__teresa Hannan Smith Recipes

__TERESA HANNAN SMITH

Steps:

• Cooks tend to be a generous lot, and Teresa Hannan Smith makes a point of sharing the bounty of her life not just with guests at her table but with four-legged folk wherever she is. "I carry three kinds of dog and cat food in my car and feed strays everywhere I go." While she never gets the raves from her animal guests that she got from the Bake-Off® Contest judges, Teresa considers cats and dogs among the most gratifying of her diners.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__RETA SMITH

Steps:

• Necessity is often the mother of invention. "After my husband received his doctorate in 1960," says Reta Smith, "we moved to a very small community in northwest Missouri and lived on a farm. He began a very busy large-animal veterinary practice. We raised three children and also had a cow and calf operation. Our home was run like a restaurant and small hotel, since our area was very remote. I went to a grocery warehouse every three months to do our shopping. . . . With this in mind, my cooking was very creative, and as the time grew closer to my next three-month trip, became even more so." But with results like White Chili with Salsa Verde, no one would complain!From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

__ELLEN BURR

Steps:

• 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.