Lulu's Gingerbread

Gingerbread
Originally uploaded by lasassone

It's pomegranate season! A friend gave me some and so I stuck them in my pot for color! We lack any Fall color here yet on our property because even the leaves on our Chinese Pistache tree have not started to turn. But, strangely, our paperwhite narcissus are up and blooming! Go Figure!

Around the corner in front of the home of my friend and fellow crazy quilter, Sandy, are two gorgeous maple trees that have turned every color of the Fall rainbow I think. They vary from a deep dark burgundy to a bright yellow. There will still be some leaves on those 2 trees at Thanksgiving. I know because when our girls were younger and we had Turkey Day here, they would go around the corner and pick leaves from those trees to decorate our table on Thanksgiving morning.

Fall is the time of the year that I love to bake Mum's Gingerbread. For as long as I can recall, she made this recipe of gingerbread, so it must have come from somewhere back in the 1940's or very early 1950's. I think also that this might be the 2nd thing I learned to make - the first being Brownies I think.

Mum would serve this to company warmed and topped with whipped cream and it's also good with a lemon sauce over the top. I would eat it as an after school snack split horizontally and spread with butter. It's also suitable to put plain in kids lunches. It's low in sugar and all 3 of my girls loved it.

So, let's get on with the gingerbread, a perfect Fall snack or dessert!

LULU'S GINGERBREAD

2 C. Flour

1-1/2 t. Baking Soda

1 t. ground Cinnamon

1 t. ground Ginger

1/2 t. ground Cloves

1/2 t. Salt

1/2 C. granulated sugar

1/2 C. Crisco or other shortening

1 Egg

1/2 C. light or milk Molasses

1 C. very hot Water

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Prepare an 8 inch square pan by spraying it with cooking spray or greasing.
• Sift the flour, soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and salt onto wax paper.
• In a medium size bowl, cream the sugar and shortening
• Add the egg and then the molasses.
• Add in the sifted dry ingredients and beat until smooth-it will be rather thick.
• Add in the hot water and carefully blend in. The batter will be thin!
• Pour batter into your prepared pan and bake for 35 min. or less. Use toothpick inserted in center to determine doneness. Be careful about not letting the edges burn!

NOTES:

-This recipe can be doubled for a 9" x 13" pan.

-When preparing baking pan, I usually shake a bit of sugar on sides and bottom after spraying.

-Next time I make this I am thinking of adding some blueberries in before baking. If I do that and we like it, I will add a note here to let you know. I really like the flavour combo of ginger and blueberries.

Happy Halloween!

I have SUCH good memories of Halloween attached to my memories of my Mum, Lulu. I think she really liked the holiday as I recall how days before she began preparing for it. In the late 1940's what folks gave out to the trick or treaters were little packets of mostly homemade goodies.

Mum first made round cookies and decorated them with carved pumpkin faces by icing them with orange frosting and then piping on the details. Sometimes she used raisens or chocolate chips to make the faces.

Then she made fudge - the old fashioned cooked kind that was SO good. Using unfolded paper napkins she put a cookie in the center and then put a couple pieces of fudge on top the cookie. On top of that I remember some scattered candy corn and perhaps some wrapped caramels. Whatever else was in the packages I don't recall. When done she brought up the corners of the napkins and gathered up the excess and tied them with a ribbon.

Almost all the mothers did this back then. Some of the mum's used to make popcorn balls and I always looked forward to those. There were some neighborhoods in Duluth where the houses gave out full sized candy bars, but I never got to trick or treat very often in those areas....LOL!

So.....All this was because there were no packages of miniature candy bars or mini packages of small candies available in the stores. I prefer to remember those Halloweens and the happy times we had. Our costumes were simple - I was a hobo almost every year. My older brother and Dad's clothing were handy for it and I don't recall anyone having a commercially made costume. Some did have masks which were sold at the dime store. I always just had one of the little black masks that just covered your eyes.

