Aunt Lyd’s Goulash

Time for a retro recipe!

Great Aunt Lydia Meyer provided this recipe about 1984, though I’ll bet she’d been making it for years. Aunt Lyd, Grandma Renner’s younger sister, who lived off of West McCarty, on Hamlin Street, in one of those nifty 1920s/1930s homes with the tall, steep gable soaring over the front door.

Her husband, Adolf, was a letter carrier for the post office—a physical job, for sure—and they had two robust, busy sons, so with all that activity and appetite surrounding her, she knew how to make satisfying meals in a hurry. And inexpensively.

Since there were lots and lots of women in the same situation, the following dish is hardly unique. Most of us who grew up in the middle twentieth century have memories of eating some kind of gloppy hamburger-based stew called “goulash.” It didn’t help that it sounded a bit like “galoshes,” which puts one in mind of mud, slush, and other sloppy things that collect on the ground. But honestly, we loved it.

The concept of “goulash,” although somehow loosely connected to an ancestral idea in the Old World (e.g., Hungary), constitutes a central branch of a wide variety of midcentury American tomatoey, ground-hamburger-and vegetable, one-dish meals called “goulash.” In Sue’s family, when her mom produced a goulash dish, Mr. Ferber would chuckle and call it (affectionately, but no doubt to Mrs. Ferber’s chagrin) “slumgullion.”

If we’re critical, and we’re being honest, this is not food to savor, except occasionally as a retro recipe—a way for us midcentury babies to plumb childhood memories of suppertime and potlucks. Mostly, it’s valuable as a quick, tasty way to feed a bunch of hungry people using things you have on hand.

Which means: “mom food,” or “church lady food.” (With the recent cold, snowy weather, I made this recipe as a meal for my parents and brother.)

Also, since we’re being critical, we owe a salute to our moms for improvising such tasty meals, on a shoestring, using what was in the freezer and cupboard. Boxed Hamburger Helper would soon come along and tell them, “you don’t need to mess with all that stuff; just brown some hamburger, add water, and stir in our box of sodium and dried-up things.” And compared to that, goulash seems like a meal made with actual love and care and creativity.

As a hot stew, it’s also perfect for wintertime eating.

I’m sure you can find lots of similar recipes, maybe even better ones, online, but here’s Aunt Lydie’s version. My suggestions follow the recipe.

Aunt Lyd’s Goulash

Brown ½ pound of hamburger; add ¼ cup chopped onion, and ½ cup chopped celery. Cook until tender. Then add 1 package of frozen succotash, 1 can tomato soup, 1 tsp. sugar, and pepper and salt to taste, and a little chili powder, and a little green pepper.

Simmer for 45 minutes.

Makes 4 servings.

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Suggestions and notes:

• “Package of frozen succotash”: in the past, frozen vegetables only came in ca. 10 oz. boxes. Maybe you can still find 10 oz. boxes of frozen succotash, but to replicate this dish, you may have to buy frozen lima beans and corn and measure out about 5 oz. of each. You could also use canned instead of frozen.
• “1 can tomato soup”: this would have been a can of condensed Campbell’s tomato soup, used in the condensed form.
• Obviously, the variations are endless.
• Finally, if you add a little Italian herbal seasoning, or oregano, it would probably be even more tasty. Just sayin’.

Fun fact: I had to look up the spelling for slumgullion for this post!

Mrs. Ferber’s Spice Cookies

It’s Advent and time for a Christmas cookie recipe! This is an all-time favorite of Sue’s family, and the recipe comes from Sue’s mom. It’s one of those cookies you can’t have Christmas without.

Mrs. F is currently in a rehab facility after recently falling in her assisted living apartment. So this year, since we’re in Ohio to be with her, I’m baking these cookies in Mrs. Ferber’s own kitchen.

At some point, after we get back to Missouri, I’ll be shipping these and other cookies to family and friends on my cookie gift list.

Note that these will be quite soft when you take them out of the oven. They will become crisp and firm when they cool. These are best when they are both crunchy and slightly chewy. If they turn out slightly too crispy, store them in a sealed tin with half an apple wrapped in some wax paper—that’ll fix the texture.

You will probably want to double this recipe, because everyone will want some.

3/4 cup shortening
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup molasses (such as Brer Rabbit)
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground cloves
3/4 tsp. dried, ground ginger

Mix dough and chill. Roll it into balls the size of walnuts. Dip in a bowl of granulated sugar and place 2 inches apart on a greased (or parchment-lined) cookie sheet. Bake at 375°F for about 8 minutes. Makes about 60 cookies.

Grandma Renner’s Chili Sauce

Here’s another retro recipe for you! But first, I need to make a confession: I didn’t like this when I was a kid, when I had the opportunity to eat the chili sauce Grandma Renner herself had made! Now, of course, I kick myself for being such a little nitwit.

