Pineapple Zucchini Bread

Pineapple Zucchini Bread
My niece ,Wendy gave me this delicious recipe. I don't think I will ever make plain zucchini bread again!

3 eggs

2 c. sugar

1 c. salad oil

2 tsp. vanilla

2 c. shredded zucchini

1 can (81/4 oz) crushed pineapple, drained

3 c. flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

3/4 tsp. nutmeg

1 c. chopped walnuts (optional)

Heat oven to 350. Lightly grease 2 -9 inch loaf pans; set aside.

In mixing bowl, beat eggs until frothy. Beat in sugar, oil and vanilla. Continute beating until mixture is thick and foamy. Stir in zucchini and pineapple.

In second bowl, stir together flour, baking soda, salt baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and nuts. Add to zucchini mixture and stir just until flour is moistened. Spoon batter into prepared pans. Bake 50 to 60 minutes. Yields 2 loaves. Enjoy!

Easy Crockpot Santa Fe Chicken

Easy Crockpot Santa Fe Chicken

2 15 oz can black beans -- rinsed and drained

1 16 0z. whole kernel frozen corn (or 2 cans, drained)

1 bottle of your favorite thick and chunky salsa

5 or 6 skinless boneless chicken breasts -- (I cut them into strips)

2 cups shredded cheddar jack cheese

In a 3.5 or 4 quart electric slow cooker, mix together the beans, corn, and 1/2 the bottle of salsa. Top with the chicken breasts, then pour the remaining salsa over the chicken. Cover and cook on the high heat setting 2.5-3 hours, or until the chicken is tender and white throughout; do not overcook or the chicken will toughen. Top with shredded cheese and melt. Great served with Mexican rice or with pasta.

(Another recipe also called for a brick of cream cheese and to remove the chicken when it was done and cut the chicken into bite size pieces and then melt the cream cheese in the sauce and stir chicken back in. They then made burritos with it. I haven't tried this but it sounds good!)I first made this for a Hill Cumorah Pageant Wednesday Night Potluck last year (2010) and it was a big hit. KB:)

Freezing food

One of my favorite (and frustrating) things about eating at the pageant, is the lack of time and the use of convenience food.  Now for my guilty secret-I love convenience food.  I love the ease of preparation, I love the taste (weird, I know), and I love the options.  However, I don't love the price or all the garbage that goes into the food.  My favorite are the Bertolli pastas. My favorite flavor is the Roasted Chicken and Linguine. However, in order to feed my family at home I need 2 bags, and at pageant, 2. Imagine this because they are about $9.00 a bag.  That is a lot of money I could be spending at the Berry Patch instead. So, thus my love with freezing meals ahead of time.

There are a couple of tricks involved with freezing pastas.  It is important to pre-cook the food, but cook the pasta 2 minutes less than al dente. So if the instructions on the bag say to cook 7 minutes, really cook 4-5 minutes. This keeps you from getting mush when you re-heat.  I have come up with my own :Nielsonella Pasta in a bag". Hope you like it.

4 skinless chicken breasts, grilled and sliced
Linguine Pasta (cooked 2 minutes less than al dente
1 jar Bertolli Alfredo sauce (about $2-$3 per jar) and I usually use a coupon and keep them in my food storage just for these occasions
fresh vegetables

Cook the chicken and the pasta.  Mix the sauce into the pasta and coat completely. Add the chicken.  Place into freezer zip lock bag and seal. Mark on bag date you prepared, and reheating instructions:

1. empty bag, re-heat on stove top and add fresh vegetables. Heat until hot and bubbly, and serve; or
2. empty bag. Place in oven proof dish and stir in fresh vegetables. Heat in 350 oven until hot and bubbly.

Thats it.  They are that simple.  Now, I do have a recipe for homemade Alfredo sauce that I like much better, but it doesn't freeze as well.  Gets a bit gluey-so I sacrifice the jar of prepared. I love to add cherry tomatoes after it is all heated and ready to place on the table.  My family doesn't like it, though, so I usually just add them to mine.  Hope you all eat well!

Preparing dinner with short time restraints

Anyone who has tried to fix dinner, clean up after, eat with their family and still make the devotional on time knows that time is precious.  There are several recipes that can help with the time issue without costing all the money of purchasing pre-packaged meals. One trick is to pre-cook all your meat (whether chicken, beef, pork, or any combination thereof). Place it all in the freezer, in pre-measured increments. Then when the time comes, that will save you a good 20 minutes every day.

One of my favorite dishes at the pageant is soup.  It is more difficult to eat in a hot year, but you never know which year will be hot and which will not. So I plan several soups every year.  Some are easier than others, but this one is super simple. I got this recipe from a family members ward cookbook. We eat it all the time at home, especially in the winter, or when time is short.

Minestrone Soup - Anna Kennison of West Mountain, Payson, Utah

1 pound hamburger, browned and drained.

