggested using quartered strips of the red onion that would stay suspended in the pasta, unlike the small chunks.

I am keeping this recipe to use again, possibly when we need to take a cold salad to a picnic or a party.  I will add some other ingredients like the salami, broccoli, green olives, carrot and whatever else I find in the refrigerator.  Hmmm, I should have added some of the fennel bulb and stalk.  Oh well, next time.


Find the recipe here:  http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/sunny-anderson/quick-artichoke-salad-recipe/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell

Artichoke Rice Salad with Shrimp

Last week I wrote about the lemon blossoms that I saw on a Paula Deen TV show where she made different foods for a dinner party.  On that same show, Paula made an Artichoke Rice Salad with Shrimp and I printed that recipe to make in the future.  On a recent trip to the store, while we purchased our food for the week, I also purchased a few things so I could make this salad. 

I found a box of Chicken flavored Rice-a-Roni to purchase that pretty much matched the description that Paula gives in her recipe.  We also purchased some green onions, a green pepper, and a jar of pimiento-stuffed green olives.

In re-reading the directions in the recipe, though I can see that while I read all the instructions before I started, but I still missed the first step: browning the rice before cooking (it didn’t seem to matter).  I added the 2 1/2 cups of water to the skillet and then added the rice and seasoning and let it heat to a boil.

While the rice heated, I prepared the chopped green pepper, green onion, and green olives.  We have a mega-sized jar of artichoke hearts, so I got out about six ounces and quartered the pieces.  I put the 1/2 cup of mayonnaise in a small bowl and then added about 1 /4 cup of the marinade from the jar of artichoke hearts.  Instead of a whisk, I used a dinner spoon to mix the mayo and marinade together and it worked very well.

About this time, the rice was boiling, so I covered the skillet with a lid, and turned the heat to low so the rice could simmer for ten minutes.  Into a medium sized metal bowl I added all the chopped green ingredients, then added the mayonnaise mixture, and stirred it all together.  After making some over spiced recipes, I am leery about adding the full amount of spices, so I only added 1/2-teaspoon of the curry, 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and just a dash of black pepper.

Once the rice was tender, I removed it from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes before adding the rice to the mixing bowl with the other ingredients.  I stirred everything together and then added the shrimp.  I used frozen pre-cooked shrimp that I had already defrosted so I just dumped them in and stirred.

This recipe can be served hot or cold, so I had a bite to eat of the salad while it was warm and thought it was very tasty.  My wife was delayed getting home, so I covered the bowl with plastic wrap and popped it in the refrigerator.

For dinner we had the Artichoke Salad and lightly steamed asparagus.  I am glad that I only used half the amount of curry powder, as a full teaspoon would have overpowered the other flavors.  As I made it, we could pick out the flavor of the green olives, but the artichoke hearts were just a firm mass that tasted like curry.  The pieces of green pepper added a nice crunch to an otherwise soft dish.  The salad was still a little warm when we ate dinner, so we look forward to tasting it tomorrow after it is fully cooled and has some time for the flavors to mature.

Find the recipe at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/artichoke-rice-salad-with-shrimp-recipe/index.html

Adventures In Food: Author: Kerry Howell