After looking through my Grandma Mangan’s recipe book at my mother’s house last fall, I decided to buy a scanner and archive the book’s contents on my computer. My father has now loaned me the recipe box of his mother, my Grandma Cahill, and I have started scanning her recipes as well.  Grandma Cahill’s collection has more recipes in poetic verse (total: 2), and Grandma Mangan’s collection has more clippings of famous dishes from local restaurants, but overall, their contents are similar. They include a recipes scribbled on scraps of paper, clippings from newspapers and processed food packaging, and index cards from friends and family. Lots of jello molds. Lots of “whipped topping.”

The first recipe I chose from my Grandma Cahill’s collection was for molasses cookies. Internet sleuthing while the cookies were baking yielded many similar—if not identical—recipes on the web, so it must have appeared on the side of a molasses container at one point and now graces the index cards of many collections. Recipe and photos after the jump.

Grandma Cahill’s Molasses Cookies
[yields ~3 dozen]
-3/4 c. shortening
-1 c. sugar
-1/4 c. molasses
-1 egg
-2 tsp. baking soda
-2 c. sifted flour
-1/2 tsp. [ground] ginger
-1/2 tsp. [ground] cloves
-1 tsp. cinnamon
-1/2 tsp. salt

Melt shortening in a 3 or 4 qt. saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat; let cool. Add sugar, molasses and egg; beat well. Sift together flour, soda, cloves, ginger, cinnamon and salt; add to first mixture. Mix well; chill.

Form in 1 inch balls, roll in granulated sugar and place on greased cookie sheets 2 inches apart. Bake in moderately hot oven, 375º F, 8-10 min.

Cookies rolled and ready to bake:

I read a tip that if you want your molasses cookies to be chewy, you should cool them on a flat surface and not a rack. Unfortunately, I read the tip after my cookies were fully cooled on a rack and tucked away in tupperware, so if you try it, let me know if it works for you. These were crunchy, but still good.

There are a number of recipes written on random stationary in my grandmother’s collection. This is on hotel stationary, while others come from factories, a research facility of some sort, and (what I believe to be) my aunt’s algebra homework.

According to my mother, this recipe for honey whole wheat bread was one of her favorites. After making it today, I can see why. The crust is crunchy, the interior is soft, and there is the tiniest hint of honey. My baking process wasn’t error free, however.

More photos and the full recipe after the jump.

Grandma Mangan’s Honey Whole Wheat Bread
In a mixing bowl:
-3 cups w. wheat flour
-2 pkg. yeast
-1 tbsp. salt

Heat to luke warm:
-1 1/2 c. water
-1 1/2 c. milk
-1/2 c. honey
-2 tbsp. cooking oil
Add to dry ingredients. Mix well.
Add 1 c. w. wheat flour.
Then add 3-4 c. white flour to make stiff dough.

Turn out and knead 5 mins.
Rise 45-60 mins.
Shape it into loaves. Rise 30-45 mins.
Bake at 375º for 40-45 mins.
Brush with butter.

This recipe makes a lot of dough. If I didn’t botch two loaves by placing them in loaf pans, rather than letting them be freeform on a baking sheet, it would have made 6 small loaves or 3 large loaves. To give you an idea of how unprepared I was, here’s a time lapse of the bread rising in the largest bowl we have in our kitchen:

Once the dough reached this mushroom cloud status about 45 minutes in, I decided it was time to shape it into loaves. I used my hands and a sharp knife to grab clumps of dough and slice them away. I placed four on a lightly greased cookie sheet and two in loaf pans as a test (which failed, as I mentioned earlier. Too crunchy).

As the loaves were rising a second time, I ran to the nail salon near my apartment for a relaxing $8 manicure. It was a crazy weekend and I felt like some budget-conscious pampering was in order. Grandma would have been proud. Not bad for $8, right?

I returned home, pre-heated the oven, and put the loaves in to bake. Overall, I think they turned out well and will be perfect for breakfast and a few sandwiches throughout the week. I also turned the botched loaves into croutons, at Clare’s suggestion.

I found some interesting items while scanning my grandmother’s recipe clippings Thursday afternoon. I’m saving the actual recipes for later posts, but I wanted to share some images and labels today. The giblet gravy recipe above comes from the back of a frozen turkey label, a piece of paper that could be the origin of a Mangan family tradition.

This book of oven triumphs (!) is coming back to Brooklyn with me. I want every time I bake to be considered a victory.

My policy is to try any food item I encounter at least once (as long as it’s not alive at the time of consumption), however this meal has me rethinking things:

More scanning finds (including melon cutting tips and men in hot tubs) with my unnecessary commentary after the jump.

I would like a degree in the science of Better Cookery.

My grandmother kept a quick reference guide for proper baking temperatures.

If only cutting melons brought me this much joy.

I like to imagine Don Draper pitching this tagline for the Yum Yum Machine.

The backs of the newspaper clippings had a lot of interesting images. I have three favorites and the first comes from a home tour in Binghamton’s Press and Sun Bulletin in 1983. Hyrdrotherapy. Right.

The paper put a punching clown on the street and documented the results in the sixties:

So good, children lick the spoon! (This baby’s face will haunt me all weekend.)

I had every intention of posting an Apartment Dining Challenge entry today. The meal was cooked over the weekend, I took plenty of photos, and even promised it in my recent Facebook and Twitter updates. Well, things have been a bit crazy since Monday and in anticipation of my new job starting next week, I decided to escape to the Adirondacks for a few days to recharge and refocus. I completely forgot to grab the AD Challenge photos off of my hard drive, so Tuesday was my first night here and my mother made one of her mother’s dinner staples: rice krispie chicken.

I asked my mother for the recipe, and not only did she provide me with it, she also pulled out my Grandma Mangan’s recipe book (she of giblet gravy fame). It’s a Home & Garden cookbook bursting with small pieces of loose leaf paper, newspaper and magazine clippings, pieces of prepared food packaging, and paper scraps with recipes ranging from spaghetti pie to chicken marsala. She had a separate set of index cards with her own recipes (or those from Dom DeLuise), but I’m fascinated by the recipes from other sources she chose to save over fifty years of cooking.

All of this—along with my lack of a printer for my computer—inspired me to go out and purchase a three-in-one printer/scanner/copier so that I can document these clippings and not have to deal with the Staples Copy Center on a regular basis. I will be spending much of Thursday scanning my favorite items so that I can create a feature here called “Grandma’s Recipes” where I post the clipping, prepare it myself, and share the results.

I wasn’t able to find the actual clipping for the rice krispie chicken, however my mother was able to write it out from memory.

Rice Krispie Chicken
-4 cups Rice Krispies (or similar generic cereal brand)
-1 tsp. kosher salt
-1/2 tsp. black pepper
-1/2 cup butter
-6 chicken legs and 2 breasts, rinsed and patted dry

1) Pre-heat oven to 350º.

2) Put Rice Krispies, salt, and pepper in food processor and process until they are the consistency of sand. Pour into shallow dish.

2) Melt butter in a medium bowl.

3) Lightly grease a baking sheet and create a small assembly line on your counter. Dip the chicken in the butter, roll in the cereal, and then place on the sheet. Repeat the process until all of the chicken is coated.

4) Bake for 1 hour. Can be eaten plain, or if you’re anything like my sister, enjoy with ranch dressing on the side for dipping.