Joy of Cooking (2006) Cookbook

Cookbooks have always been my favourite gift to give as well.  I've had an interest in food since I was knee high to a grasshopper!  I grew up in small town Canada, population less than 2,000.  There were no fast food restaurants or take-out but there was a variety store with a very small lunch counter.  My Mom, like all the ladies there knew how to cook and can.  I likely borrowed every cookbook our small library had, often begging my Mom to make one of those fancy recipes.  To make a long story short, I loved cookbooks especially my Mom's old Betty Crocker.  I can remember being so excited when I got my first copy of Betty Crocker cookbook, the first Christmas we were married.  It's still my favourite cookbook!

Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries, you name it and I can find a suitable cookbook as a gift!  Every bridal shower I have gone to, I have gifted the Joy of Cooking.  It has always been a cookbook I wanted but never bought for myself.  This Christmas, one of our kids gifted me with The Joy of Cooking (2006), 75^th Anniversary edition.  There are 4,500 recipes to discover, 500 new recipes and 4,000 classic recipes.  I am so excited!

Kitchen Memories Two A Collection of Recipes by The Little Schoolhouse and Museum in Tehkummah Township on Minitoulin Island, Ontario

During our great road trip/camping adventure we stayed overnight in South Baymouth, Ontario where we would board the Chi-Cheemaun ferry that would take us across Lake Huron to Tobermory.  The weather was cold and damp but we still took a walk-about before settling into our room for the night.  Across the main road from our motel we had a lovely view of the Chi-Cheemaun dock.  Scattered across Ontario there are a multitude of small, one room schoolhouses that have been converted into homes.  A few have been rescued and preserved as museums.  Such was the case with the was The Little Schoolhouse and Museum beside the motel to the north.  Unfortunately, we could only peer in the the windows for a glimpse of the past as the museum was closed.

We wandered from the museum around the motel pool ending up in the motel gift shop.  I always delight in finding community fundraiser cookbooks.  These types of cookbooks are comprised of a collection of recipes submitted by members of the community or organization then assembled into a booklet format to be sold as a fund raiser.  I was quite happy to find Kitchen Memories Two (June 2013), a collection of recipes by The Little Schoolhouse and Museum in Tehkummah Township on Minitoulin Island, Ontario.  This recipe book was compiled by residents of Tehkummah Township in support of the museum.  This really is a nice recipe book that I will be making a few recipes from!

These types of recipe books are a treasure not only from a cooking perspective but also are of interest to family historians and genealogists.  For example, several recipes in this book have the contributor's name  followed by 'sister' of so and so, giving valuable relationship connections useful in family history research.  Quite often recipes are contributed in honour of a loved one no longer living.  From a culinary perspective, these are very much home style cooking recipes.  Recipes contributed tend to be family favourites and family signature recipes, some handed down from generation to generation.  One thing I have found too, is the recipes submitted tend to use easily accessible ingredients. 

It is common for fundraiser recipe books to have one or more home canning recipes.  This can be problematic.  All home canned foods must be properly processed to ensure a safe product.  These types of recipe books seldom give the safe canning processing methods of boiling water bath (high acid foods) and pressure canning (low acid foods).  Some as in this recipe book may include instructions for unsafe canning methods such as oven or open kettle canning.  Someone following the instructions for canning meat in this recipe book could find themselves with a product that could make them very ill or possibly worse!  Another problem is ingredient omissions that would not be a problem when cooking but can be critical when home canning. 

I shudder when I see this type of thing.  Improperly home canned food is nothing to fool around with.  It really is like playing Russian roulette with your's or your loved ones' lives.  This recipe book was published in June of 2013 so there really is no excuse not to use current safe canning methods.  Honestly, I wish they would just refrain from publishing home canning recipes in these types of publications.  That being said, an experienced home canner can convert most of these recipes into safe-to- can simply by comparing them to tested home canning recipes, making the necessary adjustments then processing using the appropriate method. 

New Cookbooks

Five Steps to Chocolate Rehab & Chocolate Crimes

by Cece Neef Brune

January 28. 2011

A couple of weeks ago I was pleasantly surprised to see a message from Cece Neef Brune graciously offering to send me two of her cookbooks.  I of course accepted her very generous offer!  Cece also authors the blog Texas Jot.  Cece's cookbooks are all about chocolate.  Yesterday the books arrived along with a chocolate bar and wonderful hand written note.  Thanks so much Cece! 

