Vintage Vegan Lunchbox: Back to School!

School starts today! The smell of pencils and protractors is in the air! Unlike most years, I did not buy new school supplies or new school clothes, unless my maternity wardrobe counts. Still, back to school is as exciting as ever. This year I have a dual role, as a student (though I'm not taking any classes, just a few very stressful days of exams and--fingers crossed--the beginning of the dissertation process) and as a teacher at a nearby university where I will be adjunct faculty.

Most days packing lunch means throwing together some fruit and granola bars, leftovers, or a peanut butter and pickle sandwich (by the way, I eat pb and pickle even when I'm not pregnant, I grew up eating it, and all you doubters should try it first...my husband was initially disgusted at the idea and not only does he eat them now, but has elevated the sandwich to a new level by grilling them). But today, a most stressful day when I should spend all my extra time studying for my exams and making final preparations for my class, I am cooking a vintage vegan lunch thanks to an inspiring contest on one of my favorite sites, Vegan Lunch Box.

For my entry, I have chosen a few recipes from different cookbooks including from my most used vintage book, my great-grandmother's Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, and from a book never seen here before, The Vegetable Protein and Vegetarian Cookbook. The Vegetable book was published the year I was born, 1974, so it doesn't really qualify as classic, does it? But still, for the sake of this post we will pretend that 1974 was a long time ago.

SANDWICH: There sandwich is cucumber and margarine on wheat bread, picked from a list of suggested fillings from the Boston cookbook. I guess sandwiches are fun treats because the sandwich chapter of the book is towards the end smack dab between the chapter on cakes and the chapter on confections. The book has neat ideas for checkerboard sandwiches using different kinds of breads, but we are boring and only have wheat, and ideas about how to shape sandwiches including an elaborately rolled "calla lily" sandwich. Alas, I jammed mine into a container.

BEANS: The beans are Mexican Red Beans from the Vegetable cookbook. They aren't fancy, and could probably be spiced up a bit. Still, they are easy and that fit the bill for today. The original recipe calls for dried red or pink beans but for some reason I didn't have any in my dried bean drawer. Of my choices--garbanzo, black, mixed, and pigeon peas--I went with the pigeon peas. They cook faster and are bland enough to take on the seasoning.

CAKE: Isn't this what lunch is really about? The dessert? Back to the Boston cookbook for this recipe. This is essentially a vegan recipe with only minor adaptations, including margarine for butter, and soymilk for buttermilk.

FRUIT: No recipe for this, this is as classic as it comes.

THE LUNCHBOX: This is a vintage brunch bag that I have used a lot, torn zipper and all. It has a sweet little matching insulated container which is great for soup, but not so much for drinks; I usually just tote along my Sigg bottle pretty much wherever I go anyway. The containers are a bit of a hodge podge.

Mexican Red Beans
Adapted from The Vegetable Protein and Vegetarian Cookbook, 1974. As mentioned above, I subbed pigeon peas for the red or pink beans with nice results. You can definitely add more seasoning, I added cumin, but do not add salt until you are finished cooking the beans or they will stay firm. Since I started these early in the morning and I had to get out the door I did not try simmering them all day, but I think that would make them nice and mushy if that's what you are looking for. One more thing, you will not see a scanned cover of this book because this is what it looks like: green. No writing. No awesome 70's drawings. Just a plain green cover.

1 pound dried red or pink beans
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
2 cups canned tomatoes
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tsp chili powder
2 tsp salt
1 Tbs imitation bacon bits

Sort, wash and bring beans to boil in just enough water to cover. When they come to a boil, drain and cover again with cold water. Bring to a boil. Add remaining ingredients, cover kettle and simmer. The beans can simmer slowly all day, if enough water is added to prevent them from getting dry.

Eggless Chocolate Cake
Adapted from the Boston Cooking-School Cookbook, 1948. Because this recipe is already eggless, the only changes I made to the original recipe was to use margarine instead of butter and soymilk instead of buttermilk. Another change I made to the recipe was to add black cocoa for part of the cocoa. I bought this awhile ago to make Fauxstess Cupcakes from Vegan with a Vengeance and it has become my secret ingredient for any chocolate cake, cookie, or brownie I make. I bought mine from King Arthur Flour. This recipe comes together pretty easily, and I especially like that the margarine (or butter) is melted because that means I don't have to remember to get it out of the fridge to soften, or cream it, or any other special steps. Just mix everything together and bake!

