Hear me out on this one. When I was a teenager, my mom went through a “health food” kick. Since we only ate fast food about twice the entire time I was growing up, I don’t know what other kind of kick we were usually on, but at some point, she decided to shake things up a bit. I don’t remember much about it, except one night she made carrot casserole and I LOVED it. I raved about it so much it became a staple of our weekly dinners. Nah, she NEVER made it again. She has claimed through the years that she lost the recipe. Whatever, that’s what Google is for, amiright?

Here’s the recipe as found on Allrecipes.com:

8 cups of sliced carrots,

1 can of cream of mushroom soup (undiluted)

1 small onion

1 4 oz can of mushroom stems and pieces (drained)

1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese

1 tablespoon of butter or margarine

1 cup of soft bread crumbs.

First, I chopped up a bazillion carrots. Later, my sister-in-law mentioned she’d probably just buy a bag of frozen, but the Moron Kitchen doesn’t cut corners! Plus, I never though of that. Put the carrots in a pot, cover with water and bring to a boil. Then reduce the heat and let simmer until tender.

While all that is going on, saute your onions and mushrooms in a tablespoon of butter. I guess I got a little sloppy with the carrots, but flinging them in with the onions didn’t hurt things any. And because we had a bunch of fresh mushrooms, we just cut some up and threw them in with the onions instead of using the canned kind. I might have forgotten to take a picture, but trust me on this.

Once the carrots are tender, drain the water, then throw the onions and mushrooms in the pot. Add 1/2 cup of parmesan cheese, the mushroom soup, and mix well. Then pour into a greased 2.5 quart cooking dish and top with bread crumbs.

Throw it all in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes and voila –

Serious YUM. Honestly, I ate 4 helpings! JD liked it, my brother liked it, and my sister-in-law said it made her heart happy!

The actual recipe says it’s only about 140 calories per cup, so it’s light AND delicious. If I had to change anything, I might add another half cup of the soup. I loved the creamy mushroom taste.

Moron Test: A+. It’s so good, I might even make it for my mother next week. Once.

Seriously. This has got to be the easiest dessert in the history of easy desserts. Which begs the question – where has it been all my life??? I don’t even know the name of this recipe. One of my bridge ladies made it last night and it was delish! I’m calling it Milk Sop Cookie Cake but I’m pretty sure that’s not it’s official name.

First, the cast of characters –

Two packages of Chips Ahoy chocolate-chip cookies, a large container of Cool Whip and some milk. That’s it.

Dip the cookies in the milk and put them in an ungreased pan. Don’t worry about how long, is it a soak or a dip, blah, blah, blah. Just dip them, in and out, and put them in the pan.

Then cover the layer with Cool Whip. Then start a SECOND layer of dipped cookies.

Then cover THAT with Cool Whip. Do you see where this is going? All in all, you put in three layers of dipped cookies, covered with three layers of Cool Whip.

And then you take a few UNdipped cookies, crumble them in your hand and sprinkle on top. Voila! You’re done. I think. I didn’t ask if you were supposed to chill it, but I stuck it in the fridge while I cooked dinner. I figured it would give the cookies a couple of extra minutes to get really saturated with milk.

Serve it up!  Super easy, really yummy, and done in ten minutes.  It tasted a little like a cookie mousse. Which may be a better name than Milk Sop Cookie Cake. Feel free to use either when you serve it to your friends.

Moron Test Grade – A+ (Hat tip to Vicki for the recipe)

As you may recall, I was in Zollicoffer back in July for a family reunion. I had planned on just showing up and eating but my mother got all flustered and swore that we “couldn’t show up empty handed! It just wasn’t DONE.” Really? Cause that’s the way I’ve been showing up for the past 40+ years, but okay. The problem was that neither one of us wanted to make the five minute drive into town to buy groceries. So my mom looked around in her pantry and came up with this –

Flour, egg, oil, brown sugar, baking soda, sugar, and milk. Doesn’t EVERY pantry have this just hanging around? Excellent. Let’s get started.

In one bowl, combine 1 cup of self-rising flour, 1/2 cup of sugar, and 2 tablespoons of cocoa. We didn’t have self-rising flour, but the recipe said this – As a substitute for 1 cup of self-rising flour, place 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a measuring cup. Add all-purpose flour to measure 1 cup. Duh? Like who didn’t know THAT trick?

Stir in 1/2 cup of milk and 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil until smooth. Then pour into a greased 8 inch square pan. Or a round 7 inch. Or and 9 inch oval. We don’t get all legalistic around Zollicoffer – just grab something clean.

Now in a separate bowl, combine 1 cup of firmly packed brown sugar with 1/4 cup of cocoa. Then sprinkle on top of the batter. You know, the stuff you just poured into the greased pan?

Now pour 1 and 3/4 cups of HOT water over the mixture and DO NOT STIR.  I sat there quietly for ten minutes until my mom explained they meant don’t stir the batter. Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes or until top of cake springs back when lightly touched.

