Sunday, September 19, 2021

Sunday Brunch: Recipes from Past Generations + 5 Book #Giveaway



PEG COCHRAN:  Welcome to Mystery Lovers Kitchen’s Sunday Brunch.  Pull up a chair and help yourself to a cup of tea or coffee and some coffee cake, a scone or a blueberry muffin. 

Do you have treasured recipes that have been handed down from past generations?  My Italian grandmother was known for her delicious tomato sauce and my Hungarian grandmother made the best sauerbraten and paprikash.  Unfortunately, neither of them ever wrote anything down!  Nor did they measure—it was a handful of this, a pinch of that.  Sadly, those recipes are now lost.

I do have a number of recipes from my late husband’s family, many passed down from his grandmother and great-grandmother.  My mother-in-law made the most wonderful Christmas cookies and I have a faded sheet with her recipe collection printed on it.  She also made delicious stuffed cabbage and peppers and she always used the leftover Easter ham in bean soup, which I shared here.  


His aunt Ann worked miracles with dough.  I once watched her take a lump of dough and stretch it until it was as thin as a sheet of paper and as large as her dining room table.  I have her recipe for strawberry sponge cake and I shared it here. 

What recipes do you have that came from past generations?   





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LESLIE KARST: I am so glad you raised this question today, Peg, because it made me pull out my maternal grandmother’s ancient recipe book (made from an old ledger), in which she hand-wrote out recipes, as well as cut-and-pasted ones from the Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping.

I laughed out loud when I came to her entry for “Yummy Balls” (uncooked rice made into meatballs with ground meat, then simmered in tomato soup)—which has been a joke in my family since my mother and aunt (after having consumed several Martinis) cooked the dish for all us grandkids on a camping trip back in the 1960s. But her recipe for cream puffs is one of my favorites from the book. Not only has she scribbled “never fails, best I ever found,” next to the entry, but it also says “High School,” which puts the date of the recipe at some 100 years ago. (I also love that she’s later gone back in and corrected her spelling with a red pen, lol.)



I’ve included a high-resolution photo of the page, so you can enlarge it if you want to read the cream puff recipe (as well as the one at the bottom for Black Hawk Mine pancakes, which my grandfather apparently liked).


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VICKI DELANY: What a perfect topic for this week. As it happens I have been given a battleship-sinking amount of tomatoes. My freezer died in the spring and I decided not to get another one. The conundrum now is: how much to I spend to use my free vegetables?  So I asked my Mom for her family-famous tomato chili recipe that she used to make every year.  She gave me them, plus her canning jars, canning pot, and spices.  I intend to start tomorrow.  This will be my first venture into canning.  Wish me luck. 




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MADDIE DAY: Good luck, Vicki! My main handed-down recipes are for Christmas cookies. My mother made the recipes both my grandmothers did. Mexican Bridecakes, English Butter Cookies, Red Sugar Cookies, what we fondly called Squeeze-Out Cookies - done with the Spritz device - Refrigerator cookies (usually made in a red and green spiral) and more. 

These are the recipe cards I wrote out before I left home and which I clearly still use! I had to rewrite the Bridecakes recipe a few years ago - the card was in shreds.


I also make gingerbread people, but that recipe comes out of Mommy's old Joy of Cooking.

It isn't Christmas without homemade cookies, preferably cut, decorated with colored sugars, and baked with help from one or more family members or younger children.

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MOLLY MACRAE: My sister Jenny gave us one of the best wedding presents possible - an accordion folder full of her favorite recipes. She included a nice variety, from dill dip to Yorkshire pudding to pork steak with apples to bananas foster, and of course plenty of desserts! One of our favorites through all these years (43!) is her recipe for English toffee. It's sensational! 


My sister Cammy gave me an old stationery box full of handwritten and clipped recipes from our grandmother. What a treasure trove! The recipes and clippings seem to date from WWI through the early 60s, and there are a lot of cucumber recipes and fish recipes. Can you read what's written on the small envelope? "Suggestions" Isn't that intriguing? What suggestions would you put in a small envelope for a later generation to find? 


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LESLIE BUDEWITZ: The recipe Maddie refers to as Mexican Bridecakes is also known as Mexican Wedding Cakes, Snowballs, Pecan Sandies, and Russian Teacakes--the name my mother used. I used her recipe in AS THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE CRUMBLES, my 5th Food Lovers' Village mystery (set to be reissued in November), where Erin uses her familiarity with the cookie to recognize a clue to the timing of her friend Melody's murder and ultimately identify the killer. Even though I hardly needed to test the recipe to include it in the book and here on the blog, I happily did! 

