About Helen Jane
I'm Helen Jane. I am the queen of themed potlucks. Read on >>comments lately
Hearn Family Cole Slaw
June 11th, 2010
It’s our family cole slaw. It’s cheap, it’s expected, it’s tasty, and satisfies all known cole slaw requirements.
Let’s do this.
Ingredients
½ head cabbage
3 carrots, grated
1 bunch green onions, sliced fine
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
½ cup mayonnaise
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
Directions
Slice the cabbage into whisper-thin ribbons. It may become boring halfway through and you may be tempted to cut thicker slices of cabbage to just get through the whole thing faster.
Be ye not tempted.
Keep your focus on slicing the cabbage thin and lovely throughout the whole head. You shall be rewarded with cole slaw that actually gets eaten.
If you have a mandolin, use that. But do watch your fingers and your knuckles, won’t you? I’m missing most of my fingerprints due to mandolin mishaps.
Douse the cabbage with the cider vinegar, toss.
Plop the mayonnaise and cayenne into the cabbage.
Mix until blended.
Now gently fold the carrots and green onions throughout the cole slaw. You don’t want to be too rough with this part or the carrots will bleed orange throughout the slaw, turning it a Creamsicle color.
Orange slaw is not our goal.
Perfectly cheap, expected, tasty cole slaw is our goal.
Serve this on sandwiches, alongside barbeque chicken or at your family reunion.
Cole slaw!
Malcolm’s Cornbread Recipe
June 7th, 2010
Ingredients
2 sticks of butter
1 cup sugar
4 large eggs
7 ounce can of diced, roasted green chilies, drained
1 12 ounce can of creamed corn
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350° F.
Grease a 9 inch cake pan or prepare a muffin pan for filling.
With an electric mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until well-blended.
When the butter and sugar are smooth, add in the eggs, green chilies, creamed corn and grated cheese.
In another bowl, sift together the flour, yellow cornmeal, baking powder and salt.
Gently stir the dry mix into the wet mixture.
Transfer to the cake pan or the muffin pan.
Put that pan in the oven.
Bake the speckled gorgeousness for about 25 minutes if you’re making muffins or up to 45 minutes if you’re making cornbread in a 9 inch cake pan.
You will know the cornbread is ready to remove from the oven when there is a light brown, toasty crunch on the outside of the bread.
Let the cornbread sit on the counter for 15 minutes before removing from the pans. (Your reward is coming soon.)
St. Helena 2010 Bocce Season
May 2nd, 2010
It’s starting again, 20 weeks of themed potlucks.
Our bocce team gets together this Thursday to celebrate food in Dog form.
Hot Dogs.
Corn Dogs.
Dawggie Dawgs.
We’re playing the Hone Dogs, you see, and it’s the first night and well, DOGS.
It works out, as this month’s Cheesewhizzes macaroni and cheese is going to be our team dinner at bocce this week.
We’re bringing some dogs to contribute.
See you on the courts.
Spiced, Candied Bacon Recipe
March 9th, 2010
This doesn’t actually work in the Triangle theme, but the recipe is just too good not to share.
Ingredients
1 cup light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 pound of good-quality bacon
Directions
Preheat oven to 390° F.
Mix brown sugar, allspice, cinnamon, cayenne pepper and nutmeg together in a shallow dish with a whisk and/or fork.
Toss bacon in mixture piece by piece. Lay each piece of sandy bacon on parchment, foil or Silpat-covered half-sheet pan. You must do this, or suffer the wrath of burned bacon crusted sugar on your pan.
Put a little more topping on each piece of bacon before ovenning.
Bake the bacon in the oven for 15 minutes.
Depending on your guests, you may wish to cut each piece of bacon into half before rolling and securing with a toothpick. My guests go for the whole bacon-rose treatment.
What can I say?
I’m fancy like that.
Watermelon and Pineapple
February 20th, 2010
Watermelon and pineapple can be cut into triangles too.
Potluck themes: Triangle Food
February 19th, 2010
Rarely do I state my opinion as strongly as I do here:
Triangles are the most fun shapes to eat.
It’s a fact. You can start from a side, a point or the middle. Scoop it into a dip, slather it with a topping, triangles are fun to eat.
The kinds of foods that come in triangle shape are mighty tasty themselves.
Quesadillas
Tortilla chips and dip
Lemon bars cut into triangles
Pizza
Slices of pie, savory or sweet
Wedges of cheese
Baklava
Pasties
Empanadas
Pierogies
Turnovers
Samosas
Not last and not least, the mighty sandwich.
What? You want more?
Okay, I’ll share with you a recipe for one of my favorite triangle foods, the lemon bar. You can print out a pdf version of the triangle-themed recipe here (recipe will open in a new window).
Helen Jane’s Triangular Lemon Bar Recipe
Ingredients
Crust ingredients:
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
Hearty pinch of salt
For the filling:
6 large eggs at room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
6 lemons worth of grated lemon zest
1 cup lemon juice (please squeeze it!)
1 cup flour
Powdered sugar, for dusting
Directions
For the crust, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Do it with some sort of electric-powered mixing apparatus. Your arms may be strong, but let’s listen to reason.
In another bowl, combine the flour and salt with a low speed. Add to the buttersugar mixture until just mixed. Dump the dough onto a flour-dusted surface and slap loosely into a ball.
Flatten the dough with floured hands and press it into a 9 by 13 by 2-inch baking sheet. Leave a little 1/2 inch or so edge on all the sides.
Chill, yo, for about 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F in the middle of that chilling.
Bake the crust for about 15 minutes, until the surface is lightly golden brown. Take out of the oven and set to cool. Leave the oven on! We have more to do!
For the filling, whisk together the eggs, sugar, lemon zest, lemon juice, and flour. Pour over the goldeny crust and bake for yet another 30 minutes, until the filling is no longer jiggly.
Let cool to room temperature.
Cut into triangles and dust with powdered sugar.
A blog about Potluck Themes
February 16th, 2010
I play bocce in St. Helena. More than that, I’m co-captain of our bocce team.
Every week, from April to November, I devise a new potluck theme.
Our talented team members meet this challenge week on week.
This web site is where I share those themes and ideas with you.