Chicken Pie

We ate a lot of what we called chicken pie when I was growing up, and I loved it, but it was not like the chicken pie I’ve eaten at other people's houses or in restaurants. Those usually have onions, peas, carrots or other vegetables in a sauce that is rather thick. At our house there were two ways of making chicken pie, baked or on the eye of the stove in a stew pot. I later learned that the stove top version would more often be called chicken and dumplings – in this case strip or rolled dumplings. This was my very favorite. Del isn't that crazy about any of it, but will eat either kind, and David would probably still just as soon have one of the cheap frozen kind he always preferred as a child.

Baked Chicken pie

Mother kept a bag of bony pieces of chicken such as backs in the freezer and added to it until she had enough to do something with. Then she would cut up a chicken and stew them together. Stewing meant simmering the chicken in water with salt and pepper until done. Mother would put resulting broth in a Pyrex dish and add the backs wings and short legs (thighs, or short jumpers as Mr. Williams called them). Then she would cover the dish with her homemade pie crust and bake until the crust was golden brown and the broth was bubbly. She would reserve the rest of the broth and chicken for chicken salad or some other dish.

Chicken Pie – stove top version

Recipe:

Stew a chicken in sufficient water to make a goodly amount of broth. Remove skin and bones and return to broth. Taste broth. If it tastes bland, add a bouillon cube or some chicken stock base and pepper.

Pastry

2 cups all purpose flour
½ t. salt
2 T Crisco
½ cup hot water

Mix flour and salt. Cut in the shortening with two knives until it resembles coarse meal. Stir in the hot water with a fork. Form into a ball and roll until 1/16” thick. Cut into strips approximately 1” by 3” and drop into simmering broth. Cook for 20 minutes, but do not allow to boil or they will break up.

Note: I prefer to keep the chicken out of the broth until after I cook and remove dumplings and most of broth into a heated serving dish. Then I quickly reheat the chicken in remaining broth and add to the dish.

Note: In a pinch, you can substitute strips from thinly rolled canned biscuits.

Butter - Easy Recipe for Children of All Ages

The computer is fixed, the wedding festivities for niece Sarah are over and both sets of friends who stayed with us here at Massanutten have left , so I thought It was time to get back to business. We have had almost two wonderful weeks with friends and family in Williamsburg, Suffolk, Newport News and here in the mountains of Virginia.
On to butter… As I have said before, we lived in the country on a family farm. We lived in the home place, and Ruby, a teacher, and sometimes Eunie, lived there too. Garland, Daddy’s younger brother, lived across and down the road on one side. He had seven children, Garland, Jr. who went away to school because there was no education in Emporia at that time for a child who was deaf, Jimmy, Marsha, Randy, Mike, Brenda and Eric. Big Bubba and Stella lived across and down the road in the other direction. Big Bubba was the oldest. We sort of went from one house to the other, depending on what was going on. Big Bubba worked shift work at Johns Manville, as my daddy did, and Jimmy, Marsha and I used to take turns staying with Stella on midnight to 7 shift because she did not like to stay alone.
We had a cow until after Bubba went off to college. He was chief milker, and I felt it was my responsibility to keep him company while he did it. Keeping him company probably consisted of asking one question after another, and may have occasionally plucked his last good nerve, as sister in law Daryl Lyn says, because he sometimes aimed at me instead of the bucket. He had really good control. I remember the farm cats and kittens used to show up at milking time and wait with open mouths for him to squirt them.
We churned our own butter in crockery churns with wooden dashers. You had to let the cream come to the top of the milk, spoon it off and put it into the churn. Then you pulled the dasher up and pushed it down until the butter formed, leaving butter milk in the bottom of the churn. Then you had to scoop the very soft butter out of the churn and into a crockery bowl so the remaining butter milk could be worked out with a wooden paddle. Once that was done, the butter could be shaped into a log or a ball or pushed firmly into a butter mold. Ours was wooden and consisted of a form with a plunger that had decorations on the surface. When the plunger was depressed to push out the butter, it left a pretty decoration. I was given a butter pat sized mold and loved to make individual servings of butter, but most of the time, we just used the big one.

The butter milk was saved for making biscuits or for drinking by those who were so inclined. Crumbling up cold biscuits in the milk and eating them with a spoon was considered a special treat by some, but not by me.
When we churned butter at Big Bubba and Stella’s, we sat on the front porch and sang “Come butter, come” as we worked. I think those were the only words to the so called song.

I also remember that when we needed rain so badly that the wells were in danger of running dry, Stella used to gather the cousins on the front porch, and we would sing “There Shall Be Showers of Blessing.” over and over and over again. But I digress…

When several of the cousins were around, we were sometimes given a Mason jar of cream which we shook until it turned to butter. I remember that we had races to see who could shake the fastest and get butter first.

Making butter was a favorite speech activity at Medina County Board of MRDD. We prepared picture communication boards so that non verbal students could request a turn or a taste of the butter and attached a food processor to a device so that children with limited hand mobility could use a switch to activate the processor.

Recipe

1 cup whipping cream
Pinch salt (optional)

Pour cold cream in bowl of food processor. Process until it is way past the whipped cream stage. A small amount of liquid will separate from the creamy butter. Don’t expect it to be yellow like the butter you get at the store. It will be quite soft, but will firm up in the refrigerator.
The children loved it on saltines or bread. Because of my own opinions of the matter, I always put the butter on the bottom or unsalted side of the cracker so the salt touched the tongue. Don’t laugh. I know you have some food rules.

Mrs. Williams' Shrimp Dip

Mrs. Williams loved to make what we now call appetizers at Christmas time. She probably didn't call them that, but they were always stored away in her Frigidaire side by side refrigerator with pies and cookies and fruit cake in tin boxes ready for company. I swear that fridge stretched. I have never been able to get as much in a refrigerator as she did.

The thing I liked best, I think, is her shrimp dip. She served it with crackers, but a spoon would have been fine with me, and she really could have left out the shrimp. While I like shrimp, I LOVE cocktail sauce.

Recipe:

6 oz. cream cheese - lower fat is fine
1 pt. sour cream - lower fat is fine
1 1/2 bottles Cross-Blackwell's cocktail sauce
3-5 drops hot pepper sauce
1 lb.cooked tiny shrimp

Mix together the cream cheese, sour cream, cocktail sauce and red pepper sauce. It is okay if there a few small lumps of cream cheese. Stir in shrimp. Refrigerate until time to serve. Serve with your favorite crackers.

Note: Try to use only Cross-Blackwell cocktail sauce. It really is better. I usually buy the 1 lb. package of precooked and shelled tiny little shrimp, but if you can only find larger shrimp, cut them into 2 or 3 pieces.

Lemon Chess Pie/ Computer on the Blink

When we moved to Macomb, Illinois, we found a sweet cherry tree full of cherries in our back yard. A neighbor asked David, aged 10, if he liked cherry pie. He said that he really didn't know because he had only ever had pecan or lemon chess. That wasn't qauite true, I don't think, but he wasn't off by much. Berries and other fruits were usually made into cobblers.

This pie is just about as rich as a pie can get, rivaling pecan pie, in my opinion. It is pretty much a special occasion pie and served in thin slices. Mother made it frequently for holidays, but I don't think Mrs. Williams did.

One year when we were living in Huntsville, Uncle Hubert, his daughter and several grandchildren came up to visit while Mr. Williams was there. We had people all over the place. It was lots of fun, but a bit confusing for the cook. I put two lemon chess pies into the oven and not until 15 minutes later noticed a bowl with sugar in it sitting on the counter. Not knowing what else to do, I took the pies out of the oven, scooped all the pie part out into the bowl of sugar, stirred vigorously, poured it back into the crusts and put them back into the oven. They were the strangest looking lemon chess pies I ever saw, but they tasted okay.

Lemon chess pies as made by members of our family are quite tart. We really are happiest when they make your lips pucker, but after serving them uncomfortably tart to Tracy's family, I have toned things down a bit.

When we were growing up, Southern Baptist receptions, showers and other celebrations in Jarratt usually had lemon crust tartlets and pecan tassies with cheese straws or wafers and tiny salty country ham biscuits to "take the sweet taste out of your mouth." I can't prove that this expression was invented by our family, but the Robinsons certainly took it to heart. A small plate of country ham slivers was passed around after every holiday meal when ham was served. Bubba and I agreed that even when you were so full you couldn't eat another bite, you could still find room for a bite of ham to "take the sweet taste out of your mouth."

Sister in law Dianne and I are going to make lemon chess tartlets for niece Sarah's wedding in Virginia a week from Saturday, and since I haven't made them in a long time,I decided to make a practice batch for Del and the three men who are building the humongous closet in our basement. They passed the wedding worthy test, so here is the recipe.

As you will notice when you read the recipe, this pie is quite rich, so cut it into thin slices, and be sure to refrigerate. All those eggs could could cause problems if you don't.

Recipe:
2 c. sugar
2 T. finely grated lemon zest
1 T. flour
1 T. white plain stone ground corn meal (or additional T flour)
4 beaten eggs
1/4 cup melted and cooled butter
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice, or a little more for puckery lips
1/4 c milk

Whisk all ingredients until thoroughly combined. Pour into 9" pastry shell. Bake 50-60 minutes in preheated 350 degree oven. Tooth pick will come out clean.

Tartlets:

One recipe of filling will make 69 tarts when baked in shells approximately 1 and 3/4" across and 1" deep. I use a scoop that holds almost 1 T. filling. Two pie crust sheets from the refrigerator case (one box) will make 48 shells when cut with a 2 and 1/4" cutter.

Note: If buying pans, I suggest you try to get this size for optimum lemon filling/crust ratio. I also recommend getting the 48 cup pans. It makes it so much easier when making a big batch of tartlets.

My computer has gotten indigestion or something. Maybe it's being exposed to all this food talk. I'll be sharing with Del for a bit, so things will be somewhat sporatic. We'll also be in Virginis for a couple of weeks, so I may not have internet access.

