My Mum's Old Cookbook, Farmhouse Fare, 1963 Edition.

Hi Dear Folk,

Another wet and windy day, although yesterday was sunny but chilly.  Mr. B. did get out to do some more painting.  It was in the fifties and you can still outdoor paint at that temperature, so we're pushing on.  It seems we're going to have a hard job matching the colour.  As I bought the paint a year ago from Sears when they were closing up their hardware store, and although it's a good outdoor paint the color is much more of a yellow cream than I wanted, but I'm not going to waste it.  I honestly think it has yellowed over time, the colour of my shed which I painted last year with this paint looks just the right colour cream.  Of course he may not have mixed the second two cans the same as the first, as he did have to play around with them a bit.  I just think all the upper floor will be a slightly different colour, but you know I'm not going to worry.  

I wanted to share with you my mum's old Farmhouse Fare Cookbook.  You can still buy an updated version of this on Ebay or other platforms.  Of course it has a different cover.  My mum basically had two go to cookbooks.  One was a cookbook that I think came with an old gas stove and this one from 1963.  My sister BB gave it to me when I was there two years ago.  So I got this book and BB kept the other one.

This book was first published before Christmas in 1935, they are a collection of recipes collected by the Farmer's Weekly and these must have been gathered all throughout the Commonwealth.  It was very popular and grew in size as later editions were published.

I've been looking through at her marked recipes and thought I'd share her tried and true recipes with you.  Starting at her first ticked recipe.
 

 Which is:-

Onion Quiche

Line a sandwich tin with short-crust pastry.  Make a filling as follows:-

Make 3/4 pint thick white sauce, add a cupful of chopped boiled onions, 2 tablespoons of grated cheese, 1 tablespoon of chopped parsley.  Season well.

Garnish with slices of tomato and a little grated cheese.

Bake 1/2 hour in a moderate oven.  It can be made beforehand and warmed up when required.

From Mrs. Willis, Salop

I make a quiche with milk and eggs, so it's interesting that the base of this is a white sauce.

Old recipes assume that you have a certain amount of cooking knowledge, such as how to make a white sauce.  I just was reading a blogger from France who is American and he said French recipes are not set out like American recipes, many can be just one long continuous paragraph.  As many of these are.

I love it that it tells you the name of the person who contributed and where they lived.  I didn't recognize Salop but it seems that Salop is an old name for Shropshire.

Salop is an old name for Shropshire, historically used as an abbreviated form for post or telegrams, it is thought to derive from the Anglo-French "Salopesberia". It is normally replaced by the more contemporary "Shrops" although Shropshire residents are still referred to as "Salopians".

I think I'll have fun in visiting all the recipes mum made and many of which I remember eating.  I'll have to have a go at some of them and try some new ones in the book.

I hope you enjoy them too, and travel on this little journey with me.  A journey though Mum's Cookbook.  We can't do much else travel wise.

Keep safe,

Christine

Bread and Butter Pickles Refrigerator No Canning

Hi Dear Folk,

Here is the recipe I referred to on my Instagram.

Refrigerator Bread and Butter Pickles

Ingredients:

• 5½ cups (about 1½ pounds) thinly sliced (about ¼-inch) pickling cucumbers
• 1½ tablespoons kosher salt
• 1 cup thinly sliced sweet onion
• 1 cup (198 grams) granulated sugar
• 1 cup (240 ml) white vinegar or red wine vinegar (use what you have)
• ½ cup (120 ml) apple cider vinegar can add a little balsamic if like
• ¼ cup (50 grams) light brown sugar
• 1½ teaspoons mustard seeds
• ½ teaspoon celery seeds or coriander seeds or pickling spices (use what you have)
• 1/8 teaspoon ground turmeric or cumin or tandoori spice or any combination (use what you have)

Method:

• Combine cucumbers and salt in large shallow dish, cover and chill 1 1/2 hours.  Rinse under cold water in a colander.  Drain well and return to dish, toss with onions.
• Combine all the other ingredients in a saucepan, bring to simmering heat until sugar is dissolved.
• Pour the mixture over the cucumbers and let stand at room temperature for 1 hour.  Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours.  Store in airtight container up to one month in the refrigerator.

