SOME OLD FAMILY RECIPES
When I was growing up my mother had a lot of recipe books. Good Housekeeping,Fanny Farmer just to name a couple. She always saved recipes from magazines and would paste them in a scrapebook. But the main book she used when cooking or baking was what we always called her written down book. She would take a school ringed notebook and in that she would copy all the family recipes she came across. Cakes,Pies,Cookies,Pickles,relishes,Cottage Cheese even home made soap.(We always had grandma's homemade soap to clean with.)Every now and then she would make a new one for the pages would get dough splashed on them. When we got married we made copies of this book.I still have one today. Some of these recipes are from the 1800"s and some from WW2 when they had a hard time finding sugar and some other things. I will try and make a list of the people who the recipes came from.
The old recipes as you will see leave out a lot of the directions we have today. They baked every day and could tell most times by the way something looked or felt if it was right. Even today I make homemade biscuits but I would have a hard time telling you how much flour,shortening or salt I use and I use the same recipe for pie crust only I add more shortening, I go by how the dough feels in my hands. My grandaughter asked me one day how I knew how much rice to put in my chicken & rice because I just dump in some and I told her I can tell when I stir it with a big spoon if I have enough. Most pies and cakes can safely be baked at 350,If you think about it they didn't always have a tem.gauge on their stoves. I remember mom & grandma baking in an old wood cook stove. The food believe it or not taste better from one. I will try and add a note at the end of any recipe that I feel needs a little explaining. You will see under Jefferson Co. recipes some that are from people who have lived in Jefferson Co., New York.
If any one has some to add e-mail me.
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