Hunger No More, by the Episcopal Diocese of Washington; Homemade Egg Noodles

Today at St. Alban's, we had an Alternative Gift Fair to kick of Advent. One of the tables was for the diocese's hunger fund, which gets money out to feeding programs across the Washington area. I snatched up two copies, because, well, I loves me a church cookbook, and I also contributed a ton of recipes.

Hunger No More: Food & Fellowship from the Episcopal Diocese of Washington was edited by Kimberly Bujak, Lucy Chumbley, and Ann V. Talty, and came out just last month (October 2011). They call it "a cookbook that celebrates food, fellowship and the spirit of friendship and community that abides in the Diocese of Washington."

There's still time to order one if you're looking for a Christmas gift for your favorite cookbook lover--the books are $20 each, $12 of which is tax deductible.

Now, it's the week after Thanksgiving, and you might be in need of some leftovers help. If you've a mind to make turkey noodle casserole, why not try your hand at making your own noodles?

Homemade Egg Noodles

1 egg
cream
salt
flour

This recipe is over 100 years old and was told to me years ago in Colorado by my grandmother. First, you crack an egg into a medium-sized mixing bowl, saving half the egg shell. Measure cream into the saved half-shell and add the cream to the egg in the mixing bowl. Add a pinch of salt and stir with a fork. Add flour and stir until the dough forms a ball, then turn out onto a floured surface.

Roll out the dough to desired thickness and cut into strips. Grandmother used a sharp knife for this and I use a pizza cutting wheel. The raw noodles can be dried for a couple of hours at this point, but it's not absolutely necessary. Grandmother hung the raw noodles to dry on clean tea towels on the backs of her kitchen chairs.

Place the noodles into your pot of chicken soup and let them simmer for half an hour or more before serving. The flour on the noodles thickens the soup nicely.

Donna Courtney
St. Dunstan's

For your casserole needs, you'll want to be cooking these up on their own, not as part of soup. Though, heck, you can cook them in stock--extra flavor is a good thing. I wouldn't go a half hour of cooking time, though. You'll want to test for doneness often, as you don't want them falling to mush in the casserole dish.

A lot of the recipes in Hunger No More have little snippets of stories included, sharing how the dishes show up in the contributors' lives. I don't think I'll be typing out the 4 page recipe for sourdough bread, but knowing that it exists makes me happy -- I like a conversational tone in recipes.

Carrot Ginger Orange Soup

This is pulled from my personal recipe box, posted at the request of @SusanEsparza.

Carrot Ginger Orange Soup
Ingredients

small amount of olive oil
2 shallots, minced (use 2 small mild onions if you can't find shallots)
1 Tablespoon freshly grated ginger
grated rind of one large orange
6 cups chicken stock
12 large carrots, peeled and chopped into uniform chunks
juice of one large orange
sour cream for garnish (optional)

In a soup pot, heat oil over high heat. When warm, sautee shallots till opaque -- 3 to 4 minutes. Add ginger and orange rind, stirring until fragrant -- shouldnt' take long, no more than one minue. Add stock and carrots. Bring to a boil, reduce heat to high simmer/low boil. Cook until carrots are extremely tender -- 30-45 minutes longer; you should be able to mush a carrot chunk against the side of the pot with a wooden spoon. Cool on the stove for half an hour. Stir in fresh orange juice. Puree in batches in a blender or food processor (remember: if its still hot, you'll be dealing with steam...open the little hatch in your blender top!). Store in fridge. Reheat on stove top before serving. Garnish with sour cream if you want. Haven't tried it, but I think a swirl of pesto through it would be delicious, too.

This is tasty all the time, but is particularly lovely on a rainy night, when you want to feel warm.

You can use vegetable stock if you are anti-fowl.

Banana Mutt Cookies, and Just a Few More Hours to Enter the Drawing!

There are a few more hours left to enter the cookbook giveaway drawing -- I'm extending the deadline past midnight Eastern tonight all the way until 8:27 AM Eastern...the approximate time that Puck will wake me up tomorrow.

It's the time of year where I declare all my social media outposts as Toxic Free Zones, and I guarantee you'll find nothing morbid, morose, depressed, depressing, sad, or weary here. Happiness, lightness, silliness, frivolity are the rule. And what fits that bill more than Three Dog Bakery Cookbook: Over 50 Recipes for All-Natural Treats for Your Dog and baking for your own or your neighbor's pooch?

Banana Mutt Cookies

Makes about 20 mutt pleasers

Whew! Cat chasing can be exhausting work -- this is truly the paws that refreshes. Use fresh bananas and your dogs will love you a bunch!

1 1/2 cups ripe mashed bananas
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups oats
1/2 cup chopped peanuts
1/4 cup applesauce

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly.

Drop spoonfuls of the mixture onto an ungreased baking sheet, and press flat with a fork.

Bake for approximately 15 minutes, then cool on a rack before serving. Store in an airtight container.

"The paws that refreshes." Folks, I want to assure you: I did not write that myself. That pun comes to you straight from the cookbook.

The oats they're talking about here are the kind that come with a Quaker on the label. Rolled oats, either quick or old fashioned. I'm not saying your dog can't stomach steel cut, Irish oats ... I'm just saying that there might be some extra dog gas if you go that route, and most American households tend to stock the Quaker rolled variety, so use what you have.

Missed a few days of posts, as I was auditioning for a show. Long story short: I'm not doing a show this fall, so the blog will skip nicely over the unsightly lulls that tend to come with my being theatrical. So, yay! Regular cookbook posts!

Let me know what kind of cookbook you think I should cover next. Moreover, go enter the cookbook giveaway drawing before it's too late.