But I long ago copied the recipe from Mom’s collection, thinking I’d make it someday. But I had to go through some kind of phase where “real” chili sauces were viewed as somehow “better” than my own grandmother’s.

Maybe it’s a labeling problem: this really isn’t a true chili sauce. There aren’t any actual chilis in it! Bell peppers, green and red, but mostly it’s tomatoes. It’s a spicy tomato sauce. It’s basically chunky ketchup. There’s no heat to it at all.

If you look in church-lady cookbooks from the mid-twentieth century, you’ll find scads of recipes for “chili sauce” that are just like this: really, a tomato relish.

For our little Fourth of July feast, I decided to offer an alternative relish for our burgers, so I made up some of this. And boy, howdy—it’s pretty darned good!

You usually think of something piquant, tangy, tomatoey, and just . . . sharp tasting. Sharply tomatoey. But this has a good combination of flavors, vinegar, sugar.

Naturally, I didn’t follow the instructions to the letter. First, I made the “mistake” of not knowing that one is always supposed to blanch, peel, and deseed tomatoes used for sauce! What a nincompoop I am. (However, I do know that nutrients and flavor are in the skin and seeds, so unless I’m told not to, I tend to keep them in.)



After the initial hour of simmering, I could tell I’d have to run it through my food mill, and that would change the texture from how Grandma used to make it. But okay—I remember Grandma’s chili sauce being chunky and fairly watery, and I wanted mine to be more like a sauce—thicker, more ketchupy. So my “mistake” turned out to be a boon.

Grandma’s recipe calls for “red peppers,” too—I had to ask my mom what Grandma might have used. I mean, any hint of the word chili, and I’m inclined to use red chili peppers, those small, thin-skinned little firecrackers, like cayenne. But no, Mom told me it was more like a red bell pepper. Read: sweet red pepper.

I quartered Grandma’s recipe, since it was a maiden voyage, but next time, I’ll make a full batch and process it. Here’s why:



—It goes on nearly everything. Hamburgers, hot dogs, mac and cheese, baked potatoes, you name it—anything you’d maybe put ketchup on. I mean, just a hot dog or hamburger, a bun, and this stuff—and wow.

—Check this out: open a jar of sauerkraut, pull out enough kraut for however many servings you need, rinse and drain it, sprinkle caraway seeds on it, then spoon some of this relish in. Stir it up, then heat it. A microwave will do. Feed it to people who say they don’t like sauerkraut, and see if they don’t make an exception. Great as a side with brats and potatoes.

—You can use it as a salsa—a chip dip. Stir it in with yogurt or sour cream.

—Mix it with mayo and use as a dressing base for a pasta salad.

For this maiden voyage, I used greenhouse tomatoes—but I’ll bet it will be exponentially better made with red ripe summertime tomatoes! You might want to try it, too.

Here’s the recipe. Notes in [brackets] are by me.

Chilli Sauce
By Clara Renner

16 cups tomatoes (about large pot full)
6 sweet peppers [green bell peppers]
8 big onions [Mom said Grandma would’ve used yellow ones]

—Cook for 2 hours.
—Then, add and cook 1 hour longer:

2 cups vinegar [Grandma would have used apple cider vinegar]
3 red peppers [Mom said Grandma would’ve used sweet ones, such as red bell peppers]
2 Tbsp. mixed spices [Mom said these are pickling spices; I used McCormick, which must have some cinnamon in it—very delicious!]
2 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. salt
1 Tbsp. celery seed

—For catsup or sauce, use 1/2 tsp. ground red pepper, which you can use instead of 3 red peppers [okay, I added a little chili powder—the spice-blend kind you’d use for making chili—and I also used the red peppers as well.]



If you’re like me and you want to just try it out, below is the quartered recipe I used. I made an effort to cook it down.

Reduced Recipe
(makes about 3 pints)

4 cups tomatoes (approx. 4-5 tomatoes), chopped (next time, I’ll blanch and peel the skins off of them)
1 1/2 green bell peppers, chopped
2 regular-sized yellow onions, chopped [I figure what was a “large” onion in Grandma’s day is probably what we’d call a “medium.”]

—Cook for 2 hours in a heavy-based pan.
—Then, add the following and cook for 1 more hour or until as thick as you want:

1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
4 sweet red peppers (shape and size of jalapenos—but they’re sweet)
1/2 T. pickling spices
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 T. salt
1/4 T. celery seed

—Adjust seasonings to taste. I’m sure I added more pickling spices and celery seed, thinking my containers of them were rather old. I also added a pinch or so of chili powder.
—When it’s about as thick as you want, run it through a food mill if you want it to have a more homogenous texture.
—I didn’t preserve mine, but this recipe was born to be canned.

Red, White, and Blueberry Jell-O Salad, alias "Blueberry Salad"

Trust me, this looked excellent before we demolished it.