Fried/Baked Dried Apple Pies/Turnovers

A favorite dessert in Virginia and in other southern states is the fried pie. Both Mother and Mrs. Williams made them, but they did it a little differently.
When I was little, Mother dried her own apples. I remember she peeled them and spread them on a white sheet to dry in the hot sun. I think she put them on the roof of the pump house so the animals could not get to them and brought them onto the screen porch at night. They turned quite dark and had the stronger flavor of the dried apples sold in bulk at health food markets. The packaged ones I buy in regular grocery stores are treated to keep them light in color, and I think they taste very much like fresh apples when cooked.
Mother also made her own pastry for her turnovers, as she called them. I don’t have that recipe, but I think I remember that she said she didn’t make them quite as short so they would hold up better to frying. I don’t know if the term “quite as short” is commonly used, but she meant it to say she didn’t use as much shortening. Del says Mrs. Williams made her pastry from scratch in the early years, but by the time I came into the family, she used canned biscuits. Either works, but I’m partial to pastry. My homemade pie dough in the rectangular box in the refrigerator case works just fine. It’s a little more trouble to use pastry, of course, because you have to reroll the scraps of dough after the first cutting.
Del says that his mother occasionally made dried peach fried pies, but I only remember eating apple ones at home or at the Williams’ house. A bakery here in Carrollton makes fried pies that have regular juicy pie filling of various kinds, but they just aren’t as good.
Recipe:
1 roll of 10 canned biscuits
1 package dried apples
2 cups water
Put apples and water into small pot and simmer, covered, until the water evaporates and the apples are tender. Add a little extra water if needed before apples are tender, but be sure you let it evaporate. Mash some of the apples with potato masher, but leave them lumpy. TASTE FOR SWEETNESS. I usually don’t add any, but you might want to. Let cool.
Roll out individual biscuits until thin. Place about 1/8 c. apple mixture on each biscuit, form into a half circle and press edges together so the filling will not leak out. Then crimp edges with a fork.
Heat ½ inch oil in iron or other frying pan and fry the pies until golden. One package of apples makes just enough for 10 turnovers. Eat while still warm.
OR
Cut circles from your own pie dough or refrigerated crusts. You can determine the size of the turnover by the size of the cutter you choose, but adjust the amount of filling accordingly. If you over fill, they will ooze while frying. Mini pies are pretty, I think. Fry until golden. Eat while still warm.
OR
Use either biscuits or pie dough, but bake them instead of frying. Spread ½ tsp. oil on a cast iron griddle or pan and place it in the oven at 400 degrees until hot. Place turnovers onto the hot pan and brush the top with a little oil. Bake until golden brown. These don’t take me back to my childhood, but they are less trouble and have less fat. Del thinks that since I don’t use sugar and they don’t have the taste of fat, they might benefit from a sprinkle of powdered sugar when taken from the oven, but I think they are just fine as they are

Tuna Casserole - Easy Enough for Children of All Ages

I don't know if the part of the brain that understands math also is in charge of the sense of direction, but I am sadly lacking in both areas, so
when I was in high school, I took just enough math to be accepted into Westhampton and immediately stopped taking it so my grade point average would be high enough for me to be accepted. Two years of Algebra and one year of Plane Geometry. Plane Geometry made sense to me for reasons I don’t understand, but only the extra tutoring Mr. Cashwell gave struggling students on Tuesday afternoons got me through Algebra 2. Because I did well in most of my other classes, my plan worked.

When I quit taking math, I had time in my schedule to take something else, so I took Home Ec from Mrs. Polly Slate. Three recipes from that class are still in my recipe box – tuna casserole, pork chop casserole and kolachky. The tuna casserole definitely belongs in the easy enough for children to make category, but I’ll post the others down the road.

Tuna casseroles of various kinds were standard fare for the inexperienced and short of cash cook back in our early years, but because of the mercury and other bad stuff in the water, we are now advised to limit use of it and some other big fish, so you might want to Google for health recommendations.

I was amused when looking at this recipe to see that it called for a nickel bag of potato chips. That was back in the days when a nickel was still a nickel and occasionally had a buffalo on it.

Recipe

1 large can water packed light tuna
1 can cream of mushroom soup
¼ cup sour cream
Small can baby peas, drained (or frozen baby peas, thawed)
Pepper
Single serving regular potato chips

Mix everything except chips and pour into sprayed casserole dish. Open the bag of chips enough so it won’t pop and squeeze it to make crumbs. Sprinkle chips evenly over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees until bubbly and brown around the edges, about 20 minutes. The low fat versions of everything work just fine. You could substitute buttery cracker crumbs for the chips, but I think the potato chips are better.

Note

If you like, you could add ¼ cup milk and a cup of leftover rice or noodles and substitute leftover corn for peas.

Shrimp and Grits

As I understand it shrimp and grits started out in the Charleston area as a somewhat humble dish eaten by fishermen for breakfast, but migrated to elegant tables and is now served in restaurants all over the place. Del and I have tried shrimp and grits just about every time we have seen them on a menu and each time, they have been at least a little different. The other night we tried them in Carrollton and they were served on smoked Gouda grits. The recipe I use is a combination of the elements we enjoyed most at the various restaurants and tends to change a little depending on where we ate them last.

Recipe:

Note: Before starting this recipe refer to the Oct. 5, 2011 post with suggestions on buying and preparing shrimp and the recipe for shrimp stock.

2 lb. raw shrimp bought in the shells ( I like easy peel)
2tbs. olive oil
2 large cloves garlic, minced
3-4 tbs. minced onion
4 slices bacon
1 recipe shrimp stock (Oct. 5 post Be sure to reduce until really syrupy)
¼ c. nonfat half and half
¼ c. or more grated parmesan cheese
Black pepper to taste
2 or more shots hot sauce
Parsley for garnish


Heat olive oil in large saucepan and add chopped bacon. When bacon is nearly crisp, add shrimp, garlic and onion and cook 2-3 minutes until shrimp are just beginning to turn pink . Remove shrimp from pan.

Add:
shrimp stock
nonfat half and half
grated parmesan
black pepper to taste
hot sauce

Simmer a couple of minutes until bubbly. Adding back the shrimp at the last minute.

Notes:
If you don't have enough sauce, add a little more half and half or a bit of stock until it seems to be enough and tastes right.

If the sauce tastes bland, you might add a little clam base.

If the stock is too thin, add a little cornstarch slurry.

If it isn't garlicky enough, sprinkle in some garlic powder

If the shrimp are large, or you want it to look like more, cut them in half lengthwise.

After eating at SNOB in Charleston, I sometimes add ¼ cup sliced okra and ¼ cup corn for the last 2-3 minutes and add ¼ cup halved cherry tomatoes on top of the finished dish.

Sometimes I serve the sauce over cheese grits. Then I usually eliminate the cheese from the sauce.

If I don’t have shrimp shells, I use clam juice, clam base or boxed seafood stock as the base for the shrimp stock recipe in the Oct. 5 post. Just be sure to reduce it well and taste to be sure it has sufficient seafood flavor. If not you might add a little clam base.

This makes enough for at least 8 servings of grits. I usually use the 5
minute kind, but the old fashioned coarse ground slow cooking ones have a
great texture if you can find them and have the patience. I add about 1/4cup more water than it calls for the 8 servings so the grits won't be
too stiff.

The dish is really pretty if you pour the grits out on a platter that has a rim and then pour the grits over it. I've also just
used individual bowls and served from the pots on the stove.

Too Easy Grilled Salmon

I recently saw an advertisement for the children’s clothing line called Garanimals. It's a clothing line designed to help young children mix and match. They came out when David was past that age, but they did make an impression on him. One day when he was about 10, we saw the commercial, and he commented that they should make some for older men called Grampimals. Mr. Williams spent 33 ½ years wearing an Army uniform to work every day and never really developed the ability to put an outfit together. Or maybe he missed out on the clothes matching gene, who knows. I do know that before Mrs. Williams even got sick she made me promise that if she went first, I would lay out Mr. Williams’ clothes for her funeral.

When we lived in Huntsville, Alabama, he generally came a couple of times a year to stay with us for a couple of weeks and then went on down to visit his brother In Atmore. And before you ask, no, Uncle Hubert was not behind bars in Atmore, he lived on a farm.

While he was with us, Mr. Williams always had some jobs he wanted to do for us, putting up shelves and doing little repairs. There are more talented handipeople, but none more enthusiastic than he was.

Each project required repeated trips to Home Depot, sometimes more than once a day, and Mr. Williams was always so surprised and pleased that the man in the lumber department remembered him from visit to visit. He always remarked that he could not figure out how that nice young man could remember him. You tell me. Would you be likely to remember a little old guy who showed up pretty nearly daily a couple of times a year in fire engine red coveralls and canvas slip on shoes? I remember that he put those coveralls on hot from the dryer more than once each visit. Not to mention he never met a stranger and loved to talk with people and always not so much walked as trotted. He also had a truly good heart.

The connection between this fond memory of Pops, as Del usually called him, and this salmon recipe is that it was given to us by our neighbor in Huntsville. He was a cardiologist and preferred to prepare salmon steaks instead of beef. We still use this method all these years later.

Recipe:

Salmon steak or filet
For each piece of fish:
1 tsp. low fat mayonnaise
Sprinkle of Cavender’s Greek Seasoning

Spread fish with ½ tsp. mayonnaise and sprinkle with seasoning. Place on hot grill, either outside or inside on a grill pan, seasoned side down. Spread the remaining mayonnaise on other side and sprinkle with seasoning. Grill to your preferred doneness, remembering that it will get tough if overcooked. 6-10 minutes per inch is a good estimate.
Note: If you prefer not to use mayonnaise, I have found that brushing lightly with oil works just fine.

Pimiento Cheese

My father in law, Eugene Williams, loved pimiento cheese, but Mrs. Williams never made it. She frequently bought the already made kind at the commissary, but that was made with wimpy cheese and could not put a patch on Mother’s homemade. Mother used what Daddy called rat trap cheese. It was cut off a big wheel at Bradley’s store and was as sharp as any cheese I have had since.