And I totally agree that Christmas cookies taste even better when the recipe is handed down. I lack the manual dexterity--or maybe just the patience--to make the Candy Cane Cookies she excelled at or the Berlinkranzer, tiny wreaths trimmed with cut pieces of red and green candied fruit, but her Date Pinwheels, Spritz, Bourbon Balls, and more live on. Some of her recipes came from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, but others came from family friends in her childhood, a pair of sisters who lived together and were always called the Frank Girls. Probably the family recipe we use most often is a classic Banana Bread studded with walnuts, which my father always called Amba Bread--which kid mispronounced it and gave him the idea, I have no clue!    

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MAYA CORRIGAN: Like Leslie and Maddie, I have a hand-me-down Mexican wedding cake/Russian tea cake recipe, which came from my mother-in-law. Both she and my mother wrote their recipes on 4 X 6 index cards. I've inherited those recipe cards, most of them for holiday dinners and cookies. Though I've combined them into one card box, I have no trouble figuring out which recipes belong to each of them because they had such different writing (and cooking) styles.




My mother's penmanship has the classic Palmer-method slant to it, with letters in a word all connected. My mother-in-law wrote with a backward slant and sometimes left spaces between the letters in a word. Now that cursive is no longer taught in schools, no one two generations from now will be able to decipher these recipes. Also, you can tell from the recipe cards that my mother wasn't a neat cook. Her most often used recipes have blots of different ingredients on them. The same is true of my recipes and the cookbook pages with recipes I consult frequently. 

Both moms were great cooks. The holidays at our house still feature the cookies we loved every year when spending the holidays with them: my mother's nutmeg flats (recipe shown above) and pecan tassies, and my mother-in-law's Mexican wedding cakes. She also made wonderful sand tarts, rolled thinner than I could ever roll dough, so I don't even try to make them. However, my son carries on that tradition.  

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LUCY BURDETTE: I have three boxes containing a hodgepodge of recipes from my grandmothers and father and mother-in-law, and I'm so glad you reminded me to look through them! My favorite (which I couldn't find for the photo) was a recipe for rat poison--filed right in with the other food items...



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MARY JANE MAFFINI: I love this topic and I see that I am not alone in using yellowed recipe cards from decades past and hand-written recipes from mothers, aunties and grandmothers. My mother-in-law was a fabulous and very competitive cook. Her VERY elusive pizza recipe took years to get. I shared the story of that triumph on my first guest post at Mystery Lovers Kitchen in 2010! The story and recipe are here in the post: Nonna's pizza  We also snagged her ravioli recipe and if you're very good I'll share that near Christmas.  Recipes from my husband's Zia Lina showed up in several of our Book Collector Mysteries. 

My mother was also a terrific cook and versions of her chocolate birthday cake, chicken in wine and thyme, meringues and many others including my Scottish grandmother's shortbread (updated with lavender) have also appeared here: Lavender shortbread.  Dozens of other recipes appear regularly at our table and have been passed to later generations. My mum's little books have disintegrated over time but one year for Mother's Day, my daughter, Victoria (who many of you know!) took a few pages and put them behind glass in frames.  It was wonderful to see Mum's handwriting on the wall in the cottage kitchen. 


I have enjoyed reading everyone's stories and look forward to all your family recipes tales in the comments. Thanks, Peg, for this topic!


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CLEO COYLE: Wonderful topic, Peg! I’ll just add that my late Aunt Mary’s recipe file (and family photos she left behind) are among my most treasured possessions. 

Delicious Italian cookies like these and these (and many other dishes) that I now make were inspired by my years of cooking with Aunt Mary—and eating her cooking, of course! She and my mother were born in Italy and lost their own mother while still young, which is why my aunt was more of a grandmother to me. 

On the other side of the family, the Fresh Garden Tomato Sauce I make (and blogged about here) was inspired by my dad, a dedicated gardener all his life, who helped his own father plant, raise, and harvest 2,000 tomato plants every year to help his family survive the Great Depression. Meanwhile, his mother (my grandmother Grazia) baked fresh bread every day in an outdoor oven. Another fantastic inspiration from a past generation that I will always treasure. ~ Cleo 




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What recipes do you have that
came from past generations?   


