My Grandma's Recipe Box

As I'm going through this recipe box, the ones with directions like "add enough flour that you are able to roll out the cookies" are ones that I know are going to be good. I have a suspicion that this is the cookie recipe that made her soft tea-cake-like cookies that I adored at Christmas and other holidays. I'm excited about this one.

This is what you do with your milk that goes sour. I imagine that as a child Grandma grew up with access to fresh milk from nearby farms, and when she moved to a small town as an adult, milk was probably delivered to the door a few times a week. Recipes that use ingredients like sour milk help us remember that during the Great Depression nothing was to be wasted.

Here's the recipe my Aunt Brenda gave Grandma for her chocolate pudding cake. This popular Southern dessert isn't exactly a cake. In some parts, it's called a chocolate quad because of the layers of flavor. This dessert must be chilled before serving, a detail obvious to Grandma but not obvious to everyone else.

Here are two classic frosting/icing recipes that Grandma thought worth copying out. Fluffy Frosting and Seven Minute Icing are both distinguished by their use of egg whites, cream of tartar, and Karo corn syrup; however, the results are quite different! If it were not pouring rain here today, I might think about experimenting with both of these. But humidity and working with egg whites aren't a good combination.

4 lb. Lean Stew Meat with water to cover 10 Med. Potatoes, chopped 2 Onions, chopped 1 1/2 c celery, chopped 2 qts. tomatoes 1 qt. carrots 2 cans of corn 1 can peas 1 qt. green beans 1 pt. black eyed peas 1 small can tomato sauce 1/4 c. ketchup Hot sauce salt and pepper season-all oregano, small amount sugar garlic salt Makes 10+ quarts This stew was definitely designed to serve a crowd. There are no instructions, simply "stew." The instructions to use quarts of carrots and tomatoes are indicators that Grandma was almost definitely using home-canned vegetables. She always canned many different things, from wonderful green beans to frozen peaches and cherries.

1 1/2 pt. oysters 2 eggs 4 T water 2 to 3 c. dry bread crumbs or cornmeal Kettle of deep fat Wash and drain oysters. May be marinated in French dressing 20 minutes. Roll in crumbs, meal, or meal mixed with flour and salt. Dip in egg mixed with water and in crumbs again. Fry in deep fat 1 min. and drain on brown paper. Shrimp may be fried in the same way.