Katie Ivene’s Salt Rising Bread

To make the sponge:

3 between sized potatoes

3 tablespoons of meal

1 teaspoon sugar

Pinch of soda

4 cups water that’s come to the boil

The next day:

2 cups of sweet milk that’s warmed a bit

1 cup of water that’s come to the boil

2 teaspoons salt

1/8 teaspoon of soda

2 tablespoons of shortening (and best not be using any petal puss pig lard in my recipe!)

Flour

Makes three loaves unless it makes four or two, sometimes I change the recipe so you best check it twice. The day ahead, while the kids are still outside playing before supper, peel and slice up the potatoes and add the meal, sugar, soda, and water that’s come to the boil. Put all that in a glass bowl or big jar if you still have one that’s not broke, and cover it up with a good weight-sized dishrag. Let it stand in a warm place all the night and don’t let the kids play around to knock it over or else you got to start over again. The next morning there should be a foam risen up top of it. Get the potatoes out of the mixture, and then add milk, water, soda, salt, and shortening. Add flour just enough to make the dough stiff enough to knead up until it’s right. Keep the kids out of the dough with their dirty hands or else you got to throw the nasty dough away and start all over. While kneading, think on things that’s been bothering you and soon the answer will come. Shape the dough into loaves. Put the loaves in greased up pans, cover with a dishrag, and let them rise again until twice the size. Then bake the loaves in a 400 degree oven until it’s done, maybe 40 minutes or so. Give the kids warm bread with apple butter and send them outside so you can think straight. Serve the bread to your husband so he can see just what you can do when you set your mind to it even if you can do more than bake bread at least the bread gets his attention.

Grandma Faith’s Apple Butter

Pull together:

5 pounds of tart apples

3 cups of apple cider that’s been made another day

4 cups of sugar

3 teaspoons of cinnamon unless you like more

1 teaspoon of cloves unless you like more

A pinch or so of salt to bring out the sweet

Peel the apples, remove the cores, and cut the apples in quarters—if the grandkids are visiting, this will keep their hands busy, but watch the young ones with a knife. In a heavy pot bring the apples and cider up to the boiling. Don’t let this burn by leaving the kitchen to do other things, make your time for it! Cut the heat down and simmer for about twenty-five to thirty minutes. Then take the mixture and put through a sieve or a colander. Mix in the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and cloves. Taste it to make sure it’s perfect. Give the grandkids a taste to see if it is good to their tongue. If everyone is happy, pour the mixture into a dish and bake for two hours at 300 degrees. While this bakes, clean up your mess in the kitchen so that’s all done and let the kids take the peelings and cores out to the pig. You can check your mixture before two hours to see if it’s gone thick enough for your tastes. Then, when it’s done how it should be, pour into canning jars. Make extra for selling—hide those in the secret place. Put the rest up for the family for later. Good on cornbread or biscuits.

Rebekha’s Pralines

Ingredients:

1 cup of white sugar

1 cup of packed light brown sugar

¾ cup of cream

¼ teaspoon of salt

2 tablespoons of butter (real butter, not margarine!)

1 to 1 ½ cups of pecans (leave them in halves, not pieces)

1 teaspoon of vanilla

This is a good recipe to teach children about passing down traditional recipes, measuring, and soft ball versus hard ball stages. Take a heavy 2-quart-sized saucepan and butter the sides—a child can do this part easily. Add the sugars, the cream, and the salt to the saucepan and cook over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until the sugars are dissolved. Keep stirring with a good heavy wood spoon and continue to cook until the mixture begins to come to a boil. It is not a good idea to let younger kids help with this part, as the mixture gets very hot and can cause bad burns. Turn down the heat and cook until the soft ball stage, about 234 degrees on a candy thermometer. When at soft ball stage take off the stove and add the butter and vanilla. Again, be careful that the children do not burn themselves; this should be the adult only part of the recipe. With your wooden spoon, start stirring to cool and add in the pecans. Keep stirring until the candy has become thick and isn’t shiny anymore. Be fast now! Take a teaspoon or tablespoon and spoon out the mixture onto waxed paper—some newspaper under that wax paper is a good idea. Let the candies cool completely before you let the children at them, or else they’ll eat them before they are ready. Wrap them up in wax paper with a ribbon and share with neighbors!

Marco’s Sweet Tater Pancakes

Ingredients

Near bouts 3 quarters pound of sweet tater

2 eggs that you beat with a fork, but don’t be beating it to death

1 and one half a cup of milk and not that skim kind but real fat milk

Half stick of butter you melted and don’t be using no margarine

1 and a half cup of flour

3 and a half teaspoons of baking powder

Thereabouts a teaspoon of salt and thereabouts a touch of fresh ground nutmeg, don’t be using that stuff been on your shelf for fifty years, and add a tiny bit of cinnamon and cloves—but I won’t tell you exactly because that’s my own secret. Maybe I got another secret ingredient, too, but it’s a family secret and I won’t tell it.

You got to cook them sweet tater until they’re fork tender. Drain them, let them cool, and then take off the skin. Then you mash them up. In a bowl, mix them mashed sweet taters with the eggs and milk and butter. In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and the spice. Blend them two bowls together, but be sweet about it, don’t want them pancakes to be tough, do you?

On your greased griddle, spoon out the batter to the size you looking for and cook them until they are a pretty golden color. Look for that bubble, that’s how you know to turn them. I like to serve mine with grandmere’s strawberry syrup, but I won’t be telling you that recipe, no sir and no ma’am.

Miss Darla’s Crisp Butter Cookies

Before you even go any further, gather all your ingredients! You don’t want to be started on the cookies and then realize you are out of something. Then the cookies-making joy is ruined. Gather then begin.

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup of sugar

1 egg

2  tablespoons lemon juice (you can use orange if you want)

Teaspoon of good vanilla and I mean the good kind—some things are worth it.

2 1/2  cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

In a bowl, stir together the butter, sugar, and the egg, and then beat at a medium speed. Now, you’ll need to scrape the bowl every now and again, for you don’t want lumps or bits of flour finding their way into your cookies, do you? Of course not! When the mixture is creamy, add the citrus and your good vanilla I urged you to splurge on, and mix well. Then, turn your mixer down on low or else you’ll have flour flying everywhere—add the flour and baking powder and mix until blended.

Divide dough in three pieces, wrap those pieces in wax paper, and place in the refrigerator a couple of hours until firm. While you are waiting, sit on the porch and have some tea, meditate, or have you read a good book lately? Or sat quietly and thought about things? Or taken your dog for a walk? Then do so while you are waiting for your cookies to chill.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Roll the dough on a light-floured surface—just one dough ball at a time! The others must remain cold! Don’t make the cookies too thick, you want them thin and crispy. Cut with the cookie cutters that make you happy. Put about an inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake anywhere from 6 to 10 minutes—just until the edges of the cookies are lightly browned—don’t over cook! Paying attention when baking cookies is important. But so is having fun eating them—enjoy them with a good tea!

Amy Campinelle & Mr. Husband’s Fried Catfish:

Go to Tony’s and get some cleaned catfish. Cut it up in strips and soak them strips in buttermilk. Put some cornmeal and spices in a paperbag. Toss the catfish in the paperbag and shake shake shake shake. Fry the strips in hot lard—now our sweet Virginia Kate will get upset at the lard, yeah, so if we make the catfish for her, we don’t fry them in no lard, but in the Crisco. Fry them catfish until crispy and serve with some hushpuppy and some French fry. That simple is that good, yeah.