Faye Harris: Just like Gram used to make

I loved to go to Gram’s house because something good was always cooking.  She, as I grew older, passed on her recipes and I learned to ‘tweak’ them a bit to make things faster and easier.  For instance, she used flour and baking powder while I use the self-rising stuff.  She ground up things using an old hand operated grinder and I have a chopper that chops things as fine as you want them.

One important thing I learned from her was to never throw away meat ‘drippings.’  These can make green beans so full of flavor that even though I buy the cheaper, store brand, one can make a meal out of those and cornbread.

Following are several of her most tasty, daily dishes:  (Remember back then there were larger families than one usually finds today.)

Quick Dumplings

Boil about a half pound of pork, beef or chicken that has been cut into chunks for one and a half hours.  Add 1 tablespoon of the same flavored bullion and any saved meat drippings.  Allow this to come to a boil again and add 4 biscuits that have been cut into fourths (I use frozen biscuits).  After these biscuits  are cooked, add I package dry gravy mix.  Enjoy!

Healthy Meatloaf

Finely chop 1 onion, ½ large carrot, 1 small apple (I also add some chopped celery or other vegetable if I have them left over from salads. Gram even added a left-over potato if she had it.)  To this mixture add 1 ½ to 2 pounds of ground beef.  2 eggs, a quarter cup catsup or barbecue sauce, ½ cup flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tablespoon of beef bouillon, 1 cup crushed crackers and mix all this together by hand.  Spray a loaf pan with shortening and shape this into a loaf.  Cover with a bit of catsup and bake at 350 for one hour.  I drain off any shortening that is in the pan before serving this.  Again, any meat drippings one has just adds flavor to this mixture.

Never Fail Frosting

Mix together ¼ butter, 3 cups powdered sugar, 3-4 tablespoons cocoa, ½ package instant pudding,  Add to this ¼ cup milk a little at a time until it’s difficult to stir.  Quickly ice the cake.  This sets up quite fast when put into the refrigerator for an hour.  (I came up with the idea of instant pudding when my home made frosting was too thin and it works!)

Tasty Yeast biscuits

½ cup hot water, cooled to warm.  Add 1 package yeast and ¼ cup sugar, stirred.    In a separate bowl   put 2 cups self-rising flour, 1 tsp salt, and two large tablespoons butter.  Stir this mixture together.    Now add the yeast mixture and ½ cup sour milk to the flour.  Mix thoroughly, then roll out and cut biscuits.  Let the biscuits set for about two hours then bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes.  (Gram used to add vinegar to her milk to sour it and she added 1 teaspoon soda to her regular flour instead of using self-rising flour.  Sometimes she would roll out this mixture, spread it with butter and add a bit of sugar and cinnamon to make cinnamon rolls.)

It’s amazing how much more time Gram seemed to have than I have because by doing most of her own cooking before all the instant stuff, or frozen food, she also ran their nursery from their home.

Retirement has now allowed me to be more like my Grandmother in so many ways, but I would never tackle making our clothes or all the quilts that were necessary for her large family.  I guess the reason I now enjoy cooking is that odors of homemade yeast bread that come from my oven bring back memories, especially when the holiday season is now in session.

Faye Harris is a former Lenawee County resident who retired from North Adams Schools. She can be reached at fayeharris77@yahoo.com.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Faye Harris: Just like Gram used to make