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February? Already? But, I haven't lost all those pounds yet and that was at the top of my list of New Year's resolutions, Couldn't be February already. What happened to January? And if Christmas is all over, why am I still getting Christmas bills. February is here all right, and February means dusting off the recipe files and looking for the Lenten menus you used last year and maybe the year before that. I hope to make a collection of Lenten recipes during the month of February and prepare them for the March bulletin. If you have a favorite, send it in during the month of February and perhaps you'll have a hand in making the March bulletin a big issue for all. Here I am talking about March, when just a moment ago, I couldn't believe it was February already. Do enjoy the recipes included in this month's bulletin. And Happy February!
Ed Black, editor of the Preston Times in Preston, Iowa sent along some homemade taffy and it made quite a hit with everybody who sampled it. If you have the same kind of luck with it that Ed had, I'm sure you'll enjoy it often. But beware if you have loose fillings, it's the old fashioned kind that sticks to everything in your mouth.
ED BLACK'S HOMEMADE TAFFY
1 cup sorghum
2 cups corn syrup (light, dark
or both)
3 cups white sugar
3 tablespoons vinegar
¼ cup butter
3 tablespoons vanilla
Mix all but vanilla together thoroughly and cook to rolling boil. Stir often to get it down from around the sides of pan. Cook until it makes a hard crack against a cup of water into which it has been dropped. Be sure it is not sticky when you hit it against the side of the cup. Cook until you can spin a thread. Remove from heat, add vanilla. Pour into a buttered cookie sheet (one with sides) large enough to allow it to spread until about a quarter inch thick. As soon as it thickens, pull into the center from the sides and ends. As soon as it can be held in the hands, pull it. Do not twist when pulling. Stretch, it out into long slender sticks and lay on waxed paper on a cookie sheet or bread board . After thoroughly cool, break into pieces with a knife. Store in plastic refrigerator containers. (Ed Black, Preston, Iowa)
Many recipes for Corn Cob Jelly have been sent to the "OPEN LINE". Here is the recipe from the Oxford Junction Sacred Heart Church Recipe Book.
CORN COB JELLY
Boil 6 or 8 sweet corn cobs (after the corn is cut off the cob) for about ten minutes. Then strain the liquid, measure 3 cups liquid in same pan. Add one box of Sure Jell and bring to a rolling boil. Add four cups sugar and return to rolling boil. Skim and pour into jelly glasses and cover with paraffin. This makes a clear jelly with the taste of honey. (Cecelia Marek)
The following recipe is a favorite at the Boldt Nursing Home in Cedar Rapids. It was called in by the man responsible for such good food at Boldt's.
SOUTHERN HASH
8 raw potatoes
1 medium onion
Ring of Bologna, Pack of Wieners,
or Package of Chipped Beef
2 tablespoons salt
1 teaspoon White pepper
3 cups water
9 eggs
Grind potatoes, onions, and meat together. Add salt, pepper and water. Turn into a greased nine inch cake pan and bake at 350° for about one hour or until potatoes are done. Make an indentation in top of dish and break an egg into each indentation. Salt and pepper eggs and return to oven and bake until the eggs are done.
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Several good Christmas recipes were omitted from our December and January bulletins for one reason or another, and rather than let a whole year go by before you receive them, they are being included in this special section of this month's bulletin.
CHOCOLATE PEANUT BRITTLE
2 cups sugar
1 cup light syrup
½ cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1 6-ounce package chips or 1 cup
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1½ cups salted peanuts
semi-sweet chocolate
Combine sugar, syrup, water, and salt and boil to hard crack stage (300°) without stirring. Remove from heat & quickly stir in chocolate chips, butter, vanilla, and peanuts. Pour quickly onto buttered cookie sheet. When cool, break into pieces. (Mrs. E.W. Hovorka, Cedar Rapids)
NO BUTTER PEANUT BUTTER FUDGE
2 cups sugar
½ cup evaporated milk and
½ cup water or 1 cup milk
½ teaspoon salt
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 tablespoons white corn syrup
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup chopped nuts
¼ cup peanut butter
Combine sugar, milk, salt, chocolate, and corn syrup in saucepan. Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves. Cook gently, stirring occasionally to 238°. Remove from heat & cool to 110° without stirring. Add peanut butter and vanilla. With electric mixer, beat till candy loses gloss. Add nuts. Pour into greased 9 by 5 by 3 inch pan: Cool and cut into serving pieces. Don't scrape sides when pouring into pan to set. This will eliminate the crystallized sugar in the finished candy.
THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup tomato soup
3 hard cooked eggs, chopped fine
1/3 cup celery, chopped fine
1 green pepper, chopped fine
1 small onion
Chop celery, onion, and green peppers together in food chopper and add to other ingredients. Store in closed jar in refrigerator. (Mrs. Arthur Schmidt, Cedar Rapids)
MARSHMALLOW-CHOCOLATE CHIP FUDGE
6 cups sugar
2 sticks margarine
1 large can evaporated milk
48 regular size marshmallows
4 cups chocolate chips nuts as
desired
Cook sugar, margarine, milk and marshmallows over low heat to soft ball stage. Remove from heat and add chocolate chips. Use electric beater to blend thoroughly. Add nuts as desired and pour in buttered pan. Makes five pounds.
FRUIT CAKE SUPREME
2 pounds pitted dates
½ pound green candied cherries
½ pound red candied cherries
1 pound candied pineapple (cut
in pieces, if whole)
¾ cups white sugar
1 pound English Walnuts, shelled
1 pound pecans, shelled
1½ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
Leave nuts and fruit as whole as possible. Sift flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder over fruit and nuts. Mix well with hands. Beat eggs and vanilla and pour over this mixture. Blend well. Line two bread pans with waxed paper and butter well. Divide dough into the two pans and bake 200° for one hour and 45 minutes. Put on rack to cool. When cool wrap tight in foil or freezer paper. Note that this recipe makes two large fruit cakes. (Mrs. Eva Miller, Waterloo, Iowa)
ALL AROUND SUGARLESS DRESSING
2/3 cup water
1/3 cup mazola oil
¼ cup vinegar
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
1/3 teaspoon celery seed
dash of salt
1 tablespoon artificial sweetener
Mix well. Taste improves when allowed to stand awhile before using. Sweet Ten was recommended for the sweetener. (Mrs. 0. Longberg, Cedar Rapids)
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Oatmeal Pancakes turned up on the OPEN LINE last month and two recipes were passed on to our listeners. Here are both recipes. Try them both and add variety to your breakfast tables.
OATMEAL PANCAKES #1
1½ cups rolled oats
2 cups buttermilk
½ cup sifted flour
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon soda
2 eggs, beaten
Mix oats and buttermilk and then beat in remaining ingredients. This recipe makes a thin batter. Makes twelve four inch pancakes.
HINTS AND HELPS
To remove chocolate stain from washable clothing, wet the spot with cold water thoroughly. Pour on a bit of dishwashing detergent (such as Vel). Rub it well. Rinse with cold water. Repeat if necessary. Remember that hot water sets chocolate. Then wash as usual. This works for chocolate milk, ice cream and candy after the garment has lain for several days.
When something spills or cooks over in your oven, just sprinkle salt immediately. Smoke and odors will disappear. When the oven is cool, use your pancake turner and pick up the burned pile of "glop." Wipe clean with damp sponge.
Here's another homemade window cleaner. Use ½ cup water, ½ cup rubbing alcohol, and a few drops of bluing. This also works well on eye glasses.
If anyone gets alcohol on your asphalt tile, creating white spots, rubbing a little olive oil on the spots will remove them.
For cleaning the bottom of copper cookware try polishing and cleaning them with your tomato catsup. Some claim it really works.
Use large size paper plates for sifting dry ingredients. They are easy to handle and can be slipped into a paper bag to keep them clean for reuse.
Mice have no bills to catch in a mousetrap but perhaps you do. An ordinary mousetrap attached spring end up on the inside of a cupboard door is a handy holder for bills, letters and washing instructions tags.
OATMEAL PANCAKES #2
2 cups milk
1½ cups quick Quaker or
Mothers Oats
1 cup sifted flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/3 cup melted or liquid shortening
Pour milk over oats. Let stand five minutes. Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Add dry ingredients, eggs, and shortening to oat mixture, stirring until combined. Pour ¼ cup batter for each pancake on hot lightly greased griddle and bake to golden brown, turning only once. Makes fourteen.
Cutting marshmallows for dessert and salads can be sheer pleasure if you use shears dipped in powdered sugar to cut the sticky little candy pillows.
