GeneaBloggers Cookbook Now in Living Color

I had the distinct pleasure of participating in the creation of a great cookbook. I submitted a recipe that my grandmother, Edna Alice Puckett Gailey, made often for our family Christmas dinners. The Geneabloggers has published this first edition with the leadership of Coleen McHugh of Orations of McOhodoy!

The book has 35 recipes submitted by 18 fellow geneabloggers from around the world, and has step-by-step instructions, with many stories about the recipes and the families who enjoyed them through the years.

GeneaBloggers has posted an announcement of the Cookbook's release and you can read about it here. Thanks to all of the great editors and our own special "techie" guru, Thomas, for putting together a great cookbook.

Get your free copy today by clicking here and downloading in PDF format (file is approximately 5MB).

Judy

Granny Shubert's Christmas Candies

As the Thanksgiving feast fades into our memory of another year our memories of sweet treats rise to the surface. NOW is the time to start thinking of the desserts you want to serve your friends and family during the Christmas holidays. I enjoy making cookies and candies to have on hand during that time.

Everyone seems to like these sweets that Granny Shubert used to make during the month of December. I don’t know where she got the recipes, but I have a recipe card for each of them written by her. I have copied them just as she wrote them. Maybe you’d like to give them a try and see if your family and friends like them as much as mine do.

She always claimed, as her children did, that she didn’t cook much; but, she always seemed to have trays of these around when we came home for the holidays. Remember them?

ORANGE BALLS

1 box vanilla wafers, crushed

1 stick oleo or butter, melted

1 box powdered confectioners’ sugar

1 small can orange juice (not diluted)

1 cup nuts, chopped very fine

Coconut (optional)

Mix all together except coconut and form very small balls. Roll in crushed coconut. Makes approximately 6 dozen. If dough becomes too dry to handle, add a few drops of water.

Keep in refrigerator or freezer. No cooking needed!

CHOCOLATE BALLS

1 box powdered confectioners’ sugar

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

½ cup crunchy peanut butter

1 small can Angel Flake coconut

2 sticks margarine or butter

1 package chocolate chips

¼ block paraffin

Mix first 4 ingredients in large bowl. Melt 2 sticks of margarine, pour over dry ingredients and mix thoroughly. Shape into balls about ¾-inch in diameter. Melt margarine, chocolate chips and paraffin. Dip balls into chocolate mixture and place on waxed paper to harden.

BOURBON ROLL

1 box (1 pound 2 ounces) vanilla wafers, crushed

1 cup Eagle Brand milk

1 cup chopped candied cherries

1 cup chopped candied pineapple

1 cup coconut

1 pound chopped pecans

5 tablespoons bourbon

Mix all together and shape into 4 long rolls. Roll in powdered confectioners’ sugar and wrap in foil. Chill and cut or freeze.

Pictured in photo from left to right: Sue DeLozier Davis,

William Spence Davis, and Granny Marilee Davis Shubert

A Word or Two about Knives

KNIVES

I found this very useful information about knives in a 1973 edition of one of my favorite cookbooks, Secrets of Better Cooking, A Treasury of Time Tested Methods of Good Cooking. My copy belonged to my mother and she obviously used it often as the pages are dog-eared and some are even falling out. But I also enjoy using it and have found it very helpful in my quest for the perfect dish.

These are among the most neglected tools in the kitchen, although they are used constantly. They are often poor in quality, not well sharpened or not the proper type for the work they are expected to do. There is a knife for every job. The variety is endless, but you can get a perfect starter set of six knives. If you are not able to pay for a good-quality set, buy one good knife at a time as the need arises. Cheap knives are a waste of money.

A good-quality knife made of hard steel is expensive but, if well cares for, will last a lifetime. Wash and dry your steel knives promptly after use to prevent rust or stain.

Stainless-steel knives have become very popular in recent years. They are far easier to care for than the old-fashioned steel knives but will never keep as sharp an edge.

A new type of knife with a scalloped edge is fast gaining in popularity with practical cooks. Originally designed for slicing crumbly bread and cake, it is now made in many sizes and shapes for use in general work such as paring, cutting and even carving. Do not let anyone tell you, however, that these knives will last a lifetime without being sharpened. Although they stay sharp much longer than knives with straight-edged blades, the teeth that project beyond the cutting edge wear down. This knife requires occasional sharpening with a butcher’s steel on the flat side of the blade, and will eventually need regrinding by an expert.

It is a good idea to have a long butcher’s steel for sharpening knives. These are easy to find; any store that sells quality knives will have them. Keep your knives sharp by frequent honing on the steel. To do this, press the knife edge against the steel at a 20° angle. Starting with the heel of the blade at the top of the steel, draw the blade across and down to the bottom of the steel, in a swinging motion. Do this several times, then repeat on the other side.

