Yankee Kitchen Favorites

I wrote "EXCELLENT!" on the top of each one of these recipes.  I’ve seen requests for Yankee Kitchen recipes on several web forums.  Perhaps these old favorites are some of the ones you’ve been seeking.

Callers frequently asked Gus Saunders to repeat his recipe for roast beef.  Here is his no-fail recipe for a perfectly cooked roast beef.

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Roast Beef

Gus Saunders - Yankee Kitchen

Preheat oven to 500 F.  Make sure that beef is at room temperature.

Cook beef 5 minutes per pound.  Turn oven off.  Leave roast in oven for 2 hours for medium rare, 15 minutes less for rare, or 15 minutes more for well-done.

DO NOT OPEN OVEN DOOR until cooking time is up.

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I do not have the name of the contributor on this one.  Someone was looking for a favorite meatloaf recipe from Boozie Nickerson.  Perhaps it's this one.

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Juicy Meatloaf

Mix 1 lb. hamburg with 1/3 c. rolled oats or toasted breadcrumbs.  Add ¼ c. finely chopped onions, 1 c. canned tomatoes or ½ tomatoes and ½ ketchup or chili sauce.  Add ½ c. instant non-fat dry milk, salt and pepper, 1 TB Worcestershire sauce, and  1c. crushed croutons (optional).  Mix all and shape into loaf and place in a lightly greased, shallow baking dish.  Bake at 350 F for 1 hour.  Instead of shaping into a loaf, you can layer in a dish with mashed potatoes or bread stuffing.

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Candice was a frequent contributor of the Yankee Kitchen.  Here is a nice autumn favorite!

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Cranberry Chicken

2 ½-3 lbs. chicken pieces

¼ c. oil

½ c. chopped celery

8 oz. can whole berry cranberry sauce

½ c. ketchup

2 ts. lemon juice

1 ts.  brown sugar

1 ts. worcestershire sauce

1 ts. mustard

1 ts. vinegar

salt and pepper to taste

In a skillet, brown chicken in oil.   Add salt and pepper.  Remove chicken from pan and place in a lightly greased 9 x 13 pan.  In the same skillet, cook onions and celery until tender but not brown.  Add remaining ingredients.  Skim off fat.  Pour over chicken.  Bake uncovered at 325 F for 1 hr. and 15 minutes.  Baste with sauce.  (My own notation is “double the sauce”.)

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Kathleen's Oatmeal Cookies

In response to Ann’s request for Oatmeal Cookies I’d like to share this one that comes with a story, of course.

Alright, I know you’re thinking “I’d just like the recipe, thank you.”

This recipe comes from Kathleen - a wiry, elderly, English lady with a great sense of humor.  She was one of a cast of characters that we got to know during our first ten years of marriage living in a Quaker community.

Kathleen was a hoot! While tending her lovely flower garden, she liked to do a little two-step and sing out, “Whoopie!” Sometimes when she was leaving our house, she would open the closet door instead of the exit.  Sometimes I’d just open the closet door for her!  She and I had a good laugh over that!  Anytime she was getting ready to leave but would linger a bit, she’d say, “Well, as Cromwell says, ‘If you’re going, for God’s sake, GO!’”

Kathleen not only gave me this recipe for Oatmeal Cookies, but she gave me her cookie sheet, too.  Actually, she was just letting me borrow the cookie sheet, but when I returned it to her she said that I might as well keep it because it had become completely ruined!  Well, I’m pretty sure that I returned it to her in the same condition as when I got it! Oh well! That was crazy Kathleen for you!

This might be the standard recipe on the back of an oatmeal box, but it’s good!

           

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Kathleen's Oatmeal Cookies

 3/4 c. shortening

1 c. firmly packed-brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 egg

1/4 c. water

1 ts. vanilla

1 c. sifted all-purpose flour

1 ts. salt

1/2 ts. baking soda

3 cups regular oats

Beat shortening, sugars, egg, water & vanilla together until creamy.  Sift together flour, salt & soda, add to creamed mixture; blend well.  Stir in oats.  Drop by teaspoons onto greased cookie sheets.  Bake in a 350° oven for 12-15 minutes.  For variety, add chopped nuts, raisins, chocolate chips or coconut.  Makes 5 dozen.

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When did eating get so complicated?

Between having to choose foods low in cholesterol ... worrying about good and bad fats ...avoiding “farmed” fish ... avoiding potatoes, rice, and bread ... getting enough calcium and vitamin D without ingesting too many calories ... deciphering the plethora of yogurt options ... and trying to stick to locally grown foods ...

I’m “fed’' up!

I’m either eating nothing or everything.  Right now I’m into my eating-everything phase.  And that’s not good.

Of course my obsession with the Food Network isn’t helping me any.  There is no shortage of good stuff to watch on that channel, and, what's more, no limit to the things I've been eating! 

Talk about Food Wars! I’ve been waging one of my own for years.  Quite frankly, I’m about ready to raise the White Flag.  I give up! 

I can hear my mother right now saying to me, “Everything in moderation.”  And I can hear my mother quoting her mother, “If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself!”

Are you food obsessed?

Are you a label reader?

Do you have a handle on food and can share your secrets with me on this “weighty” issue?

Memories of the Yankee Kitchen take me back to a simpler time - the good ol' days of enjoying life and food - a time when we didn’t know so much about how bad the good could be!  To quote George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, “I want to live again!  Please God, let me live again!”  Living the Yankee Kitchen way. :)

I will leave you with this seasonal recipe - Apple Spice Cake - that I mentioned in my first posting.  Leslie from Lawrence requested it from me. 


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Apple Spice Cake

Greased 9 x 13 pan; 350 for 45-50 min.

5 large apples peeled, cored, sliced (recipe says chopped, but I like sliced)

6 TB brandy, applejack, rum or bourbon

1 ½ c. sugar

½ c. veg. oil

2 eggs

2 c. unsifted flour

2 ts. Cinnamon

2 ts. Baking soda

1 ts. Nutmeg

1 ts. Salt

¼ ts. Ground cloves

1 c. chopped walnuts

1 c. raisins ( I use1/2 golden/1/2 regular) 

Place apples, raisins and brandy in bowl.  Set aside.  Mix together sugar, oil, eggs and beat.  Sift together dry ingredients.  Combine apples, raisins and brandy with flour mixture and sugar mixture.  Stir to mix.  Add walnuts, mix to combine.  Bake at 350 for 45-50 min.   Serve warm or room temp with whipped cream, ice cream or sour cream.  Cut in squares.

Best when made a day ahead!

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I’m going to make this Apple Spice Cake this week and have a piece or two…

If there's anyone out there looking for a particular recipe, send me an e-mail and I'll put the word out. 

Got a recipe you'd like to share?  Offer it!  

Send your requests, offers, comments, and responses to my weighty issues to ykconnection@gmail.com.

Let’s see how it goes ye olde Yankee Kitchen fans.