And the fact that we demolished it implies (correctly) that it tasted really good, too!

It’s the perfect Jell-O salad for a Fourth of July meal. Like all Jell-O salads, its cool fruitiness is a great complement to barbecue, hamburgers, hotdogs, or whatever. And it’s refreshing on a hot day (like it always is here, in July). And face it, most Jell-O salads are more like dessert than a health food, and it’s a holiday, so hey, rock on!

But you gotta be fast if you want to take a picture of it.

File this one under “retro recipes.” I found it in the 125 Year Anniversary Commemorative Cookbook from Trinity Lutheran Church, published in 1995 or 1996. The original recipe, according to that collection, was in “the Kitchen Klatter Cookbook, published in 1982.” (Does that mean the magazine? I can’t find evidence that a Kitchen-Klatter cookbook was published in 1982; only in 1977. Hmm.)

Or it could have come from Country Woman magazine, July/August 2000, p. 42, where apparently it was called “Red, White, and Blueberry Salad”? Online, it’s frequently called “4th of July Party Jello.” (Sic.) (We all know how it’s officially spelled and capitalized: Jell-O.)

Anyway . . . there aren’t many pictures of this particular Jell-O concoction because, no doubt, it gets eaten up before anyone gets a chance to take a picture of it!



I amended the recipe just a tad: It was apparently created before Jell-O had come out with its blueberry flavor/color, so the original called for the blue layer to be created with raspberry Jell-O plus the fruit and juice from a can of blueberries. But shoot! Why not use blueberry, now that it’s available here in the modern age? Real or artificial, flavor-wise, blueberries and raspberries are great friends!

I interpreted the “coffee cream” it called for as “half-and-half,” and I substituted Neufchâtel cheese for the cream cheese in the recipe—it’s got less fat, but darned if I can tell much difference between the two.

Here’s how to make it. Be sure to allow time for each layer to get hard before adding the next—I suggest making it a day ahead. (Which is to say, July 3!)

The recipe suggests using an 8 x 8 or 9 x 11 inch dish. (I used an 8 x 8.)

1. First layer (red):

1 box raspberry Jell-O (regular size box; not the big one)
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold water

Make the raspberry Jell-O per the usual directions on the box. Pour it into the dish and chill until firm.

2. Second layer (white):

1 envelope plain (Knox) gelatin
1/2 cup cold water
1 cup half-and-half (or milk)
1/2 cup sugar
1 (8-oz.) package of cream cheese (I use the lighter Neufchâtel cheese), softened a bit
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup pecan pieces

In a little bowl, stir the gelatin into the water and let soften. In a saucepan, heat the half-and-half with the sugar until hot but not boiling. Add the gelatin, mix, and let cool. When it’s no longer hot, in a blender or food processor, mix the gelatin mixture with the cream cheese, vanilla, and pecans.

Pour this white layer over the red layer and chill until firm.

3. Third layer (blue):

1 package blueberry Jell-O (again, regular size box)
1 cup boiling water
1 (approx. 15-oz.) can blueberries with juice (such as Oregon brand)

Dissolve the Jell-O in the boiling water. Stir in blueberries, with their juice. Let it cool so that it’s not hot (you don’t want it to melt the gelatin you’re pouring it on), then pour this blue layer over the white layer and chill until it’s firm.

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This is really delicious. If you’re like me, the slightly tangy, creamy white layer, with its pecans, will really transport you back to childhood potlucks from the sixties and seventies. Back then, I would have had no idea what was in that white “mystery” layer—but I sure would have given it my approval!

I Make Brown Bread

I suppose to many people this post will be completely boring, but it’s about something I found incredibly interesting: I made brown bread for the first time, as in “Steamed Boston Brown Bread.”

I think it fascinated me because it seems no one makes it anymore. No one eats it, no one serves it. (At least not around here. I’ll bet it’s still proudly served in households throughout New England.) Yet I’m pretty sure it used to be fairly common throughout America. And that would make it a “retro recipe,” or a “mom” or “grandma recipe.” And that means: Let’s not forget it. Let’s check it out. Let’s have it sometimes, because it inspires nostalgia and reverence.



When I was a kid, we used to have brown bread pretty often. I think Mom used to buy it at the grocery store, canned. She’s told me that her mom used to make it. And like a lot of moms and grandmas, grandma used to make it in a largish tin can.

It would seem to be very healthy and full of nutrients: My recipe calls for equal parts of whole wheat flour, rye flour, and corn meal—plus molasses (I used Brer Rabbit full flavor). The leavening is buttermilk (or sour milk, but you can’t really buy that) plus baking soda and salt. Pretty simple, actually.

Raisins are commonly added—I intended to put them in, but forgot at the last moment. Yes, I really was that excited!

For those of you who don’t know anything about brown bread, here’s its most remarkable trait: It is not baked; it is steamed.