Hope you like these, I love them.  Don't be afraid to experiment with the spices.  A nice easy recipe to use up a few left over cucumbers.

Christine

Iron Skillet Apple Bake

Hi Dear Folk,

Today is raining and windy, quite cold too, as I took the trash out.  Being lazy last night I just put the bags outside the back door and an animal had got into one of them, so needed to pick all that up.  We use plastic grocery bags that we get at the store and I have an IKEA bin in the kitchen, that they fit in well, saves buying bags and then it goes out to the big trash cans given out by the borough.

Of course you could not do this in the UK as you never get given any bags at all when you shop, you have to take your own or buy them.  I do understand that with the huge global plastic problem.  In fact I took a little nylon fold up bag with me and used it so much while I was in England.  I was glad I had remembered.

It was the type of day today to bake.  I had found two of our old cast iron skillets while routing around in the basement.  I think one was from Bob's dad, not sure where the other came from, but I do like iron skillets, something very pioneer and out on the range about them.  I cleaned them both up one needs some more cleaning, but the other Mr. B. oiled, added salt and cured in the oven.  It seals the cast iron and makes it very smooth for use.  Of course they should not have been put down in the basement because of the dampness, but it's hard when your kitchen is small.  Still resurrected now.

I decided on an apple bake all cooked in the skillet.  You can see my photos here on lilbitbrit007 Instagram, as I have maxed out my storage space on this computer and need to do some photo file storing.  So at this point I only have half my vacation photos on this computer, the rest are still on my camera card, plus anything I have taken photos of since then, including our anniversary trip to Longwood Gardens.

While looking for a skillet apple bake recipe, I somehow locked myself out of my iPad, which will now need serious attention as it's asking for passwords, which I have not had to use for years.  Please at this point just put a chip in my arm to scan and forget all these darn passwords.

I wanted to listen to Tea and Tattle podcast, but got shut out in the middle.

I did come across a recipe which I adapted and would make some more changes on, but this is it.

Iron Skillet Apple Bake
1 3/4 sticks of butter (I would cut this down to one stick of butter)
3/4 cup suger
4 to 5 whole Granny Smith Apples, peeled and cut into 1/8 pieces (I used five apples that I had)
For The Cake 
1 stick of butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tea sps vanilla
2 whole large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tea sps baking powder
1 tea sp salt
1/2 tea sp cinnamon
1/2 tea sp allspice (I added this as I like allspice, cloves might be a nice substitute too)
1 whole granny smith peeled diced in very small pieces
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375f

• In a nine to ten inch cast iron skillet melt the 1 3/4 sticks of butter over a low heat.  Add 3/4 cup of sugar to the pan and stir.  Place apple slices curved side down in the pan.  Do not pack them tightly, but do not leave too large a gap.  Cook over low/medium heat on top of stove about 15 mins, while making the batter.
• In a bowl beat together one stick of butter and 2/3 cup sugar, until creamed, mix in vanilla, eggs and sour cream
• Add sifted flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and allspice, mix.  Fold in diced apple.
• Remove skillet from heat, spoon batter over top in dollops and spread evenly as possible.  
• Bake in the oven for 20 to 25 minutes

(Recipe called for cooling and then turning out on a serving plate, but I had too many diced apples and added these to the apples at the bottom of the pan and knew there was no way we were going to turn this out, so spooned out and served warm with vanilla ice-cream)
Delicious

When I make this again I will increase the batter by half as much as I have a ten inch skillet and I think it would take that.  Would decrease the melted butter in the skillet to one stick.

Christine

Italian Cold Cuts and Vegetable Pie

Hi Dear Folk,

I had posted this on my Instagram lilbitbrit007 and said that I would blog the recipe for my Italian Cold Cuts and Vegetable Pie.  This is a recipe given to my by an Italian friend Fran who was such a fun person to know and died a while ago so I treasure this recipe.  Everybody who eats it loves it and I had a special request from my son, "Mum make this more often."

Every layer in itself looks lovely.  Rob said the only thing he didn't like was the celery, I think I should have cut that up much smaller and maybe put the ham in a layer lower down.

