__dorothy Wagoner Recipes

WAGONERS' RICE: ARROZ CARRETEIRO

Steps:

• With a mortar and pestle, grind together the garlic, salt and freshly ground pepper.
• Heat the olive oil in large heavy-based saucepan over high heat until very hot. Add the onions and cook for 1 to 2 minutes until just beginning to brown. Add the garlic paste from the mortar and stir.
• Stir in the beef and continue to cook over high heat for 2 to 3 minutes until all the meat is browned. Next add the peppers and tomatoes and stir well.
• Slowly pour in the rice. Stir well and add enough water to cover the ingredients by 1-inch.
• Bring to a boil, then cover and reduce the heat to maintain a simmer. Simmer for about 20 minutes or until almost all the water has been absorbed. You may need to add a little more water if the rice is too al dente and the dish quite dry.
• Just before serving, sprinkle over the parsley and spring onions.

__NINA REYES

Steps:

• When Nina Reyes came to the United States from Cuba to attend school in Pennsylvania, she knew right away that she had found her true homeland. When she returned to Cuba to marry, Nina decided, "I will never give up until I return to the United States and this time it will be for good. Because this is the country of my heart."Nina and her husband did return to the United States and raised their family in Miami. She entered numerous recipes in cooking contests. "Every time I entered, my son would say 'Mom, don't you ever give up?' and I said 'I'll keep on trying, and we shall see who laughs last.' Many times I lay awake at night, mixing up things in my dreams. If I can't go to sleep, l cook in my mind. Sometimes I get up and write the idea down, so I don't forget."One night Nina's dreams turned to what has been called Cuba's national dish, Picadillo. Picadillo is a special dish, almost like barbecue, or chili, in that every cook prides herself on her own version, with many variations. Some cooks use beef, eggs, wine, peppers, raisins or almonds others wrap their picadillo with a yeast bread instead of a pastry crust."I used to use so many people for guinea pigs," recalls Nina about testing her Bake-Off® Contest recipes, "and everybody feels differently. This time I thought, 'I'm not going to ask anyone how they like it. I'm just going to make it and send it in." Nina says she quit making her picadillo for years "because my crusts were nothing to brag about," but when she discovered refrigerated pie crusts she started making it again. Now Nina's Chicken Picadillo Pie is on its way to becoming an American classic. "That makes me so happy," says Nina.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__TED VIVEIROS

Steps:

• "Then young Ted Viveiros's father passed away, his mother went to work and he had to learn to cook. "I made an apple pie--apples, sugar, crust--and it was awful. The apples were undercooked and the crust was really tough." But Ted toughed it out himself, and grew to be an innovative, no-nonsense cook. Doughnut cravings lead most people to a store, but not Ted. He was in the mood for doughnuts one night, so he just made his own. "By the way," he says, "I now make dam good apple pies, and know enough to add cinnamon and butter." Sometimes our early mistakes provide thought to fuel a lifetime of productive, and sometimes tasty, work.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__ELLEN BURR

Steps:

• So much of American cooking has international roots, but a sense of what the cooking of indigenous Americans was like can be gleaned from Cape Cod resident Ellen Burr's harvest. "I love to gather wild edibles: bolete mushrooms, dandelion greens, sassafras leaves (to dry for file powder for gumbo). I pick lots of berries--blueberries, strawberries, shad berries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, cranberries, elderberries, rosehips, rum cherries, and English blueberries--for desserts, for freezing, for preserves, and for jellies. I also dig clams, gather oysters and mussels, go crabbing and fish for trout and perch." Although Ellen has devoted so much of her keen attention to native foods, she also turns to foods with an international heritage for inspiration, and comes up with hits like her Dotted Swiss and Spinach Quiche.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

POLISH PEROGIES W/ WONTON SKINS

Steps:

• 1. In a skillet over heat, cook bacon 4 minutes. Remove from skillet, drain, and crumble. Add 1/2 cups of sliced onions to bacon dripping in skillet. Cook 10 minutes on medium heat. Remove and save. In a bowl, combine, combine the 2 potatoes that have been boiled, peeled and mashed, 1/2 cup cheddar cheese and the crumpled bacon. Brush water over the edges of 25 wonton skins. Divide potato mixture evenly among center of the wrappers. Fold each wrapper over filling to form a triangle, press to seal. Working in batches, cook perogies in boiling water 4 minutes..or until they float. Remove and top with the cooked onions. Cut up fresh green onions cut up and tossed over the perogies is a nice touch.
• 2. Some people like to fry them gently in butter....when they are done.

