Salsa

4 roma tomatoes
½ sweet vidalia onion
2 jalapeños
2 cloves garlic
3 limes
8 ounces tomato sauce
cilantro (to taste)
salt (to taste)
pepper (to taste)

This makes quite a spicy salsa for the non-acclimated mouth, so be careful!

Dice the tomatoes, onion, jalapeños, and garlic and mix together in a bowl. Chop the cilantro leaves and add them into the mix, and then juice the limes over the whole thing. Season it all with the salt and pepper and then stir it up well. Pour that mixture into a pot with the tomato sauce and bring it rapidly to a boil. Once it's boiling, cover the pot and let it sit over very low heat for half an hour. Chill and enjoy.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 ¼ cups bread flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup margarine
¾ cup sugar
¾ cup brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
2 cups chocolate chips

Mix the wet ingredients well and then add the dry ingredients. Separate into small balls on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 10 minutes. This makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Easy Guacamole

1 ripe avocado (peeled and pitted)
½ cup salsa
1 tablespoon lemon juice
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon red pepper sauce

Mash the avocado in a medium bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. And serve.

makes: 1¼ cups

Egg Drop Soup

4 cups chicken broth or stock
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 or 2 green onions, minced
Salt to taste
¼ teaspoon white pepper (optional)
A few drops of sesame oil (optional)

Bring the broth to a boil, and then add in the salt, white pepper, and sesame oil. Cook the seasoned broth for about a minute. Slowly and steadily pour the egg into the boiling soup. If you want the egg to be shredded in the soup, stir the soup briskly as you pour the egg in. Garnish it with green onions, and enjoy it hot.

Homestyle Butter

1 pint heavy whipping cream

Churn the cream until the butter in it coagulates and separates from the buttermilk. Scoop the butter (that is, the coagulated cream), out of the buttermilk and put it in a bowl. Press the butter against the side of the bowl with a spatula to squeeze out the extra buttermilk, which you then should pour back into the rest of the buttermilk. The more you squeeze the butter, the harder and less creamy it will get. If you're going to store it for a while, squeeze it very well and then rinse it (see below). If you're going to eat it all up right away, you probably don't want to squeeze it so much. Either way, you'll want to eat it up fairly quickly, since it's got no preservatives to embalm it.

If you need to rinse the butter, then after you've squeezed out all the buttermilk that's easy to squeeze, pour in a little cold water (around ¼ cup) and stir it up into the butter. It won't mix in, but it will mix with any remaining buttermilk. Squeeze out the water and pour it off, noting its color. If the water you've squeezed out wasn't as clear as it was when you put it in, then repeat the rinse. If it was just as clear coming out as going in, then your butter is well-rinsed, and should last longer: a week, maybe two, instead of just overnight.

Blåbærsuppe (Blueberry Soup)

10½ ounces blueberries
2½ cups water
1¼ teaspoon cornstarch
sugar to taste

Stir everything together while cool, and then bring to a boil. Enjoy it hot in a cup or cold in a bowl.

Dixie Salad

It's just like Ambrosia, except along with all the fruit, you also add the following:

pecan halves
pomegranate seeds