Serve these with sweet (maple syrup) or savoury (hard cheese and bacon) toppings.
Bliss Balls
Blend all ingredients except dates in food processor until smooth. Add pitted dates (better with mejool) until it’s sweet enough. Then add a little bit of water until it is sticky enough to form balls…
Grammy’s Lemon Loaf
Grammy’s Lemon Loaf
Cook time:
Total time:
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 lemon (zest and juice)
Instructions
- Cream butter, sugar and eggs. Then add milk. Then dry ingredients. Save lemon juice for top.
- Bake at 350*F for 60 minutes.
- Remove from oven, mix 1/2 cup sugar with lemon juice and pour over loaf while still hot.
- Grammy says: Yummy! Yummy! Yummy! Yummy!
Notes
I’ve also tried making cupcakes, and they are delicious. They only need 10-15 minutes to bake.
Cooked in Becky’s kitchen. Photo by Becky.
Chewy Oatmeal Cookies
Chewy Oatmeal Cookies
Cook time:
Total time:
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 3/4 cup barley flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup packed Demerara or raw cane sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1/2 cup honey
- 2 cups rolled-oats (large flake, old-fashioned)
- 1 cup coconut
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup chopped pecans
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350*.
- Combine dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add egg, vanilla and honey until blended. Gradually add flour mixture, beating until smooth. Stir in oats, coconut, cranberries and pecans.
- Drop dough by tablespoonfuls about 2 inches apart. Bake in oven until golden, about 12 minutes. Makes about 48 cookies.
Grammy’s Puffed Wheat Squares
Grammy’s Puffed Wheat Squares
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup syrop (corn)
- 1/2 cup marg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 3 tbsp cocoa
- 8-10 cups puffed wheat
Instructions
- Mix first 5 ingredients in a pot on the stove. Bring to a boil until slightly thick. Mix with puffed wheat. Pour into grease
Nanaimo bars
Nanaimo bars
Ingredients
- First layer: 1/2 cup of butter (or margarine)
- 1/4 cup of white sugar
- 3 Tbsp cocoa
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 cups of graham wafer crumbs
- 1 cup of coconut
- 1/2 cup of chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)
- Second layer: 1/4 of butter (or margarine)
- 2 Tbsp of custard powder
- 2 cups of icing sugar (sifting is optional)
- 2 Tbsp of boiling hot water (maybe 3)
- Third layer: 3-4 squares of semi sweet chocolate
- 1 or maybe 2 tsp of butter
Instructions
- Cook butter, sugar and cocoa in a double boiler until the sugar dissolves, roughly. When that’s hot, add a beaten egg and keep stirring and this will make it frothy. Add the vanilla. Then remove it from the heat. Add the graham wafer crumbs, and the coconut, and the nuts. Mix vigorously.
- Add everything to a 7 x 11 pan. You can really use any size pan, it just depends on how thick you want the three layers. Put it in the fridge to set.
- Second Layer: Add some of the icing sugar. Maybe half. Add everything else and then add the water. Add more icing sugar until you get the stiffness that you want. Spread it out over the first layer and put it back in the fridge.
- Third Layer: Melt the chocolate in the double boiler and then add the butter. Spread it out quickly. As soon as its set, cut it into squares. If the chocolate is too hard, try heating your knife to cut the squares.
Notes
This recipe is from Donna Arnott’s recipe book that she received as a wedding gift from Donna’s Grandma Torkelson: British Columbia Women’s Insitute, Centennial Cookbook (1958, fourth edition 1971)
Rhubarb Cake
Rhubarb Cake
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Ingredients
- 1/c cup shortening (or butter)
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 1 beaten egg
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanila
- 2 cups flour
- 1 tsp soda
- 1 cup sour milk
- 2 cups rhubarb cut-up
Instructions
- Bake in a 13″ x 9″ pan at 350′ for 35 minutes.
- Top with 3/4 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon.