1 onion, chopped

3 cans Campbell's Minestrone condensed soup

3 cans water

1 large can pork and beans

1 can tomato sauce

1 tsp oregano

Brown the hamburger and onion.  Add the remaining ingredients.  Simmer until heated all the way through.  So this recipe can be complete in about 20 minutes.  It can also be put in a crock pot at lunch time, put on low, and eaten a couple hours later at dinner. Perfect for a family on the go, or for a campground dinner!

The traveling situation to the Hill

Every year as we travel across the country, I am struck with the need to prepare food that we can eat during the trek. It must be easy, edible by the driver, and keep well.  Our first year, we were driving in a SUV with a cooler out of the back seat.  That was a bit easier as we could stop at McDonald's in a pinch.  However, with the RV, fast food is a difficult choice, but I do have a moving fridge and microwave. My genius mother-in-law suggested Shake and Bake chicken. It can be cooked ahead of time and sent straight to the freezer.  Then the day before you need to eat it, you can put it in the fridge and it can be eaten with one hand, cold (by said driver).  I always want to add a bit and not have just a protein, so I make Macaroni Salad.  It is a family favorite learned in the kitchen of the genius mentioned above. It keeps well, and tastes better the longer it sits in the fridge (up to a certain point, of course).

Macaroni Salad
4 cups dried salad macaroni (like elbow but half the size)
1 cup chopped pickles (dill is best)
2 cups grated cheese (any flavor you like, I use Cheddar)
2 cans drained tuna fish
1/2 cups chopped onion
4 hard boiled eggs, chopped

1 cup mayo
2 tbsp mustard
1/4 cup pickle juice

Cook the macaroni, drain and cool to room temperature.  Add all the solid ingredients together and stir until well incorporated. Mix the wet ingredients well. Pour over the salad.  Mix until all coated. If more "sauce" is needed, just mix a bit more.  Tastes best if left in the fridge overnight.

If taking in a cooler, I just place in gallon zip lock bags for travel.  Just keep cool and safe because of the fish and the mayo. :)
Jenn Nielson

Sweet Baked Beans

This recipe is a hand me down. In the early 90's my mother-in-law and her best friend and neighbor came to pageant together. They really changed the face of munch and mingle. It used to be everyone in the campground would bring their dinner left overs and would share because fridge space was such a premium. Then these two women (with the help a couple more, including my mother-in-law's sister-in-law, who was also at pageant) decided they wanted a little something more substantial that was not so sweet after a performance. Especially as families began bringing more and more desserts because there were not any leftovers and they felt the need to bring something. So they started bring soups-every night. So this recipe is in grateful tribute to those ladies-first who created great food, but also helped evolve munch and mingle so I can only bring food once and not have to fix it daily!

Colleen Ewell's Beans
4 cans pork and beans
2 cans pinto beans
1 can kidney beans, drained
1 can black beans
1 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp white vinegar (although I have used half as much Balsamic and it was yummier)
4 Tbsp liquid smoke
1/2 cup ketsup
1 lb ground beef-browned and drained
4 strips bacon, cooked and crumbled (although I have put it in raw if I am cooking them all day)
1/2 chopped onion (although I have used dried from food storage-also thrown in dried carrots, dried celery, dried mushrooms, and dried green peppers)

Cook hamburger and drain. Mix all ingredients together in a crockpot and cook on low for the day (or put in at lunch time at the hill and by munch and mingle, they will be good.)
Serve with tortilla chips or with a spoon.
Enjoy!

Publishing

The best way to contribute, is to either send me an email address and I can list you as an author (best if you have a lot of recipes to post) or send your recipe information, your picture, and your other stuff by email and I will post it for you.
jandjnielson@gmail.com

Welcome!

This blog is being started for the purpose of sharing all the great recipes, cooking styles, and food related experiences of the Zions Campground at the Hill Cumorah Pageant in Palmyra New York. The rules are fairly simple:
1. If you have a recipe, post it. But post with a picture of you or your family, and a small description of your Zions Camp experience (i.e., how long you have been in pageant, what your camping situation is like, how many you are cooking for, or anything else you like). That way we can emotional and visually connect who you are with your food.
2. If anything inappropriate or offensive is posted, that user will be removed and blocked. No second chances.

Pretty simple, huh? We have talked for years on putting together a recipe book, but this is simpler, and less expensive. It also allows for previous attendees to still access and share their knowledge of surviving the cooking life of Zions Camp (which, lets face it, can be tough).

So with that said, my name is Jennifer Nielson, and I will be the administrator of the blog. I have been camping in Zions Camp for 5 years now, for the month of July. I do have a nice kitchen setup while at the pageant with my RV. I am able to access a small chest freezer even though I drive from Utah, so my cooking style will be a bit different than those who don't have that storage or resourse available to them. I do have the benefit of family members who have also camped in Zions Camp, who have passed all their recipes on to me (and they had less freezer space available). I will be posting pictures throughout, not just of my family, but also of the food, but not necessarily all the time. Especially because in the beginning, I will be the only one posting, until the community gets a bit bigger.

Because of the shared nature of posting, this is a VERY public blog. Please do be careful about what personal information you post about your family (hometowns, ages, birthday info, etc). We don't want to give any interesting stalkers any more info to work with. They are already good enough.

Welcome to the family!