Family recipe Monday: a Simple Gifts Thanksgiving

This is the dream-team Thanksgiving dinner from the Simple Gifts project. Collectively, these recipes span over a hundred years and a goodly part of the country. I wish I could bring all these cooks together--some of them never even met each other. Family cooking keeps us together across the generations--be sure to give your loved ones an extra hug from us.

Start out with these perfect nibbles.

The Shelton-Sommers family. Ralph is on the left.

I may now be disowned for publishing this, but I think it is a great picture.

Ralph’s East Texas parched pecans

Pecans

Worcestershire sauce

Butter

Melt butter in skillet. Add Worcestershire sauce and pecans. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until golden. Best paired with a single-malt Scotch.

--Ralph Shelton

Use the next two recipes to put together a world-class version of Texas Cornbread Dressing.

Corn kernel cornbread

1 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

¼ cup sugar

2 eggs, well beaten

1 cup milk

3 T melted margarine

1 cup yellow cream-style corn

Preheat oven to 450* F. Brush 9” square baking pan or skillet with melted shortening. Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl, stirring to blend well. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk, margarine and corn. Add all at once to dry ingredients, mixing quickly and thoroughly. Pour batter into pan and bake about 30 minutes, or until bread tests done. Can also be baked as sticks or muffins. Serve hot.

Dipping biscuits

Whisk in bowl to blend:

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup unbleached flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
¾ tsp onion powder
½ tsp ground thyme
½ tsp ground sage (or substitute ¾ tsp Bell’s seasoning)

Add ½ stick butter cut in ½” cubes; blend in with pastry blender until coarse meal consistency. Blend in 1 cup buttermilk, 1 large egg, mix until moist. Turn onto floured surface, knead briefly until dough comes together. Gather into ball, roll out to ¾“, cut into rounds or squares. Bake in 400o preheated oven 20-22 minutes, or until biscuit tester* comes out clean! Dip in gravy and enjoy.
--Pat Monaco

*This is an in-joke. Our friend Pat actually found a snooty gourmet magazine recipe for biscuits that required the use of a biscuit tester to determine doneness. If you can’t tell when biscuits are done, a tester will not help you much. These are great crumbled into a cornbread-sage dressing.

For a soup course, try this Pennsylvania classic.

Shaffner-Hess wedding reception, 1954.

Potato soup

Sauté gently in 2 T butter:

1 T grated carrot
1 T scraped onions

Stir in:

1 tsp salt
¼ tsp celery salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 cups hot milk
1 cup mashed or boiled potatoes, put through a coarse sieve

Cook 20 minutes
--Dolly Shaffner Hess

For a variation on the standard cranberry jelly, try this.

Cranberry salad

1 lb. cranberries
1 whole apple

Grind in food chopper. Cover with 1 cup sugar. Add:

1 small can crushed pineapple
Pinch salt
1/2 cup nuts

Mix into 2 pkg. Jell-O (cherry or raspberry) in 3 cups water. Chill.
--Vada Brooks Johnson, Shirley Johnson Shelton

And here is a quartet of great side dishes:

Vada’s marinated carrots

2 lb. carrots, cut in 1” pieces

Cook until tender; drain and set aside. Bring to boil:

1 cup sugar
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1/3 cup oil
½ cup vinegar

When boiling, add 1 onion (sliced) and 1 green pepper (sliced). Bring back to good hard boil and pour over carrots.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

Rice-broccoli casserole

1 package chopped broccoli

½ cup chopped onion

½ cup chopped celery

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 small jar Cheddar cheese spread

1 cup cooked rice

Cook broccoli according to package directions. Sauté onion and celery in small amount of oil. Mix with broccoli. Add soups and cheese spread. Line a casserole dish with rice. Pour broccoli mixture over rice and bake at 375* F for 10 minutes.

--Vada Brooks Johnson

Pennsylvania red cabbage

2 tbsp bacon drippings heated in skillet (oil may be substituted)

Stir into drippings or oil:

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup cider vinegar

½ tsp caraway seed

¼ cup water

1 ¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

Stir in to coat:

4 cups shredded red cabbage

2 cups cubed unpeeled red apple

Cover and cook on low heat about 15 min until cooked but still crisp. Stir occasionally.

--Dolly Shaffner Hess

Perfect baked sweet potatoes

4 medium to large sweet potatoes

Safflower oil

Preheat oven to 400* F. Wash and scrub potatoes. Dry thoroughly. Coat potatoes lightly with oil. Prick surface with fork. Bake until tender (40-60 minutes, depending on size).