CHEATER PIEROGI

Steps:

• Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chopped bacon and onions; cook and stir until the bacon is crisp and the onions are browned, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove bacon and onions to a small dish, reserving about 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat for frying the pierogi.
• Place potatoes into a large pot and cover with salted water; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and mash until smooth. Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Season with salt, black pepper, and cayenne pepper. Stir in 1 egg and farmer's cheese. Cover and refrigerate until chilled, about 30 minutes.
• Beat 1 egg with 1 tablespoon water in a bowl for the egg wash.
• Place 2 to 3 wonton wrappers at a time on a lightly floured work surface. Brush the edges lightly with the egg wash. Place about 2 tablespoons of filling in the center of each wrapper. Fold each pierogi in half and lightly press the edges together to seal.
• Bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook pierogi in the boiling water until they float, 2 to 3 minutes. Drain.
• Transfer pierogi to the skillet with reserved bacon drippings in batches and cook over medium heat until lightly browned, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to a bowl, toss with the bacon and onions, and serve garnished with sour cream and chives.

__BOBBIE SONEFELD

Steps:

• Most people hear about Roberta (Bobbie) Sonefeld's Bake-Off® 2000 Contest win and immediately zero in on the $1 million Grand Prize she was awarded for her decadently rich Cream Cheese Brownie Pie. But Bobbie says the richest part of the experience was the Bake-Off® weekend itself, a dazzling trip she and her husband, Steve, have christened their "second honeymoon."The 2000 Bake-Off® Contest took place in the San Francisco Marriott, an opulent hotel in downtown San Francisco. "Neither of us had ever been to the West Coast," recalled Bobbie. "The way Pillsbury treated us was just great: Three gourmet meals a day plus all kinds of tours and sightseeing." An added benefit, said Bobbie, was that "all the activity had a calming effect." When the day of the cooking contest rolled around, "I was used to the idea." Didn't she get nervous? "Well, yes," she admits, "But I didn't get the butterflies bad until the night before. The next morning--once I was done baking and there wasn't anything I could do about it--I was fine. Then I thought, 'Wow, I already feel like a winner, it doesn't matter what happens next.'"What happened next is part of history: Bobbie's Cream Cheese Brownie Pie, entered in the Fast & Fabulous Desserts & Treats category, won the Grand Prize. The Sonefelds' second honeymoon became even more extravagant, as they jetted to New York City for a whirlwind round of television and radio appearances. They also went to Philadelphia to appear on QVC. Bobbie remembers New York as another great restaurant town where she had meals she never even dreamed of two weeks before.After an amazing week traveling the country together, Bobbie and Steve returned home to Hopkins, South Carolina, their full-time jobs and their family. And that's when the trip stopped being a honeymoon, and turned into a homecoming, as Bobbie and Steve returned to the loving arms of their very excited sons.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__LILY WUEBEL

Steps:

• Part of Pillsbury's reason for starting the Bake-Off® Contest was to celebrate the many unsung heroes of America's kitchens, who hadn't received public credit for the trays of cookies, the platters of cakes and the baskets of bread that issued from their kitchens.Of course, for every Bake-Off® winner, there is still an unpublicized kitchen hero for whom the appreciation of her family is reward enough. Lily Wuebel was lucky enough to have both. When asked what he thought of his wife's $25,000 cake, Peter Wuebel said he'd always loved the cake, and "it's worth a million to me."From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

_ MORE CELEBRITY NOTES

Steps:

• Academy Award-winning Best Actresses Greer Garson (1942, Mrs. Miniver) and Helen Hayes (1932, The Sin of Madelon Claudet) smiled as other women received what some have called the Oscars of the kitchen in 1958 and 1959. Movie stars Irene Dunne, of the classic My Favorite Wife (with Cary Grant), and Jeanette MacDonald, best known for her musical films with Nelson Eddy (Love Me Tonight), floated through the crowds in the 1950s too, delighted to pose with the finalists who were the stars of their own kitchens. Television hosts have always paid an important role in the Bake-Off® Contest. Art Linkletter's antics provided thousands of wonderful Bake-Off® moments. Later, Bob Barker hosted eleven ceremonies. Recent years have seen television personalities Gary Collins, Willard Scott and Alex Trebek leading the festivities. Celebrities and diamond-clad stars aside, the joy of the Bake-Off® contestants always shines the brightest.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__DOROTHY WAGONER

Steps:

• Many of the recipes in this book are heirloom recipes, passed down from parent to child over many generations. However, many of us aren't lucky enough to have our own family recipes. Dorothy Wagoner had the idea of inventing her own heirloom recipe, describing the effort as "searching for a flavor to match a memory.""My father came to this country [from Germany] when he was a young man, and I was never to meet any of his family," Dorothy said. "Dad had a vivid memory, and through the stories of his childhood I could picture Grandmother's kitchen, the many wonderful things she baked and the dark, luxurious pastries that were Dad's favorite." Dorothy tried different flavor combinations, and then decided to make her dessert a pie, combining her own memories of her mother's cooking--her mother died when Dorothy was twelve--with her father's memories of his mother's pastries. "My mother was a wonderful cook, and loved to bake. Saturday was baking day, and our big old kitchen would be filled with the fragrance of bread and sweet rolls, and always pie." Through long experimentation Dorothy came up with her Vienna Chocolate Pie--a true labor of love. Since the 1959 Bake-Off® Contest, Dorothy's pie has become an heirloom recipe for families nationwide.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.