Zucchini slice

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

So I have come to the end of the alphabet and it has been an interesting look back at recipes from earlier years, treasured not necessarily for their content but for the fact that they are in my mother's handwriting. There are many more recipes than those I have managed to transcribe here. Now the next job is to compile them all into a readable file that I can pass on to her grandchildren.

I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse of cooking from the past.

Zucchini

Zucchinis were a late introduction to my mother's cuisine and I speculate that this recipe came from one of her daughters. It has a cross next to it, perhaps this means she adapted it or found another recipe or made it only once and was not happy with the result. Perhaps one of my siblings will enlighten me as I have never tried this recipe.

Zucchini slice

400 to 450 gr. Zuccini (grated)
5 Eggs (Beaten)
½ pkt Bacon Bits
1 lge onion (lightly fried)
1 cup grated cheese
½ cup Oil

Add oil to beaten eggs
Combine and add other ingredients.

Bake 30 to 40 minutes in mod[erate] oven in slice tray.

---

Previous posts in this A-Z series

Hannah's Recipes A-Z challenge

A - Apricots, Apples and Afghan biscuits
B - Banana cake and Boiled fruit cake
C - Carrot cake and Chocolate peppermint slice
D - Date Loaf and Dried Apricot Jam
E - Easy Apricot Slice
F - Flans and Fruit Balls
G - Ginger Biscuits and Ginger Flan
H - Honey Sponge Roll with mock cream
I - Icing
J - Jubilee Cake and Baked Jam Roly Poly
K - Ki Si Ming or Hi Li Min
L - Lemon Tart, Lemon Cordial and Lemon spread
M - Macaroons and Munchy Peanut biscuits
N - Nutties
O - Orange Cake
P - Pasty Slice, Potato Pancakes and Peppermint Malties
Q - Quick and easy Quiche
R - Rabbit
S - Sponges and Small cakes
T - Toffee almonds and Tuna mornay
U - Utensils
V - Vanilla Slice
W - Walnut and Orange slice
X - Xmas Biscuit Mix
Y - Yo-Yos

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

Yo-yos a shortbread variety

Shortbread Yo-yos 

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Cream 6 ozs butter with 2 ozs icing sugar.

Add 8 ozs S R Flour with 2 ozs custard powder.

If too stiff add a llittle milk

Roll into small balls & flatten with fork.

Mod[erate] oven

When cold join tog. with 1 tablespoon butter beaten with 2 ozs icing sugar, van[illa] ess[ence]

---

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

Xmas Biscuit Mix

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Christmas biscuits

It is unusual to see Christmas written as Xmas in my mother's handwriting as her emphasis on the celebration was the Christ in Christmas. Luckily for my A-Z challenge she listed this as Xmas biscuit mix.

Xmas Biscuit Mix

18 malt biscuits (crushed)

15 marshmallows (chopped)

4 ozs glace cherries (chopped)

2 ozs whole ginger (chopped)

2 ozs walnuts (chopped)

2 ozs raisins

¼ teaspoon vanilla essence

½ tin cond[ensed] milk

Mix all tog[ether]

Form into rolls and roll in coconut

Slice as needed

Keeps indefinitely in fridge.

Walnuts

Orange and Walnut slice

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Fresh walnuts from the tree in our yard were valued and carefully cracked trying to avoid splitting the walnut halves. The emptied halves too were tools for imaginative play - stuffed with a little cotton wool for a fairy's bed or a gumnut baby. I suspect broken walnuts were used in this recipe and in later years those purchased in packets.

Orange and walnut slice

1 pkt Marie Biscuits (crushed)
4 ozs Butter
⅓ cup condensed milk
½ cup walnuts
Grated orange rind

Melt butter & cond. milk and pour over dry ingredients

Mix well and press into biscuit tray

Ice with icing sugar and orange juice

---

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin

Vanilla Slice

Vanilla Slice

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Vanilla Slice

1 pkt Sao Biscuits
600 ml cream
1 pkt vanilla Instant Pudding

Line 8 in. tin with biscuits

Mix Vanilla Instant Pudding with the cream

Pour over biscuits

Place another layer of biscuits on top

ice with pink icing and coconut

Make day before required to allow biscuits to soften

---

Utensils for cooking

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Utensils

U - there is no recipe starting with U in my mother's folder but this set me thinking about the utensils she had available to her through many years of cooking.