Three Dog Bakery Cookbook, by Dan Dye & Mark Beckloff: Party Hearty Mix-It-Up Mix

We're going through our bookshelves this weekend, doing a massive purge of books we've read and not loved. This is not a small task -- we are book fiends, and our shelves are overflowing. In pulling books yesterday, I found several cookbooks on non-cookbook shelves, including Three Dog Bakery Cookbook: Over 50 Recipes for All-Natural Treats for Your Dog-- I take it as a blogging sign. This week: dog treats! I'll even try to throw in a cooking-the-books post with feedback from Puck the Corgi.

Party Hearty Mix-It-Up Mix

Makes 42 hellraisin', raucous, rowdy snacks

The favorite for squirrel-chasin', stick-fetchin', hole-diggin' hounds--let the good times roll-over!

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 teaspoons skim milk
2 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix together oil, honey, vanilla, egg and milk in a bowl.

In a separate bowl, blend together flour, baking powder and ginger.

Combine dry ingredients with wet mixture and stir thoroughly.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface, roll out to 1/4-inch thick and cut into shapes.

Place on a greased cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes. Cool on a rack and store in an airtight container.

I do believe this is our first use-cookie-cutters recipe on Take One Cookbook...! You don't have to use cookie cutters, mind you. You could just cut the dough into long strips and then cross-cut into squares, rectangles, or diamonds. That method is quick, and you can make the treats as small as you want.

But, really, where's the fun in that? This is an opportunity. Yes, an opportunity to use cookie cutters! If you have bone shaped cutters, whip 'em out, but there's nothing saying you can't make your dog some turtle-shaped cookies, or stars, or hearts, or dinosaurs, or airplanes, angels or armadillos! Cut out as many as you can, then take the scraps, roll into a ball, and roll out again and keep going until you've used as much of the dough as possible. If it starts getting too sticky to work with, pop your dough in the fridge for 10 minutes or so, or add more flour to your board.

You can still do this even if you don't have a rolling pin: a clean wine bottle works great as an impromptu pin, and your dog won't even look at you funny.

Really. Dogs only look at you with love when you're baking for them.


Puck the Corgi guarding the polar bears' private meeting.
Yes, this week will have lots of pictures of my dog.

Oven-Fried Zucchini, and Cookbook Give-Away

I'm an apartment dweller, with no yard or patio or porch of my own, and no real strong motivation to schlep tools several blocks daily to manage a plot at the community garden. This is to say: I never have too many tomatoes. I never have to find someone to take some cucumbers off my hands. And I never, ever, ever have to figure out a way to use up an over-abundance of zucchini. If you are a gardener, though, you probably are coming into zucchini, and  A Little Something has a way for you to get through the bounty.

Oven-Fried Zucchini

The secret to the zucchini's crispiness is double dipping in egg whites -- finally, double dipping is acceptable! These are excellent with Horseradish Yogurt Sauce or prepared tomato sauce.

Makes 4 servings

Vegetable oil cooking spray

1/4 cup seasoned dry bread crumbs

2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese

1 cup zucchini, cut into 1/4-inch wedges

2 large egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 450°F. Liberally spray a baking sheet with vegetable cooking spray.
2. Combine the bread crumbs and Parmesan in a large bowl. Set aside.
3. Dip the zucchini in the egg whites and then coat with the bread-crumb mixture. Repeat.
4. Place on the prepared baking sheet, and spray liberally with cooking spray. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes. Serve with Horseradish Yogurt Sauce.

Okay, you're not going to get through five grocery bags of zucchini this way. One cup of zucchini? Not  going to get you as far as hoped. So, I say, keep cranking these out. Crispy veg for dipping = a good movie day/night snack. Try it.

The sauce recipe is on the same page of  A Little Something but rather than type it all out in proper format, let's go easy: Take a container of plain yogurt, mix in 1 or 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish. Ta da. That's sauce. Or, you know, use lemon yogurt for a bit of extra tang -- this sauce is what I put on roast beef sandwiches.

I may have to make this later this weekend, as I've eggs and breadcrumbs in the house from the great meatball experiment.

Speaking of... time to put the balls in the sauce.

But before that... how's about a giveaway?

The First Ever Take One Cookbook... Cookbook Giveaway!


Yes, I'm giving away a cookbook! In fact, I'm giving away this week's cookbook: my well-worn copy of  A Little Something.

You can get up to four entries in the drawing. How? Leave a comment on this blog post with one of the following:

1. An appetizer you love to make.
2. A recipe from Take One Cookbook... that sounds really good to you.
3. A recipe from Take One Cookbook... that sounds appalling to you.
4. A link to your tweet or blog post wherein you tweet or blog about Take One Cookbook... in some way.

Each comment is one entry; don't put all four in one, or you'll confuse and confound me when it comes time to draw a winner.

Drawing will take place on Sunday, September 11, because we need a little happy on that day. Get your entries in by midnight Eastern on Saturday, September 10.

Seasons Change: Hot Buttered Rum

Today's recipe might seem like a strange choice for the middle of August. But here's the thing: the seasons are changing. Sunset is at 8 PM here in DC, and won't be this late again until April. April! We are officially getting closer to the time when I won't have to say "well, it does have ice cream in it, so that's kind of summery..." to justify this Favorite Recipes from Caldwell, Idaho recipe.

Hot Buttered Rum
Dave Keuneman

Batter:
1 qt. vanilla ice cream
1 lb. brown sugar
1 lb. soft butter

Cream together. Keep refrigerated.

Drink (per cup):
2 heaping tsp. batter
1 oz. rum
6 oz. boiling water

Aaaaaah, hot buttered. The ice cream is a relatively recent addition to the hot buttered arsenal, but I'll tell you -- it's a great addition. If you're mixing this up the day you're going to use it, then the fridge is fine, but otherwise, store this in the freezer. The sugar and butter will help keep the ice cream soft enough to scoop out a big ol' spoonful when you feel a hankering for a hot buttered.

Yes, hot buttered, full stop. As a not-at-all-legal-to-drink kid, I loved a mug of hot buttered...water. It's really quite tasty. It's warm, and milky, and sweet, and spicy.