1 2/3 cup flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup soymilk
1/2 cup margarine, melted
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 375. Grease 9x9 pan. Sift together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Stir in soymilk, melted margarine, and vanilla. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes.

Peach Muffins: A Snapshot of Excess

"Nature's candy in my hand or can or a pie
Millions of peaches, peaches for me
Millions of peaches, peaches for free"

Peaches, by The Presidents of the United States of America

Peaches slipped from our hands into an overflowing half bushel box at The Homestead Farm and it didn't really feel like millions of peaches. The air was surprisingly humidity free, the sky was clear, as we walked through yellow and white peach orchards with a couple friends of ours talking about local food and less noble things, and eating and picking peaches. But come this morning, when faced with dozens and dozens of peaches (not to mention the many pounds of blackberries we picked, and the 8 pounds of tomatoes, 5 pounds of zucchini, 4 pounds of cucumbers, and assorted other produce from our CSA) it sure felt like millions of peaches.

I wasn't quite sure of my plan of attack, having some vague idea that peaches could be frozen and I could bake with some and we would certainly just eat some of them. There are directions for freezing peaches online and it is surprisingly easy. Still, after hours of boiling, skinning, chopping, coating in lemon juice, and mixing with syrup it didn't feel so easy. And my kitchen was covered with peach bits and skins and juice, like a peach volcano had exploded from the sink.

After getting a few pounds of tomatoes, blackberries, and half a bushel of peaches in the freezer, I still had 20 or so peaches staring at me. And while it was satisfying to see the produce in the freezer and dream of the cold winter day when we will have a taste of summer on our plates, it was impossible for me to leave the kitchen without having made something to eat. Enter super simple peach muffins from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.

Peach Muffins
These muffins are from the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, and are a variation on the basic muffin recipe. The recipe calls for pastry flour, but I substituted whole wheat pastry flour (also called graham flour) since that is what I had on hand. Instead of melted butter, I used canola oil and used soymilk instead of milk. I am the substitution queen and while that may sound like cheating since I am not following the original recipe, I believe it is in the spirit of early cooks who were more likely to use what was on hand than chasing down ingredients. The range of recommended sugar depends on what you are adding to it; I used about 1/4 cup of sugar with good results.

2 cups pastry flour
3 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbs to 1/2 cup sugar
1 cup milk
4 Tbs melted butter
1 egg
1 cup peeled and chopped peaches

Preheat oven to 400. Grease muffin tin (12 regular or 24 small). Mix and sift dry ingredients together. Beat together milk, butter, and egg. Mix wet ingredients into dry until just moist. Gently mix in peaches. Bake 15 to 20 minutes.

Everthing Old is New Again

Since moving into a small condo I have discovered the thing I miss the most about our old house: the garden. In it we had strawberries, rhubarb, horseradish, cucumbers, zucchini, many varieties of sweet and hot peppers and tomatoes, eggplant, lots of different herbs, and whatever else caught our attention at the nursery. Neighbors were encouraged to pick strawberries and vegetables from our garden when we realized we couldn't eat all that we planted. Some food was composted, but most went directly onto our plates or those of our co-workers and neighbors.

We didn't grow the variety of things we could find in the supermarket or even the variety of vegetables we get in our share at the CSA, like beets, greens, asparagus, and potatoes. We sometimes tired of the produce from our garden, the glut of zucchini, the strawberries that we sometimes let rot until only the birds would eat them. But mostly we enjoyed it, building menus around whatever was in season. I never ate raw tomatoes until my husband planted tomato plants in the backyard of the first apartment we ever rented together. That summer not only did I start eating tomatoes, we had tomato sandwiches many nights in a row for weeks on end and never got tired of them.

