MORE BACK TO BASICS RECIPES

MORE BACK TO BASICS RECIPES

Since posting the first “Back to Basics” I began finding a lot more “basic” recipes in my files. What I mean about basic recipes is those things you can easily make from scratch instead of using a prepackaged mix that generally costs a lot more than making your own – or in some instances, such as one with my younger sister, when she wanted to make something like tacos for dinner and discovered she was out of taco seasoning mix. Now she makes her own taco seasoning mix all the time. (Another bonus to making your own – there’s often no telling how long the seasoning mix was on the store shelves or in a warehouse before you bought it). When you mix your own, you know how old the spices or seasonings in your kitchen are. Anyway, here are some more basic recipes that you can print and keep in your own recipe box.

MOCK SOUR CREAM

You will need:

2 cups low fat or no fat cottage cheese
¼ cup plain yogurt
eggbeaters to equal 1 egg
1 TBSP lemon juice
1 TBSP water
½ tsp dry mustard
¼ tsp white pepper
1/8 tsp hot sauce

Combine all ingredients in a blender container and process until smooth. Use for potato topping or dips.

Sandy’s Cooknote: The beauty of this recipe is that you can use no fat cottage cheese and by using egg beaters, you have a VERY LOW calorie/no fat recipe. The original recipe called for 1 egg–given that you aren’t cooking anything, I have changed it to eggbeaters to equal one egg.
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BLENDER CARAMEL SAUCE

¾ CUP brown sugar
2 TBSP soft butter or margarine
¼ tsp salt
½ cup hot evaporated milk

Put all ingredients into blender container. Cover and process at mix until sugar is dissolved.
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SEASONED CRUMBS

You will need:

2 CUPS fine dry bread crumbs
¼ cup grated Parmesan or Romano cheese
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp garlic salt
¼ cup parsley flakes, crumbled

Combine spices. Mix well. Pack loosely in jar. Use as coating for veal, pork, poultry or fish to be sautéed. Makes about 3 cups.
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SEASONED PEPPER

You will need:

6 TBSP coarse ground black pepper
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp sugar (optional)
½ tsp dried sweet red pepper
½ tsp dried finely minced onion
1 tsp paprika
1/3 tsp dried sweet green pepper

Combine spices and stir with wooden spoon. Pack tightly in glass jars. Makes about ½ cup.

Sandy’s cooknote: Ok, I do a lot of cooking but have never heard of dried sweet red or green pepper. BUT I think you could easily make your own. I chop up bell peppers when they are on sale and freeze them. I think I could just as easily dry a little of each, red and green in my oven or dehydrator to have it on hand. I’ll give this a try and get back to you on the results.
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CREOLE RUB

You will need:

1 TBSP salt
1 ½ tsp garlic powder
1 ½ tsp onion powder
1 ½ tsp paprika
1 ¼ tsp dried thyme
1 tsp round red pepper
¾ tsp black pepper
¾ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp ground bay leaves
¼ tsp chili powder

Combine all ingredients. Store in an airtight container. Sprinkle on sea food, chicken or beef before grilling. Yield ¼ cup.
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JERK RUB

You will need:

1 ½ TBSP sugar
1 TBSP onion powder
1 TBSP dried thyme
2 tsp ground allspice
2 tsp freshly ground pepper
2 tsp ground red pepper
1 tsp salt
¾ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ tsp ground cloves

Combine all ingredients. Store mixture in an airtight container. Sprinkle on chicken or seafood before grilling. Yield 1/3 cup.
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HOMEMADE SEAFOOD SPICE

You will need:

2 TBSP garlic powder
1 TBSP onion powder
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp black better
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp chili powder
½ tsp cayenne pepper
¼ tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
¼ tsp sugar

Mix. Store in an airtight container.

