Lyonnaise Potatoes

I picked up a 1959 edition of the Farm Journal's Country Cookbook at an estate sale a couple of weeks ago.  The book looks to be unused, except for the potato section, which includes a note that reads, "I used this book for potato soup." 

Lacking the dustcover, the front isn't particularly photogenic

I had a few extra baked potatoes leftover from meatloaf night and rather than just reheat them as baked potatoes, I decided to make Lyonnaise potatoes. Well, I was originally just going to fry them, but 'Lyonnaise' sounds so much more impressive than 'fried taters'.

It wasn't until after I started chopping that I noticed that the potatoes were supposed to be raw. Oh well, it's just a head start, right? I also didn't have pimientos, but I did have Anaheim chiles from the garden, so I used those. And instead of shortening or oil, I used bacon grease (because I am from Texas). Aside from changing three ingredients out of six total, I followed the recipe exactly! 

Mmm, onions and peppers cooking in bacon grease - a heavenly aroma!

Golden brown flecked with red and green. And leftover meatloaf pan-frying in the background.

Lyonnaise Potatoes (Printable Recipe)
from the 1959 edition of the Farm Journal's Country Cookbook

Ingredients:
1/4 cup shortening or oil (or bacon grease!)
4 cups raw potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2" cubes (or diced leftover cold potatoes)
1 small onion, chopped fine
1 teaspoon salt
4 pimientos, chopped (or fresh peppers of your choice)
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Directions:
Heat shortening in a skillet over high heat.  Add potatoes, onion and salt.  Cook until potatoes are almost tender.

Add pimiento and parsley.  Mix carefully.  Cook until potatoes are golden brown.  Serve at once.

Makes 4 servings.

Oh dear.  I had to edit this post after I published it because, much like Dan Quayle, I misspelled 'potatoes' in the title.  Oops!

Walnut Squares

I wanted to make something small  (translation: not many leftovers) for coffee at my mom's house this weekend.  After looking at what felt like every bar cookie recipe ever written, I decided on Walnut Squares, from the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book.

My copy of this book is a reproduction from the mid-1990s, but I taught myself to bake using my mom's well-loved original.

While the description in the book caught my eye, "Almost candy...so rich and nutty,"  the fact that it called for an 8x8" pan was what sold me on it.  I don't mind making and sharing a huge batch of sweets, but I hate to have the leftovers sitting around the house, taunting me.  Desserts can be so cruel.

After I started mixing everything, I realized that this recipe uses absolutely no butter.  No butter!  The horror!  I briefly considered throwing it away and making something different, but  I decided I should at least give it a chance.  I'm glad I did, because these bars were delicious!  The dough was very sticky and just barely covered the bottom of the pan, but it puffed up while baking and resulted in a dry, crispy top and bottom crust with a sticky, candy-like interior. 

Apparently I wasn't the only one who  liked them, because this was the only bar that came home with me.  Which is good, because I succumbed to the taunting only a few hours later.

Delicious, gooey, crunchy.  I wish I had extras now!

Walnut Squares (Printable Recipe)
from the 1950 edition of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book

Ingredients:

1 egg
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon soda
1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 325F.  Grease an 8" square pan (don't skimp on greasing - these bars are sticky!)

Beat the egg until foamy.  Beat in the brown sugar and vanilla.  Sift together the flour, salt and soda and stir into the egg mixture.  Mix in the walnuts.

Spread the dough in the prepared pan.  Bake until the top has a dull crust, 25 to 30 minutes.  Cut into squares while warm.  Cool, then remove from pan. 

Spinach a la Béchamel (or creamed spinach, in my language)

To prove that it's not all cookies and cakes around here, today we are serving spinach.  Spinach a la Béchamel, according to the 1951 copy of The New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book.

I became a fan of spinach when I planted my first vegetable garden at the age of twelve.  My mom bought me a few packs of seeds and I, having no idea what I was doing, planted every single seed.  The spinach was my greatest gardening success that year and we ate spinach every day for weeks. Prior to that, the only spinach I had tasted was canned and while I could choke it down, it wasn't exactly exciting.  Then I met creamed spinach.  We've been good friends ever since.

I took a few liberties with the recipe.  I minced a clove of garlic and sautéed that in the butter before adding the spinach, then I noticed that the next recipe in the book (Puree of Spinach, French Style) called for the spinach to be topped with almonds (which I forgot to sauté in butter first).  Since I was also baking something else, I put it all in a baking dish and baked it rather than cooking it on the stove for 5 minutes.

