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

Irene's Funeral Cake

I'm sure most of you have a favorite pound cake. My dear, sweet uncle Raymond loved everything his wife cooked, but this cake was one of his favorites. He liked to call it "Irene's Funeral Cake" because she always baked it when there was a death in the church family.

They both said that the moist center you get when the cake is baked is an indication of a perfectly baked pound cake.

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
1 cup buttermilk
4 eggs
1 cup Crisco shortening
3 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon lemon flavoring
1/2 teaspoon orange flavoring

Directions:
Combine flour, salt, and soda and set aside. Cream sugar and Crisco shortening together; add eggs 1 at a time, mixing well after each. While continuing to mix, start adding flour mixture, then milk - a little of each at a time - ending with the flour mixture. Add lemon and orange flavoring. Batter will be thicker than a regular cake batter. Pour into a greased and floured tube or bundt pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Enjoy!

Trying my Hand at Baked Macaroni and Cheese

I remember my sister-in-law's homemade macaroni and cheese! It was delicious. She prepared it for one of our many family get-togethers in Nashville several years ago. I had never eaten any but the kind you make from a box. Now I'm not saying that the boxed version is not good ~ the kids won't eat anything BUT ~ but after tasting the "real deal" I never wanted anything but her Macaroni and Cheese.

I didn't get her recipe, but she would have given it to me. The other night when I decided to give it a try I didn't take the time to call. So mine didn't taste exactly like I remembered it, but it was good. At least the adults thought so. The kids at my table on this particular evening only picked at it.

I first went to the computer (as usual) and googled baked Macaroni and Cheese. Several versions popped up. I chose FoodNetwork.com and a recipe courtesy of Alton Brown. I altered it to fit the ingredients in my pantry and hoped for the best.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 pound elbow macaroni
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups milk
1/2 cup white onion, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1 large egg
6 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
6 ounces colby cheese, shredded
1 teaspoon salt
Black pepper to taste

TOPPING:
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup crushed Ritz crackers

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large pot of boiling, salted water cook the macaroni until almost done.

While the macaroni is cooking, in a separate pot, melt the butter. Whisk in the flour and pepper and keep it moving for about five minutes. Make sure it's free of lumps. Stir in the milk and onion. Simmer for ten minutes.

Quickly whisk the egg into the hot liquid. Stir in 3/4 of the cheeses. Season with salt and black pepper. Fold the macaroni into the mix and pour into a buttered 9 x 14 oblong glass casserole dish. Top with remaining cheese.

Melt butter in a sauce pan and toss the Ritz cracker crumbs to coat. Top the macaroni with the cracker crumbs. Bake for 35-45 minutes. Remove from oven and rest for at least five minutes before serving.

Mr. Brown suggests you save leftovers for fried Macaroni and Cheese! Now I've never tried that!


Graphic by June at Art Freebies

Marilee's Congealed Salad

Left to right: Ray Allen Shubert, Marilee Davis Shubert,
Martha Conner Shubert, Bonnie Boles Shubert, R. H. Shubert

This was one of my favorite dishes. My mother-in-law, Marilee Shubert, made it for family gatherings and I'm sure the other women in the family made it as well. She is in the beautiful red dress in the picture above with two of those women, her mother-in-law, Martha, and sister-in-law, Bonnie.

This congealed dessert makes a very pretty sporting its pale green color.

1 box (3 oz.) lemon flavor gelatin
1 box (3 oz.) lime flavor gelatin
1 cup hot water
1 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 pint cottage cheese
1 package (3 oz.) cream cheese
1 cup mayonnaise
1 can (No. 2) crushed pineapple, drained
1 cup chopped nuts

Dissolve gelatin in hot water. While still hot, stir in sweetened condensed milk. Cream together cottage cheese, cream cheese, and mayonnaise. When gelatin mixture begins to congeal, add cheese mixture, pineapple, and nuts. Put into mold and chill until firm. To serve, unmold and garnish as desired.

Makes 18-20 servings.

Grandma Gailey Made-Do

Grandma Edna Puckett Gailey
with two of her six grandchildren
Linda Kay Stone and Judy Richards

As kids we used to always go to "Seven Mile Park" for picnics. I remember when I was just a little girl the entire family would pack up in the car and drive the few miles south of town for a picnic and an Easter egg hunt. It was a beautiful place-full of rocks to climb and places to hide. There was a view to die for. I remember when I came back home after being married and living away in other states I was disappointed that the view that we had enjoyed was marred by taller trees and bushes, obscuring the wonderful Texas rolling hills that are so beautiful. I thought the least the Texas Department of Highways could do was to preserve that view! Guess I was wrong. You still can't see for miles like you could when I was a child.