When she first married in 1937 she joined my father's household and would have inherited her mother in law's kitchen. It was three years before my parent's marriage that Elizabeth Agnes Smyth (Horgan) had died and in that intervening time my father Edward, his brother Joseph and their father Andrew had no female living in the house. A housekeeper/cook visited once a week and cooked a mutton roast. My father's recollections were that they then ate cold mutton and mustard for their meals for the rest of the week.

At age 25, in 1937, Hannah would have had to adapt quickly to supplying meals for the three men. What might have been in her kitchen? The kitchen would have contained a wood burning stove that needed to be kept going on low overnight ready to boil the heavy kettle on the stove top first thing in the morning. There would have been no other source for hot water, so the kettle on the hob was an essential tool.
A meat grinder was more than likely present to use all the scraps of meat. Butter pats, for shaping the butter after beating the cream by hand. A rolling pin and a wooden spoon still essential tools in a kitchen were probably there too. The meat safe was probably outside on the coolest part of the verandah.

In the old farmhouse where we lived until I was nine, there was a wood burning stove and a kerosene refrigerator. A toasting fork was used at breakfast time to hold the bread over the previous night's embers.  A 32 volt generator ran the lights at night.
Cakes and biscuits were mixed with a wooden spoon in a large earthenware bowl. In the newer farmhouse in the 1950s there was great joy when electricity came to the farm.

As time went by Mum became the proud owner of an early Mixmaster - an electric beater with matching bowls. An electric stove was added to the kitchen but often she preferred the wooden one that she was accustomed to. Later on a mouli was used to puree soups and tomato sauces.

Household work and cooking for a large family with limited utensils was a full time job. Her old Green and Gold recipe book was an invaluable guide and as I've transcribed her recipes I've found many of the basics come from that book. A history of its publication is available here on  the Australian Food History timeline. My copy shown here with its distinctive cover, is a 46th edition dated 1992. It has now been published in a 75th edition.

So to the women who first contributed the recipes, thank you and to my mother who learnt from them, recorded her successes and cooked with a minimum of utensils thank you once more.

Toffee Almonds and Tuna Mornay

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

The almond tree near the house grew well and once they ripened we were set the task of huskng and shelling the almonds. Mum used to say we should whistle while we worked so that we could not eat the precious almonds. Pity some of us never learnt to whistle!

Toffee almonds

2 cups almonds

(shelled but not skinned)
1 cup sugar
½ cup water
1 teaspoon vinegar

Place in medium saucepan and stir over high heat

Keep stirring as it thickens (about 10 mins) and until it thins again & turns into toffee

Turn onto a greased tray & separate with two forks.

[ed. Try not to eat them all at once!]

---

Curried Tuna Mornay

This mornay with a dash of curry for flavour was a quick and easy meal for a large family, definitely not on my menu nowadays.

Make a sauce with 1 pint milk, 3 tablespoons plain flour & seasoning. 

Add heaped dessertspoon curry powder (blended) & 1 dessertspoon of lemon juice to the mixture.

Then add a large tin of tuna & a large tin sweetcorn.

Place in casserole [dish] and cover with crushed weetbix & grated cheese.

Brown in oven.

---

Sponges and Small cakes

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Sponges

Our birthday cakes were often a double-decker sponge filled with delicious homemade jam and freshly whipped cream. The secret to my mother's feather light sponges was the gentle folding in the flour after the eggs were beaten. This was done with a spoon rather than beaters.

Sponge

4 egg whites stiffly beaten

Then gradually add ¾ cup sugar

Mix egg yokes[yolks] and beat in

Sift tog.