Spinach a la Béchamel (Printable Recipe)
slightly modified from The New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1951)

Ingredients
3 Tablespoons butter
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups chopped, cooked spinach
1 tablespoon flour
pinch nutmeg
1/2 cup cream
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons sliced almonds (preferably sautéed in butter first)

Directions
Melt the butter in a skillet and sauté the garlic until it is fragrant.  Add the spinach and cook for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally.  Season with nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.  Sprinkle with the flour and then stir in cream.  Pour into buttered baking dish and top with almonds.  Bake at 350F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until hot and bubbling.

Wouldn't those almonds look nice if they had been browned in butter first?

Blueberry Buckle

I bought a huge container of blueberries about a week ago in anticipation of eating them with a little cream for breakfast, only to discover that they were a little on the tart side.  Okay, a lot on the tart side.  Rather than load them up for sugar for my daily breakfasts, I decided to transform them into something for our weekly tea and crumpets session (aka, Sunday coffee at my mom's house).

I thought about making a pie, but I didn't feel like making a cuss... I mean a crust.  I ran through a few other scenarios, but finally decided on a blueberry buckle, which is really just a nice coffee cake with blueberries and a crumb topping.  I turned to my handy dandy 1953 copy of the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book which I rescued from an estate sale several years ago.  It is one of the more battered books in my collection, with its split binder and many loose pages.  To me that just means it was cherished, so I was happy to give it a new home. 

Blueberry Buckle (Printable Recipe)
from the 1953 Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book


Cake ingredients:
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 well-beaten egg
2 cups sifted flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla (not in the original recipe, but adds a nice touch)

Topping ingredients:
2 cups fresh blueberries (rinsed and dried)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup butter

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease an 11.5x7.5x1.5" baking pan.

For the cake:
Thoroughly cream the butter and sugar.  Add egg and mix well.  Stir together the flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Stir in the vanilla.  Pour the batter (it will be thick) in the greased pan and smooth. 

Sprinkle the blueberries over the batter.

For the topping:
Combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon.  Cut in the butter until crumbly.  Sprinkle over blueberries.

Bake at 350F for 45 to 50 minutes.  Cut into squares and serve warm.

Dolly's Crisp Toffee Bars

I started teaching myself to cook in junior high when I was home alone during the summers.  I began by baking cookies and baking is still what I love to do the most.  Alas, my jeans tell me that I'm only allowed to have limited quantities of these indulgences, so I usually only bake once a week.

This week I decided to try Dolly's Crisp Toffee Bars from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts (1980).  Normally I wouldn't consider a recipe from 1980 to be 'vintage', but it involves chocolate, so I'm good with it.

I was intrigued because the recipe calls for no leavening, eggs or milk, but otherwise was similar to a chocolate chip cookie recipe.

The bars were very easy to make and taste like really decadent chocolate chip cookies.  Mine are a little more 'hard' than 'crispy', but they do have a nice flavor and they seem to store well in the cookie jar.  I might even say that they taste better after aging for a couple days.  Sometimes that comes in handy.

If I make them again, I will chop the walnuts a little smaller.  I wasn't sure what medium-size meant, but I definitely over shot it (they are also a little on the sharp side - ouch!).  I would also cut the bars smaller, because they are very rich.   I think 2" long narrow strips would be about the right size.

So not in focus!

Dolly's Crisp Toffee Bars  (Printable Recipe)
from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts
Makes 32 bars


1/2 pound (2 sticks) (softened) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup light or dark brown sugar, firmly packed
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
4 ounces (generous 1 cup) walnuts, cut into medium-size pieces
6 ounces (1 cup) semisweet chocolate morsels

Adjust oven rack to the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350F.

In a large bowl, cream the butter with an electric mixer (I used a stand mixer).  Add the salt, vanilla and sugar and beat well.  On low speed, gradually add the flour, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula and beating until the mixture holds together.

Add the nuts and chocolate morsels and stir until they are evenly distributed.

The dough will be stiff.  Drop small mounds of the dough in an unbuttered 10.5x15.5x1-inch jellyroll pan.  With floured fingertips, press the dough firmly to make and even layer.

Bake for 25 minutes, reversing the pan front to back halfway through.  The bars will be golden brown.

Let the bars stand for a minute, then cut into bars with a small, sharp knife.  Let them stand in the pan until cool.

Transfer the bars to paper towels to dry the bottoms.  Store in an airtight container.

Maraschino Cherry Cake

Hmmm, over a year has gone by without a post...  But here I am trying again!  I think I can, I think I can.

I love any excuse to consume maraschino cherries, so this recipe for Maraschino Cherry Cake caught my eye in my 1952 copy of the Ohio State Grange Cook Book:

I thought it would be good with a chocolate glaze instead of the 7 minute icing recommended in the recipe. I looked through a few more cookbooks and found a promising contender, Cocoa Icing, in my battered copy of the Pine Springs Community Center Cook Book (Tyler, Texas).