The best rolls of all time for the dinner are Bran Rolls and Potato Rolls. I'd serve these with Honey Jelly.

Honey jelly

3 cups honey

1 cup water

½ bottle liquid fruit pectin (Certo)

Measure honey and water into large saucepan and mix well. Place over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. At once stir in pectin. Then bring to a full rolling boil and boil hard 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, skim off foam with metal spoon, and pour quickly into glasses. Cover jelly at once with 1/8” hot paraffin wax. This will make five glasses.

Here are a couple of options for the main course, in addition to the Shrimp Creole we love for holidays. Because we just do, that's why.

Basic roast turkey

18 to 22-lb. turkey

2 oranges or 4 lemons, halved

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

Salt, pepper, paprika

Cheesecloth

4 T corn oil

Clean turkey with damp paper towels. Dry well inside and out. Squeeze orange or lemon juice over the inside and outside of cavity. Fill neck cavity with one stuffing and body cavity with another, if desired. Don’t pack too tightly. Close cavities by sewing or skewering. Rub 1½ sticks of butter over outside of turkey. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and paprika. Drape cheesecloth over top of turkey. Place breast side up on rack in roasting pan. Bake 4½ to 5 ½ hours at 325* F or until turkey tests done. Baste every 30 minutes with corn oil which has been mixed with remaining butter (melted). Baste without lifting cheesecloth, but check periodically to make sure it is not stuck to skin. If it is, gently lift and baste under cheesecloth. If breast gets too dark, tent with a piece of foil.

The Brooks family. Vada is the taller of the two little girls.

For the poultry-averse:

Brisket

6 lb. brisket

3 T garlic salt

3 T onion salt

3 T celery salt

½ bottle dark smoke (liquid smoke), 3-oz bottle

Wrap in foil and marinate overnight. Cook 6 hours at 275* F.

--Vada Brooks Johnson

Finally, if you are still able to move, we recommend a nice selection of pies for dessert. You can never have too many of these. Some already-printed classics include Pumpkin-Chiffon Pie, Buttermilk Pie, Pecan Pie and Caramel Pie. Here are a few other dessert options:

Sour cream dried cherry pie

2 cups sour cream
3 egg yolks
½ cup brown sugar
3 T flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 ½--2 cups dried sour cherries
½ cup water

Put the cherries in a small saucepan with the water and plump them over low heat about 5 minutes. Cool and drain. Combine the flour and sugar. Add the beaten egg yolks, sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Cook the custard in a double boiler until it just starts to thicken, stirring continuously. Mix in the cherries and divide between two pre-baked piecrusts. Bake at 350* until just golden, 10-12 minutes.
--Pat Monaco and Sally Shelton

Chocolate chip cheesecake

1 ½ cup finely crushed Oreo cookies
¼ cup oleo or butter, melted
3 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 14-oz can Eagle Brand condensed milk (not evaporated)
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup mini-chocolate chips
1 tsp flour

Preheat oven to 300* F (important). Combine crumbs and oleo; pat firmly on bottom of 9” springform pan. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add Eagle Brand milk and beat well. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. In a small bowl, toss together ½ cup chocolate chips, 1 tsp flour to coat. Stir into cheese mixture. Pour into pan. Sprinkle ½ cup chocolate chips on top. Bake 1 hour or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool to room temperature. Chill and remove side of pan. Serves 10-12.
--Marcie Nelson

I'll post another pie recipe on Thanksgiving Day. Happy Monday.

Family recipe Monday: let the canning begin: fruit preserves and butters

September cottonwood, Canyon Lake, 2008

Fall is galloping in on all sides up here, no doubt about it. We are digging out the recipes for canning and preserving fruit as the crop peaks and starts to diminish. These are the recipes that keep summer with us in the cold months. The wild plums, those that survived the hail, are positively shimmering, and the apples are ripening nicely. It may be a week until the equinox, but up here fall is in full force, never mind the calendar.

Migration is also in full force. Gene starts his fall hawk watch on Dinosaur Hill this week. The chipmunks and squirrels are agitated, seeking and carrying off as much food as they can. We got into a long discussion on Friday about hibernation and torpor. The little mammals have to conserve their energy in the cold months for all they're worth. As the light wanes, they race around to get ready for the long--but hopefully not final--sleep.

We'll get the fruit canning fully under way next weekend. It's a bit of a hassle now, but the jewel tones of the preserves in December will be all the more worth it.

