Rather than type them out, I thought I would just paste the scan of the cards. I like having these old cards. It’s a lot more personal than just reading the recipes from a book because I know that my Great Grandma Boom*, Grandma Tucker and Mom(Marti Hall) touched these cards. I am slowly scanning all of the cards into my computer to ensure they are not lost. Hopefully nothing will ever happen to them but I will now have the electronic copies as a back up.

This is the recipe that Grandma Tucker let me make all by my I myself, well, she was right there. But still, I did it all alone. After watching and helping a bunch of times, she finally let me do it. Of course it turned out great!

I am going to try to remember  to come back every couple of days or so and post a new recipe.

*

Grandma Boom; I always knew Grandma Boom as Grandma Boom. I was a little kid, 8, when she died. I got really confused when she died because her grave stone said Geneva Boyer? So Mom and Grandma explained to me that when my mom was little that they lived in Lafayette. Mom had a hard time saying Boyer and called Bloomington Boomington. So when they would come to visit Bloomington, it was to see Grandma and Grandpa Boomington which of course got shortened to Boom. When she got older she still called them that and I then that was Me and my little brother did.

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 19,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 4 fully loaded ships.

The busiest day of the year was April 18th with 470 views. The most popular post that day was Time for Morels, the tasty Mushrooms more valuable than gold!.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were tips-tools-tutorials.com, search.aol.com, studentloansinterest.org, facebook.com, and google.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for morel mushrooms, blueberry, morels, morel mushroom, and morels mushrooms.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Time for Morels, the tasty Mushrooms more valuable than gold!
4 comments

Blueberry Crisp

Perhaps some chocolate would be nice!
4 comments

Downtown Bloomington Restaurants

Fried Green Tomato Lasagna (lasagne verdi fritti di pomodoro)

Spiced Pumpkin Cheesecake Dip

1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese

1 can (15 oz.) pumpkin

½ cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Mix all ingredients in a food processor until blended. Chill one hour before serving.
Serve with apple and pear slices. Also tastes great with Ginger Snaps or Graham Crackers
Makes about 2 ¾ cups (11 servings of ¼-cup each)

I love potatoes with rosemary, so of course if you add cheese, it has to be awesome!
A combination of the garlic, lemon and rosemary makes this very tasty. Rosemary is a great little plant to have in your kitchen. When you need some, just snap off what you need, rinse it off in cold water and then crush or chop it up. It has a lot better taste than the dried rosemary you buy at the grocery store.

1 medium onion, thinly sliced(I like vidalia)
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon olive or vegetable oil
4 large potatoes, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese, divided
1/4 cup dry bread crumbs
1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted
1/2 teaspoon rosemary, crushed. 

• In a large skillet or saucepan, sauté onion and garlic in oil until tender
• Add potatoes, seasoned salt, pepper and lemon peel.
• Remove from the heat. Spoon half into a greased 1-1/2-qt. baking dish.
• Sprinkle with 1 cup cheese. Repeat layers.
• Combine bread crumbs, butter and rosemary; sprinkle over cheese.
• Cover and bake at 400° F for 40 minutes.
• Uncover and bake 20 minutes longer or until potatoes are tender.

Check out this great podcast, 2 Minute Chef.

I hope everybody likes this recipe. A friend sent this recipe years ago. What’s not to love about this dish? Make the Fried Green Tomatoes with your own recipe or use the easy one included.

Sauce

4 large ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
1 garlic clove, minced
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon pepper

Ricotta Mixture

1 cup ricotta
1 egg
Pinch fresh herbs
salt and pepper

Fried Green Tomatoes

5 tablespoons butter or margarine
4 large tomatoes, cut into 1/4 inch slices
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
6 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

• In a large saucepan, combine the first seven ingredients.
• Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat; set aside.

• Make ricotta mixture, set aside.

• In a large skillet over medium heat, melt the butter. Dip green tomato slices in flour; brown in skillet on both sides. Remove to paper towels to drain.

• Spoon 3/4 cup tomato mixture into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2 in. baking dish.

• Top with 1/3 of the fried green tomatoes and 1/3 of the ricotta mixture;; sprinkle with 2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese and sauce. Repeat layers twice.

• Top with remaining tomato mixture and mozzarella cheese.

• Bake, uncovered, at 350 degrees F for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted and sauce is bubbly.

• Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Please feel free to share recipes with me and I will post them here. But as I have said before, share a story too! The best part of the recipe is usually the story. For example, everybody thinks that their grandma’s cookie recipe is the best, but most of them are all the same. I remember my grandma’s peanut butter fudge. Her recipe was not super secret but as a kid I loved making it with her because of her reaction to the soft ball test*. She was a huge Chicago Cubs fan and loved Harry Carey. When the sugar mixture test was good she would loudly proclaim Holy Cow trying to do her best Harry Carey impersonation. Send in your recipes and stories.

*What is the “soft ball test”?
It is a test to see if the fudge has been cooked to the proper stage. Before you start cooking, fill a small dish with ice water and set aside. After you have brought the recipe to a full boil for 4 minutes, dribble a few drops of the mixture into the ice water from a wooden spoon. After it cools in the water (about 10 seconds), you should be able to roll it into small ball with your finger tips. If you put it in your mouth, it will be slightly chewy. If it passes these tests, you are done and should remove the mixture from heat and add the remaining ingredients. Otherwise, cook for another 30 seconds and try the test again. Most of the time, cooking time will not exceed 5 minutes.