Italian cuisine has long been a favorite.  After all, who doesn’t like pasta!  Growing up, Italian was more of the convenience variety.  Mom had 8 mouths to feed, four of them boys!  When mom made spaghetti she used the dry noodles, but she “made the sauce.”  Making the sauce involved opening an envelope of Lawry’s spaghetti sauce mix; adding oil, tomato sauce and paste, and water.  Once in a while she added cooked ground Italian sausage, although most of the time she added cut up pepperoni.  The spaghetti dinner was typically served with salad, garlic bread, and hard cooked eggs.  For a long time I didn’t understand why she served the hard cooked eggs.  Once I got older I realized she was adding an inexpensive protein to the meal.  Lent usually brought a different Italian option.  Since we could not eat meat on Friday’s during lent, occasionally she would prepare ravioli.  You know – the frozen variety with cheese filling.  Really not my favorite!  Growing up only knowing that type of ravioli, it took me a long time to broaden my ravioli horizons!

There is an urban (family) legend, told by my brothers.  We have only 3 cousins – all boys.  Now and again my brothers would spend the night at my aunt and uncles house, typically before a skiing trip, or while staying at their cabin in Keystone.  Side note – growing up with 4 older brothers and 3 older boy cousins was sometimes like being on “The Little Rascals.”  As the youngest I would want to be involved with some of their activities, but usually did not happen.  It was like approaching the club house on Little Rascals with the “No Girls Allowed” sign.  I digress, back to the urban legend.  For my aunt, meal planning may have been an after thought.  Legend has it, my brothers were staying with my aunt and uncle and my aunt had forgotten the boys probably needed something for breakfast.  She did what many moms do, look in the refrigerator and see what might work.  Breakfast that day consisted of spaghetti and donuts!  Let’s say the boys did not go hungry with the alternative breakfast.

I thought about these memories as I prepared tonight’s dinner.  We had linguini with a white wine clam sauce.  This recipe came from the cookbook, Mama D’s Homestyle Italian Cookbook with a 1975 copyright.  I was just finishing my 7th grade year.  It was a gift from my sister.  Over the years I have altered the recipe a bit, adding a little white wine to the recipe.  I must say I do use canned minced clams as the recipe suggests.  Growing up in Colorado fresh clams were not always readily available.  I included the sauce recipe.  Be sure to check the recipe section.  It is suggested to serve the sauce over cooked spaghetti, but I don’t think the pasta police will ticket you if you select a different pasta.  The recipe is easy, chopping an onion is probably the most difficult task, unless you are can opener challenged.  Plan ahead as it does have to simmer for 1 hour.  I simmer it covered, and stir occasionally.  If you want to reduce the liquid, simmer with the lid off either part of the hour or the entire hour.  If you simmer uncovered be sure to keep an eye on it so all the liquid does not evaporate and burn.

Play with the recipe.  I like to “play with my food!”

Growing up, there were not many “family secret recipes” that I can remember.  However, there was a hard cover Betty Crocker Cook Book.  I don’t remember my mom using it very often.  Once I tried to make chocolate chip cookies from the cook book, but at that time I was not aware high altitude changes may need to be made.  The cookies turned out as chocolate chip crisps.  The cook book shows its’ years of wear.  The binding is off, divider tabs are torn, some pages are loose and yellowing.  If you finger your way through the sections and are able to locate the “Cookie” section, on the page with the Butter cookie recipe is a hand written recipe for Grandma Dole Cookies.  All that is listed are ingredients, amounts, and baking temperature.  No instructions, just an assumption that the process has been handed down through the family.  Grandma Dole was my mom’s mother.  Unfortunately, I did not have the honor of knowing here as she passed when I was an infant.

Grandma Dole cookies were different from any other cookie our family made.  They look like a crisp sugar cookie, but they are soft.  They were meant to be dipped in coffee or milk.  They were a holiday staple, dyed with holiday colors, sprinkles, sugar, and cut into festive shapes.  I wanted to put icing on them, mom thought that would be sacrilege, so we never did.  I remember making these cookies with my mother when I was young.  We used the large yellow ceramic mixing bowl, using only a fork to mix the dough.  We never used a mixer, because the dough is so stiff that in those days it would have burned out the mixer motor.  As I got older, my mom and I would alternate stirring duty.  With each flour addition stirring became more and more difficult.  In high school I would call mom from school (using a good ole’ pay phone) and have her take out the margarine/butter so it would be soft when I got home so I could make cookies.  I use to make them so often, I had the recipe memorized.  In my adult years, whenever I visited mom and dad I was asked if we were going to make Grandma Dole cookies.  I rarely turned the opportunity down.