GIVEAWAY! 

To be entered in this week's drawing,
join us in the comments.

Include your email address,
so we can contact the winner!

Comments Open through
Wednesday, September 22



>> A FATAL FOOTNOTE by Margaret Loudon

>> MURDER AT THE LOBSTAH SHACK (ARC) 
by Maddie Day

>> A MEASURE OF MURDER by Leslie Karst

>> HEATHER AND HOMICIDE 
by Molly MacRae

 >> BREWED AWAKENING by Cleo Coyle


Comments Open through
Wednesday, September 22

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77 comments:

  1. What a fun page. Really enjoyed the history. And the recipes. We don't have many older recipes. So much was lost to natural disasters, like out running a flood. But I remember, back in the 50's, my Mom telling us about 'painting' cookies with her Grandmother at Christmas time. Frosting wasn't used. It was evaporated milk with vegetable food coloring mixed in. Her Grandmother told her Her Mom would 'paint' sugar cookies for her husband on the front lines during the war in the 1855 time frame. Still have the sugar cookie recipe that's been handed down. Tried to substitute shortening once. Decided I stick to butter.

    deepotter at centurylink dot net

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    1. Ooooo...sugar cookies are the best! And the recipe my family has always used was handed down through my grandmother, as well. Love the story about "painting" them back in the 19th century!

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  2. We have many. Holubchi, grandma's green beans, lots of casseroles, cookies, and candies. I love making old family favorites.
    kozo8989(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  3. We have recipes from my grandma.
    Kitten143 (at) Verizon (dot) net

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  4. I have many recipes handed down to me. I framed some of them and hung them in my kitchen. I have a lemon bar recipe from my grandma.
    bmedrano34 at yahoo dot com

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    1. Love that you framed the recipes and hung them in the kitchen!

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  5. After the sudden death of our daughter, I needed something to occupy my time and brain. It was a few months until Christmas, so I decide to do something I had always wanted to do but never found the time to do - make a tried and true family recipe.

    I got out all the boxes of recipe cards and cookbooks used through the years by my Granny and Mom and with Mom's help figured out which ones qualified for my cookbook. Then the work started.

    The woman in my family like most from the past only used written recipes as a guideline to go off on. Most of Mom's dishes were as described her dabs of this or measured in one's hand. It was a matter of Mom making the dish with me standing there with her to measure what she had in her hand or how much a dab was. Then the next time, I would make the dish using my written recipe and have Mom check it for accuracy tweaking what needed until it pasted the Mom test.

    As with all cookbooks, I wanted mine to cover all categories from appetizers to desserts. Plus I made it with all the standard conversion charts added spice details and then included canning hints and old wife's tails passed down through the generations all in the miscellaneous section. There is a dedication page in the front of the book where I dedicated the cookbook in memory of our daughter. I typed it all up and printed everything out. Wanting it to last, the sheets were put in protective sleeves to protect it from finger marks or spells. My cookbook is in a large 3 ring binder and is about 2 1/2 inches thick when closed. I don't think it could hold any more. I made three copies - one for Mom so she could have all recipes in one book, one for hubby's Mom because I thought she would enjoy it and one copy for me.

    I do know that they have been used on a regular basis for all the years since the Christmas of 1988. At the time, I didn't realize that they would take on an extra reason to be special to me until some 20 years later when Mom was diagnosed with Alzheimer. If I had waiting, so many details and recipes would have been lost forever. After Mom's passing, I gave her copy to my BFF who treasures it and now makes a lot of my families tried and true recipes too.

    The oldest passed down recipe that I make on a very regular bases is my Granny's Old Fashion Tea Cake Cookie recipe. It's one of hubby's favorites. Each time I make them they bring back sweet memories of both my Granny and my Mom as well as the great times when we shared the cookies together.

    My advice - don't put off getting your families tried and true recipes written down or you may wait to long. Your taste buds and your memories will thank you.
    2clowns at arkansas dot net

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    1. I'm so sorry for your loss Kay. What a wonderful project you took on--I am sure it will be treasured for generations to come.