Spicy. Because of the spices. You know, those spices Mr. Keuneman left out of the recipe. You have two options here: You can use spiced rum with this unspiced batter, or you can add in, say, a tablespoon of cinnamon and a teaspoon or two of nutmeg. There is a third option, come to think of it: spice up the batter and used spiced rum.

Dave is one of only two men who have recipes in Favorite Recipes from Caldwell, Idaho -- Mike Neher has a duck with sauerkraut recipe that also has me yearning for wool-wearing weather. (Simple, really. Basically, it's "stuff a duck with a jar of kraut, and roast it.")

I suggest you make up a double batch of the hot buttered batter, and divvy it up into several quasi-disposable plastic food storage containers (oh, fine...I mean GladWare) and have them on hand for hostess gifts, cookie exchanges, neighbors who shoveled your walk for you, and so forth. It's a great thing to have, it's a great thing to share.

As much as I like making this myself, the best hot buttered rum in the world is at the Clapp Family 23rd Party, an annual caroling party back in my home town. Great people. Great pot luck. Fabulous singing. And a never-ending supply of hot buttered.

Grasshopper Pie & Rhubarb Pie: Pies for Peace

Sometimes, when it seems the whole world is sliding into a cesspit, JJ, Heather and I declare Pies for Peace. Basically, this means we get together and bake pie after pie after pie. Somehow, filling the kitchen with yummy smells makes the world at large seem a bit more cheerful and manageable.

Pies for Peace shouldn't be confused with Piepocalypse, our yearly Thanksgiving glut of pie. One is all about peace and the other is all about topping last year's number & variety.

Like any self-respecting church cookbook, Presbyterian Palate Pleasers has a lot of pie recipes. Today, we'll look at two of them: Grasshopper and Rhubarb.

Grasshopper Pie

Crust:
16 Oreo cookies (crushed)
3 Tbsp. melted butter

Mix and press into a pie pan.

Filling:
24 marshmallows
3/4 c. milk
2 oz. creme de menthe
1 drop green food coloring
1 oz. creme de cacao
1 c. whipped cream

Melt marshmallows in double boiler. Add milk, blend and cool. Add creme de menthe and creme de cacao. Fold in whipped cream; add food coloring. Pour into cookie crust and chill.

Ann Bean

How much do I love grasshopper pie? It was one of my favorites growing up -- the other was coconut impossible pie, which I should really dig up and post here, because...yum. Anyway, I am not quite sure how such a boozy pie became the favorite of a wee child. I suppose it's possible my mom used mint extract and chocolate syrup or some such, but really, I doubt it.

This is one of the easier grasshopper pie recipes you'll see out there. No fiddling about with gelatin, no whipped egg whites. One thing to note: It's 24 big marshmallows, not mini. I advise you to toss the double boiler; you can melt the marshmallows in the microwave. "Less fussy" is usually the way to go.

For the ultimate in reduced fussiness, you could always buy your chocolate crumb crust pre-made. Your pie will lack a certain rustic beauty, though, and you'll miss out on the fabulous catharsis one can find when bashing Oreos into dust.

Rhubarb Pie

3 large c. rhubarb
1 egg
1-1/2 c. sugar
Butter size of walnut

Pour boiling water over rhubarb and let stand 5 minutes; drain. Mix all ingredients well and fill unbaked crust. Dust with flour and put on top crust. Bake at 350°F for 40-50 minutes.

Mrs. George S. Lehner

(Mrs. Lehner and her husband owned and operated the Dagmar Hotel for years.)

Go, Mrs. Lehner! Here's her hotel:


Dagmar Hotel, Hagerstown, MD,
by Mr. T in DC, under Creative Commons license.

The Dagmar Hotel was also the headquarters of the M.P Moller Motor Car Company for a good stretch of time. They made custom cars (called Dagmars, naturally).

Now, I dig that cooks of yore often assumed you knew without being told that you'd need crust for a double crust pie, and that you would know how to make it. I know how to make a really good pie crust.

Confession time: I usually just buy the Pillsbury crust from the refrigerator case. What can I say? It's not as good as homemade, but it's only marginally less good, and it's so fricking easy. So, you can do as I do, and there's no judgement coming at you from this corner. You can rustic it up with your crimping technique, or by being less than anal with straight lines for your lattice strips.

Never done a lattice crust? Don't fret -- it's easy, and there are lots of tutorials on how to make a lattice crust out there.

I will insist upon you having a lattice crust. It's rhubarb pie. I can't imagine a rhubarb pie without a lattice crust. Save your regular top crust for your apple pies, your blackberry pies, your peach pies. Go lattice for rhubarb.

Three cups of rhubarb is about one pound, for what it's worth. Yes, you could buy a pound of chunked up frozen rhubarb -- if you do, thaw it before using -- but it's still rhubarb season. Go buy a pound.

Three Jell-O Salads; Presbyterian Palate Pleasers, The Presbyterian Church, Hagerstown, MD

Chefly Husband and I are headed out to Wolf Trap today to hear the Indigo Girls perform, and to hang out with friends, and to picnic, picnic, picnic. There's lots of cooking going on, and not a little bit of assembly. It's all very summery.

Yesterday, we hit St. Alban's annual sidewalk book sale. I am constitutionally unable to restrain myself at such things. There shall be cookbooks! Oh, yes. There shall. I did show some restraint -- we left with only four new-to-us cookbook treasures. One is a great single-color comb-spined church cookbook from the Presbyterian Church up in Hagerstown, MD. It cost me all of twelve and a half cents. Half a quarter. You can't beat it! So, this week, before I head out to the wilds of Taiwan for a fortnight, we'll be exploring Presbyterian Palate Pleasers. Ya can't beat that title, either.