Once cooked, take it to your family reunion, then grab a plateful at the first opportunity. See cousin David’s wife watching, and put one of HER brownies on your plate, just to be polite. Chuck her brownie in the trash at the first opportunity. She’s a YANKEE, didn’t we cover this?

Moron Test Grade – A. This was just okay but my mama was supervising and I learned all my cooking from her, so I’m going to assume she put the same amount of love and attention into it that I did. And DESPITE that, if you paired this was some vanilla ice-cream, it would have been delish! I think it’s a great last minute dessert for unexpected guests.

Unless you don’t LIKE your guests, in which case you could just give them David’s wife’s brownie.

Actual recipe HERE.

Tania-the-Mad announced last weekend that she had to make a pot of soup for the fashion show, and I immediately started thinking of excuses why I couldn’t help. I didn’t come all the way to Virginia to spend my nights peeling potatoes. I came all the way to Virginia to sleep on an inch-thick mattress covered in plastic and dodge falling boulders! But Tania-the-Mad assured me this was a VERY easy potato soup recipe. And I’ve got to say – for once in her life, she was telling the truth.

This is it – 2 cans of Cream of Potato soup, 2 cans of diced potatoes, a pint of half-and-half, and a stick of butter. Or margarine. Or whatever Blue Bonnet is.

Throw it in a pot and heat it. I brought mine to a boil and threw in a pinch of salt because that sounded like something a real cook would do, then simmered it awhile. Then I scooped it in a bowl.

Ta-da, Easy Potato Soup! Tania-the-Mad went a little Martha Stewart on us and put bowls of shredded cheese and bacon out for toppings, but I’ve got nothing to prove, so I just added a bit of pepper and called it a day.

Moron Test Grade- A’s all around! Easiest Potato Soup recipe EVER, and yummy. JD ate 3 bowls and asked for more.

I said no, of course, what does he think this is -an all-you-can-eat buffet? Besides, I needed to rest- all that can opening wears a girl out.

Kittens, Zolligirl is on the road, working from a secure location deep in coal mining country, where “Holler” is both a noun and a verb. As everyone gathered in the kitchen, Zolligirl noticed all of the fixings for one of her all time favorites – Baked Spaghetti, and offered to do a Moron Test Kitchen.

Her offer was refused. Odd.

So this is a Kitchen post, minus the moron. Unless you count the photographer.

First you need spaghetti. And a steady hand to focus.

Normally Zolligirl just browns some meat and throws on the sauce, but these cooks wanted to be all fancy like. They sauteed mushrooms and green peppers. They also opted to use ground turkey instead of beef.

Once the turkey was browned, they put some sauce in a pan, and dumped everything together. Since they were feeding the entire family plus 6’4″ Joseph, they used a huge jar of Ragu.

Next take the spaghetti and place it in a baking dish. Add a TON of mozzarella. Seriously, a TON.

Bake at 350 degrees until the cheese has melted into a yummy goo of deliciousness.

Yumola! Moron Test Grade A+. Cheap, easy and delicious. And just like Zolligirl likes it – prepared by other people!

I know, right? ANOTHER Moron Test Kitchen, two in a row? It’s like this. I was reading some information about Google searches and it turns out that Acid Reflux is one of the most searched items on the internet. Who knew? And while I was looking around, I found an easy recipe that is supposed to be good for people suffering from Acid Reflux. And I was hungry.

So here goes:

Cube 4 chicken breasts. I only had 2 but they were big and I’m not going to go all legalistic on my dinner.

Next, start the pasta. The recipe called for bowtie or rotini, but this is what I had.

In a bowl, combine 1 cup of FAT FREE sour cream, a pinch of salt, a pinch of oregano, and a pinch of dried basil. I could only find LOW-fat sour cream and since I was out of basil, I used rosemary. I searched for “foods to be avoided when you have acid reflux” and rosemary was not on any list so I think we’re safe. The recipe said that Fat-Free Sour Cream was much better for people that have acid reflux so don’t get snooty and insist on the good stuff.

Coat a skillet with Pam and brown the chicken. It should take about 8 minutes, which is about how long the pasta took to cook. Convenient!

Add the chicken to the sour cream mixture. This is when I realized that I had put the sour cream in a small bowl and had to move it to something bigger. Learn from my mistake.

Next add the pasta to the mixture, and blend it all together.

Voila! Okay, this was not great, mainly because the sour cream was yucky. If you know of a good low-fat sour cream, it might be okay. JD gave it 3.75 out of 5 stars though, so if I actually suffered from Acid Reflux, I’d probably make this a lot. It was EASY.

I added more oregano and salt, (who the heck knows what a pinch is anyway??) and it was better. Moron Test Grade – A for ease, C for taste, A because it works. I don’t have a bit of heartburn!

Enjoy!