April 10, 2008

Cookbook winner...and a recipe found!

I had such a hard time deciding who should win "Roadfood" by Jane and Michael Stern that I tried something new this time.

I wrote down the names of all the best entries on little slips of paper and had my co-worker, Stephanie Ogilvie, draw one from a basket.

And the winner is........ Amy!!

Amy, if you'll e-mail me your home address at lindsey.nair@roanoke.com, I'll put this book in the mail for you.

Thanks to everybody who entered to win this time. The diner stories were awesome, from Marion's 50s diner in Augusta to Lori's honeymoon food at the Ohana diner in Hawaii. I also really enjoyed Greg's story about being a newlywed and a stranger to Maine, where he found a friendly place that served killer seafood chowder. What I wouldn't give for a bowl of that stuff today.

Thanks, everyone! My desk is stacked high with cookbooks right now, so stay tuned for the next giveaway!

Moving on, I wanted to address yesterday's blog entry about the missing recipe for peanut butter fingers. According to Whitney, the reader who was looking for the recipe, we have found a winner!

Thanks to Jamie and Jennifer for posting and confirming the recipe, respectively. I'll repost it at the bottom of this entry.

All this talk takes me back to my school lunch days, too. But for a few years in elementary school, going through the lunch line meant getting to see my mom, who worked in the cafeteria for several years. I can't tell you how great it was to see my mother in the middle of the school day, if just for a few minutes.

Come to think of it, she might have made a few of those peanut butter fingers in her time, too.
At our elementary school, Central Elementary in Low Moor, Va., they made killer pigs in a blanket with homemade dough. The pizza dough was also homemade but I never liked the meat sauce.

I especially remember an interesting dish that consisted of a weiner, split open and topped with mashed potatoes and cheese.

By the time I got to high school, the pizzas and fries seemed too perfectly-shaped to be homemade. Do we have any school cafeteria workers reading the blog? If so, I'd love to know how much of the food these days is homemade.

Peanut Butter Fingers

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
2 3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1 tsp. baking soda
2 cups of flour
1 1/2 cups quick cook oatmeal

*Mix all ingredients together and spread into large jelly roll pan. Bake @ 350 for about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Frost with milk chocolate frosting.

***I halved this (as this one must be how they did it in the cafeteria) and it fit into a 13X9 jelly roll pan. I highly recommend using a Kitchen-aid mixer if you have one! I also frosted mine with homemade chocolate frosting off the side of the Hershey's cocoa container.

Source: Blog reader Jamie, who took this recipe from the Herman L. Horn Elementary cookbook.

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