Going through the cookbook last night with my trusty Post-it flags, I found far too many cool recipes for one week, so on some days, we're going to have multiples. Like...today! Today, you get three -- three! -- molded salads, of varying difficulty.

Cherry-Coke Salad

1-lb. jar red bing cherries
1-8-oz. can crushed pineapple
1 small pkg. orange jello
1 small pkg. cherry jello
2-6-1/2 oz. bottles Coke

Drain juice from cherries and pineapple. Add enough water to make 2 c. liquid. Heat and bring to boil, then add 2 pkgs. of jello. Stir, dissolve and let cool. Add pitted cherries and pineapple. Add Coke and mix well. Refrigerate at least 3-4 hours. Serves 8.

Floyd Bingaman

Now, I like to do a little Google stalking of people who contribute to these great old cookbooks, and I was a bit surprised to see how many Floyd Bingaman hits I got. I mean...it seemed an odd sort of name. Seems that it's a family name in Hagerstown, MD. I'm suspecting that the Cherry-Coke Salad Floyd is the father or grandpa of the unfortunate Floyd who was sentenced for a terrible crime not so very long ago. (What is it with these old cookbooks and the connections with the unsavory? The Maine islanders were all linked to stories of arson and abuse, and now child murder. :shudder:)

I didn't choose this recipe for lurid tales. No, I chose it because it reminded me of a recipe from the Jell-o (let's use the preferred brand spelling, shall we?) cookbook I had as a kid. I remember making a streamlined version of this years ago, with Coke replacing water while making cherry Jell-o. Tasty stuff, and the bubbles seemed sophisticated.

Odds are, you can actually find tiny bottles of Coke at the grocer's these days. I won't think poorly of you, though, if you use the cheaper 12 oz. can. Honest.

Bloody Mary Aspic

1-24-oz. can cocktail vegetable juice
1/3 c. vodka
1-1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
Hot pepper sauce
2 envelopes unflavored gelatin
2 tsp. lemon juice
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
Salad greens

In a 1-1/2 qt. saucepan, over 1 cup cold cocktail vegetable juice, sprinkle gelatin. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until gelatin is completely dissolved. Remove from heat; stir in remaining vegetable juice and other ingredients, including a dash of hot pepper sauce. Do not add greens. Pour into a 1 qt. mold. Refrigerate until set. To serve, unmold on salad greens. A delicious salad for luncheons and dinners. Serves 6.

Frances Machen

I ran across a chilled tomato and vodka soup recipe the other day, and yelled "Just call it a Bloody Mary In A Bowl and stop with the soup pretense!" No pretense here, though Frances does stop before calling this "big Bloody Mary Jell-o shots." She also gives the helpful advice to not gunk up the salad by putting the veg IN the salad. Trust that this sort of guidance is vital in old cookbooks. You never know what someone is going to tell you to put in there; it's nice to be told to hold something back.

It seems Ms. Machen died a year ago at age 78. She had a music store, and was known as Aunt Fran to her friends' children.

See, that's the happier kind of story I like to associate with cookbooks and Jell-o.

All in all, the Bloody Mary Aspic sounds pretty tasty. You have your V8, your Tabasco...all clean bright colors. But, where is the fearful sort of molded salad we all love to read about and fear will land on our plates? Never ever think the Presbyterians are going to let you down!

Presbyterian Jello Salad

1 can tomato soup
1 box lemon jello
1/3 c. chopped celery
1/3 c. chopped green pepper
1/3 c. chopped onions
1 c. mayonnaise
2 c. cottage cheese

Melt soup and jello together over low heat, stir constantly. Add the celery, green pepper, onions, mayonnaise and cottage cheese. Chill until firm. Serves 6.

Claudia Strite

Oh, Claudia. I suspect this serves a lot more than 6.

Claudia had a big, big heart, from an early age. This, from a 1937 slave narrative:

Henry killed a man in anger and was sent to Parchman. Friends in Pontotoc intervened when they saw Emmeline's tears. Henry was made a trusty, then transferred to Jackson as a chauffer and house-boy to Governor Earl Brewer. Henry became the especial friend of the Governor's youngest daughter, Claudia, former society editor of the Daily News, now Mrs. Samuel C. Strite, of Hagerstown, Maryland.

One day Claudia, a very young miss, stuck a note under her father's plate, 'Please set Henry free.' Governor Brewer when he left office gave Henry a pardon, and the freed negro was hired as strawboss on a delta plantation, 'but I guess he was too biggety by then,' his whitehaired mother says, 'because it wasn't long until he got into another scrape and got killed.' Henry's grave in the delta is marked by a tombstone that Claudia placed there.

Okay, I just teared up. Not ashamed to say it. Much of that tale is sad, too, but the fact that the governor of Mississippi's little daughter was concerned about Henry, and years later still cared enough to place the tombstone? It's touching. And I'm a sap.

This is what this blog is about: scary recipes, warm hearts, and a generosity of spirit that shines across the years.

Stuffed Acorn Squash, or Every Vegetable Is Even Better With Butter And Sugar

Barbequeing isn't all about the dead beasties. Sometimes, you need something more vegetal. Betty Crocker's Outdoor Cook Book gives several options, including this recipe that makes me think of Halloween and Thanksgiving more than Memorial Day or the Fourth of July.

Stuffed Acorn Squash
Apple and brown sugar caramelize as squash bakes. Good with pork or baked turkey, as pictured on pages 34-35.

Select 3 medium acorn squash. Cut into halves; remove seeds. Place each half on a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Put 1 tsp. butter and 2 tbsp. brown sugar in each half, add mixture of 3/4 cup chopped apple and 2 tsp. chopped walnuts. Dot with 2 tsp. butter and wrap securely in foil. Barbecue on briquets 40 to 50 min., or on grill about 1 hr., turning once. Squash is done when it feels soft when touched with an asbestos-gloved thumb. 6 servings.

