Maine Bicentennial, A Cookbook, and Me

 This recipe has been handed down through the generations in Phyllis Pruett's husband's family, and it is a Pruett family tradition to serve it at Thanksgiving and Christmas, with a hard sauce. I was a little hesitant to try this recipe. It seemed so similar to the Pop-Corn Pudding (same page, see blog) and I had managed to curdle the milk in that recipe. I did not want a repeat incident here. The recipe mentions crackers that are not widely available now (Common Crackers), so it is suggested to substitute Saltines. I used the mini-saltines, and crushed them. Where the recipe directs putting in the oven to cook with no oven temp mentioned, I became very wary. How could I prevent the milk from curdling? Not only that, the recipe also requires adding more milk at some point in the baking process, and stirring, then bake longer ("til spoon comes out clean"). Too little instruction here for my comfort level! I googled Saltine Cracker Pudding and Allrecipes.com came to the...

 Sometimes, an ingredient is right where you never look. For the life of me, I could not locate macaroons, not in the local grocery, nor the "big box" grocery. I finally bought a small package of gluten-free fancy (read: expensive) macaroons with chocolate that I found locally. Then a family member and her partner tested positive for COVID-19 (not from our household, nor were we in close contact) so we went shopping at the dollar store to make up a gift bag of goodies to drop at their doorstep to help ease the quarantine. And wouldn't you know it, there was a box of macaroons, for the right price of one dollar! I was so happy to find it! This recipe dates to 1935, and recommends rolling the cookies into crumbs with a rolling pin. Thanks to modern inventions, I used our food processor and had loads of crumbs in a few pulses. Then I used another modern invention, the electric (Cuisinart) ice cream maker, and a pistachio ice cream recipe that came with the machine, substitut...

 I figured that while I still have a few of those delightful 7-Up Cake "baby bundts" (see blog), I would try this Apple Cream, which is a recipe Marie Louise Gosselin Baril made for her family in the 1930s in Little Canada in Lewiston, submitted by her grandson, Rolande Lachapelle. I cooked the apple to mush, as directed, but not really mushy enough, as I discovered. You see, you pair it with a little sugar and whipped egg whites. Egg whites are one of the transformative wonders of the baking world, transitioning from a clear gooey substance to an ethereal white cloud. So I found that the apples need to be the consistency of sauce, in order to not weigh down the white cloud too much. So, my picture does not do the recipe justice, as the apples were soft but still chunky, not light as sauce. I would also give thought to what kind of cake might best compliment the apple cream, such as an apple spice cake, or a plain spice cake.

 Here is where the Resident Archaeologist shines. Me, I had no patience whatsoever for this recipe. I sliced the chunk of ice cream. I chopped up the Nabisco Famous Chocolate Wafers into tiny crumbs. I attempted to then roll the ice cream chunk in the crumbs, to make it look log-like. That is where I kinda lost it. It ended up looking like a rather gruesome soggy spotted hot dog. I gave up and marched upstairs to wail about the Log Fail.  Now, I knew that the Resident Archaeologist likes nothing better than a Food Challenge. So he swiftly made his way to the kitchen with an idea in mind. Who knew that our Sushezi would be the perfect Bowdoin Log log-maker?! What is a Sushezi, you ask? It is a plastic gizmo that looks rather like a log and is typically used to form sushi rolls. He proceeded to place the ice cream in both halves of the Sushezi, closed it up, extruded the "log" and then rolled it in the cookie crumbs and wrapped it in waxed paper and placed it in the freezer. Go...

 We are not much for pineapple, around here, so I substituted peaches. And added a can of mandarin oranges, fresh cherries, and a banana, with a lovely, light custard dressing. Ta-da! Allow me to introduce to you a fruit salad that is simply heavenly, and quick and easy to prepare!

 This recipe dates to a 1908 cookbook published by the Ninth Grade students at the Emerson Grammar School in Bar Harbor. I went in search of a fruit-based modern ice cream recipe, in the event that an old recipe might not have all of the ingredients/instruction that I needed. To my surprise, the modern recipe was quite similar to the 1908 recipe, except that egg whites are not used at all in the modern recipe. I discussed with the Resident Archaeologist what fruit might be best to use, and we agreed that bananas were out and peaches were in. So, feast your eyes on the creamy, peachy delight that our ice cream maker produced for us! Grateful for the young people at Emerson Grammar School over a century ago who gave us a fine ice cream recipe!

 I read the story behind this recipe, and actually wonder if I'm distantly related to the person who submitted it, Jacalyn Mitchell. Either through my husband's family (Mitchell) or through her grandmother's family (Spencer, which was my great-grandfather's last name). Jello is a food I thought I had "outgrown." But I was re-introduced to it (see blog about Delicious Green (Blue) Salad), and we became happily re-acquainted. It has possibilities that are really rather endless. I chose to substitute Raspberry Jello in Frieda's Dessert (it calls for lime). And I was not sure about using evaporated milk. I had read online that there can be problems combining the two foods. So I looked for a substitute. Enter hot chocolate. Now call me crazy, but it actually works the same way as if you use the boiling water the recipe already calls for, so just think of it as flavored water, right? And what better flavor combo than chocolate and raspberry, right?  I had some s...