The first year(s) Del and I were married the budget was tight, so when Mr. Williams’ birthday came around, I made a big batch of pimiento cheese, put a bow on the container and called it a present. He was so taken with it that he had me show him how to make it and made it every week of his life from then until he became too feeble. It is called Daddy’s pimiento cheese out in Colorado because he used to make it out there when he went to visit daughter Dianne. So far as I remember it was just about the only thing he cooked.
Del likes toasted pimiento cheese sandwiches. I prefer to spread it on Premium saltine crackers, but the cheese has to be on the unsalted side so the salty side touches my tongue when I eat it. That’s just one of my little food peculiarities, but I’m sure you’ll be won over if you try it. It’s also good stuffed into celery sticks

Recipe:

10 oz. cheddar, extra sharp is my choice, but use your favorite strength
4 oz. jar of diced or chopped pimientos
6 T mayonnaise, light’s fine
½ tsp. yellow mustard

Grate the cheese by hand or in food processor. You can use the kind that comes shredded, but it doesn’t mush together with the other ingredients as well. Drain the pimientos and add them, the mayonnaise and the mustard to the cheese. Mix well and refrigerate. It keeps several days

My Take on Buying Shrimp

There are certainly people who know a lot more about shrimp than I do, but over the years of living where shrimp don't I've tried to figure out ways to make the frozen taste as much like fresh as possible.

Buying shrimp:

Because we don’t live at the ocean, I usually buy frozen easy peel raw shrimp, thaw them according to package instructions and peel them, saving the shells. It may be foolish, but I just don’t like to buy the previously frozen ones in the fish case, and it’s not as easy to find the fresh ones except in a specialty market.

After peeling, sprinkle the shrimp heavily with kosher or other salt and let sit for about 10 minutes so they will taste more like fresh. Rinse the shrimp and proceed with recipe.

Making shrimp stock:

2 T. oil
Shells from 1 pound of shrimp
½ T. seafood seasoning
6 or more black peppercorns
2 garlic cloves, minced
¼ cup onion, chopped
½ cup white wine
1 quart water.

Heat oil in sauce pan. Add shells, seafood seasoning, garlic and onion. Cook, stirring until the shells turn pink. It happens quickly so don't walk away. Add wine and allow to boil gently until the sauce reduces and becomes syrupy. Add the water and simmer for 30 minutes or so.

Strain the stock and use or freeze for another meal.

Hello, Out There!

I think the comments section is working at least sometimes. I can only comment as anonymous, but at least I can do that. I'll keep working on it. I would love to know how you found the blog, especially if you aren't one of the relatives and friends whose arms I twisted until you agreed to read it. Anyhow, welcome to everyone who stops by. I hope, if nothing else, it encourages you to seek out your family stories before you all of a sudden wake up to realize you are the "older" generation and it's too late to ask questions you always intended to ask but just didn't. Be sure to ask Relative Whoever for that special recipe, too. Some of our family recipes have already been lost to us, especially those that weren't really ever written down. You know, a pinch of this, a dab of that.

Start your own family blog, why don't you? Your children will thank you later.

Mrs. Williams' Strawberry Fig Preserves

Friend Mark’s comment about Cornell Chicken Barbecue reminded me of the Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, administered through the land grant colleges. In Greensville County we had a County Agent, and a Home Demonstration Agent, now called Extension Agents. According to the website, they are responsible for outreach programs regarding "agriculture, natural resources, family and consumer sciences, 4H clubs and community viability."

Mother belonged to the Home Demonstration Club. The women met monthly to socialize and learn from the educational programs. Before I started school, I went with her. I remember that we packed lunch, and I carried a little bag with books or my doll, often naked. despite Mother's best efforts. The doll, not me. We always stopped on the way to pick up Mrs. Janski. She was an older lady who was a talented artist. She often brought a fig preserves and butter sandwich with the crusts cut off for her lunch, and when she did, she always made one for me. I don’t remember if I really liked the jam or if I liked the fact that she cut the crusts off. Mother only did that on very special occasions, claiming that the crusts made you pretty. I understand that some children were told the crusts would make their hair curly. I’m pretty sure the former is not true, and my hair is straight as a stick, so there you are.

I don’t have Mrs. Janski’s fig preserves recipe, but I do have Mrs. Williams’ strawberry fig recipe. They had a huge fig tree outside their side porch, and she did love figs. I prefer mine in Newtons, to tell the truth, but her jam was really popular.

Recipe:
3 cups mashed figs
2 pkg. (3 oz.) strawberry gelatin
3 cups sugar
Mix together in large saucepan. Boil 3-4 minutes. Pour into hot, sterilized jelly jars and seal.
Note: This is the recipe as I was given it back in the ‘70s, but food safety rules for canning may be different by now. If you are not an experienced canner, it might be a good idea to consult a recent canning book.

Chicken Barbecue Sauce

When we lived in Lexington, Virginia back in the ‘70s, the fire departments in the little Rockbridge County towns, made money by having Fire Festivals during the summer. There were parades with fire trucks, ambulances, and other emergency vehicles,drums, an old guy drum major who had more fun than anyone and majorettes from toddler age on up. I recall being worried about who was looking after business because at least one truck showed up from each little town. There were also a few rides and wonderful barbecued chicken dinners, except for one community which served pot roast. I thought that seemed strange for a hot summer evening, but it was tasty. We went almost every weekend with friends and their children. To be honest, I think the parents had as much fun as the little ones.

Each dinner consisted of half or quarter of a chicken with sides and a drink, and there were wonderful desserts. I had never seen such huge grills for the chargrilled chicken. It took several men to tend them and you could smell the chicken before you got out of your car. We were told that many of the communities used some version of barbecue sauce said to have originated at VPI to baste the chicken because it doesn't have tomatoes in it and is less apt to burn before the chicken is done. A neighbor told me how to make her version of the sauce.

VPI,for non Virginians and young Virginians, stands for Virginia Polytechnic Institute, located in Blacksburg and now commonly called Va Tech. Several Robinsons went there over the years.

Recipe:
½ cup oil
1 c. cider vinegar
1/2c. Water
2T salt
½ t. black pepper (I use 1/2 black and 1/2 red)
1t. poultry seasoning (I use 1/2 t.)

Mix together and refrigerate for several hours so flavors will meld. Put into food safe spray bottle and spray chicken frequently while cooking. Leftover sauce will keep in fridge for several days.

Note: I usually cut the recipe in half. I have also made it without poultry seasoning when I didn't have any.

Apple Breakfast Cake

I was given this mix with a spoon recipe when we lived in Lexington, Virginia. We lived there from the time David was just about 4 until 7, and he loved the cake so much that he requested it for his birthday a couple of years. I’m sorry I don’t remember where the recipe came from.

Lexington is where David and another little boy had their first run in with school authorities. Both families had moved to Lexington after the school year started, and we were told the older preschool class was full. They put the boys in with the younger kids where there were spaces. About 3 weeks into the year, both families were asked to come in for conferences. The teacher asked if David seemed unhappy . He seemed quite happy to us, but it seems that during playtime, he and his buddy would begin to talk about how they wanted to go home and wanted their mamas. Whereupon, the little kids would start to cry and go to the teacher for comfort while the little juvenile delinquents had no competition for the good toys. The teacher said they didn’t do anything she could punish them for, but they were causing trouble. We had stern talks with our boys every day before school, but it is amazing how fast spots opened up for them in the age appropriate class. Once there, the peers kept them straight.

Recipe

Mix together with wooden spoon:

2 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 ¼ cup oil
3 large apples, peeled and chopped
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 heaping T. cinnamon
1 T. pure vanilla extract

Spread batter into 9” x 13 “ pan. Add crumb topping. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 – 40 minutes. A knife will come out clean.

It is really good slightly warm, but continues to be moist the next day.

Crumb topping

Mix together in batter bowl to save on dishes:

¼ cup flour
¼ cup brown sugar
2 T cinnamon

Note: I have found that the cake works just fine if you use only 1 cup oil. I’ve also tried taking out a ¼ cup of sugar while reducing the oil to ¾ cup, but it was sort of dry.

If you prefer, you can cut down a bit on the cinnamon, but we like it this way.

Pecan Tassies

Pecan tassies are miniature pecan pies baked in muffin tins that are in the neighborhood of an inch across, give or take. They were pretty much guaranteed to be served at weddings, showers, teas and other dress up functions in Jarratt, and in Emporia, I think, when I was growing up.

This would probably be as good a time as any to explain the geography of our growing up. We lived on the farm five miles from Emporia, a city of 5,000 and five miles from Jarratt, a smaller town. (The word city is important, because it was a big deal when that status was achieved. I’m not sure why.} We went to school in Emporia, and to church in Jarratt, and Daddy worked in Jarratt at Johns Manville. When mother worked while Bubba was in college and again after I was in high school, she worked in Emporia, and I started working there when I was fifteen, first in Rose’s dime store and later in Gene’s and whatever it turned into. I mentioned in an earlier post that we got married on Sunday so the ladies I had worked with could come to the wedding.

This bi-community living made for some confusion the first year we had Daylight Saving Time. Virginia allowed local option, and Emporia did and Jarratt didn’t. The clock was set for Emporia time and it was a mess. After Daddy got to work and we to church at the wrong time a couple of times, we went to the two clock system.

When I was in first grade, I was terribly worried that the people in Emporia would think I didn’t go to church and the people in Jarratt would think I didn’t go to school. If I recall correctly, I was much more worried about the church part than the school part. To be expected of a properly brought up Southern Baptist child, I expect.

Apparently that sort of worrying runs in the family. We’re keeping Moonpie this weekend while Rosa and parents go to Disney to the science class they have there. When we were making plans on the phone last night, David said they had decided not to surprise her because they were afraid she would think there was a family emergency if they took her out of school early without warning. I heard a voice in the background say “I tend to over think things.” I wish I could tell her she would get over it with age, but her Mema hasn’t yet, and I have a Medicare card. Mother used to say that if I didn't have something to worry about, I'd worry about that.