Please tell me you're not actually having an asbestos-anythinged anything in or near your food. Use a heat-proof glove. It could be an Ove' Glove or something your great-aunt crocheted for you, as long as it's thick enough to keep you from burning yourself and, oh, yes, not carcinogenic.

I know that I said that barbeques weren't all about the dead beasties, but you know how we are around here at Take One Cookbook... we love the dead beasties, and really think that this would be even better with a good crumble over of crisp bacon. If you're not adverse to pork products (yummy, yummy pork products), I highly suggest crisping some up and adding it in here.

Butter and brown sugar and orange squooshy vegetable goodness reminds me of candied yams. This makes me want to add mini marshmallows to the squash.

Yes, even with the bacon.

Ooo.

Especially with the bacon.

I was going to prattle on about the fact that there's no list of ingredients for this recipe, but then I got distracted by the spelling of "barbecue." I nearly typed "misspelling" there, because to me, "barbecue" is spelled "barbeque." A little Googling shows me, though, that I have evidently embraced a "popular spelling variant." I say, it's abbreviated "BBQ" not "BBC," so I'm sticking to my popular variant.

I'll save the BBC for my Doctor Who needs.

Betty Crocker's Outdoor Cook Book; Good 'N Easy Potato Salad

It's Memorial Day Weekend, and with Memorial Day Weekend comes summer, gatherings with friends, picnics, barbeques, and all sorts of outdoorsy goodness. That, plus Chefly Husband's newly-started blog (Mastering Wine) has inspired me to grab a cookbook, dream of dishes fascinating and horrifying, and type away.

Welcoming us back into the fold is Betty Crocker's Outdoor Cook Book, illustrated by Tom Funk, © 1961 by General Mills, Inc. This is a great hard cover, spiral bound gem with two-color silly illustrations and four-color glossy pictures of stylish 60s folk, cooking outside. There is a facsimile edition available, but my copy is first edition.

I knew I wanted the first recipe up to be a potato salad recipe, as potato salad and Memorial Day just go together for me. But... which one? Potato Salad, Good 'N Easy Potato Salad, or Potato Salad For A Crowd? Chefly Husband suggested "whichever one doesn't have yellow mustard, because yellow mustard is disgusting."

He has many fine qualities.

And I like yellow mustard.

But I'm leaning towards "disgusting" anyway.

Good 'N Easy Potato Salad

1 pkg. Betty Crocker Scalloped Potatoes
3 cups water
2 tbsp. butter
2/3 cup water
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tsp. prepared mustard
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped

Empty potatoes into saucepan. Add 3 cups water. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until tender, about 15 min. Rinse with cold water; drain throughly. Put in bowl, cover, and chill. Melt butter. Blend in contents of seasoning pkg. Add 2/3 cup water all at once. Heat over medium heat until mixture boils, stirring constantly. cover and chill. (Lumps are onion pieces.) When cold, blend mayonnaise and mustard into sauce. Fold into potatoes and eggs. 4 servings.

Any time a recipe has to tell you that what you're looking at is intentional and vaguely vegetal, back away slowly...

This may well taste very good. Lord knows I'm not opposed to cooking shortcuts. But if you're going to take the time to hard-cook eggs (and, let's take a moment for three cheers, for Betty Crocker calls 'em as they are: hard cooked, not hard boiled), then you can take the time to boil your own potatoes. Heck, you can boil them in the same pot as your eggs. One pot! One boil! Then you'd be able to identify your own lumps.

As for the mustard issue -- yes, I use yellow prepared mustard in my potato salad. You can use your favorite mustard, be it Dijon or brown or horseradishy, but to be truly 1960s vintage scary, use the yellow mustard, and the boxed potatoes.

If nothing else, file this one away for your next Mad Men theme party. Betty Draper would have had this cookbook.

Favorite Recipes from Matinicus Island Maine, by the Matinicus Ladies Aid Society; Tomato Soup Cake

I love The Wine Lover's Cookbook but have to admit that after a week of glossy pictures, perfect binding, and lengthy descriptions of every little thing, I'm psyched to go a little more rustic. So, it is with more than a little bit of glee that I present Favorite Recipes from Matinicus Island Maine by the Matinicus Ladies Aid Society.

Matinicus Island is a small island off the coast of Maine, about the size of Rathlin Island in Northern Ireland -- the comparison might not mean much to you, but I had a heck of a wonderful day tromping about Rathlyn last summer. Anywho.

I've never been to Matinicus Island (or any other part of Maine), so have to assume that my friend Jeannette's grandparents went there at some point. I owe much of my cookbook collection to Jeannette's grandmother's pre-move book culling. Many of those books are comb- or spiral-bound fundraiser fodder, and old enough that the regional books still have some regional flair. Too often nowadays, collections from all over are woefully homogenized. Not so with Favorite Recipes from Matinicus Island Maine -- the recipes use both local ingredients and, vital for a remote island, canned goods. Yes, canned goods. Nothing wrong with a canned good or three! And, if you're on an island in New England during a winter storm, when boats aren't going out and ferries aren't coming in, what the heck else are you supposed to use to feed your family. Canned goods, for the win.

Tomato Soup Cake

8 tablespoons shortening
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons soda
4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons soda
2 teaspoons cloves
2 teaspoons nutmeg
1 can tomato soup
1 can water
2 cups seedless raisins and fruit

Cream shortening and sugar; then add soup and soda; then add the water gradually. Bake 1 hour in 350° oven. I use the candied can fruit.