Sandy’s cooknote: You will note that all of these recipes advise keeping the spice or seasoning in airtight containers. You don’t have to go out and buy a lot of jars or plastic containers. I save all kinds and sizes of glass jars when they are empty of what ever came with them. Wash them really good and remove the labels. When you put a seasoning into one of them, label it and include the date so you will remember when you made it. When I had babies, those baby food jars really came in handy for things like seasoning mixes.
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Emeril’s BABY BAM SEASONING

You will need:

3 TBSP paprika
2 TBSP EACH salt, dried parsley, onion powder and garlic powder, oregano, basil and thyme
½ tsp celery salt

Stir well. Store in an airtight container.
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ZESTY CHICKEN SEASONING BLEND

You will need:

2 TBSP chili powder
1 TBSP garlic salt
1 TBSP paprika
½ tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ cup vegetable oil

In a small mixing bowl, combine all seasonings. Blend in oil, forming a paste. May be refrigerated up to 2 weeks. To use, brush mixture on whole chicken or chicken pieces and let stand 1 hr at room temperature or at least 2 hours in the refrigerator before roasting or grilling, until chicken is cooked through. Makes enough to season 7 to 8 pounds of chicken. Note: Add 2-3 TBSP lime juice to mixture if desired.
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COPY CAT ONION SOUP MIX

You will need:

1/4 CUP dried minced onion
2 TBSP instant beef bouillon
½ tsp onion powder

Combine all ingredients. This makes the equivalent of one package of soup mix.
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HERB SEASONING BLEND

You will need:

1 TBSP dried thyme
1 TBSP dried oregano
2 tsp rubbed sage
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried marjoram
1 tsp dried basil]
1 tsp dried parsley flakes

Combine all ingredients and store in an airtight container. Use in omelets and to season fish, vegetables or chicken. Makes ¼ cup.
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The following are a few good recipes for making your own marinades:

SECRET STEAK MARINADE

You will need:

1 CUP soy sauce
2 large onions, coarsely chopped
2 cloves garlic, halves
¼ cup Kitchen Bouquet*
2 tsp Beau Monde seasoning

Combine soy sauce, onion and garlic in blender ad high speed 1 minute or until mix is smooth. Stir in Kitchen Bouquet and Beau Monde seasoning. Makes 2 ½ cups.
To marinate: arrange steaks in shallow glass baking dish (or use a zip lock bag) and pour ½ cup marinade over each steak or chop. Allow to stand at room temp 2 hours OR cover and refrigerate up to 24 hours, then bring meat to room temperature before cooking.

Sandy’s cooknote: Kitchen Bouquet! It’s a flavor enhancer that makes brown gravies a nice dark rich brown and is wonderful in pot roasts. My mother always had a tiny bottle of Kitchen Bouquet in the kitchen cupboard. Well, it floored me, the cost of those little bottles – we have a warehouse-kind of supermarket that is called Smart & Final, but I would imagine that Sam’s Club and/or Costco might keep the large quart size bottle in stock. I get a QUART bottle for about the same price as those little bitty ones. I swear by Kitchen Bouquet and wouldn’t be without it. Beau Monde is another but that’s another story.
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HERB WINE MARINADE

You will need:

1 cup red wine*
2 TBSP red wine vinegar
½ cup vegetable oil
1 onion, minced
1 clove garlic. Crushed
1/3 tsp crushed rosemary
½ tsp EACH salt & pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
½ tsp thyme
½ tsp marjoram

Blend ingredients and let stand overnight. Remove garlic clove. Cover and store until ready to use.

Sandy’s cooknote: A lot of my recipes call for red wine. I keep a LARGE bottle of Burgundy wine in the kitchen pantry – just for these recipes.
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BASIC MARINADE FOR POULTRY

You will need:

2 TBSP vegetable oil
2 TBSP soy sauce
¼ cup dry (red or white) wine
2 tsp Tarragon or thyme
salt & pepper

Combine all ingredients. Add more salt and pepper if you want. Marinate chicken or turkey overnight or brush on 15-20 minutes before grilling.
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CITRUS MARINADE

You will need:

