Cooking Club

Hey, y'all. Today, I'm in the kitchen, and it's all about, like, cooking clubs

In the clubhouse with me today, y'all, is my friend Susan. She is just telling all the dirt, y'all

We're starting off with brunch stuffed peppers packed with some serious flavor

Ooh, yum, yum, yum. Don't these look delicious? Then it's sparkling cherry lemonade that's just as beautiful as it is sweet

Look at it. Oh, how pretty! Next, Susan is sharing an oatmeal casserole recipe that is unbelievably tasty

Finally, you won't believe this combination of ricotta pancakes and thyme-infused syrup

Well, let's go sit down on the front porch and rock and tell stories. Yes, darling

There ain't nobody I'd rather be in the cooking club with than my friend Susan Green

A.K.A. Bubbles. Her grandchildren call her Bubbles. She's one of my dearest, oldest friends

Y'all, she goes all the way back to the days of the bag lady. What are you doing, baby

Honey, I'm cutting these yellow bell peppers. Okay. Our first dish that we're going to do is a brunched stuffed pepper

It's very good. We're taking yellow bell peppers. You're cutting like two-thirds of the top off

because we're going to use these as like bowls for our dish

And Susan, you do a lot of brunches, don't you? Yes, every Sunday we get together for a family brunch

Isn't that wonderful? And when you're pushed for times, the quick and easy are wonderful

I'm fixing to make the custard that goes on top. So we're using three-fourths a cup of milk

a fourth of a cup of sour cream, and then just pour it into our bowl

a little pepper, a little salt, and while Susan chops about two tablespoons

of green onion, I'm gonna crack three eggs. Alright. And, um... I'm gonna put some potatoes. Okay

This is a cup of shredded hash browns, I believe. Now, you can use a frozen

shredded hash brown, or you can use a leftover baked potato that you've had

maybe from the night before dinner. We don't have leftovers. And you can just shred..

We don't have many leftovers in our house, either. All right, I'm just going to whisk all those together

All right, honey, measure me out a half a cup. Now, what I'm fixing to put in it, y'all, is my biscuit mix

Here's your knife so you can level just like that. I use my hands like you do

Ready, honey? Uh-huh. How many years we've been in the kitchen together, Susan

How many in the kitchen? Bag lady. Bag lady. Bag lady. I used to come down, and we would do biscuits about 2 o'clock in the morning

on top of a wooden board that covered the stove. And then we would..

That was my counter space. Yeah, counter space. And then if the containers came back

we kind of had to rinse them out because we might have to use them again

and go to the day-old bread store, buy lots of bread, but we only had a dollar

She's just telling all the dirt, y'all. We ain't told it all yet

No, Susan, I used to go to a deli shop. that everybody knows cross-country

and I would buy the bread that they didn't sell for that day. And it had been baked that morning

It was still like new. So, like I said, she's airing my dirty laundry now. No

Look where it's gotten. Look where it's gotten, huh? All righty. So, you know, I didn't have much money

I had to make sure it was good and fresh, but yet I couldn't spend a ton of money

We're putting our green onions on top. We're going to put a little cheese

We're going to be putting about a tablespoon of Monterey Jack on each pepper

All right, now we're just going to pour our custard on top of these

And Susan's chopping up a half a pound of bacon that we cooked off earlier

And we just sprinkle it right on top. You know, it kind of doesn't matter how you layer this stuff

It's just going to be good. All right. I'm going to finish

You going to put a little bit more? Yeah. We'll just use the rest of our custard sauce

Yum, yum, yum. Don't these look delicious? Could we use green peppers as well

We could use anything that you wanted to use. Okay. Holiday too, huh

Yeah, they'd be beautiful for Christmas morning. We could do red and green

Yes, we could do red and green. It would be fabulous. You could use sausage if you didn't like bacon

or you could use ham. Now, we're just going to top these with some more cheese, Susan

Okie dokie. And we're going to put these in the preheated oven at 350 for about 45 minutes

All right, so put that in the oven. Okie dokie. While I'm washing up my hands, I'm going to squat

This is how Paul does it. Isn't this how you do it? All right so come on down We going to make a sparkling sweet cherry lemonade Sounds fabulous So I got my blender here y

Susan is going to squeeze out one cup of lemon juice. I have got a 10-ounce package of frozen pitted cherries

I'm adding the cherries to one cup of sugar in the blender. All right

You know what? If you make this a lot, you don't have to have liposuction in your arms. What happened to real lemon in the bottle

This is my bubbles, y'all. Now, Susan, eventually, is going to have us a cup of fresh lemon juice

There we go. Perfect. All right, into the blender that goes. Then we just blend our mixture all together

There we go. Just that simple. We're just going to pour this into our pitcher

And then we're going to fill it up with sparkling water. Look at it

Oh, how pretty. How pretty is that? We're just going to pour this over our ice now

And you decorate it. I've got some fresh cherries. I've got picks

And I've got some pretty lemon wheels. Oh. Aren't those pretty? They're going, well, the hollow's a little longer

No, you don't put it there. I know. Jesus. You act like we ain't never been in the kitchen together

