Bonka's Spaghetti Sauce

When I was a young child, I named my grandmother "Bonka". It stuck. And when I met my great grandmother I termed her, "Big Bonka".

My grandmother, as I have stated previously was not a cook at all. She cooked because she had to. However, there is one single recipe that endures in our family. At least it endured with my mom and while I haven't made it myself because I love my husband's sauce and I fear the ridicule it I pulled out these ingredients intent on making spaghetti sauce.

Truly, it is good. And if it is what you grew up eating as "homemade spaghetti sauce", trust me, it would hold a special place in your heart as well.

"Bonka's Spaghetti Sauce"

20-24 1 cup servings

2-3 lbs ground been
1 lg onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic

(Cook the above in olive oil until the beed is cooked through.)

2 quarts canned tomatoes
1 lg can tomato paste
1 lg can tomato sauce
2 cans tomato soup
5 cans cream of mushroom soup
1/2 can pitted sliced olives
1, 4 oz can mushrooms
1 t sugar
1 t salt
2 pinches rosemary

Combined with above in a large kettle and cook slowly for about 30 minutes.

Sweet Pickles

I actually can't stand pickles. I have no interest in pickles. But this recipe, on another very friable piece of paper, caught my attention. I haven't ever made pickles, though my husband usually attempts each year. He doesn't care for sweet pickles and prefers them to be spicy instead. This just seemed like a unique recipe. Then again, someone might post and say, "yes, this is exactly how you would make sweet pickles".

Sweet Pickles

75 small pickles (must be cucumbers... right?) with water and one cup salt and let stand 1 week. Drain and pour on boiling water for 3 mornings. On third morning split the pickled and add 1 Tablspoon alum. On 4th morning heat the following mixture boiling hot.

5 cups vinegar
5 cups sugar
1/2 oz celery seed
1 oz mixed spices
1 oz cinnamon sticks.

Pour over pickles and heat for 3 mornings.

Pickles need not be sealed to keep for at least a year. These pickles are perfect sweet pickles.

**Editorial note - I am so not sure about the statement that these don't need to be sealed to keep for a year. Food safety warning!!

Peanut Cookies

On the backside of the little slip of paper containing "Berneice's Doughnuts" is my grandmother's chicken scratch. I love how her recipes are so characteristically her. It's like the wrote the important things - the ingredients and then completely forgot about directions. I suspect she got busy and didn't finish writing it.

I always think of peanut butter cookies, but this has no peanut butter. Looks kind of interesting.

Peanut Cookies

2 c brown sugar
1 c butter
2 eggs
2 1/2 c flour
1 t soda
1 t baking powder
3 c oatmeal
1 c corn flakes ground
1 c salted peanuts chopped

Berneice's doughnuts

I met my 3rd (I think, I am not good with naming cousin relations) cousin Berneice when I was in 4th grade. My sister and I flew to North Dakota with my grandmother to meet her farm family. Berneice Turnquist was my grandmother's cousin (I believe) and lived (lives?) in a small eastern North Dakota community. I believe she is still alive. I thought she was a very nice woman and I remember sitting in an apartment that I believe was hers playing that triangle solitaire game with the pegs. Bound and determined to beat it. I did eventually.

This recipe is not written in my grandmother's chicken scratch, but it was in her box. I suspect that someone wrote it out and sent it to my grandmother.

I have been wanting to make doughnuts lately. My sister bought me a doughnut pan recently. Maybe this recipe is reason to try making doughnuts.

Berneice's Doughnuts

1 1/2c sugar
2 1/2 T melted fat
3 eggs
1 c sour milk
3/4 t soda
1 t baking powder
3/4 t nutmeg
1 t salt
Flour to roll

Beat eggs, add sugar and fat. Sift 3 cups flour with dry ingredients, add alternately with milk. Add more flour to roll. Roll 1/3 of dough at a time. Fry in deep fat. Do not get dough too stiff.

Twenty Four Hr. Salad

This is one of my great grandmother's recipes. It is written on a friable piece of paper that scares me to handle it. But the recipe is very intriguing to me. Intriguing maybe enough to actually make.