2 large garlic cloves
1/3 cup olive oil
3 TBSP packed dark brown sugar
2 TBSP balsamic vinegar
1 ½ tsp Dijon mustard
¼ cup fresh lemon juice
¼ cup fresh orange or lime juice
1 ½ tsp freshly grated lemon zest

Thinly slice garlic and in a small saucepan, cook in oil over moderately low heat just until it begins to turn golden. Remove pan from heat and with a slotted spoon, discard garlic. In oil in pan, add remaining ingredients and salt & pepper to taste. Cool marinade. Makes about 1 cup, enough marinade for 1 ½ to 2 pounds chicken or shrimp.
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BEER MARINADE

You will need:

¼ cup salad oil
¼ cup lemon juice
1 cup beer
2 cloves crushed garlic
1 tsp salt
1 bay leaf
¾ tsp pepper
½ tsp dry mustard
½ tsp crushed basil leaves
¼ tsp crushed oregano leaves

Blend all ingredients

To make beef kabobs:

You will need

1 ½ lbs flank steak
beer marinade
1 large green pepper, parboiled
12 cherry tomatoes
12 medium mushroom halves
12 small white onions, parboiled

Cut flank steak crosswise on the diagonal into 1” wide strips. There should be about 12 good strips. Place meat and marinade in a bowl and chill overnight. Cut green pepper into 12 small squares. For each kabob, thread meat alternatively with 1 green pepper square, 1 cherry tomato, 1 mushroom half and 1 onion on skewer. Broil 6-8” from source of heat for about 2-3 minutes on each side or until meat is desired doneness. Brush with marinade before turning.

Sandy’s Cooknote: I know a little something about making shish-kabobs. We made them for YEARS while my sons were growing up. We had an assembly line going for threading the kabobs on skewers. If you are using bamboo skewers, you should know the skewers should be soaked in cold water for several hours before using, so they don’t catch on fire. But metal skewers are inexpensive and you can stock up on them to have a bunch on hand if you are feeding company. Personally, I like to toss the mushrooms into a pot of boiling water for a minute or so – OR cook them a while in melted butter…they will go on the skewers more easily & taste better too. You can use that same melted butter to brush on the kabobs when they are cooking. We also would cut up hot dogs and wrap raw bacon around them to stretch the meat (I was raising four sons). I liked to cut the meat (often something like London Broil) into bite-size chunks and then marinate it for a few hours in something like a red-wine marinade with tenderizer sprinkled on, so that the meat was good and tender. Kabobs is a good company meal. Sometimes we also used chicken breast, cut into chunks – and when my son Steve was being lavish (and doing the cooking) he would get a pound of halibut and cut that into chunks to go onto the skewers. All great eating.
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CIDER MARINADE FOR CHICKEN OR PORK

You will need:

¼ tsp crushed red chile flakes
1 tsp rubber dry sage
1 tsp dried thyme leaves
1/3 tsp celery seed
1 TBSP sugar
1 TBSP chopped fresh parsley, optional
1 tsp finely minced lemon zest
½ cup apple cider
4 tsp cider vinegar
2 TBSP Dijon mustard
¼ cup cooking oil

Whisk together red chile flakes, sage, thyme, celery seed, sugar, parsley, lemon zest, apple cider, vinegar, mustard and oil. Use to marinate chicken breasts or pork chops at least for 4 hours or up to 8 hours. Will keep refrigerated up to 1 week.
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Happy Cooking!

WHEN RADIO WAS KING-PART 2

Kate Brew Vaughn was another early pioneer of the radio recipe program. I had the good fortune to be introduced some years ago to one of Ms. Vaughn’s granddaughters, who provided me with some insightful details to her incredible grandmother. Ms. Vaughn was a caterer in North Carolina, raising five children, when she happened to come to the attention of Mr. Gamble, of Proctor & Gamble fame. He suggested she make a trip to New York City for an interview, for the possible job of hostessing a radio recipe program on the west coast. Ms. Vaughn made the trip to New York, arriving there with twenty five cents to her name! She got the job, then proceeded to move to Los Angeles, with her five children and a typewriter. Along with hostessing a local radio program, which was sponsored by Proctor & Gamble, Ms. Vaughn wrote a number of cookbooks, including “UP TO THE MINUTE COOKBOOK” “CULINARY ECHOS FROM DIXIE” “ART OF PRESERVING AND CANNING” and “TABLE TREATS FOR WAR TIME”. She also worked as director of the Home Economics Department of the Los Angeles Evening Express which was, I am told, the forerunner of the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.