Italian Cold Cuts and Vegetable Pie

Lettuce Romaine (I used a butter lettuce and that worked well)
Provolone cheese
Cooked salami (I used pepperoni)
Genoa or hard salami
Onions
Green peppers (I used a yellow one)
Celery
Cucumber
Sweet pickles (gherkins in a jar, sliced thinly lengthwise)
Capocollo or pepperoni (I used ham)
Tomatoes (I used cherry as that is what I had but a nice large summer tomatoes would be good)
Olives green or black (I used black from a tin)
Shake on oregano, garlic powder and Crazy Jane Salt (seasoned salt)
I did not have oregano so topped with fresh basil

About a quarter of a pound of each
Layer in order listed above (can be changed around)
Large round serving plate
Cut and serve in wedges, just like you serve a pizza

I think you will like this.
Christine

Cooking and Cleaning

Hi Dear Folk,

I am wondering how I ever worked in a secular sense, because it has been all go.  Mr. B. and I got together to clean these kitchen windows, the whole works. screens, jams, stained glass, deep sill, etc. I can't believe it took us a couple of hours, unless we're just getting slow, which could be the case, but they did look nice when done.

I did a little rearranging of things up there, took my soup crocks off and added some pottery.  The jug and dishes I bought in Quendon, Essex.  They remind me of pottery I saw at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and that was all made within a fifty mile radius of where I live now.  Love the English oak leaves on the jug.  The jug on the far right was made on Cape Cod, MA, and of course the pottery to the far left is from Poland, I love the lady cheese dish.  It's hard to find a lovely great wedge of cheese to fill the old fashioned cheese dishes.

In the center my Made in England set of scales, I need a few more weights.  Will have to go on a little search for brass weights.  My mind still thinks in pounds and ounces as we do over here in the States, but I know Europe has moved onto grams.

Mr. B. came home with beets and all the leaves left on, they looked so green and fresh that I decided to cook them up with sausage, in olive oil.  I should have cut the stalks a little smaller.

Served with a wild rice medley and my homemade Branston Pickle.  I love Branston Pickle and you have to be an Anglophile to appreciate it, just a certain taste hard to duplicate, but I thought I'd have a go.

I made this pickle in 2013.  I went to a produce place where everything was in larger amounts, so landed up with a ton of ingredients.  Here is my 2013 post of making the Branston Pickle and the recipe.  Preserves really do keep a long while, and here I am in 2018 still eating Branston Pickle.  When I first made it, it wasn't as dark as the store bought Branston Pickle, but now with age it is, and I can say almost a dead ringer.  Success five years down the road.

Christine

Scones with American Measurements

Hi Dear Folk,

Preparing for lunch with a friend.

Setting the tea tray, with my old Betty Brown Teapot from England and the flower tea cosy I crocheted.

I love that brown dish from a pottery in the UK.  I was with my mum and sister when I bought it.  We all bought a couple of items.  Fond memories.

I came across this lovely Scottish lemon curd and strawberry jam with champagne, it's delicious.  May even enter the win a trip to Scotland.

Scones, I haven't made them forever, so decided to write down my own American version in cups.  I know measuring with cups is not as accurate as weighing in grams, but my is it easier.  Plain ones for Mr. B and scones with raisins for The Boy and I.  They were delicious, maybe could have kept the depth thicker when rolling them out.  One thing I embraced when moving to the USA was measuring in cups.

Scone Recipe with American Measurements

2 Cups Flour Sifted
4 Tea Sps Baking Powder (sifted in with flour)
1/2 Cup White Sugar (can put in less to taste and especially if you sprinkle with sugar on top)
1 Stick Butter (8 Tbsps)
1 Egg Beaten
Milk to mix
1/4 Cup Raisins if desired (pour boiling water over them, drain, pat dry and shake with a little flour to dust.  My grandma always told me to do this.)
Bake 350 F
15 Minutes or until golden brown on top

Sift flour and baking powder together, rub in butter, add sugar and raisins (another alternative is cheese) Mix beaten egg with enough milk to form into a dough ball.  Knead on floured board and roll out to a depth of at least one and a quarter inches, if not more.  Cut with a circle cutter approx size of about 2" circumference.  (Can also just pat entire dough ball into a circle then cut into triangles on the baking sheet.)  Coat with left over egg and milk wash, sprinkle with sugar.  Bake on a greased baking sheet.

