Day 10: In honor of her gift of hospitality (my Mom)

Apple Crisp

Oh, this one took me back! As you can see from the weathered, worn recipe card, this was a classic and used quite frequently. I remember the group of pitiful apple trees in our backyard at the farm on Bushmill and the teeny, tiny fruit it produced most years. This leads to memories of Mom peeling what seemed like a HUGE bucket of these tiny apples just to get enough for this recipe. Those apples were awful to eat straight off the tree, but when Mom dressed them up in this recipe - Oh Yeah!! Delish!! I remember the last time Mom made this dish. It was a few months before she left her Earthly home for her Heavenly dwelling, and she knew my kids would enjoy it! That was Mom! Always wanting to provide something that people would enjoy and find comforting in some way! I remember watching her  deft fingers kneading the ingredients for the topping, knowing instinctively just when they were perfect to create this delicious garnish to the tasty, but plain apples. I was surprised by the simplicity of the recipe, which I should not have been. Did I not KNOW this by now about my Mom's ability to take the simplest things and make wonderful creations from them?!! The apples, a bit of sugar, pinch of cinnamon, and water make up the fruit foundation. Who knew?! I remember having this often as a child because it was one of Dad's favorites and I now realize it was quite economical also - another reason for its frequenting our dinner table on a regular basis during harvest time for the pitiful apples! Oh, the lessons on frugality and simplicity that my Mom offered on a daily basis! It is in reflection that I truly appreciate them. Thank you, Momma! Miss your daily wisdom being spoken over my life! I do hear your voice in a faint whisper in my memories and will always hold them in my heart. You are loved!

Day 9: Honoring her gift of hospitality

Baked Chicken Casserole

     I was talking to Ash the day I made this chicken casserole and when I mentioned the dish she immediately asked, "So what was the deal with the Style Show at the church, anyway?" Wow. I did not even have to articulate the connection, she already made it! This was a recipe in Mom's collection, but it gained fame as the main dish for the Autumn edition of the bi-annual Style Show at the Clarksburg UM Church. This was quite the phenomenon for the residents of the Clarksburg/Frankfort area, as the ladies would pack the church to overflowing for the opportunity to be served a lovely, filling lunch (this casserole in the Fall, chicken salad in the Spring), see a lovely collection of the latest fashion modeled by members of the CUMC congregation (yes, I was drafted for this almost every time!), and potentially win a lovely door prize. This was so big, that at one point the Style Show made more $$ than Field Day! Whoa! So, memories of this dish revolve mostly around this event more than my Momma. 

As for my review of this dish, it is economical and filling. It calls for just a few ingredients: cooked chicken, cut up; torn bread; chicken broth; eggs; 1 can of cream of mushroom soup; and garlic salt. I used a rotisserie chicken (more flavorful) and the King Hawaiian rolls as the bread (very rich!). I forgot to add the garlic salt before baking and could definitely tell the difference. It was a bit more bland by trying to add the garlic salt after baking. If you need a cheap dish to fill the tummies of the family, this works! Nothing elegant, basic comfort food really!  

     

Days 5 through 8: In tribute to her gift of hospitality

Here it is, the treasured box of recipes! I retrieved it from Ash's cupboard, which she gladly allowed me to keep for this project. It is so reassuring to see Mom's handwriting on so many memorable recipe cards, as well as scraps of paper, newspaper clippings, and pages torn from magazines. The earliest of items contained here, dates back to 1966 - I would have been 6 years old at that time. An added joy was finding recipes in the handwriting of relatives and friends that were amazing cooks as well. If you have never perused the recipe files, or cookbooks from your heritage, I encourage you to take the time and travel along this memorable journey! It will fill more than your stomachs, it will bring your heart to overflowing!

Day 5: Oven Barbequed Chicken
I truly had not remembered this recipe, so I chose it for this day's recipe. It served as a reminder of how very few of Mom's recipes would qualify for the 30-minute-meals concept so prevalent in my repertoire and generation of cooks. The sauce, as you can see, has numerous ingredients and while it did not take a significant amount of time to create the sauce, it was a radical change from just grabbing a bottle of my favorite BBQ sauce and pouring it over the chicken. Another element that dated this recipe was the use of "1 large frying chicken, cut up". I could NOT find a frying chicken in my local grocery! They package chicken by pieces (legs, thighs, etc) or the whole chicken was a small roasting chicken. I know I could have used the roasting chicken, but I was not about to cut up a chicken for this. It would have been disastrous, believe me! So, I used chicken breast and wings. My rating for this recipe? On a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 5 or 6. The chicken did not get as crispy as I would have liked it, but the sauce was good!

Day 6: Calico Bean Bake
This testifies to the days Mom endured through her life of trying to stretch a dollar and feed a family as economically as possible. The most expensive ingredient is the ground beef, and this is a filling dish! BUT you have to like beans to enjoy this one! I recall this recipe as one mom would prepare before leaving for work, putting in the oven on "time-bake" and then having it waiting for us when we all returned in the evening after work and school/activities for dinner. Mom mastered the dishes using "time-bake" feature on her oven - set the time you wanted the dish to start and how long you wanted it to cook, and viola, it would be waiting for you when you returned. I used this technique often in the early years of my marriage while I was still working outside of the home. This pre-dated the use of a crock pot for me! Mom, the revolutionist!!


Day 7: McDonald House Baked Apricot Chicken






          Day 8: McDonald House Rhubarb Bake



These two recipes bring back vivid memories of a place in Bainbridge, Ohio - the McDonald House. The owner and cook, Carol McDonald served meals out of her home, which was gorgeous! The food was amazing and unique and these two were examples of the dishes McDonald House became well-known for.
I was discussing the chicken I was fixing for dinner with Michael and he immediately remembered the dish as a favorite that I used to make during his childhood. He asked how complicated the sauce was, thinking it must be quite involved due to the exotic blend of flavors it held. He was somewhat disappointed to find out that the sauce consists of 3 ready-made ingredients: a bottle of Catalina French dressing, a package of Knorr's French Onion soup mix, and a jar of apricot preserves. That's it!! But the secret is in the preparation! The sauce is poured over the bone-in chicken and then SLOWLY baked in the oven at 275 for 2-3 hours. I never tried this in a crock pot and do not think the finished product would be the same. It is an all-time favorite dish of ours! BTW: I used the same sauce several times over a boneless pork roast, baking low and slow just as the chicken. Very tasty as well!
The rhubarb dish? Well, if you think you do not like rhubarb, then THIS is your dish! So simple, and so decadent, thanks to lots of sugar and butter!! You just cook the rhubarb on top of the stove with sugar until the rhubarb is softened and somewhat mushy. Pour that into a baking dish, then using day-old dinner rolls (this go-round I used the Hawaiian sweet rolls) you tear them up and put on top of the cooked rhubarb. Drizzle this with cinnamon, more sugar, and then a stick of melted butter (rings of a Paula Dean recipe, huh?!!)!! Bake this for about 30 minutes and that is it! Delish!! Mom did not make this very often, but reserved it for special occasions. It often appeared on the table for Easter dinner! I highly recommend this one!