As I was digging through my recipe box, looking for family recipes, I came across much more than I expected. And it brought back a lot of fond memories.
When I was younger, I copied recipes onto index cards, so I have tons of recipes I've never tried. I can tell I've never tried them because they aren't stained, and they have no comments written on them like "Yummy," "make again," or "no one liked."
I inherited both of my grandmother's recipe collections. My maternal grandmother's are mostly all neatly typed on small index cards. She likely typed them at work during her lunch breaks. She was a good cook when she didn't burn things. One recipe caught my eye. It was labeled "Banana Cake (Mrs. Hess)". Mrs. Hess was a church member who lived near us when we lived in Dolton. She always did a Vacation Bible School, which I wrote about earlier this year.
My paternal grandmother wrote her recipes out. I grabbed one called Blarney Stones, which I've never tried. It's a vague recipe - it says bake in a slow oven. It doesn't say how long or even what exactly you end up with, which explains why I've never tried them. Somewhere, I have her recipe for Yorkshire Pudding, which I believe was handed down from her English father's line. I've never tried it either because I'm sure I couldn't live up to hers.
There were two recipes that I've made frequently. One is for Sloppy Joes. This was handed down from my Aunt Laura. She ALWAYS made these for me whenever we visited because she knew how much I loved her sloppy joes. Didn't matter what else she fixed or what the occasion was - there was always a pot of Sloppy Joes!!!
The other was my mom's lasagna recipe. I never cooked much growing up (well, not really at all). Her lasagna was the first grown-up meal I learned to make. (Okay, I was in college when I learned it.)
Besides the recipe cards, I found tons of recipes clipped from newspapers and magazines, recipes scribbled on box tops, and on the back of a church bulletin. I have no clue who clipped these. They could have come from my mom or either of my grandmothers. But they represent at least 100 years of food choices made by the women in my family.
This week's #52 Ancestors prompt is FAMILY RECIPE
I searched Blarney Stone recipe online and found lots of variations. You might find something that is close to the ingredients you have. Baking in a slow oven is between 300 and 325.
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