Then there was Aunt Susan. You may have seen a published, (1989) attractive black and white cookbook titled “Long Lost Recipes of Aunt Susan”, edited by Patty Vineyard MacDonald. Ms. MacDonald tells us how many of her favorite recipes in her recipe box were handed down from Aunt Susan, whom she assumed for years to be some elusive member of her family. When she questioned her mother, she discovered that Aunt Susan was everybody’s aunt and the recipes had been clipped from her newspaper column.
Writes Ms. MacDonald, “Aunt Susan was actually Edna Vance Adams Mueller who, along with serving as food editor of the Daily Oklahoman, at one time also hostessed a cooking school show on radio station WKY during the 30s and 40s. It was through her skill baking and selling Lady Baltimore cakes that Aunt Susan came to the attention of the managing editor of the Daily Oklahoman and Times; her career as Aunt Susan began in the late 1920s with a newspaper column. For fifteen years, Aunt Susan not only wrote a newspaper column but she also broadcast a radio program of recipes and tips on
homemaking over station WKY. Her program was considered “chatty”, as if she dictated her columns to her secretary who transcribed them exactly as they were told to her. Early columns were little more than recipe exchanges between her readers. In addition to all this, Aunt Susan conducted a popular cooking school, from 1931 to 1941, each autumn for eleven years, at a coliseum in Packingtown. A staff of 15 assistants helped stage what became the southwest’s most popular food fair, with an AVERAGE daily attendance of 5,000 -or 25,000 Oklahoma homemakers for the week. This annual cooking school brought phenomenal space and radio time sales with Aunt Susan endorsing hundreds of products”. In the 30s, in addition to traveling to England, where she met with the chef at Buckingham Palace (and received the Queen Mother’s favorite recipe for Strawberry souffle from the King’s chef, P.H. Pouport), Aunt Susan also made a trip to Washington D.C., for an interview with Henrietta Nesbitt, who was the Roosevelt’s housekeeper. Mrs. Nesbitt gave Aunt Susan President Roosevelt’s favorite recipe for corned beef hash and Eleanor Roosevelt invited her upstairs for tea.

Aunt Susan’s last column for the Oklahoman was in 1943, when she moved to New York, where she went to work at McCall’s Magazine as Associate Good Editor and then became Food Editor in 1946, writing under the name of Susan Adams. A hard to find book you may wish to look for was “Susan Adams’ How to Cook Book” In 1947, she resigned from McCalls to devote full time to supervising the “BETTY CROCKER MAGAZINE OF THE AIR”, a transcontinental radio show that aired five mornings a week over 192 ABC stations. One of her many tasks was to train an actress named Zella Layne to voice the role of Betty Crocker. Aunt Susan planned and prepared all the food scripts, supervised a staff of script writers and coordinated guest contracts. Her new test kitchen made it possible to give all shows a live audience, utilizing techniques she had been
devising over the years. Later Aunt Susan and her husband went on to co-produce television programs, including two television shows, “Kitchen Fare” and “Susan Adams’ Kitchen” which ran successfully on TV for 5 1/2 years. Sadly, years later after her husband died, Aunt Susan’s own health and income began to fail and she resorted to selling rare volumes from her cookbook collection to live. She died in Colorado of a heart condition in 1972. The editor of “LONG LOST RECIPES OF AUNT SUSAN”, Patty Vineyard MacDonald, does not indicate what became of the rest of Aunt Susan’s
collection. Her enormous contribution to radio and television recipe programs, and newspaper food columns, seem to have been largely forgotten over the decades.

