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.

Lulu's Gingerbread

Lulu's Gingerbread
Originally uploaded by lasassone

Well, it's been way too long,hasn't it? Sorry about my disappearance there for awhile, but sometimes life just plain gets in the way of what I want to be doing.

So, you see Lulu's Gingerbread is so good that one piece is all that's left! I baked this for my local weekly stitching group meeting this past Tuesday and it was SO well received that they all asked for the recipe! So, I figure it's only fair that I put it up on this blog as well!

Mum used to make this quite often when I was a kid. In my recipe file the card says it's from "Gramma Lulu". I looked in her recipe book she never wrote where she got the recipe from; she just wrote "very good"! I'll vouch for that as I've been eating it for well over 60 years now.

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 shortening (I use 1/2 C. Crisco Oil instead)
• 1 Egg
• 1/2 C. Mild Molasses
• 1 C. very hot or boiling Water

1) Sift flour, soda, spices & salt onto wax paper and set aside.

2) In a bowl cream the sugar and oil (or shortening). Add egg and molasses & beat well.

3) Add the dry ingredients to bowl along with the water.

Pour into a prepared 8" square baking pan. I use the pan spray with flour in it. Bake at 350 degrees for 35 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Notes:

*This is very moist so if you remove it from the oven before the center is done, the center will fall. It won't be so pretty, but it still will taste AWESOME!

*I find the oil instead of the solid shortening seems to make it even more moist.

* Serve with whipped cream as shown or plain. Should serve 9 but how you cut it is up to YOU!

Blueberry Muffins - THE BEST!

This recipe came from an issue of Yankee Magazine back in 1990 that I got while traveling with a friend in Vermont. The recipe was a reader's contribution and I do not recall or have the magazine that said who sent it in. Mum (aka Lulu) had helped me financially to travel to the Boston area in order to attend the Towne Family Association's annual meeting in Salem, Massachusetts. That year's meeting was the Tri-Centennial of the Salem Witch Trials which involved some of our ancestors. It was a very interesting trip, to say the least, and a tremendous meeting which involved a lot of sight seeing and education about my maternal family's past. Upon leaving Salem, my friend and I traveled to Vermont to search for some ancestor's graves and visit the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vermont. The Yankee magazine was given to me at a B & B that we stayed at in Vermont.

Again today I have been asked to share this recipe. I served these muffins this morning at a meeting at our home and they were a big hit as usual.

BEST BLUEBERRY MUFFINS

- 2 C. Bisquick baking mix
- 1/4 C. Granulated sugar
- 1/2 t. Ground cinnamon
- 1 C. sour cream (zero-fat is okay)
- 1 egg
- 1 to 2 C. frozen blueberries, rinsed
- 2 T. additional sugar

> Prepare a muffin pan by spraying with a pan spray.
> Blend Bisquick, sugar and cinnamon in medium sized bowl. Make hole in center.
> Into hole put the sour cream and break in the egg.
> Blend together with a fork.
> Fold in the blueberries.
> Sprinkle a little of the extra sugar in the bottom of each "cup" of the muffin pan.
> Carefully spoon about 1/4 C. of the batter into each "cup".
> Sprinkle rest of the sugar over the tops of each muffin "cup".
> Bake for 15 to 20 min. at 425 degrees or until tops become a bit golden.

NOTES:
1. You can use paper or foil muffin liners, but I do not. If you use the foil, watch your baking time carefully.
2. Remove from pan quickly so as to prevent over baking.
3. Serve hot or cooled. My guests didn't mind them cooled. I offered to split and warm them and provide butter, but after their first bite, they said it wasn't necessary and they raved about how moist and wonderful they were.

Enjoy!

COMING SOON!

This is just a note to let regular readers know that I will be away from my computer until the end of the month. Easter is in April this year so when I get back, I'll be searching Mum's handwritten cookbook for some Easter specialties for you all.

You all keep on cookin' while I'm away!

Best Oatmeal Cookies

Best Oatmeal Cookies
Originally uploaded by lasassone

Are you expecting a grandchildren invasion or having a party soon? If you are expecting any kind of crowd this is a great recipe for cookies. It makes a really large batch. Last night I made 3/4's of the recipe (only because I didn't have the full amount of required oatmeal) and it filled our cookie jar and a gallon ziplock bag AND a sandwich sized ziplock. And plus....I must confess that I think I ate at least a half dozen myself as I was baking them.