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  6. Thanks for sharing your loved ones recipe legacies! Carter.karen@gmail.com

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  7. thanks for sharing! thanks for the chance to win! amandasmother(at)aol(dot)com

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  8. Past generations of my family didn’t measure anything so they never wrote down recipes.
    sgiden at verizon(.)net

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  9. Thanks for sharing. cheetahthecat1986ATgmailDOTcom

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  10. Loved reading about the family recipes . My maternal grandma and my dad were the big cooks in the family and I cherish their recipes. The ones I make most often are my Grandma’s stuffed peppers using bacon instead of ground beef, sweet spaghetti and my Dad’s jam cakes and loaf breads, potato candy and mincemeat hermits.
    pbermij2012@ gmail.com

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  11. Loved reading about the family recipes . My maternal grandma and my dad were the big cooks in the family and I cherish their recipes. The ones I make most often are my Grandma’s stuffed peppers using bacon instead of ground beef, sweet spaghetti and my Dad’s jam cakes and loaf breads, potato candy and mincemeat hermits.
    pbermij2012@ gmail.com

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  12. Thanks for such a wonderful question and fun on this page as always!! Unfortunately my mother did not like to share any recipes. After repeated requests from myself, my husband and even my children, she wouldn’t share. On my husband’s side, his family has been very open and one recipe is always a hit. We are always asked to bring the dessert called Carmelitas. They’re amazing and have a yummy chocolate deliciousness that is hard to resist!! Thank you for this great opportunity to win so many great books!! Briggan@lccsbrewster.org

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  13. What a delightful post this has been to read!!!

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  14. Hot milk cake! One of the recipes that has been passed down many generations and I hope the love for it will continue for many more to come.
    carolann.williams0601(at)gmail(dot)com

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  15. I have recipes from my mom, my great aunt, ladies from our church, and I cherish all of them. A lot are handwritten with notes while some are in a cookbook of favorites. I love to pull them out for special meals. I also have made recipes that were shared by favorite authors. Love this group! 3labsmom(at)gmail(dot)com

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  16. I love this post!!! I have recipes past down from both sets of grandmothers and my mother. How I treasure those hand written recipes! So special. Thanks for the chance!

    jarjm1980(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  17. I have my grandmother's pound cake recipe and her cake pan. I also have several of my mom's recipes. hannah03@bellsouth.net

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  18. I would of loved if my grandma liked to cook but she didn't so her sister got all of the recipes. Although there was one my grandma liked to make during the holidays and it was spritz cookies and she had the recipe memorized so she never wrote it down. I grew up in a foster home and of course even though I was the main cook starting at 6 there were no recipes given to me when they shut the foster home down. peggy clayton ptclayton2@aol.com

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  19. Wow! What a fun post to read! I was just going through some recipes the other day from my grandmother. My mom grew up on a farm, so she has many many recipes handed down to her from her mom and aunts. Many are from the 1920s! It is interesting to try and interpret some of the abbreviations lol. ladyofshalott03@yahoo.com

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  20. Great recollections!
    My parents loved to cook. When The Art of French Cooking came out they dove into it. All those cream sauces ended up getting our dog put on a diet! We faired better and suffered not at all!
    I started cooking, at least this is my memory, as soon as I could see the top of the stove. I have a vague recollection of a veal roast with some sort of coffee in the coating. I made it for my parent's anniversary...at least that's what I remember. Memories are tricky things.
    libbydodd at comcast dot net

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  21. What fun to see your treasured recipes on cards and notes that look just like the ones I have. I have some from my grandmother and so many from my mom. I obviously got the recipe collecting gene from her. I have her old spiral notebooks with handwritten (Palmer-style!) recipes and newspaper and magazine clippings taped in, folders of clippings and of course the index cards, both 3x5 and 4x6. I still make goulash, BBQ spareribs, stuffed peppers. The spaghetti sauce is a hit and claimed by my aunt to be stolen from her by my mother. My grandmother made an amazing applesauce cake we love. The Toscanno Style Pizza is a weekly menu item and has been my entire marriage (52 years), found in the Chicago Tribune by another aunt. I've been making it since I was 9 ;-). Has anyone else noticed that while these old recipes may have ingredient amounts, the directions are often more like mix it, cook or bake it, eat it.
    sallycootie@gmail.com

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  22. Unfortunately, I do not have any recipes from my grandmother or mom. I have collected my own recipes that I hope to pass down to my children. It mostly food, but not desserts. 😘

    strgth4yu@hotmail.com

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  23. I have my maternal grandmother's 1930's Delimiter cookbook, a church cookbook that included a batch of recipes from my paternal grandmother, and my mom's whole cookbook collection, stuffed with recipes on scraps of paper. And I'm happy to report that our schools are still teaching cursive.

    taft.jane@gmail.com

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  24. My grandmother lived with us for 7 years. She was a very talented and creative cook and baker but everything was from her memory and she just did it with ease. I have no recipes since she didn't have to write nor record anything. saubleb(at)gmail(dot)com

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  25. OMG, Lucy, there's a recipe for rat poison (arsenic and something else...) in my grandmother's recipe book, as well! Ha!

