Nebraska Runza and Win a Great CD with YOUR Noodle Recipe!

We're finishing up our Nebraska meals today and after a quick retreat back to Missouri (we've got a great new picture book to preview and a dessert) and then Kansas to pick up some more sides, we'll zero in on Oklahoma. Friends have lined up some, shall we say, rather unique recipes for southern-stylin' Oklahoma and it's neighboring Arkansas. I'm excited to get your input on these recipes.

It's never too late to share your recipes from your favorite state(s). In fact, I'm requesting you quickly leave in comments your BEST noodle dish. Why, noodles, you ask? Come on, what kid (and adult) doesn't eat noodles? So what does the chef of the best recipe receive? Well, Bob Drew, in honor of our friend, singer/songwriter, kid rocker and all-around-good-guy Jim Cosgrove (a.k.a. Mr. Stinky Feet) and his new CD titled "Swimming in Noodles" the best noodle recipe of the week gets a FREE "Swimming in Noodles" CD!

We hope to get oodles of noodle recipes. We'll award points for creativity, ease in making and representation of your state. Wisconsin Mac & Cheese? New York Penicillin? American Macaroni Salad? Bring forth those noodle recipes! (Also, I'm curious to know why Yankee Doodle Dandy called his feather in his hat 'macaroni.' Had he just spent too much time hanging out with Samuel Adams? Anyone know?)

NEBRASKA'S SANDWICH, the Runza

My Nebraska consultant, friend and fellow mom, Nicci Ericksen, convinced me that the essence of the Runza was the filling and that to make this fit a family friendly meal I shouldn't have to spend all day baking bread. (I do plan to double my grandmother's sweet dough recipe and use a quarter of the dough for Runzas the next time I want to spend all day babysitting dough.)

For simplicity sake, I relied on the ever-versatile crescent roll dough to work as the covering for a fairly easy filling of ground beef, onion and cabbage all tossed in a skillet and seasoned with salt and pepper.

I may experiment with seasonings next time because it seemed a bit bland to my tastebuds. I cooked the onions first, added the hamburger until it was cooked through and then added the cabbage, making the meal prep a bit longer, but not as long bread dough from scratch. We added poppy seeds to the top of the crescent packages for a little texture -- in honor of the Czech rolichs which always had poppy seeds on top, but I don't think this is an official approved topping!

If you have the time and want to be authentic check this homemade Nebraska Runza recipe here. Also, fellow Kansans can refer to bierock recipes, which are basically the same sandwich.

And if you need a side, perhaps your table guests aren't into that cabbage in the filling, here's a corn casserole from our friend, Mick Ratzlaff, who grew up in Nebraska. Mick likes to cook for his family and has a collection of his grandmothers' recipes.

MICK'S NEBRASKA CORN CASSEROLE
1 large onion, chopped
2 medium green peppers, chopped
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups frozen or canned corn
2 cups long grain wild rice, cooked
1 can diced tomatoes
4 hard cooked eggs, chopped
2 1/2 cups cheddar cheese
2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper

Saute onions and peppers in large skillet with butter until tender. Mix with flour and remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients, reserving 1/2 cup cheese. Pour into a well-greased 2-1/2 quart baking pan. Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Top with remaining cheese and let stand 6 to 8 minutes.

I'm intrigued with the wild rice and Worcestershire sauce in this version, but I think I'll opt to leave out the eggs. My youngest shies away from food that contains identifiable eggs. (NOTE: She will not approve of noodle recipes that LOOK like they have egg in them.)

New Pantry, Corn Pudding and Husker Burgers

My friend Jen Shatel is a native Nebraskan and a mom of three darling girls. Today Jen shares two great Crock Pot ideas. With the onset of Autumn is seems natural to bring out the Crock Pot to provide the heavy-duty work in the kitchen. And now, thanks to two new marvelous black chrome five-tier stands in my reorganized pantry, I can actually find my Crock Pot. See!

I'm feeling oh-so like Martha Stewart right now. (And just wait til I tell you about my grand schemes for sewing homemade Halloween costumes, and we also have to make about 30 homemade Halloween cards too. Now, I'm feeling tired again.)

Back to food. Jen writes: "My easiest and yummiest recipe involves corn — appropriate for the Cornhusker state. It's a simple crock pot recipe."

Jen Shatel's Corn Pudding
2 cans cream corn
2 cans whole kernel corn (with the water/juice)
2 boxes of corn muffin mix
1 stick of margarine
8 oz sour cream (optional)

Mix all ingredients in crock pot.
Cook on low for 3 to 4 hours until the mixture thicken and "sets" and looks like this:

And it tastes amazing. In fact, I think I'll have some for breakfast. (And it makes a large batch, too.)

Simplest Crock Pot Chicken
Jen also uses her Crock Pot to cook frozen chicken breasts. "I put them in by themselves and turn it on low," Jen says. "Once they cook, I shred the chicken breasts in their own juices and we put the shredded chicken in tacos, on buns with BBQ sauce, or in quesadillas. Very simple and very good flavor, too."

It was Jen and her husband, Tom, who first introduced me and my husband, Joe, to the Husker Burger. This was after 2005 because I remember standing in line behind then-alumnus -- still all-time great Husker QB -- Tommy Frazier to get into a downtown Lincoln bar. I don't think any of us waited long to get into the bar. Can you ever imagine Frazier getting overlooked in Lincoln?

So the Husker Burger is shaped like the state of Nebraska, but the real fun is garnishing it with ketchup and mustard. The mustard snakes across the burger like one of the state's rivers and then the ketchup .... okay, let me check with Jen on the CORRECT way to dress a Husker Burger. (Thursday's NU football game is against my Wildcats in Manhattan, Kan., and I can assure you there are no traditions in that college town that deal with condiments -- or at least that I can recall as I'm writing this at 10:42 p.m. on a week night.)

Check out Corn Nation's blog where they nominated their favorite stadium foods in the off-season. It makes for an interesting read. And lookie, I found a site that's part of Yahoo that's finding the best food in each state. They picked the baked bread stuffed with meat sandwiches called Runzas for Nebraska. (They also picked Chicken Fried Steak for Kansas. Even though their report came out in June of this year I can assure you I didn't see this list until today. But I'm happy to agree with these Yahoo/Shine people on my birth state of Kansas. Runzas are tasty, but I'm still partial to the Husker Burger. Besides Husker Burger just so much more catchier to say. It's way more fun than saying "Runza, Runza, Runza.")

I'm also noticing this pride in all things corn (though the state is the third-leading producer of corn behind Iowa and Illinois). But those states also don't have a team that proudly (and I mean PROUDLY call themselves the CORNHUSKERS. Sitting in a sea of red on a football game day is a site to behold. Their stadium hot dogs are OF COURSE dyed a bright RED, too. And the automatic hot dog thrower at games is called Der Viener Schlinger. I'm telling you, life is better than fiction; you couldn't make up a name like that. (Technically, SOMEONE did come up with that name and got it approved or offered enough $$$ to get it approved.) Why doesn't some action movie film a scene where the hero in white has to run through Memorial Stadium's packed game-day crowd, grabbing Der Viener Schlinger to fell the bad guys chasing him (or her — I'm all for female heroines.*)

* Our fam's favorite new heroine is Eva Nine from Tony DiTerlizzi's "The Search for Wondla."