In this day of war and rising food (and everything else) costs, I have been reading some about victory gardens. During World War II, people were encouraged to grow their own gardens and not waste food. Today, it seems the messages we receive from society, both government and private industry, is that we need to support businesses and the economy more, not less, and the idea of victory gardening is anathema to that. And food waste is rampant in homes, colleges, and restaurants. But I don't know that the spirit of victory gardening was ever new or has ever disappeared: I see it in the "good life" of the Nearing's, and the communes of the hippies, and in the simple living movement.

Even if you can't grow vegetables because you have a shady balcony, like us, or just don't have time or energy to grow your own garden I think we can still live the spirit of the victory garden. Eat locally. Eat seasonally. Don't waste food.

There are many resources out there to get us started on all of this, and I think this video is an inspiring place to start (and it mentions victory gardens!). Also check out the 100 Mile Diet, Local Harvest, and the Wasted Food blog.

Worth the Wait: Easy Rhubarb Pie with Flaky Crust

Yes, it has been about two months since I posted anything and, wow, time flies. There are a few reasons for this but I don't know that it really matters. What is more important is that I am back to cooking, back to searching old cookbooks for recipes cooked by our grandmothers and great-grandmothers (let's face it, it probably wasn't our grandfathers doing the cooking).

We start with an ingredient that is in season right now in many parts of the country. But this rhubarb isn't just any rhubarb it is fresh from my aunt's backyard, picked while we were visiting family in Wisconsin. Yeah, folks, Wisconsin isn't just brats and cheese though we had our fill of those, too. (I digress: we attended the World's Largest Brat Fest in Madison and to my delight they had Boca Brats!). My husband spotted it from across the yard and said, over his shoulder as he started running towards it, "Is that rhubarb?" Sure enough, there was a giant ripe for the pickin' rhubarb plant in the corner of the yard. He hacked off a number of stalks, wrapped it in foil, and placed it in a cooler for the 16 hour drive back home. He planned to make his not quite famous rhubarb bread, but I got to it first.

If you aren't familiar with rhubarb, there is something you really ought to know about it: this stuff is tart. When I mention cooking rhubarb to people it is almost inevitably followed by, "Yeah, you have to mix it with strawberries and lots of sugar." It seems our ancestors weren't so quick to get rid of the tartness as most recipes I found did not mix rhubarb with any sweet fruit, though they do call for sugar. I figured, in this day of super sour candy we can surely handle a little tart fresh rhubarb, right?

This pie is actually made from two different recipes, one for the crust from the Rumford Complete Cookbook and one for the filling from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. The crust is flaky and tasty, though in my impatience I didn't roll it thin enough. The filling is tart and sturdy, with only four ingredients. This pie comes together really quickly and the results are pretty darn good. My husband thought is was good, too, but shook his head and said, "It's no Mennonite pie." He was right, of course, but I think he wasn't thinking of just the pie but of our day spent lollygagging around the Dane County Farmers Market, sitting on the grass eating bread, cheese curds, and rhubarb pie. It really doesn't get better than that.

Rhubarb Pie
The crust recipe is from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940, and the filling is from The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1948. The crust calls for "1 1/3 cups lard, or other shortening." Instead of lard, I used 1 cup of Spectrum organic trans fat free shortening and 1/3 cup butter. Also, because my husband loved the Mennonite pie with the crumbled topping so much, and because I was too lazy to roll out more dough to make a lattice pattern on top, I mixed a little bit of the pastry crust with a little bit of sugar and crumbled it over the top. The filling recipes notes "many prefer to scald rhubarb before using," so I scalded about half of it and the rest I left raw. This made the filling a little less tart, and also seemed to be a nice mix of very soft, gel-like pieces of rhubarb and firmer pieces.

Flaky Pastry
3 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/3 cups shortening, see note above
ice-cold water

Sift the flour and salt together into a bowl. Blend the shortening into the flour with a pastry cutter or two knives until well mixed (shortening will be pea size or smaller). Add water, about a tablespoon at a time, to form a dough, cutting the pastry the whole time.

Roll dough onto a floured board. Roll only lengthwise. Fold dough evenly into three layers (lengthwise, like a trifolded piece of paper). Turn it half around and repeat. Do this at least three times to make the pastry flaky. If possible, chill the pastry before baking.

