Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Wisdom From The Relief Society Kitchen

To: Abbottsville Fourth Ward Relief Society
From: Ruth Turley, Relief Society Enrichment Leader
Subject: Everybody said they loved my spaghetti pie last 


night at the Enrichment Meeting pot luck which surprised me cause it didn't turn out as good as it usually does. Anywho, here's the recipe.

Spaghetti Pie

Ingredients:

About 1/3 to 1/2 package of spaghetti, or as much as my Terry can hold in his fist. (Be aware he's big for a 3 year old.)

1 pound meat

1 egg

1/4 package Jell-O, any flavor other than lime, I think that's why last night's looked a little strange.

1/2 cup cottage cheese. Don't use fat-free, because it turns the whole thing into a watery mess that will gross everybody out, especially if combined with lime Jell-O.

1 jar spaghetti sauce. I use the store brand, but if you want to be fancy, you can buy the kind with what's-his-name's picture on the label. You know, the guy who made non-church approved movies with Robert Redford back in the 1920's or something.

1 cup cheese. I use Velveeta cause there's always some in the fridge. But you can also use American or Cheez Whiz or the powdered kind in the Mac and Cheese mix. -- Or Kraft if you want to be fancy.



Method:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Brown meat so that it's not red, not black, but not that putrid grey color either.

Cook the spaghetti until it's soft, you know, like regular spaghetti. Some cooks like to use the "throw the spaghetti against the wall to test doneness" method, only when I tried it, my entire household joined in and things got way out of hand.




I had to boil a whole new pot.





When the spaghetti is done, drain and put it back in the pot. Combine the coagulants -- the egg and the Jell-O (not lime!) -- then dump the mix into the spaghetti and smoosh everything together with your hands.

Dump the spaghetti into a standard size pie dish and push it against the bottom and up the sides. You know, like a pie crust.

Dump in the cottage cheese, dump in the meat, then dump the sauce on top of everything else. If the filling is getting too tall, smoosh it down with a spatula, or your elbow, or a Book of Mormon DVD -- whatever you have on hand. Remember what happens in your kitchen, stays in your kitchen.

Sprinkle on the cheese. I advise not getting the cheese on the spaghetti because it will get brown and ball up and your kids will compare it to boogers or something.

Carefully place the pie in the oven on a center rack. NOTE: if you use a regular pie pan you should be able to place the pie in the oven by itself. If you use one of those aluminum disposable thingies, DO NOT place it in there by itself because it's so heavy at this point that it will collapse and you will have a mess that children and cats and dogs will "help" you clean up. You might even swear, then be consumed with guilt, and start to bawl like an emotionally challenged child, while your own emotionally challenged children look on in horror. Put the aluminum dish on a baking sheet instead, it's safer.

Sorry honey, looks like take-out tonight
Here's the part where I feel a little dumb. I can never remember how long I bake it for. I know it's longer than 30 minutes but not sure if it's 45. It's a tough call since the battery on my smoke detector died. Sometime after the gunk encrusted on my oven walls starts to sizzle but before I have to run next door to borrow a fire extinguisher.

Carefully remove the finished pie from the oven. NOTE: Use two hands and oven mitts -- not one of those cheap thin towels from Costco, or you might be tempted to swear.

Anywho . . .   Bon Appetit!


If you would like to stop receiving these e-mails, the Relief Society will come by with a casserole.

6 comments:

  1. "Or Kraft if you want to be fancy."

    I love this!

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  2. Yes, well every ward RS has one or two of those uppity types.

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  3. I'm not sure I've ever heard of using jello and cheese in the same dish but you certainly give this particular recipe a vivid graphic picture. Coagulants? That makes my stomach recoil in anticipation.

    I have a theory why Mormons have such a fondness for bad cheap processed bland food. It helps them feel like they're making huge sacrifices and therefore compensates for the sins of thinking about sex, like some sort of hair shirt or self flaggelation. If they eat enough jello with peas and carrots in it they can masturbate twice or vice versa. If they go to nine funerals and eat greasy cheezy potatos and watery ham, they can watch one porn movie.

    My mother was so good at making the Velveeta stretch that she once served what is now the infamous "Cow plop" mac and cheese dinner. She would take a glop of the Velveeta, or in really hard times, the Western Family processed cheese and put it in the pot of boiled mac noodles with some milk, margarine, and a little orange food coloring to make it look cheesier. It really just had the essence of cheese, but we thought we were eating well.

    Anyway, one night she grabbed the food coloring and poured some in and it was the green. The resulting color and sheen was spot on accurate if you were duplicating a fresh cow pie, complete with little curls and steam. She served dinner by candlelight that night.

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  4. Damnit Damnit Damnit Insana D! I meant to say Western Family! Also, all good RS sisters use orange food coloring in their mac cheese. I knew that ... I did. Please don't tell the RS pres. Please!!!

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  5. Because of the home canned green beans my mother put up every year, and made sure to boil till all the flavor was gone and they took on a very grey green I had no idea that green beans could be bright green. I remember the first time I ate a fresh lightly steamed green bean. I wasn't sure what vegetable it was and thought maybe it was an exotic form of asparagus.

    My mother found something even cheaper than Western Family. She would search around Utah Valley for places that sold dented cans and stuff that had been in a store fire or flood. The labels were often gone so it was anybodies guess what was inside. We didn't eat from the bulging cans, but a dent, a rust spot, even mouse droppings on top was no matter for Mom.

    One time when a local grocery store burned down she was sure she'd hit the lottery. She managed to cart home several grocery carts of various smoke stained seared label-less cans and three large 50 lb. bags of singed sugar. It had a smokey flavor but she didn't limit how much we could put on our oatmeal or Malt-o-meal faux cheereos. I never celebrated the bottom of a bag of sugar like I did when that stuff was gone.

    We didn't even get real koolaid. We were too poor for koolaid. Nope, Flavoraide. It's a lot like making a punch with the dust from the hood of your car.

    She bought pancake mix that was past it's sell by date and just picked the weevils out and I assumed that's what everyone did with pancake mix. I had no idea that tuna fish could be white like albacore. If it wasn't a nasty grey with lots of smelly water and mushed up like baby poo, it wasn't tuna fish.

    The only delicacies I still fondly remember from childhood were the bottled peaches and the real raspberry jam. Everything else just brings back so many bad memories. I left Mormonism just so I could eat better. Thats as good a reason as any.

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  6. Wow. Can't make this stuff up! That's why Mormon themed blogs are so fun to write.

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