Joanne Fluke's Lake Eden Cookbook Part 10

1 teaspoon crushed fresh baby dill (if you can't find baby

dill, you can make it with teaspoon dried dill weed,

but it won't be as good)

Mix the cream with the mayonnaise until it's smooth, and then stir in the dill. Put the sauce in a small bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for at least 4 hours.

EDNA'S EASY CELERY SAUCE Hannah's 1st Note: If you make your Salmon Cakes at the drop of a hat, the way I occasionally do, you won't have time to make the Dill Sauce. All Edna's Easy Celery Sauce requires is a can of cream of celery soup and some milk or cream.

Hannah's 2nd Note: The can of cream of celery soup should be in your pantry as a staple, along with a can of cream of mushroom soup, a can of tomato soup, and a can of cream of chicken soup. They're a good base for any sauce you want to make on the fly.

one can of cream of celery soup, undiluted (10 to 11 ounces

depending on brand name I used Campbell's)

milk or cream to thin it

Open the can. Dump it in a small microwave-safe bowl. Heat it in the microwave until it's piping hot. (Try 30 seconds and see if it's hot enough. If not, heat at 15-second increments until it is.) Thin it with milk or cream to sauce consistency.

Drizzle the sauce over the Salmon Cakes, sprinkle on a little parsley or fresh dill if you happen to have it, and serve immediately.

Hannah's 3rd Note: Edna tells me that you can also use undiluted cream of chicken soup (if you're using the chicken variation) cream of mushroom soup, or cream of garlic soup. She also said something about cream of asparagus soup for Shrimp Cakes, but I haven't tried it.

WANMANSITA Ca.s.sEROLE.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F., rack in the middle position.

2 pounds lean hamburger10

2 medium onions, sliced

1 cup diced celery (that's about 3 stalks)

1 green bell pepper, seeded and diced

1 large package of crinkle noodles (I used egg noodles that

were twisted in the middle.)

2 cans (14.5 ounces each) of diced tomatoes with juice

1 can (5 ounces) sliced water chestnuts**** (Sally uses

chopped)

1 can (4 ounces) mushroom pieces

2 teaspoons c.u.min

2 teaspoons chili powder

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon pepper (freshly ground is best, of course)

2 cups grated cheddar cheese

Start by spraying a 9-inch by 13-inch cake pan, or a half-size disposable steam table pan with Pam or another nonstick cooking spray. If you choose to use a disposable pan, set it on a cookie sheet to support the bottom and make it easier to move it from the counter to the oven.

Pour 6 quarts of water into a big pot and put it on the stove to boil. You'll use this to cook the noodles. (If you start heating the water now, it should be boiling by the time you're ready to cook the noodles. If it boils too early and you're not ready, just turn down the heat a little. If it's not ready when you are, crank up the heat and wait for the boil.) Crumble the hamburger and brown it over medium heat in a large frying pan, stirring it around with a metal spatula and breaking it up into pieces as it fries. This should take about 15 or 20 minutes.

When the hamburger is nice and brown, put a bowl under a colander so that you can save about cup of fat to use with the onions. Dump the hamburger into the colander to drain it.

Put the drained hamburger into the prepared baking pan.

Pour the cup of hamburger grease back into the frying pan.

Peel the onions and slice them into inch thick slices. (When you do this they may fall apart in rings and that's perfectly okay.) Place the onion slices in the frying pan, but don't turn on the heat quite yet.

Dice the celery. Add it to the onion slices in the frying pan.

Cut open the green bell pepper and take out the seeds, the stem, and the tough white membranes. Chop the remaining pepper into bite-sized pieces. Once that's done, add them to the onions and celery in your frying pan.

Cook the aromatic vegetables (that's what they call them on the Food Channel) over medium heat until they're tender when pierced with a fork.

Drain them in the same colander you used for the hamburger, and then mix them up with the hamburger in your baking pan.

Add some salt to your boiling water on the stove. Then dump in the noodles, stir them around, let the water come back to a boil, and then turn down the heat a bit so the pot doesn't boil over. Set your timer for whatever it says on the noodle package directions and cook the noodles, stirring every minute or so to make sure they don't stick together.

Drain the cooked noodles in the same colander you've been using all along, add them to your baking pan, and mix them up with everything else.

Add the diced tomatoes, juice and all, to your baking pan. Wait to stir. You don't want to mush your noodles by stirring too much.

Open and drain the cans of water chestnuts and mushroom pieces in the colander that's still sitting in the sink.

Dump the water chestnuts and mushrooms on top of the tomatoes in your baking pan.

Sprinkle the c.u.min over the top of your ca.s.serole.

Sprinkle the chili powder on top of the c.u.min. (Gary says to tell you that if your chili powder has been sitting around for as long as theirs has, it's a good idea to buy fresh.) Sprinkle on the salt and grind the pepper on top of that.

Now is the time to mix it all up. This might not be easy if the baking pan's too full to stir with a spoon. If that's happened, just wash your hands thoroughly and dive in with your fingers to mix everything up. When you're through, pat the ca.s.serole so it's nice and even on top, and call it a day.

Wash your hands again, and then cover the baking pan with a single thickness of foil.

Bake at 325 degrees F. for 60 minutes, or until you peek under the foil and see that it's hot and bubbling.

Remove the pan from the oven. Remove the foil slowly and carefully to avoid burning yourself with the steam that may roll out. Set the foil on the counter to use again in a few minutes.

Sprinkle the 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese over the top and return the baking pan to the oven. Bake it, uncovered, for another 10 minutes, or until the cheese melts.

Cover the pan again with that foil you saved, and let your ca.s.serole sit on a cold burner or rack to set up for at least 10 minutes, and then serve and enjoy!

Hannah's 1st Note: Sally says to tell you that she made 4 pans of this for a luncheon meeting. There were 25 people and she had one whole pan left over.

Hannah's 2nd Note: Gary says to tell you that they didn't serve seconds, though.

Yield: Judging from the above notes, I'd guess that one pan of Wanmansita Ca.s.serole would serve 8 to 10 people, especially if you served fresh b.u.t.tered rolls and a nice mixed green salad on the side.

"This is really good chicken salad," Alice Vogel said as she helped herself to a little more. "You know I don't cook very often. I just don't have the time. But do you think I could make it?"

"You could make it easy with some shortcuts," Edna Ferguson, the woman Hannah secretly called the queen of shortcuts, replied. She turned to her right where Florence Evans was sitting. "Do you have cooked chicken down at the Red Owl?"