Okay. All right, so let's get you a straw. And that delicious scarlet

Yes, darling. Well, let's go sit down on the front porch and rock and tell stories

All right. Coming up, Susan's got a sweet twist on this oatmeal casserole

Susan, this is so delicious, and it's not even ready yet. And later, y'all know I just can't wait to start cooking these ricotta pancakes

along with that time-infused syrup. You ready? Yes. Bring them on, honey

Bring them on. So we're making a recipe. No, you are making my recipe

Oh, I'm gonna, you're gonna make me make it? I'm in the driver's seat. You're in the passenger seat

And let's hope we don't have a wreck. I know firsthand, y'all, this is good

So you'll want to make sure this one gets in your collection. So I'm yours

Tell me what to do. Okay. We're going to make an apple cinnamon oatmeal mini casserole with a cinnamon oat nut topping

Got that? Yes. Okay. You're going to add a cup and a half of milk

And you're going to put this in the saucepan over here. A fourth of a cup of packed brown sugar

Okay. All right, I'm cutting up a cup of chopped red apple and leave the peeling on it

And there again, you know, I'm always talking about the nutrients being in the peeling

There it is. All right, so there we got a fourth of a cup now

Okay, now you're going to add a tablespoon of butter. And if you want to do a big one, that's fine

Okey-doke. Add a half a teaspoon of salt. I'm going to cut up a half a cup of pecans

We're going to do them by hand, I guess, right? I don't know where my nut chopper is

Oh. You're going to get it all melted together. We probably don't want it to fall, do we? No

You know, we took dancing classes back in the fall. You and Phil

Yes, but his knee bothered him. He couldn't do it. Y'all took dancing

Listen, do you know... I've been dancing on my life. Because my memory served me right

Did you used to teach dance and it did you preach it? Mm-hmm

No, I think I remember you being a teacher. You have to be coordinated

You have to be coordinated. Chop and squeeze. One and two, three and four

Tight. Okay. Any tighter and I'm not going to be able to move

Okay, now we're going to do a cup of quick cooking oats. Okay. Okay

It doesn't take but a second for that five-minute oatmeal to come together, y'all

So it's already starting to thicken, Susan. A tablespoon of cinnamon. Okay

Okey-doke. You know, and it's healthy with the oatmeal. Yes, it is

Cholesterol. It lowers your cholesterol, doesn't it? You can get off all those funky pills and just eat cholesterol. Uh-huh

Just eat cholesterol. Roll oatmeal. Okay, now we're going to take the apples

Now, this is a cup. I'll just use a whole apple in your mixture

Half the pecans. Add two tablespoons of chopped apricots. Okay, now these are dried

You can get these in your baking section. Chopped, dried cherries. Okay, and how much

Two tablespoons. Two tablespoons. Two tablespoons. They look like a big, fat raisin

Now half a cup of regular raisins. There we go All right so I gonna come over here You got some beautiful little heart bowls Yeah spray them with the little non spray there You know you talking about the squatting and squeezing

Do you remember Walter Beck? Yes, I remember Walter Beck. Honey, he told me he used to sit behind Paula in phonics class

That was in junior high school, and he said, I had the biggest crush on you. He said she was the sexiest, cutest little cheerleader he had ever seen

Raw, raw, re! So I'm going to fill our casserole dishes while Susan's making the topping

We're doing a fourth of a cup of packed brown sugar. Susan, this stuff is so delicious

And not even cooked. It's so good. Isn't it good? I love oatmeal. Mama used to cook it all the time

Scant teaspoon of cinnamon. This tastes like oatmeal cookie dough, y'all. It doesn't

Mmm. But the apples give it a little crunch to it. Okay, now we're going to do some of these chopped pecans, a tablespoon of chopped pecans

Let's do two. Okay. Is that okay if we add to it? I like nutty stuff

I like nutty stuff, too. That's why we like each other. Mm-hmm. Okay. A little crunchy, crunchy, crunchy

Mm-hmm. Three tablespoons of oats. One. Very good. Two, three. Then we just sprinkle our mixture on top of our casserole, y'all

Put just a tad of butter on that. It just makes it a little bit better

I love that. This would be cute for you to have for Michael for Valentine's

We're going to put this in a preheated oven. Mm-hmm. 350? 350

For how long? About 20 minutes. Let's put it in this little oven. You want to

Sure. That is going to be delicious. Coming up, we're putting together those pancakes and starting that sweet syrup, y'all

These are gonna be so delicious. And later, we're putting the finishing touches on this meal that you just have to have

Lord, they'll think they've died and gone to heaven. We're back here in the kitchen

I'm having such a good time with my buddy today. Y'all, this is Susan Greenshine

and I've been friends for years. She's from Albany. She is the hostess with the mostest

Well, the next dish that we're going to do, Susan, is a delicious ricotta-infused pancake with thyme syrup

That's a mouthful, y'all, but it's really so easy to do. I'm going to ask you to separate these three eggs

because we're going to need the yolks and the whites. While you're doing that, I'm going to put together our syrup

And that is two cups of water, one cup of sugar, about 20 stems of fresh thyme, stems and all