Then, there was the Neighbor Lady! The Neighbor Lady was Wynn Speece -who first went on the air in 1941 as a kind of programming experiment. She was, amazingly, hardly more than a young girl when she became the Neighbor Lady. Wynn’s first job was reading Sunday funnies over station KRNT in Des Moines..in this role, she played Olive Oyl, Maggie (of Maggie & Jiggs) and one of the mischievous Katzenjammer kids..for which they earned $2.00 per show! However, Ed Barrett, head of the radio department at Drake, hosted the Sunday morning program as Uncle Bill and it was he who taught
Wynn the fine points of radio broadcasting and helped her fine-tune her skills. Meanwhile, Wynn worked for her theater degree, not sure what she was going to do with it, and thinking she might pursue teaching, she enrolled in education courses to prepare herself for that work. But, she writes, in her book, “THE BEST OF THE NEIGHBOR LADY”, one day at a theatre rehearsal, she overheard a conversation that abruptly changed her mind. Some of her classmates were discussing the all-too-common question, what do you want to be when you grow up? Several of them said-with defeatist finality-they were going to teach because “there’s nothing better to do with a theater major”. Wynn was, in her own words, appalled. She immediately dropped her education courses, because she didn’t want to be a teacher of young, impressionable children, simply because there was nothing better to do. She began to think more and more about radio. Job opportunities were developing; serials were attracting many listeners. Wynn obtained a $400 loan from a national women’s organization to get herself through her senior year, enabling her to concentrate on radio studies. Wynn used the last $25 of the loan money to travel to Yankton, South Dakota, to accept a position as a writer, encouraged by a fellow student from her university days. Wynn was just a young girl in her
early 20s when she accepted the job in Yankton, and radio was in its infancy…but growing fast. Meanwhile, Wynn was happy with her job, writing commercials and maintaining the daily advertising log. Her work included research to the various facilities of various sponsors where she learned more about them and their products. Sometime later, the radio manager gave her a 15-minute slot, every Saturday morning, to talk about special premiums offered by WNAX advertisers. It was a turning point.

In the early summer of 1941, impressed with the way she handled her program, WIN WITH WYNN, and needing a replacement for the WNAX women’s director, manager Phil Hoffman turned to Wynn again. She was given a 15-minute program, six days a week, patterned especially for homemakers. She had only a weekend to prepare for her debut program..but the Neighbor Lady was on her way! The show was an immediate success, reaching farm and ranch wives in ten states; many of them were isolated and lonely, so that her daily visits were eagerly awaited. Wynn asked her listeners to share their recipes, household hints and favorite quotations. She sent them Good Deed dollars for their contributions. It appears that, from the very beginning, WNAX knew they had a good thing going. Annual booklets were published, compiling the year’s best recipes
and household hints, letters and readers’ favorite verses. The oldest I have was published in 1943, and is titled “Another Year with the Neighbor Lady”. Many years of the Neighbor Lady would follow–there was even a 25th Anniversary booklet, published in 1966. The final edition was published in 1972. In all, there were 31 soft cover booklets, greatly cherished by Wynn’s faithful following. This tradition had its beginning in 1942, when numerous listeners requested copies of material from Wynn’s broadcasts. In the years that followed, the Neighbor Lady booklets became almost as important as the show itself–and from a beginning production of only 1,000 copies (limited by war time
restrictions), publication grew to 20,000 copies which sold eventually, for $1.00 a copy. And although it was never planned that way, the booklets became collector’s items, and were greatly sought-after in the WNAX broadcasting region. I have a few of the booklets; it’s easy to understand why they were in such great demand. Even today, they are great
fun to read. Wynn had been on the air less than five months when the Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor took place…and the war that followed was reflected in the contents of Neighbor Lady shows, with recipes that stressed meat shortages and various ways to overcome shortages. Instead of Good Deed dollars, she sent war stamps for her listener’s contributions. I find that one of the most intriguing aspects of Wynn Speece’s life is that she carved out a career for herself in radio at a time when most women stayed at home to raise their families…not only that, but she built that career AROUND homemaking…and when she proposed to “retire” from radio to stay at home to raise her family, WNAX would have none of it-they took radio to her home, and from there Wynn continued to do her program. Wynn was so popular with her listeners that they often dropped in to visit her, unannounced. People considered her their personal friend, and although this was a burden at times, she never turned anyone away–can you imagine inviting fans into your home TODAY? How times have changed!