 I studied this recipe carefully, and decided it must be rather more like a souffle. The recipe calls for a casserole dish, but I suspected it would do this amazing puff-up in the oven, and sure enough, it did not disappoint. Fortunately, we own a lovely blue souffle dish for just such recipes. I do not (yet) own a potato ricer, so I just mashed the dickens out of the potato and it seemed to work just fine. My favorite part of the preparation of this recipe was beating the egg whites and adding sugar. I have a small blue bowl that works perfectly with my handheld beater, to get two egg whites to "peak" perfection. It's important to tuck the souffle dish in a pan of water, for even heating. I used a Yukon Gold potato, which of course has a lovely golden color. So that certainly made the whole souffle look spectacular. I dished it into a small Fire King jadeite bowl, which gave a beautiful presentation, yellow against green. Then I lifted a forkful of the lovely dessert to ...

 Since my childhood, I've always loved vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce. One of my fav desserts. I saw this recipe and couldn't wait to try it. I keep Baker's chocolate on hand, and it is normally unsweetened. But the bar I found in the cupboard is sweetened. So I just decreased the amount of sugar in the recipe. This appears to be a recipe that gets better with time. Even just letting the sauce sit while I got out the ice cream and searched for the scoop...the sauce thickened even in those few minute. The person submitting the recipe swears by coffee ice cream, but I'm sticking with what I love, vanilla. It marries so well with chocolate. The Resident Archaeologist took one look at this sauce and said, "it belongs in milk." Clearly, this sauce is going to be a favorite in our kitchen.

 This is a fabulous holiday dessert! I was initially not very interested in making it. I'm not much of a pudding-eater, and so I kept skipping over it, as I browsed the cookbook. I should remind myself that one of my other fav recipes in the Pudding chapter is also called a pudding but bakes up as a cake...(see Maple Cottage Pudding blog). This Cranberry "pudding" bakes up as a cake! With a lovely sweet sauce to pour over the cake, sort of like a semi-liquid frosting.  I recently made Cranberry-Rhubarb Jam (see blog) and had leftover cranberries that I had chopped in the food processor. This recipe called for cranberries cut in half, and as much as I love the interior symmetrical design of a cranberry which is revealed only when you slice it in half, I'm also rather keen on not letting food go to waste. So, I measured out the chopped cranberries, and it was the exact amount needed for the pudding. I figured it was a sign that I should not worry about sliced cranberrie...

Hahaha! The cookbook editors tucked this apple pie in the pudding section, making you "think" there was only one marvelous apple pie recipe (see blog for Westport Island Upside-Down Apple Pie) to be had in this awesome Bicentennial cookbook. No worries! You get to bake another apple pie, and it is a pleasure for me to share that This Apple Pie Is Like No Other. You're gonna love it! Easy peasy recipe. It calls for both apples and blueberries or rhubarb. But I was hankering for apple-only. I mean, it's apple orchard season, not blueberry or rhubarb season. There is this terrific crumb topping that is perfect. What makes it perfect, you ask? What makes everything perfect, my friends? Butter. Yesssss! Melted and poured liberally over the crumb topping. Then, here is where the recipe and I parted ways. It says to sprinkle cinnamon lightly over the top. Hah! I don't keep a jar of mixed cinnamon and sugar on hand for nothing! The pie needs a generous sprinkling of cinna...

 Having tried the crockpot for the Worster House Baked Indian Pudding (see blog), I decided to go with a good thing. Especially when I read the details of the recipe. Eight to ten hours in a slow oven? This is what crockpots were born for. Of the two Indian Pudding recipes in this cookbook, I lean towards this one. Worster House uses raisins as the fruit sweetener, and this recipe uses apples. I just have a personal preference for apples. It helps cut the heaviness of the molasses. In fact, I think another time around, I'd cut back on the molasses, as it needs to be more balanced with the light sweet flavor of the apples.  Again, I am a cold pudding person, when I do eat puddings. So I ate this cold, but the recipe recommends hot, with vanilla ice cream, which sounds delightful!

 Indian pudding was never on the table at our family Thanksgiving meals, when I was a child. But I had a family member in my first marriage who felt that Thanksgiving wasn't complete without it, so he would bring a can of it to our table each year. I never tried it, as I'm just not much of a pudding eater. This pudding was offered at the Worster House in Hallowell between 1925 and 1960. The person submitting the recipe got it from her grandparents, Thomas and Pauline Worster, whose slogan, at Worster House, was "Where Maine Goes to Dinner."  Love that slogan! This pudding must cook in a slow oven for four hours. Being as how I didn't have four hours to babysit it, I decided to tuck all the ingredients in a small crockpot and do it the easy way. It worked great. It says to serve it hot, with vanilla ice cream. I'm accustomed to cold puddings, when I do eat puddings, and so I tried it first cold, and thought it was fine that way. But I look forward to trying it ...