Rhubarb Filling
1 1/2 cups rhubarb, chopped in 1/2 pieces before measuring
7/8 cup sugar
1 egg
2 Tbs flour

Heat oven to 375. Scald rhubarb if desired (see note above). Mix sugar, flour, and egg into rhubarb. Pile high in the middle of the prepared crust, and cover with a top layer of pastry, latticed pastry, or crumbles (see note above). Bake for about 50 minutes.

Easy Oatmeal Cookies

Alternate titles for this post:

Oatmeal Cookies Now
Just a Few Oatmeal Cookies
I Want an Easy, Small Batch of Oatmeal Cookies Now

Get it? This is a quick and easy recipe and it makes a nice small batch of cookies perfect for after dinner or when someone stops by unexpectedly. You probably have everything you need to make these and they make a good base for additions like nuts, chocolate chips, coconut, or currants.

This recipe for Oatmeal Crisps comes from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940. This cookbook belonged to my husband's grandmother and it was given to me rather unceremoniously by my mother-in-law. During our holiday visit she pointed to it on the kitchen island and said, "Do you want that? It was my mom's."

I was very lucky to have met my husband's grandmother and I loved her brutal honesty: she adored my husband but wasn't afraid to point out--over and over and over--how big his head was when he was a little boy. She was charming and sharp, and I have great memories of her on a long car trip buying surfer sunglasses at a gas station and wearing them all the way home.

This cookbook is really straightforward with standard recipes for the kinds of food that can be cooked day to day. This cookie recipe is the simplest recipe I've ever seen without fancy ingredients like fancy shmancy vanilla extract or spices or anything. It's fat and flour and oatmeal and a couple other things to hold it all together. You can fiddle with the recipe a bit depending on what you have around or what you like, but I think this is evidence that you can strip away all but the essential ingredients and turn out a fine dessert.

Oatmeal Crisps

Adapted from the Rumford Complete Cookbook, Revised, 1940. I added cinnamon and used about half whole wheat flour and half all purpose flour. The cookies I made are not crispy at all so either I didn't cook them long enough or they just soaked up the moisture from all the rain we're getting. The recipe calls for a little milk if needed and I did end up adding about a tablespoon or so to hold the dough together. I can't emphasize enough that you need to use aluminum free baking powder like this one because with the 2 tsps in this cookie it may not taste right with standard baking powder.

3/4 cup flour
1/3 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 small egg
A little milk, if needed

Heat oven to 350. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder. Stir in the butter; the batter may be a little crumbly like biscuit dough. Add the sugar and oatmeal. Mix in the egg and a little milk, if necessary to hold the dough together. Drop dough by the teaspoonful onto a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake about 12 minutes.

Recipes Listed by Cook Book

A periodically updated list of my cook books and the recipes that come from each one.










250 Ways to Serve Vegetables

Mashed Turnips











Better Homes and Gardens: Recipes from Famous Places

Pumpkin Muffins









The Bisquick Cookbook, 1964

Apple Slump













Boston Cooking School Cook Book

Book Review
Chocolate Cake
Cranberry Sauce
Curried Green Tomatoes
Eggless Chocolate Cake
Fifty Basic Recipes
Mashed Potato Baskets
Orange Frosting
Peach Muffins
Rhubarb Filling
Sauteed Mushrooms and Green Beans
Scalloped Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Snow Cake
Southern Corn Pudding










Festive Foods: Wisconsin Gas Company

Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars
Coconut Drops











Gourmet Cookery for a Low-Fat Diet, 1961

Casserole Potatoes












Just How: A Key to the Cook-Books

Tapioca Pudding












Kitchen Tested Recipes

Baking Powder Biscuits
Party Cookies
Quick Gingerbread













Purity Cookbook: The Complete Guide to Canadian Cooking

Tangy Mashed Sweet Potatoes












Putting Food By, 1974

Sun-Cooked Strawberry Jam














Rumford Complete Cookbook

Flaky Pastry
Oatmeal Crisps











Slenderella Cook Book
Book Review
Cucumber Salad
Onion Soup
Whole Wheat Bread











Three Meals a Day: Cooking, Table, Toilet, Health

Floor Wax
Frugal Graham Flour Muffins
Griddle Cakes












Weight Watchers Cook Book
Mushroom Puree









Recipe cards, new cook books and other miscellaneous recipes

Brown Sugar Cookies
Lebkuchen
Sweet Potato Pecan Burgers
Oven-Baked Brown Rice

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

It's no surprise that Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays: it's all about food. And I especially love when we host Thanksgiving, because I get to spend months thinking about the menu, and weeks planning the details, and days shopping, and scheduling, and, finally, cooking.