I decided to give the cake recipe a good read the night before making it and I'm glad I did, since Mrs. S. E. Beers provided absolutely no instructions for how to bake the cake and my cookbook is missing a bit of the text where something sticky had been pulled off the page.  Apparently I saw "maraschino" and "cake" and that was enough for me.  A quick search (I love you, Internet!) led me to A Book of Cookrye where I found the identical recipe and much-needed instructions from a Dormeyer Mixer booklet.  (As an aside, I would love to have a vintage Dormey hand mixer.  It's called a Dormey, for cryin' out loud.  How cute is that?)

The cake is mixed up a little differently than I am used to.  All the dry ingredients are sifted together*, then the shortening (I used butter.  Butter makes everything better!), liquids and cherries are added at once, followed by adding the egg whites at the end.  It mixed up really fast and the cake turned out tender and moist, so I guess there's more than one way to assemble cake batter.

*I am generally too lazy to sift, so I just give it all a good stir with a whisk.

I got so caught up in mixing the cake that I forgot to take any pictures, but here is the batter before it went in the oven.

Speaking of the oven, have I introduced my good friend, Betty?  She is the 1950s Chambers gas range (Cooks with the Gas Turned OFF!) that Farm Boy restored for me. Best. Stove. Ever.

I managed to spill a little batter on the floor, but fortunately my assistant baker, Daisy May, was there for clean up duty.  She rated it two dewclaws up. 

Here is the finished cake.  The cocoa icing didn't go as far as I had hoped.  I wanted it to ooze down the sides a bit, but there wasn't quite enough and it was starting to set up by the time I got to the top.  It still tasted nice, though.

The inside is so pink! 

All in all, I really liked the cake.  I would make it again, but with a few changes.  I think a white icing (as suggested by the recipe author) that covers the whole cake  would make the pink interior stand out more and hide the browned edges.  Chocolate and cherries do go together very well, so I might do a thin layer of chocolate in the center. I might also use making it again as an excuse to buy some cherry extract for even more cherry (cherrier?) flavor.  It's tough work, but someone has to do these experiments!

Maraschino Cherry Cake (Printable Recipe)
from the Ohio State Grange Cook Book, 1952 with directions and corrections


Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups sifted cake flour (I used all-purpose)
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup room temperature shortening (I used butter, of course.)
1/4 cup maraschino cherry juice
16 maraschino cherries, cut into eighths (I just chopped them with scissors)
1/2 cup milk
4 large egg whites (1/2 to 2/3 cup)
1/2 cup chopped nuts (I omitted these)

Directions:
Heat oven to 350F.  Grease and flour 2 round 8" cake pans.

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a mixer bowl.  Add butter, cherry juice, milk and cherries.  Mix on low to medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl frequently.  Add egg whites and beat for 2 more minutes, scraping the bowl frequently.  Fold in nuts, if using.

Pour batter into prepared pans.  Bake 30 to 35 minutes.  When cake is cool, frost and decorate with cherries.

Cocoa Icing (Printable Recipe)

from the Pine Springs Community Center Cook Book (Tyler, Texas), 1975

Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup canned milk (I used regular milk)
1/4 cup butter or margarine
dash of salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Mix all ingredients except vanilla and bring to a boil.  Boil one minute.  Remove from heat, add vanilla and beat to a spreading consistency.  Spread between and on top of cake.

Note: I don't think it will cover and entire layer cake, but it might cover a 9x13" sheet cake.

Toffee-Nut Bars

I've had this blog registered for a while, but I keep getting bogged down with the idea that I need to have some grand introduction.  Well, since that obviously isn't happening, I think I'll just start posting!

I was looking through my 1950 Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book and noticed that I had placed a sticky note in the cookie section.  I looked to see what I had marked and found Toffee-Nut Bars.  I needed to make something to take to the weekly "tea and crumpets" get together at my mom's house, so I mixed up a batch.  It was definitely a good decision!  These bars are simple to make, but very good, with a rich, butterscotch-coconut-almond flavor.


Toffee-Nut Bars (Printable Recipe)

Bottom Layer :
1/2 cup softened butter*
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour

Mix butter and brown sugar together well, then stir in flour. Press and flatten with hand to cover the bottom of a 13x9" pan. Bake for 10 min at 350.

Topping:
2 eggs
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup moist shredded coconut
1 cup chopped almonds

Beat the eggs, then stir in brown sugar and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder and salt and stir well. Mix in coconut and almonds. Spread over bottom layer and bake for 25 min. at 350. Cool slightly.... then cut into bars.

*The original recipe called for half butter, half shortening in the crust.  I prefer to use all butter.