Back to the pecan tassies. They require a special pan, one for mini muffins about an inch across. When we were first married, I bought one pan and used it and washed it and used it and washed it until I had baked enough to serve. Then every Christmas, I bought another pan until I had enough to feed a small army without stopping to wash in between. It certainly made things easier and quicker, but it can be done with just one pan.


Recipe

Pastry

3 oz. block cream cheese (lower fat works, but not fat free)
½ cup margarine or butter
1 cup flour

Mix together with mixer or by hand. Form into a log, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for an hour. Divide into 24 balls. Spray pans with vegetable spray. Press balls into and up the sides of tiny muffin tins, about an inch across.

Filling

2 eggs
1 cup light brown sugar
2 T melted butter or margarine
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
Pinch salt
1 cup pecans

Beat eggs slightly, add all other ingredients and mix well. Put into uncooked shells, leaving a small rim of crust showing.
Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until crusts are brown and filling is set but not hard. Use blade of knife to help remove tassies while they are still warm. If left to cool completely, they may stick.
These freeze well.

Note: When I’m feeling lazy, and don’t plan to freeze the tassies, I let Publix or some other nice company do it. Roll out one of their pie crust circles until a bit thinner and cut out circles big enough to reach up the sides of your muffin cup. I use a juice glass that is just the right fit, but it took a couple of tries to find the right size. Gather the scraps, reroll and keep cutting.

Overdale Relay Stuffed Blueberry French Toast

My fellow staff members at Overdale Primary School in Tallmadge, Ohio were enthusiastic supporters of Relay for Life. Quite a few of them spent the night at the event, but sleeping outside in a sleeping bag or on a beach lounge chair just did not appeal to this delicate flower. I was quite glad to get up at 4:30 to make breakfast and take it to the brave souls who did spend the night, however, and take my turn walking laps while they got cleaned up a bit and ate. One of the dishes they liked best was this French toast casserole.

One of my fondest Relay for life memories involved a then first grader who is a survivor of leukemia. She was asked to take part in the opening ceremony and was quite excited. It was a rainy week and every day she talked about the ceremony and worried that it might rain that day. She told me that she prayed every night that Jesus would make it "sun", and she knew He would because she knew Jesus would want it to "sun". She asked me several times if I thought Jesus would want it to "sun". On that Friday it rained pretty hard in the morning but was only sprinkling in the afternoon. Just as the little sweetie was to say her part, it stopped raining and a beautiful rainbow appeared. I guess she was right. Jesus must have wanted it to "sun". I have never heard anyone else use sun as a verb, but it makes sense. We use the word rain that way, after all.

Overdale closed this year, and most of the staff members moved with the students to Dunbar. I'm sure they have been warmly welcomed, but it had to be difficult to pack up all their things and leave the "home" they had made over the years at Overdale.

I understand from friends that they are as active in support of Relay for Life at Dunbar as they were when I had the privilege of working with them at Overdale. They just aren’t the Otters anymore.

Recipe

1 loaf white or whole wheat bread, crust removed and cut into cubes
½ loaf French bread, white or whole grain (Not a baguette)
6 cups frozen blueberries, thawed and drained
8 oz. cream cheese
½ cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
8 eggs
3 cups milk
½ tsp. cinnamon
½ cup powdered sugar

Spray 9”x13” pan with vegetable spray and place cubed bread on bottom. Sprinkle with berries. Microwave cream cheese in bowl for 2 minutes. Stir in sugar, sour cream and vanilla. Spread over berries.
Cut French bread into 10 slices, ½ inch thick. Place on top of cream cheese mixture. Beat together eggs, milk and cinnamon. Pour over the bread. Gently push the bread down into liquid with a wooden spoon. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight.

Bake, covered, at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Uncover and bake 15 minutes. Let rest for 5 mnutes or so before serving with warm maple syrup or blueberry syrup. Serves 10

Note: I have substituted heated low sugar jam for fruit syrup. It works great. I have also substituted blackberries or combined blueberries and blackberries.

Careless Blogger Alert!

I just realized that the oatmeal cookie recipe posted earlier has an error. I have fixed it so everything is now okay. Appparently I can't read my own scribbling.

I am so sorry! Whenever you see anything that doesn't look right, please let me know. I would be so grateful

Why Mema Plus Mother's Meatloaf

The story of how Mother became Mema has absolutely nothing to do with her meatloaf recipe, but digressing is one of my talents/weaknesses.

When nephew Monte was a young toddler, his granddaddy Ashby had a stroke and was quite ill for a long time. He and Mrs. Ashby lived on the Eastern Shore before the bridge-tunnel was built and getting to them on the ferry took so long. Pat needed to be with them during this difficult time, so Monte shifted between our house, his house and the Eastern Shore quite a bit during that time.

Unfortunately, it did not occur to us that my calling Mother Mama would carry over to Monte, but it did. We tried changing to Grandma, and every other name we could think of, and Mema was the one that worked. Since both Monte and later Melissa said Mema, it was only natural that David would when he came along. Monte and Melissa called Pat's mother Mama Duck, and David called Mrs. Williams Grandmother. When he was just starting to talk, he called Mr. Williams Man. It embarrassed Mr. Williams to have this little kid yelling "Man" across the church yard. We could not figure out why David had picked this name until he got old enough to say longer words and changed to saying "Man Daddy." (Granddaddy) Now if we could just figure out why the baby Rosa called Del Bepo. I thought it was so cute, but it disappeared one day to be replaced by Granddaddy. Tracy's dad is Grandpa.

I became Mema because the first time David put her in my arms he said ”Here’s your Mema.” I have to confess that I almost turned around to look behind me, even though Mother had died when David was in college. I felt quite honored that I would be called Mema, but I knew that no matter how hard I tried there would be no way that I'd be the Mema she was. What a lady!

Back to meatloaf.

I love meatloaf, and I love cold meatloaf sandwiches. I don’t know that Mother ever had a formal recipe for her meatloaf, but this is my adaptation of what she taught me to do. Many people use ketchup or barbecue sauce in their meatloaf, but Mother always used home canned tomatoes. As mentioned in the scalloped potato post, she almost always served scalloped potatoes and string beans with her meatloaf.

Recipe

2 lb. ground beef or turkey
1 medium onion, finely chopped or equivalent of onion powder
1/4 medium green pepper, chopped
¾ cup raw oatmeal
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper
Dash red pepper
2 lightly beaten eggs or equivalent of substitute
28 oz. can diced tomatoes, divided

Scoop half the tomatoes from the can with a slotted spoon and mix with other ingredients. Shape into a loaf and place in sprayed baking dish.
Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Pour remaining tomatoes over meatloaf and cook another 30-45 minutes or so, checking for doneness after 30 minutes. Remove from oven, place on platter and allow to rest while you make the gravy.

Spoon off all but 2 T of drippings into a small bowl, and add 2 T of flour to the pan. Place on eye of stove and brown the flour, being sure to scrub up the bits at the bottom of the pan.

Remove as much fat from the drippings as possible and add beef broth to make a cup. Pour into the pan and stir until thick.

This makes at least 8 servings. For Del and me, I shape two loaves and freeze one raw for later. If I do that, I put half the remaining tomatoes into a freezer bag and wrap it up with the second loaf. Half the mixture leaves us plenty for sandwiches. I imagine you could cook both loaves and freeze one and half the gravy, but I have not actually tried that.

In case you would prefer to make the meatloaf exactly as Mother did, here’s how our recipes differ:

She did not put any tomatoes in the mixture itself. She just poured all of them over and around the loaf.

She did not make gravy. She served the meatloaf from the baking dish and we just scooped the tomatoes from the pan if we wanted to and put them over our meatloaf.

Mema's Special Spaghetti Sauce (Mema 2)

I don’t remember that Mother made spaghetti sauce, but Dolly, our aunt by her marriage to Mother’s Brother Mel, made it quite frequently and shared it with us. I remember that when the weather was cold enough that it would not spoil, she used to put a jar of sauce in Mother’s car which was parked behind Leggett’s department store. That was in the day when no one much bothered to lock either cars or houses in Emporia or Jarratt.

Mel and Dolly had lived all over because Mel had a career in the Army. He fought in World War 2 and had what they called a battlefield commission. I remember that Mel wore his dress whites to Bubba and Pat’s wedding and Dolly looked so elegant. She always wore her black hair up, in a bun or on fancy occasions in a more elaborate twist or curls. As she aged, she first developed a white streak and then it all turned silver . I remember that she always wore “Youth Dew” perfume by Estee Lauder. The young country/small town girl thought Dolly knew everything there was to know about the proper way to “do things." She probably did, after all those years of Army functions. Even in my day as an Army wife, they gave us a little book of social rules and regulations. How else would I have known that the wife of the ranking officer would be asked to pour the first few cups of tea at any ladies'event and the wife of the second ranking officer the first cups of coffee. Unless I've gotten it backwards, of course. It hasn't come up in our post army life, thank goodness.

They moved to Emporia after Mel retired, and we so enjoyed having them nearby. They were so good to Bubba and Pat and me. I remember that Dolly came out to see me get dressed for proms, and she was Mistress of Ceremonies at our wedding. They also gave the after rehearsal party, and Mel drove Daddy and me to the church and Del and me to the reception and back out to the house in his big new car.

Both Mel and Dolly are gone now, but it makes me happy to know that my cousin Barry and his wife Suzanne are now living in the house where he spent his high school years.

Back to spaghetti sauce. I used to make a pretty respectable sauce from scratch, but that got to be too much like work after I discovered MIDS sauce. It’s the only jar sauce I have ever really liked. It is made in Northeast Ohio and only recently found its way down to Georgia so I can make what Rosa calls Mema’s Special Sauce without dragging sauce home from Ohio when we visit. (Thank you MIDS and Publix.)

Mema’s Special Sauce (Mema 2, not to be confused with the REAL Mema)

1 jar MIDS spaghetti sauce
1 T olive oil
1 large clove garlic, minced
1/2 Italian style chicken sausage link per person, thinly sliced (comes precooked)
½ T fennel seed
¼ cup white wine
¼ cup water

Heat oil in sauce pan. Add sausage and lightly brown on low heat. Add garlic,and fennel sead and cook for 30 seconds or so. Add sauce. Pour wine and water into sauce jar, screw on top and shake so that you will be able to get every drop of sauce from jar. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for 15 minutes, or longer if you like.