Sour milk
Sour milk is, actually, milk that has soured. In my experience, milk that has gone bad should be thrown away, but it hasn’t always been so. My great-grandmother generation, and the generations before her, would use sour milk for baking. Before there was refridgeration, milk wouldn’t keep very long, so to make sure that it didn’t go to waste, the sour milk was used in baking.
My grandma thinks that when milk goes bad today it is actually bad, rather than sour. We’re not sure why this is, but she thinks it is because of the different processing that milk goes through. Something to look into …
To make sour milk, for recipes that call for it, add about 1/2 tsp lemon juice or white vinegar until the milk curdles. Then use in the recipe as directed.
Tamarindus Indica
rusty brought some fresh tamarind to galiano. i have never seen it before. so tasty and fun.
The fruit of the tamarind is most commonly reserved for consumption, whether raw or cooked or prepared in some other manner, according to the regional and cultural palate. The fruit itself is an elongated-rod, 12 to 15 cm (3 to 6 inches) in length, and covered in a hard, brown exterior.[5][6]. The fleshy, juicy, acidulous pulp of the fruit is mature when coloured brown or reddish-brown. The fruit is considered ripe when the pods are easily prized open with fingers. The fruit pod contains anywhere between 1 and 12 flat, glossy brown seeds. These may be used by children in traditional board games such as Chinese checkers (China), dakon (Java), among others. – Wikipedia
More at my personal blog.
Pie Crust
Pie Crust
I had a chance this weekend to make some pies with my grandma, using my grandfather’s mother’s recipe. The saying ‘easy as pie’ has always struck me as odd, because making pies has never seemed all that easy. However, the ingredients are fairly straightforward, and I had pretty good luck rolling it out (see photos below). We made the pie shells ahead of time, and put them in the freezer overnight. So the real test will be tonight when actually eat them!
Ingredients
- 1/2 lb lard or shortening
- 1/4 lb butter
- 3 cups flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup very cold water (best with ice cubes)
Instructions
- Makes about 2 covered pies, or 3-4 uncovered pies.
- Pie dough needs to be very cold when you handle it, so that it stays light and flake and doesn’t get tough. To keep things cold, it’s best to put the lard and butter in the freezer and add some ice cubes to your very cold water about 10 minutes before you start.
- Start by cutting the lard and butter into cubes and place in a bowl. Add some of the flour and mix/cut with a pastry cutter – if you don’t have a pastry cutter I think you can use two knives to cut the butter and lard into small pieces in the bowl. Try not to compress the dough, rather try to cut and lift. Keep adding flour and cutting until you have about pea-sized pieces. Now slowly start adding most of the half-cup of water (you can always add more water, but it’s impossible to take the water out!) and keep mixing/cutting with the pastry cutter. When it’s ready, the dough should stick together when you pinch it, but shouldn’t stick to your fingers. Add a little more water if needed. Now put it into the fridge to rest (and cool) for about 10 minutes before you start to roll it out – this should also help it if it’s too sticky.
- Once the dough has rested, take out about a handful (maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of the total), and gently form it into a round disk. Lightly cover your cutting board with flour, and then place the dough on the cutting board. Sprinkle the dough with a little more flour and then gently start to roll it, starting at the centre of the dough and rolling outwards. The goal is to try and keep the dough in a round shape so it will fit the pie shell, so try to roll it evenly in each direction. At least once you should gently lift up the dough, recover the cutting board with flour and flip the dough over. Once it is an even 1/4″ thick, run a knife under the dough to make sure that it isn’t stuck to the cutting board. Then, use the rolling pin lift it on top of the pie shell by rolling the dough around the rolling pin, and then unrolling it over the pie shell. Tuck the dough into the bottom corners of the pie shell, and then start pinching along the edge – you can make this crimping as fancy as you have time to, but just make sure that the edge of the crust is higher than the pie shell.
Notes
Tools you’ll need:[br] pastry cutter (or two knives)[br] bowl[br] rolling pin[br] large cutting board (a heavy one is best) or counter space[br] pie shells
