Rolls, Biscuits, and Bread...Yum

One of my favorites sections of a cookbook is Breads. Bread was one of the first things I ever made. I was 7 years old and learning to make Potato Bread in school. I loved it. It was delicious and fun and I still have the recipe. So I was excited to get to this section of Amanda's recipe book.

I started her off with a bang on the first page. Rolls, biscuits, and yeast bread. All recipes from grandma. The biscuits were a big, feel good, happy memory for me. Every Sunday morning grandma would make biscuits and gravy, eggs, hash browns, sausage, applesauce, and fried green tomatoes if they were in season. Everyone would show up for her breakfasts. It was wonderful and I miss her.

              

As you can see they are getting quite faded.

And here it is transcribed into Amanda's cookbook. You can see to the right the sections I made using manila folders to partition off the different categories. The left you can just see the back side. I will go through everything I did once the book is finished. I am concentrating on getting the recipes in!

Do you have family favorite recipes? How do you save them?





My only intent is to show who used these recipes, not ownership.

Recipe Book - Heavenly Hash

I have been working on making a recipe book for my oldest daughter. It's simply made from a composition book that I am writing family recipes in that I know she likes or might be interested in.

When I was first got married I was desperate to learn to cook more than macaroni and cheese, so I called all my parents, grandparents, great grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbor, I did not care. I am grateful to say, they sent me a lot of recipes. It was great.

Over the probably 30 years I have lost quite a few of those recipes and thought I should share them before these get lost too. Plus I don't want to forget who gave me what recipe! So while I add recipes to my daughter's book I will share them here also.

The first recipe is Heavenly Hash. This is how it was written for me by my grandmother.

This is what I wrote is the recipe book.

I am not implying that grandma was the originator of the recipe. I wanted to indicate WHO the recipe came from, especially as it relates to my daughter. In the back of the book I will have a listing of "Contributors", who they are and how they are related to her.

I did something similar many years ago with all my kids. Once they hit about 15 I started things like the Family Recipe Book and getting things for them for when they were on their own. This one is a bit more neater and more family information.

Mom found out what I was doing (I had to consult her a few times to figure out who's handwriting was whose.) She wants one now too! I can't make one for everyone but I can document them here for everyone to have access to them though.

Recipe Journals

What got me interested in making my journals interesting and fun (which I kept putting off till the Challenge kick started me) was from when I made recipe binders for my children once they hit about 14ish. I took note of what dinners they liked and wrote down the recipe for them and family recipes/traditions and any story that went with them. I kept adding to the binder throughout the years till they moved out. But no pics whatsoever.

They loved the recipe binders that I gave them when they moved out on their own, but when I got hold of my daughters binder a couple of months ago (because she asked if I could redo it as it had been damaged in "storage" mentioned here) I realized it was BORING. I go through my cookbooks and look at the pictures for inspiration. They could not do this with what I gave them AND I would get phone calls on techniques:

"Mom what do you mean "fold"?"
"Are biscuits supposed to be so runny?"
"What is 'Cream shortening, sugar and egg?'"

So I got the idea of taking pictures of some of the meals and processes to help them.

Kind of like this:

Stamp4Joy/

I like the idea of "Digital Scrapbooking" as it isn't bulky and can put each page into a plastic sleeve and they can still add to their book as they find recipes on their own.

So I have been taking pictures as I cook (which unfortunately is NOT often - DIL is a wonderful cook!)
and finding free interesting digital pictures.

From Scrapbookscrapbook.com

They have a BUNCH more on this site!

What other kind of journal can you think of?
EW

Crockpot Glazed Cinnamon Coffee Cake

I found a recipe from Smashed Peas and Carrots that I wanted to try. It turned out fairly good :) The recipe and step by step directions are here.

This is how mine turned out. I don't expect it to last too long ;)

I couldn't wait for it to cool ;)

Candles

I have never made candles from scratch, though would very much like to learn! I DO however know how to stretch what I have to the limit! Haha :) So when I get candles, especially those jar candles my sister gets me for birthdays or Christmas there is always "leftovers". It drives me NUTS to have so much wax left over so I learned to make my own wicks (see also my "vegetable oil lamps" in my "No Electricity Adventure" here) I also have those little "tea light" and I save the little metal tubs and the metal wick holders that are left once they burn down.

So what I do is whatever leftover wax I have I save in a can, I save the little "tea light" metal bits and the wicks are made from the thread for crocheting, that small skinny thread that you think is impossible to hold on to :) I cut off a bit and soak the thread in a cup of water and a TBLSP of salt and about 2 TBLSP of Borax. I let that soak for a bit and the hang to dry. When I am ready:

I put some left over wax bits into small metal tea light can and put over another candle. I have a few metal trivets that I use. (I love this scent my sister got me!) 

 Here is the metal wick holder that is always left after burning the tea lights. I use a small crochet hook to push this thread through the hole in the center and cut off the bottom thread to leave about a centimeter. I make sure to have enough thread for the wick to have plenty for lighting/

 Using the crochet hook I push the metal wick holder that is now threaded with the wick into the hot wax and make sure the string gets wax on it also.

 Trim any excess wick and allow to dry and light it up!

See it works :)!!!!

If you need a thicker wick, do the same (soaking in the borax and salt) using all cotton material or braid/weave the all cotton crochet thread to the thickness you need. It works great!

By the way, the salt and Borax dictates the color of the flame - yellow / white. Soaking in different chemicals will change the color from white to yellow to violet to orange. Try it sometime.

Cleaning And Biscuits

Hello Blogland,

I have been incredibly busy with cleaning. I hope to have before and after pics when i am done. It has been extremely slow as I cannot get into some spots and get up again easily! I have almost finished with the kitchen's upper cabinets and will start on the lower one soon - thankfully there are not that many! Although I am dreading cleaning the oven... Oh well - a little at a time.

On to biscuits!

Because I have been working so much, I have been getting hungrier faster (gee go figure) Biscuits and gravy have always been my favorite meal - anytime. Well I think I have a new favorite, biscuits and grits :) except adding fig preserves and milk to the grits. It is delicious! Anyway, I was trying to figure out how to make some biscuits without going through too much and it being a big production when I remembered MistyMountain's Skillet biscuits. Well I had no idea what her recipe was and wasn't about to mess up my cleaning rhythm by getting on the net (all is lost then!) But I make a flat bread in the skillet all the time and know the recipe by heart, so I tweaked mine a bit to be more appropriate for biscuits and using MistyMountain's technique, I was enjoying homemade biscuits within 15 minutes, from start to finish. And SOOOO much better than any store-bought!

The following recipe I can make in 2 minutes flat, from getting the ingredients together, measured out and in the bowl, mixed and put into the pan:

Makes about 6 biscuits

Start heating cast iron skillet (or heavy) with lid on Medium heat.

1 cup flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 to 1 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
just under 1/2 cup water

Mix dry ingredients, then add wet. mix well with a spoon, just till all is combined. Drop by spoonfuls into skillet. Keep covered for about 8-10 minutes depending on the size of the biscuits. turn over and brown other side - putting the lid back on. Once browned, your done! enjoy!

Here it is in pictures:

 Mix the ingredients

Drop by spoonfuls into pan

I LOVE my pans, is you look closely there is a hook at the side to attach the pans together, so when I have to flip the biscuits, I can just flip the pans!

 I opened it up so you can see the biscuits rising

 and flipped... Do you see the red pot in the back? That is my grits cooking :)

 Done!

MMMmmm mmm GOODNESS!!!