This dessert allows me to publicly declare Jello as fully welcome at my table once again. I had written off the wiggly-jiggly food as something from my parent's generation that did not appeal to me. And truth be told, Lime Jello still does not appeal to me. So, when I saw that this recipe called for Lime Jello (hence, "green salad" in the recipe title) I froze in my kitchen tracks. How could I follow through with cooking every single recipe in this cookbook, and actually swallow Lime Jello? I just couldn't bring myself to do it, friends. (Please do note the "nod" to "green" by using my vintage Fire King jadeite dessert dish!) Then my adventurous side said, why do I need to use crushed pineapple, as called for in the recipe, when it is not my fav fruit? Couldn't I substitute Lemon Jello in place of the Lime, and Blueberries in place of the pineapple? I did a bit of study on the subject, and found that just pouring some blueberries into the jello...

There is a photo submitted with this recipe that shows a smiling Russell Libby, former executive director of the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. Evidently, he brought this treat to some of the MOFGA potlucks. It hails from "an old Maine Rebekahs cookbook from 1955." The words "pudding" and "older" sent me off on a bit of research about the classification of puddings (yes, I know, it probably doesn't seem that long ago, but this pudding dates before I was a twinkle in my father's eye!).  I found a piece at www.thespruceeats.com website that mostly discusses the understanding of the word in the U.K. And since the U.S. isn't really all that "old," it makes sense to look further back in time regarding the word "pudding." "Pudding" seems to generally refer to foods that are considered homely or rustic. There may even be a loose association with class, as in, the lower class might have called a food a pu...

I've made applesauce before. When I had babies and wanted them to have as much home-made food as possible. This is not so much a recipe as it is a list of the contributor's favorite apple varieties, and how applesauce can go with just about anything (breakfast foods, meats, desserts, etc.). It was really very relaxing to peel the apple (the contributor recommends cooking the apple, peel and all) and chop it and cook it down with just a splash of water. When it looked like the slices were soft, I grabbed the potato masher and pressed the soft pieces down. It all went into a lovely, chunky mush. I like my sauce with small chunks, so that was perfect. As you can see in the dish. And I couldn't wait to pair it with any other food. The applesauce (Macintosh) slipped down my throat, soothing and warm and sweet. A simple comfort food, hands-down better than storebought.

After consultation with a former parishioner who is familiar with all things baking, and with older recipes that would have required a wood cookstove (thanks, Wanda!), I realized that, given the opportunity, I would make this recipe differently next time. This recipe comes out of an 1899 cookbook from the First Congregational Parish in Cherryfield, Maine. Those church folk know how to put good food on the table!  I looked at this recipe as a custard. My former parishioner suggested that it is essentially a bread pudding with popcorn substituted for the bread. She said that the curdle I encountered came due to high heat. She suggested a heat of 325, and I might consider putting the baking dish inside a larger dish with 1 1/2 inches of water, to protect the baking dish. I had simply guessed at 350 degrees, since the recipe is so old that there was no electric oven heat suggested. The recipe states a bake time of 20 minutes. Wanda believes a bake time of about an hour, at 325 would wo...

As a Methodist minister, I move around somewhat frequently, per direction of our Bishop. So, one outpost my husband and I were sent to happened to be in one of the most beautiful places on God's green earth, Greenville Junction, Maine.  What a lovely place in which to minister! My husband and I loved living there and being in ministry there. Greenville Junction, Maine is where I encountered my first experience with bread pudding. Honest-to-the-Apostle-Pete, I had never baked a bread pudding before this. A parishioner, Linda Carpenter (thankyou, Linda!) gave me her recipe for bread pudding, and I've been in love with this old-fashioned dessert ever since. It doesn't hurt that my husband is quite fond of bread pudding, so he was happy to oblige by eating it! I like this particular recipe for the surprise fruit. I'd never tried a bread pudding recipe with anything but raisins until now. The apple compliments the raisins beautifully. This is a wonderfully egg-y recipe, and ...

Wish I could have known "the Foss Girls of Harmony." Ada, in particular. Just love the story about how she teaches her sister to make believe, during the Depression, when she is hungry and wishing for a hot dog. (Sorry, you'll have to buy this marvelous cookbook to hear the rest of the story!) I'm entering this pudding in the "Dash of Maine Cooking Challenge." If you are interested in trying out some of the recipes in this cookbook, for the next six weeks, see www.maine200cookbook.com for more information. I've been making custards for only about two decades. My mom had Type 1 diabetes, and it was an easy sugar-free pie to bake for her. Her craving for sweets increased, as she got older, and I was happy to oblige with custard pies.  She was hospitalized frequently, being a brittle diabetic, and during several prolonged hospitalizations, when she was very ill, my custard pie was one of the few things that tempted her to eat, for which I remember being esp...