In my brain, that seems silly: Wouldn’t steaming make bread soggy? Well, not if you wrap up the batter/dough so that no extra moisture can get in.

And so, if you want to make brown bread, you need some kind of steamer. I used a big enamel-ware canning pot that Sue’s mom gave us. The recipe I used said to use a 2-quart pudding mold (filled 2/3’s full), and I didn’t have one of those. Well, I do, but I wanted something fairly loaf-shaped. (All our tin cans had gone out in the recycling, so I didn’t have any around!)

Digging around in our bakeware cupboard under the counter, I found some disposable aluminum-foil-type loaf tins that each hold 1 quart, and I found they would fit in the pot nicely side-by-side. I wrapped each tightly with heavy-duty aluminum foil, so no steam would get into the bread.

The instructions said to steam it for 3 1/2 hours, but they didn’t need to go that long (two 1-quart loaf tins would cook faster than one big mass in a single 2-quart mold). Even at 3 hours, it still seemed like a hell of a long time to cook anything on the stovetop (not counting the braising of sauerbraten, which is always worth doing). But at least it didn’t need much watching. The canning pot didn’t let out much water vapor at all, so the water never got close to needing replenishing.

The recipe is from my beloved copy of The Good Housekeeping Cook Book, ed. Dorothy B. Marsh (New York: Rinehart, 1949), pp. 446-47.





There was something magical about fishing those foil-wrapped tins out of the steamer, opening them, and finding nice little loaves of moist, spongy bread where before there had been a blob of quick-bread batter glop.



To celebrate, we followed the rest of the instructions in my 1940s cookbook, which suggested to serve the brown bread hot “with baked beans, codfish cakes, frankfurters, etc.” I didn’t have any codfish cakes lying about, but I did go to the store and found some actual frankfurters (as opposed to hot dogs)—plump, pudgy, flavorful franks with skins that kind of “snapped” when we bit into them. And yes, baked beans, too.

The next day, we made little sandwiches with the bread, now chilled, filled with cream cheese, and had them with red-grape-laced chicken salad (a delicious combo that my Aunt Ann served us for lunch a few years ago; she’d spiked the chicken salad with a hint of microplane-grated orange peel, too, and that was especially good).

My apologies: There are no pictures of our plates, because we consumed these meals before I even thought of taking any photos for the blog. (I do wonder about bloggers who seem to take pictures of every morsel they put into their mouths . . . !)

So although this wasn’t the most “colorful” of posts, I hope you’ll appreciate this humble culinary exploration of mine. Maybe it will inspire you to try making brown bread, too!

My Mom’s Ham and Bean Soup

It’s been a while since I’ve shared a recipe with you, but with the transition from “red autumn” to “gray autumn,” the installation of the storm windows, the bringing in of the houseplants, and this onslaught, now, of cold, rainy weather, it’s truly feeling like we’ve entered the cold time of year. Winter!

And what better way to battle the chill than with a nice big pot of ham and bean soup?

File this under “opulent opossum”—it’s one of those simple, homey, perfect things we have here in the Midwest. One of those absolute glories that we take too much for granted these days. It has no gourmet ingredients in it, so it’s not “cool.” Frankly, though, we should be celebrating good ol’ ham and bean soup, holding it up as a healthful, delicious, cherished dish. The food of our people!

This is not a fancy recipe—it’s basic. And for me, it’s home, because this is my mom’s recipe. I’m not sure where it came from originally, but I have noticed the same recipe available online—for example, here.

Maybe it came from the back of a package of beans. Or maybe it’s from a popular cookbook or ladies’ cooking magazine. One time I had ham and bean soup at a café, and it tasted just like this! (Naturally, I thought it was ex-cel-lent soup!) Wherever the recipe first appeared, and regardless of how many other people also use it and call it their family recipe, for me, this is the one. So file it also under “mom recipes”!

We all have foods like this—scenes and images from home waft into the mind just as the cooking aroma penetrates the home. I think of coming home from school on a drizzly fall day, and mom would have this soup on the stove, and corn muffins keeping warm above the stove’s pilot light. Or maybe it’s been a snow day, and my brother and I have spent the afternoon reading comic books or playing outside in the snow. Sometimes, I think of college days, when I’d come home dog tired, and there’d be that soup, which both comforts and revives.

Note: At my mom’s house, the accompaniments always include corn muffins (sure, you can use Jiffy mix), butter, and jam. Or a few little pieces of cheese. Pickles and olives go well, too!