Now when I bought this silver sugar coal skuttle, I'm sure the seller said something about putting it out with strawberries and cream.  But my friend said her mum had one and it was set out with sugar lumps in, dah! Of course, lumps of coal, cubes/lumps of sugar.  Next time I'll get sugar lumps, harder to find over here in the USA.

I have a mixture of pottery on the tray.  A milk jug from Grandma, a sugar bowl from a pottery near Niagara Falls in Canada.  Old 1960's cups and saucers.

Out in the garden, of course the sun has shined all week except for our lunch on Wednesday, where you needed a shawl to keep the chill off, but I was not to be thwarted.  We came inside for lunch.

I made a chicken salad and as I so often do, used what I had in the fridge, which was of course cooked chicken cubed, diced onions, three different peppers, yellow, orange and red, diced mango, apple and some blueberries, along with mayonnaise and lemon juice, and very tasty it was too, if I do say so myself.  I was going to put walnuts in but forgot, we had this along with some mixed Asian veg.

We had a lovely chatty time, with plans for a picnic and trip to the shore next time.

Christine

Hi Dear Folk,

I ran across this recipe and thought that I would try it out.  I had most of the ingredients in the house except prunes and I substituted dates which were in the pantry.  I often do that don't you?  Just try and make a recipe work with what I have in the cupboard, plus I did not want to venture out.  I will have Mr. B. put prunes on his shopping list, I think I know how I could make it a bit better next time.

It is a very dense mixture, no sugar and no oil.  My banana maybe could have been a little riper.

I was pleased with the results, mine came out almost like a very fruity bread pudding.  Will try making it with the prunes next time and see how it turns out.  The recipe is below.

Hairy Bikers' low fat fruit tea loaf

• Preparation time:15 minutes, plus cooling
• Cooking time:30 minutes
• Total time:45 minutes, plus cooling

Makes: 20 squares

Ingredients

1 teabag
400ml just-boiled water
1 unwaxed lemon
250g ready-to-eat prunes, quartered
500g luxury dried mixed fruit
3 tsp ground mixed spice
1 ripe medium banana (about 115g peeled weight)
4 large eggs
4 tbsp skimmed milk
300g self-raising flour
½ tsp baking powder

Method

Put the teabag in a jug and add 400ml just-boiled water. Stir and leave to steep for 5 minutes. Finely grate the lemon zest and squeeze the juice, then pour the juice into a large saucepan. Squeeze the teabag and chuck it away, then pour the tea into the pan with the juice. Add the lemon zest, prunes, mixed dried fruit and spice.

Stir well and place the pan over a low heat. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook gently for 5 minutes or until the liquid is almost all absorbed, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat, tip the mixture carefully into a large mixing bowl and leave to cool for 40 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 170°C/Fan 150°C/Gas 3½. Line the base and sides of a 20 x 30cm rectangular cake tin with baking parchment or use a small roasting tin or a 25cm square cake tin. Peel the banana and cut it into thick slices. Put these in a food processor, add the eggs and milk, then blend to make a purée. Add the flour and baking powder and blend again until smooth.

Pour the egg and banana mixture on to the soaked fruit and stir until thoroughly combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin and level the surface with the back of a spoon. Bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes or until the cake is pale golden brown and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Remove the cake from the oven and cool in the tin for 30 minutes.

Carefully turn the cake out, peel off the baking parchment and leave to cool on a wire rack. When the cake is cool, cut it into 20 squares. Wrap well, store in the fridge and eat within a week.

Panamanian Potato Salad

Hi Dear Folk,

I was talking with my friend who is originally from Puerto Rico, and came to the States as a child.  Her family were recently on a cruise, but while stopping off in Florida, they visited grandma and she said one of the items on the menu was Panamanian Potato Salad, I had never heard of it, and asked what was different and Maria said beetroots, so looked a recipe up.  I love beets so will definitely try this.