All this comes in the midst of my semester at school, a time when projects are being finished and papers are being written and research proposals are being submitted, making it a stressful time. But making Thanksgiving dinner gives me something to look forward to. It also gives me something to make lists for and organize and I love that. My day planner has had notes in it for months, my recipes and cookbooks are stacked in one place, and I have a fairly neatly organized plan including a shopping list and a schedule starting with things to prepare on Tuesday, and on Wednesday night, and a full list of what to do as the day progresses on Thursday. Yes, I may have an illness but don't worry, you can't catch it.

This year I will be making a mix of new and classic recipes. And I have no pictures (though I posted my shopping list in case you're nosy) because I haven't started cooking yet, but I didn't see why I would post Thanksgiving recipes after Thanksgiving so I wanted to share these now.

Breakfast:
Orange-Pecan French Toast Casserole

Appetizers:
Graham crackers with pumpkin cream cheese dip
Fresh veggies with spinach dip
A few kinds of cheese with honey and bread
Goat cheese and tomato on puff pastry
Lebkuchen

Dinner:
Scalloped sweet potatoes and apples (recipe below)
Corn pudding (recipe below)
Cranberry sauce (recipe below)
Brussels sprouts
Mushroom, fennel, and parmesan stuffing
Creamed pearl onions (my parents will bring these)
Mashed potatoes (chosen because they can be made ahead)
Rolls

Dessert:
Cranberry ginger upside down cake
Pumpkin something or other (my parents will bring this)

Scalloped Sweet Potatoes and Apples
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook Book.

2 cups boiled sweet potatoes, cut in 1/4 inch slices
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups sour apples, sliced thin
4 Tbs butter
1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350. Put half the potatoes in a buttered baking dish, cover with half the apples, sprinkle with half the sugar, dot with half the butter, sprinkle with half the salt. Repeat. Cover and bake 30 minutes in moderate oven (350). Uncover and bake until apples are soft and top is brown.

Southern Corn Pudding
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook Book. I will note here that I have no idea how long it takes because I've never made it, and I will be cooking it at 350 because that seems to be what the oven will be set at. I will give it at least 45 minutes to cook, but will adjust it as necessary.

2 cups corn
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 Tbs melted butter
2 cups scalded milk
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Combine ingredients. Bake in buttered dish in slow oven (325) until firm.

Cranberry Sauce
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook Book.

3 cups cranberries
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 cup boiling water

Pick over and wash cranberries. Cook with sugar and water 10 minutes. Watch to prevent boiling over. Skim and cool.

Make These Cupcakes

I'm not a chocolate pusher, I'm not really a chocolate lover (I mean, yeah, I eat it but I'd rather have a good lemon cake or something). But when I finished mixing all the ingredients together I knew something was different about this recipe. The batter was thick, almost like pudding.

When I scooped them into the pans they held their shape like little scoops of ice cream. This is no ordinary chocolate cake. I sometimes find chocolate cake too rich, too heavy, too fudge like. If that sounds good to you maybe this isn't your thing, but give it a try. These are more souffle like, without feeling empty and airy, more like collapsed soufflees.

They are topped with a simple chocolate frosting, but powdered sugar or anything you normally put on a chocolate cake would be just fine.

The recommended substitutions and changes included below are in the original recipe. I used dark brown sugar instead of white, and 4 squares of chocolate. Oh, and please tell me you have cake flour in the house. If you don't, run and buy some. Go on now.

Chocolate Cake (Basic Recipe)
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook-Book, 1948. The recipe calls for 3 squares chocolate, but it doesn't specify what kind. I used bittersweet but there may be enough sugar to get away with using unsweetened.

