Yankee-Belle Cafe

Jan here, strolling down memory lane. Come on along!

Years ago, probably about five million, I was a little girl. 

That's me, in the red sweatshirt. My brother and I were having a yard sale. Treasures abound!

I was blessed to have two grandmothers, and I loved them both.

But you know that while grandmothers have lots of things in common, each grandma is special in her own way. Do I hear an "amen?"

My dad's mother (a widow at an early age) lived an hour away in the same town in Indiana where I later (much later) lived with my own family. She's the one who taught me to quilt and sew, and even though she had sixteen grandchildren, she always found a way to show me how special I was to her.

My dad's parents soon after they married in 1928

My mom's mother and father lived two hours away, and spent their winters in Florida. So we didn't get to see them as often. But this grandma had her own way to tell us how much she loved us.

My mom's parents around 1962

Every time we went to visit, we could always count on there being a tin of special cookies on top of the refrigerator - Grandma's Sugar Cookies. 

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

5 rounded teaspoons baking powder

7-8 cups flour to make a stiff batter

1 1/2 cups milk

note: notice there is no salt in this recipe - that isn't a typo. There is no salt.

Cream together the butter and sugar, and then add the vanilla and the eggs. Stir together the baking powder and FIVE cups of the flour (the rest is to add later, if needed). Add in the flour mixture and the milk, alternately - this part is important - beating after each addition.

While you're mixing in the flour and milk, keep telling yourself you're making cake, not cookies. With cookies you're trying to make a dough - with cake you're making a delicate batter.

Believe me, you want a batter for these cookies. Grandma told me "the softer the batter, the better." But at the same time, it needs to be a bit thicker than a regular cake batter. You can add more flour than the original five cups if you need to - the amount of flour depends on your air temperature, humidity, altitude, etc. When we lived in the humid lowlands, I used more flour than I do now in the semi-arid highlands.

Refrigerate the batter for a couple hours.

While we're waiting for the batter to chill, let's take a rabbit trail to a different memory  - 

I included these cookies and the memories of my grandmother in my debut novel, "The Prodigal Son Returns," published by Love Inspired Historical more than seven years ago.

You can order this book here

In the story, Ellie Miller is a widow with three children, and among the people in her life are her husband's elderly aunt and uncle, Miriam and Hezekiah Miller. They had provided a home for Ellie's husband from the time he was sixteen until he married, and they were the closest thing he had to parents after being orphaned as a young boy.

Every time Ellie takes her children to visit Grossmutti and Grossdawdi (Grandma and Grandpa), Grossmutti Miriam always has a container of these soft sugar cookies waiting for them. Sometimes four-year-old Susan is afraid Grossmutti will forget to make the cookies, but seven-year-old Johnny knows better. After all, what would Grossdawdi Hezekiah eat if there weren't any cookies?

But of course Miriam, just like my own Grandma, never forgot to have a fresh batch of these delicious cookies waiting whenever her grandchildren came to visit.

My Grandma always kept the cookies in a big round tin on top of her refrigerator, waiting for us. She never forgot to make them. When I was little, I was convinced she always had those cookies there for her and Grandpa to eat every day. But as I grew older I learned the truth - she made them just for us.

I worked for years to be able to make these cookies the right way. I knew I had done it when I took a batch to my brother one time. He took one bite and said "Now these are Grandma's cookies!"

Oh, and speaking of cookies!!! Has the dough been in the refrigerator for 2-3 hours? Then it's time to get that oven going!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface to about 3/8" thick...or between 1/4" and 1/2" if you like to guesstimate :)

And be generous with the flour - remember that you made a cake batter, not a cookie dough. Treat the soft batter gently, and use plenty of flour while you're rolling.

Cut out round cookies, or whatever shape you like. I use my great-grandmother's biscuit cutter because...well...it just seems right to do it that way.

Around Valentine's Day, I color the dough pink dough and cut out some heart shapes!

Bake the cookies for 10-12 minutes, or until they're done. You can tell they're done by lightly touching the top of one of them with your finger. If the depression stays, the cookie needs another minute of baking. But if it springs back, it's done. And don't let the edges get brown - that means they're too well done.

If you find your cookies are browning before the spring test says they're done, lower the heat on your oven a bit.

What memories do you have of your grandmothers? Or maybe you have a special "adopted" grandmother? Tell us about those special women in your life!

Jan Drexler has always been a "book girl" who still loves to spend time within the pages of her favorite books. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her dear husband of many years and their active, crazy dogs, Jack and Sam. You can learn more about Jan and her books on her website, www.JanDrexler.com.

Jan here, wishing you the best Labor Day!

Not everyone enjoys Labor Day, of course. Many people see it as the official end of summer as we head back to school, back to sweaters, and back to soups and stews on the menu.



For much of my childhood (growing up back in the 1960's,) I started a new school year on the Tuesday after Labor Day. So the weekend brings nostalgic memories of new school shoes, new notebooks and pens, new books (!), new socks (cotton anklets that were usually too big...), a new teacher, seeing old friends and making new ones. The sweet anticipation of starting a new chapter in my life!

Would you believe I was six years old once?