Cece's cookbooks benefit the Aphasia Centre in Midland, Texas.  Aphasia is an acquired language disorder that disables self expression.  It is one the most devastating effects of a stroke or head injury that can isolate a person because when you can't speak others stop talking to you.  They host Chocolate Decadence in February as a fundraiser and to raise awareness of aphasia.  If you are in the area or plan to be in Midland, Texas on February 10, 2011 please support this worthwhile delicious event.

Cece never asked me for a review of her books but I will be writing one for each of them as I go through some of the recipes.  I'm looking forward to exploring through her recipes.  Please take a few minutes to visit Cece's blog and leave a message that Garden Gnome sent you. Watch for her recipes as I test them along with a review of each book in the very near future.

Foodie Finds from Our Recent Vacation to the Sunny South

As you may have guessed we were on an extended vacation to our vacation home in the sunny south.  We left here December 8 and returned on January 9.  Our travels spanned over one Canadian province and eight US states.  Over the month we put a lot of miles on our car, did a lot of sightseeing including both coasts, ate a lot of wonderful food, visited family and friends and in short had one heck of a good time!  As always we managed to bring a few foodie finds home.

I have a small collection of mugs with food advertising on them.  Some of them are antiques but others are classified as collectibles.  This trip I expanded my collection by three mugs - Morton's Salt, Maxwell House Coffee and Campbell's Soup.  The Maxwell House Coffee is the oldest made by the same manufacturer of a Campbell's Soup mug I already had.  The newly purchased Campbell's soup (circa 1998) is still a nice addition to my collection. 

Most of my collectible mugs are in daily use.  My theory is why collect something you can't enjoy.  Some say the enjoyment should come from display only but I don't live in a museum so most of my pieces do get used.  I do use a lot of my antique glassware including Anchor Hocking's Fire King bakeware and lusterware.  My carnival ware pickle dishes get a fair amount of use.  I'm a bit more protective of my American Sweetheart by MacBeth-Evans Glass Company but it doese see a bit of occasional use.  As a home canner I do have a collection of old canning jars with the oldest ones for display purposes and those from the 1940's still in use mainly for dry storage.

Surprisingly we did not go overboard with the foods we brought home.  I was looking for foodie finds that were a bit different.  Pictured are all of our foodie finds including the only carbonated beverage, Vernor's, that I like other than club soda.  I'm looking forward to using the pure sugar cane syrup.  It is quite thick like corn syrup.  We did a tour of the Jelly Belly factory!  The wacky mac is 4 - colour vegetable bowtie pasta from Illinois.  The seasoning packets (chipotle chili, bacon cheddar, sesame garlic) are from The Pantry Club in Clearwater, Florida.  Currently their seasoning packets are only available through shows they hold at select Sam's Clubs in a few states.  Shows last 4 to 18 days.  They sell online through their website as well.  We bought two brands of fish coating to try, White Castle mustard, chicharrones (pork skins), lychee drink and hot sauce from Harry's Seafood Bar and Grille.

Cedar Valley Cheese Factory in Belgium, Wisconsin is on our must stop when in the area list.  Our two main stock up items there is the mozzarella block cheese and the cheese sticks.  These are the best cheese sticks I've ever tasted.  I especially like that they are not individually wrapped too, making them an eco-friendly food choice.  We only bought a small block of cheddar this time.  Two new cheeses we bought were white cheddar horseradish and cheddar caraway cubes.  The white cheddar horseradish cheese will be quite lovely slice thin on roast beef sandwiches.  The Willow Creek Mill Fish coating pictured in the last picture and beef jerky from Mike's Country Meats in Campbellsport, Wisconsin were also part of our purchases at the cheese factory.

As a foodie I love browsing kitchen specialty shops.  We stopped at Vero Fashion Outlets in Vero Beach, Florida.  While my husband checked out the clothing deals I amused myself in Kitchen Collection.  As with all kitchen specialty shops this one was filled with a lot of foodie eye candy as well as a few thing to drool over.  I settled on a tortilla press and a pro meat tenderizer.  I've been told once you start making tortillas fresh you won't go back to store bought so I'm looking forward to using this gadget.  There is a story behind the meat tenderizer that I will tell when I post about using it.

