Killens enjoys baking sweets for friends
Teri Killens was inspired to cook by her mother and grandmother, who made everything from scratch and taught her to make casseroles and master the art of baking sweets.
“My mom would take a whole coconut, drain the milk, crack it open, and lay it in front of the hearth of the fireplace,” Killens said. “She let the heat dry the coconut out, then she would grate it to make fresh coconut cakes or fresh German chocolate cakes.”
Killens said she often prepares her family’s favorite sweets for birthdays and the Neshoba County Fair. Brownies are her go-to treat for her nieces and nephews.
Married to Joe Killens, they have two married children, Allie Peavey and Kyle Killens. She works as an administrative assistant in workforce development at East Central Community College and attends First Church of God.
“My kids like roast,” she said. “My mother always did a roast on Sunday after church, and my grandmother always did one, so I followed in that.”
Although she considers roast as her best main course dish, she also receives rave reviews for her vegetable soup.
Killens has even created a cookbook of her favorite recipes, gifting a copy to her daughter after her high school graduation and one to her daughter-in-law, too.
“I tend to stick to a recipe, and I collect recipes,” Killens said. “When I pass on, my kids will have a huge cabinet full of recipe books to go through.”
Killens said her most requested dessert is bread pudding, which she often makes when it’s her turn to host ladies’ Bunko game nights, a long-standing tradition among friends.
She also enjoys making chocolate pies and a sweet potato pie every year for a friend, who says it tastes closest to his mother’s recipe.
With her husband being an avid deer hunter and a “meat and potato person,” their meals often revolve around deer meat, which she uses for soups and steaks.
“If I make something new, I know it’s good if he says it’s in my top ten,” she laughed.
For those just starting out in the kitchen, Killen’s offers this advice: “Don’t give up, don’t be in a hurry to be done, take your time, watch your oven if you’re baking, and share it.”
Killens loves creating lasting memories when her grandchildren come to visit and help her in the kitchen, but what “makes her heart complete” is spreading joy by sharing her cooking with neighbors or friends during difficult times.
SWEET POTATO PIE
(In Memory of Janice Flint Ryles)
3 cups cooked sweet potatoes
3 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2-9 deep pie shells
1 stick melted butter
1 ½ cup sugar
1 ½ cup vanilla
Mix all together and pour pie into pie shells. Bake on 350° for 30-40 minutes.
BEEF & VEGETABLE SOUP
2 lbs. ground beef
1 large onion chopped
3 cans tomato soup
2 cans water
1 15 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 rotel optional or used diced tomatoes
1-29 oz. drained large can veg-all
1 can whole corn drained
1 can cream corn
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. Ma Suber’s seasoning
¼ cup Ma Suber’s Chile mix
Salt and pepper to taste
Brown your ground beef and drain. Then add all other ingredients to cooked meat.
TERI’S ROAST
Chuck Roast
Salt and pepper
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
1 pkg. of Lipton onion soup mix
Potatoes-optional
Carrots-optional
Onion-optional
Take about ¼ cup of flour, add salt and pepper and then flour both sides of your roast. Add a little oil to a skillet and brown both sides of your roast. This will only take a few minutes.
Place in a roasting pan. Mix your cream of mushroom and Lipton onion soup mix together in a can of water. It may take a little more water than just a can. Just remember the more water you add the soupier it is, but you do not want it to dry out either.
Pour that over your roast and add potatoes, onions and carrots if you want. Cook in the oven on 350° for about 3-4 hours. I think it tastes better cooked in and oven and I like for my meat to just fall apart. This is how I know when it is good and done.
Or you can place it in a crockpot and cook on slow for about 6 hours. You do not have to flour and brown it, but it gives it a better taste.