My Mom's Rolls

As far as I know, my great grandmother brought this recipe from England when she immigrated. She was a young WWI bride, leaving her family to go to the wilds of Canada to be with the young soldier she'd nursed back to health. She got to Canada before her letter saying she was en route did, consequently, my great grandfather was not there to meet her. Standing on the dock, with everything she owned and no where to go, knowing no one, she could have been prime meat for all sorts of disreputable people. Fortunately, a generous man took her home for the night, much to his wife's suspicious dismay, and then took her out by horse cart to go from farm to farm searching the countryside looking for my grandfather's family farm.

I grew up on this recipe. My mother uses it for everything from pizza dough to cinnamon rolls. Everyone who has my mother's rolls, never forgets them. I've spent many years trying to get them exactly like hers and while I've gotten close, I have come to believe that there must be some element of my mom's sweat itself that I am missing, gross as that may sound.

At any rate, since Thanksgiving is coming up and there is no gathering without these rolls, here you go, as she dictated to me many years ago. Having made at least one batch a week for the last 40 years, she doesn't use a recipe.

Hot Rolls
Dissolve one package yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Add 1 1/2 cups warm water, 1 egg, 1 t salt, 1/2 cup oil, 1/3-1/2 cup sugar (depending on the final salt/sweet balance wanted). Add flour until the mixture is the consistency of cake batter. Set aside for one hour in a warm place until it doubles in size and gets all bubbly. At this stage it can be fried like pancake batter if wanted. Add more flour. Knead until the dough isn't sticky. Place it in a large bowl and smear shortening over the top. Place in the fridge, preferably overnight to let the flavor develop. One and a half hours before you want to serve them, make into rolls and let rise in a warm place. Bake approximately 15 minutes at 350.


Here's another Thanksgiving tradition at our house, one of my absolute favorites.

Three-Layer Chocolate Dessert
1 cup nuts, chopped
1 cup flour
1 cup butter
Press the above into a 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

8 oz. cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup cool whip
Mix and spread over cooled crust.

1 small box instant vanilla pudding
1 small box instant chocolate pudding
3 cups milk.
Mix and spread over the above. Spread more cool whip on top and sprinkle with nuts and shaved chocolate.


Just writing this is giving me cravings.

Potluck treasures

With Thanksgiving coming up, I’m looking back on various recipes collected from people at large gatherings and written into the margins of my main cookbook. Sometimes when you ask for a recipe at a potluck, you really mean it.

Penney brought this first one over for a holiday gathering for my spiritual group, it was so long ago I don’t remember which holiday, but let’s say sometime in fall or winter because its gooey and filling and would go well with a harvest theme.

Corn Casserole

1 17 oz can creamed corn

1 17 oz can whole corn with liquid

1 cup uncooked macaroni

½ cup melted butter

2 T chopped onion

2 T chopped green pepper

1 cup cubed processed cheese

Mix all the above and put in 2 quart casserole dish. Bake covered for 30 min and uncovered for 30 min at 350.

I don’t remember but I think the next one is Afghani. At least I have other Afghani soup recipes that use yogurt so it’s a safe bet. It’s also very healthy and tasty.

Yogurt Soup

1 med onion, chopped

½ stick butter

2 cup chicken broth

¼ cup pearl barley soaked overnight

¼ cup parsley

¼ cup dried mint

1 egg

2 cups yogurt

Lemon juice

Saute onion in butter. Add broth, simmer til just below boiling. Add drained barley and cook til tender, about 20 minutes. Add salt, pepper, parsley. Beat the egg and add it to the yogurt. Pour yogurt slowly into the broth, don’t boil or it will curdle. Simmer 10-15 minutes. Garnish with mint and a little lemon juice.

This next one took major arm twisting to get ahold of. I’ve never understood the idea of keeping a recipe a secret unless you’re like Colonel Sanders or something. So here I go, blowing all opportunities of becoming a franchise billionaire by posting the recipe for simply the best homemade ice cream EVER.

Liz’s Ice Cream

3 cups sugar

3 T cocoa

8 beaten eggs

As much milk as there is eggs

Mix the above and make into a custard on the stove over med heat, stirring constantly. Make sure you beat the eggs into it well or you will end up with scrambled eggs in your ice cream. It may curdle, and that’s okay.