1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 cup milk
2 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
3 squares chocolate, melted, or 1/3 cup cocoa
1 tsp vanilla

If desired, increase sugar to 2 cups. Use brown sugar if preferred. Chocolate may be increased to 4 squares. Use coffee or water in place of milk.

Heat oven to 325. Beat egg whites until stiff and set aside. Cream butter, add sugar and chocolate gradually. Beat in egg yolks. Mix and sift dry ingredients together, and add alternately with liquid to butter mixture. Fold in beaten egg whites. Bake in shallow pan or two 9-inch pans about 30 minutes.

Chocolate Frosting
2 squares chocolate
1 Tbs butter
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
Confectioner's sugar

Combine chocolate, butter, and milk in top of double boiler and cook until chocolate is melted. Stir well; let stand until lukewarm. Mix in vanilla. Beat in sugar until mixture is right consistency to spread.

Surest Sign of Fall

Last fall when we got green tomatoes from our CSA I wasn't sure how to use them. So, of course, I made fried green tomatoes and they were fine, good even, but I didn't quite get the hype. This year I decided to become more adventurous and when green tomatoes were on our pick-up list yesterday afternoon I started thinking about all the compotes and salsas and preserves and other green tomato recipes I've been browsing getting ready for this day.

Is it any surprise that I turned to the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book for a recipe? I know, I know, you are wondering if I have any other cook books and I assure you I do, I just find this one has everything I need. Avocado mousse? Page 144. Honeycomb pudding? Page 553. English monkey? Page 127. And need I remind you that there is a whole chapter on Gingerbread and Doughnuts?

If you follow this little story to the end, you will get a peak at a non-classic cooking idea since the stuff you see on this site is only a small portion of my cooking. So we'll start with a classic recipe, but we'll end with one of my improvs.

Curried Green Tomatoes
Adapted from the Boston Cooking School Cook Book.

2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs minced onion
1 tsp curry powder
2 cups green tomatoes, chopped
Salt and pepper


Melt butter, add onion and cook slowly until yellow. Add curry powder and tomatoes and cook until heated thoroughly. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Now here is where the recipe ends and it would be fine served over rice or scooped up with naan. But because I had a whole tray full of peppers roasting in the oven and because I was trying to be a little creative for a contest I wanted to enter this recipe in, I decided to use the curried tomatoes as the start of a soup.

To the tomatoes I added:
5 cups or so of roasted peppers, mostly red but a couple small green, yellow and orange ones
2 cloves of roasted garlic, smashed
1 can of garbanzo beans
Cayenne pepper
Cumin
Coriander

I let this simmer a bit over medium-low heat, then added:

1 cup light coconut milk
more seasoning to taste

Using an immersion blender, I blended the soup until it was smooth but still had nice big pieces of pepper, tomatoes, and whole beans. And I got this...

Boo!

Consider this your early Halloween present. These cupcakes are a white cake called Snow Cake and they are topped with orange icing (orange flavor, not just color). The Snow Cake recipe is very light and airy thanks to whipped egg whites, and would do really well layered with raspberry preserves and fluffy white icing, or maybe a milk chocolate frosting.

The icing is very simple and has a more subtle orange flavor than I wanted, but is still very good. Now look away Mom, because I am going to let you in on a little secret about this icing...it has egg white in it. Ack! If you are willing to risk salmonella you will find it sets up quite nicely.

I had big plans for this little cupcake. It was supposed to be topped with candied orange dipped in chocolate for a grown up Halloween look. We have dozens of mandarin oranges on our counter but there they will sit as school work interfered with my plans. Priorities, people. So these cupcakes just got a little sprinkle of black sugar and I called it a day.

Snow Cake
Adapted from the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1948.

3 egg whites
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat oven to 350. Beat egg whites until stiff. Add 1/2 the sugar and set aside. Cream butter and add remaining sugar gradually, beating constantly. Mix and sift dry ingredients and add alternately with milk. Add vanilla. Fold in egg whites. For cupcakes, bake about 30 minutes.