--Verna Ames

We're back in the land of assuming you know how to cook, folks. If you're used to making cakes, you don't need step by step here, just the skeleton to show how and when you're adding the liquid to the mix. I'll step by step it a bit more for you:

Cream the shortening and sugar together in a big mixing bowl. Add the soup and the 2 teaspoons of baking soda -- though the recipe as printed calls for a total of 4 teaspoons soda, we're pretty safe in guessing it's just a misprint. The soup and baking soda are standing in for eggs in this recipe, so they go in when eggs would go in otherwise. Have you stirred in the soup yet? Stir, baby, stir. Then, add the water, and stir some more. Sift all dry ingredients together, and then add the dry mixture to the sugar/soup mixture, but not all at once. Add in a quarter of the dry, stir. Add another quarter, stir. You get the gist. Once that's all come together, add the fruit and stir some more. Ta da! Cake batter. Pour that into a prepared cake pan -- butter and flour it, or spray it with baking spray. Size of pan we'll have to guess at: I say try it in a 9 x 13, but that surprises you not in the least.

I think it bears saying it in its own paragraph: the soda in the ingredients list is baking soda. It is a dry ingredient, and is added with the liquids, not sifted in with the other dry ingredients (unless the aforementioned typo wasn't actually a typo -- if your cake comes out a little flat, add the extra soda to the dry ingredients next time). Baking soda, not club soda. All clear? Good.

This recipe is vegan-friendly, as long as you're grabbing a vegan-friendly tomato soup. No, really! Vegan cake! That will taste good! That you can serve to your vegan friends and make them feel pampered and loved, and you'll still want to eat it, too! If you're in/from the US, you might want to try this out for your Independence Day party this weekend.

Super Easy Preserving: Pickled Cherries

Oh, who am I kidding? I'm glad that I posted Hot Spicy Candy, but I just can't stop thinking about these cherries... The County Fair Cookbook doesn't specifically link them to a county fair (ooo, the scandal!), but the nearest one it does talk about is the Long Island Fair in Old Bethpage, New York. According to the Fair's website, the fair's got a good blend of history and activities:

The Long Island Fair is the oldest continuously operated fair in the country having begun in 1842, first in farmers’ fields or empty lots, then in Mineola at the present site of the County Court House complex, and finally moving to Old Bethpage Village in 1970 (History). The Fair features rides, amusements, entertainment for young and old, and agricultural and horticultural competition for cash prizes common to Long Island a century ago and is the only New York State sanctioned agricultural and horticultural fair for Long Island. Prize competition is open to anyone not only in vegetables, fruits and flowers but also for baking, crafts, hobbies and agricultural skills – cross cut sawing and corn husking.

Rock on, Long Island agriculture! The fair runs for eight days in mid-October, so you've got time to plan your trip up to (or down to, or over to, I suppose) Old Bethpage. Old Bethpage: It's closer to civilization than Smithtown. Okay, so odds are the Chamber of Commerce isn't going to hire me to write their new tagline...and really, you have to go even further out on the island to get to the heritage of the next recipe.

Wickham's Fruit Farm is over 200 acres of farmy goodness next to Peconic Bay in Cutchogue. The Wickham family has been farming those acres for about three hundred years. This feels like a good time to say that the first time I came to the East Coast, I was in a cab in Boston, and said to the cabbie, "Today, I saw things that are older than my state!" The cabbie replied, "Honey, in Boston, there are things older than dirt." That's how I feel about saying one family's been doing anything for 300 years in one spot in this country, especially when that family has a very non-native last name. Anyway. The Wickham story is pretty darned compelling, but what you really need to know is this: they make cider, and they make donuts, and I'm betting that means they make...

...cider donuts...

Cider donuts are one of the best things in this crazy world of ours, and it's fall now, so I suggest you hightail it to the nearest place you can, and get yourself some.

But this is a blog about cookbooks and recipes, so let's look at one of the Wickham family recipes.

Wickham Family Pickled Cherries
"No need to process these cherries in a water bath," says Mrs. Wickham. "They'll keep all winter on the shelf. We serve them as an accompaniment to poultry or meat."

Sour cherries (any amount)
Cider vinegar to cover
Sugar

1. Wash, stem and pit the cherries. Place them in a bowl and cover with cider vinegar. Let stand overnight.
2. Pour off and discard the vinegar. Measure the cherries and add an equal amount of sugar to them. Let stand until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Put the cherries in very clean jars and cover. Store in a cool dark place.

Look at that... preserving without processing! Putting up fruit doesn't get much easier than this, folks.

In step one, I'd suggest covering the bowl with cheesecloth or cling film, and leaving the bowl out on the counter -- not in the fridge. If you're wondering how to get "very clean jars," I'd say that those of you with dishwashers are going to need to run the washer on hot, and let the washer do the drying, too -- don't let 'em drip dry. Heat is your friend for sanitation purposes. For those of you more like, well, me, with only a sink and a dish drainer to help you out, wash the jars well in hot, soapy water. Let dry. Then, sanitize the buggers. I know, I know, part of the charm of this recipe is that you're not processing the jar in a water bath, but sanitizing is your friend, and a big ol' pot of boiling water goes a long way towards ensuring food safety. If you just can't bring yourself to do it with boiling water, or you have any inklings that your jar can't take the heat, use bleach -- 1 tablespoon per gallon of water. Soak for 20 minutes, drain. Let air dry. If you want to rinse the jar after that, do so only with boiled water.

Yes, I'm the sister of an Extension employee. Food safety is important. Don't muck about with bacteria.

And, it's STILL the easiest darned preserving method I've seen, other than "put fruit and booze in a jar, let sit for months, then drink." This one even has the benefit of creating food, not, well, booze, so it's ... at least different.

Sour cherries can be hard to find; you can use frozen, I guess, but better to find an orchard and pick your own when you can. When measuring the cherries and sugar, measure by weight, not volume, if at all possible. As it's not baking, I won't yell at you if you don't have a scale, and have to go the volume route.

Picnic Soup #2: Tomato and Buttermilk Soup

I didn't eat/enjoy/recognize avocados as food until after college (Face masks? Sure. Food, no.). If one of your fellow picnickers shares my old hesitation, you're going to have a hard sell with Cold Avocado Soup. Try this alternative, from Outdoor Dining:

Tomato and Buttermilk Soup

2 cups (16 fl oz/500 ml) tomato juice
1 cup (8 fl oz/250 ml) buttermilk

This simple soup is cool and refreshing; if desired you can add some chopped tomato, cucumber, and fresh herbs. You can also vary the proportion of tomato juice to buttermilk.

