Almond Cookies

3/4 c. butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1 c. finely chopped blanched almonds
2 c. cake flour
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. soda

Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla and beat. Sift dry ingredients together and add with almonds. Make a long roll and chill an hour. Slice very thin and bake in mod. oven (350) for a few minutes.

Drop Cookies

A spice cookie with fruit and nuts. I think these may have been Grandma Toomey's.

2 c. flour
1 t. soda
1/2 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg & cloves
1/2 c. butter
1 1/3 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 c. nuts
1/4 c. milk
1 c. chopped raw apples
1 c. raisins

Bake at 375 - 10-12 min.

Corn Flake Cookies

Another favorite from Great Aunt Minnie:

2/3 c. butter
1 c. sugar
eggs, well-beaten
2 c. flour
1/2 t. baking powder
salt
1/2 t. soda in 2 t. milk
1 c. dates
1/2 c. nuts
1 c. corn flakes
1 t. vanilla*

Cream butter, add sugar and eggs, well beaten.
Sift flour, baking powder, and salt, and add to mixture, with milk and soda.
Add dates and nuts. Roll into balls and pat in slightly crushed corn flakes.

Bake at 375 - 10 minutes

*Vanilla would probably be added with the eggs; she doesn't say

Chocolate No Bakes

In double boiler, melt 1/2 lb milk chocolate, 1 pkg choc chips, 2 sq unsweetened chocolate & 1 T butter. Cool.

Chop 1/1/2 c. cocoanut, mix with cooled chocolate & stir in 4 c. corn flakes.

Drop onto cookie sheet. Put in refrig & set.

Meringues

My sister Kristine's childhood favorite--a perfect no-fat goodie. For the cookie sheet, you cut open a brown paper bag.


2 egg whites (the eggs are, obviously beaten; on another card the words "stiff & dry" are crossed off--perhaps because she stopped when they were stiff and damp?)

1/2 c. sugar

add sugar 6 T one at a time

& after adding 1/2 t. vanilla,
add rest of the sugar

Bake w/br paper, at 250 = 50 minutes

Almond Butter Crunch

One of my all-time favorites of Mom's sweets is her almond butter crunch.

Last Christmas in California, my sister Joanne and I wanted to make it, but couldn't find the recipe. We called Kristine in Michigan and she didn't have it either, but found a recipe in the Better Homes and Garden Cookbook, which Mom used a lot, that sounded similar.

We made it, and it turned out well enough, but didn't seem quite as succulent as Mom's. And it felt harder on the teeth (maybe because of the corn syrup).

Back in New York, I searched the boxes and found it:

Butter Toffee

Combine 1 c. sugar, 1/4 c. water, 1/2 c. butter & cook to 285. Add 1/2 c. ground roasted almonds & cover with melted choc.

2 oz. choc.

Sand Tarts

I think these are what we called:

Pecan Dainties

1/2 lb. butter
1/2 c. sifted powdered sugar
2 c. flour
1 c. chopped pecans
1 tsp vanilla

325--20 min.

What the card doesn't say is, form into balls, and after they're baked, roll in more powdered sugar.

I made them a few months ago and forgot the vanilla. They were still good.

Sour Cream & Lard Sugar Cookies

Another South Dakota favorite:

Aunt Helen's Cookies

3/4 lard*
2 c. sugar
2 eggs unbeaten
1 c. sour cream
6 c. flour
2 tsp soda
2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp vanilla

Cream sugar with lard (add salt & nutmeg to sugar first). Add whole eggs. Add flour & cr of tartar. Stir soda into a little water & add to sour cream, then add to flour mixture.

Chill dough for several hours. Cut them out & sprinkle with sugar. Bake in a hot oven.

(Use xtra flour to roll them.)

*When I make these one of these days, I'll use butter. But they won't taste the same . . . .

Frosted Spice Cookies

Among the many treats we enjoyed when visiting Gettysburg were the yummy cookies Great Uncle Albert's wife, Aunt Minnie, who hailed from Sweden, made:


Aunt Minnie's Cookies

1/2 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 c. molasses
4 c. flour
1/2 t. salt
2 t. soda
2 t. ginger
1 t. nutmeg
1 t. cloves
1 t. cinnamon
1 c. boiling water (add last)

Drop by teaspoons. 400 for 10 min.