Ham and Bean Soup

2½ cups (16 oz.) dry navy (or northern) beans
3-pound meaty ham bone
3 quarts water
________________

1 cup chopped celery
1½ cups chopped carrots
1¼ cups pared, chopped potato (1 large)
1¼ cups chopped onion (1 large)
½ teaspoon (or more) salt (to taste)
¼ teaspoon pepper
3–4 dashes bottled hot pepper sauce

Rinse beans; place in large Dutch oven with the ham bone and water. Bring to boiling; reduce heat and simmer, covered, till beans are tender, 3 to 3½ hours. Remove ham bone and meat; cool till it can be handled. Coarsely chop meat and return to soup along with the remaining ingredients; discard the bone. Simmer 30 minutes more or till vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Makes about 3½ quarts.

Date Nut Bars: A Christmas Classic from “Ann Pillsbury”

A few posts ago I told you about Sue’s mom’s Christmas cookies. Just a day after I posted it, the postman brought us a box containing . . . Sue’s mom’s Christmas cookies!

Oh, joy!

Here’s the first one we chomped: Date Nut Bars!

They’re cakey and chewy and a little crumbly. Not too sweet. And they look great, too.

They’re ex-cel-lent with coffee and tea!!! (Three exclamation points = Big emphasis!)

Mrs. F. says to double this for a 10×15 inch pan, or a 9×12. And yes, you’ll want to make plenty.

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Date Nut Bars

“Developed by Ann Pillsbury.”

“Easy and quick to make! Chewy and moist to eat!”

“Makes 2 dozen.”

Bake at 350 degrees for 25–30 minutes.

Sift together into a large bowl:

3/4 c. sifted Pillsbury’s Best Enriched Flour*
1/2 t. double-acting baking powder
1/2 t. salt

Add:

1 c. firmly packed brown sugar; mix well.

Blend in, and mix thoroughly:

2 well-beaten eggs
2 T melted butter

Stir in:

1 c. walnuts or pecans, chopped [Mrs. F. uses pecans!]
1 c. dates, cut in small pieces

Spread in well-greased 11×7 or 9×9 inch pan.

Bake in moderate oven (350 degrees) 25–30 minutes. While warm, cut into bars. If desired, roll in confectioners’ sugar before serving.


* “If you use Pillsbury’s Best Enriched Self-Rising Flour (sold in parts of the South), omit baking powder and salt.”

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A Few Notes

Mrs. Ferber got the recipe from a vintage Pillsbury cookie cookbook from the fifties: Pillsbury’s Best Butter Cookie Cookbook, volume 2. Hers is a well-loved and well-used cookbook! You can find copies of the publication for sale online.

Originally this cookbook was only 20 cents a copy, but now it and volume 3 of the same book are selling for $10–13 for a decent copy. (Hey, Pillsbury! Maybe it’s time to think about a special vintage-reprint edition, with all the same cool artwork, typesetting, and recipes, just modified slightly where your products have changed?) (I mean, look what Better Homes and Gardens recently did—they’re offering a glorious facsimile edition of their 1950 Picture Cookbook! What a cool thing, huh?)

Not thinking I was ever going to quote it for anything but my own use, I didn’t copy the recipe word-for-word. So Capital “T” means tablespoon; lowercase “t” means teaspoon. The original had that kinda stuff spelled out. I did copy the important points of the recipe. It’s from p. 36.

By the way, I’m pretty sure that “Ann Pillsbury” is a myth, like Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima, and Mrs. Butterworth. (Duncan Hines, however, was indeed a real person!)

Finally, my blog-formatting skills don’t allow me to reproduce the unique and helpful two-column typesetting pioneered in the original publication. If you can find a copy, you’ll see it’s pretty neat.

Sue’s Mom’s Awesome Christmas Cookies!

Okay. Here is something we can all agree on: the awesomeness of “Mom’s Christmas Cookies.”

You know what I mean—it’s when your mom makes at least, oh, a half dozen different types of cookies, and makes them in abundance. She always makes the favorites, the traditional ones you “can’t have Christmas without.”




And then, because she loves baking so much, each year she usually tries out at least one new cookie recipe, or a variation of an old one, just for fun. Sometimes these receive such an enthusiastic response that they’re added to the list of “must-haves.”

So there’s a cookie platter available all winter long, replenished by the dozens of cookies in tins and plastic tubs out on the back sunporch.

Yeah!

Sue’s mom is one of these holiday bakers. Now, she doesn’t make many of the cookies I personally find necessary for the holidays—lebkuchen, billy goats, “animal cookies,” orange balls, springerle. Mostly German-ethnic stuff from my family.

But she makes her own set of “regulars” that are just as necessary to her family as leppies are to mine, and she shares abundantly with Sue and me. Over the years, naturally, most of her cookies have become “Christmas must-haves” for me, too. I guess that is one of the benefits of being in a marriage with someone: You not only gain a second family, you also gain a whole new set of Christmas cookie traditions!

Let me introduce you to some of her Christmas cookies!