The raspberries are at their peak or just slightly past it right now. Raspberries do particularly well in freezer preparations, as opposed to boiling-water canning baths which tend to destroy their delicate texture. Here are two recipes for that.

Raspberry freezer jam

3 cups raspberries, cleaned and picked over
5¼ cups sugar
2 T lemon juice
1 pkg. Sure Jell fruit pectin
¾ cup water

Put raspberries into a large bowl and crush fruit lightly with a fork or potato masher. Add sugar and lemon juice. Set aside to allow sugar to dissolve with fruit for 10 minutes. Place the pectin and water into a small saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute until mixture turns clear. Pour over the raspberries and stir well for about 3 minutes. Immediately spoon into clean clear plastic containers, leaving ½" headspace. Seal with lids and let stand at room temperature for 24 hours. Freeze for up to 1 year. May be refrigerated for up to 1 month.

Red raspberry preserves

4 cups whole raspberries
Juice of 1 lemon
4 cups sugar

Place raspberries in kettle with sugar and lemon. Bring slowly to a boil over low heat, shaking all the while. Do not stir. Continue shaking pan and boiling for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Cover and let stand overnight. Freeze. Yield: 7 half-pints.

This is a Pennsylvania Dutch classic from Gene. "Smidge" is a great word. Interpret this amount as you will. Use the lowest possible heat and let it go as long as needed--this is ideal for a slow cooker, too. We have used this with the small wild apples up here with terrific results. This is the taste of fall. The fruit does not have to be perfect for this--we actually get our best results from the fruit on the ground.
 

Apple butter

For ½ peach basket of apples, peel, quarter and core apples. Put in oven at 200*. Add ½ lb dark brown sugar, 1 T cinnamon, ½ tsp allspice, smidge of clove (ground) or 1 whole clove. Allow to cook down. If not peeled, run it through a food mill. Let cook all day or longer.
--Gene K. Hess

Wild plum jelly

For wild plum jelly, I can't improve much on the slightly terse directions left to us by Gran Brooks. Plums are, or should be, loaded with natural pectin, though last year's needed a bit of pectin added. It was either that, or enjoy wild plum syrup all winter. If you are using wild fruit, I recommend simmering the whole fruit in a stockpot and then pressing it through a sieve to separate the juice from the pits and skins. Ignore any recipe directions that call for halving and pitting--these are tiny. Simmer the whole plums in batches of about 2 lb. Press the juice through a clean cotton jelly bag for greater clarity. For 5 lb. of juice, use 7 to 7 1/2 cups of sugar, and simmer for at least half an hour. Test the jelly on a chilled plate--if it does not set up promptly, add a little more pectin and keep stirring, simmering, testing and tweaking until you get there. You'll know it when you see it--it goes from a thick liquid to a soft jelly in a matter of seconds when it hits the chilled plate. It's magic. Wild fruits vary so much in sugar and pectin content, depending on the year and the weather, amount of rain, etc., that it's hard to give mathematically exact instructions. Follow standard canning directions. Wild plum jelly has an especially lovely color that shines out in Christmas gift baskets. The unsugared juice can also be the base for a great homemade wine. Or so I'm told.

Crabapples are falling all over the place right now. You can save and pickle them for a great side dish for the holidays. This is a very easy recipe with a great texture. The crabapples are preserved whole with no preparation other than a few tiny skin punctures (optional); you even get to leave the stems on. We have used any leftover syrup as a base for sweet-sour recipes of all kinds. It's that good. You can put the spices in a small muslin bag if you like.

Spiced crabapples

3 cups apple cider vinegar
4-5 cups brown sugar
1 t whole cloves
2 sticks cinnamon
4 pounds crab apples

Rinse but leave stems on crab apples. Do not peel, though you may wish to poke the skins with a small fork tine in 3 or 4 places to make sure that the syrup sets all the way through. Boil vinegar, brown sugar, cloves, and cinnamon together. Mix the spiced vinegar and sugar and returrn to a boil. Add crabapples to syrup and boil until apples are tender. Remove the fruit with slotted spoon and pack into hot sterilized jars. Pour in syrup. Seal. This recipe can be doubled.

Happy Monday, happy fall.

Family recipe Monday: let the canning begin: herb jellies

Still life with basil: last year's haul of wild plums

If you have been keeping up with the saga of the new building, you may be thinking that this is no timne for me to be writing about canning. It's true: we cut the ribbon this coming Wednesday, September 1. I will post more on that as soon as the long week is over.