What memories does Labor Day bring for you?

And however you're celebrating today, have a great one!



Jan Drexler has always been a "book girl" who still loves to spend time within the pages of her favorite books. She lives in the Black Hills of South Dakota with her dear husband of many years and their active, crazy dogs, Jack and Sam. You can learn more about Jan and her books on her website, www.JanDrexler.com.

Jan here, with an age-old problem.

Spring fever. Every year it hits me! Sometime in April I get antsy, watching for the first greengrass to appear.

Not green yet, but no longer winter-brown, either!

Watching for the orange baby bison (they have started arriving, but we haven't seen any yet.)



And longing for delicious spring foods - Asparagus! Rhubarb! Strawberries!!!

But this year...with everything that's going on with the virus and quarantines and short supplies in the grocery store...I'm going to have to wait.

Until then, enjoy this post I shared back in 2013. This is still my favorite strawberry shortcake recipe. I'll have to make some and top it with the frozen berries I keep on hand for my morning smoothies!

Old Fashioned Strawberry Shortcake

I must be coming down with a bad case of spring fever. The first symptom is a craving for strawberry shortcake, months before strawberries are in season.


It all starts with an innocent trip to the grocery store...and there...right in the produce department...it begins.

Oh, they're so beautiful! (I say)

But it's too early... (my pragmatic self tries a counter argument: reality)

I just want to smell them!

They're way too expensive... (my frugal self goes for the throat)

Look! They're on sale!

They're probably spoiled... (my pragmatic self tries again)

No! Look! They're beautiful! sniff...sniff... I can smell them through the plastic!

Every time you buy those, you're disappointed in how bland they taste... (that's the Mom me...I should learn to listen to her)

(But then I lay down the final blow...) I could make SHORTCAKE!!!!

.....and the strawberries jump into the cart!


And now I get to make shortcake :-)

My shortcake recipe came from my grandmother...but was never written down. You know the kind of recipe I mean: "Start with biscuit dough, put it in a pie plate, add sugar."

That's the way I always made shortcake, thinking Grandma's recipe was unique and wonderful.

Then I got married, and for Christmas that year my mother-in-law copied some family recipes for me. Imagine my surprise when I saw her mother's shortcake recipe!

It was almost exactly the one I had always used!

That's when I knew I had married into the right family - that, and the fact my mother-in-law loves chocolate as much as I do.

Maybe more.

And she raised at least one wonderful son (I only married one of them, so I can't vouch for the other three!)

Over the years I've taken Grandma Crumrine's recipe and Grandma Ebenhoeh's recipe, combined them, added a few touches of my own...and we have the perfect shortcake.

Strawberry Shortcake

Ingredients:
2 cups flour (either all-purpose or 1/2 all-purpose, 1/2 whole wheat)
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup sugar (you can substitute other sweeteners, or leave it out)
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, plus 1 Tablespoon butter (save for later)
2/3 cup milk


Preheat your oven to 325°.

Stir together the dry ingredients, then cut in the 1/2 cup butter (just like you're making biscuits) until the dough is crumbly. Stir in the milk.

Grease a 9" pie plate (or you can use a similar sized baking dish) and put in the dough. Pat the dough into the edges of the pan, and then dot the top with the 1 Tablespoon butter.

Last of all, sprinkle the top with 2 Tablespoons sugar or 1 teaspoon stevia or other natural sweetener.


Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the edges start browning and the center is done (I use the spring test - touch the center lightly. If it springs back, it's done.)



Now comes the best part.

While the shortcake is still warm, cut it into six or eight slices. Split the slice in half and layer quartered strawberries between the halves, replace the top, and then spoon more strawberries over the top.



What's that, you say? Whipped cream? Ice cream? No way!

You take a couple tablespoons of heavy cream (aka whipping cream) and pour it over the top, just like your farming grandparents used to do.

Heaven.

Or, at least it would be if this was June and the strawberries had some flavor.... I need to learn to listen to the Mom me.

* * * * * *

Yes, I definitely need to bake a batch of this shortcake!

Recipes like this one are memory triggers, aren't they? When I make this shortcake, I'm transported back to my grandmother's kitchen in Indiana. Windows open to the fresh air, flour sprinkling the red formica table, the heat radiating from the oven on one side of the room... Her many fruit trees blooming, Grandpa's bees buzzing, and the overwhelming fragrance of an eastern spring.

I'm so thankful for those memories of time gone by! And the opportunity to make new memories.

Like this ancient cottonwood tree.

I think we all have special dates that mark turning points in our lives. Our anniversaries. Our children's birthdays. The day we moved into our new house. The day we said our last goodbye to a loved one.

September 13 is one of those dates for me. And years ago, on September 13, 1979, I marked that important anniversary by starting my whirlwind European Grand Tour.

Okay, it wasn't so grand. But it was life-changing. And every September 13 since then, I've relived that trip. In this post from a few years ago, I shared a few memories from those two months in Europe. Enjoy!

Tuscan Style Soup and Italian Bread

Many, many years ago I spent a couple months traveling in Europe.

This was me back in the '70s. I always had my guitar with me back then.

