Getting Sauced!
not what you’re thinking, debbs! grandma betty does have plenty of recipes that call for booze, but unfortunately i’m not reporting in on that one. when we were growing up, i always wanted to make spaghetti sauce just like mom did…well, i never knew how. then the magical book came along at christmas and there was the recipe! i was so excited to finally have my chance to make the sauce that we grew up using! (making a sauce in my house is a huge challenge as it better live up to my italian husband’s standards!)
i tried the recipe immediately after i got it…though i made some adjustments. this is what i got when i was done:
grandma’s christmas cookies
growing up this time of year, we all looked forward to making cookies. mom faithfully followed grandma’s recipe and we kids decorated something like 8 dozen cookies each year.
looking back, i believe the recipe probably only worked for about 2 dozen cookies but my mom must have quadrupled the batch to keep us busy. though her kitchen was a wreck, she could sneak away and wrap presents, watch tv, or just enjoy the silence while the 6 of us blithely decorated and fought and snuck cookies in the kitchen.
it looked something like this:
oddly, dandy lion is missing from this photo. there is a strong chance that she was only a couple months old and therefore not required to participate.
this weekend, i’ll be recreating this recipe from grandma betty. the one recipe that stands out as one my mother tried to pass onto us.
here’s the kitchuation
you know that feeling when you’re standing in your kitchen and the recipe calls for malt syrup and while you don’t know what that is, you definitely know you don’t have it? that’s a kitchuation and we have them quite often. there are those cooks who take this in stride, grab a can of dark corn syrup, and keep moving. then there are those of us who try a quick search to figure out what it is, where to buy it, and whether the grocery store next door may have it. finally, there are those who just grab another recipe or make something they know they love so they always have the ingredients on hand.
those three people are us: dandy lion is our adventurer, i am the one who will go to 6 grocery stores within walking distance then trek down to whole foods if necessary, and snickers has the ingredients on hand to make cra-mazing lemon bars.
we’ve been discussing a blog where we’d share recipes and learn from each other. similar to a cooking club or dinner night, but i’m the terrible sister who moved to seattle and cannot participate in person. more importantly, we are tackling the biggest kitchuation of all: my grandmother’s handwritten, water stained, no measurements notebook. we’ll be working our way through the notebook and having others submit as well. along the way, we’ll be sharing recipes with each other and trying them out as well as discussing kitchuations in which we’ve found ourselves: both good and bad. on the plus side, we’ll have legible copies of grandma betty’s recipes!
welcome and we hope you are inspired to tackle your kitchuation as well.