This isn't one of Lulu's recipes, but she would REALLY like them for a couple reasons: One because it makes a lot of cookies at one time-enough to put a bag in the freezer so you don't have to bake as often! AND....two because it's a recipe with OPTIONS!

So, let's get on with it.....AFTER I tell you that the plate I put these on is one of Lulu's old dishes from the 1930's depression that she got on "dish night" at the local theaters. It was cheap to go to the movies and Dish Night evidently was very popular. So we call this the "theater china". Suffice it to say these dishes are not anything you would want to put in the dishwasher, so it do not get used much.

Best Oatmeal Cookies (with Options!)

4 C. Flour
2 t. Salt
2 t. Baking soda
1 t. (or more) Ground cinnamon
2 C. White Sugar
2 C. Brown Sugar
1 C. (2 sticks) Butter-softened
1 C. Crisco (I used butter flavored)
4 Eggs
1 t. Vanilla
4 C. Quick Oats
2 C. Chopped Nuts (optional-none in mine)
2 C. Chocolate Chips OR Raisens (I used 1 C. of mini-chips)

>Preheat your oven to 375 F
>Sift flour, salt, soda & cinnamon and set aside.
>In a large bowl, cream the sugars, butter and Crisco.
>Add in eggs one at a time, beating after each.
>Add in vanilla
>Carefull stir in the drys you sifted and set aside. Combine well.
>Fold in the oats, nuts & chips or raisens.
>Drop by large teaspoonsful onto spray (or not) cookie sheets.
>Bake for 9 or 10 minutes. Let stand on baking sheet for a minute and then remove to cooling rack.

I dropped the dough from spoons, but if you want to get your hands involved, you can make balls and the cookies will probably be prettier.

However, they will taste the same - Scrumptious!

Lulu's Gingersnaps

I am so sorry, that due to my absence from the blog world over the holidays, I was unable to share some of Lulu's Christmas specialties with you. However, that gives you something to look forward to later this year, right?


I'm fairly certain that this recipe for gingersnaps came from the back of a Brer Rabbit Molasses bottle back in the 1940's or 1950's. The cookies are very good and have been one of my favorite cookies since I was a little girl.


Lately G and I have been craving ginger and the store bought or boxes of gingersnaps just don't make the grade. All the brands we tried are hard and only good for dunking in milk. These cookies are chewy when still warm and can remain chewy depending upon how you store them.


LULU'S GINGERSNAPS

3/4 C. Crisco Shortening

1 C. Granulated Sugar

1/4 C. molasses

1 Egg

2 C. Flour

2 t. Baking Soda

1/2 t. Ground Cloves

1/2 t. Ground Ginger

1 t. Ground Cinnamon

1/2 t. Salt

optional: small amount of sugar in a ziplock bag

Candied Ginger

1) Melt the Crisco shortening in the microwave and set aside to cool.

2) Sift flour, soda and spices onto piece of wax paper and set aside

3) In bowl, beat egg and then add sugar, molasses and cooled Crisco.

4) Blend above well and add the dry ingredients.

5) Turn out onto large piece of wax paper or plastic wrap, form a large ball, wrap and chill dough in fridge for at least 1 hour.

6) When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 350 degrees and spray baking sheet with pan spray.

NOTES:

#1 - Lulu made these cookies by rolling the dough into little balls and rolling them in granulated sugar in a little bowl or shaking them in a ziplock bag. Most of the time I no longer roll or shake them in sugar as they taste fine without the added calories. However, at Christmas I do coat them with red or green decorative sugar.

#2 - When making the little balls I cut small pieces of candied ginger from the health food store and include 1 or 2 in the center of each ball. You could also add them to the dough and then make the balls.

7) Place the rolled cookie balls on the cookie sheet at least 2 or 3 inches apart. I bake only 12 at a time on my cookie sheets because the cookie balls melt and flatten as they bake. You don't want them to run together. If you keep the dough chilled, roll the cookie balls nicely and place them far enough apart, the cookies will be perfectly round.

***Friends used to tell Mum that these cookies looked too perfect to be homemade!***

8) Bake cookies 8 min. Remove pan from oven and let sit 5 min. Remove to cooling rack.

Enjoy!