But canning can't wait forever. The produce season up here is short, and it is coming to an end. So many things are happening simultaneously: new building, new semester, new course to teach, family in town....and more canning. I am hoping that we get another bumper crop of wild plums and apples this year. In the meantime, we are finding treasures at the farmers' market. Best find yesterday: the first of the year's pears and perfectly ripe raspberries, which will make a pie or cobbler to feed the aforesaid visiting family.

Here are some recipes for herb jellies. The herbs are coming in, too, and these make sweet and savory jellies with pure gem colors. The possible combinations are endless. If you've got others, please share them. I don't worry too much about the food coloring unless the jelly looks off-putting. It all tastes wonderful.

Mint jelly

6 lb. apples, stemmed and chopped
6 cups water
3 cups sugar
¾ cup fresh mint leaves, crushed
2 T lemon juice
2 drops green food coloring

Combine apples and water in a large Dutch oven; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 to 25 minutes. Strain apples through a jelly bag or 4 layers of cheesecloth, reserving 4 cups juice. Discard pulp. Combine reserved juice, sugar, mint, lemon juice and food coloring in Dutch oven. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring frequently. Boil until mixture reaches 220* F on candy thermometer. Remove from heat and skim off foam. Quickly pour jelly through a sieve into hot sterilized jars, leaving ¼ ” headspace. Cover at once with metal lids and screw bands tight. Process in boiling-water bath for 5 minutes. Yield: 4 half-pints.

Note: If you don't normally use a candy thermometer, it's a good time to learn how to do so, unless you prefer uncooked freezer jams. Jellues need to be cooked and clarified, and can be very touchy.

Basil jelly

6 lb. apples, stemmed and chopped
6 cups water
3 cups sugar
2 T chopped fresh basil leaves
2 T lemon juice

Follow directions as for mint jelly (above), substituting coarsely chopped basil and omitting food coloring.

Rose geranium jelly

4 cups apple juice
8 drops red food coloring
1 1¾ oz. pkg. powdered fruit pectin
5-½ cups sugar
7 fresh rose geranium leaves

Combine juice, food coloring and pectin in a large Dutch oven. Quickly bring to a rolling boil, stirring frequently. Add sugar and return to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil 1 minute, stirring. Remove from heat and skim off foam. Place 1 rose geranium leaf in each of 7 hot sterilized half-pint jars. Quickly pour jelly into jars, leaving ¼ ” headspace. Cover at once with metal lids and screw bands tight. Process in boiling-water bath 5 minutes.

You can use this one with any of the "flavored" geraniums.

Rosemary jelly

1 ½ cups white grape juice
8 drops red food coloring
½ cup water
8 drops yellow food coloring
3-½ cups sugar
3 T fresh rosemary leaves, crushed
1 3-oz. pkg. liquid fruit pectin

Combine all ingredients except pectin in a large Dutch oven. Quickly bring to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Cook 1 minute, stirring. Add pectin and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture returns to a rolling boil. Continue boiling 1 minute, stirring. Remove from heat and skim off foam. Quickly pour jelly through a sieve into 4 hot sterilized half-pint jars, leaving ¼ ” headspace. Cover at once with metal lids and screw bands tight. Process in boiling-water bath 5 minutes.

Sage jelly

1 ½ cups apple cider
¼ cup chopped fresh sage leaves
½ cup water
6 drops yellow food coloring
3-½ cups sugar
1 3-oz pkg. liquid fruit pectin

Follow directions as for rosemary jelly (above), substituting coarsely chopped fresh sage leaves.

Thyme jelly

1 ½ cups white grape juice
3 T fresh thyme leaves, crushed
½ cup water
8 drops red food coloring
3-½ cups sugar
1 3-oz pkg. liquid fruit pectin

Follow directions as for rosemary jelly (above), substituting crushed fresh thyme leaves.

Herb-juice jellies

2 T dried herbs
3 cups juice
6 cups sugar
1 bottle liquid pectin

Combine dried herbs and juice. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and let steep 10-15 minutes. Strain and add water to make 3 cups. Add sugar and bring to a full rolling boil. Cool one minute. Add pectin and return to hard rolling boil. Pour jelly into sterilized jars and seal immediately. Makes approximately 8 half-pints.

Juice-herb combinations

Cranberry-basil
Orange-marjoram
Tomato-lemon thyme
Pineapple-mint
Grapefruit-rosemary
Grape-sage
Boysenberry-thyme
Lime-tarragon
Apple-sage
Apple-rose geranium
Beet-ginger
Lemon-parsley

Happy Monday. Save everything you can.

