JUST A LINK IN THE CHAIN

  

                                                                       

 A trip through my recipe files is, well, a trip, a journey through the seasons of my life, links to people, places, and things that I love. 

   After the market closed for the season a few weeks ago, I went on an actual trip to California, and in Sonoma, bought a loaf of sourdough bread from a Basque bakery. Today, rifling through the recipe files, there's a recipe dated 1976 for…sourdough Basque bread. I was a bride in 1976. Did I ever bake that bread? Seems unlikely.

   I'm searching today for the Better Homes and Gardens corn pudding recipe to get my ducks in a row for Thanksgiving dinner, but so far I've come across about eight different chocolate chip cookie recipes, lots of things involving blue cheese, and a recipe for Fresh Ginger Creme Brûlée which I promptly recycled.  Who am I kidding? I made creme brûlée once, and discovered that I'd rather eat it as the finale to a restaurant meal.

   There are recipes for dishes my mother made; recipes for things that call for cake mixes and boxes of instant this or that, which isn't really the way I cook, but which must hold me in some kind of mid-century modern housewife thrall, because I have a lot of those kinds of things. 

  There are instructive elements ram- jammed in the files, too. How To Make Your Own Laundry Soap (not gonna happen). Reading Tea Leaves (I do, but I just wing it). How To Evaluate Champagne and Sparkling Wines (often and enthusiastically). 

   And then, because I tend to reuse things---ok, hoard---there's a whole semester worth of grammar notes in the form of 3x5 recipe cards that I drilled myself with in college when I thought I'd be an English teacher, so it's Participial Phrase (participles and modifiers) on one side, and  things like Jane's Chili on the other side. At this point in my life, I'm much more interested in my mother- in- law's chili recipe than I am in participles, which are used as adjectives, modifying a noun. Fascinating. 

    I also have chain letter recipes that presaged the internet. We've all seen the same 17 recipes that circulate on our Facebook feeds, but some of you may not be old enough to have an actual typewritten, honest to gosh mimeographed copy of the Nieman Marcus chocolate chip cookie chain letter/urban legend recipe. Chain letters were like the worst kind of prehistoric social media. The drama! The obligation! The guilt!

   And surprise--- that pretty much sums up a lot of today's social media, which confirms my theory that while things may change, human nature, not so much. I posted those sentiments on a friend's page under something she'd said, and was promptly drubbed by her friends for being such a pessimist. I do have hope, though. 

   This week I intend to cook, eat special things, laugh, cry, pray, drink some bubbles, help to get the Christmas tree lot up and running, express thanks, and think about my link in this chain: the chain that's our human DNA; the chain of family ties; the chain of seasons that link us to the natural world, and spools us further out into the giant pool of time. 

   The house smells great today; I'm roasting butternut squash for pie (see our post  Celebrating & Thanksgiving for the recipe), and making broth for gravy. Homey, comforting. A grandma's-house kind of vibe, because, well, I'm Grandma now.

    Keep the faith, whatever yours is, especially if it keeps you loving and hopeful. From the deep end of the pool, I send you wishes for a happy Thanksgiving!

Fruitfully yours,

KARIN

      APPLESAUCE SQUASH LOAF

---Applesauce stands in for oil in this recipe, and gives the loaf a "bouncy" texture. I made it with sweetmeat squash, but you could substitute cooking variety pumpkin or other squash. You could also make this in muffin cups, adjust baking time.

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 cups flour (1 cup all purpose, 1/2 cup whole wheat)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup dried cranberries

2 beaten eggs

1 cup pureed squash

1 1/2 cup applesauce

1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger

oven 350

Line the bottom of a loaf pan with waxed paper or parchment, set aside.

In a medium bowl combine salt, sugar, baking soda, four, cinnamon and cranberries. Set aside

In large bowl, combine beaten eggs, squash, applesauce and fresh ginger. Add dry ingredients to egg mixture and stir until combined. Pour into prepared pan, bake at 350 about 1 hour. or until loaf tests done. You may want to cover pan with foil. Cool 10 minutes on wire rack, turn over and release loaf, continue cooling on rack until room temperature.

   Top with a mixture of 1 teaspoon powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon ground sugar sprinkled through a sieve.

        CHAIN LETTER COOKIES

(for a link to the history of this recipe click here)

   This recipe found its way into my recipe file in the 1970s, before food processors  or the internet were a thing, so note the instructions to "blend" the oatmeal.  It has a handwritten note from someone named Rose recommending that you cut the recipe in half  "unless you want a ton of cookies." 

2 cups butter

2 cups granulated sugar

2 cups brown sugar

4 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 cups flour

5 cups blended oatmeal*

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

24 oz. chocolate chips

1 eight ounce Hershey bar, grated

3 cups chopped nuts

   *Measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder, set aside.

   Cream butter, add both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder and soda.  Add chocolate chips, hershey bar and nuts.

   Roll into balls and place 2" apart on a cookie sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes at 375. Makes 112 cookies.

      FOUND IT! CORN PUDDING

   This recipe was ripped out of Better Homes and Gardens magazine sometime in the last 10 years. It's always a hit at Thanksgiving.

1   15 oz. can whole kernel corn, drained

1    14 oz. can cream style corn

1 cup milk

2 beaten eggs

1/4 cup melted butter

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1/2 cup cornmeal

   In a large mixing bowl combine whole kernel corn, cream style corn, milk, eggs, melted butter and pepper. Add cornmeal, stir till moistened.

   Pour corn mixture into a 2 quart casserole. Bake in a 350 oven 50-55 minutes or till lightly browned and set in the center. Makes 8 side-dish servings.