You can substitute another jarred sauce, but it won’t be quite the same.



Continuing on the spaghetti sauce theme –

Tomato Basil Sauce

When David and Tracy were first married, he was interviewed for the cooking column of the newspaper where Tracy worked. They published a couple of recipes that he enjoyed cooking. One was for this quick spaghetti sauce.

Recipe

2 slices bacon
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
28 oz. can crushed tomatoes (Muir Glen is a good brand, but it’s more expensive.)
1 T oregano
1 T basil
2 t. onion powder
Dash cayenne pepper
Dash black pepper
Pinch of sugar if sauce seems sharp

Fry bacon until crisp. Remove from pan, drain on paper towel and crumble. Wipe most of fat from pan, but leave the brown bits, if any. Slightly brown garlic and add tomatoes, spices and peppers. Simmer over medium low heat for 15 minutes. Add bacon during last 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Serve over pasta.

Baked Vidalia Onion Dip

If Del were listing his favorite things to eat, this recipe would be close to the top of the list. I usually make it once or twice a year when lots of people are around so he won’t be able to eat the whole thing all by himself. I don’t recall where I got this recipe. Probably someone brought it to a potluck, and we begged until given the recipe.

Our family is divided on the subject of onions. David likes them. In fact, when he was quite young, and became cranky while I was cooking dinner, a slice of onion often improved his disposition. I can’t remember how I landed on that as a snack for a small child. Seems strange when I think about it.

Tracy and Rosa don’t care for them one bit. They don’t seem to mind onion powder so much, so it may be a texture thing instead of just a matter of the taste. Tracy’s mother, Sally Stenberg, another really good Southern cook, makes her turkey dressing part with and part without onion so her whole family will enjoy it.

Recipe:

Combine equal parts grated Vidalia onions, mayonnaise and grated Swiss cheese, add a sprinkle of paprika or red pepper and spoon into a sprayed casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes or until brown and bubbly. A knife will come out pretty clean. Remove from oven and use paper towels to blot up the grease on top of the casserole. Serve with crackers or slices of baguette. Of course you could also just apply directly to waist and hips, ‘cause that’s where much of it is going to end up. The rest will be in your arteries.

Note: I have been told that only Vidalia onions will work in the recipe, but I don’t know. I use Duke's mayonnaise when it's available, it's a regional product, so use your favorite brand. The empty mayonnaise jar works perfectly for measuring the onions and the cheese.

As Far As I 'm Concerned, Gravy Should Be a Beverage!

I love gravy and have often commented that it should be a beverage. Maybe I’ll even get a sweat shirt with that printed on it, although it might be more becoming on someone thin.

We ate a lot of gravy at our house when I was growing up – fried chicken gravy, baked chicken gravy, turkey gravy, beef gravy, pork gravy, and red eye gravy – yum! Mother did not make fried fish gravy, but Del’s Aunt Hattie did. I’ve also heard of tomato gravy and chocolate gravy, but I’ve never eaten either.

I don’t recall Mother having a recipe for gravy. It was more a process and differed somewhat based on the meat. If she was baking (roasting) something in the oven, she usually browned some flour by putting it into the oven in a pie tin when cooking the meat. I remember you had to peek at it and give it a stir every so often or you would have nasty smelling burnt flour. Once the meat was done, she would pour off the drippings into a small bowl and spoon off the fat that rose to the top.
Depending upon the amount of gravy she planned to make, she would return equal amounts of drippings and browned flour to the roasting pan and stir them until well combined, scrubbing up the brown bits on the bottom of the pan as she stirred. Then she would pour in about a cup of water or broth for each two T of drippings. She would stir until the gravy thickened up and add salt and pepper as needed.

When Mother made gravy for meat cooked on eye of the stove, she poured off the drippings, leaving a couple of tablespoons in the pan. She would then add in an equal amount of regular flour and cook, while stirring and scraping, until the mixture was a nice caramel color. Again, she removed as much fat as possible from the reserved drippings and added them and enough water or broth to make a cup to the pan. She continued to cook and stir until the gravy was as thick as she wanted it to be. Some people use milk when making fried chicken gravy, but never did as far as I remember.

Turkey gravy
Turkey gravy is a more elaborate process, so I’ll number the steps.
1. Remove packets from both ends of the turkey. It’s gross to cook a turkey and discover that the packers left a present in the neck end as well in the nether region. I know whereof I speak.
2. Cover neck and everything except the liver with water and simmer until done. When cool enough to handle, coarsely chop gizzard and heart and return to broth. Refrigerate until needed.
3. If you use Mrs. Williams’ method, you need to boil 2-3 eggs.
4. When the turkey is done, pour off the drippings. Return 2 tablespoons to roasting pan for each cup of gravy you plan to make. Add an equal amount of plain flour and cook until light brown, stirring and scrubbing up the brown bits. Remove as much fat as possible from the reserved drippings.
5. Combine reserved drippings and the broth with the chopped giblets. Pour one cup per 2 tablespoons of flour into roasting pan. Cook until thickened. Mrs. Williams would have coarsely chopped the boiled eggs and added them to the gravy at this point. I don’t do that, but I don’t find it objectionable.
6. If you don’t have enough liquid for the amount of gravy you want, add water or canned broth.
7. If you have extra liquid, use it when you make your dressing. Otherwise, you can use canned broth for that.


Red Eye Gravy

I can’t think of a better, or much less healthy breakfast, or dinner, really, than an egg fried so hard nobody would eat it but me, fried country ham, plain grits, homemade biscuits, red eye gravy and apple butter. If you want the gravy, you had better learn to make it yourself, because I rarely find it in restaurants. Del, who calls it “grease,” thinks this is as it should be. Bless his heart.

Recipe
Fry thin slices of old fashioned country ham over low heat until brown on both sides, but not hard and crunchy. An iron frying pan is best, but not mandatory. Remove ham from pan and keep warm. Remove some of the drippings unless you want to make lots of gravy. Pour ½ to 1 cup of water, depending upon the amount of drippings, into the pan and use wooden spoon to scrub up the brown bits from the bottom of the pan. Cook 2 minutes or so until bubbling, slightly reduced in volume and reddish in color. Some people add half water and half coffee, but Mother never did that.

As suggested, serve with fried eggs and the ham and biscuits. You can put a spoon of the gravy on your grits or you can split your biscuit and pour the gravy over it instead of using butter and apple butter. That is a hard choice, so maybe you should have one of each. A large glass or two of ice water, blood pressure pills and an antacid would be the appropriate chasers for this meal, and it certainly should NOT appear on the table very often.

Nowadays, we don’t eat gravy often, and when we do, I try to defat it as much as possible. Often I just pour off all the drippings and pat the pan with a paper towel, being careful so the brown bits remain in the pan. Then I pour in a can of broth and thicken with a little cornstarch. To avoid lumps, stir a couple of tablespoons of water or cold broth into a tablespoon of cornstarch. Add the slurry to cold broth. If the gravy does not thicken enough, make more slurry. This time put a little of the hot broth into the slurry while stirring and then add it to the hot mixture, whisking to avoid lumps.

That pretty much sums up all I know about gravy. Now if I could just figure out the difference between gravy and sauce. I've always suspected sauce was just a fancy word for gravy,used by chefs who considered gravy low class, and later adopted by the rest of us to describe that which is poured over more sophisticated dishes. (Or in these days, requested “on the side.”) Even after consulting my faithful expert, Google, I still don’t understand the difference. So much conflicting info for what seems a simple question. Help, anyone?

Tender and Flavorful Though "Done" Roast Beef - Thanks, People at COOK'S!

Mrs. Williams made good roast beef but Mother rarely made it, and cooking a hunk of beef has never been one of my talents in terms of flavor or texture. For one thing, I do not think pink is a color that should be associated with meat, except for ham and shrimp. Actually, that probably explains it all. That has changed forever, I hope.

I love reading COOK'S ILLUSTRATED Magazine, and watching AMERICA'S TEST KITCHEN and COOK'S COUNTRY on TV. The amount of research, time and trouble they go to to get the best results is fascinating to me. I have the TV set to record the programs each Saturday and watch them whenever I get around to it. Anyway, the other day I was watching Bridget Lancaster prepare a top sirloin roast and was inspired to give it a try.

Her way would probably be even better because of the herbs and longer salting period, but even with my simplifications the roast was delicious and tender though “done.” I just tasted a bit of the leftover beef straight from the fridge, and it was still tender and tasty.

You can check with COOKS for the “real” way to make this roast, but here is what I did. It’s more a process than a recipe.

Top Sirloin Roast – Mine was 4 ½ lbs.
Kosher Salt
Pepper
1 T olive oil

Place roast on meat cutting board. Use sharp knife to butterfly the roast, leaving it attached by about an inch at one side like a book. Cut off any big pieces of fat. Sprinkle the inside and outside of the roast liberally with kosher salt. Place uncovered on rack in fridge for a couple of hours or more. Remove from fridge and pat the meat really dry inside and out with paper towels. Sprinkle inside of roast with salt and pepper. Close it back up and tie into a nice shape with kitchen twine. Pat salt and pepper onto all sides of the roast.

Heat oil in oven safe skillet. Brown roast on all sides on top of stove over high heat until brown and crusty. Place into preheated 250 degree oven. Roast to 145-150 degrees if you like pinkish and to 165 -170 if I’m coming to dinner. This low, slow roasting will give you a moist, tender roast, and having the salt and pepper inside the roast as well as on the outside will make it flavorful. Be sure to allow yourself plenty of time.
When the roast reaches preferred temperature, remove from oven and allow to sit for 15 minutes while you make gravy. See next post for directions.