Yup. It was the '70s. Think backpack, Youth Hostel Card, Eurail Pass, and a three-in-one edition of The Lord of the Rings to pass the time on the trains.

I learned a lot of things.

Things like how a woman traveling alone is much safer north of Florence than south...and don't even think about going too far into France, and definitely NOT behind the Iron Curtain (yes, it was still in existence back then - I said it was many years ago).

And like how the pictures just don't do justice to the Alps, or castles, or the Rhine, or the Danube....

And when I visited our ancestral home in Sumiswald, Switzerland, I learned just how desperate my ancestors must have been to leave such an absolutely beautiful place. (Read up on the Anabaptist persecution in Switzerland during the Reformation here to find out why they left).

I wish I had pictures to share with you, but mine are all on slides. So go to your search engine and type in "Emmental Switzerland images." Or just click on the link I've provided. You'll love what you see!

Another less important (but much more tasty) discovery was that not all Italian food is tomato sauce and pasta! Who'd a thunk?

I stayed in a Youth Hostel in the Tuscany region that served a chicken dish that was divine, with a side of pasta (and no tomato sauce - just butter, garlic, and cheese), and bread. It was a revelation for me. Suddenly I loved Italian food!

(This was a WHOLE lot better than Chef-Boy-ar-Dee!)

Imagine my delight when I found a copy-cat recipe that claimed it was just as good as Olive Garden's! But let me tell you, when I made a few modifications, the soup turned out to be much better than the restaurant version. I don't even order it there anymore....

Tuscan Style Soup

Ingredients:

1 pound spicy Italian sausage
1/2 pound bacon - chopped
1 quart water
1 quart chicken broth
2 large russet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 garlic cloves - crushed
1 medium onion - finely chopped
2 cups kale, torn into dime-sized pieces
1 cup heavy whipping cream OR 1 12 oz. can evaporated milk
salt and pepper to taste


First, brown the sausage and bacon. I like to use the Italian sausage you find tucked away with the bratwurst in the grocer's meat cooler, but you can use your favorite. If you use links, like I do, be sure to remove the outer casing.

I use my kitchen scissors to cut the bacon into pieces before cooking it - saves so much time.



And here's how the meat looks after cooking it to crispy goodness!

When you drain the meat, reserve a few tablespoons of drippings to use later - you'll love why.

While the meat is cooking, start cooking the potatoes in a large pot with the water and chicken broth.

And after the meat is done, cook your onion and garlic in a tablespoon of your reserved drippings (not all of it - just one tablespoon!) until the onion is transparent, and then add it to the potatoes.

The soup is almost done!

After the onions/garlic are done, add the rest of your reserved drippings (think of it as flavorful oil) to the frying pan, and saute your kale pieces. You want to stir those puppies enough to coat them with the oily drippings, and then turn the heat way down, stick a lid on the pan, and let the kale steam for about five minutes.

Once the kale is steamy and tender, add the meat and kale to the pot.

Add the cream or evaporated milk, and then stir it until it's heated through. Taste it and add salt and pepper as needed.



Serve it with a loaf or two of Italian bread, (and a bit of Ruthy's bread dip) and you'll be transported to the old country!

I'm still loving wedding memories! The bride was beautiful, the flowers were gorgeous, the wedding was so meaningful...


But two days later, I was cleaning up the wedding leftovers (tons of wedding leftovers!), and I saw this beautiful display in our living room:


The flowers were so lovely! A combination of blush roses, ivory roses, peonies, hydrangea, baby's breath and one cascade of orchids in the bride's bouquet.

Such beauty, and such a short lifespan. Already by Monday morning the peonies were about done.

Years ago my mother hung my bouquet from the rafter in our garage to dry it. It was lovely...and fragile. One bump from a curious dog and that bouquet was in pieces. Lots of dry, crumbly, rose petal pieces.

Yes, I cried.

1982

But then I gathered up the pieces and put them in a mason jar. I still have that jar, and love what it represents.

I wanted to do something similar for my daughter, but she married a cat-loving man. I knew that if I tried to dry the bouquet, it would suffer the same fate as mine had thirty-four years ago.

So then I thought - why not just skip a step and put it into the jar?

The first thing to do was to dry the flowers. Instead of the hot garage, I used our dehydrator. If you don't have a dehydrator, you can use an oven set to very low heat - 110° is the recommended maximum. If you leave your oven door ajar and set the temp as low as you can, you'll be okay.


I started with the rose buds. I knew they would take longer to dry, so I set them on the bottom tray. They took about 36 hours.

Then I cut branchlets off of the hydrangeas...


...and the baby's breath.


Each of these trays only took about six hours to dry.

Then I piled petals into the other trays.


I mixed the rose and peony petals together, and let them dry. They took between 8 and 10 hours. Then I'd pour them into a big bowl and fill the trays again.

We had a LOT of flowers to work with!

Instead of the mason jar I had used for my own wedding flowers, I went to Hobby Lobby and bought three sealable jars. Two small ones for the groom's mother and myself, and a large one for the happy couple.



Some of those "chalkboard" vinyl labels worked great!

So, how have you preserved memories of a special day?