There were numerous other radio recipe personalities, like Wynn Speece, in various other parts of the country. It was an idea whose time had come–some other programs appear to be copy-cat imitations of Wynn Speece’s Neighbor Lady Program. For instance, in Colorado on station KOA, there was a program called “Hello Neighbor” which, like Wynn Speece’s neighbor lady, resulted in an annual recipe/household hint booklet. From KOIN radio in Portland Oregon, came Betty Davis’ program–with recipe booklets one could request by mail, and here in Los Angeles, chef Mike Roy hosted a program on KNX radio for a number of years, and authored numerous cookbooks. A penpal in Illinois ent me some recipe leaflets from station WMT in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Hosted by Jim Loyd, this program started in 1963, sending out 2600 recipe leaflets their first month on the air. Two years later, this number had increased to 7000, proving that even in the 1960s, radio recipe programs were still popular. Years later, television would attempt to mimic the success of radio recipe programs. There was, for instance, “Sunshine Home” with Keith & Maggie on TV station KEY-T in Santa Barbara in the early 50s; the booklets they published with recipe contributions from their viewers are reminiscent of the Best of the Neighbor Lady. Other programs would follow, but there was, perhaps, a lull between the fame of radio recipe programs and the advent of the hugely popular TV cooking shows today. However, I don’t think that anything we available to us today provides the kind of impact that Aunt Sammy or Aunt Susan or The Neighbor Lady imparted on this country way back… when radio was king.

(originally published in Cookbook Collectors Exchange as “Don’t Touch That Dial” by author).

Old Time Radio Program Cookbooks

old time radio program cookbooks

Some Very Old Cookbooks

some very old cookbooks

Filled Recipe Box

Filled Recipe Box

Vintage Recipe Card & Holder

Very old recipe card, unusual holder

Vintage Recipe Boxes

Vintage Recipe Box

Recipe box collection

Recipe Boxes

Sandy’s Collection of Cookie Jars!

Sandra Smith's Collection of Cookie Jars

Christmas Cookie Containers

More cookie jars!

Sandy in her Apron!

Cooking from Scratch

For the younger generation who might not recognize the expression, “cooking from scratch” means putting together meals without resorting to boxed mixes, frozen dinners or other “convenience” foods. If you grew up on a farm, most likely everything your mother cooked was “from scratch” where mom might go out to the garden to pick the vegetables or herbs she would prepare for dinner – while the chicken that went into the oven might have come from the hen house where mom would go out and kill–then pluck–one for dinner (no doubt one that had stopped laying eggs).

While my mother cooked mostly from scratch–our meat did come from a grocery store (we were city folk). I think the advent of convenience foods was almost imperceptible. First, I remember, were the cake mixes–wow! All you had to do was add a few ingredients. I was about 8 or 9 at the time. Around the same time (1948) along came Reddi-Wip™, whipped cream in an aerosol can. We just loved that.

My brother was working after school for a food distributor and would bring home the cans of biscuits with expired dates (which would sometimes explode when you tried to open them). But they were novel so we baked them or made “homemade” doughnuts. He also brought home a cookie mix–all you had to do was add water. I had the good fortune to have a mother who turned me loose in the kitchen so these things provided tools for experimenting.

I don’t remember my grandmother, however, ever resorting to a box cake mix or making anything that wasn’t made from scratch. Grandma even made filo dough (for strudels) and 14-layered Dobos tortes from scratch – and noodles! She made noodles that would dry on the backs of the kitchen chairs.

