Random Links for A Cloudy, Rainy Day

My ham and lentil soup.

I haven’t done a link post for awhile, and since I’m a little behind on posts I thought I’d try to put one together today.  It’s a cloudy, dull November day here (though not cold yet), but we had a little rain which is always welcome here these days of drought!  Praise the Lord for every bit we get!

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Mommy’s Kitchen – Here is a neat cooking blog my mom discovered and declared useful.  I haven’t explored it much yet, but it looks like there are a lot of good “home cookin’” recipes here. :-)

Homemade Soup Recipes – Mmmm soooooup, that warm comfort food that makes a cold day seem a little less chilly.

Did someone say chili? A chili for every taste – more or less.

Grilled Cheese Sandwiches at TasteofHome.com – Did I mention that I’m getting hungry?  I think we need to have some grilled cheese sandwiches soon!  Until then they are  grilled cheese sandwishes. ;-)

More Grilled Cheese, Please!

Old Time Cooked Banana Pudding – I never met “banana puddin’” till my family moved to the South (Tennessee, to be exact).  I’ve only ever had the instant mix, pre-fabricated food type banana pudding and I was not impressed (my apologies to my Southern readers).  But, I have to say that this sounds like it would be quite good, plus it sounds like you could or should serve it warm, which seems more appealing to me.  I thought there was probably an old fashioned method for this. (Now if I could only find some good vanilla wafers that didn’t have stuff in them that we don’t like to eat.)

An assortment of Winter Dinners.

Apple pie dish – for a yummy winter treat, serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Homemade Chocolate Pudding

Yes, really!  Pudding without a mix.  Boxed pudding will never taste the same! :-)  And, it’s so easy.  The only really “hard” part is stirring it till it’s ready.

Chocolate Pudding

3/4 C. white sugar 
5 Tbl. cocoa powder
1/3 C. cornstarch
1/4 tsp. salt
3 1/4 C. milk
3 Tbl. butter
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla OR almond extract

In a large saucepan stir together dry ingredients.  Mix in milk and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly (this is very important).  Cook and stir till the mixture thickens and just comes to a boil.  Remove from heat and stir in butter and flavoring.  Let cool for 5-10 minutes and serve warm.  Or, chill in the fridge till ready to serve.

Note: If you don’t want a “skin” to form on the top while it’s cooling or being refrigerated, I suggest covering the surface of the pudding with plastic wrap.  If you don’t wish to cover it with plastic, then serve it with the skin and find out which one in your family doesn’t mind it, or even likes it, and let them have the skin whenever you make it. :-)

This pudding can also be used warm over ice cream to make a “hot fudge” sundae.

To give it a richer chocolate flavor I use 3 Tbl. of regular cocoa powder and 2 Tbl. of Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder.  It’s guaranteed to satisfy a chocolate craving. :-)
This recipe is gluten free.  If you also need to make it dairy free you might try making up some coconut milk from powder and using that in place of the milk.  Almond or rice milk would probably work fine too although I don’t know about their heating qualities.