Panamanian Pink Potato Salad (Ensalada de Papas)

4 potatoes
1 carrot, finely diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 onion
1 cup fresh chopped parsley
1 clove garlic
1 beet
1 egg
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 teaspoon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Start by boiling the potatoes in a large pot. When they are close to half cooked add the beet and carrot. Then add the egg to the pot for the last 10 minutes.
    
2. Meanwhile, chop and dice the celery, parsley, onion, and garlic.
    
3. Drain the potato pot. You should now have tender potatoes, a tender beet, carrot and a hard boiled egg.
    
4. Peel, dice the beet and carrot. Chop the egg. It is a little counter intuitive to us Americans, to boil and then do the chopping and peeling. However, that is the custom in Panama.
    
5. Mix the egg, celery, parsley, onion, garlic, mayonnaise and mustard in a deep bowl.
    
6. Then add everything else and mix just enough to coat the vegetables with the mayonnaise.
    
7. Season to taste with salt and pepper. 

Pink potato salad can be served warm or cold. 

I would probably triple or quadruple this recipe.

Christine

Dinner For Two Sixties Style

HI Dear Folk,

The sixties as with each decade had it's style and no better place to see some of that style than in a sixties cookbook.  How could I resist picking this up for $0.50 cents at the library, than if for nothing else than the wonderful sketches that fill it.

Just right for a newly married couple.

A little lamb.

Baking pastry.

What the couple would need in their kitchen.

The above sketch reminded me of Cape Ann.

How about this awesome dragon, enmeshed around a skillet?

Christine

Zahav

Hi Dear Folk,

My book eventually came, The Boy ordered it for me and it had to come all the way from California so took almost two weeks, probably was not mailed out straight away, it didn't matter I wasn't in a hurry, just expectant.

For one thing it was much bigger and heavier than I thought, I already love it just reading and looking at the pictures.

Michael Slomonov has incorporated his journey to becoming a chef and a restaurant owner along with his families story in the USA and Israel.  Lots of pictures.  If you remember I mentioned that he also has a film on Netflix, well worth watching.

Now to get down to the cooking.  He also owns a restaurant in Philadelphia Zahav and I definitely plan to go, in fact all three of us, the Boy too, I said I'd pay for his meal and he can pay for parking and drinks.

Have a great weekend.

Christine

Jewish Apple Cake

Hi Dear Folk,

I was asked for the recipe of my Jewish Apple Cake, sorry I've been rather tardy, but here it is.

Jewish Apple Cake

4 Eggs
3 Cups flour
2 Cups sugar
1 Cup oil (vegetable oil or canola oil)
3 tea spoons of baking powder (or use self raising flour, which is not as common in USA as UK)
2 tea spoons vanilla
1 tea spoon cinnamon
1/4 tea spoon salt
1/4 Cup orange juice (if you have a lovely large orange use that and put the grated rind in too)

4 Apples sliced (depending on size of apple could use just 3 apples or if too many just finish with apples on top)
2 Table spoons sugar or less to taste
1 tea spoon of cinnamon (but I use more than that to taste)
Mix together

Put all top ingredients together in one bowl and mix. ( I love this so simple)

Pour 1/3 of batter into a greased and floured tube pan, then a layer of apples, batter, apples and batter.

Bake at 350 F
60 to 65 minutes test with a pick

This cake is comfort food, always good.  I've thought of calling this the 4, 3, 2, 1 cake. 4 eggs, 3 cups flour, 2 sugar, 1 oil

Posted for Mamasmercantile

Enjoy
Christine

Classic Cartoon British Recipes

Hi Dear Folk,

I ran across these on the Persephone Blog and thought they were rather fun, all very classic Brit recipes.

Bread and butter pudding was always a staple fall back in the cupboard to come at.

And what High Tea did my mum not serve an English Trifle, never, it was always on the menu.

We always called this Plum Pudding.

Can't say cheesecake was part of my childhood.  My first memory of cheesecake, from which I still have the receipt, coffee and cheesecake eaten with my friend Jutta at a hotel on the banks of the Rhine.

Miss my mum's cooking.