Mother's Scalloped Potatoes

It was quite a surprise to me when I got to Westhampton College and found out that Mother’s way of making scalloped potatoes was not the only way to make them. Our cooks made them with cheese and onion and sometimes with crumbs on top,and lots of students pronounced scalloped with a short /a/ as in /cat/. Mother pronounced scallop with a /ah/ sound whether speaking of the potato dish, the sea creature or the rounded decoration on clothing. Of course I do, too, and I am convinced that even if her way is not the only of making scalloped potatoes, it is surely the best way.

It was quite common for Mother to serve scalloped potatoes and string beans with meatloaf, and it was one of the first meals I learned to cook. I felt confident that I could successfully manage that meal, so I served it the first time Del’s folks came for dinner. Unfortunately, I forgot that both potatoes and tomatoes aggravated Mrs. Williams’ nasal allergies, so I’m sure she had to pull out the nasal spray that evening. Since it was a discomfort kind of allergy rather than a potentially lethal one, she was kind enough to say nothing, so I didn’t realize what I had done until Del reminded me after they went home. I was mortified, to say the least.

Recipe

4 cups thinly sliced potatoes
1 T flour
Salt
Black Pepper - I like lots
1 ½ cups milk (1% is fine)
2 T butter

Mix potatoes with flour, salt and pepper and place into sprayed 8 inch dish. Add milk. It should reach top of potatoes but not cover them. Dot with butter. Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 1 hour, but start checking them after 45 minutes. Potatoes are done when easily pierced with paring knife and the milk has combined with flour and the starch from the potatoes to produce a thick sauce. Additional milk can be added during cooking if the potatoes appear dry.

Serves 4-6.

Note: I usually make scalloped potatoes when I am going to have the oven on for a long time to cook the main dish of the meal, but sometimes I speed things up by starting the dish in the microwave for 10 minutes. Then I have to play the rest of the time by ear.

Baseball Game and Cole Slaw

We went with David, Tracy and Rosa to see the Braves play yesterday afternoon. It started out a little cloudy and felt fallish, but the sun came out by game time, making me wish I had stuck my hat in my bag rather than my tiny umbrella.

Going to the game reminded me of the first time we went with Rosa to a ball game. I know she was barely 2, because she didn't quite have a firm hold on the whole pronoun situation yet. She loved every minute of the game. How could she not when the Cubs were playing? Anyhow, when we got back to their house, she began to give her replay of the game. "Them baseball men throw ball. Them baseball men hit ball. Them baseball men run. Everybody Yea!! Then she jumpd up and down and clapped and looked at us as though she expected us to do the same. Of course we did.

The next day, the two of us were coloring in her Wiggles color book when she said, "Me like Wiggles." Being the good Mema speech therapist, I modeled the correct production. "I (with emphasis on I) like the Wiggles."
The little sweetie looked up at me and said, "You do, too?" So much for my subtle technique.

Amazingly, when we went to a minor league game at the beach that summer, she kept saying "Me see Cubs guy." We didn't understand what she was talking about until Del or David noticed a man in a Montreal uniform. He was there to check out the farm team, I guess, and the uniforms are quite similar. Now who would have thought she would remember what the Cubs uniform looked like?

The game did not go so well for the Braves yesterday, but we had a great time. Rosa still seems to enjoy the game. Me too. It's a sport I really enjoy watching because I can daydream and still mostly keep up with the action.

We started the baseball afternoon with a trip to the Varsity, a fast food joint like no other I have ever seen. According to their website, it is the world's largest drive in with room for 600 cars right down there in downtown Atlanta and seats for 800 inside. They say that on a home game day for Georgia Tech they serve at least 30,000 people. I can't imagine it. Being there last year at the same time as bus loads of kids on their way home from a field trip boggled my mind. On a regular day they only serve up 2 miles of hotdogs, 2,000 lb. onions, 2,500 lb. potatoes, 300 gallons chili and 5,000 fried pies, and they make everything from scratch.

When you approach the counter, you hear "What'll ya have? What'll ya have? What'll ya have?", and they really like it if you know what you want when you get there so you won't hold up the line. Many people can order by number, but not me. It's their own fault. They have a number for chili dogs and one for slaw dogs, but somehow they neglected to combine the two. I also ask for onions, which they serve wrapped in a little twist of wax paper. Whether you choose fries or onion rings to go with those great dogs, you are in for a treat, but you won't be wanting any snacks at the ball field, I can tell you right now.

In case you want to make your own chili slaw dogs, here's how. I don't want you to have to struggle with it as Mother and I did.

Even the best cooks have a thing or two that isn't their best dish. For Mother, it was cole slaw. She made it just about once a week because we ate so much fish from the creek, but she would be the first to say it really tasted more like cabbage and stuff. For the first 30 some years, mine was equally underwhelming. I used to say I was going to get myself a job at Kings Barbecue on Crater Road in Petersburg so I could learn their secret, but I kept fiddling and about 5 years ago something clicked and it's actually good. I think it's the finely grated onion.

Recipe:

2 cups grated cabbage
scant 1/4 cup light mayonaise
1/4 cup milk
1T onion, grated so finely it's almost juice
1T white vinegar
1/2 tsp. yellow mustard
1-2 packets Splenda, depending upon whether you want sweeter slaw
salt and pepper to taste

Mix all sauce ingredients and pour over cabbage. Mix well. Serves at least 4 as a side dish, more as a hotdog topping.

Cheese Grits Casserole

Cheese Grits Casserole

When I worked at Medina County Board of MR/DD, we occasionally had breakfast “bring ins” or pot lucks for staff meetings. One night I forgot to stop at the store to get ingredients for the dish I had planned, and the cupboard was nearly bare, so I ended up making cheese grits casserole.

You know how many grits jokes there are out there, so I was not sure how my coworkers of the Northern persuasion would feel about being fed them. In one of my aha moments, I told everyone my dish was baked polenta, and only after they licked the dish clean did I confess what they were. Since they are both ground corn, I think I may have been almost telling the truth.

The joke ended up being on me, however, because my friends insisted that I bring grits to every pot luck after that. Anyone else could stop at the donut or bagel store, but I had to get up extra early to stick a casserole in the oven and wrap it well enough to keep it warm on the way to work.

I rarely ate breakfast at the Williams' house when the eggs were not served with grits. Mrs. Williams usually made either regular grits or top of the stove cheese grits, not grits casserole. She served them with butter and bacon or sausage. We didn't have grits all that often when I was growing up, but if we did, they were served with fried salty country ham and red eye gravy. After I left home, cheese grits casserole started to be "the thing" among the ladies at High Hills Baptist Church in Jarratt.

However you eat your grits, do not buy the instant ones. Quick cooking are acceptable, especially for casseroles, but nothing beats the long cooking ones ground at an old fashioned grist mill. The yellow ones they sell in South Carolina are also good.

Recipe:

½ cup quick cooking grits (not instant)
2 cups boiling water
½ stick butter
7 oz. EXTRA sharp cheese, grated
¾ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. red pepper
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 egg

Add grits, salt and both peppers to boiling water, stirring constantly. Turn heat to medium low and continue to stir so the grits won’t pop. They can cause a painful burn if they land on your skin. Cook 6 minutes. Remove from heat. Add cheese and butter and stir until melted. Let cool a few minutes before adding egg. Break egg into small bowl and beat with a fork. Temper the egg by adding several small spoons of hot mixture to the egg while stirring before adding to full pan of grits to keep the egg from scrambling.

Pour mixture into greased or sprayed casserole and bake 1 hour at 325 degrees. Knife inserted near center should come out clean. Serves 6 to 8 as a side dish.

Note: If you leave out the egg, you can serve these grits as simple top of the stove cheese grits.

Oatmeal Cookies - Corrected Post

We moved to Akron when Nephew William was 10 and Niece Sarah was 4. Shortly after we arrived there, the two of them came out from Virginia with Granddaddy Williams for a visit. Sarah had never been away from her parents before, and William had never been so far away from them. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. Suppose they got homesick and we had to take them home before the week was over? To make things even more complicated, we had a new dog, rescued from a shelter, who was the dog from the place we don’t want to spend eternity. Let’s just say that his first five minutes in the house he peed on the living room sofa, turned over a tv and something else so obnoxious I blocked it out. Mr. Williams was by this time frail, and I was pretty sure we would have to board Mort to keep Mr. Williams safe from the wild animal. That turned out to be unnecessary because strange as it sounds, Mort seemed to sense that Granddaddy Williams was not all that steady on his feet and was quite calm around him. We frequently saw the two of them sleeping in the glider on the patio.

Mort was also protective of Sarah when she was on the stairs. He would lean on her so that she was against the wall and would not move so she could not go up or down. Considering herself quite capable of managing the stairs, she did not appreciate this, so we heard quite a bit of squawking each time it happened.

He was not so protective when she tried to walk him. I looked out the window and saw Del running to catch Mort who was dragging Sarah across the yard. She later reported to her folks that Mort had taken her for a drag.

Both William and Sarah were fascinated by what Sarah called the laundry lute. They spent lots of time with one of them at the top and one of them in the basement giving Barbie and other toys rides.

Having been a much younger sister and having had only one child, I was somewhat unfamiliar with the inter workings of the two child family. I heard Sarah yelling at William to stop right now or she would tell, etc., etc. and peeked into the family room to see Sarah sitting on the sofa watching tv and fussing while William was sitting on the floor with his back to both her and the tv, ignoring her while he read his book.

I got into a bit of trouble with the parents when Sarah reported on the phone that I would not allow them to say the /F/ word. I could hear Daryl Lyn screeching all the way across the kitchen, “Put your Aunt Betty on the phone!” She was somewhat appeased when I explained that the /F/ word was Frisbee, a word we could not say in Mort’s presence without setting off a storm of barking and jumping, but thought we could have chosen a better nickname. I got into more trouble the first Sunday she was home and reported to her Sunday School teacher that her Aunt Betty had taught her to rhyme. I swear that I never used the duck or truck family to teach her or any other child to rhyme, but I was quite proud that she had been able to generalize her new knowledge so well.

William’s main concern that week was the fact that I usually drank a glass of wine in the evening. He was a Baptist child who rarely saw his parents drink, and confided to his mother on the phone that he was worried that I might be an alchoholic. We were quite amused years later when the grown up William picked out a wine rack for us for Christmas.

