Pre-cooked lobster

I thought it would be fun to cook a seafood dinner to ring in the new year last week.  Yet when I got to the grocery store, I almost changed my mind.  The lobster tails on sale at Hy-Vee were frozen and small, but still cost $24 for two tails. The king crab legs, also frozen, were packaged together in shrink wrap, with a price tag of more than $40!  I wasn't feeling too flush with cash after the Christmas holiday, so I passed on both of these "sale" items.  I went up to the butchers' counter and saw cooked, whole lobsters on sale for $10 each.  I would have loved to have bought a live lobster, but Hy-Vee didn't sell them.  So I bought one of the cooked lobsters, since it was a little more in my price range.

We weren't exactly sure how to warm up a pre-cooked lobster in the shell.  My husband searched on the Internet for instructions.  The best advice he found was to place the lobster in boiling water for just a couple minutes to warm it up.  So that's what he did.

The lobster turned out pretty good, although not the best we've ever had.  My husband said he'd like to try the pre-cooked lobster again so he could try to make a lobster roll or salad recipe.  Lobster is always a treat, especially when we live in land-locked Iowa!

Church Cookbook Sunday: Rhubarb Swirl Dessert

I am a proud owner of a ton of church cookbooks.  OK, maybe not a ton, but I have stacks and stacks of cookbooks in my spare bedroom. 

A couple of the books are "leftovers" that my mom didn't want anymore.  A few years back, my mother-in-law surprised me by sending me a full box of old 1970s church cookbooks she had "grown" out of.  And I also inherited a few wonderful church cookbooks from my grandmother, who was an amazing cook.

I'm a weekend cook (my husband gets home earlier than I do and does all the cooking during the week), so I have to admit, I haven't tried many of the church cookbook recipes.  So as motivation, I'm starting a regular feature on my blog, "Church Cookbook Sunday."  I'll be picking a recipe from one of my many church cookbooks, and then sharing the recipe with all you wonderful blog readers.

Just a funny side note, I told my husband I was making a recipe from a church cookbook, and he said, "Good. Those are the good recipes."  I think that was a subtle jab at all the kooky recipes I like to try from magazines and the Internet.  What can I say?  I like to try new foods.

Anyhow, this week's church cookbook pick is Rhubarb Swirl dessert.  I still have lots of rhubarb growing in my backyard, and my air conditioner is broken, which means no turning on the oven and heating up the house.  This recipe is perfect, because it's completely no bake.

Rhubarb Swirl
From the Deer Creek Lutheran Church Cookbook (from Carpenter, Iowa -- my grandmother's home town)

• 1 (3 oz.) box strawberry Jello
• 3 C. diced rhubarb
• 3/4 C. sugar
• 1 (3.4 oz.) box instant vanilla pudding
• 1-1/2 C. milk
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla
• 8 oz. Cool Whip topping 

Graham cracker crust:

• 2 C. graham crackers, crushed
• 1/3 C. powdered sugar
• 1/2 C. melted margarine (I use butter)
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon 

Pour sugar over rhubarb and set 1 hour. Put in saucepan and simmer until tender, 10 to 15 minutes. Pour in Jello and mix until dissolved. Set aside and cool until syrupy.  Prepare pudding with milk and vanilla. Then add topping and mix well. Pour rhubarb mix into pudding and gently swirl. Put into prepared graham cracker crust and chill overnight.

Crust:  Mix together ingredients. Press all but 1/4 C. (for topping) in a 9x13-inch pan. Chill 1 hour before pouring rhubarb filling on.  Sprinkle reserved crumbs on top.

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Now, admittedly, this dessert doesn't look very pretty.  Part of the reason is that I couldn't wait to dig in before it had fully chilled.  But it still tasted good.  Really good.  My husband couldn't believe the it was a rhubarb dessert, because the rhubarb was so tender and the strawberry Jello was the predominant flavor.  Still, it's a good way to use up some garden rhubarb on a hot spring day.

Learning to cook

When I say I'm a beginning cook, I really mean it.  I barely know my way around the kitchen.  My husband does almost all the cooking in our house.  He returns home from work before me, so he usually has supper almost done when I get home.  And he's a really good cook.

Most of my cooking attempts are subpar.  I like to try new recipes to learn, but most of them are failures.  Usually, my husband has to step in to "rescue" a recipe by adding a dash of this or that.

But I would love to give my husband a break from the kitchen on the weekends.  So I've decided to stick to the basics and try to learn to cook a few of my favorite meals that aren't in his regular weeknight rotation because they take more than 30 minutes or so to prepare.

When I was growing up, my favorite dish was chicken and rice.  You just throw together white rice, cream of mushroom soup, a little water and onion soup mix together, top with chicken pieces, cover with foil and bake for about an hour.  

I recently prepared this recipe along with my one of my favorite salad recipes, another retro classic from my grandmother.  First, heat crushed pineapple to a boil, then add your favorite jello flavor. Refrigerate until it gels, then mix in cottage cheese and Cool Whip.  No, it's not the fanciest, healthiest salad.  But I always think of my grandmother when I make it.  And she will also be my favorite cooking role model.