Christy

Candlelight Tea Recipe Book From 1910

Hi Dear Folk,

Isn't this just delightful?  A Candlelight Tea Recipe Book From 1910 on the Library of Congress website.  I will not claim to have found this Angela did at Tea With Friends, but I thought this was so sweet I just had to share it around.

In the front pages is a quote from Foster "Then My Old Kentucky Home, Goodnight."  The book was published by the Transylvania Printing Company of Lexington, Kentucky.  Do go and take a look, plus you can download the PDF and print it up.

Christy

Weathering Through Winter and Italian Pie Salad Recipe

Hi Dear Folk,

Weathering through winter with my beautiful alpaca and merino yarn that I bought off a farm in NY State.  I'm loving this simple crochet pattern, because when my one skein of yarn is finished then I'll just end my little neck warmer scarf.

This is hand dyed and I have named the colour, Isle of Skye  - Heather and Broom, because it has the purple of the heather and this lovely bright yellow the colour of broom, which you see out on the hills on the Isle of Skye.

I have plans to wear this with a purple velvet hat I have I think it will look nice together.  Will use a little stick pin to hold the scarf together.

This is a lovely go to pattern for one special skein of yarn.

I have three plants I am trying to winter over in the house.  My passion flower, Tahitian bridal veil and this center flower an impatiens.  I'm not too good at this and they just about stagger into spring and say thank you, thank you, thank you, when they are put out into the spring sun.

I brought home my purple primrose and hyacinth, because the way the hyacinth was growing, it was likely to bloom over the weekend and I would have missed it not being at work.  Mr. B. bought me the pink primrose, and my cyclamen is just beginning to put forth more flowers, so they make a happy little circle on my dining room table.

Look what I found at the thrift.

When Rob was only three months old we wanted to go on vacation, but where with a baby?  So in the end we found a B&B that served evening dinner as well, right up in northern Vermont, at a farm. It turned out to be just right, because if he wanted to take a nap we could just put him down and we were right there in the house.

My story though is about the large circular platter which we bought up there off a potter, it's great for huge laid out salads I have a special one I serve on here, it has all sorts of veg, deli meats and cheese and other things, and you serve it like cutting up a piece of giant pie and serve it as a wedge. Well while in the thrift recently, I found the bowl, of course I knew instantly it had to be from the same potter and here it is.  Unfortunately just one.  Still what a find over twenty years separates them and all the way from Vermont.

Here is my Italian Pie Salad recipe, given to me by Frannie from a verty Italian family here in town,  and she is no longer with us.

Italian Pie Salad

• Romaine lettuce
• Provolone cheese
• Cooked salami
• Genoa or hard salami
• Capacola or pepperoni
• Onions
• Green peppers
• Celery
• Cucumbers
• Sweet pickles
• Tomatos
• Green/Black olives

Lay a bed of lettuce and on top of that layer the meats, veg, and cheese alternating in an artistic way.

Shake with oregano, garlic powder and crazy Jane salt (which is like a seasoned salt)

This is such a delicious salad and you can change in and out what ever deli meats you have or what is on sale, but the above recipe is the traditional one.

Serve with a simple spaghetti and a bottle of wine.

Enjoy,
Christy

Tea Time

Hi Dear Folk,

Thought you might enjoy this from Tea Time Magazine

Tea Time's Favourite Recipes from 2015

Plus a Victoria Sandwich sponge cake from Downton Abbey; my mum's go to cake.

Mum's recipe is simple weigh the three or four eggs, and measure out the castor sugar/super fine sugar, same weight as eggs and the self raising flour same weight as eggs and the butter same weight as eggs, plus the usual other ingredients.

My mum was speaking to an old friend who had been in service in the kitchen as a cooks assistant and mum was lamenting that her Victoria Sandwich never rose that much, "Oh the trick my dear is to weigh the eggs."  Of course makes total sense because egg size and weight can vary considerably and all ingredients must be room temperature.

Christy

P.S.  Yesterday they had thirty percent off at our local thrift and I picked up seven Chinese dinner size plates, with wonderful hand painted flowers and lots and lots of gold, I thought they would look so pretty on a tea table.  You know I can't resist pretty china.

