Question of the day 09/16/15

Question of the day!

Sorry for the late hour...


39.- Do you keep some old food recipe from your relatives, and do you prepar this special dish for special ocations? what kind of dish is?

Oh yes I have several hand me down recipes I collected. Most recently Grandmas cinnamon sheet cake! It's good enough to be a grooms cake at a wedding. My mothers dressing recipe for thanksgiving. my mothers enchiladas but I now know it by heart and ad my own ingredients.

These aren't for special occasions....more like whenever I feel like being nostalgic, I guess. I make my mom's (and grandmother's) Old Black Joe cake quite often. It's delicious and, sometimes it's the perfect dessert or snack. I also make Mom's (and Grandma's) Hot Milk Sponge Cake. Yum. Just yum. With a good chocolate frosting, it is TDF. My Aunt Kathryne's Cinnamon Flop, a coffee cake that uses no eggs. 

After my grandmother passed away, it seemed that nobody had her recipe for sugar cookies and they were THE best sugar cookies on the face of this earth. I tried a million different recipes and couldn't get it right. I tried shortening, I tried butter, I even tried lard. And couldn't get it right. And then, after Mom died, I got her cookbooks. And there it was! In my Aunt Kathryne's handwriting! THE sugar cookie recipe! I couldn't believe it. Mom knew I was looking for it and I don't know if she forgot about it or if she just didn't want me to have it (seriously, that would have been my mother). I immediately made a bunch of copies and gave them to all our relatives, so that we all had it. I make them quite a bit (yes, Rick likes snickerdoodles the best, but that sugar cookie recipe is delicious). It is probably the one recipe that I will never give out, other than to relatives....I don't know why, but it's that special to me.

Windowpanes. Or Eggs in a Nest. Whatever you call them, I think we've all had them, but they're a tradition around here. Butter the bread, cut out a hole in the bread. Fry lightly and plop an egg in the hole. Mom made them for us and I make them for our son. And he makes them for his kids. Always with homemade hot cocoa....no cocoa mix, the real thing. Christmas morning: Windowpanes, hot cocoa, and sticky buns. For years, that was us.

Chicken and Waffles. Every single time I make Chicken and Waffles, I remember winter at home when we were kids. It was Mom's standard winter dinner. I do it, too. To this day, Rick and I argue about it. To him, Chicken and Waffles is homemade buttermilk waffles with a chicken gravy. To me, it's homemade buttermilk waffles with a really good fried chicken (and Mom made really good fried chicken) on the side. And lots of real maple syrup for the waffles. Both are equally good. Same with her chili. And her mac and cheese. Mom's Liver and Onions was a birthday staple for both my sister and me. 

On Rick's side, there's his mom's Broccoli Salad....a picnic staple here. Her Portuguese Beignets....I had to learn how to make them, simply because somebody in the family has to be the family baker. I am very wary of deep-fat frying, but had to learn. It's a tradition for Doughnut Day. For really special occasions, I will make her New York-style Cheesecake. 

So many family recipes....

I've got several family recipes for cakes, cookies, soup, etc., and mostly use them around the holidays. One recipe neither my sister nor I have is our mother's rice pudding recipe, and she made the absolute best.

My grandmother's apple cake is the one that pops into mind.

We never got her recipe for handmade blintzes.  This, kills me.  She made them better than anyone.

my mom used to make 'egg in the middles' (aka, windowpanes), only my mom used a little bacon grease to fry them in. i've made that recipe, and i love it.

also, my mom used to make a rice salad during the hot weather months that i love. she used cooked and cooled minute rice, diced carrots, diced celery, diced sweet gherkin pickles, and those tiny frozen shrimp that come in little bags. she'd put all those ingredients together in a bowl, then add zesty italian salad dressing to it and mix it up well. the trick is to add enough salad dressing that the rice is able to absorb it all, but not so much that the whole salad is soggy. mom's rice salad was always a favorite on hot days -- she'd serve it for a light dinner.

I have two special receipes handed down through my family. One is for shoo fly pie, which is a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy, and the other is for Christmas cookies. It looks like the pie receipe might end with me but now even my ex's family make the cookies.

Margd said:

I have two special receipes handed down through my family. One is for shoo fly pie, which is a Pennsylvania Dutch delicacy, and the other is for Christmas cookies. It looks like the pie receipe might end with me but now even my ex's family make the cookies.

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Did you ever make shoofly cake? Just as good as a shoofly pie! 

Winchester said:

Did you ever make shoofly cake? Just as good as a shoofly pie! 

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No! I've never heard of such a thing but I bet it's really tasty! Yum!

My grandmother's Cream Puffs. Every year I make them and every year she puts me down because of it. of course they would never be perfect as her's.. but everyone else loves it! Maybe this is the year I'll get her approval finally!