First, her spice cookies! Yes, they look kind of like ginger snaps, but they’re not crunchy at all—no danger of chipping a tooth on these! They’re soft and chewy. The ingredients include brown sugar, molasses, cinnamon, cloves, and ginger; you chill the dough, roll them into balls, then dip in white sugar before baking briefly. Mrs. F. always makes them to perfection!

Sue’s brother-in-law has always adored these, and Sue’s brother in South Carolina and one of his sons, I hear, raid the box of cookies Sue’s mom sends them, picking out the spice cookies, then squirreling them away like hoarded treasure. It’s Mark and Michael’s hands-down favorite. Good pick, guys!




These are incredibly tasty, though not cloyingly sweet. There’s something tangy, almost salty about them. Is it the molasses? The baking soda? Anyway, as Sue described them, they’re “a yearly absolute-can’t keep-them-on-the-plate favorite.”

Here are some “jubilee jumbles”—also chewy, but more cakelike and with crushed pecans inside. So good! Brown sugar, white sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla, and chopped pecans are the flavoring ingredients. And that’s a burnt butter glaze: browned butter plus powdered sugar plus evaporated milk. My mouth is watering just writing this.




Sue’s mom makes candy, too. She’s the queen of fudge, and she usually makes several types—Sue’s partial to the peanut butter fudge; but the black walnut is good, too. And of course, the straight-ahead chocolate. And there in Ohio, those chocolate-dipped peanut butter balls known as "buckeyes" are de rigueur, too.

Then, there’s the white-chocolate peppermint bark, the preparation of which calls for you to pound up candy canes! I really have to watch myself with this one, folks.




But here’s my real weakness: the peanut butter kisses. Also known as peanut blossoms. Uh-oh! I literally have to have people move the cookie platter away from me when there are peanut butter kisses on it. I know, that’s really bad. . . . But these cookies are really good!

The recipe was probably invented in the Hershey’s Corp. test kitchens, but man, whoever invented this recipe deserves a medal.




Other favorites are:

“Delectabites,” also known as “pecan puffs,” crescent-shaped nut cookies coated with powdered sugar;

Oatmeal cookies without the raisins. Mrs. F. has always hated raisins, so she makes raisinless oatmeal cookies. This year she used chocolate chips instead. There were no complaints about it!

“Honey bunches,” also called “haystacks,” an oats-coconut-flour-brown sugar-butter-and-honey concoction; and

“Date nut bars,” from a vintage Pillsbury cookie cookbook—chewy and nutty and dusted with powdered sugar. A beautiful celebration of The Date.

Best Easter Dessert

Of course it's the best, because it's from my mother!

I posted the instructions for "Easter Egg Cake" last year (click on the link), but I want to make sure you remember about it again this year. I suspect I have more readers now than I did when I first posted it, so I want to make sure you know about this fun recipe.

Happy Easter, everyone!

Animal Cookies

We went to Columbia a few nights this past week to assist my mom in making her animal cookies (a.k.a. shape cookies, cut-out cookies, sugar cookies with decorations). Although among her various cookie cutters there are fir trees, bells, wreathes, stars, and holly leaves, a majority of the shapes are of animals.




They include butterflies, fish, birds (swan, rooster, cardinal), and mammals (squirrel, rabbit, elephant, pig, goat, horse, coyote, Scotch terrier, and lion). No reptiles or amphibians, and precious few invertebrates (well, so far).




Mom’s mom used to make animal cookies, too, so this is something my mom and aunt do and remember her by. My aunt’s family, I hear, really let themselves “go” when it’s time to decorate these. Well, they have a bigger family, so it can get louder and more exciting than when it’s just three or four people working.

All the pastry decorations are bought out, whether they’re Christmassy or not; mom does the icing. When I was a kid and mom had more gumption, she’d mix up different colors of icing—so it was possible to have some pink elephants, for instance. This year she just did white and green.




We always strive to come up with creative twists instead of the literal decorations you might imagine. A fish turned on its head becomes an ear of corn, using yellow sugar sprinkles down the middle and green lines down the sides. When you rotate the swan just so, his body can look like the pointy face of a vulture, with a skinny little U-shaped neck.




Yes, we do decorate many of the cookies “straight,” so we can serve them to high-class company whenever they show up. But I personally prefer the ones that make me laugh because of the whimsy, or even because they’re kinda rude.




Like, I don’t know what’s supposed to be the deal with this Scotty. Hemorrhoids? Did it eat too much jalapeño salsa? Or is she “in season”? Anyway, it cracks me up to see it.

For a long time, we have joked that the “last” cookie, made with scraps not big enough to use a cookie cutter on, is “the amoeba.” It’s a free-form wad of dough simply rolled out and plopped onto a cookie sheet.

But this year, I made a couple of amoebas on purpose, shaping them with a butter knife. Pretty cool, huh?




