Recipe Archeology: June 2014

Recipe Box Adventure!

I have always been fascinated by old recipes. I collect antiques and am always scouring the shops looking for old recipe books. I always hunt for a recipe box which actually contains the recipes from the home cook. In all my travels, and all of the recipe boxes that I have looked at, I have never found one that had the recipes contained within. On a recent trip to Texas, I found such a box! It was made in Japan (has the sticker on it) but was sold to its owner in Bruners San Antonio Corpus for $1.00. There was a label in the box written by the shop keeper which said “Purchased in 1950”. It is jam packed with recipes and I decided that it would be fun to include you, my readers, as we explore this recipe box together.

I am also a home cook who has a passion for cooking, food and all things yummy. So, I thought, why not combine my love of cooking, old recipes and exploration in this blog that I could share with my friends?

I’m not sure how many recipes are actually contained in the box, but it could be a couple of hundred which will keep us entertained for many days to come.

Together we will pull one recipe at a time and I will attempt to cook it. I have to admit, I’m not much of a baker but will give it my very best effort. I hope that in exploring these recipes we can keep history alive and cookin’!

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Hello Recipe Boxers!
Hope you all are having a great week!
I just wanted to share some neat photo's with you!

Can you guess what these are?

Spring is here...better late than never!

I live in the sunflower state!! They are gorgeous!

Brown tomatoes, sunflowers- my aloe plant got in the picture too. That is a view from my kitchen window.

I had never heard of brown tomatoes but they are very tasty!!

A little more about me...
I have lived in many different area's of our country. East Coast, West Coast, a stint in Michigan for 4 years BUT, by far, I love living in the Kansas City area the best! Is it the folks, the food, the weather (4 seasons which I love!)? It's all of it!
When my husband took a job here in Kansas I started to cry! I never liked the movie "The Wizard of OZ" and only thought of Kansas as being very flat. Little did I know that Eastern Kansas was so beautiful! And...it wasn't flat! But, even since then, I have visited western Kansas and appreciate the beautiful flat lands and Flint Hills! I love all things Kansas!!
I'm excited to be here and experience all of the wonder of the true Midwest along with the wonder of an old recipe box!

See you next recipe!!

Saturday, June 7, 2014

Recipe Box- Recipe #16

Hint hint...something with apples

Apple Pudding:

Into a buttered dish, slice about 6 or 8 tart apples (or canned apples). Cover with 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 tsp cinnamon.

Topping:

Mix 1/2 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour with 3 Tbsp butter. (Mix well as for pie dough). Pack on apples and bake until golden brown 315 degrees for about 1/2 hour. Serve plain or with whipped cream.

Hello to my recipe boxers! Next recipe is called apple pudding. When I read the instructions, it doesn't strike me as a pudding. Puddings, in my mind, usually entail cream and eggs. This reminds me more of a "crisp". But, we shall see!

Easy ingredient list

I decided not to use the canned apples and used Granny Smith tart apples instead. I just peeled and sliced them.

Peeling and slicing apples makes me day dream!

This recipe was very easy to put together. My concern is the oven temperature at 315 degrees with raw apples, I'm just not sure that the temperature is hot enough to cook the apples. I'm following the instructions to the "T" as usual, though.

Yum cinnamon!

I'll let you know at the 30 minute mark where we are at.

Ready to put in the oven

Oooh...I forgot to tell you that I bought some whipped cream to have with it!

This stuff was really good- tasted like home made!

Kind of cheating to buy the ready-made stuff but the recipe didn't say it had to be home made! Also, this one says "tastes just like homemade". Easy peasy.

When I googled Apple Pudding recipe I didn't see anything like what I am making today. But, I found lots of recipes for Apple cakes. I love, love, love apple cakes. Do you? I have been trying to find the best vintage/old fashioned Apple cake recipe EVER! Maybe there is one in this recipe box?! We will see...

After 30 minutes this thing was no where near done. I made an executive decision and upped the temperature to 350 and I'll let you know how long it takes to get golden brown.

I let it bake for another 45 minutes to get brown and bubbly. Tasting time!!

The apple "pudding" was really good. It was sweet, creamy and the whipped cream really added an extra layer of flavorful yummyness. Hubbie loved it too and pretty much devoured most of it! I guess it is called a pudding because the apples do get very soft and pudding-like. Okay, so lets call it a "Apple Pudding-Like" recipe! You could probably cut down on some of the sugar and it would be just as good.
Have a great day and we'll see each other again next recipe!