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  26. What wonderful memories! Loving hearing from all of you.

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  27. All of my cooking and recipes are handed down from my mother but since times have changed I modify them in order to incorporate new flavors. elliotbencan(at)hotmail(dot)com

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  28. I have a few of my Grandma's recipes that I love. Broccoli and corn casserole and the best oatmeal walnut cookies I've ever had. The only problem is that she didn't write very specific instructions, over the years I've perfected them though.

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  29. My grandmother's Mac and cheese
    Terry0743@aol.com

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  30. I was compiling a recipe book for one of my son’s for Christmas and my aunt sent some of my grandmother’s recipes up. She sent one that was written in shorthand and wanted my other son the chef to make it. He got it mostly deciphered and made it…never challenge him!! I still make her macaroni and cheese.

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    1. My daughter's fiance's aunt is putting together a notebook of his grandmother's recipe for both of them. They love to cook together.

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  31. I love history and reading about the recipes from your family generation is fun. I don't have one that's been passed down. My mom has hers from her grandmother that she wrote down but most of them is seasoning by taste and smell. I could never learn that I have to have a recipe to follow. My mom said all her family and my dad's all cooked by taste and smell so more has-been lost than wwritten.

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  32. We have my great great grandmothers blue ribbon Mexican wedding cake recipe. They are divine.

    I thoroughly enjoyed this post and it got me thinking about how I didn’t appreciate all the recipes passed down until
    I married my husband. He is the chef in the family and uses them regularly. I am thankful for that and the ability we have to pass them on to our children along with them
    Memories we make with them when in the kitchen. Absolutely priceless.

    Jessica Lancaster
    Sissybird87@gmail.com

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  33. I gathered my Mom's recipes into a book for our youngest daughter so those recipes are fairly certain to be passed through the generations. Last week my husband finished going through his Mom's estate items & brought me one of her cookbooks, My Favorite Recipes, published in 1959 by the Chicago Culinary Institute. I've enjoyed reading through it and recognizing the recipes she used on several occasions when we had Sunday dinner with her. My favorite family recipe though is one handed down from my great grandmother to my grandmother to my Mom to me for apricot fried pies. Those fried pies were my Dad's favorite and mine too so lots of memories come to mind when I make that recipe. lnchudej@yahoo.com

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  34. I still make family favorites from my Mom's recipes. I actually have her recipe box and have used it often. We always use her Christmas cookie recipes every year. It wouldn't be Christmas without them.
    diannekc8(at)gmail(dot)com

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  35. When I was a kid my mom and I would make no-bake peanut butter oatmeal cookies every year at Christmas. donnaep7@yahoo.com

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    1. Aren't traditions fun? My daughter and I made peanut brittle every Christmas although our cookie recipes varied. I need to remember to do that with my granddaughter.

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  36. My great grandmother's recipe for polish perogies. She taught me from scratch, no recipe needed for the dough and the fillings. My Aunt's cookie recipes that I made for Christmas every year. What a fun subject!!
    lindalou64@live(dot)com

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  37. My mom always made the best homemade banana pudding from scratch. Every year on my birthday when she would ask me what kind of cake that I wanted I would always tell her that I did not want cake, I wanted banana pudding. Thank you so much for this opportunity to win an awesome prize package.

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    1. It would not use my profile but my email is ssouthash@yahoo.com

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  38. I fix the turkey the way my mom did and make the stuffing the exact same way. I fix beef stew the way my dad made it. Thank for the chance at the giveaway. pgenest57 at aol dot com

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  39. I have my maternal grandmother's recipe for fudge cake - the first cake I ever learned to make from scratch. Also my Italian grandmother's recipe for meat sauce, which is a list of ingredients I wrote down so I don't forget anything. And my husband gifted me with his stepmother's handwritten recipe book including recipes for beff stroganoff and cabbage rolls. Thanks for the memories and the giveaway! aut1063(at)gmail)dot)com

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  40. Several years ago my dad's side of the family compiled a family cookbook, which also included old photos of our ancestors. I have compiled recipes that I've collected over the past 10 years so my kids will be able to always find our go to favorite foods after I'm gone.
    nikifeeler@gmail.com

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    1. I have a big binder full of recipes--many of which I make every holiday. I've promised to leave each of my girls a copy!