Mom’s been wanting to wrangle herself out of the Christmas cookie scene. I think she feels underappreciated, or like it’s something that takes a lot out of her. But then again, the fun also perks her up, and she’s out of her mind if she thinks we don’t appreciate it.

This is the kind of thing we’ll remember about her forever—her sitting at the table, icing the cookies with a butter knife, while we sit nearby with toothpick and tweezers, doctoring the decorations and snickering about our creative “discoveries.” Like the year my dad made the first “plaid Scotty.”




Mom customarily tells us to quit being so silly and complains that we need to make sure some of the cookies look “nice.” We adore it when she counters our sillyness, which is really a part of playing along. And because she laughs at our shenanigans even as she shakes her head in mock disgust, I know she adores it, too.

Celebrate German Heritage Recipe #4: Mom’s Fried Apples

I cannot believe it when I talk to people and they haven’t ever had fried apples. Good lord, what they’re missing!

Here’s the deal: This is something to have with pork. Pork chops, or little round patties of cooked pork sausage (you know, like out of those tubes of R.B. Rice or Jimmy Dean, both owned by engulf-and-devour megacorporation Sara Lee). I have to say our family is rather partial to the R.B. Rice, medium.

To complete the culinary Trinity, you need some form of potatoes: fried, mashed, or simply boiled, whatever. Chips, if you’re hard up.

Pork + fried apples + potatoes = yummy dinner. Mustard with the pork sausage is optional. Add green vegetables or a salad ad libitum.

Mom fixed this dinner a lot for us when I was a kid.

(Thanks, Mom!)

Mom’s Fried Apples

Cut 4-5 medium cooking apples (such as Jonathans) into slices. [Red apples look better, cooked, than green ones.]

Put the apple slices into a skillet on top of 4 or 5 pieces of margarine (about 2 tablespoons).

Cook on medium or medium-low heat and cover.

As the butter starts to cook, stir the apples around and get them coated.

They’ll steam a little bit. Check on them every once in a while; stir gently. You don’t want them to get too soft.

When they’re cooked, take off the lid and leave it off. Sprinkle on some cinnamon and about 1/3 c. sugar. Stir gently, so as not to break the apple pieces.

Serves 2-3 people as a side dish.

The Dinner Mr. Sippel Never Had

I don’t mean to make fun of anyone, but it was kind of funny to think this yesterday when I plated the first Mrs. Sippel’s meatloaf alongside the second Mrs. Sippel’s cooked red cabbage.

I followed the directions, even though I was pretty sure the red cabbage wouldn’t cook well with vinegar in the water. Sue was a little let down by the texture and the flavor. Yeah, my recipe really is better. (I’ll share it one of these days.) But Mrs. Sippel’s wasn’t bad; it was just really plain. And crunchy.

Someday I’ll have to tell you a family story—well, more of a legend—about my Great-grandma Thomas and red cabbage. It speaks of the love she had for beautiful red cabbages, and the love her husband had for her.

. . . Okay, and the meatloaf—well! I was a little let down that it didn’t remind me a whole lot of my mom’s. Partly because I didn’t cook it as long as I remember my mom cooking it; she didn’t want us to get worms, or E. coli, so her meatloaf tended to be a little firmer than mine. I was actually going to leave it in the oven longer, but Sue noticed the sides had pulled away from the loaf pan, and the inside was cooked, so she probably saved me from overcooking it.

And another little detail that occurred to me: the ketchup on top. Mom always used to very carefully pour it out of the glass bottle in little dabs (note that the recipe says “dot with catsup”) . . . and here I am, in 2009, with a handy plastic squeeze bottle of Heinz that doesn’t deliver the ketchup in “dabs” or dots. Oh well.

It tasted really good. I have to admit that I used a little more onion than the recipe called for . . . and I cut up the bacon into little pieces instead of laying big strips down the middle (this way it’s easier to cut slices later on).

Today, we’ll have cold meatloaf sandwiches for a late lunch. It will taste really good with some watermelon and potato chips. Summer is definitely here, folks.

Mississippel

This post builds on the previous one, about the women of the Greatest Generation.

I’ve learned that someone connected to me, a member of this generation, passed away recently: Mildred Sippel. She was born in 1916, got married in 1954 (yes!), and was the organist for her church for many years. This information is from her obituary, here.

I copied this picture from the newspaper’s obituary, and ten bucks says that it, in turn, was copied from her church’s directory.

Here’s how she’s connected to me: My mom’s aunt’s husband was Mildred’s brother. Which is to say, she was the sister of my Great Uncle Adolf. No, I didn’t know her, but my mom did. And I’m sure we’ve attended some of the same weddings and funerals.

So. Mildred Sippel passed away, and I had to go look in my copy of Cooking with Faith, 1950 to 1975, also known as “Favorite Recipes of Faith Lutheran Church Women, Jefferson City, Missouri, 1970.” Because she was a longtime member of Faith Lutheran.