Have a safe and happy Halloween my friends!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO LULU

Birthday Cake
Originally uploaded by lasassone

Yes, today, October 9th was Lulu's birthday. She was born in 1906 and passed her love of cake onto both my brother and me.

The above will maybe make my embroidery followers happy, but it's a pretty bad rendition of a birthday cake and I'm to blame. I found a similar image in my files and from my copy-job it is obviously I'm no artist.

This is the only cake I'll be making today because if I made a real one, I would just have to eat it all or freeze it. G doesn't care for cake (pie is HIS downfall) and when we have one in the house, I always have to put slices in little ziplocks and fill a gallon bag with them for the freezer. Yes, I HAVE been known to eat frozen cake......

Funny family story about Lulu's birthday - I forget which one, but was one we ALL remember - maybe her 63rd? Her brother, my wonderful Uncle Roy and his wife, Nellie, who would pass away a few short months later, were visiting for Mum's birthday. We lived nearby and were invited to a family dinner. I had baked her a cake and brought it with us. When Aunt Nellie saw the cake her face brightened with a funny grin and she told me to follow her after I put the cake down because she had something to show me.

She had brought a box of the joke candles that do not go out when you blow on them and gave them to me to put on the cake. Since Mum wasn't keen on calling attention to her age, I had decorated the cake but hadn't put any candles on it.

Well, when it was time for cake, Uncle Roy lit the candles and we all sang Happy Birthday to Mum. When we were done she started blowing out the candles. None of them would go out and stay out. I remember how we all laughed at her frustration and she eventually laughed along with us. Thinking back now it makes me feel sort of sad. Mum wasn't a practical joker but Aunt Nellie sure was! I'm not sure what I'd feel like if someone did that to me - and I'm WAY older than 63!

LULU'S SUMMER TUNA SALAD

This salad was a mainstay in Lulu's summer kitchen and it sure has been also in ours. Last week I made it for perhaps the last time this year. The hot weather seems to have left us and we are now experiencing very Fall-like temperatures. G never says no on a hot day in the summer when I ask if he would like Tuna Salad. It's kind of an adlib sort of salad depending upon what you have in the house besides tuna!

LULU'S SUMMER TUNA SALAD

-One 12 oz bag of mixed salad greens, chopped a bit more

or

the equivalent other salad greens (maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of a head of iceberg chopped)

-1 or 2 cans of tuna, drained & chunked up (I usually use 2 cans)

-1/2 a basket of cherry tomatoes, quartered or halved

or

1 C. seeded regular tomatoes, cut in chunks

-1/2 C. green stuffed olives, sliced (See #3 below)

-1/4 C. to 1/3 C. diced purple onion (I use the 1/4 C.)(See #4 below)

-3 or 4 hard boiled eggs, peeled & cut up. (see #5 below)

-3 or 4 shakes of McCormick's California Lemon Pepper Seasoning

-Mayonnaise

1) In a fairly large bowl, dump the lettuce in after having cut it up a bit more in smaller bite-size pieces than it comes in the package. I've also been known to use a bag of shredded lettuce, but I don't like that as much. Lulu always used a head of iceberg lettuce.

2) Add in the tomatoes

3) On a paper towel blot the olives and slice the olives in thirds. My kids used to call these the eyeballs in the salad. If you don't like green olives, I don't see any reason you couldn't substitute a little can of black olives.

4) Add in the onion. If you would prefer yellow or white onion, you can substitute it.

5) Add in the eggs. I cut up the peeled hardboiled eggs with my handy slicer by first slicing them one way and then turning them and inserting them to slice them the opposite way. Hmmm, this is hard to explain, but hope you get my drift. If you don't have an egg slicer, just cut up the eggs.

6) Now toss all the ingredients together and sprinkle on the seasoning.

7) Add mayonnaise to desired consistency. Spoonfuls should mound. G likes this salad a bit sloppier than I do.