My grandparents butchered a hog once a year and it was a “family affair” that involved all the adults in the family. Making applesauce from apples that grew in Grandma’s backyard was also a family affair. (Now, years later–I make my own applesauce, too, from apples that grow on a tree in my back yard. But while Grandpa made wine with his grapes, ours are converted into juice and jelly.

All you have to do is read some cookbooks published in the 1940s (or earlier) and then compare them with cookbooks published after the 1950s when mixes or convenience foods of a wide variety began to appear in supermarkets. There was a time when not everything started with a can of condensed soup!

Just to what degree has “scratch cooking” disappeared from our culinary landscape?

Homemade pancakes or waffles – or frozen ones?

Homemade brownies – or from a mix?

Homegrown herbs – or from a supermarket spice rack?

Homemade bread – or store-bought?

Your own concoction or ground beef and noodles– or Hamburger Helper™?

Your own homemade macaroni & cheese – or something out of a box?

Freshly squeezed orange juice or something from a can or carton?

The upside of all the prepackaged convenience foods is that it has eased the work of who ever cooks dinner–after, no doubt, working in an office all day. But the downside is – so many people haven’t a clue how to cook from scratch-or how easy it is to make a sauce, add cheese to it and voila! – fresh cheese sauce to mix with cooked macaroni.

This was brought home to me one day when my younger sister called and said “I want to make taco meat for dinner, but I don’t have any taco seasoning mix”.

“Do you have chili powder?” I asked, “flour? Cumin? Dried oregano? Garlic powder? Salt? Cayenne pepper? You can make your own..”

She says she hasn’t bought seasoning mix in the store since.

The question isn’t whether or not you need to cook from scratch – but rather, if you can. That, if you are out of the seasoned bread crumbs that come in a can – you would know how to make your own out of some bread and a few herbs in the blender.

I do a lot of canning (tomatoes, tomato juice, grape juice and apple sauce, my own jellies, jams, chutneys and pickles, and sour kraut) – because so much of the fruit and vegetables are available to us. Recently, my Oregon penpal brought us 30 lbs of unshelled walnuts. I couldn’t rest until all of the nuts were shelled and in plastic freezer bags. I made almost everything “from scratch” when my four sons were growing up because it was more economical and we were almost always poorer than church mice. We raised chickens for a time, and what a thrill to go into the hen house and collect some fresh eggs to cook or bake with!

I still make homemade cookies – because we like them much more. I don’t like the taste of instant potatoes and it only takes a few minutes to peel a few to make my own mashed potatoes. But I do keep a pantry well stocked with a wide variety of canned foods and packaged mixes–in the event of an earthquake, you have to be prepared to eat out of cans for a few days.

Most of the women I know (myself included) are quasi-scratch cooks–some things from scratch, some perhaps starting with a mix.

Finally, Earl Wilson, who wrote, “You can say this for ready-mixes–the next generation isn’t going to have any trouble making pies exactly like mother used to make.”

I’ll end this on a sweet note –here is my recipe for chocolate pudding I made so often when my children were growing up, I could throw it together while cooking dinner. We had a large amount of milk on the cusp of going bad the other day so I dug out this recipe and made a double batch of the chocolate pudding.

Note that there are no eggs or butter in this recipe!

To MAKE CHOCOLATE PUDDING:

You will need:

½ cup sugar

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ cup cornstarch

1 pinch salt

3 cups 2% milk

2 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (1/4 cup)

2 tsp vanilla extract

In a saucepan, whisk together the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch and salt. Then whisk in the milk and bring to a boil, stirring constantly over medium heat until it begins to thicken (about 5 minutes). Remove the pot from the heat and stir in the chocolate chips and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Pour into dessert dishes. Can be served warm or chilled. Delicious with a dollop of whipped cream on top – but then it’s no longer fat free. The next time I make this I am going to try it with Splenda – I searched the entire pantry but couldn’t find any yesterday so I stuck with ordinary granulated sugar.

Part of this article was originally published in Inky Trail News.

Happy Cooking! Sandy