¾ cup cornflour

¼ cup plain flour

1 [flat] teasp. cream of tartar 

½ teasp. carb soda 

Stir in lightly and bake 20 mins in mod. oven

And sponge roll

2 tins    10 - 12 mins

---

Patty Cakes

Small cakes were standard fare at many a function. Unlike the large cupcakes of current times these were cooked in the small patty pans. When cooled there were a dozen different ways to decorate them. Plain icing for everday consumption or the top was sliced off, a dollop of whipped cream added then the top replaced and sprinkled with icing sugar.
These small cakes were also turned into jelly cakes, by carefully rolling them in soft jelly then covering all over with coconut. Quick and easy to make and decorate. Where the recipes specifies flavouring, this could be the addition of vanilla essence, or cocoa, or ginger or lemon rind etc. depending on the flavour desired.

Small Cakes

1½ cups S.R. flour
2 eggs
4 tablespoons milk (sml ½ cup)
½ cup butter (4 ozs)
¾ cup sugar

Beat eggs and sugar fast till
thick and creamy (about ½ min)
Add butter (melted) then milk, flavouring and flour

Cook in 425° [F] oven on top shelf
till firm to touch ( 6 -8 mins)

---

Rabbit roast or casserole

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Rabbit

Rabbits were a pest on the farm, digging burrows and spoiling the land. It was a thrill to go out 'spotlighting' for rabbits.  After they had been skinned and gutted, two would be stuffed with breadcrumbs flavoured with mixed herbs and onion and then oven roasted. The meat was often overcooked, tough but quite tasty. 

Here's another recipe in my mother's book but I don't remember her cooking rabbit this way. It sounds rather better than the dry roast rabbit.

Rabbit

Cut rabbit into pieces and cover with seasoned flour.

Place in casserole in layers with seasoning then sliced apple. Add 1 tablespoon brown sugar and 1 cup milk.

Cook in moderate oven for 2 hours.

Quick and easy quiche

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Quiche (Kit's)

This quick and easy version incorporated the pastry mix into the eggs and cream. Kit White, 1919 -2017 (born Katherine McInerney) was my father's first cousin and one of my mother's good friends. The Whites were a large family so this shortcut recipe would have been a great timesaver.

3 eggs
1½ cups milk
1 sml onion
¾ cup pastry mix
Salt
Pepper
Parsley

Beat all together then add 2 or 3 slices chopped bacon

Cook in mod[erate] oven ½ to ¾ hr.

---

---

Pasty, Potato Pancakes and Peppermint slice

Pleased to have found some Ps

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

This recipe was designed to feed a large family. My mother sometimes baked it in the roasting dish, rather than make individual pasties.

Pasty Slice

Line a large oblong dish or lamington tray with pastry.

Then prepare 1 packet of thick vegetable soup with 2 cups of water.

Place 500 grams mince meat and ½ cup of breadcrumbs into a bowl and add the cooked soup. Mix well.

Put mixture into the uncooked pastry case and sprinkle with parsley.

Cover with pastry and glaze with milk.

Bake at 350° for 1 hour.

---

We did not live anywhere near a fish and chip shop, so home made hot chips (French fries) or potato pancakes were a treat.

Potato Pancakes

4 lge Potatoes
2 eggs
2 tablespoons S.R. Flour
1 med. sized onion - Salt

Grate raw potatoes and onion
Add beaten eggs and flour
Mix well & fry till golden

---

Something sweet to finish this post.

Peppermint Malties

1 pkt Malt Biscuits
1 pkt Crown Mints
¾ tin Condensed Milk
1 teaspoon Brandy
Coconut

Crush biscuits and peppermints finely
Combine with cond[ensed] milk and brandy
Roll into a roll in greaseproof paper
Cover in coconut.
Chill and when firm cut in slices.

Orange Cake

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Oranges

In the orchard of fruit trees near the farm house, there were several orange trees. Whether they were the big juicy Navels or the smaller Valencias, my mother relished those delicious fruits. This recipe has a smalll amount of orange rind added to the cake batter, but it was in the icing that one tasted the full orange flavour. Use icing sugar with a small amount of melted butter and milk, then add finely grated orange rind. This adds tang to the cake.

Orange Cake

2 eggs

4 ozs butter

¾ cup caster sugar

½ cup milk

1½ cups SR Flour

1 tablespoon grated orange rind

Combine all ingredients and beat for 3 mins.

Bake in 8 in. ring tin or 2 log tins.

Mod[erate] oven 30 -35 mins.

