__karen Casillas Recipes

__ELLEN BURR

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• So much of American cooking has international roots, but a sense of what the cooking of indigenous Americans was like can be gleaned from Cape Cod resident Ellen Burr's harvest. "I love to gather wild edibles: bolete mushrooms, dandelion greens, sassafras leaves (to dry for file powder for gumbo). I pick lots of berries--blueberries, strawberries, shad berries, raspberries, blackberries, gooseberries, cranberries, elderberries, rosehips, rum cherries, and English blueberries--for desserts, for freezing, for preserves, and for jellies. I also dig clams, gather oysters and mussels, go crabbing and fish for trout and perch." Although Ellen has devoted so much of her keen attention to native foods, she also turns to foods with an international heritage for inspiration, and comes up with hits like her Dotted Swiss and Spinach Quiche.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__KAREN DURRETT

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• I grew up in a large family--seven children--in a small town in Indiana," Karen Durret says. "It was great. My mother was the traditional homemaker, and my greatest memories growing up all relate to food. There was always a pot of something on the stove. My mom expressed love through food." The beuaty of American cooking is that a small-town Indiana girl can combine elements of Italian, Mexican and Midwestern cuisines to create a spectacular result that is pure American: Chicken and Black Bean Tostizzas.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__KAREN CASILLAS

Steps:

• Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and, above all, confidence in ourselves," said the scientist Marie Curie. Karen Casillas certainly took this adage to heart after an early disaster. "I made an orange cake with orange frosting when I was six, from a mix." The cake did not turn out well. "My mom gave it to our dog! And six years later we dug up a complete piece-whole!-when putting in a garden. No kidding!" Karen persevered, however, mastered cooking and got herself in the Bake-Off® Contest. Marie Curie would have been impressed.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.