Combine the tomato juice and buttermilk.

Serve Tomato and Buttermilk Soup chilled with open sandwiches, which become extra special when you make them with savory butters.

Variation: Combine buttermilk and apricot nectar for a refreshing drink.

Serves 2

Two ingredients! Just two! No cutting, no dicing, no blanching, no skinning, no skimming, no heating... it's simple, alright! Other than a glorious opportunity to stain things tomato red, this is something you could easily make with any kid old enough to stir the sugar and Kool-Aid packet in to the 2 quart pitcher.

Or was that just my childhood?

This soup shares a page with lots of savory butter suggestions. Pink peppercorn butter, which is "particularly good" with roast beef. Anchovy butter, for eggs, watercress, or cucumber. Herb butters. Walnut butter. If you can whir it up in a food processor, Outdoor Dining suggests you make it into a compound butter. I actually agree, and was just exhorting my brother in law in Pittsburgh to use some of his bumper crop of tarragon to make a compound butter. Compound butters (savory or sweet) freeze beautifully, and it's great to be able to cut off a hunk of a seasoned butter to melt on your grilled whatever.

Picnic Soup #1: Cold Avocado Soup

I'm going to go see the Indigo Girls at Wolftrap next week, and have been driving everyone around me a bit crazy by my obsessive menu planning. One thing that has stuck, however, was the idea of a cold soup, transported in a growler I got at a beer pub ages ago. I keep saying "a growler of gazpacho!" It took a while to hit on the gazapcho, though, and Outdoor Dining offers two potential growler-fillers. The first:

Cold Avocado Soup

2 avocados, halved and seeds removed
1 small white onion, chopped
2 cups (16 fl oz/500 ml) chicken stock
1 cup (8 fl oz/250 ml) buttermilk
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 red bell pepper (capsicum), halved
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

A rich, cold soup is a lovely start to a summer picnic; it is easy to carry in a large glass jar or vacuum flask.

Scrape the avocado flesh into a food processor or blender. Add the onion and stock and process until smooth.

Pour into a container and stir in the buttermilk and salt and pepper to taste. Put aside until ready to serve.

Put the bell pepper under a broiler (griller) until the skin blackens. Transfer to a paper bag and leave for about 30 minutes. Scrape off the blackened skin. Put the bell pepper into a food processor or blender with the Tabasco and purée. Transfer to a small jar.

To serve, add a dollop of the bell pepper purée to each bowl of avocado soup.

Serves 4

Menu
Cold Avocado Soup
Scallop and Bell Pepper (Capsicum) Salad (page 83)
Cookies

Why is this soup not coming with me to the concert? Frankly, the idea of garnishing on site seems pointlessly fussy. I know, I could just serve the soup sans puree, but...you should see how lovely this soup looks in the picture. Pale green, with a rush of vivid red. It's gorgeous. The soup will have to wait for a time that I'm eating outside...but within steps of the kitchen.

Every single recipe in Outdoor Dining is accompanied by a beautiful full-page photo. André Martin did the food photography, and Donna Hay, the food styling. Together, they make every dish look like something you simply have to try, right this very second. It's worth picking up a copy of the book (used, as it appears to be out of print), as the photos add so much.

I'm heading out of town for a wedding, so will be doubling up today, and when I return.

Picnic Sandwich #1: Patafla

Once tomatoes come into season -- real tomatoes, proper tomatoes, warm from the garden or farmers market and dripping with flavor tomatoes -- I can think of nothing better in life than tomato sandwiches. Bread, mayo, tomato, go! Sometimes, though, you want something a little more elegant. Outdoor Dining offers this simple, tangy, tasty, tomatoey sandwich:

Patafla

4 tomatoes
1 large purple (Spanish) onion, finely copped
2 oz (60 g) capers
4 dill pickles (gherkins), finely chopped
2 oz (60 g) pitted black olives, chopped
4 oz (125 g) stuffed green olives, chopped
1 teaspoon chopped chili
1 long French loaf
olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

This is a lovely Mediterranean picnic loaf -- make it the day before to allow the piquancy to develop.

Peel the tomatoes (make two small slits in the skin near the top of the tomatoes and drop into boiling water for about 30 seconds -- the skin will peel off easily). Cut the tomatoes into quarters and remove the seeds, then chop and put into a bowl. Combine with the onion, capers, dill pickles, black olives, green olives, and chili.

Cut the French loaf in half lengthwise and scrape out the soft bread inside. Add the soft bread to the other ingredients in the bowl and knead together, moistening with a little olive oil.

Add salt and black pepper to taste, then fill the two halves of the loaf with the mixture.

Press the halves together, then wrap tightly in plastic (cling) wrap and keep in the refrigerator overnight.

Cut into slices to serve.

Serves 6-8.

Menu
Patafla
Vitello Tonnato (page 99)
Cheese and Fruit

Important to use a bread with a firm crust, or the whole thing will go too far into the soggy realm. If you are morally opposed to soggy bread, by the way, don't try this sandwich (even though, hey, a firm crust will do wonders here). There are those in my family who blanch at the idea of so much as dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup; thankfully, I can balance that out with the family members who love milk toast when feeling poorly.

I think there's something very cozy about sandwiches for outdoor dining. You don't need utensils, assuming you sliced before heading out. You don't need plates, even, if you have a napkin you can eat over.

The balance of tomatoes and briny additions is great here, but if there's something you aren't very fond of (say, green olives, or capers), make it up by increasing the other items. I'd also feel free to substitute bread and butter pickles for the gherkins, if that's what you have in your fridge.