N for Nutties

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Nutties but no nuts involved

This is the only recipe in the book for the letter N.  Some recipes are sparse on method but where biscuits are involved, a small tablespoon of mixture generally spreads into a large biscuit, so depending on the size of the end product required, adjust the amount added to the baking tray.

Nutties

Nutties

1 cup S R Flour

1 cup cocoanut [sic]

1 cup Toasted Muesli Flakes

1 cup Sugar

¼ lb Margarine

1 egg

1 sml teaspoon carb soda

1 tablespoon golden syrup

Melt marg[arine] syrup and carb soda (tog) 

Cool slightly, add egg

Mix in dry ingredients

350° oven - 10 -15 mins

Macaroons and Munchies

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Macaroons

These are not the macaroons you would expect to buy in a bakery or patisserie, rather a lemon pastry base with jam enclosed by a macaroon type topping.

Macaroons

Pastry
2 heaped cups S R Flour
¼ lb butter
yolks of 2 eggs
2 teaspoons lemon juice (& make up to 1 cup with water) [see in method]

Method
Rub shortening into flour
Beat together egg yolks & lemon in a cup & almost fill cup with water
Stir into flour etc.
Roll thinly and cut into rounds placing sml. spoon of jam in the centre.

Topping
2 egg whites
¾ cup sugar
1 cup coconut
Beat egg whites till stiff
Gradually add sugar, beating continuously.
Stir in coconut & place a spoonful on top of jam.

[Bake in] Mod. to slow oven

---

Munchy Peanut Biscuits 

My mother had several peanut biscuit recipes, but this one took pride of place in her handwritten folder.

Munchy Peanut Biscuits

4 ozs butter

1 cup brown sugar (firmly packed)

1 cup plain flour

¾ cup rolled oats

½ cup cornflakes

1 egg

sml pinch salt

½ teaspoon vanilla essence

½ level teaspoon baking powder

4 ozs salted peanuts

Cream butter & sugar, beat in egg and essence, then sifted dry ingredients.

Stir in lastly oats, cornflakes and peanuts

Place sml spoonfuls on baking sheet & cook at 350°

Lovely Lemon

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Lemon Tart

Lemon Tart filling

 Lemon Tart Filling

Beat together

• 3 egg yolks
• juice of 1 lemon & grated rind
• 1 cup honey
• 1 dessertspoon melted butter
• 1 tablespoon cornflour

Place in uncooked flan and cook [bake] for 20 - 30 mins.

Then top with:-
3 egg whites stiffly beaten then gradually add 1 teaspoon lemon rind and 3 tablespoons honey

Place on top of cooked tart, and leave in oven about another 10 minutes
(until lightly browned)

---

Lemon cordial

Lemon or Orange cordial

Lemon - Orange Cordial

6 Lemons or Oranges juiced and grated rind of 3

5 cups sugar

5 cups boiling water

1 oz citric acid

1 tablespoon (flat) Epsom Salts

Pour boiling watter over the sugar and rind.

Add other ingredients and strain when cold.

Bottle.

---

Lemon Spread

This one was titled Lemon Cheese otherwise known as Lemon Butter or Lemon spread. Store in the refrigerator but I guarantee it won't last for long as you are tempted back again and again for more.

Lemon cheese
3 eggs
2 ozs butter
½ lb sugar
2 lemons
Beat tog. - sugar, butter, yolk of 2 eggs and the whites of 2, juice of 2 lemons, [finely grated] rind of 1
Stir over low heat until it thickens.

K is for Ki Si Ming

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

The dish with two names

Mutton was a staple meat on our menu as the older sheep were killed for consumption. Mum never wasted a scrap of meat, it was all scraped from the bones and put through the hand turned mincer. This recipe used that mince with added vegetables and rice.

Ki Si Ming or Hi Li Min

• 500 gr mince
• 2 slices chopped bacon

Brown the meats in a little oil then add

• ¼ sml cabbage shredded
• 1 cup sliced beans
• ½ cup chopped celery
• 1 sml sliced onion
• 2 tablespoons rice
• 1 pkt Dutch curry and rice soup
• Seasoning 
• 4 cups water [written up the side of the recipe]

Simmer all for 25 mins

This dish can be found on the internet under various names with many variations of flavours and ingredients, too many to list here.