Pour into ice cream freezer while still warm and add:

4 cups half and half

4 cups heavy cream

1 T vanilla

Freeze as directed.

I’ve also left out the cocoa and doubled the vanilla to make a vanilla version that was deadly good. Mexican vanilla. There’s nothing like Mexican vanilla in the world. And yet it’s illegal to sell it here, so get someone to sneak some across the border for you. It’s heavenly.

Mr. Miyagi bakes a cake

It's definitely a baking kinda weekend. Back to Pillsbury’s 15^th Grand National Bake-Off Cook Book, 1964. In it, Umejiro Kuritsubo, from Oakland, CA,  where he's--can you guess? Yes, a Japanese gardener--was one of 2 men in the contest. He submitted one recipe and walked away with the $1000 Best of Class Cake Award. Here it is.

Walnut Glory Cake

Combine:

¾ c flour

2 t cinnamon

1 t salt

Beat 9 egg whites (1 ¼ c) in large mixing bowl until soft mounds form. Gradually add ¾ c sugar. Continue beating until very stiff, straight peaks form. Do not underbeat.

Combine:

9 egg yolks

2 t vanilla

¾ c sugar

Beat until thick and lemon colored. Stir in dry ingredients.

Fold batter gently but thoroughly into egg whites using a wire whip or rubber spatula. Fold in 2 c chopped walnuts.

Turn into ungreased 10 inch tube pan.

Bake at 350° for 55-65 minutes. Invert immediately. Cool completely before removing from pan. Frost with a vanilla glaze, sprinkle with confectioner’s sugar or serve with whipped cream.

The back cover says he used the prize money to fund his first visit to Japan in  30 years. Congratulations, Mr.Kuritsubo, not only on winning the prize, but on having one of the least dorky photos in the book, even with the paper hat.

This is not what's in my oven right now. If I baked this, I would have no choice but to eat it. That's the problem with a baking craving, too many yummy things sitting around waiting to attach themselves to your butt.

This is what's in my oven, or was:

Chocolate Pillows

Sift together 2 1/2 cups flour and 1/2 t salt.

Cream:

 1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

Blend in 1 egg and 2 t vanilla.

Stir in the dry ingredients.

Press thru a cookie press, using saw tooth (spritz) plate, into strips onto ungreased cookie sheets. Cut 10 five-cent chocolate candy bars into 1 inch pieces. Place 1/4 inch apart on strip of dough. Press another strip over candy, covering completely. Mark bars between chocolate pieces.

Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes until light golden brown. Cut into pieces immediately. For extra fancy touch, sprinkle with chopped walnuts, colored sugar, or coconut before baking.

I didn't happen to have any 5 cent chocolate around, so I filled them with chocolate chips. And I guess I wasn't feeling fancy. The girls give them a thumbs up. I'll put some in their lunches and save some for band practice on Wednesday. That way they won't tempt me to eat them all. yeah yeah sure sure

Maybe I should have made the Chocolate Beau Catchers on that page as well. Then instead of filling the pillows with chocolate chips, I could fill my pillows with chocolate beaus. That idea has potential. Might burn off a few of those calories as well.

Near Death Experience

Some people have only eaten Snack Pack or Jello Instant and thus have never encountered the darker side of pudding. If you ever made it from scratch (first of all, you should! It’s a totally different and ineffable pudd-tastic experience) or even from a cooked pudding mix, then you may have seen the thick rubbery layer that forms over the top of a bowl.  It lurks there, appearing to be the simplest of childhood desserts, it may even crack down the center, but don’t be led astray by this façade of weakness: a pudding skin once tried to kill me.

I couldn’t have been more than 4 years old and what 4 year old is going to turn down chocolate pudding? The little bowl had been in the fridge for a few days, the pudding skin growing thicker and meaner by the minute, like the malevolent black sludge that killed Tasha Yar on Vagra II in one of the top 10 stupidest STNG episodes. Maybe my bite was too big, maybe I was eating too fast, but whatever the catalyst, I felt the slimey thing going down and suddenly there was a big blob of pudding skin completely blocking my air way. I hacked and sputtered and almost threw up trying to breathe again.