Frosting

2 c. powdered sugar
1 T melted butter
3 T cream
1 t. vanilla

Dill Pickles

Most summers when I was growing up, we spent a week or so in Gettysburg, South Dakota, visiting Mom's relatives. We stayed with our grandparents and ate many jellies, jams, fruits, and pickles that Grandma Toomey had put up.

I'm not sure whether either of these recipes is hers:

Dill Pickles

1 c. pickling salt
2 c. vinegar
1 gal. water

Boil the above. Put pickles in jar, a garlic bud at top and bottom & dill in top and bottom. If you wish, put a little cayenne pepper in top (she didn't the ones I had). Put 1/4 tsp alum in jar. Pour boiling juice over top & seal.

***

Dill Pickles

2 quarts water
1 quart vinegar (5% acidity & Heinz is good)
1 cup plain salt (not iodized)

In bottom of jar place 1 or 2 cloves of garlic. Also use 1 grape leaf if available, 1 hot pepper if desired, and either 1 T of dill seed or 2 fresh dill heads if available.

Position cucumbers in jars, then bring brine solution to a rapid boil over cucumbers, add pinch of alum, then seal immediately.

Pickles are best after a six week curing period.

6/21/81 (which would have been after my grandmother's death)

***

Neither recipe specifies how many cucumbers. Did they just assume everybody knows that?

Tomatoes Provencale

6 ripe tomatoes
6 T crumbs
1 T minced garlic
1/4 c. chopped parsley
1/2 t. dried thyme
1/4 c. olive oil

Cut out core and stem end of tomatoes. Split tomatoes in half. Combine ingredients and sprinkle over tomatoes. Pour on oil. Bake 10 min. at 450.

'Tis the season for zucchini

Here are three of Mom's recipes:


Stuft Zucchini

1 large zucchini
1 c. bread crumbs
1/3 c. grated cheese
1 small minced onion
2 T parsley
1/2 egg plus
1 T marg*

Cut in half. Combine pulp with crumbs, onion, parsley, egg, & cheese. Fill zucchini shell--sprinkle with additional cheese.

350 - 1/2 hr

*I'd use olive oil or omit.

***

Stuft zucchini (8)

8 medium zucchini
4 c. bread crumbs
3/4 c. cheese grated
1 medium onion
3 T parsley
2 eggs
3 T butter

350 - 1/2 hr

***

Zucchini Maison

6 medium zucchini
1/4 c. sliced onions
4 T olive oil
2 T chopped parsley
2 ripe tomatoes
Parmesan cheese

Bake at 375 -- 30 min

She doesn't indicate whether this is stuffed for stuffed zucchini or a sliced zucchini casserole. Guessing it would also make a good pasta sauce.

Birthday Pie

But if we'd said yes to pie, she might have made this, for which there are three cards:

Key Lime Pie

3 egg yolks
1 c. condensed milk* Mix

Add 3 oz lime juice a little at a time
Pour into crust (Graham crax)

3 egg whites
1/4 tsp cr tartar **
6 T sugar

Bake @ 425 5-6 min

*The other card calls for 1 can--
**--and for 1/2 tsp cr of tartar

Mom also had a clipping of Lee Bailey's Key lime pie recipe from "Country Weekends" (published by Clarkson Potter), which uses a pre-baked pie shell instead of a Graham cracker crust. The filling takes a can of condensed milk, 1/2 c. of lime juice, and 2 egg whites but no yolks, and is unbaked.

Devil's Food Cake

Today, August 8, was Mom's birthday. There were three other August-September birthdays in our family, and Mom would often propose that she make a pie for herself instead of cake. We kids usually insisted on the cake, which might have been this:

2 eggs
1/2 c. sour cream*
1/2 c. melted shortening**
2 c. sugar
1 1/3 boiling coffee
2 c. flour
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 c. cocoa
add 2 tsp soda to coffee

Beat eggs, add sugar and shortening. Add flour & cocoa alternately with cream. Add coffee & soda at end. Bake at 350 for about 50 min.

*Three of her cards have essentially the same recipe. On the handwritten one that looks oldest, "milk" has been crossed off and replaced with "milk." The other two cards specify "sour milk."

**The earliest card adds (Crisco); the other handwritten card has "marg." replaced with "oil." The third (typed) calls for "wesson oil."

The frosting would have been chocolate--thick and fudgey or glossy--but oddly I haven't found a recipe in the boxes.