I know you want a taste...

My friend called today to let me know there was a good estate sale a few miles away.

I love oak furniture (apparently it is not in fashion right now so the prices are good and no one is buying) and she mentioned that there were some pieces I might want to see.*

Since it was a work day, I took an early lunch and wandered to a part of town that is unfamiliar to me. As I drove past expanses of undeveloped property (covered in wildflowers!) I wondered if this area was too low for building. I know that parts of town are too close to a creek and this drive felt very low. I guess I have seen too many floods.

The house was in a pretty neighborhood and the furniture beautiful. But I really need nothing. I just wanted to “look.” Of course, then I remembered that I have been looking to replace a favorite cookbook that I have almost destroyed in the past few years. It is grimy and yucky.

So, I looked at the cookbooks today. I did not find the one I sought, but I recognized another. It is brown with a drawing of an old-timey lamppost on the cover. It is a book published 40 years ago, when I was graduating from high school and my mother’s home town celebrated its sesquicentennial - A Taste of Victoria, published in 1974 by Nazareth Academy–St. Joseph’s Schools Projects, Inc. ** (My copy went missing a long time ago - probably during a move.)

I opened to the cake section to find the recipe Mom submitted. There it was on page 161 – Old Fashioned Jam Cake (I think it was one of my grandmother’s recipes. I won a recipe contest with it as a new Army wife in the early 1980s. And yes - I gave my mom and grandmother credit for the recipe.). It is still a favorite in our family and was the recipe we shared with family and friends on the day we mourned and buried Mom.

I also looked through the book for names I remember - especially for a recipe from my mother’s best friend. I have hers for  chicken spaghetti and expected that one to be in the book, but found a different recipe – “Philly” Spaghetti!  It sounds pretty good – maybe we will try it when the family gathers at the river (where both of our families camped together some 50 years ago).

Oh, of course the book came home with me. ***

And I will share these recipes with you:

Old Fashioned Jam Cake

1 cup oleo (you can use butter)

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

3 ½ cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp salt

1 tsp. each cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice

1 cup buttermilk (or soured milk)

1 cup grape jam (Don’t use jelly! You can use a different type of jam.)

1 cup raisins

1 cup nuts (I don’t like nuts in cake. I don’t remember the last time I had this cake with nuts)

Cream oleo and sugar. Beat in eggs. Sift together dry ingredients and add alternately with the buttermilk. Add the jam and mix well. Add nuts and raisins. Bake at 325 degrees for about 1 ½ hours in a greased and floured 10 in. tube pan. (Comments in parenthesis are mine.)

 

“Philly” Spaghetti

2 lbs. ground beef

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups milk

1 8 oz. pkg. Philadelphia cream cheese cubed

1 can (cream of) mushroom soup

1 16 oz. can whole kernel corn, drained

16 oz. elbow spaghetti, cooked and drained

¼ cup chopped pimiento

¼ cup green pepper, finely diced (I bet this would be good with diced celery too.)

1 ½ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

Brown meat; drain. Add onion; cook until tender. Stir in milk, cheese, and soup, mixing until well blended. Add remaining ingredients. Heat and serve. Serves 8 to 10. (Comments in parenthesis are mine.)

NOTES:

* There were a couple of nice chests of drawers and a cabinet I would own if I had room for it. But I have no room and no need. My only need is to downsize.

** These were schools attended by my grandmother, mother and uncle. Mom met her best friend, our “Aunt Bettie” there in the first grade. The schools  were run by Marianist brothers (for a time) and Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament Order sisters. 

My siblings and I attended grade school also operated by Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament Order sisters and I attended a Marianist university (I make these connections for my children – in the event they want to make these connections.).

*** Do not mock me.  

FINAL NOTE: 

I just found the cookbook on Amazon and Ebay. And here is the newspaper story:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=861&dat=19740827&id=_bxdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=I14NAAAAIBAJ&pg=5369,4521539