Author Archives: melindacreech

Sopapilla Cheesecake

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Ingredients
2 8 oz packages of cream cheese, softened
1 c. sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 8 oz cans refrigerated crescent rolls
½ c. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
½ c. butter, melted
Honey to drizzle over the top

Directions
1.      1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9×13 inch baking dish with cooking spray.
2.      2. Unroll the cans of crescent roll dough, and shape each piece into 9×13 inch rectangles. Press one piece into the bottom of a 9×13 inch baking dish.
3.      3.  Beat the cream cheese with 1 cup of sugar and the vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth. Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture into the baking dish, then cover with the remaining piece of crescent dough.
4.     4.   Mix together 1/2 cup sugar and the cinnamon.  Pour melted butter over the top of the crescent dough and sprinkle on cinnamon sugar mixture.
5.      5.  Bake in the preheated oven until the crescent dough has puffed and turned golden brown, about 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and drizzle with honey.

submitted by Joanna Tenta

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

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Sorry, there is no picture for the Chicken Enchilada Casserole. I made it for the CLs at University House Thursday night, and they ate it all.

This is actually a crockpot recipe. So you can put it in the crockpot in the morning and let it cook on low while you are in class and come home to  a nice warm dinner to share with friends. If you don’t have a crockpot, just layer the ingredients in a casserole dish and cook it for 45-60 minutes.

  • 12 tortillas, cut into 6 or 8 pieces each
  • 4 cups shredded cooked chicken (I sometimes just buy a rotisserie chicken at HEB, take the meat off the bones, and shred it into small pieces.)
  • 1 can condensed cream of chicken soup
  • 1 can condensed golden mushroon soup
  • 1 can ro-tel tomatoes
  • 1 cup sour cream
  • 1 1/2 cups grated cheese

Lightly butter sides and bottom of crockpot. Arrange alternate layers of tortillas with chicken and mixture of undiluted soups, tomatoes, and sour cream. Sometimes I add a little chicken stock. Cover and cook on low 4-5 hours at 350 degrees. Then sprinkle on cheese and cook on low for another 15-20 minutes. Serve with a salad, chips, and guacamole. Makes 8 servings.

Banana Nut Bread

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Banana Nut Bread

This is my Mom’s recipe. She was a great cook.  This list below was all the written instruction I got from here, but here’s what I do.  First I butter and flour the pan.  Then I mash up the bananas. The riper the better.  Here’s a little trick. If your bananas are getting a little “gone bad,” throw them in the freezer. They will turn black, but they are still good for banana bread on the inside. Just thaw them a bit, peel them, and mash them up. After I combine the sugar and butter, I add the bananas and the eggs. Then I combine the dry ingredients and add them alternately with the buttermilk.  I stir the nuts in last.  You can make them into muffins, but they don’t rise very much because they are so dense.  So fill the cups almost to the top.

  • 3 cu. flour
  • ¾ cu. butter
  • 3 cu. sugar
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 2 tsp. soda
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 T. vanilla
  • 5 large or 4 small bananas
  • 1 cu. nuts
  • ½ cu. buttermilk

Bake 1 hr. or so at 350 in a  Bundt pan.

It’s Takes a Village…

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This year, our sixty-first, my husband became faculty-in-residence at North Village, and we moved into the dorm. Technically it’s not a dorm, it’s a residence hall. People sleep in a dorm, but they share life in a residence hall.

Forty-one years ago this week I moved into a dorm for the first time, the basement of Kinsolving Dormitory at the University of Texas. There was a lot of sharing that went on there. Kinsolving had accepted more students than they had room for. So we had the option of living in the basement, army barracks style, at a reduced rate, or finding another place to live. Because I am a frugal person I moved into the basement with 30 other girls.

We did share a lot–space, privacy, the bathroom, cartoons pasted to the walls of the bathroom, books, time, stories, life. Although Kinsolving had a good dining hall where I ate most of the time, we didn’t share many meals down in the basement. The only approved cooking apparatus was a popcorn popper, which was good for hot tea (I wasn’t a coffee drinker yet), Lipton’s cup o’ soup, and hot Dr. Pepper. (No really, you should try it. With a slice of lemon, it’s great on a cold afternoon.)

Sharing meals is a great way to develop community. Many of the students at North Village have access to kitchens in their rooms or a community kitchen. So I thought I would post some recipes. If you have any recipes and stories that go with them, please share them with me and I will post them for all to enjoy.

So here we go on this new adventure…