Dear Diary:
Monday:
Now home from honeymoon and settled in our new home. It's fun to cook for Dan. Today I made angel food cake. The recipe said, "Beat 12 eggs separately." The neighbours were nice enough to loan me some extra bowls"
Tuesday:
Dan wanted fruit salad for dinner. The recipe said, "Serve without dressing." So I didn't dress. What a surprise when Dan brought a friend home for dinner.
Wednesday:
A good day for rice. Recipe said, "Wash thoroughly before steaming the rice." It seemed kinda silly but I took a bath. I can't say it improved the rice any.
Thursday:
Today Dan asked for salad again. I tried a new recipe. It said, "Prepare ingredients, then toss on a bed of lettuce one hour before serving." Which is what led up to Dan asking me why I was rolling around in the garden.
Friday:
I found an easy recipe for cookies. It said, "Put all ingredients in bowl and beat it." There must have been something wrong with this recipe. When I got back, everything was the same as when I left.
Saturday:
Dan did the shopping today and brought home a chicken. He asked me to dress it for Sunday. (oh boy) For some reason Dan keeps counting to ten.
Sunday:
Dan's folks came to dinner. I wanted to serve roast but all I could find was hamburger. Suddenly I had a flash of genius. I put the hamburger in the oven and set the controls for roast. It still came out like hamburger, much to my disappointment.
Goodnight, Dear Diary. This has been a very exciting week. I am eager for tomorrow to come so I can try out a new recipe on Dan. If we could just get a bigger oven, I would like to surprise him with "Chocolate Moose."
Starting From Scratch
My mother never let me help much in the kitchen. As a result, my cooking ability was practically non-
When I got there it turned out to be a feed store. I thought it rather strange, but I decided cakes were food. "Do you have scratch?" I asked the clerk. He asked me how much I wanted. I suggested a pound or two. His reply was, "How many chickens do you have? It only comes in 20 lb bags."
I really didn't understand why he mentioned chickens, but I had heard mom say she made chicken casserole from scratch. So I bought 20 lbs and hurried home.
My next problem was to find a recipe calling for scratch. I went through every page of my lovely "Better Homes and Gardens" cook book -
When I opened the scratch, I had doubts that a beautiful, fluffy cake would ever result from such a hard looking ingredient. I hoped that the addition of liquids and heat the result would be successful. I had no need to mention my problem to my new husband. He had mentioned early in our marriage that he loved to cook and would gladly take over anytime.
One day he made a pie and when I told him how good it was, he said he had made is from scratch. That assured me that it could be done.
Being a new bride is scary and when I found out he made pies, cakes and even lemon pudding from scratch...well, if he made all those things from scratch, I was sure he had bought a 20 lb bag of scratch also. But I couldn't find where he stored it, and I checked my supply. It was still full!
At this point I was ready to give up because all the people knew about scratch except me. I decided to try a different approach.
One day, when my husband was not doing anything I said, "Honey, I wish you'd bake a cake."
He got out the flour, sugar, shortening, eggs and milk, but not a sign of scratch. I watched him blend it together, put it into a pan, and slide it into the over to bake.
An hour later, as we were eating the cake, I looked at him and smiled and said, "Honey, why don't we raise a few chickens?"
The Recipe
I didn't have potatoes, so I substituted rice.
I didn't have paprika, so I used another spice.
I didn't have tomato sauce, I used tomato paste;
A whole can, not a half can. . .
I don't believe in waste!
A friend gave me the recipe;
she said you couldn't beat it.
There must be something wrong with her
-