The most important advice: store your knives in a knife rack or on a magnetic bar; do not jumble them carelessly with other kitchen tools. This will keep the blades keen longer, and you will never cut yourself when reaching for a kitchen tool.

Later I’ll give you their suggestions on a Starter Set of Knives.

Family Cookbook - One Slice at a Time

Several years ago, before it became fashionable or even practicable, to use a computer program to keep our recipes at our fingertips, my sister and I decided we should put together a family cookbook. From conception to birth it was a labor of love and long, long hours of sorting, typing, editing, editing, editing!

The idea was received with great anticipation and cooperation from all of our family, "Give us several of your favorite recipes and we will be responsible for putting a cookbook together and see that everyone gets a copy."

Recipes began to pour in from all directions - North, South, East and West. Not that we are scattered in too many directions that far from Texas, but we did have family members sending recipes from as far away as North Carolina, Alabama, Oklahoma, and Missouri. Before we knew it we had a stack of handwritten and typed recipes that seemed to spill over the top of the desk to the floor and several feet out into the room. My sister was responsible for calling or sending emails to verify ingredients or quantities or give someone a gentle reminder that, "Yes, we do need your recipes, Aunt Bea, what would our Family Cookbook be without your favorite pecan pie?"

I busily began to enter the recipes into my computer, using the only computer program that I was familiar with - WordPerfect. And I was VERY loyal - adamantly proclaiming that WordPerfect was the best and only program worth using. Little did I know then how I would regret using WordPerfect for our cookbook.

I don't remember what year the idea of a family cookbook actually took root, but it took several years and many inquiries from family members as to its whereabouts to finally bear fruit - no pun intended! To begin with my sister and I both are perfectionists in certain areas of our lives. We couldn't seem to leave well enough alone as we edited, cut, rewrote, and edited some more. The book would seemingly be coming along great and then someone would want to include another one of their new recipes, or they just found Aunt Nancy's peach cobbler recipe written in her own hand, and it just had to be included. In retrospect we should have set a limit, but how do you tell Aunt Bea or Aunt Nancy why her favorites were not in the final book?

With all the changes and our dedication to "perfection," so to speak, time was slipping away - further away from our promised delivery date - every day. Then with my insistence on using WordPerfect instead of Microsoft Word, disaster was lurking just around the corner.

My computer died. Now I think my husband is a computer genius. He had suggested that I backup my work on CD. Thank goodness for that. But when we got a new computer, guess what it didn't have. That's right - WordPerfect! I don't remember exactly WHY I couldn't convert my WordPerfect files and have them formatted the way I wanted, but I eventually had to open them in Microsoft Word and let the formatting do whatever it wanted to do, and then slowly and methodically redo the pages one at a time. I'm sure there was something I wasn't doing properly, but I was very frazzled by that time, and I just did the only thing I knew how to do.

We finally began to see a light at the end of the tunnel. The book was being printed at last - on my printer, of course. My husband took reams of 24# bright white paper around the corner to Staples to be cut into 5 ½ x 8 ½ sheets. My printer was spitting the pages out faster than I could check to make sure the pages were backed up with the proper pages! You see, I insisted on a Table of Contents and an Index. What self-respecting cookbook editor wouldn't? It took nearly as long to print the thing as it did to get it prepared and ready to print. After we had collated the pages and printed a front and back cover we had the cover laminated and the cookbook spiral bound at a local print and copy shop.

My sister thought it would be a great idea to include a Memorial to those family members who were no longer with us. Each of them had a recipe that we included and the Memorial was placed on the same page with that recipe. We published additional books three years later because there were friends and other family members who had not gotten a cookbook and asked us to "please" print them one. By that time there were other beloved family members who had gone home to be with their Lord and Savior so their names and Memorials were included in the new edition.

We included a list of contributors as well as the Memorials. Favorite sayings were scattered throughout the cookbook. They were taken from a high school Autograph Book that had belonged to the Mother of a cousin in Oklahoma. Her daughter graciously gave us permission to use the sayings. One of my favorites is "Don't drive faster than your Angel can fly."

We have all enjoyed our family cookbook and I can say with assurance it is one that nearly everyone uses more than any other. The cookbook is a source of enjoyment and comfort. Comfort when we see the names and recipes of our loved ones who are no longer here and comfort in all the "comfort foods" found on the book's pages.

My children sometimes call and ask why a certain recipe is not in "our cookbook". Then there is always that little nagging thought in my head that it would be nice to print a 2^nd family treasure but I think my marriage of 40+ years might be strained a bit if I took on another task such as the last one.

I heartily recommend taking on a project such as this with your family members or friends. It will be one you will not soon forget. I still have my backup copy on CD in Microsoft Word and the WordPerfect copy is lurking around somewhere laughing at me!

Also published by Judy Shubert at Associated Content।