I just got through taking a pan of homemade cinnamon rolls out of the oven, and the house smells great! I hadn't made these in years. It's my mom's recipe and she would always make half the dough into dinner rolls and the other half into cinnamon rolls.
I loved to watch her knead the dough, and pinch off the little balls that would become soft, fluffy dinner rolls, and then she would roll out the rest, spread it with butter, sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon, then roll it up into a long roll and slice it to reveal the tasty spiral within.
I called my sister and told her I was making Mom's cinnamon rolls and she had an interesting tale to tell. Once when she was about 10, mom had made these same cinnamon rolls and my sister wanted some of the raw dough. Mom said no, and set the pan on the oven so the rolls could rise before baking. My sister waited until mom wasn't looking and snitched a whole roll out of the corner of the pan. She knew the empty space would soon be filled by the rising dough and mom would not notice. Her plan would have worked perfectly except for one little detail. After she gobbled up the raw dough, it began to rise in her stomach, and she got very sick! Mom looked at the evidence and figured out what had happened. To this day, my sister cannot eat cinnamon rolls.
My mom has been gone for over 20 years, but I still have some of her hand-written recipe cards and I treasure these. I always make her cornbread dressing and eggnog during the holidays. I also have a couple of my Grandma Bessie's recipes and one thing I have noticed is that they didn't have to have a lot of fancy ingredients to create great tasting treats; they just made do with what they had. My Grandma's orange cake recipe is very simple, but makes a very moist, delicious cake. And Grandma used to make something she called Sugar Pies but, unfortunately, I don't have that recipe. I'm sure it was never written down. I watched Grandma make it dozens of times and I know basically what it contains, but I haven't been able to duplicate it. She would mix some flour and sugar in a pie shell, then pour in a mixture of beaten eggs and milk or cream, then top it off with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon. It came out like a soft custard and it was heavenly! I will keep trying to get it right.
Another old recipe that I haven't made in years is what my dad called fried mush. Doesn't sound very appealing, and it is definitely different from anything on modern menus. I thought it was pretty good. Again, it was made from simple ingredients, just corn meal and broth. Mom would boil meat, usually beef or pork ribs, remove the meat when it was done, and stir cornmeal into the broth until it was fairly thick. Then she would pour the mixture into a cake pan and let it set, slice it, roll it in flour and fry it in, of course, bacon grease! I made it a couple of times when my kids were little and they actually liked it.
I know I have talked about my mom's homemade fudge before. She always used walnuts that daddy or I cracked every fall. I have that recipe and have made it a few times. It is the kind you cook on the stove until a spoonful dropped in cold water forms a soft ball. You then take it off the stove and beat it with a wooden spoon until your arm falls off! Well, at least until it isn't shiny anymore. It takes a while. Mom would always take it outside on the porch where it would cool faster while she stirred. Then she would pour it on a platter and it would set so it could be sliced. Now, Daddy and I liked it runny, so before she started to stir it, she would butter a saucer and dribble on a ladle full for us to eat with spoons. So good! It was always a wintertime treat.
Another treat we didn't have very often and only in the wintertime was roasted peanuts. If you've never done it, give it a try. You just put raw peanuts on a cookie sheet and roast 'em up in the oven.
I like to cook and try new recipes as well as old ones, and usually the results are pretty tasty. However, there have been a couple of times when my experiments didn't turn out so well. Once, quite some time ago, I found a recipe in a cookbook that sounded interesting and I decided to give it a try. I was a young wife and mother and just trying out my "cooking wings," so to speak. I should have guessed by the name of the dish that it probably wasn't going to be very good. I mean really, how good can "peanut butter chicken" be expected to taste? Well I fixed it and served it and it was a real flop! My husband laughed and thought it was pretty funny. At the time, I wasn't amused; but looking back, I do see the humor in the incident. Then there was the time a few years back when I grabbed the cinnamon instead of the chili powder and poured a good healthy amount into the hamburger meat before I realized what it was. Tried to cover it up by adding lots of chili powder and hoped the kids wouldn't notice, but, again, how good can "cinnamon chili" taste? Not very, and they noticed. Darn kids.
One more quick story about cooking fiascoes. This time the meal was fried pork chops and they were nicely done and on the platter by the stove. I was, as usual, holding a baby in one arm and cooking with the other. My daughter, about 8 years old, was in the kitchen helping me. I had picked up the pork chop platter with one hand underneath, and it started to sway and I knew I was going to drop it. The "sways" got bigger and bigger until all of a sudden, splat, I had landed the platter of meat up against the side of my daughter's head! And all I could think of was that I hoped she didn't back up! Well, she did, and the meat hit the floor. She wasn't hurt, just a little greasy, and I couldn't help but laugh. The look on her face was priceless. I think I may have included that in a previous column, but then I think it was worth telling twice. I will close with that, and wish you all happy cooking, but don't try the peanut butter chicken!
Tamela Weeks is a freelance writer in the Gentry area. She may be reached by email at tamela.weeks@ gmail.com. Opinions expressed are those of the author.
Editorial on 01/22/2014