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  41. We have a tradition in my region. Recipe cards are included with the invitation to a Bridal Shower. When the guests bring along their favorite recipes, they are put in a recipe box that is then given to the bride. She then has a treasure of recipes written by hand from friends and family. I enjoy looking at them just to remember the giver!
    My personal favorite recipe that was handed down to me came from my mother: Angel Food Cake with a tunnel of strawberries!

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    1. Lisa, my mom used to make that cake too! Will have to dig out the recipe now! I agree with Peg, that tradition is great!

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  42. No written recipes. I learned to cook by helping my Mom in the kitchen - ingredients varied depending on what was on hand and seasonings were never measured.
    jtcgc at yahoo dot com

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  43. I love to cook and bake. My mom's homemade rolls are the best. Thank you for the opportunity to win.

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  44. I love to bake and my Great Grandmama’s Brown Sugar Pound Cake is a favorite and then my Grandma Collins’ homemade chocolate cake with homemade chocolate buttercream frosting is always a hit. Then savory is my Moms homemade lasagna that she can’t even remember how she got the recipe and the way my PaPaw roasted sweet potatoes and then “doctored” them up before serving to me was always the best.

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  45. A homemade party punch. Harts@kenyon.edu

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  46. I have my Mom's Ice Box Fruit Cake recipe. Thanks for the chance! almaj80(at)suddenlink(dot)net

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  47. My husband's family has passed down their cherry torte dessert recipe they serve for the holidays. My grandparents did not pass down recipes. They cooked by the eyeballing it method. I am concerned about when my mom passes on so I have been trying to write down as best I can some of her recipes while watching her cook. This way I will have some recipes to pass down to my kids from my side of the family. cherierj(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  48. I have recipes from Grandmas and mom. Also favorites mom collected over the years. I still smile when I see Cleo Coyle share the picture and recipe for Anginetti Italian Lemon Cookies. That's the one recipe I wish my mother made but she never did. Thankfully, we had friends that made them and would share. egoehner(at)roadrunner(dot)com.

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  49. The one recipe in my family that has been passed down is my grandmother's applesauce cake! lindaherold999(at)gmail(dot)com

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  50. My mother made these rose shaped flower cookies. I have the tool and recipe to make it.
    Thanks for the chance.
    Jess
    maceoindo(at)yahoo(dot)com

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  51. We have several recipes from my grandmother, who was such a good cook! One of my favorites is her fruit punch recipe. We lived 6 hours away from her, so when we'd go to visit as kids, she'd always make up a big batch of fruit punch. It was a 2-liter of lemon lime soda, 46 oz of pineapple juice, a packet of cherry Kool-aid, and a cup of sugar. Absolutely love it! Thanks for the contest.
    Mary
    mlduffer(at)att(dot)net

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  52. I am fortunate enough to have one of my maternal grandmother's cookbooks. My other grandmother only ever made fruit cake that I am aware of; as a family, we use my husband's maternal grandmother's recipes for fruit cake. I have all of my mom's and mother in laws recipes that at some point I want to make into cookbooks for the younger generation along with pictures of them working in the garden and kitchen.
    sandra shenton 13 at gmail dot com

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    1. My grandmother and I made fruit cake every year at Christmas even though no one actually liked it! but it was a ritual we both enjoyed.

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  53. My grandmother and mother usually cooked without a written recipe for the most part. My mother was famous for her cornbread and I have her handwritten recipe for that. While working on a church fundraising cookbook as a young mother, I submitted my grandmother's recipe for homemade cornbread dressing - some folks call it stuffing - that we ate every Thanksgiving. I then gave copies of the church cookbook as presents that Christmas. My extended family is so glad that I preserved that recipe for all of us. Grandmother would make a huge pot of it that we all devoured. For me, Thanksgiving was eating her cornbread dressing, moist and fragrant. Everyone ate giblet gravy with it except for my Uncle Glenn and myself. She "made" special giblet-less gravy for the two of us. As an adult, I realize that she may have just fished out the giblets from a small bowl of gravy and given it to us - LOL! Also she put chopped up egg whites in her turkey giblet gravy, and I am not sure but that addition may be a bit unusual. My grandmother and my mother were wonderful home cooks! My grandmother even had a small cafe during World War II that served the airmen at the local military base. My mother met her future husband at that cafe! So you might say that good cooking was the start of our family - and many years later - and me! I still have a thick white mug from that cafe.