It rained so much while they were there that most of the outdoor activities I had planned were pretty much a bust. What to do, what to do? We cooked. That was a learning experience for me as well. Seems that when you bake with more than one child you have to let each put in half of each of the ingredients or it gets testy. We made all sorts of things, but the oatmeal cookies have taken on a life of of their own in family lore. William and Sarah declare that I make the best oatmeal cookies they ever tasted, but David and Del say they don’t remember because I quit making cookies about 1980.

Oatmeal Cookie Recipe:

½ cup butter, softened
½ cup light brown sugarsugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup all purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup old fashioned oatmeal

Cream butter and sugars. Add egg and vanilla, mixing well. Mix in flour, salt, baking powder and oats. Drop by rounded measuring teaspoons onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone pan liner. They should be about 2 inches apart. Chilling dough for 30 minutes or so is not mandatory, but helps control spreading if you prefer that. Bake 10 – 12 minutes at 350 degrees. Edges will be golden brown and the center of the cookies will be slightly soft. Let cool a couple of minutes and remove from pan to rack to cool. These will be crisp.

Note: You could add spices, but Mother never did, so I don’t either.

Mother and Pat's Sweet Potato Pie and Mrs. Williams Sweet Potato Casserole

My daddy loved sweet potatoes. Our house was heated by a large oil stove, and he used to put potatoes in a pie pan and put it on the edge of the stove to cook slowly. A warm sweet potato, eaten out of hand, with no seasoning was his favorite after work snack.

My favorite way to eat sweet potatoes is in pie, or in a modified version of Mrs. Williams’ sweet potato casserole. Del prefers them baked whole and served with a butter, cinnamon and nutmeg mixture.
I use the same recipe for sweet potato pie used by Mother and my sister -in-law, Pat Robinson, and it is delicious. Unlike most sweet potato pie recipes, it does not have lemon flavoring or pumpkin pie type spices. It only has vanilla extract, and that lets the flavor of the sweet potato shine through. I always bake the potatoes when cooking them for recipes so they won’t absorb water, but I guess you could also microwave or steam them.
I wish that I also shared Mother’s and Pat’s neat cooking habits. Either could cook for a crowd and the kitchen would look as though no one had lifted a spoon in there. I, on the other hand, am a messy cook. Mother used to say of my kitchen that it looked like the devil had a fit in there because I didn’t wash up as I went. She never had a dishwasher and always kept a sink full of hot soapy water at the ready the whole time she was cooking. I remember reaching for the stirring spoon or spatula or tongs I was using only to discover that she had washed it.

Sweet Potato Pie Recipe:

1 ¼ cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
¾ cup sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup evaporated milk
1 Tbsp. melted margarine
Mix all ingredients, stirring well after each addition. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 300 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. A knife inserted near center of pie should come out clean.


Mrs. Williams Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe (slightly modified)

Casserole Ingredients:

3 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
1 cup sugar
¼ cup butter, melted
2 large eggs, well beaten , or egg substitute
1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
½ cup milk

Topping Ingredients:

½ cup light brown sugar
¼ cup flour
2 ½ T butter, melted
½ cup chopped pecans

Mix all casserole ingredients and pour into sprayed 2 quart casserole dish. Mix topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly over casserole. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Knife inserted near center will come out clean.

Note: My recipe eliminates ¼ cup butter, but you can put it back if you prefer. You can also add cinnamon and nutmeg if you like.

Eunie's Pecan Pie

Eunie’s Pecan Pie

Eunie, or Auntie as my cousins called her, was Daddy’s sister. Her given name was Gertrude. She never married, but she helped my Uncle Garland bring up his children after their mothers died. When I was quite young, she worked in a dry goods store. Eunie loved coffee and was always hunting for the cup she had set down somewhere. One time she pulled into the driveway, got out of the car and found that her coffee cup had ridden all the way to town and back on her bumper. She was great about taking all of us cousins swimming, but she was nervous about water and spent the whole time we were at the lake walking back and forth warning us not to get out too far. We used to laugh that we would never get in over our knees if she had anything to say about it. She was a great story teller and loved to do various types of crafts.

Eunie was naturally left handed, but her teacher tied her hand so that she had to write with her right. My daddy was so upset at having seen his sister treated that way that he sent left handed me to school with a note, although I don’t think they tried to change people in my day. It was completely out of character for my parents to make waves, so he must have been really concerned.
Eunie could slice a country ham so thin you could almost read the newspaper through it, and she made the best pecan pie I ever tasted. Our family always called it peecan pie when I was growing up, and I still do, but I most always say butter pecahn ice cream, maybe because we didn't say that much at home and I said it as I heard it in restaurants.

Recipe:
1 cup sugar
½ cup light corn syrup
¼ cup melted butter or margarine
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup broken pecans
Mix sugar, syrup and butter. Add beaten eggs and pecans. Pour into unbaked pie shell and bake 40-45 minutes in preheated 375 degree oven.

Mrs. Williams' Pound Cake

Mrs. Williams’ Pound Cake


Del's mother was a wonderful Southern cook. One of her specialties was her pound cake. It is the best I ever put in my mouth, perhaps because it is made with powdered sugar instead of granulated. This cake has a very small crumb and is dense, but it melts in your mouth. I never saw the recipe anywhere else, but it is so destinctive in taste and texture that I was able to recognize it the only other time I ever ate it. One of the parents brought it to the reception after one of Rosa's piano recitals.

The cake is delicious all by itself, but is wonderful as a base for strawberry or any other kind of shortcake. Because of its texture, it works well when cut into cubes for chocolate fondue. Del’s favorite way to eat it is to put a slice in a bowl, add fruit and pour milk over it.

I have always said I married Del to get this recipe, and he has always said that if that is true, you would think I would make it more often than every ten years or so. Fact is, I don't like to bake because flour messes up the kitchen. Bakers also have to be quite precise in their measuring and timing, and I'm more a slap and dash cook.

Niece Sarah likes to bake, and she is getting married in October, so I am posting her grandmother's recipe in her honor. Maybe she will make it more often for Miles than I have for her uncle, or get him to make it for her.

Recipe

1 lb. powdered sugar
1 ½ cups butter , softened (no substitute)
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
6 large eggs
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
¼ cup milk

Sift flour and sugar separately. Cream together sugar, vanilla and butter . Add alternately the eggs, flour and milk to the creamed ingredients, beating well after each addition. Pour into greased tube or Bundt pan. Bake for 1 hour in preheated oven at 325 degrees. Wooden skewer inserted just off center should come out clean.

Try to let it cool before cutting yourself a great big old piece. This cake freezes well, but be sure to wrap it carefully. Glad Press and Seal and a freezer bag would probably be perfect.

Chicken Muddle

When we were in Lithuania, I read a post on FB about the upcoming sale of chicken muddle that took me back. When I was growing up in Greensville County, it seemed that every organization sold muddle to raise money for this or that. Girl Scout Troup 23 sold enough muddle, Claxton fruit cakes and GS cookies to be able to ride the train to Savanah, Ga. to visit Juliette Gordon Low's birthplace. I never cared much for fruit cake, but I still love muddle.

When I was growing up, every community had a couple of men who made muddle for groups to sell, and there was some disagreement as to who made the very best. Others just made muddle for friends and family. Our family made muddle every year in a big black iron pot. The women cooked the hens, took the meat off the bones and got the vegetables together, and the men minded the fire and stirred the pot constantly for hours until it was done. Daddy had whittled out a stirring paddle that looked very much like a boat paddle. Keeping the fire hot enough to cook, but not too hot and stirring the muddle from the bottom of the pot so that it would not scorch
was a big responsibility. Scorched muddle could ruin your reputation as a muddle maker. It was also hot work, so in Southern Baptist families, the iced tea flowed. At our house you had to sweeten the tea yourself if you wanted it sweetened, because we were not of the sweet tea persuasion.

If you are not familiar with muddle, it is basically a thick stew made with chicken, side meat or bacon, potatoes, onions, butter beans (baby limas), corn, tomatoes and LOTS of red and black pepper, cooked so long that the individual ingredients virtually disappear. Various muddle makers might have slight variations - some add sugar or cracker meal for thickening at the end, but we didn't.

Other counties have a somewhat similar dish called Brunswick stew, and there is a good bit of arguing back and forth about which Brunswick County is the county of origin. Brunswick stew looks like a thick soup with individual ingredients in it and must be eaten with a spoon. Chicken muddle is so thick you can eat it with a fork and is a far superior dish. Just ask any Greensville Countian.

Daddy hunted, so we made squirrel muddle sometimes. I don't recall that it tasted any different, but I did hate it when a piece of shot was missed when cleaning the squirrel and I bit down on it. Squirrel was for home use only, of course.

The last muddle Daddy made was just before Del went to Vietnam. There was a big crowd, including Del's family, out in the front yard, and people were always in the kitchen getting the rest of the dinner together and passing through to the bathroom or to get more tea, etc. At one point, I put David, who was several months old down for a nap on a pallet (quilt or blanket)on the floor in my old bedroom. It opened into the kitchen, so there was always someone to check on him. My brother stuck his head in and didn't see David, so he asked the ladies in the kitchen about him. They said they hadn't seen anyone take him, but Bubba went out to see if someone had taken him out to the yard. No one had him or had seen him, so we ran into the house to look again. When I got to the room, I heard little noises coming from under the bed. David had squnched himself under the bed and was still fast asleep, hidden by the dust ruffle/bed skirt. Not the last time that child scared a year off my life, I'm here to tell you.

I have Woodrow Pollard's muddle recipe, given to me by his wife Daisy. I had to cut it down considerably, but make a pretty good muddle inside, on the stove. As soon as we begin to feel fall in the air, Del begins to ask when I am going to make muddle. It freezes well, so I put it up in quarts for later use.