We're going to let this come to a boil. And what I'm going to do to this, y'all, to make it thick, is I'm just going to tighten it with cornstarch

I'm going to take about a tablespoon and a half of cornstarch, and I'm going to mix it with a little water

Do you know the other day I whipped cream and put that cornstarch in it

And I mean, it stayed forever. Did it? It did not separate. You are kidding

Because whipping cream won't last very long for you. All right, now I'm just going to mix this up

And when you're using cornstarch, you know you want to use not warm water, but cold water

And this is just going to tighten up our syrup and make it thick and hot and delicious

We're gonna let this come to a bowl, and then we're gonna add our cornstarch

All right, well, come on down here, and we're gonna put our pancake part together. You can just toss your egg whites in that blue bowl, Susan

Mm-hmm. And we're gonna beat those until they're stiff peaks. And in my bowl, I'm gonna put in two cups of all-purpose flour

Doesn't this sound delicious? Yes. I'm gonna add a teaspoon and a half of baking powder

Are you boiling over there? Yeah, we're starting to boil. So I'm going to come down here, and I'm going to add our cornstarch mixture

Thyme-infused syrup. That sounds kind of preetsy-like, doesn't it? Yes, it does

All right, so let's move on over, and your egg whites look perfect

So in this one, we're going to mix up our wet ingredients, and you're going to need a cup and a half of ricotta cheese

Here, why don't I help you? Good idea. It's probably going to take about this whole little carton

Okie doke. There you go. Now we need a fourth of a cup of sour cream

Okie dokie. We're going to add one cup of milk and then we're going to add a half a teaspoon of salt

And we're just gonna mix those up. Here, I'll hold that for you

All right, good ideas. All right that looks good That looks good All right let add in our yolks All right and then we got about two teaspoons of lemon zest

All right, and about a cup of nuts. These are going to be so delicious

Yeah, that's about a cup. What country are we using for the method

That's good enough right there. Okey-dokey. All right, now I'm just going to dump in our dry ingredients

Mm-hmm. And I'm just going to whisk those together. Doesn't that smell delicious

That lemon zest in there. Mm-hmm. Doesn't that smell good? Mm-hmm. You don't have to chop some thyme to put in here

Yes. Let me get down. Thank you. Thank you. Let me get down here too much. You need a teaspoon of thyme

That's all? All right, so while you're doing that, I'll fold in these egg whites

Does this time come out of your garden? No, I don't have any time right now

I don't have time for time. This batter looks fabulous, Susan. Mm-mm-mm

There you go. We're going to just fold that in. So we're going to take a quick break so Susan can clean up my kitchen

She's made a mess. And when we come back, we're going to grill our pancakes

Coming up, these pancakes are looking as good as they smell. Oh, Susan

Ooh, yum. Isn't that pretty? Then we just don't have the words to describe how delicious this meal is, y'all

Oh, mmm. Yes, mmm. Yes. Well, welcome back, y'all

We're about to get the last recipe done up. Haven't we had fun today

We have a ball. Now, here we go. I'm going to put on some batter, like right there

And right here. And look at the texture of those pancakes, Susan

Yum. You can see the nuts and see the thyme in there

Ooh, yum. All right, now, if you would... This might be a dessert. I know. Be straining our syrup

I can handle that, ma'am. Now, when you're cooking pancakes, y'all, you want to watch for the bubbles

Because when they start bubbling, that means they're about ready to flip

All right, I'm going to put a little bit more oil just right around the cracks of these pancakes

so that'll give them something to cook in. Some oil. Yeah, some oil

How many syllables you got in that? Susan, when I'm out on the road, don't raise their hand

Raise it. Paula, tell us what you cook your chicken in. Want me to say, oh

Oh. Okay. All right, I'm going to take a peek. Oh, Susan

Ooh, yum. Isn't that pretty? These pancakes are so heavenly. Why don't you get the rest of our food out, Susie Q

Oh, yum. Wow. Oh, Susan, how delicious. Is that not? That's beautiful

Oh, these pancakes are just doing... Oh, look. Look how sweet those are, y'all

Why don't you go ahead and be fixing us a little plate, Susan

and we'll eat these hot off the grill as they come up. How about that? Okay

Want a big pepper or a little pepper? It doesn't matter. Just give me a pepper. Give me a pepper

May I dare? Yes, darling. Go ahead. You know what? I'm going to start with..

With your pancake? With the pancakes. Yikes. Ooh, look at this pepper

Yeah, you start with the pepper. Wouldn't this be a great thing to do on a Sunday night

I'm going to do this the next time the children come over. Is it good

Mm. Mm. Oh. Oh. Mm. Yes. Mm. Mm. Yes. This is a keeper

Mm. Good? Yes. The nuts and the pancake. Do you just love that time in it or what

Mm. You know, we all should be so lucky to have good cooking buddies

And I couldn't ask for a better buddy than you. I love you, dear

I love you too, Susan. Go out and grab your cooking buddy

And get in the kitchen and enjoy a little time with each other

It's so worth the effort. And it's easy. And it's easy. Until next time, y'all

Best dishes and love. From our kitchens to yours