The Recipes of our Ancestors

[Shnick]

After much deliberation (and one generously given Amazon gift card), I just ordered a whole bunch of Lodge Cast Iron.

Even though I picked up a cookbook with the order, I'm interested in recipes handed down to you by your family, for either campsite or kitchen.
Doesn't matter if it's a soft boiled egg or a Blueberry Crepe, it's all about the story behind it...

Professor, I know your YT channel well, but I betcha you have them all in one word .doc somewhere on your PC...
Winchester, I never wrote that Brunswick Stew recipe down. Been craving that since Sept.

So, c'mon folks, dust off the old cookbooks and share the handed down family recipes you forgot about long ago.
Open that index card holder between the bottle of stale bottle of Guatemalan Cardamom and that unopened can of Old Bay you got in 1979.
I'm talking about the recipes your Mom had for sticky buns, or your weird uncle Elmer's recipe for Jalapeño & Peach Jam.
The stuff you grew up with that STILL puts a smile on your face.

I'm not one for asking without giving, so I'll go first with the story behind it.
My Grandma would make Bread Pudding every year for Christmas Dinner. It was an "event" in of itself.
Her parents learned about this recipe from a German family who preferred Pumpernickle, but any leftover bread will do.

I got this recipe from my stepmother after Grandma passed away.
It was on an old, yellowed and tattered index card, just one of hundreds she saved over the course of a very long life.
Her cooking was always filled with love. Pass it on...

Bread Pudding:
3 Eggs
1 1/2 C Sugar
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1/2 Tsp Cinnamon
1/4 C Melted Butter
3 C Milk
10 Slices Pumpernickle, toasted & torn (not cut) into 1' cubes.
1 C Raisins

Preheat oven to 375°.
Grease 2 Qt baking dish. Glass works best.
In a mixing bowl, whisk eggs, sugar, brown sugar, Cinnamon, Butter & Milk together, then stir in the bread cubes and raisins.
Pour into the baking dish.

Bake until browned and firm in the middle, 50 to 55 minutes. Cover with foil halfway thru.Sauce:
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1 Tbsp Flour
1 Pinch Cinnamon
1 Egg
2 Tbps Melted Butter
1 1/4 C Milk
1 Tbsp Vanilla Extract
For the sauce, mix Brown Sugar, Flour, Cinnamon, Eg, Melted Butter and Milk together over medium heat until smooth.
Stir constantly for about 10 minutes, or until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon. (about 10 minutes) Add Vanilla.
Pour sauce over warm bread pudding.

Try it and let me know how you like it!
(Although I already know) LOL

[cellis]

Grandma sent me these all the time as a boy. At the month long wilderness camp a box of these was the greatest package ever. She used to frost them but that is too sweet for me now. I may make some right now actually and coincidentally had this out when I saw this thread.

Molasses Cookies

3/4 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1/4 c. molasses
Cream together and add

2 c. flour
2 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon

form in ball. flatten slightly and bake at 350 for 8-10 min.
Enjoy.

do you need molasses sent in pacgage?
Mom

[foxfire]

Grandma sent me these all the time as a boy. At the month long wilderness camp a box of these was the greatest package ever. She used to frost them but that is too sweet for me now. I may make some right now actually and coincidentally had this out when I saw this thread.

Molasses Cookies

3/4 c. shortening
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1/4 c. molasses
Cream together and add

2 c. flour
2 tsp. soda
1/4 tsp salt
dash of cinnamon

form in ball. flatten slightly and bake at 350 for 8-10 min.
Enjoy.

do you need molasses sent in pacgage?
Mom

Now that recipe brings back lot's of memories of my great grandmother.

[TheProfessor]

Professor, I know your YT channel well, but I betcha you have them all in one word .doc somewhere on your PC...

Thanks, Shnick! While it's true that I have binders, index cards and computer files full of recipe ideas, my favorite ones really don't need a recipe at all.

Forty years ago, when I grew up on the farm, it would take about all morning to do the chores. We had several old milk cows, so we'd carry out 3 or 4 bales of hay and water them from a hand pump at the well.

The hogs needed even more water, and we kept two tank heaters,which were coal and wood-burning stoves submerged in the tanks, to keep the water free from ice. It was my job to cut the wood and keep the fires burning in them day and night.