Recipe

Woodrow's Proportions

3 hens
5 lbs. potatoes
3 lb. onions
3 qt. butter beans
3 quarts corn
2 lb. bacon
4qt.tomatoes

My Adjusted Proportions

1 hen
1 2/3 lb. potatoes, chopped
1 lb. onions, chopped
1 qt. butter beans (baby limas)
1 qt. corn
1/2 lb. bacon, chopped (I use less)
1 1/3 quarts canned tomatoes, chopped
water/canned chicken broth to cover chicken
salt
red pepper
black pepper

Woodrow's original recipe, as given to me, only listed the ingredients. My guess is that he assumed that anyone who asked for the recipe wouldn't need directions. Anyhow, here's what I do.

Get out your largest soup pot.

Put chopped bacon into pot and fry until crisp. Add hen, cover with water, broth or a combination of both. Put top on pot and stew until chicken is done. Remove chicken from pot and let cool a few minutes until safe to remove skin and pick meat from bones. Put shredded chicken meat back into the pot and add onions, potatoes, frozen butterbeans and salt and peppers. You are making a big pot of stew, so I would start with a T salt and 1/2 T of combined peppers. You may decide to add more when the muddle is finished.

Simmer, uncovered, until the vegetables are done. Use potato masher to mash some of the potatoes, leaving some still in chunks.

Add tomatoes with juice and continue to cook on low until muddle is thick and takes on the traditional orangish red muddle color. If the muddle continues to seem pale, add additional tomatoes.

When the muddle is quite thick, add corn and continue to cook until the spoon will stand up in the pot. Taste for salt and pepper.

This is really good with cornbread or tortilla chips if you get in a pinch for time.

NOte 1: I usually cook the chicken the day before and refrigerate. This gives me the chance to remove the congealed fat.

Note 2: My biggest pot is usually not big enough, so when it starts to get full, I pull out my next largest pot, divide the stew between them and add half of the remaining ingredients to each pot. If there still isn't enough room, I pull out my third largest pot and put equal amounts of stew from the first two pots into it. I keep tasting and combining until all the pots taste the same.

Note 3: This is pretty much an all day, okay, half day, process, and you need to stay near the stove to stir the stew frequently. Be sure to stir from the very bottom and sides of the pot so it will not scorch. I usually plan to clean out the refrigerator and the kitchen cupboards on muddle day so I will be in the kitchen.

Note 3: When the muddle is done, place pots into sinks and surround with ice. Stir stew frequently and add ice as needed. When the muddle is cool enough to handle safely, put into containers and return to ice bath. When sufficiently cool, place in refrigerator overnight and then freeze.

This may sound a lot like work, but it is worth it. There is a lot of trial and error in the seasoning, just be sure to add small amounts of salt and peppers at a time. As all our mothers said, "You can put it in, but you can't take it out."

Why "Miss Rosa"?

Del reminded me that some of you might not know why I called Mother Miss Rosa, and Daddy Mr. Willard (pronounced Wullad). I thought I had bored everybody I ever knew with that story, but maybe not. Growing up on a farm in the late '40's and on, as the much younger second child, I often played outside by myself. I could push the screen doors to get out, but was not tall enough to reach the handles to pull the doors open to get back in. If I wanted to get in the front door, I called "Mama", but if I wanted in the back door, I thought I had to call "Miss Rosa". Reason being that close neighbors and people who worked on the farm always came to the back door, knocked and called out Miss Rosa or Mr. Willard. I suppose I thought the back door required a special password to get in.

It is also true that then, as now, children in the South often called friends of their parents and their neighbors Mr. or Miss fill in a first name here. When we moved North the first time, I was surprised to discover that children often called adults by their first names. We were not in any way offended by that, but we continued in our old ways as far as David was concerned. (After all, we fully intended to get him back to the Promised Land as soon as possible, and we wanted him to be presentable, even if he didn't have the appropriate accent.) He once commented that the custom of "Mam" and "Sir" is really convenient, because if you forget someone's name, you can just substitute one of those.

When we moved to Akron, we had the privilege of meeting a lady of a certain age who had been secretary or administrative assistant to a former president of the University and who continued to be a generous and respected friend to the University after retirement. She was a member of the Friends of the Library board, and one night during refreshments at a meeting at our house, she said to me, "My Dear, don't you think you are old enough to call me Caroline?" Frankly, I didn't think I would ever get old enough for that, but she seemed okay with Miss Caroline. We also felt most comfortable calling Annetta Karam, who became one of our dearest friends, Miss Annetta. It seems more appropriate than Annetta for someone who still audits classes at 96 and who can eat 5 scoops of ice cream without batting an eye, and without gaining an ounce.

Lacy/Fried Cornbread

Lacy/Fried Cornbread

It seems fitting that since the passing on of this recipe gave me the idea of writing down family stories and recipes, it should be the first recipe posted. The story that goes with it is also quite meaningful to me.

Miss Rosa, as I frequently called Mother, made fried corn bread so thin and crisp that it was almost like a potato chip, and there is nothing better in this whole wide world. She called it fried cornbread, but my brother’s family calls it lacy cornbread, and I like that name much better. Cornbread goes particularly well with turnip salad, collards or other vegebables and with chicken muddle.

On our last visit to my brother, known to me as Bubba, and his family, Del and I stopped at a well known barbecue place and bought barbecue, chicken muddle (AKA Brunswick stew) and cole slaw as a special treat for him. We were starting to get lunch together when Del asked Bubba if there was anything else he would like. Bubba promptly said that he would love to have some lacy cornbread. Off Del went to buy some corn meal, and I fried it up. We all had a wonderful lunch together, enjoying the tastes of our childhood and sharing stories. We knew that there was probably not much more time, but did not realize that there were to be only a few more days. It is a blessing for me that we were there that day.

Mother, by the way, did not eat fried corn bread because it gave her “shortness of breath.” Whenever she fried it for us, she always made two corn pones for herself and baked them in the oven. I did not learn to make that kind of cornbread, but our Aunt Stella, wife of Daddy's brother Sidney, known to the kids as Big Bubba, once showed me how to make hoe cakes on the blade of a garden hoe in the fireplace. That same day, she also showed me how to bake an egg in the shell in the fireplace coals. We pricked both ends of the egg with a large pin so it would not explode.

Recipe for Lacy Cornbread

1 cup PLAIN white, stone ground corn meal
1 to 1¼ cup water
½ tsp. salt
¼ tsp. black pepper

Mix corn meal with 1 cup of the water and salt and pepper. Let sit for 10 minutes to see how much it thickens up as the meal absorbs the water. You want it to be slightly runnier than pancake batter, so you may need to add up to ¼ cup more water.

Heat a cast iron griddle with a shallow lip or any frying pan and pour in cooking oil to cover the bottom of pan with less than ¼ inch of oil. (I’ve read that you should not heat an empty nonstick pan, however.) Heat the oil until a tiny drop of the batter sizzles when you drop it into the pan. Using a serving spoon or a small ladle, pour dollops of batter into the pan. They will spread and form holes around the edges when they hit the oil. Cook on medium until the edges begin to brown and the little cakes release from the pan. Turn and fry until golden. Drain on paper towels and keep warm in 200 degree oven until ready to serve.

Depending upon the size of your spoon or ladle, you will have 8-12 pieces of lacy corn bread. Del and I eat it plain, but some folks put butter on it.

WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!
Important!! If you can’t find PLAIN, WHITE, STONE GROUND corn meal, you can’t make lacy cornbread. It just will not work with self rising meal or that gritty meal in the round box, so don’t even try! Maybe you can get someone to mail you some if it isn’t available where you live. If you get desperate, call me, and I’ll send you some.


Note: When figure out how to upload pictures from my phone, I'll add pictures. The phone is smart, but me, not so much.

Introduction to Tastes and Tales

There are many ways to describe any person, but this title refers to my position between the woman and girl who have meant the most to me, my mother, Rosa Randolph Taylor Robinson and granddaughter, Rosa Lee Williams. I don’t know how my mother happened to be given the name Rosa, but granddaughter Rosa was named for her two great grandmothers, Rosa Robinson and Rose Stenberg. I was named Betty Mae by my brother, who was nearly twelve when I was born. He named me for mother and daughter cousins who were distant if you only look at a family tree, but close if you take into account feelings. We had lots of cousins like that when I was growing up, both blood and honorary.

Mother was a wonderful cook, and accumulated quite a few recipes. Some were written neatly on recipe cards, but most were scrawled on the back of receipts, deposit slips, strips torn from paper bags, scraps of notebook paper and in the margins of her cookbooks. Some were written in pencil and others in ballpoint pen which is now fading away. Some are in her handwriting and others in the handwriting of the friends who gave her the recipes. They were tucked away in a wooden recipe box, stuck between the pages of her cookbooks, or stuffed into an embroidered recipe holder. If memory serves, Mother had only two cookbooks, while I have way too many, plus access to all those recipes on the internet. The lesson to be learned from that is that while having more recipes may make for a more varied menu, it does not make one a better cook.

I am now the keeper of those recipes as well as a few recipes from other relatives, including my mother-in-law, Iris Parrish Williams, another fine cook, and friends. There are also a few that I adapted by trial and error after tasting them in the homes of friends and in restaurants.

Since my brother died last year, I am also the oldest keeper of family memories, and I find myself reflecting upon them more often than I did when he was alive. During a recent visit from my niece and her family, while teaching her to make lacy cornbread, it occurred to me that I am the only one left to pass on family stories and recipes to Rosa, her dad and her cousins. Since I’m not getting any younger, it seemed that now would be as good a time to start as any.

Many of these recipes were collected before we thought much about the danger that resided in all that yummy goodness, though Mother did try to avoid salt in day to day cooking because of Daddy’s high blood pressure. I want to keep you dear friends and relations alive and healthy for as long as possible,so it is only right that I tell you, especially you beginning meal planners and cooks, that for the sake of your arteries and your waistlines, many, if not most, of these recipes should be relegated to the “ special treat” category. That said, I would also put many of them in the “best things I ever put in my mouth” category.

I decided to pass this information along in blog form because organizing the recipes and my reminiscences into book form with beginning, middle and end would have been just too much work and taken too long. By the time I finished, Rosa would have grandchildren of her own. Blogging seems to be a better method for a person who tends to think in a stream of consciousness sort of way.