Cooking the Books: Tangy Cucumbers

Some things in life seem so basic, so natural that to discover them writen down can come as a shock. "Wait, there's a recipe for that?" I cried, when I came across the basic natural it's-always-that-way cucumber dish in the Spratt/Bachman & Mellberg/McKenzie Family Cookbook 2008:

Tangy Cucumbers
Betty Mellberg McKenzie

1/2 cup white vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
Water

Slice cucumbers into a bowl. Add above and then put enough water to just cover the cucumbers. Keep in fridge. They get better the longer they sit.

"Seriously, a recipe?"

But then, if this isn't the only way you were ever served cucumbers as a child, this is just the sort of thing you need. (No hyperbole there; it seems we always had a jar of these in the fridge, which is a neat trick, because I could eat all the cukes in one sitting without trying.) It is, indeed, tangy, as the title (and the vinegar) suggest. You could fancy it up by adding dried hot pepper flakes, or thinly sliced onions. I do not. You could use a food processor or mandoline to ensure uniform, nearly-transparent thin slices. I do not. And yesterday, Washington's Green Grocer brought me two cucumbers...

I scrubbed them, and realized they were still very waxy. Out came my trusty Oxo vegetable peeler, and in a trice, off came the waxy peel. A bit of casual knife work, and I had a bowl full of uneven but beautiful slices. I ground a good healthy amount of black pepper on top, and sprinkled a hefty pinch of salt over. Then, I poured 3/4 a cup of vinegar over, slowly, to wash the spices into solution. Yes, 3/4 cup. I love vinegar. And, yes, white vinegar. Other than Easter egg dying, this is the only food application for white vinegar in my life; otherwise, I use it mostly for cleaning. I topped off the cukes with one scant cup of cold water...



...and then I ate the top layer, with my fingers. Yes, it tastes better after it sits. But, yes, I could eat it right away. It took all my willpower to not tuck in with a fork, but... there's always tomorrow.

Attractive To The Eye and Soothing To The Smell: Poppy Seed Buns

When Mom got the Spratt/Bachman & Mellberg/McKenzie Family Cookbook 2008, she wanted to know if it had "her" recipes, the ones she remembered her grandmother and aunts making. It's all well and good to have a new-to-you Rice Krispies Brownie recipe on hand, but what makes a family cookbook really sing is to find the recipes you wish you'd snagged from your aunt's recipe box the last time you swung through North Dakota. Mom was very happy to find that the sweet poppy seed buns were included.

Poppy Seed Buns
Magdalena Berger Bachman

Dough:
2 cups warm milk
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp. salt
2 cakes (pgks) yeast
2 eggs
1/2 c. soft shortening
7 - 7 1/2 c. flour

Dissolve yeast in 1/2 c. warm water. Mix well the milk, sugar and salt together with yeast. Add eggs and shortening. Add flour. Let rise. Punch down. Let rise again.

Filling:
Poppy seeds, raisins thickened with water and cornstarch. Add some sugar. Place small amount on circular shape of dough. Roll. Let rise. Bake.

Wow, we went from a standardized recipe to one a bit more ... trusting. Assume a 350°F oven, and think either "cinnamon roll" or "knish" when shaping your buns. Yes, I know they're different shapes, but either should yield good results. Personally, I'd go with "cinnamon roll" so that I get well distributed bits of bread and filling with every bite.

If you have a poppy seed grinder handy, by all means, grind those seeds! You could, of course, also buy pre-ground poppy seeds. The texture is lovely, and odds are, you don't have your own poppy seed grinder sitting about.

I know some folks are anti-raisin; feel free to substitute a dried fruit of your choice. Dates, apricots, or even apples would make a good substitution.

As for the sugar, add to taste -- I'm thinking a 1/4 cup is a good starting point. Mix up your filling, taste it, and add sugar if you think you need it.



I'm really liking digging through family food history; my grandfather passed away last month, and this is a ...non-maudlin... way to remember him and his. Speaking of his, the stern looking couple above are my great great grandparents, so were his grandparents (I have to double check if that makes this Magdalena-of-this-recipe, or Magdalena's mother-in-law). If any of the recipes in this book don't work out, well...we can probably pin the blame on them or their children. This will become important when I post the prune pie recipe.

Bug Juice? No, Green Punch!

I had half a mind to be high-minded about the The Fruit of the Spirit: 100th Anniversary of Bittinger Lutheran Parish recipe selections. I really thought I wanted to prove that community cookbooks were treasure troves of fabulous recipes you might otherwise never find.

And then I found Green Punch.

Green Punch
Lottie Brenneman

2 pkgs. lemon-lime Kool-Aid
1 (46-oz.) can pineapple juice
2 quts. water
1 qt. 7-Up or ginger ale
Mix together and add ginger ale or 7-Up last. Sherbert may be added.

Oh, hell, yes. It's nearly Memorial Day weekend, it's going to be in the mid-80s here in DC, and Green Punch? Green Punch sounds like icy cold perfection.

I'm assuming that the packages of Kool-Aid are the "add 1 cup of sugar" kinds...one envelope each, which would normally make 2 quarts of Kool-Aid. I also assume that, with the soda and the juice, there's no need at all to actually add sugar, so the omission in the ingredient list is not so much an omission as a nod to not developing diabetes. Personally, I find diet 7-Up and diet ginger ale to be perfectly acceptable substitutes for the full-sugar variety, so you could shave a couple hundred calories off every serving if you want to make a substitution.

Then again, on the same page, there's "Easy Punch," which has Kool-Aid, pineapple juice, water, 7-Up, ice cream and 3 cups of sugar. If you want to get your sugar high on, you certainly have options in The Fruit of the Spirit.

Green drinks make me think of camp (but in a good way), picnics, birthday parties, field days... It's the sort of thing that feels fancy when you're five. As summer comes on, I think that fancy-for-a-five-year-old is well worth embracing in our culinary endeavors. Cheers.