(No, it’s not very clear what the official cookbook title is—the thing on the cover, or the thing on the first page. And you can’t tell what the publication year is, either. Church ladies’ cookbooks can’t be bothered with such details—it’s more important to copy all those precious recipes accurately.)

And behold! I found one of Mildred’s recipes—in fact, I remember looking at this recipe before, because when I was first teaching myself how to cook red cabbage, I studied her instructions with curiosity. (How much red cabbage to use, then? Apparently this must not make very much. Maybe she was just thinking about cooking for two, huh. And do you think the spelling should have been “Bierich,” or what? Hmm. I’ll bet she was one of those gifted “cook by feel” people. . . . Or maybe that’s the pun in the book’s title—you have to have “faith” that it will turn out!)

Anyway, here ya go, verbatim from the bottom of p. 46 of Cooking with Faith. Read my note right after it, however. Very important.

Beirich Kraut

Place finely cut red cabbage in pan with slightly salted boiling water. (Water should barely cover the cabbage.) Add 1 teaspoon vinegar to water, cover pan and cook cabbage until tender, adding water if needed. When finished, add a little sugar or sweetener to taste.
Mrs. William Sippel (Mildred)

Note: I don’t know how long Mildred had to cook this after she’d added her vinegar, in order for it to get tender, but my advice is to cook the cabbage in water alone, first, until it’s completely done, before adding any vinegar. It can only be a small amount of water, too; it basically steams. As a general rule, if you add vinegar before the vegetable is soft, it will stay crunchy. . . . Hmm. Well, maybe Mrs. Sippel liked it crunchy.

Oh, and of course: Use apple cider vinegar. Of course.

Someday I’ll post my own recipe for red cabbage. Which is better; everyone loves it. But this is Mildred Sippel’s memorial post, and I don’t want to brag . . .

---------------

And now here’s a bonus recipe for you! From my mom’s handwritten collection! This recipe is known as “Mrs. Sippel’s Meatloaf,” but my Mom pointed out to me that it’s not from Mildred Sippel . . . and it’s not from Mildred’s mother-in-law, either. Nope. It’s from Mildred’s predecessor, the first Mrs. Sippel, who passed away—hence William Sippel’s remarriage in 1954, to Mildred, who was the second Mrs. Sippel.

So yeah . . . I’m feeling warm about this dish. This is the exact same meatloaf recipe my mom used all while I was growing up. This here is real home cookin’, I’ll tell you what!

Note: Making these kinds of connections are one of the best things about living in your extended family’s home turf.

Mrs. Sippel’s Meatloaf

1 1/2 lb. hamburger
1 egg
2 tbsp. chopped onion
1 cup cracker crumbs
1 cup milk
salt and pepper (to taste)

For Topping:

bacon (2 strips)
catsup

Mix together meatloaf ingredients and place in baking dish. Put 2 strips of bacon on top and dot with catsup. Bake 1 hour at 350°.

(For more on these recipes, with pictures, click here!)

Good Feedback

Just a small update. I wanted to let you know about a little something that made me feel good! And good about the Op Op.

Last night, Sue and I were on the phone with Sue's folks in Ohio,* and Sue's mom commented on the recipe for Wilted Lettuce Salad (posted 3/8/09). "Oh, I remember that. My mother used to make that dressing all the time. It was so good!"

Then she went on to tell us how her mom would use early spring dandelion greens for the salad, too, and how yummy it was.

I always appreciate Mrs. F's capacity for enthusiasm. It's contagious, and it comes straight from her heart.

And yeahhhhhhhhh: Amen to "mom's cooking," however you define it.

__________________

* FYI, the phone, or "telephone," was the way people used to Comment before the Internet and "texting" took over all forms of human communication (ca. 2010).

What's Op Op, Part 2

(Part 2 of trying to explain the title of this blog. With more to come.)

So, yeah, it’s an attitude. “Opulent opossum” is an oxymoron, and it describes so much of life. There can be such richness and luxury, exquisite gourmet extravagances, while at the same time we plod along in our mundane, unexciting little ruts. Or, to put it another way: Sometimes the things that we think are boring, the same ol’ same ol’, can actually be a wellspring of luxury.

Take, for example, the humble billy goat cookie. I held up on eating the last one we had left over from Christmas, a cookie made by my mother, a cookie just like all the other lumpy brown billy goat cookies she’s made every year for at least four decades, and which her mom no doubt made all the years she was able to.

Billy goats aren’t hard to make, though they take some attention to detail. They’re not exactly “pretty” cookies, either. But man, do they taste good! The flavors of dates, black walnuts, and spices harmonize as well as the flavors in any high-class European pastry.

You can’t buy these in stores; they only come from Mom. And because we have them only once a year, because we associate them with Mom, and with her mom, they become important beyond description. . . . That’s opulence, man.