Small acts of thrift

(From Johanna Knox)

My Canadian great-grandmother used to say, ‘Look after the cents, and the dollars take care of themselves.' It was an expression of her thrifty approach to life which is still repeated in my family today ... the saying that is, not necessarily, I'm sorry to say, the approach itself!

Even the smallest acts of thrift were important to my great-grandmother. I imagine they were to many women of her time. Some of these small acts were passed down, and became family habits. 

Like the butter wrappers that my great-grandmother, then my grandmother and my mother saved, so that no part of that gold was wasted. Neatly folded in the top compartment of the fridge door, a wrapper could always be brought out when a pie dish or baking tray needed greasing. Did most of us have mothers or grandmothers who did this? 

In my grandmother’s old Mennonite Community Cookbook (by Mary Emma Showalter), there is a ‘Household Hints’ section containing this tip:

‘Before discarding the empty catsup bottle, pour some vinegar into the bottle and use in making French dressing.’

What a neat trick for any sauce bottle when it gets to that frustrating stage where you can see all that perfectly good stuff at the bottom but no matter how much you tip or shake or bang - it WON’T. COME. OUT.

Another family thrift tradition: When my mother made schnitzel or crumbed fish, after all the pieces were egged and crumbed she tipped the few leftover breadcrumbs into the blob of leftover egg, and fried the mix as a ‘crumb pancake’. There was only ever enough for one tiny pancake, but in spite of its meagre size – or more likely because of it – it was my favourite part of the meal.

(Years later, I seized on the way my own son loved crumb pancakes and began to make them deliberately for him, by the bowlful. We got bored of them and went off them, and I learned that some traditions should not be tampered with!)

What small acts of thrift have been passed down and become habits in your family?

Three disasters for the price of one!

(from Paulette Robinson)

Today, lucky followers, you get three recipes kindly contributed by Paulette, from her mother, Carole Charles.  Carole was also "Auntie Carole" to Emma, who was the beneficiary of Carole's creativity up until the time she died in 2007.

Carole was known to be a great cook, however when dishes were served up they were put on the table with a qualifier of "It's a disaster, I completely mucked it up, I left an important ingredient out, I let something burn, I ruined it, you don't have to eat it, it's awful...."  It was only newcomers whose eyes widened at the thought of the ruined food they were obviously going to have to eat anyway, as it was being dished up on their plate at that very moment.  The more seasoned recipients knew they were about to taste yet another delicacy from Kitchen Carole.

As the kids got older we would get in first: "Here's Carole's disaster, oh no it looks TERRIBLE, we can't eat THAT, we'll DIE of food poisioning!!!", then everyone would merrily dig in and enjoy as Carole told us all to shush up.

Carole contributed these recipes when Paulette was collecting from family and friends for her own recipe book.  Paulette has kindly "translated" Carole's handwriting, and here are the three goodies:

Gefilte Fish
Use a mix of three fish – Snapper, Cod etc.
To the minced fish add: a slice of soaked bread, one egg, pepper, salt, 1 T/Spoon sugar, 1 small minced onion.
Add cold water – up to 1 cup but keep firm.
Roll into balls and fry.
Stew in water with sliced carrot or better still tetra packed stock very gently for 1 hour.

Yum Potatoes
Slice potatoes
Slice fennel and put in lemon water
Heat milk, cream, garlic, salt and pepper
Put in oven – grill off.
 
Grandma Corn’s Almond Cake
¼ lb butter      
Small cup sugar
½ lb flour 
1 t/sp baking powder
1 large egg
Almond essence
Pinch salt

1.  Beat butter & sugar.
2.  Add eggs & essence then dry ingredients.
3.  Put half in the tin and spread apricot jam on top, then add other half.
4.  Press almonds all over top.
5.  Bake at 350/180 .

Paulette and Carole

Whisky Log

(from Emma Levy)

This dessert is another Danielle Levy masterpiece, and I actually don't have words for how divine it is.  Now that I think about it, it's possible I was underage when I was eating it.  What I remember best about it (it's been a long time in between tastings) is that I would get a cake fork and take just a minute amount, because it was SO rich - and this is when I was young, when really nothing is too rich, so who knows what trying it in one's mid-forties would be like!!  It was one of the dinner party regulars - how I miss the dinner party days.  My parents threw a lot of dinner parties and I would sit at the top of the stairs in my pjs, instead of being asleep in bed, listening to the chatter and the laughter, wishing I could go down there and be with them....  This is not a recipe you'll use as an everyday one, but give it a go as a special treat.  You won't regret it!

