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. 

Fundraiser Dinners

While supporting charitable organizations is always encouraged, the holiday season is one where giving to and supporting charity is highly encouraged.  In Canada, food insecurity is one of the largest growing social issues.  A surprising number of Canadians go hungry daily.  At this time of year it is extremely important to support those organizations who help those who cannot help themselves and who through volunteerism give generously back to the community.

Many community service groups hold fundraiser dinners to help them raise funds to give back to the community.  Service groups have a kitchen that is stocked and manned by members and/or volunteers (aka family of members) during service group events. A lot of times the food itself is donated by members or others in the community.  In today's busy world, it is very difficult to get volunteers to help with these events and harder still to get donations to help support the causes.

"Tis the season for all kinds of fundraiser dinners.  We went to one of the local fish fries hosted by a local community service club.  We know these guys so they are used to seeing me and my camera.  I took a few pictures of some of their equipment but I thought this wall of kitchen utensils said it all.  This is a very small community service club too!  Obviously a good portion of their fundraising is done via hosting community dinner events.

This particular community group is well known for it's locally caught perch and pickerel dinners.  They hold wild game dinners (eg. muskrat) and used to host turtle dinners but that's become a bit complicated due to the changing environmental legislation.  Every single person working the dinners is a member (aka volunteer) or a family/friend (aka volunteer) so it is quite impressive that they can consistently get the number of volunteers and donations required to put on these types of fundraisers.

The food at these types of fundraisers is about as close to good, old fashioned home cooking as you can get.  There is nothing fancy or pretentious about the food, it's just good food shared with great company.  These events really are all about the social aspect, the good food is just an added benefit!

Fundraiser Beans

Years ago when I was knee high to a grass hopper school fundraisers meant selling almond chocolate bars.  That's the only kind offered which was a shame given some folks don't like nuts in their chocolate bars.  We our kids were in school the fundraiser was also selling chocolate bars and chocolate covered almonds.  At that time we lived in an urban area with if I remember correctly nine elementary schools and one secondary school.  That meant we got hit quite often with kids selling chocolate bars.  How can you say no to such a worthy cause.  The real problem is and especially in these trying economic times and quickly rising food costs many simply to not want to spend their food dollars on chocolate covered almonds or chocolate bars.  The schools have recognized this problem and are now looking at other food items that people are more interested in buying.

Our oldest grandchild is in pre-kindergarten.  Their school fundraiser this year were packets of The Bean Ladies dry bean one pot meal mixes.  They specialize in non-genetically modified Ontario grown products.  In terms of a fundraiser, each package was $5.50 so higher in cost than bulk purchased beans but 50¢ cheaper than buying the same from their online store.  However, $2 from the sale of each package went to the school so really the bean packet cost $3.50 with a $2 donation to a good cause.

I bought the chuckwagon chili (5-7 servings), homestyle hearty bean soup (8-10 servings), lickety-split pea soup (4-6 servings)and Mom's sausage bean casserole (6-8 servings).  Each package has the recipe on the front.  All of the packets have some type of meat (eg. sausage, pork hocks, ground beef) ranging from ½ to 1½ lb as an additional ingredient along with a couple of standard pantry items.  A couple of the mixes have a seasoning packet included.  Even when factoring in the higher cost of the bean mix and the additional ingredients, the result is still on the frugal side.  I will discuss the total costs for each mix as I make them.  I made the Mom's sausage bean casserole on yesterday so watch for the discussion on that this coming Friday.