Family Treasure

We now live right next door to my Mee Maw so when I cook for us I try to always take her a plate for dinner. She doesn't cook at all anymore and usually eats fruit and cottage cheese as her dinner meal. She gets so excited when she sees either me or Adam standing at her door with a plate of food. So tonight I took her a bowl of rice and steaktips that had cooked in the crock pot all day. I got to go over by myself while Adam played in the back with the kids, sat and visited with her a little. She asked me to help her find a cookbook she was hunting for earlier this week. I got up on the stool and found it hidden in a cabinet. She then said she wanted me to have it. Very special moment. While we were growing up we looked forward to going to MeeMaw & Pawpaw's house and we LOVED eating over at their house!! While I flipped through the very old cookbook that was falling apart my MeeMaw started telling me about some of the recipes... "that Texas Hash recipe is so good. PawPaw didn't like peppers so he always picked them out. Hamburger Pie- David got snowed in with me and we ate that and he said it was the best thing he had eaten. The whipped pound cake is what your mother loved to get on her birthday. This is the carmel icing recipe that I always made for your birthday cake" It seemed like every recipe also held a very special memory for her.

Then she started pulling out more cookbooks and telling me her favorite recipes. She said "Will you hang on to these cookbooks for me?" I love that woman. She shared her love by cooking a meal and think she can sense that I share my love the same way.

My favorite one is an orange cookbook that has egg spilled on some of the pages that have my MeeMaw's handwriting on some of the pages with cut out recipes taped to other pages. Some of the pages are falling out. It screams tradition and has seen a lot of lovin' by my MeeMaw.

I thought I would share a traditional recipe from MeeMaw's cookbook:

2 cups self rising flour, 1 tbsn sugar, 1/4 tspn baking soda- sift those all together in a flour sifter

Mix 1/4 cup canola oil, 1 cup buttermilk

Sprinkle flour on board, mix dough- knead 10 times (fold over & mash)

Roll it out with a rolling pin 3/4 inches thick

Put oil on pan, cut biscuits out and bake at 475 til done

These cookbooks are very special. They earned a spot on one of the cabinets that have a glass plate on the outside door (away from my toddlers). I hope Emma likes to cook so I can pass these onto her and her family when I am too old to cook anymore. Family Traditions :)

Happy Cooking :)