Orange Frosting
Grated rind 1 orange
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs orange juice
1 egg white
confectioner's sugar

Add rind to fruit juice and let stand 15 minutes. Strain. Add gradually to egg yolk while beating it. Stir in sugar until right consistency to spread. Beat until very smooth.

What You Should Know!

You really need to get yourself a copy of the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. I mean really. It's not just that it has a lot of recipes, it has a whole lot of practical advice about stocking your kitchen, basic cooking techniques, and approaching menu planning. Sure, things have changed since the 40's but I think the opening sentence that suggests you "buy high-grade pieces because they will decidedly outwear inferior articles" is still good advice. And wouldn't we all (especially GK) like menu making to "put gaiety into housekeeping?" Ok, I smirk a little as I say that last part. But it goes on to say "cooking may be as much a means of self-expression as any of the arts" and I like that very much, especially since I have the perspective that women should be valued more for fulfilling some of their traditional roles even though they shouldn't be limited to them but that's a whole different topic and probably a different blog altogether.

What does Fannie Farmer have to say about the basics of cooking? Well, let's start with the "Fifty Basic Recipes (FOR STUDENTS AND BEGINNERS)" that I mentioned briefly here. Have you mastered all of these? I sure haven't, even disregarding the ones that aren't vegetarian.

1. White Bread
2. Standard Rolls
3. Baking Powder Biscuits
4. Muffins
5. Griddlecakes
6. Waffles
7. Doughnuts
8. Canapes
9. Brown Stock
10. Plain Stuffing
11. White Sauce
12. Hollandaise
13. Broiled Steak
14. Roast Beef
15. Broiled Chicken
16. Fried Chicken
17. Roast Chicken
18. Chicken Stew
19. Chicken Timbales
20. Potato Croquettes
21. French Dressing
    
22. Mayonnaise
23. Green Salad
24. Molded Salads
25. Soft Custard
26. Steamed Puddings
27. French Souffle
28. Cottage Pudding
29. Shortcake
30. Fruit Fritters
31. Cream Puffs
32. Vanilla Ice Cream
33. Hard Sauce
34. Plain Pastry
35. Puff Paste
36. Chiffon Pie
37. True Sponge Cake
38. Butter Cake
39. Chocolate Cake
40. Dark Fruit Cake
41. Boiled Frosting
42. Butter Frosting
43. Cream Filling
44. Sugar Cookies
45. Meringues
46. Chocolate Fudge
47. Fruit Jelly
48. Fruit Jam
49. Canning Fruits and Vegetables
50. Freezing

The list seems quite heavy on desserts, but I ain't complaining. Number 49 is interesting, like, oh yeah, of course you should be able to can fruits and vegetables. I am even more afraid of canning than of the raw eggs in number 22 because I just know if I canned something everyone would get botulism. But I think canning gets at really important elements of food choices since a focus on locally produced foods would inevitably lead to some kind of preservation if we want to have access to out of season foods. For now, I'll stick to oven roasting tomatoes or making batches of sauce to freeze. Yes, I'm much more comfortable with number 50. How 'bout you?

Mayonnaise, Part Two

Just one more thing about the Boston Cooking-School Cook Book and I promise to find something new to talk about. I feel compelled to mention, after my failure with mayonnaise making, that in the preface to this book there is a list of fifty basic recipes intended "FOR STUDENTS AND BEGINNERS" (uppercase original). Three guesses what the number 22 recipe is. What? What's that? Hard boiled eggs? Biscuits? Chocolate chip cookies? No, no, and no.

Mayonnaise.

Right before number 23, green salad. One apparently must learn how to drizzle oil precisely into eggs before learning how to you know, chop lettuce and add cucumbers and tomatoes to it.

2 for 1

Is it any surprise? It shouldn't be. Clearly smitten with my great grandmother's cookbook I couldn't help but make not one but two recipes from it. Neither is particularly difficult or unusual. These are the kind of recipes that you make once and then you its yours. Some busy night you are standing, hands on hips, still in work clothes, looking around the pantry and contemplating ordering Thai again, when, aha! Potatoes! Mushrooms! Green beans! And of course, you always have a bottle of wine open or one just begging to be opened (right? tell me I'm right).