Jubilee Cake and Jam Roly-Poly

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Jubilee Cake

This cake was another quick useful standby with minimum preparation. This recipe was well used and looks like there were a few spills along the way.

Jubilee Cake

Place in bowl:-

• 1½ cups mxd fruit
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tblesp butter

Pour over 1 cup boiliing water & mix well [allow to cool]

Add:-

• 1 beaten egg
• 2 heaped cups S.R.Flour

Bake in 2 log tins, mod.oven for 25 to 30 mins

---

Jam Roly Poly

This was a favourite dessert on a cold winter's night. Served hot with lashings of fresh cream it satisfied any remaining hunger after the main course was eaten. There is a generous amount of syrup to add to bowls when serving.

Baked Jam Roly Poly

Rub ½ cup shortening into 1 cup S.R.Flour.

Mix with a little water to make soft dough

Roll out and spread with jam

Roll up and & place in buttered casserole dish 

Pour the following mixture over the roly poly

Dissolve ¼ cup sugar & 1 tablespoon margarine in 1 cup boiling water

Bake until golden brown Mod[erate] oven 1 to 1½ hours.

---

Icing on the cake

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.

Icing

Cakes and biscuits often require a variety of icing to provide that finishing touch. Here are some of those finishing touches. 

Frosted Topping

Frosted topping

Beat tog[ether]

3 cups icing sugar

60 gr margarine (plus)

2 teaspoons lemon juice (plus)

1 teaspoon [finely grated] lemon rind

Almond essence

Apply to cake with fork

This amount has been halved in the column to the left of the recipe. I think the reference to the fork at the end means apply the frosting than decorate with a fork, do not expect this to provide a smooth surface. The next one is a glaze, a smooth finish.

Glaze for chocolate cake

Glaze for Chocolate Cake

150 gr dk chocolate

3 teaspoons honey

60 gr unsalted butter

Unwritten but understood, melt ingredients together and while still warm, ice the cake.

The last one is labelled Brown icing, I'm not sure whether this was for cakes or biscuits.

Brown Icing

Brown Icing

Cream 2 tablespoons brown sugar with 1 tablesp. butter

Add icing sugar and milk

---

Honey Sponge Roll

These recipes are in my mother's handwriting and are housed in a battered, blue plastic folder. They are transcribed here as part of the A-Z Challenge 2019. Each day in April a new letter of the alphabet and accompanying recipes are posted.
Honey - from the hive, no additives

We often had beekeepers visit the farm to ask if they could house a beehive or two in the uncleared scrub paddock.  The cost to the beekeeper was the supply of fresh honey for farm consumption. After a short time the honey solidified, thick and creamy.

Mum made many of these sponge rolls, sometimes honey, sometimes ginger or chocolate. The trick to achieving a good result is in rolling the cake while still hot in a clean tea towel and gently unrolling to fill when cool. These lightly spiced sponge rolls are delicious!

Honey Sponge Roll

Beat 3 eggs for 5 minutes then add ½ cup sugar and beat until thick and frothy.

Then add dry ingredients sifted together:-
½ cup cornflour
2 heaped teaspoons plain flour
1 level teaspoon of cream of tartar
½ level teaspoon carb soda
1 level teaspoon mixed spice
½ level teaspoon cinnamon

Lastly stir in 1 level tablespoon of melted honey.
Bake in a flat Swiss Roll tin
10 - 15 mins in moderate oven
Roll quickly in slightly damp sugared cloth.
When cold fill with cream filling.
I like mock cream.

We usually had plenty of fresh cream, but mock cream was the substitute she preferred and luckily her recipe is also included.

---

Mock Cream

4 ozs butter (softened)

¾ cup sugar

⅓ cup water

Place sugar & water in saucepan over low heat & stir till sugar is dissolved.

Bring to boil & boil for 5 mins.

Cool.

Beat butter until white and creamy, gradually add cold syrup, beating well after each addition.

Good luck with making your sponge rolls, I could never achieve the perfection of this recipe but did enjoy many thick slices when I was young.