One of the things that I like about this recipe is the commentary. It is written on this folded piece of paper and in the margins are: "Very good", "Best of its kind", "Very Special", "Do not loose kuz can't be beaten", "a large amount of tart-sweet nutricious food, also very good at pot luck". And then she signed her name, Hannah Perchert and given the signature, I would guess this was from early in her life, likely pre-1920.

Twenty Four Hr. Salad (Very good)

• 2 cups spaghetti boiled, blanched and cooked.
• 6 apples cut up
• 1 no.2 can crushed or diced pineapple drained.
• Boil a dressing of 1/2 cup lemon juice, 4 eggs, 1 cup powdered sugar (no other kind). Beat or stir well while boiling, only takes a few minutes of cooking. If too thick, thin with pineapple juice. Cool.
• Mix in diced pineapple, apples. Blend well.
• Add cooked spaghetti.
• Let stand overnight in a cool place.
• Whip one cup of cream and add a little sugar.
• Add 2 bananas and fold into salad and its ready to serve.
• Keep in a cool place. Red or green cherries may be added for color, also a few marshmallows.
• I omitted the cream and used all the pineapple juice, (not so rich.
• From Mrs. Fred (Ida) Nierenberg
• This makes a lot.
• Extra good

Blushing Apples

Peel and core the desired number of apples.
Make a medium syrup of sugar and water, adding 1 tsp fruit coloring.
Bring to a slow boil and add apples.
Cool slowly until apples are tender.
Remove from syrup.
Chill and serve with cream.

Also written in my grandmother's hand and something I have never tasted. I posted this recipe because it raised questions to me - what is a "medium syrup"? Medium hot? Medium consistency? And what is fruit coloring? Did she mean food coloring?

Norwegian Apple Pie

This recipe is written in my grandmother's hand. If you knew my grandmother it might make you smirk. My grandmother never made pie crust. (My great grandmother would never think of not making pie crust.) Really I am not sure if my grandmother ever made pie. My guess is that she had this at a church function and requested the recipe. Though I never remember eating it myself.

Norwegian Apple Pie

Quarter Apples
1c bread crumbs
1c sugar
1/2 t salt
Cinnamon
Butter

• Butter a deep baking dish.
• Mix crumbs, sugar salt and cinnamon
• Arrange layers of apples and crumbs.
• Dot with butter and bake in moderate oven until browned.
• Serve warm with cream.
• 350 F for 1 hours.

Inspired

For a few months I have been contemplating a new project. This project. I kept telling myself it would just take a few minutes to sit down and make up the blog. But then the whole putting recipes in was what was daunting to me.

I sat down in front of Mary Poppins this afternoon with my daughter and a Bon Appetit in hand. I read an article about a food writer who lost her grandparents recipes through their deaths and her desire to recreate the recipes with her family and to pass down to her family the recipes and methods.

Inspiration.

I have it a bit easier. I have boxes and boxes of recipes from my mom, my grandmother and my great grandmother. The only one still living - with Alzheimers - is my grandmother.

My great grandmother inspired within my mom a desire and ability to cook well. My great grandmother was Swedish, born in North Dakota in 1899 and her recipes come from her heritage and are based on farm life. My grandmother, while not a particularly good cook, got by and her inspiration was as a post-WWII bride. My mom went through many phases of cooking from getting buy with the least expensive ingredients to dabbling in French cooking later in her life.

I would love to take the time to cook each of these recipes, but that's not going to happen. I may try a few of them.

My rules - I am going to type out the recipes as they are written. I am going to leave any names written on the recipes as sources. I tend to not post full names, but in many cases I expect the people are deceased. Plus, I suppose I have some vague hope that some long lost relative may look into geneaology and use the internet and be surprised to find a recipe from their ancestor. Where they aren't deceased I will not use full names and will note this.

My hesitation so far in tackling this project of doing something with these stacks and boxes of recipes is not really knowing where to start. I may never decide where to start.

So here we go heads first.