The potatoes would probably look nicer under finely chopped vegetables, but the flavor is a nice basic background for just about anything you can think of. If you feel the need to have a significant source of protein with every meal, some variety of white bean would be nice, maybe just added to the beans and mushrooms at the last minute and warmed. Finally, the adapted recipe below reduces the amount of butter and adds olive oil and significantly reduces the amount of liquid called for in the original recipe which was 2/3 cup (water, stock, or wine). I was afraid it would make the mushrooms too mushy but if you plan to use them as a spread on toast or with pasta it might be just fine.

Mashed-Potato Baskets
Adapted from "The Boston Cooking School Cook Book," 1948.

3 cups hot mashed potatoes
3 Tbs butter
1 tsp salt
1 egg
1 egg, divided
milk to moisten

Add butter, salt, whole egg and one egg yolk to potatoes. Mash well and mix in enough milk to moisten. Shape into small baskets with pastry bag and tube. Brush with egg white and cook for about 20 minutes in a 350. Broil until brown on top. Fill with vegetable or any creamed dish.

Sauteed Mushrooms and Green Beans
Adapted from "The Boston Cooking School Cook Book," 1948.

1 pound mushrooms
2 Tbs butter
2 Tbs olive oil
Flour for dredging
2 cups green beans
1/2 tsp salt
paprika (something like this, not just something red and flavorless)
1/4 cup dry red wine, water, broth, or cream

Clean and slice mushrooms. Melt butter in heavy pan, add olive oil followed by mushrooms, salt, and a sprinkling of paprika. Dredge with flour. Add green beans and cook for about 7 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add wine or other liquid and cook for a couple minutes more. Serve alone, over potatoes or rice.

Legacy

Sliced muenster cheese (which I thought was called monster cheese) and tomato aspic are the foods I associate with eating at my great grandmother's house. These foods reflect a child's memory of food and not what I imagine her approach to cooking would have been, given her incredible creativity and ability outside of the kitchen to use scraps of this and that to make something usable or decorative. Whether she was braiding discarded pantyhose, er, nylons, into welcome mats or making belt buckles and egg cartons into Christmas decorations, she always seemed to be making something out of nothing. To this day, if I see something particularly creative--not a necklace made from a craft kit available at a store--I think, "Hmmm, Grandma Reardon would have made that. Better."

When my parents handed me a heavy, rectangular, wrapped item for my birthday I could have guessed (or hoped!) that it was a vintage cookbook. But I did not expect this, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 1948, by Fannie Merritt Farmer, which belonged to my great grandmother. It has a couple bookmarks, really scraps of paper torn from magazines, and little scribbled notes from her. It's hard to believe this was hers and now it's mine.

In some ways, this book has demystified her approach to things which always seemed so her. Intellectually, I know that a lot of people who were born around the time she was used things to their fullest. Wrapping a sandwich in the waxed bag from a box of cereal, or saving scraps of paper for some potential future use is not as unique to my great grandmother as I'd like to think. This cookbook is evidence of an approach to cooking that seems more flexible than a lot of books being written now.

For example, in the chapter on Gingerbread and Doughnuts (yes! a chapter on gingerbread and doughnuts!), the introduction suggests that if the recipe uses 1 1/2 cups of flour the pan should be "about 7x7" and a range of cooking times are given for a "moderately slow oven." Many chapters start with a basic recipe, and underneath list a number of variations or suggestions. It seems more likely that a person cooking from this book, rather than a more prescriptive one, would read through the variations and say, "Hmm, I don't have X but I can try Y." That's not to say people aren't creative now, it just seems that Fannie Farmer set an expectation of creativity for cooks using this book.

Browsing through the 38 chapters, including "griddlecakes and waffles," "soup garnishes," and "jams, marmalades, and conserves," I am overwhelmed by the number of new recipes I have to try. Yes, as a vegetarian, there is an entire middle section of the book I can ignore--from plucking chickens to boiling terrapins--but if I only cooked from this book I would still have enough to fill this blog, and our plates, for years. This isn't the last you've heard about this book, and I hope I can capture some of the creativity infused in the book and in my memories of my great grandmother.