I have fond memories of making Grandma Dole cookies and the family ties it has forged: mom helping stir the dough (and washing the dishes), my sister eating the dough as fast as we could roll it out, my daughter (2 years old at the time) sitting on the counter while we made cookies (eating the softened butter my mom left on the counter), making Grandma Dole cookies with my kids, and at times nieces and nephews.  In a few years, I have a couple of great nieces that will hopefully make and enjoy this not-so-secret family recipe.

There are a few tricks to making the perfect Grandma Dole cookies.  The full recipe is on the recipe page, but these tips may be helpful.  First, make sure your butter/or margarine (we always used margarine) is at room temperature and softened.  Follow the creaming method of mixing, which is: cream together the softened butter and sugar, then add the eggs.  For consistent mixing, alternately add the flour with the milk and vanilla extract.  The dough will be stiff.  You want to add just enough flour so the dough is not sticky so it is easier to pull out of the bowl and roll out.  **REMEMBER you will add more flour to the dough through the rolling and cutting process, so be conservative with the initial flour mixing.  Bake the cookies just until they are slightly brown, this will make for a softer cookie.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have the opportunity to make and enjoy Grandma Dole Cookies.

In 1973, I attended my first cooking class.  It’s a Small World Junior Cooking School was presented by the Public Service Company of Colorado.  I am not sure if I asked to go, or if my mom signed me up to get me out of the house for a while.  As indicated in the course title, the theme was international cuisine.  As an adult I look through the course cookbook and think, “Really, that’s your idea of international cuisine?”  Perhaps that was the thought in 1973.  The recipes included: Scottish Tea Scones; Tamale Hero Sandwiches; Red’n White Soccer Salad; Wikiwiki Walk-Away Dessert; Creamy Alpine Sherbet; Chicken Egg Foo Yung and Foo Yung Sauce; Russian Tea Cakes; Salsa Cruda; Tropical Lime Cooler; and Kolache (sweet pastry).  Two of the recipes I liked: WikiWiki Walk-Away Dessert, and Russian Tea Cakes (similar to Mexican Wedding Cookies) – which I still make today.

I still have the huge cookbook (17 pages) from the class.  Looking through the cookbook I noticed there was no copyright protection.  In the recipe section of my blog you will find a couple of the recipes for your enjoyment, which may have been changed a bit. 

My next post will be on Grandma Doles Cookies and the memories making and sharing the deliciousness!

Welcome to my blog!  This site has been in my brain for quite some time.  I finally pulled the trigger.  This old dog is up to new tricks and learning as I go.  My hope for this site is a place to share my food wisdom, stories, tips, and favorite recipes and cooking websites.

So let’s start with a story.

Do you remember your first cooking experience?  I finished my 25th year as a Family and Consumer Science teacher.  Yes I have gotten to play with food for a quarter century.  One might think I came out of the womb cooking, far from it.  My interest in cooking didn’t start until my pre-teen years.  I didn’t start on anything easy, oh no!  I had to start with a layer cake.  The underlying motive was I wanted to surprise my mom with a cake for dessert.  I thought she might enjoy and appreciate it after a long day of work.

With the help of my brother, the cake turned out wonderful, the frosting was another story.  Keep in mind, this was back in the early 1970’s.  Yes there were cake mixes, just as today, but the frosting was a dry powder mix too.  There was no open the can and spread on the frosting.  Still being green in understanding cooking terms, I did not prepare the frosting as directed.  I was eleven or so and I thought softened butter was the same as melted butter – as many of my students do at the beginning of the school year.

Can you guess how the frosting turned out?  Can you say “glaze?”  There was no spreading the frosting on the cake, it was poured!!  The positive is that it was chocolate!  It was still tasty, just a bit unconventional in appearance.

People say we learn from our mistakes, and cooking is no exception.  Had I given up on cooking with that first experience I would not be where I am today.  Lesson of the story: keep playing with food!