Ma Judy’s Famous Pancakes

I never measure the ingredients for these pancakes. I just beat an egg; add equal amounts of milk and flour and a good amount of baking powder, usually about a tablespoon for cup of flour. Today, Megan and Jaron came to visit me, and for the first time I measured my ingredients so I can share the recipe. I do not use sugar, salt, or oil in the pancakes.
These are best eaten hot, so I always have the kids eating them while I am cooking more. Then I eat last, after everyone is full. I am not sure if it is the taste or the shape of my pancakes that are the most appealing. I make the grandsons tractor-shaped pancakes, and for the granddaughters, flowers and butterflies. (I tried to make a horse once for Madison, but it did not turn out right at all.) My children’s friends remember when I made their initials out of pancakes. I am no artist, but I give it a good effort. Recently, I saw the idea to use a ketchup bottle to squeeze the batter into shapes. I am going to try that sometime, and who knows what I might create!

Ma Judy’s Famous Pancakes

1 egg
1 cup milk
1 cup flour
1 T. baking powder

Beat egg, add milk and stir. Combine flour and baking powder and stir into wet ingredients just until mixed. Beating them together too much makes them tougher, not lighter. To fry them, use a good non-stick skillet or griddle and just a small amount of cooking oil. I use olive oil. Spoon them into the pan and wait for bubbles to rise in the pancake. Turn them and cook on the other side.

Beth's Soft Sugar Cookies

“Your mother is a saint.” I have made this statement often to Beth's children over the years. She would shake her head and say, “Oh, no I’m not!” if she heard me, but I believe it is true. A mother of six children, grandmother of two, and friend of many, it is difficult to find a nicer person. I have been blessed to have her as my friend for more years than I want to count, but I would estimate somewhere around 40 years. Our children grew up together, and Beth and I cheered them on from the stands at baseball and basketball games. Our sons still golf together, and our daughters are friends as well. Sometimes when we were at her house, she stirred up a batch of these easy, soft, cake-like sugar cookies. I also baked them often when the kids were growing up. They are not overly sweet – just enough to satisfy the urge for dessert. These cookies are never better than when they are still warm from the oven.

Beth’s Soft Sugar Cookies

1 cup sugar
¾ cup shortening or butter
1 teaspoon baking soda dissolved in milk
½ cup milk
½ teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 ½ cups flour
Mix in the order given. Drop by teaspoons on a greased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees. Sprinkle with sugar when you take them out of the oven.

Sweet Potato Rolls

I made Sweet Potato Pull-Apart Rolls today from my Better Homes and Gardens: The Complete Guide to Bread Machine Baking cookbook. They are so good and easy! Adding to the flavor is the knowledge that Blaine grew the sweet potato in our garden last summer from plants purchased from a barefoot woman in a long, dark blue dress who runs the Amish store by LaPlata.  I also remember helping him dig up the orange beauties and marveling at the huge orange treasures hidden under the dried vines last fall.  We are going to eat these rolls with a bowl of beef stew.  Here is the recipe:

Sweet Potato Pull-Apart Rolls

¾ cup sweet potato, mashed

½ cup milk

1 egg

2 tablespoons margarine or butter, cut up

2 ½ cups bread flour

½ cup wheat flour

1 tablespoon brown sugar

¾ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon active dry yeast or bread machine yeast

Put the ingredients in the bread machine in the order listed. Select the dough cycle. When the cycle is complete, remove dough and shape into rolls. Let rise another 30 minutes or until nearly double in size. If you like, beat egg white and a tablespoon of water together to brush over the rolls before baking. This makes them shiny. Bake at 375 for about 18 minutes or until lightly browned.  

Enjoy!

Janie's Crock Pot Apple Butter

When I think of my big sister (she is not actually bigger than me, just a few years older), I remember the highlights of my childhood starring Janie. After she went on a date to the movies, she would retell me the entire plot before I went to sleep. I served as candle lighter at her wedding and thought she was going to faint! When I was about 12 years old and recovering from having my appendix removed, Janie read to me to help pass the long hours in the hospital. In the past few years we began to take short trips together and share some fun sister times.  Since we both like to be active, we went to Rocheport and rode a portion of the Katy Trail on a tandem bike.  We do not have time to spend hours in the kitchen, because we want to be outdoors whenever possible.  Who wants to spend hours watching and stirring apple butter?  This is my sister's easy and delicious recipe.

Janie’s Crock Pot Apple Butter

Peel apples, quarter, and fill to top of slow cooker.

Add:

4 teaspoons cinnamon

¼ teaspoon cloves

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ cup Red Hots candy

4 cups sugar

Cook on low heat 24 hours, and then blend with mixer.

Bill's Italian Beef

Italian Beef is one of my brother-in-law Bill’s specialties. It is tender and delicious, full of green papers and a little bit of red or cayenne pepper for heat. He makes a big batch of it, freezes it in smaller batches, and shares it with family and friends.  Either beef or deer is good prepared this way. People who think they do not like deer have not eaten Bill’s Italian Beef!  

