Old recipes

Sometimes troubles bring treasures. This time it was the troublesome smell of a dead mouse in a closet which brought me to an old newspaper which I had stashed away on the top shelf. So here are some old recipes from The Boston Post, September 17, 1940. The  news of that day had a whole lot to do with the start of the selective service for young men, otherwise known as the draft. To view a larger version, click this link which will bring you to my Picasa album.

Clicking on the picture itself makes it bigger but the Picasa album will show you the full sized version, if you should want to copy it to make green pea sauce for a meat roll, or golden sauce for a smoked turkey roll; something else to do with left over turkey. Frugal recipes for folks just coming out of the Great Depression, and frugal for us folks still mired in the Great Recession. 

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

The preceding homily is brought to you by the scalawags of Wall Street.

Roly Polies, a baked treat

We are celebrating Thanksgiving all week. This means we are cooking, eating and taking it easy. Why leave the best holiday of the year for just one day? Today I made a pumpkin pie and since I had leftover dough, I made roly polies. My mother-in-law used to make these and I am sure she didn't invent them. She was born in the south, so maybe this is a southern tradition. 

Roll out the left over dough scraps into about 4 inch squares, no need to get fussy about it. Brush with butter. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Roll into tubes, put on a cookie sheet and bake in the oven along with the pie. Bake for about 20-30 minutes depending on the size of the tubes. When the bottoms are beginning to turn a golden brown, they are done. There's no waste. Hmm...perhaps this is a Yankee tradition after all.

I have been using Spectrum coconut oil in baking for some time now. The biscuits I made a few weeks ago were absolutely scrumptious. The pie crust rolled out and handled like a dream, but I haven't tasted the pie yet, it's still cooling down. The roly polies came out nice and tender and flaky.

Spectrum coconut oil has no trans-fats and although it does have saturated fat, it is a type of saturated fat that is plant based and tends to get burned up by the bodies metabolic processes and not stored as artery clogging fat.

To get more information about this wonderful product go to Spectrum.

Note: I hope my pie looks better than the one above which I got from an old catalog scan.

The best ever apple cobbler

Thanksgiving is, by far, my favorite holiday. Cooking and eating, what's not to love. We haven't yet gotten to the nauseating silly season of Alvin and the Chipmunks, the barking dogs singing Jingle Bells, Frosty the Snowman or other such tripe. Thanksgiving is a simple harvest festival. We give thanks for the harvest, the work of the farmers, and the gift of creation. We are coming close to the winter solstice and what Native Abenakis called, "The going in time." This was a time of cooking and eating, crafting and singing and story telling. Winter, if your larder is full and your firewood is stored up, is a happy and cozy time of celebration and reflection.

This apple cobbler recipe started out as an apple pie recipe from my wife's paternal grandmother, Theresa Grace. Theresa Grace's family emigrated to America from Ireland.  She worked as a pastry cook in the Theodore Roosevelt White House before she married. This is the only recipe that we have from her. It was written on a piece of butcher paper and given to Pat's mother. The name of the recipe is: "Theresa Grace's Butterscotch Apple Pie." I used the filling recipe and added a cobbler topping and baked it at 400° for 20 minutes, let it cool and served it with vanilla ice cream and hot coffee. To properly honor this magnificent dish, I drove up to Carter Hill orchard and bought a bag of Cortland apples.

If you wish to make the pie instead, the recipe is here: Grandmother Grace's best apple pie.

Here is the recipe for the filling:

3 cups sliced apples
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
2/3 cup water
1 Tablespoon lemon juice

3 tablespoon flour
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter

In large saucepan, mix the brown sugar and water. Add lemon juice and apples. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes or until apples are tender. Using a slotted spoon, remove apples into a bowl and put them aside for now. Add flour and granulated sugar to saucepan, stir and cook until well-blended; add butter, vanilla, cinnamon and apples.

Put the entire mixture in a casserole dish and cover the hot mixture with the cobbler topping. The secret to a good cobbler is to keep the fruit hot when you put the topping on.

For the cobbler topping, make a drop biscuit type crust like this one:

Sift together 1 c. flour(1/2 white and 1/2 white whole wheat), 1 tbsp. sugar, 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder and 1/4 tsp. salt. Cut in 1/4 cup of oil. I use light olive oil which is good for baking.
Mix 1 beaten egg with 1/4 cup of milk and add to the dry mix. Stir just enough to moisten and drop by spoonfuls on the hot apple mixture. Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes.

Either as a pie or as a cobbler, this is the best I have ever eaten.

To facilitate your holiday baking, buy one of these apple parers. You will make more luscious apple desserts and your family will love the results. It also makes a great gift.

Cranberry nut bread

Cranberry nut bread is just the thing to slice and put out with other appetizers while your guests are waiting for the big event on Thanksgiving. Bring it along as your contribution if your dining at someone else's house. This is a traditional recipe for a quick bread.

2 c. all purpose flour
1 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 c. orange juice
1 tbs. grated orange peel
2 tbs. shortening
1 well beaten egg
1 1/2 c. fresh or fresh frozen cranberries, coarsely chopped
1/2 c. chopped nuts

Preheat oven to 350°. Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda. Stir in orange juice, orange peel, shortening and egg. Mix well. Stir in berries and nuts. Use a greased 9x5 loaf pan and bake for 55 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean when inserted. Cool 15 minutes and remove from pan. Serve with coffee, tea or hot mulled cider.

Chocolate for the holidays

The holidays are right around the bend and what says holiday more than chocolate. So here are three, old, tried and true recipes. I found these in Betty's old recipe box, copied in her hand from who knows where.

1. Original Toll House Cookies

2 1/4 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 c. butter
3/4 c. sugar
3/4 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs
one 12 oz. pkg. Nestle semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

Combine flour, baking soda and salt and set aside. In a large  mixing bowl, combine butter, the two sugars and vanilla extract. Beat until creamy. Beat in the eggs and gradually add flour mixture. Stir in chocolate morsels and nuts.

Drop by level tbs. onto ungreased cookie sheets. 

Bake at 375° 9-11 minutes. Makes about 5 dozen small cookies. Good for a crowd.

2. Nestle chocolate morsel frosting for cakes.

1 c. morsels (melted over heat, not boiling water). Stir until smooth. Set aside.

In a small bowl combine:

3/4 c. butter
1 1/2 c. confectionery sugar

Beat until creamy; add 2 tsp. vanilla extract and melted chocolate. Blend until smooth.

3. Toll House Cake

1 c. butter, softened
1 c. firmly packed brown sugar
2/3 c. white sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
2 c. all purpose flour
12 oz. package of Nestle's mini-morsels

Cream the butter and sugar, mix in the eggs and vanilla. Mix the dry ingredients together, then mix the wet and dry ingredients. Fold in the morsels.

Put the batter in a greased and floured 13x9 inch pan. Bake at 350° for 35-40 minutes.

All of these are old favorites, comfort food for the holidays, and nobody complains about the weird new recipe that you just had to try.