All day yesterday, I was thinking of all the meals I used to make for Jim and my children. I was thinking of some of you trying to feed big families. So here is my beef roast recipe. It was a hoot!

For our big family, I would take a pound of frozen hamburger and put it in the middle of my roaster. Bake it a bit and then drain it. My roaster is a speckled blue and white pan, oblong with a lid. Anyway, after putting the frozen hamburger in there, I would then peel potatoes, cut them in chunks, and set them around the meat. Then carrots and an onion … cabbage, if I had it. Then I would put a gravy mix or mushroom soup over this. Then I would pepper it good with black pepper and some salt. I would bake this with a lid in a slow oven. I would put a little water in the bottom of the pan. It would smell so good, the family thought it was a nice roast. When it was all done, I would slice the hamburger in neat slices, put them on each plate as if it was expensive meat, and then I put the veggies around the meat. Heck, the kids didn’t know the difference and thought we were having a wonderful meal. Jim liked it, too.

Then another idea was Salisbury steaks. Ya just take a large 9 by 13 pan and flatten hamburger in it. Cook it a bit in the oven and then drain it. Salt and pepper it good and lay onions in rings on the top. Then cut it in squares, because it will have shrunk from the sides. Then put a can of mushroom soup over it, maybe mixed with beef gravy mix. Add water to make it the consistency of gravy. Add, like, about a can of water to the soup and gravy mix, mix it up good, and pour it on the half cooked hamburger. Then put it back in the oven to bake. I would fix this with mashed potatoes and a veggie. Jim and I would sit at the table and say, “Wow, this steak is tender — must be a good cut.” The kids thought we were having an expensive meat dish.

Then I would make Swiss steak. I would make this in a big skillet. Just make hamburgers in patties and fry them, put on salt and pepper. Fry them half way or enough so you can drain the fat off. Then I would put on a can of tomato soup, diluted with about a half can of water … ya want it thick. Then I would cut up carrots and some onion chunks to put around the meat patties. I usually made the potatoes separate. But sometimes, I would add them with the carrots and onions. The family loved this dish and I still fix it for Jim.

And, ya know, you can do a lot with just taking the baking pan and pressing hamburger in the bottom. Just cook it a bit so you can drain it. Then you take some cream of something soup and mix it with green beans or whatever, maybe peas … add a half can of water and mix it up. Put this as the second layer on the meat. Then, on the top, lay tater tots and bake it all up like this. If you are using a 9 by 13 pan, you would want to use 2 pounds of hamburger and 2 cans of soup.

Another idea is to bake the hamburger and drain it, and then put chopped up cabbage mixed with onions, green peppers and maybe some tomatoes on the top. Salt and pepper it good. And over the top, just pour a can of diluted tomato soup … well, in a big pan, use 2 cans of tomato soup. Then just cover with tin foil and bake this in a slow oven (about 250°) for about 3 hours. I mean, you could bake it all in about 1 hour at 350 degrees. But I liked these oven meals to bake a long time, as I thought it mingled the flavors good.

In the middle of the winter, I would take my biggest turkey roaster — almost couldn’t get it in the oven — it was a big one. Anyway, I would take this pan and heap it with vegetables. Mainly potatoes and carrots, and usually cabbage. Then I would fry up hamburger in a pan, mix it with a few cans of tomato soup, and make a vegetable soup. I would add water to cover the vegetables and meat. Then I would add a lot of herbs. Baked this on low all night. Kept the house smellin’ good and warm. Ok, with the big roaster of vegetable soup, I would take it out after it was mostly done, drop homemade baking powder biscuits on the top, and then put it back in the oven and let the biscuits brown on the top. Or I would make homemade noodles to put in the soup. And sometimes I would make homemade noodles and then make biscuits, too, separately. This was such a good meal, and I long for it even now. I was just telling Jim that I would love to have this meal again for the now grown kids this winter “Just for old time sake.” I often made this meal in the saddest of times. We would be so without groceries and would eat this soup for several days “Mama cooks it all night,” the kids would tell the neighbor children. And then, of course, they wanted to try it. One little boy would say, “I wish my mama would home school me and cook like this.”

But little did the children know that many of these old time meals came out of a night in prayer. “Lord, you gave me these children and now what will I feed them?” Yes, we had little, but the Lord spoke to me of duty and dignity and not runnin’ out on my job. The store bought soups, I know, weren’t all that good for any of us, I don’t suppose. You know with all the dye in the soup? But we had so little meat, and the canned soup would give the meals the taste of meat and made the casseroles, etc. look pretty. And, of course, I diluted so much of the store soup that we barely got any of the chemicals, anyway.