A thing like that can scar you for life. Not that I gave up eating pudding. I’m not an extremist. I simply can’t stand pudding skin. I could not believe it when, in the late 80s they brought out an actual product for kids to snack on, like a fruit rollup, but made out of pudding. They were marketing pudding skins to innocent children! Forget the long slow death from smoking, a pudding skin can get you like that *snap!*

I'm not making this up: here's proof, and with a spy theme, that hints at the underlying danger!

Do the right thing. Put a piece of wax paper over the top while it’s cooling to stop the skin from forming. It’s only civilized.

Chocolate Pudding

Mix together in saucepan…

½ cup sugar

2 squares unsweetened chocolate, shaved

2 T cornstarch

¼ t salt

1 egg or 2 egg yolks

Stir in gradually…

2 cups milk

Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture boils. Boil 1 minute. Blend in…

1 T butter, if desired

1 ½ t vanilla

From Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book, 1950.

Now let’s talk about that nasty film that forms on the top of scalded milk…

300 Ways to Serve Eggs

Culinary Arts Institute, 1940

"Eggs have always been popular as food but it is only in recent years, since biochemists and nutritionists have presented us with the results of their careful and thorough research, that we are fully awake to the fact that eggs are an indispensable food. We know now, that they carry in their golden hearts every food element the human body needs and especially vitamin D which occurs so rarely in our everyday foods. Our only problem is to eat enough of them.

For the mother of growing children as well as for the hostess there is the need of acquiring enough really toothsome [bring back that word toothsome!] and attractive ways to serve eggs so that the total quantity is a actually increased.

Many think of eggs entirely in terms of breakfast or possibly as a substitute for meat at luncheon. [Bring back luncheon as well. When did we get so busy that we couldn't even take a proper break to say the whole word, much less leave our desks to eat it.] The least thorough paging through this book will prove to the alert homemaker [but not those who've already had their morning martini] that she may use eggs as the theme of any course from appetizers to dessert and add to those the between-meal beverages. "

So how to get people to eat more eggs?

The direct approach:

Eggs with Black Butter
8 fried eggs
5 T butter
4 t sherry
Remove eggs from pan to hot platter. Place butter in pan and heat until browned but not burned. Add sherry and pour over eggs.

The frightening way:

Egg Noodle Ring
1/4 lb noodles
3/4 c cream
3 eggs, slightly beaten
fine dry bread crumbs

Cook noodles in boiling salted water. Drain; add cream and eggs. Butter a ring mold and dust with crumbs. Pour noodles mixture into a mold and set in pan of hot water. Bake in moderate oven (350) for 45 minutes. Unmold on hot platter and fill center with creamed eggs, creamed fish, or fowl. Serves 6.

The I-have-to-try-this-cuz-I-love-the-soft-creaminess-of-a-poached-egg way, and it gives me options, I like options:

Poached Eggs on Potato Cakes
4 large potatoes
2 T butter
2 T grated cheese
salt and pepper
fat for frying
2 onions, sliced
3 tomatoes, sliced
6 poached eggs

Pare and boil potatoes until tender. Mash, add butter, cheese, salt and pepper. Shape into flate cakes and fry in hot fat. Prepare a sauce by browning onions in fat and adding the tomatoes; simmer slowly for twenty minutes. Cover fried potato cakes with sauce and top each with a poached egg. Serves 6. Use 2 cups leftover mashed potatoes and 2 cups minced cooked ham. Omit tomato sauce and serve with horseradish sauce. Use corned beef hash for patties instead of potatoes.

The stealthy ninja way:

Chocolate Eggnog
1 egg, beaten
1 T sugar or honey
salt
3/4 cup milk
1/4 t vanilla
2 T chocolate syrup
Combine egg with sugar and salt. add milk and vanilla. Serve cold in tall glasses. Top with whipped cream and grated chocolate. For a fluffy eggnog, separate egg, beat white until stiff then fold into egg yolk mixture. May be served hot or cold. For one.

The only-a-ninja-would-be-brave-enough-to-drink-that way:

Egg Lemonade
1 egg, beaten
3 T lemon juice
3 T sugar
1 T crushed fruit (pineapples, peaches, or berries)
2/3 c plain or carbonated water

Combine chilled ingredients and shake or beat thoroughly. For one.