NOTE: Amazingly good even the 2nd and 3rd day. We always "fight" over the leftovers! Living in a very hot summer area of California when I was a kid, Mum used to make this a lot. For a fancy luncheon for her friends Lulu she would serve this in or on a lettuce leaf/cup along with other things. Back then I got all the leftovers since I was the only one left at home!

Banana Milk Courtesy of one of Lulu's GRAND Girls!

Last week when our youngest daughter was visiting with her husband and 2 children, the children asked for something I had never heard of. They wanted their mum to make "Banana Milk". When they found out I didn't know what it was, they kept asking until we finally made it one evening. Since tasting this wonderful version of what turns out to be something that may have originated in Korea, I have been meaning to post it here.

This concoction would have made Lulu SO happy. She never knew what to do when bananas got too ripe. Frugal woman that she was, she would therefore be forced to make banana bread or banana cake. I tell you, I ate so much banana bread when I was a kid in sack lunches and at home, that I gag now if I smell it. In later life, she and I found a chocolate banana bread that I'll have to share that is pretty awesome.

When my 3 girls were young and I was caught with too many fast ripening bananas, I would peel them, cut them in half crosswise, stick a popsicle stick from the cut edge up about half way. Then I would coat them with melted chocolate and freeze them. Not only did this save the bananas, but it saved us money when the ice cream man came round!

But today I want to tell you to save those overripe bananas, peel them, cut them up in about 4 pieces and put them in the freezer in a ziplock baggie! If you do this everytime you have a banana slip into retirement before you eat it, you can have the makings for Banana Milk in your freezer and always be only 5 minutes from numminess!

When you are ready for a treat:
> Remove them from the freezer, open the ziplock and dump the frozen chunks into the container of a blender or smoothie maker. One medium size banana will make enough for one really big glass or 2 fair size (maybe 8 oz) ones.

> Add milk just to the top of your frozen chunks. Don't completely cover them.

> Add a dash of vanilla or cinnamon. (or...see Note #2 below)

> Put the lid on and blend till smooth.

Note: I was out of the room when my daughter made this, but she says this is all she did. She brought me a small glass of Banana Milk and ...Oh My! It tasted just like a milk shake made with ice cream. What a great use for something that often gets tossed in the garbage.

Lulu would be proud!

Note #2 - I couldn't just post this blind - so.....I just made some with a banana I froze earlier today. G says it's a winner and so I must have done it right! I used vanilla, but next time I think I'll try cinnamon.

But who says you couldn't drizzle in some chocolate syrup! Not me!

Lulu's Grands & Great Grands

Well, it's been some time since I posted here, but that doesn't mean I haven't been cooking. And I've been cooking a lot of Lulu's recipes too because I've had a parade of her grandgirls and great grandkids through here since mid-July. Yes, my 2 youngest daughters married brothers! Gramma Lulu, aka Nana to them, would have been happy as a clam with all the excitement in this house since Mid-July. It won't be over until this coming Monday when the our youngest and her family in the bottom picture above starts off towards the Grand Canyon and then home to hot, Hot, HOT Texas.

We DO have a new recipe for you and I think Lulu would approve. My youngest made these great cookies that are SO simple. So we offer them up knowing Lulu would approve!

CAKE MIX COOKIES

CAKE MIX COOKIES

1 box of any flavor cake mix

1/2 C. Oil

2 eggs

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees F

-Mix all ingredients in a bowl.

-Drop by spoonfuls on a cookie sheet that you've sprayed with Pam-like spray

-Bake for 8 minutes - no longer

-Enjoy

Notes:

*When you use chocolate cake mix, as we did, they taste like Brownies!

*You can add things like mini or regular chocolate chips, nuts or coconut!

*Can be dressed up if the tops are iced and sprinkles added.

*Best eaten in a few days, but I'm also going to try to freeze these.

*One of my daughter's friends won a prize at a holiday cookie exchange by making these and she added broken peppermint candies to the chocolate dough. Then she frosted them with white icing and sprinkled the top with green and red sprinkles.