Ingredients
1 packet Wine Biscuits (plain sweet biscuit)
120 g Butter (softened)
1 Egg
1 cup Icing Sugar
½ cup Whisky

Icing
180 g Icing Sugar
1 Tbsp Cocoa
120 g Butter (softened)
1 tsp Coffee


Directions
1.    Cream butter and icing sugar.
2.    Add egg, crushed biscuits, and whisky.
3.    Mix well.
4.    Put in fridge for 1 hour to firm a little.
5.    Shape into a log on grease-proof paper and roll it in the paper.
6.    Chill the log in the fridge for 4-6 hours.
7.    Mix icing ingredients.
8.    Once log is firm, unwrap from paper and ice with icing. 

This log is best served chilled.

A photo of my mum, not sure at what age, but when I first saw 

it I thought it was me - now that was a weird experience!!

Chocolate Crunch

 (from Emma Levy)

Those who were lucky enough to taste the after-school or party treats made by my mum will definitely have eaten this one!  It was almost permanently in the cake tins at home.  My mum was a working mum with three kids (and all their friends) and she needed a selection of tasty treats that didn't take too long to make.  This was a favourite.  Now that I'm an adult and use a lot of her recipes, I've realised how adept mum was at finding gastronomical treasures that she could whip up quickly.  I make less of it than she did; it's a different era now and we're more conscious of the quantities of butter in things we make, but when there's a day that you don't really care, or have to produce something yummy at great speed, this is the recipe to turn to!

(I'll probably get into trouble with this one like I did with the Plonk Cake - I really don't know where the recipe originated and am not claiming it as my mum's creation - but she made it a lot! If anyone knows who was the first of the Wellington women to introduce it, let me know and I'll make sure they get their due credit!).

Ingredients:
2 Dessertspoons Cocoa
1 cup sugar
225g butter
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder

Icing:
1 cup icing sugar, sifted
1/4 cup coconut
25g butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp cocoa
A little hot water

Directions:
1.  Melt butter and sugar.
2.  Add to rest of ingredients.
3.  Place in sponge roll tin.
4.  Bake for 15-20 mins at 180C (350F).
5.  Cover with icing while hot and cut immediately.
6.  Leave to cool in tin.

                                                           Danielle Levy (1937-2004)

Rochelle Corn's Shortbread

(from Petra Frank, nee Corn)

My Mum, Rochelle Corn was a wonderful singer and a pretty good cook too.  I helped her bake often (mostly by licking the bowl) and learned many of her recipes this way. 

Her proudest baking achievement was her shortbread which all admired and craved, especially her elderly  Mother, my Nana. Mum's shortbread melted in your mouth.  It was sunshine yellow with sparkling sugar pressed into the top. Nana just loved it and Mum would take her carefully wrapped parcels of fresh shortbread when we went to visit her at Deckston Home.  Nana would carefully store this in a tin inside a locked drawer in her room, no doubt for happy nibbling later on! 

So, if you would like to share the secret of making the lightest shortbread biscuits; here it is:

6 oz flour
2 oz icing sugar
pinch salt
6 oz butter
2 oz vanilla custard powder

Rub the butter into the flour and other dry ingredients. 
Roll out the dough and sprinkle with sugar, then roll the sugar into the dough very lightly with the rolling pin. 
Cut into oblong biscuit shapes and slide a baking tray underneath.  
Bake at 150 C for 20 minutes.  
(Handle carefully once baked as they are delicate!)

I have one more tip...When cutting the biscuits into nice neat shapes, your daughter should eat the jagged offcuts! 

Enjoy,

Petra Frank (nee Corn)

 

Shirley Wiseman’s Fruit Loaf

(from Belinda Aarons Gerber)

As a single mother with three kids and three jobs, plus a set of extended family commitments and volunteer activities my mother was an expert economizer – of both time and money. Mum’s baking is an excellent example. She never baked one thing. What was the point of heating the oven for just one cake? Better to pop in two or three baking tins and an extra one for the freezer at the same time.

In order to have multiple cakes ready to go into the oven, Mum usually mixed one cake in the Kenwood mixer and another one in a pot on the stove. The machine-mixed cakes varied, but the mix-in-a-pot cake was often fruit loaf.

How I loved Mum’s fruit loaf! Thick slices, often with a slather of butter on top, were a regular after-school snack. (In 1970s New Zealand, we hadn’t yet heard that high fat was a bad thing.) Now, thirty-plus years later and several continents away, I make this cake every few months, enjoying this taste of my childhood – albeit without the extra butter.

Making this fruit loaf is a two-part process, as the hot mixture needs to cool before the egg is added. For Mum, that was the time to mix another cake in the Kenwood. For me, it was the opportunity to surreptitiously skim my finger across the top of the mixture and grab a big dollop of the sweet froth. Several times, if I could get away with it. Mum surely knew I was doing it; just as surely as I – and my kids – continue to do it now.