Mr. B's Apple Pies and Cake

Hi Dear Folk,

Mr. B. should have been a baker, his speciality being chocolate chip cookies, but he's a whizz with apples too.

Apple Custard

Apple Crumble Pie

Jewish Apple Cake

One write up I read about the Jewish Apple Cake said that it was very popular in Pennsylvania and especially Philadephia, which I didn't realize.  This is my absolutely go to cake.  

I call it my 4,3,2,1 recipe.  4 eggs, 3 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, 1 cup oil, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 1/4 cup of orange juice, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, add everything into a bowl and mix.  That is what makes this cake so easy.  It is a dense batter.

For the two layers of apple, three sliced apples tossed in 5 teaspoons of sugar and 3 teaspoons cinnamon add more cinnamon or sugar to your taste. 

Pour one third of the mixture into an oiled and floured bundt pan, layer of apples, layer of batter, layer of apples, layer of batter.  If any apples are left over put on top.

Cook in a 350 f oven for 65 minutes.  Test.

This is a moist cake and never fails.

Apple Pie

Christy

My Made In China Rebellion

Hi Dear Folk,

I figure there will come a day when nothing on this planet of ours is not made in China, therefore my way to counteract this is to buy up items from of old not made in China, especially on the cookware and china front, that is a pun isn't it, well you know what I mean.

Now this piece may not have been one of my better moments, but you can't say it is not interesting.  It is made in Italy out of a blend of five volcanic rocks, or so it says.  One uses it to cook fish or meat on top of the stove.  It works the same as the earthenware covered dishes that you use in the oven, it needs to be soaked in water before using it.

I think it must have been a late sixties early seventies fad and is called a La Bisquera, because I have seen old adds for it from both Australia and the USA.

Your food cooks slowly and La Cotta is meant to draw out acids and fat.  So I gave it a go, after reading up online.  It did cook ones food very well.  It seems you need to leave a crack while doing so and someone suggested using a cork which I did.

My food was cooked very nicely, but many people spoke of this residual odor, and even though I soaked it all day, it still had this oder.  So as to whether I will cook anything in there again, yes I would if I could get rid of the odor any suggestions?  Maybe a soak in vinegar.  Oh well! I can always use them for flower pots.

Another item I ran across is this, made in France.

This is basically a French grilled sandwich maker, and the grilled sandwich of choice to cook in here is a Corque Monsieur Ham and Cheese.  You would need to adapt this following recipe to make them in the sandwich maker.  I think the shape is most interesting.

Croque Monsieur Ham and Cheese Sandwich Recipe

• Yield: Makes 4 sandwiches. 

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp butter
• 2 Tbsp flour
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• A pinch each of salt, freshly ground pepper, nutmeg, or more to taste
• 6 ounces Gruyère cheese, grated (about 1 1/2 cups grated)
• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (packed)
• 8 slices of French or Italian loaf bread
• 12 ounces ham, sliced
• Dijon mustard
• 
  

Method

1 Preheat oven to 400°

2 Make the béchamel sauce. Melt butter in a small saucepan on medium/low heat until it just starts to bubble. Add the flour and cook, stirring until smooth, about 2 minutes. Slowly add the milk, whisking continuously, cooking until thick. Remove from heat. Add the salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Stir in the Parmesan and 1/4 cup of the grated Gruyère. Set aside.

3 Lay out the bread slices on a baking sheet and toast them in the oven, a few minutes each side, until lightly toasted. For extra flavor you can spread some butter on the bread slices before you toast them if you want.

(Alternatively, you can assemble the sandwiches as follows in step four and grill them on a skillet, finishing them in the broiler with the bechamel sauce.)

4 Lightly brush half of the toasted slices with mustard. Add the ham slices and about 1 cup of the remaining Gruyère cheese. Top with the other toasted bread slices.

5 Spoon on the béchamel sauce to the tops of the sandwiches. Sprinkle with the remaining Gruyère cheese. Place on a broiling pan. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes, then turn on the broiler and broil for an additional 3 to 5 minutes, until the cheese topping is bubbly and lightly browned.

If you top this sandwich with a fried egg it becomes a Croque Madame.

Christy