By the time we got all these chores done it was nearly lunch time. Mom worked as a nurse at the doctor's office in town, so Dad and I often had to shift for ourselves. On occasions like that, he'd say: "Let's just have some bacon and gravy!"

I read later that there really is a recipe for bacon gravy: 2 tablespoons of bacon drippings, 2 tablespoons of flour and a cup of milk, but Dad never referred to it or measured anything.

While he fried the bacon, I'd mix up a batch of biscuits and roll them very thin, the way Dad's grandad liked them, with the "two crusts rubbing together."

Within a half hour from first scratch, we'd have a plate of steaming bacon gravy over crispy biscuits with scalding hot cups of coffee made in the old drip-o-lator to wash it all down.

[cellis]

Now that recipe brings back lot's of memories of my great grandmother.

They are great, I have what's left of two dozen now been meaning to make a batch for ages. Did it exactly like recipe but I got this natural sugar with some kind of hippy name we've been using and would add a bit more if using that type of sugar next time as that are not quite sweet enough. My sweetness palette or however you say that is much less tolerant now to sweet things living here but these are a touch bland even for me.

[William van den Broek]

Here in The Netherlands and in the old days.

they baked some bacon as long as possible until it was dry and there was a lot of bacon gravy in the pot.
they put it in a bak and let it solidify. after it was solidify they lubricate it on bread with sugar.

As far i know they eat it in the winter, even I eat it sometimes when it is very cold.

[renter6]

My dad used to make Chicken Paprikash from a family recipe. Both his parents were old-country Slovaks, steel-town folks from Johnstown, PA. I never learned to make paprikash (not too late I suppose!) but I did learn to make and enjoy the accompaniment: halushki, a small dumpling-like noodle similar to spaetzle. These are not the same thing as halupki, the stuffed cabbage dish.

These are super simple to make.

1. Start by bringing water to a boil in a soup pot, whatever you would use to boil pasta in. Salt the water well, there aren't many flavors here to work with!

2. On a dinner plate, make a mound of wheat flour and clear a space on the inside, so its like a donut or a volcano. Into that you crack an egg or two, and start mixing with a fork. I can't specify quantities, something like a cup of flour and one egg, maybe two eggs is a start.

You mix this together until it has the right consistency, like a very sticky dough. It will almost run if you hold the plate on edge.

3. Hold the plate in one hand over the boiling water. With a paring knife, you scrape kidney bean-sized bits of this dough into the boiling water. Dip the knife into the water here and there to keep the dough from sticking.

Pinch by pinch, the whole batch of dough goes into the water. When cooked, they are about the size of a wad of chewing gum, because they absorb a little water.

4. Drain the whole pot into a colander, and serve with a gravy, like you would egg noodles.

My dad was one of nine kids, and they frequently had these halushki mixed up with a little cheese for dinner, and nothing else!

Never made these at camp, but they are some serious comfort food around our house.

[rdec]

A classic hunter sandwich:

Fry up some bacon, fry a large, rather thin pancake in the bacon fat, remove from pan. Sprinkle the pancake with light brown sugar or granulated maple sugar, arrange bacon on the pancake and roll up. Wrapping in aluminum foil you can carry this in your pocket.

In cold weather the fat tastes good and you really need it. Many people complain about losing weight on long treks when they are eating dried/freeze-dried foods. The reason, I suspect, is that they are not getting enough fat. Adding olive oil to the meal gives you fat and make the stuff taste better (at least it does for me). Peanut (or other nut) butter also provides fat and, of course, so does bacon.

Most wild game is also low in fat so the addition of cured, smoked bacon is a real plus.

[JRW87]

Not exactly ancestreal, probally my Nans recipe and a family favourite -

Buy a packet of choc chip cookies, bottle of ginger ale and some cream.

Whip the cream to soft peaks then dip a cookie in the ginger ale and piece together the dessert using the cream as mortar in any shape you want, a straight log works well for serving. Cover the whole thing in cream and stand in the fridge for 2hrs before serving.

[GreyOne]

Also, go here <http://bushcraftusa.com/forum/downlo...p?do=cat&id=30 > fr DO, campfire and other outdoor type recipes. Lot of good ones, some for everyone's taste.