Winstead learned to cook from family

Sam Winstead said that while she loves cooking and learned the ways of food preparation almost entirely by sight alone, nothing can beat watching her friends and family enjoy her dishes.

“My favorite part of the cooking process is seeing everyone’s faces,” Winstead said. “It’s why I do it. It’s why I cook, so my friends and family can enjoy it.”

Winstead said her family got her into cooking and credits her mother and aunts for being the ones who inspired her to get started.

“I self-taught myself with cooking through a lot of watching,” Winstead said. “My mother never taught me how to make biscuits, but after watching her for a long time I finally was able to make them and get them right. She cooked all the time with a lot of garden-grown vegetables and had a very small kitchen.”

“There were four of us, me and two sisters and a brother, and due to the small space, I had to watch and learn,” she said. “My sisters have also become very good cooks over the years.”

She said her husband Larry and their children, Cass, Abby, and Luke love her vegetables the most and prefer them over eating out and getting things like hamburgers.

“I cook five days a week, not usually on the weekends since that’s my time off,” Winstead said. “All of my kids and in-laws love peas and bread and a lot of vegetables, mainly. They love squash, butter beans, okra, and more. While my family does eat out, they prefer to eat what I make. Their favorite meal as of late is fried pork chops with peas, corn, and fried squash. That was a big hit recently.”

Winstead is a breast cancer survivor and works as a stay-at-home mom, but also manages the payroll and bills for her family company, L&S Logging Co. She said the Lord has been gracious to her and she appreciates her family and those she learned the ways of cooking from.

“I’ve been around some of the best cooks in my life growing up,” she said. “My mother, her sisters, and my dad’s sisters are all talented and I came from a long line of good cooks.”

STRAWBERRY CAKE

1 white cake mix

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup milk

4 eggs

6 oz of strawberry Jello powder

1 stick of unsalted butter

2 cups of freshly cut strawberries

Mix all ingredients except strawberries together.  Fold in strawberries and place in a 9x13 baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Icing:  

4 ounces of cream cheese (1/2 block), softened

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Beat until smooth and add in 1 cup of powdered sugar and mix well.  Add 1 cup of freshly cut strawberries.  Once the cake is cooled, spread icing over the cake and place in the refrigerator to chill for 1 hour or until chilled. 

SQUASH DRESSING

1 medium onion, chopped

2 cups cooked and mashed squash

2 cups cornbread crumbs

1/2 cup butter

2 eggs

1 can cream of chicken soup

Salt and pepper to taste

Sauté chopped onions in butter until soft.  Mix everything else together and bake until golden brown at 350 degrees.

CRESCENT APPLE TURNOVERS

1 roll of crescent rolls

2 tablespoons of sugar

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

Pie filling of your choice (apple, cherry, blueberry, or peach)

Line each individual cupcake tin with a crescent roll (place the widest part of the crescent roll in the bottom). Fold the flaps over onto each other. Mix the cinnamon and sugar and sprinkle each crescent roll with cinnamon/sugar mixture. Open your favorite pie filling and fill each crescent roll with a heaping tablespoon full of filling. Fold over flaps of crescent roll, closing the roll as much as possible. Sprinkle more cinnamon/sugar mixture over the top with a little butter. Bake in the oven for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees.