My Great Recipes Collection

Great Recipes From the Past

Archives for July 2018

Butternut Crisp Cookies

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This recipe for Butternut Crisps came from the Red Plastic Box Recipe Collection.

Butternut Crisp Cookies

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Butternut Crisps

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup shortening
  • 1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar sifted
  • 3 cups flour sifted
  • 1 egg
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1 cup walnuts chopped

Instructions

  1. Cream butter, shortening, and sugar.
  2. Add 1 cup of flour.
  3. Mix in egg.
  4. Add remaining flour, salt, vanilla, and nuts; mix well.
  5. Form into rolls 1 1/2 inches in diameter.
  6. Wrap in waxed paper; chill.
  7. Slice 1/8 inch thick. Place on cooky sheet and bake at 375 (moderate) for 12 to 15 minutes.

Recipe Notes

Makes 6 1/2 dozen Successful Recpes tested in Successful Farming's tasting test kitchen.

Green Appetizer Salad with Lemon Mint Dressing

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A crisp, colorful salad served in a handsome bowl makes a novel and nourishing cocktail-hour appetizer, and may serve as a first course, too. On informal occasions, when dinner is served “lap style,” prepare an extra-large salad and continue to serve it throughout the evening, right up to dessert.

This is Apertifs, Card 22 from the 2 in 1 International Recipe Card Collection. The card contains two drinks, a recipe for Green Appetizer Salad, and a recipe for Lemon Mint Salad Dressing. I’ve combined the salad and salad dressing into one recipe. The salad serves 4-6. Copyright 1977 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

Adonis

2 jiggers dry sheery
1 jigger sweet red vermouth
1 dash orange bitters
Stir well with ice and strain into cocktail glass. For a Greek Adonis, follow instructions as before, but add 1 tablespoon ouzo to mixture before stirring with ice. The picture on the card shows a Greek Adonis.

Triple Crown

2/3 jigger dry vermouth
2/3 jigger gin
1/3 jigger Cointreau or triple sec
3 dashes orange bitters
Shake well with ice and strain into prechilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange twist.

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Green Appetizer Salad with Lemon Mint Dressing

Ingredients

Salad

  • 1 medium head iceberg lettuce
  • 1 medium head romaine lettue
  • 1 green or red pepper cut into 1-inch strips
  • 12 scallions sliced
  • 1 medium cucumber peeled and thinly sliced
  • 12 radishes sliced
  • 12 black Green olives
  • 1 clove garlic
  • 6 to matoes peeled and cut into wedges
  • 1/2 pound feta cheese crumbled

Dressing

  • 12 fresh mint leaves cut into thin strips
  • 1 tablespoon white sugar
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon pepper
  • 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
  • 2 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/4 cup olive oil

Instructions

Dressing

  1. Pulverize mint leaves, sugar, salt, pepper, and mustard with mortar and pestle. Place in screw-top jar. Add lemon juice and olive oil. Cover and shake thoroughly until blended. Set aside.

Salad

  1. Tear lettuce into bits, wash, drain, and chill.
  2. Prepare vegetables and mix together with olives.
  3. Rub salad bowl with garlic and discard garlic.
  4. Toss salad greens with dressing. Toss in vegetable-olive mixture.
  5. Arrange tomato wedges and crumbled feta cheese on top of salad.

 

Savory Cheese Spread

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This versatile cheese spread is good served as a dip with crunchy vegetables or crackers, but equally excellent served over hot vegetables or grilled on french bread. The sharpness of cheddar cheese, onion, and green pepper is nicely balanced with the blandness of the yogurt and ricotta cheese.

Good served with crunchy vegetables or crackers as a dip. Over hot vegetables as a sauce, or spread on slices of french bread and grill.

Quick and tasty.

Makes 2 cups.

Hot and Cold Appetizers, Section 1, Card 48.

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Savory Cheese Spread

Ingredients

  • 1 cup cheddar cheese grated
  • 1-2 tablespoons onion minced
  • 1-2 tablespoons green pepper minced
  • 1/2 cup ricotta cheese
  • 1/2 cup plain yogurt
  • 2 teaspoons catsup or chili sauce
  • 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
  • hot pepper sauce to taste
  • garlic salt to taste
  • 1 tablespoon pimiento optional
  • 2 tablespoons radish chopped, optional

Instructions

  1. In a bowl, combine the cheese, onion, green pepper, and parsley, mixing well.
  2. In a blender container or food processor work bowl, blend thoroughly ricotta cheese, yogurt, catsup, mustard, hot pepper sauce, and garlic salt. Add the cheese mixture and blend until well combined. If you are using a blender, you might have to mix it in two batches.
  3. Place in a serving bowl and sprinkle with pimiento or radish, and top with additional minced parsley.

Pumpkin Butter

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It may seem funny to share a recipe for Pumpkin Butter in the middle of the summer, but it is time to start thinking about what you might be canning for the winter.

This recipe for pumpkin butter comes from the Cross Country Cookery cookbook.

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Pumpkin Butter

Ingredients

  • 10 cup pumpkin cubed
  • 6 cup apple cider divided
  • 2 cup orange juice divided
  • 2 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon cloves
  • 1/4 teaspoon allspice

Instructions

  1. Heat pumpkin, cider, and orange juice in Dutch oven or kettle to boiling. Reduce heat. Simmer uncovered until very tender - about 20 min.
  2. Measure half of pumpkin and half of cooking liquid into blender. Cover and blend on medium speed until consistency of apple sauce - Repeat with remaining pumpkin.
  3. Add 3 more cups apple cider and 1 more cup orange juice to pumpkin liquid. Heat to boiling. Reduce heat. Simmer. Stir often. Cook until mixture mounds - about 2 hours.
  4. Stir sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice into cooked pumpkin mix. Let simmer 15 min, stirring to prevent scorching.
  5. Pour hot pumpkin mix into sterilized jars (use water - both canner keeping jars hot), leaving 1/4" head space.
  6. Wipe rims with clean, damp cloth. Seal.
  7. Process pints 15 min in simmering water bath (180-185). Start counting time as soon as water in canner boils.
  8. Cool out of drafts.

Recipe Notes

You will need about 6 lb pumpkin.

Pineapple Cookies

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I found the recipe for Pineapple Cookies in a small, local cookbook from a thrift store. These kind of cookbooks are my favorites.

A good example of what I mean by small and local is Cooking With Friends. It’s 66-page, spiral-bound cookbook from the Parkside Assembly of God in St. Louis, Michigan.

I’m sure recipes were collected from members of the Parkside Assembly of God’s Women’s Ministries, then sent off to Cookbook Publishers in Kansas where they were assembled into a cookbook that was used as a fund raiser.

Cookbook Publishers has been in the business of publishing spiral-bound cookbooks for fund raisers since 1947. Even today, you can have them create a fund raising cookbook, a corporate cookbook, a personal cookbook, or a calendar featuring recipes and photos of food. You supply the recipes, they do the printing.

Cooking With Friends has a page showing the church’s worship schedule with a simple line drawing of the church building. Another page shows the Women’s Ministries officers for 1990 and the members of the cookbook committee. If I was hunting for ancestors in the area, this would be a delightful find.

The Table of Contents is pretty standard for these kind of cookbooks:

  • Appetizers, Pickles, Relishes
  • Soups, Salads, Vegetables
  • Main Dishes
  • Breads, Rolls, Pastries
  • Cakes, Cookies, Desserts
  • Candies, Jellies, Preserves
  • Beverages, Microwave, Miscellaneous

Before each ‘chapter’ there is a dividing page. One side gives the chapter, the other shows something else. For example, the reverse of the Appetizers, Pickles, Relishes chapter divider is “A Handy Spice And Herb Guide.” It lists 16 popular herbs: allspice, basil, bay leaves, and so on. Curiously, MSG (aka Monosodium Glutamate) is also shown as a spice/herb.

Other chapter dividers include “Food Quantities for 25, 50, and 100 Servings, ” and things likeroasting guides, substitutions, equivalents, sizes of pans and baking dishes, candy making temperatures, and microwave hints.

A quick look at the index made it clear that several recipes had duplicate titles:

  • 2 Curly Macaroni Salads (both on page 7)
  • 2 Happiness Cakes (on page 44 and 45!)
  • 2 Rice Puddings (both on page 41)
  • 2 Sugar Cookies (both on page 37)
  • 2 Zucchini Chocolate Cakes (both on page 46)

In looking at the duplicates, I saw perhaps one or two ingredients were different. You also see this a lot in cookbooks from smaller organizations.

Reading through the cookbook, several recipes caught my attention:

  • Keeler Surprise
  • Refrigerator Mashed Potatoes
  • Chocolate Cherry Bars
  • Six Week Muffins
  • Carrot Cookies
  • Pineapple Cookies
  • Peanut Butter Peach Crisp
  • Freezer Caramel Corn

I imagine you may be wondering why most of the recipes I’m interested in are sweets. Yes, I love most any sweet you put in front of me. But that’s not why you see so many on the list.
Well, not exactly.

At home I mostly cook vegetarian, with occasional forays into fish or chicken. Never red meat, and rarely pork (except bacon – of course.) Most of my meals are smaller, too. Frankly, a salad with some type of protein (beans, tuna, etc.) is often enough to fill me up.

Older cookbooks are rife with meat and more meat, and large portions to feed families. Casseroles in a 2-qt container go green with mold before I can possibly eat it all. And I’ve never managed to acquire the habit of freezing portions for later consumption (other than soups.) Likewise, I can’t count the number of recipes I’ve tried that ended up being so bland no one -and I mean no one- would finish one plate, let alone consuming the full dish.

But cookies? We’re best friends.

I momentarily thought of adapting the Keeler Surprise, but with a pound of hamburger and packages of brown gravy mix, changed my mind. So, because I had all ingredients on hand, I tried the Pineapple Cookies on page 36.

I didn’t have crushed pineapple, but easily created crushed pineapple (and beat an egg) in the mini-food processor.

The other ingredients were mixed together quickly – including about a half cup of chopped pecans. The whole thing went into the fridge to rest for an hour.
Naturally, I tasted some of the batter, and it was promising.

I plunked down dollops onto the silpat, and slid the baking tray into the oven, and started waiting.

I peaked at 5 minutes and discovered the cookies were spreading.

At 10 minutes, I removed them from the oven and put another pan in. The ones fresh-from-the-oven were nicely browned. I did try 8 minutes, but they weren’t brown enough for me.

I moved them to paper towels to cool off. Giving them a short time to cool off, I grabbed the first one, and took a bite.

A hint of a crunch around the edges, and a cake-like light-as-a-feather inside.

A little fruity, but it not screaming PINEAPPLE. The nutmeg is an afterthought, a behind the scenes flavor. And the occasional hit of salt is a welcomed compliment.

These are lovely for breakfast; after all, there is fruit in them. These are lovely for afternoon coffee. Someone adventurous might drizzle them with dark chocolate. But me?
I’m eating them just as they are: light, fluffy, and so very, very good.

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Pineapple Cookies

Course Cookies

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter softened
  • 1 1/2 cup white sugar
  • 1 egg beaten
  • 9 oz can crushed pineapple with juice
  • 3 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • 1/2 cup nuts chopped optional

Instructions

  1. Mix butter, sugar, and egg together thoroughly. Stir in remaining ingredients and optional nuts.
  2. Chill at least 1 hour.
  3. Drop by rounded teaspoons 2 inches apart on lightly greased baking sheet. Bake until when touched lightly with finger, no imprint remains. Bake at 400 for 8 to 10 minutes.