The envelopes of fruit drinks available in supermarkets will "stretch" the fruit juice left from breakfast to make a good punch to serve with sandwiches when the children come home for lunch. The syrup drained from fruit can also be added for extra volume, flavor, and nutrition.
Dates, raisins, or figs will come apart easily if you place them in the oven for a few minutes.
You can be a quick basting thread puller if you wrap cellophane tape around your finger, sticky side out, and use it to pick up the tiny threads, from the ripped garments.
A short handled pancake turner can be kept in your cleaning basket. It is a great help for scraping stubborn spots when you are cleaning a wooden or vinyl floor.
The next time you are waxing furniture, wax the inside of each metal ash tray. They will clean more easily.
If your dustpan doesn't seem to get up all the dirt, try this popular substitute. Wet one end of a newspaper for about 2 or 3 inches. Place it on the floor and sweep everything up on the paper. Roll the paper up and put it in the garbage can. This is a very good tip for everyone but manufacturers of dustpans.
Two round purse mirrors under your candlesticks contribute a nice note to your table setting.
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Here are a couple of batters for your French Fried Onions and a few other batterable items.
BATTER #1
½ cup yellow corn meal
1½ cup white flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1½ cup milk
Mix corn meal, white flour, baking powder, and salt in a deep bowl. Add egg and milk and beat with egg beater. Dip onion rings in batter and fry in 375° deep fat until golden, turning once. Drain on absorbent paper and salt, if desired. (Anne Jensen)
BATTER #2
Flour
2 eggs
½ cup canned milk
salt
Fine Cracker Crumbs
Place flour in one pan; eggs, milk, and salt in another; and fine cracker crumbs in another. Dip onion rings first in eggs, then flour, then back to eggs, then in cracker crumbs. Fry in deep fat fryer.
BATTER #3
Combine one egg yolk with enough flour to make a stiff batter then thin with beer. Coat onion rings with batter before frying in deep fat.
One of these recipes for Maple Syrup will save the day if you run short of syrup at home. Maybe you'll like yours better.
MAPLE SYRUP #1:
Pour 1 cup boiling water over 2 cups sugar. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add ½ teaspoon Mapelene flavoring.
MAPLE SYRUP #2:
Boil 1 cup white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, and 1 cup water to proper consistency.
MAPLE SYRUP #3:
Bring 1 cup water to a boil and add 2-1/3 cups brown sugar. Simmer 3 or 4 minutes.
MAPLE SYRUP #4:
Combine 1 cup sugar, ½ cup water, 2 tablespoons corn syrup, and ¼ teaspoon salt. Boil 5 minutes. Add 2 tablespoons butter and maple flavoring to taste.
Everybody should try this recipe. Just the smell of bread baking in your kitchen is worth it. But the ease of baking this bread & the end product double your pleasure.
CRUSTY PAN BREAD
1 ounce fresh yeast
¼ cup lukewarm water
1¾ cup lukewarm potato water
(or water)
2 tablespoons melted shortening
or salad oil
2½ tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon salt
6 cups flour
Dissolve yeast in the ¼ cup water, then add the 1¾ cup water, sugar, salt, and salad oil or shortening. Add half the flour and beat. Add remaining flour. Beat well. With fingers, moisten sides of mixing bowl used in mixing dough. Moisten fingers with water. Punch and knead. Again moisten bottom, and sides of pan and last, the top of dough. Cover and let rise until, double. When light, divide in two portions. Shape in two round loaves. Dust top with flour. Place in greased pie pans, cake pans or casseroles. Let rise until double in bulk. Bake 15 minutes at 425° and 35 minutes at 400°.
Here's a cookie recipe that you can use your blender you received for Christmas. The blender is used to chop the chocolate chips and nuts.
TWEED COOKIES
½ cup butter or margarine
¾ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
1 tablespoon white distilled vinegar
1¼ cup flour
¼ teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup chocolate chips, ground up
½ cup finely ground nuts
Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg and add vinegar and vanilla. Combine ground chips and nuts and all dry ingredients. Add gradually, just enough to blend well after each addition. Drop by teaspoons on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake 350° for 15 minutes. Makes three dozen.
SWEET-SOUR DIP:
Melt 1 cup currant jelly in double boiler and add 1/3 cup yellow prepared mustard. Heat meat in the mixture. Keep hot in chafing dish and serve with toothpicks. (Mrs.J.F.Casterline, Tipton)
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