Bake the fruit loaf in a ring tin or a couple of loaf pans. In true Shirley Wiseman fashion, you can easily make a bigger cake by using an extra-large egg and multiplying the rest of the ingredients by 150%. Or, do as I do, and double the whole recipe, so there’s always a cake in the freezer. I learned well.

Shirley Wiseman’s fruit loaf recipe

As she dictated to me 20-or-so years ago, hence the imperial measurements.

1 cup sugar

1 cup sultanas / dark raisons

¼ cup chopped moist dates

1 cup water

1 tsp. baking soda

2 oz butter

1 egg

½ cup chopped walnuts (optional)

2 cups plain white flour

1 tsp. baking powder

Put sugar, sultanas, dates, water, baking soda and butter in a saucepan and bring to boil. 

Set aside to cool and then beat in the egg. 

Add nuts and sifted flour and baking powder. 

Pour mixture into a greased 8-inch ring tin and bake 45 minutes at 350 deg. F.

Shirley Wiseman, early 1987. A rare moment when she actually sat down.

 

Freda Beder’s Fabulous Fruit Cake

(from Ruth Ketko)

“I always wanted to stay at home and bake cheesecakes”!  So said Mum, but life’s journey took her on different paths. 

My Dad died in 1946, just seven years after they were married, and Mum went from being a “balaboosta” (a Yiddish term meaning the perfect housewife, homemaker, wonderful mother, cook, and gracious hostess) to becoming a successful business woman, opening her own “Finchley Wool Stores”. Her life took her from England to New Zealand, to Israel, then back to New Zealand. A much-loved person, always making sure to have plenty of “nosh” and loads of “wisdom” to dish out.

I don’t remember Mum making many cheesecakes, but she became well-known for her delicious fruit cake. Made for birthdays, bar or bat mitzvahs, weddings, and many other special occasions, as well as making sure to keep one for home, for years she used to make three at a time!

One of my very special memories of this successful fruit cake was when, on one of her last birthdays, at a time when Mum was unable to continue to make fruit cakes, our son and daughter-in-law, Paul and Sue, surprised her with a birthday cake that they had made using her “never-fail” recipe!  We were so proud of them, and the pleasure on Mum’s face said it all!

Here it is – enjoy!

1  lb. mixed fruit                                         1 lb. sultanas

½ lb. butter                                                 ½ lb. sugar

12 oz. flour                                                 1 tbs. Golden Syrup

4 eggs                                                          ½ tap. Baking Soda

¼ cup milk                                                 Nuts as desired

Melt butter and mix with sugar. 

Add 1 egg at a time. 

Mix. 

Add golden syrup, then flour, then fruit and nuts. 

Lastly bring the milk and baking soda to boiling point, then stir it in. 

Bake in a 9" round tin greased and lined with greaseproof paper of 3 thicknesses, and 1" above the tin. 

Place nuts on top. 

Bake in moderate oven 300⁰ for 3 hours. 

When removed from oven, add brandy.

Chicken Veronique

(from Richard Bright)

Mum was a good cook, though in a very Anglo-centric way. I remember enjoying everything she put in front of us and, despite her menu being very meat-and-three-veg oriented, I never had to endure over-cooked greens or grey meat. But, with only a couple of exceptions, our food was essentially British fare. It wasn’t until I went to university that I discovered curry, tacos, kebabs, or garlic. Or that 6000 years of Chinese culture had produced anything other than sweet and sour pork. 

Thus the meals in Mum’s repertoire that hinted at a world beyond the English Channel (and bear in mind that I grew up in New Zealand) were truly highlights that remain memorable to this day.

One of those highlights, and it seems so quaint today, was Chicken Veronique. It was chicken. With fruit! It was like some mad alchemy and I was always excited when the standard after-school question - “Mum, what’s for dinner tonight?” - elicited the chook-and-grape answer.

This exotic dish came from the magnificent 72-part magazine series ‘The Cordon Bleu Cookery Course’. This prized collection, complete with blue binders was acquired by my parents in the late sixties and it is still in the possession of my Dad today. It seemed very daring and authoritative, and I spent many hours poring over its step-by-step photos and lists of fabulous ingredients. And without it I would have probably made it to university without having tasted spaghetti bolognese or beef stroganoff!

So, here's how to make Chicken Veronique, with precise instructions from the Cordon Bleu Cookery School, c1968.