No Name Chocolate Cake

Found in the back of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book, 1936. I didn't make a mistake scanning, one side is upside down.

Cake

½ c water

2/3 c butter

1 ½ t baking soda

1 ¾ c sugar

½ c cocoa

2 eggs

¾ c sour milk

2 ½ c sifted flour

1 t vanilla

½ t salt

Mix water, soda, cocoa and allow to stand while fixing batter. Cream sugar and butter together til fluffy. Add eggs one at a time and beat well. Add flour alternately with sour milk. Add 1^st mixture, mix throroughly. Turn into 2 9” pans and bake 350° for 30 minutes.

Frosting

2 egg whites

1 ½ c sugar

5 T cold water

1 ½ t light corn syrup

1 t vanilla

Put egg whites, sugar, water, and corn syrup in upper part of double boiler. Place over rapidly boiling water, beat constantly with rotary egg beater and cook 7 minutes or until frosting will stand in peaks. Remove from fire, add vanilla, and beat until thick enough to spread.

Creole Mystery

Tucked in the back of my copy of The Household Searchlight Recipe Book, 1936, is a little slip of paper with the following list of ingredients, no name, no instructions. Chocolate cake? That's a lot of eggs, chocolate souffle?

2 cups sugar

1 cup butter

5 eggs

2 1/2 cups flour

1 t salt

1 t baking soda

1 cup sour milk

4 oz. chocolate


It's followed by a recipe for Creole sandwiches.
Cream 4 T butter
Add 1/2 t minced onion
1/2 c finely flaked shrimp
t lemon juice
1/2 t prepared mustard
2 T chopped olives
salt as needed

Chocolate Brownies

1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 beaten eggs
2 sq. (2 oz.) unsweetened chocolate, melted
3/4 cup cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup chopped nuts or raisins
powdered sugar

Work shortening with a spoon til fluffy, the add the sugar gradually, while continuing to work with a spoon until light. Add eggs and chocolate. Mix and sift flour, baking powder, and salt, and add, with the nuts. Turn into a greased 8x8 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Immediately cut into squares and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

from the Good Housekeeping Cook Book, 1942.

My daughter tried this recipe (doubled) and it produced a cakey brownie that puffed up while cooking with a "chocolate ice cream" chocolaty-ness . She gave it a thumbs up.

S'Mores!

Now the question is, is this recipe called Graham Toasties because that's what they were originally called before the Girl Scouts started making them? Or did the Scouts invent them and to avoid any rights infringement and/or fancy them up a bit, Good Housekeeping renamed them? Either way, here's the recipe as it appears in the cookie chapter of The Good Housekeeping Cook Book, 1942.

Graham Toasties
Lay a piece of sweet or semi-sweet chocolate on a graham cracker. Toast a marshmallow over coals until soft and golden brown. Lay on top of chocolate, and top with a second graham cracker. Serve at once. [Before the dog grabs it.]

Grampa's New Hobby

Late in his life, my Grampa got into cooking and eager combed the papers for new recipes. I lived with my grandparents for awhile while I was in college and these are two recipes my Grampa clipped and saved. They were originally published in the Wichita Eagle and Beacon in the 1980s. They quickly ended up in the margins of my cookbook.

Rich Microwave Fudge

1 18 oz. bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
dash salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup chopped nuts

Carefully melt the chocolate in the microwave, checking and stirring frequently to make sure it doesn't burn. Stir in the rest and spread into a well-buttered pan. I have taken to lining the pan with parchment paper and buttering that so I can lift it out easy to cut. I also sometimes add a tablespoon or two of butter to the chocolate. My girls love this fudge which I will only make at Christmas time.


TexMex Pizza Loaf (My Grampa even liked saying the name and would repeat it over and over. It is lyrical in its way.)

2 lbs ground beef
1 med onion, chopped
1 8 oz. bottle taco sauce
salt, cumin, chili powder, garlic to taste
1 16" Italian bread loaf
1 sliced green pepper
12 ripe olives
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 sliced avocado

Brown the beef and onion, add sauce and season to taste. Split the loaf in half and tear out the soft center to make crusty boats. Fill with meat, top with pepper, olives, cheese, and avocado. Place on cookie sheet and bake 350 degrees for 25 minutes.