Cookbooks and Cookies

When she read our blog yesterday about taking Cowboy Cookies to the Bayfield Bunch, Al and Kelly, fellow blogger Margie asked for the recipe. (Sorry, Mike, this one’s about food again!)

Well that recipe happens to be printed in a cookbook that we compiled twenty years ago. We had been reminiscing about good times with family and friends and began to realize that those good times so often revolved around food: meals or snacking or preparing holiday dinners. Wouldn’t it be great, we thought, to gather everyone's favorite recipes together in one place. And wouldn't it be neat to share those recipes with everyone. And wouldn’t it even be better if those recipes came with a little story or background.

Thus was born “The LeRoy and Gansneder Family and Friends Cookbook.”

Over a period of a few months we were able to collect 277 recipes (actually more, but some were duplicates) from 32 different people, couples, or family units, and retype them, using our Tandy 1000 SX personal computer. Many of them came with stories or at least a little history: In sending a recipe for Sweet & Gooey Rolls, our sister-in-law Karma wrote, “When I was in high school, my mother, Jeanne Louise Gropp, developed this recipe to satisfy her ever-sweet tooth.”

There were recipes with foreign-sounding names: Caldo con Queso, Kartoffelsuppe, Choucroute Garni, Bulgogi. There were colorful names: Granny Gansneder’s White Fruit Cake, Irene’s Gold Cake, Black Beast. People’s names: Roy’s Sandwich Filling, Bereniece Gansneder’s Mystery Dessert, Kate Lesher’s Dill Pickles.

Pictures were added. The very primitive software we used had some very primitive images we could insert, but the best pictures were those that we clipped out of a book of food and cooking art work. That’s where the name “clip-art” came from: art you can clip out and use,

Everyone who contributed something got a copy of the cookbook in a half-inch binder. Suzy has assiduously added to her copy ever since, and now it bulges in its 3-inch binder.

So, are you ready for the recipe?

COWBOY COOKIES

• 2 Cups sifted flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 Cup shortening
• 1 Cup sugar
• 1 Cup brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2 eggs
• 1 pkg (6 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 2 Cups old fashioned rolled oats
• 1 tsp vanilla

Mix together and set aside flour, soda, salt and baking powder. Blend together shortening and sugars. Add eggs and beat until light and fluffy. Add flour mixture and mix well. Add oats, vanilla and chocolate chips. Dough will be crumbly.  Drop by teaspoonfuls on a greased cookie sheet, bake 12 minutes at 350 degrees.

If you try the recipe, please let us know how they turned out.

And that’s another peek into … Our Life on Wheels!

 

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