    Nancy
    allibrary (at) aol (dot) com

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  54. I have several recipes from my mom and a cookbook from a church where a lot of my relatives attended, so lots of family recipes there! Thanks for a chance to win! ljbonkoski@yahoo.com

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  55. My grandma made cinnamon rolls from scratch!I don't remember the exact recipe for it but I remember her making them whenever she came to visit us when I was a kid! They were always great and delicious! I sure miss those times! stgermaincatherine44@ gmail.com

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  56. What a wonderful tribute to those cooks who came before us! I have a few recipes from my Mom and Mother in Law but my Grandma's were the kind who make biscuits from scratch by winging it and they never wrote anything down. At least I haven't come across any as of yet. I do love all of the recipes that authors provide in the culinary cozies! I have started creating recipe cards with those recipes. I am looking forward to all the wonderful fall baking the makes the kitchen both toasty and tasty and the whole house just smells heavenly. Thank you for the recipes and the drawing! Tracy.Condie@gmail.com

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  57. My family recently pooled their recipes put together a recipe book which includes all kinds of items from appetizers to desserts —many passed down from my grandmother and great-grandmother.
    Smurphy(at)macados(dot)net

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  58. I really don't have anything handed down, but I did start a tradition with one cookie that I make by the thousands at Christmas. I give these away and every year people look forward to them.

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  59. In 1982 I put together a book("Jambalaya, Crawfish Pie,Chicken-Fried") of family/friends recipes as a gift for my baby brother's wedding. Mom (who taught me to cook when I was a little girl) helped me mail recipe requests & make long-distance phone calls, then I typed them up on my portable Smith-Corona and Dad paid to have them printed into plastic spiral books as gifts at the wedding rehearsal dinner.It was such a hit that I was asked to have more printed, and some were even sold at a hotel where a cousin worked in NOLA. I'm so glad I did all that, as most all the family contributors are gone now, but their recipes live on!Some had vague amounts of measures(a pinch of this) and cooking times and oven temps,"til done" etc. but included a few lines of stories, like "all the men love this" or my great aunt Irene's quote: "eat,then get fat!" I was asked to write a new, updated version which I've been working on for years, but it's slow-going these days. I also included some fave recipes from hubby's family in my 1st cookbook,and have luckily now inherited boxes and accordian folders of handwritten cards and magazine/newspaper clippings, besides cookbooks, from my mother, M-I-L, and dh's favorite aunt, who were all terrific cooks. This was a great fun post to hear everyone's memories, and made me nostalgic. Thank you! lola777_22 at hotmail dot com

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  60. I really enjoy visiting this site-I get news about authors, their books, and really good recipes.
    jwisley(at)aol(dot)com

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  61. Such great recipes and heartwarming comments.
    My grandma never used recipes, yet she was a fabulous cook. I remember attempting to calculate the measurements of her ingredients one time. She couldn’t understand why I needed to do this. Everything she made was cooked from the heart. Her lasagna and spaghetti sauce were the best!

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  62. I don’t have any recipes that were handed down to me so I rely heavily on using recipes from others. This is such a wonderful treat for people like me!!! My name is Nowell and my email address is: buckandnowell@aol.com

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  63. My mother made a delicious chocolate fudge upside down cake. After baking, the cake layer was covered by a fudgy sauce. Reminds me of the lava cakes we see now. Sorry to have list this recipe. Sharon Dooley sharondooley@ Comcast.net

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  64. I love my family's Hungarian pastry recipes as well as my grandmother's bourbon dog recipe. Love you guys! XO
    2harts98@gmail.com

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  65. I was blessed to receive recipes from both my family and my husband's mother. My mother made delicious pastries such as balish and kolachky plus a to die for German chocolate cake with homemade pecan coconut frosting. My mother in law was a simple home cook but her dishes all had a touch from her. Her chow mein recipe was unique and had been passed to her from her aunt. It's wonderful when we get blessed with a bit of history through recipes. robeader53@yahoo.com

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