Grandma used to pack up boxes with fried chicken, deviled eggs, potato salad, cakes and cupcakes. I don't remember what the picnic basket looked like, but I imagine it was a cardboard box, not a fancy whicker basket.

She made wonderful potato salad and I make it the same way-with pickle relish, celery, onions, pimento, boiled eggs, mayonnaise and mustard mixed into potatoes that have been creamed with milk and butter. Yum!

I hope I expressed to Grandma my gratitude for the food she always prepared for us as kids. She always had something good to eat when we came home from school and on the weekends. She didn't have a lot of money - but neither did a lot of people back in the early 50s. I remember many times when she would send me up to the corner store to buy 1 onion, or a can of tomatoes so she could make her wonderful vegetable soup. She didn't use meat. The soup was a make-do meal that she served with fantastic cornbread. (I still can't make that cornbread like she did.)

Anyway, I was remembering Grandma this morning and how she "made-do" and how we as Americans are learning a little more about that in this particular time in history.

Show your gratitude. Tell your parents and grandparents thank you! I wish I had done that more often.

Three Great Holiday Drinks

Mulled Punch

3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 cans cranberry sauce, jellied
4 cups pineapple juice, unsweetened
1 cup water
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon allspice
3 cups water, additional

Combine brown sugar, 1 cup water, salt, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg and bring to a boil. Beat in cranberry sauce, pineapple juice, and additional 3 cups of water.

Simmer until heated through and all ingredients are well blended. Serve punch hot, in mugs, with a cinnamon stick and a smidge of butter. You can add red wine or bourbon if you wish.

Wassail

1 large jar apple cider
2 cups orange juice
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1 large can pineapple juice, unsweetened
1/4 cup honey

In large saucepan, combine ingredients and heat to boiling. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about 5 minutes. Ready to serve with a cinnamon stick and a slice of lemon.

Wonderful for Christmas parties!

Hot Chocolate Mix

1 25-ounce box instant milk
1 6-ounce jar powdered dairy creamer
1 box powdered sugar
1 16-ounce can instant chocolate drink mix (such as Quik)

Mix all ingredients in a Very Large container. Makes about 17 cups of drink mix - about 90 servings of hot chocolate. Add 3 heaping tablespoons of mix to 1 cup of hot water. Stir to dissolve. Add marshmallows, if you like. This is great!

The Stockings are
Hung from the chimney with care!
Have you prepared the Holiday Drinks?

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

I KNOW we all love Maxine and her antics!

Grandma's Peanut Butter Cookies

A peanut butter cookie is one of the simple pleasures that all of us have enjoyed, either as a child or an adult. Whether Grandma used to make them for you or you discovered the sheer joy of making them yourself after you starting baking, they are addictive and super easy.

I remember my Grandma Gailey used to bake dozens of them for me and my siblings and cousins to take to school functions. She did this for many years. They were always a hit!

Here is her version.

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Crisco shortening
3/4 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
3 cups plain flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring


Mix together with hands. (She said this was very important! However, I use a dough hook on my KitchenAid counter-top mixer.) Pinch off small amount; roll it into a ball and then flatten it.

Place on pan and make crisscross designs on top with fork. Bake in slow oven.

NOTE:
I think you should probably use an ungreased cookie sheet and place cookies 2-3 inches apart. Moisten fork with water each time you press tines into cookie dough. Cook at 325 degrees for approximately 10-12 minutes or until done.

Chili and Cheese Burgers

There were lots of great food moments during my trip to North Carolina in October. My cousin, Linda Kay, and I flew to Raleigh-Durham where my daughter and two granddaughters picked us up, luggage in tow, and cheerfully listened to all of our complaints and tales of “high” adventure aboard American Flight 700.

It actually was a great flight. We had no complaints except for the fact that we felt confined and a little stiff and sore before the trip was over. The attendants were very nice and eager to make us comfortable; however, it was wasted effort as our 60+ legs were not cooperating!

Linda Kay, my daughter Gail, and I took off that Monday morning for the Outer Banks. The weather was gorgeous and we couldn’t wait to see the ocean spray!

We ate lunch at the “Country Kitchen” just outside of the little town of Bath, North Carolina on the Pamlico Sound. The food was as great as we had been told by a young woman working in the Traveler’s Center.

Linda Kay ordered Chicken Salad on Toast and she said it tasted wonderful. Gail and I ordered cheeseburgers and sweet potato fries. We had a laugh when I was asked by the waitress what I wanted on my burger. I said everything! That stumped her. Gail spoke up and said tomato, lettuce, onion, and mustard. I looked at her a little funny and she said (after the waitress left with our order) that in North Carolina when you say everything – they put everything on it, including chili. I said I didn’t want chili, but guess the waitress took me at my word. I got chili on my burger!

More on our adventures in North Carolina to come.

Photographs taken by Judy Shubert Copyright 2008