When we bought our vacation home we knew we would be either flying or driving down so I decided on driving trips I would expand my recipe book collection to include a cookbook from each state we travel through.  We enjoyed two trips to The Florida Aquarium - an amazing must visit attraction.  While at the gift shop I bought a copy of Best of the Best from Florida Cookbook (2004).   This is a series cookbook with one from every state although I did not notice that at the time.  I can't wait to report back on some of the great recipes from this cookbook!  Although I won't be collecting this specific series as I already have cookbooks from other states we have visited, it does look to be a good series. 

Second Annual He Said/She Said Contest

Last year my husband and I ran a 6 week He Said/She Said Contest with recipes from  Better Homes and Garden New Grilling Book, 2005 by Meredith Corporation.  The rules of the contest is that each of us chose 6 recipes from the book, cooked them and then blogged about each recipe.  In the end there was supposed to be a winner but by the end of the contest we were both winners because we had explored new recipes.  This year's he said/she said contest will focus on exploring Company's Coming® Heart-Friendly™ by Jean Paré.

Jean Paré has been a favourite Canadian cookbook author of ours for years.  We have several of her cookbooks.  Company's Coming® cookbooks are published in Edmonton, Alberta.  Her recipes are always top notch!  This cookbook was a very generous gift to my husband from our kids.  This is the perfect opportunity to explore another great Company's Coming® cookbook.

This year the contest will run from August 1 to August 31.  It is a shorter time frame than last year's contest.  In light of that each of us will choose 4 recipes from this cookbook, cook them and then blog about them.  Each will be identified by a he said or she said notation in the title.  At the end of the contest there will be 8 recipes total from the cookbook.  I will run a poll for each of us followed by a final combined poll for voting.  If last year is any indication this will be another great contest pitting husband and wife together.  I hope you enjoy our little challenge and the recipes we come up with.

The Best of Chef at Home Cookbook by Chef Michael Smith

My Newest Cookbook

It is no secret that Michael Smith is my favourite Canadian chef! I watch his shows almost daily, taping those I can't watch to catch up when I can.  I follow him on Twitter.  I just love his cooking syle - cooking without a recipe!  I have yet to try one of his recipes that I can't add my own touch to.  That is what a recipe is all about.  A recipe is a spring board, a starting point to take it from that point and make it your own.   Chef Michael continues to be a wonderful inspiration in my cooking!

A couple of months ago, Chef Michael was in Toronto and gosh did I ever debate going to that dinner.  It was $125 a plate but with travel costs and more than likely staying overnight the true cost would have been closer to $500.  At any rate I did do a lot of debating about it.  I now have a very good reason to attend the next time I get an opportunity.  You see, I now need his autograph!

I like to thank our kids gifted me with a copy of The Best of Chef at Home by Chef Michael Smith.  What a wonderful and very thoughtful gift!  I am seriously in Seventh Heaven here!  This will be one of those cookbooks that I read from cover to cover.  I can't wait to try out several of the recipes so will post as I do.  Stay tuned because you will be hearing a lot more about this cookbook.

Frugal Kitchens 101 - Old Cookbooks

Many home cooks turn to cookbooks for inspiration while other use them for specific recipes. One problem that is often experienced is the use of ingredients you might not readily have on hand and depending on your location cannot easily get. In addition to this some ingredients listed are brand specific. In a time when many are feeling the pinch and are trying to stretch their food budgets a simpler source for recipes is called for. Now don't get me wrong because using exotic and brand specific ingredients is fine but if you can get a great meal without the added expense, why not? The reality is unless it is an ingredient that is only made by one specific company a cheaper brand will get the same or very close to the same results. In these trying economic times, turn to the older cookbooks!

Two of my favourite and dependable older cookbooks are dated 1974 and 1964 respectively. The first is my Betty Crocker cookbook and the second is Kate Aitken's Canadian Cookbook. Both contain recipes that really don't call for fancy ingredients or brand specific ingredients and home preserved foods (dried, frozen, canned) can easily be used in the recipes. Both give you excellent basic cooking advice with recipes anyone could duplicate with the ingredients they have either on hand or easily available. These types of cookbooks are a must have! If you want go back a bit further looking for wartime and Depression era recipes. These will tend to be even more frugal as far as ingredients go but they still put good food on your table without breaking the budget.

Older cookbooks can often be found rather inexpensively at yard sales and resale stores usually for well under $1. I always check these resources because you never know what you will find even in newer cookbooks.