1 chicken

2 knobs of butter

3-4 sprigs of tarragon

1/2 pint of chicken stock

1/2 teaspoon arrowroot

2 tablespoons double cream

1/2 cup white or muscat grapes, peeled and pipped

1. Season the inside of a trussed chicken.
2. Rub the chicken with butter, and put 3-4 sprigs of tarragon inside, along with a further knob of butter.
3. Place the chicken in a roasting tin, with 1/4 pint of chicken stock, cover with buttered paper, and roast for an hour at 400 F.
4. After the first 15 to 20 minutes, the chicken should be removed from the oven and basted; and then basted again after another 15-20 minutes, turning the chicken around, each time.  The buttered paper should be removed a few minutes before the end of the cooking, to brown the bird. 
5. The hot chicken is then removed to a wooden board, jointed and carved.
6. The remaining juices in the roasting tin are reduced over a steady heat until brown and sticky.  Add ¼ of a pint of chicken stock to the pan to make a gravy.
7. Strain the gravy into a small saucepan and thicken with ½ teaspoon of arrowroot mixed with a little water. Add the arrowroot mixture away from the heat, and then stir until boiling.
8. Stir two tablespoons of double cream into the gravy.
9. Add the grapes to the gravy.

Audrey Bright aged 16

Can I really give away this little gem?

(from Emma Levy)

Plonk Cake - easy to make, and always impresses!

5 eggs

2 cups sugar

2 cups self-raising flour

50g melted butter

2 teaspoons baking powder

140g sliced tinned/fresh fruit or mixed berries

Mix in the above order (except the fruit/berries).

Pour into a greased tin.

Place drained and sliced fruit/berries on top of the mixture.

Bake at just over 200C for 30 mins (check till done).

When cold, sprinkle with icing sugar.

Backstory

My mum was known as being a great cook and baker – my friends loved to come to our house because they knew the cake tins were always full of goodies!  At her funeral in 2004, people came up to me and talked about how they remembered coming over and eating cake and biscuits after school – what a great legacy!!  I’m not sure if she just loved to bake or thought it might help my social life!

This was one of the cakes she often made if we were having people over – Mum called it “Plonk Cake”, because you just plonk everything in the bowl, plonk the mixture into the cake tin, then plonk fruit or berries on the top. 

I have made it many times since and the greedy side of me really wants to keep it as a secret, as it’s such a gem of a cake – it takes a few minutes to make and everyone always comments on it.  But in the spirit of sharing of precious recipes and precious people on this blog, here it is.  Just don’t make it if you know I’m coming to the same gathering – it was MINE FIRST!

Thanks Mum for the memories and for greatly furthering my social standing as a child.

It's Jewish New Year - time for a piece of honey cake (or two!)

(from Nicki Levy)


Rosh Hashanah Honey Cake (Temple Sinai Bulletin)

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

1 cup oil

1 cup honey

3 tablespoons cocoa

2 ½ cup flour

1 teaspoo bicarb of soda

1 Granny Smith apple (opt)

1 cup boiling tea

Grate apple if using (Mum says use it!). Combine all ingredients  in order listed, mixing well. Pour into large, well greased tin. Bake at 160C for 1 ¼-1 ½ hours.

Jewish New Year Honey Cake

When Mum died in 2004 , I asked Adam and Emma if I could take Mum’s recipe books. Mum had (like I do too) collected recipes from magazines, newspapers but, most interestingly, her friends, Carole Charles, Maureen Baruch, Barbara Treister, Sandy Myers (oh, and Alison Holst of course). She always credited them next to the recipe.

There are quite a few recipes in my own child’s hand-writing that Mum must have asked me to write out – or maybe because they were recipes I wanted her to make – anyone that knows me won’t be surprised that on one page I have written out the recipes for Chocolate Fudge and Chocolate Blancmange.

I love to flick through and find recipes she made regularly, like Chocolate Crunch, which I think Emma and I had as our nutritional afternoon tea when we got home from school most days. I try not to think about the half pound of butter that went into it!

But the best thing about the recipe book is at the back where in the early 1970s she listed menus for her dinner parties and who attended. On 15 May 1971 (when she had three children under the age of five) she lists: Entrée - pancakes filled with smoked salmon & cheese/mushrooms & cheese. Main - Argentinian Steak, Mushrooms a la Greque, Tossed Salad, Cauliflower Gratin, Baked Potatoes. Dessert - Cheesecake with Boysenberry Topping. Those that were lucky enough to enjoy this feast were the Baruchs, the Hyams, the Brickmans and the Myers.

The honey cake recipe is probably not the one we grew up with as it came from the Temple Sinai bulletin. Mum only joined the Temple after Dad died, probably in the 90s. I accidentally left out the cup of tea when I made this yesterday and I’ve never had so many compliments on the cake. Try it with and without! Bon appetit and Shana Tova!