P.S. for those who asked: we kept the kitten.

Family recipe Monday: jellies and preserves

Mary Marcella Walker Brooks and children

All the signs point to another productive year up here for both cultivated and wild fruit and other produce. This is the third year of good rains after a seven-year drought. Look for the ongoing summer canning saga on these pages as the wild apples and plums ripen and the farmers' market expands. Right now the late spring harvest is just starting, and we're not seeing local fruit yet.

The cooks in our families were all farm girls or just one short drive away from the family farm, and they all saved every possible scrap of food for the winter months. Pickling and canning began in early summer and ramped up throught the first hard frost. That meant many days of boiling away in the hot months, but many more days of fruit in the cold months.

I have a little cookbook from 1934, The Art of Modern Cooking and Better Meals: Recipes for Every Occasion, by Meta Given, which I read every time I need to be reminded that I am a slacker. According to Meta, I should have 970 quarts of canned food put up to feed a family of 5 for a year, including canned meats. I'll get right on that, once I recover from testing her suggestion on how to find out how much pectin is in fruit juice, using equal amounts of the fruit juice in question and grain alcohol. You rock, Meta. We've been running this experiment every evening and will have scientifically significant results as soon as we can remember what it is that we are looking for.

Here are a few suggestions from the Simple Gifts files.

Gran Brooks’s directions for making jelly

For grape, raspberry, blackberry, or plum jelly:

Cook fruit until done in very little water; remove from fire and squeeze through a flour sack. Put juice on fire and boil hard 10 minutes, add as much sugar as juice and when beginning to boil, boil hard 2 minutes and pour in glasses. The time is counted from the time it boils real hard.
--Mary Marcella Walker Brooks

Bear in mind that sugar is a preservative as much as it is a sweetener in these pre-refrigeration and wood-fire recipes. The high heat and sugar release and set as much natural pectin from these particular fruits as possible. Wild plums may need a little help in the pectin department if you want a firm-set jelly, something I don't think my great-grandmother's generation worried about too much as long as there was a good-enough set. They did, however, place a high premium on the clarity (translucency, if you will) of the jelly;  hence the straining directions.

Here's a more recent recipe that produces a lovely preserve.

Marmalade gold

1 orange
1 lemon
1 cup water
2 T lemon juice
~1 lb. fully ripe fresh apricots
~1 lb. fully ripe fresh nectarines
7 cups (3 lb.) sugar
½ bottle Certo

Cut the orange and lemon in half and remove seeds. Do not peel. Chop fine. Simmer the chopped fruit with the water and lemon juice, covered, for 20 minutes. Meanwhile peel apricots and nectarines by dipping into boiling water to loosen the skins; pit and slice; chop very fine. Add enough of the apricots and nectarines to the simmered mixture to make 4 1/2 cups. Put in large pan. Stir in the sugar. Over high heat bring to a full rolling boil; boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in Certo. With a large metal spoon, skim off foam. Stir and skim for 5 minutes to cool slightly and avoid floating fruit. Ladle at once into sterilized jelly glasses. Cover with hot paraffin wax. Makes about 8 cups (9 half-pints).
--Shirley Johnson Shelton

If you are canning these in a hot-water bath, the paraffin is not necessary, and vice versa. Certo is concentrated fruit pectin, either liquid or powder.

Here's one for later in the summer. Note that this preserves the entire peach, and you will have to deal with the pits when you are serving them later. Trust me, you won't mind doing that. These are awesome. I'd let them stand for at least a week or two before opening them, to let the flavors deepen.

Sweet pickled peaches

6 lb. peaches
3 lb. sugar
1 pint water
1 pint vinegar
4 oz stick cinnamon
2 oz whole cloves
1 oz ginger

Select firm clingstone peaches. It is better to have them too green than too ripe. Peel and drop at once into a syrup which is made by boiling together the sugar and water and boil for 15 minutes. Cool quickly and allow to stand for from two to three hours. Drain off syrup, put vinegar and spices into it, boil for fifteen minutes, then add the peaches and cook together for half an hour. Let stand overnight. Next morning, drain off the syrup, boil for twenty minutes, add the peaches, and continue cooking for fifteen minutes longer. Cool again and let stand for two hours or overnight, then boil all together until the peaches are clear and tender. Pack peaches into cold jars, garnish with snips of stick cinnamon, cover with strained syrup, seal, and process quart jars for 20 minutes at 180* F (simmering).

Happy Monday.