Italian Beef

10 lb. beef or deer Roast

I lb. package Italian sausage (mild)

3 packages Au-Jus Gravy Packets

4 sliced green peppers

2 tablespoons red or cayenne pepper 

1 tablespoon salt

2 tablespoons garlic

2 tablespoons Italian seasoning

12 cups water (3 quarts)

Directions:  Fully cook meet and sausage in water. Let cool; then slice thin.  Boil Italian seasoning in 12 cups of water and strain off seasonings.  Put meat and all other ingredients into the seasoned water in a large pan and cook down until tender. Make into sandwiches with Italian bread or Hoagie buns. Bill prefers to serve it on a crusty roll.

Here we are at their campsite in Colorado. They often take a batch of frozen Italian Beef for quick meals when camping.

Broccoli Salad

I had never eaten much broccoli growing up. Then I married Blaine and discovered broccoli, asparagus, kohlrabi, and Chinese cabbage growing in the Harvey garden.  Lee Ed and Elaine’s garden was a thing of beauty, with rarely a weed in sight. Blaine inherited his parents’ ability to grow food, and every summer we grow broccoli in our garden. The good news is that it is tender and delicious; the bad news is that it is all ready at the same time. We eat it steamed, stir-fried, and grilled with other vegetables in a foil packet. We give it away to our friends and family.  We grow tired of cooked broccoli, so another way to prepare it with a different texture and taste is to make raw broccoli salad. The recipe I use comes from a John Deere cookbook titled Kitchen Traditions: A Collection of Favorite Recipes from John Deere, a gift from my son.  The recipe is good as it is, but do not be afraid to play with the ingredients. Today I made it with dried cranberries instead of raisins and cut the recipe in half. I never use as much bacon as the recipe says, usually just four or five slices adds enough flavor without too much fat.

Eventually, we reach our limit of eating broccoli and let it bloom into tiny yellow flowers that attract tiny white butterflies. Blaine grumbles about it going to waste, and I tell him I like the flowers and the butterflies!

 Broccoli Salad

2 bunches of broccoli             

1 cup sunflower seeds            

1 cup raisins

1 medium onion

1 lb. of bacon

Dressing ingredients:

1 cup Miracle Whip or mayonnaise

½ cup sugar

2 tablespoons vinegar

Cut broccoli into bite-sized pieces. Fry bacon until crisp, drain and crumble. Mix all other ingredients with the broccoli and toss with the dressing. The salad is best if it is refrigerated for at least an hour to absorb the flavors. It can even be made the day before.

Mom's Famous Potato Salad

The Secret is “Hidden in the Valley” Family Favorite Potato Salad

6 medium, boiled potatoes in jackets in medium saucepan

1 ¼ cup Light Miracle Whip

1 teaspoon yellow mustard

Salt to taste

1/3 cup chopped onion

1/3 cup chopped dill pickles

1 teaspoon dry Hidden Valley Ranch Salad Dressing  (or Dip) mix

1.       Peel and cube cooked potatoes. Place in large serving bowl.

2.       Chop onion and pickle and add to potatoes.

3.       In a smaller bowl, mix Miracle Whip, mustard and dry salad dressing mix. Stir into potatoes, onion, and pickle mixture and toss lightly to coat.

4.       Refrigerate for at least 6 hours.

Makes 12 side-dish servings.

This is my own secret recipe, mainly because I rarely measure the ingredients, so I had trouble sharing the recipe with anyone. My adult children expect this dish when we have any family celebrations. It goes great with barbecued meats or fried fish.

Why I Love to Cook

               I have loved to cook for most of my life. I remember taking over the cooking of my morning egg as a kid at home, because Mom overcooked it. I wanted the white cooked, but the yellow still runny enough to dip my toast in.  I do not remember a time I could not cook pancakes from scratch without a recipe, a skill that impresses my grandchildren today. The same goes for cornbread. My dad ate it every day, so I learned to cook it just the way he liked it.  I measured the baking powder on a fork, no need for a measuring spoon.

                After I married Blaine, I joined the family of an outstanding cook, my mother-in-law Elaine. She made fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy almost every Sunday.  She taught me how to cut up a chicken. She also baked bread from a yeast starter she had kept alive since Blaine was a baby, a tradition I am maintaining. Every time I put my yeast out to set, I think of her and the years of “Mama Bread” she baked for her family.

                As a young mother, I baked a sweet treat almost daily. I greeted the children at the door after school with a plate of cookies or brownies and wanted to hear all about their day. We also had fun times cooking together, mixing up Blonde Brownies, Aunt Rosene’s Saucepan Brownies, or my friend Beth’s Soft Sugar Cookies, all of which were best eaten warm from the oven.

               We eat our family meals at the oak pedestal table we inherited that belonged to Blaine’s mother, and before that, his grandmother. This table is the one we gathered around to eat Elaine’s fried chicken, mashed potatoes and homemade bread, all slathered with gravy.  “You are not a true Harvey if you don’t like gravy,” she would tease the grandkids. Then she would tell the story of their great grandpa, who grabbed a slice of angel food cake thinking it was a slice of bread, covered it with gravy and ate it. My father-in-law was also a good cook and after he retired from farming liked to try out new recipes, which he shared with us.
                Why do I love to cook?  I think it is because my favorite recipes are mixed up with memories!