I mainly ministered to the family’s soul. I made my home a place of rest and joy. A place where guests were welcome to sit at my table. Well, because the Lord always gives us more than we can think or ask. The next day, as I fed my family and maybe we had a guest for supper, I would smile, knowing that Jesus had given me exceeding and abundantly more than I could think or ask. I had enough for my family and to give away.

Some of the poor mothers about me stood with idle hands, wringing them and worrying over what they would feed their children. They would scream at their children, “Don’t eat this — we have so little groceries” or “Don’t ask for seconds.” They scared their children and made them cry. I hated seeing this. I hated seeing children trying to sneak food out of a stingy Mother’s kitchen. I vowed I would never have a home like that. I learned to make crackers and many cookies out of simple things, like flour and sugar and shortening. I can safely say I made a million sugar cookies in my day. And often, I would make bread sticks, and the children loved them and snacked often on them.

I expected to suffer and to work hard for what I believed. I expected to take on suffering as a good soldier in my home for Christ. Often, I would be up in the night, praying and asking the Lord what to do to feed our children. And yet, as the morning dawned, I would awaken to the Lord’s provisions. I needed courage and stout heartedness, wit and wisdom to make it. I usually had a little money for groceries but not near enough. But each morning after a night with Jesus, I would wake up with new ideas birthed in the night through the Holy Spirit.

We were the working poor … like so many of you today.

Ya know, almost every day, I made bread. Either I made cornbread or biscuits or muffins. And usually, we had pancakes for breakfast. Often, I made my own syrup, as I ran out so often. And I made a lot of my own mayonnaise in the summer, as I needed so much of it. I would often mix it with store bought. But I didn’t think about the work of it all. I just wanted to make a home, ya know?

The Lord would tell me to make a home that was full of provisions. I was always collecting food containers to put food in, but had so little that I never even used them. But I walked by faith and not sight. I was in the college of womanhood, and God was directing my steps and making me mete for His use. I learned to care for my family in the furnace of affliction.

HAPPY FAMILIES

And, ya know, I used to tell folks “Heck, I could go out and work like you all do. I am able bodied. But I feel I am needed at home a lot more.” The extra money I would have brought in would have kept us poor, as I wouldn’t have had time to pray and cook as I had. So many of the stay at home mothers I have seen in the churches don’t work at home and are not honorable women. We should work, too … not just sit around and watch TV.

And, ya know, my Jim always worked after he got saved. He worked at whatever he could. And the lord told me, early on, that I was just to be thankful for whatever he gave me. To not say a word about needing more grocery money. Jim had bills to pay and was faithful to pay them. It was my job to make a home and to make what I needed. Be it soap or whatever. And still, when Jim gives me money, I stop and make it a point to say, “Oh, thanks, Honey, I appreciate this money.” Often I will be right in the middle of something like kneading bread. And wild man will give me a roll of bills out of his tips. And the Lord will tell me, “Now, Connie, stop and go wash your hands and receive with praise and thanksgiving what Jim has given you.” Well, we aren’t poor anymore and Jim has paid off the house. But, still, it is just good manners to appreciate what your husband gives ya.

I am especially thankful now, as I have proven myself as a wife and keeper at home. Papa trusts me and, even now, doesn’t expect me to work outside the home. He values my place here still. Often, a woman has to earn that trust of a man to earn her right to stay home. A lot of women are not honest about their work at home, and they waste money and their time going to hen parties they call Bible Studies.

Taking care of Baby Rose is a lot of work. And still, I try to cook and bake from scratch and keep things going. I still have a place here, and some days I run a lot faster then I did when I was young. Like yesterday when Mary, a new wife and mother at age 20, called and was talkin’ to me about Baby Chloe Faye, who is 2 weeks old. (Mary is our youngest daughter.) Lil Rose noticed Gram was busy on the phone and she got into everything she could. Grandpa tried to distract her and play with her so I could be on the phone with Mary. But little Rose cried and cried and wanted Gram and no one else. Jim tells me, “I couldn’t do anything with her.” I finally had to ask Mary to call me back. Lil Rose picks up on what I say and often will say, at 22 months old, “Oh Mercy!” She says it in baby talk and it is so cute. But yesterday was an “Oh Mercy” day.

We are potty training her … me and Tiff, her mother. Rose loves to flush the toilet and use the toilet paper and wash her hands. But often without pottying. What a riot! Oh Mercy!

Well, better go for now … duty calls.

Dear Keepers at Home,

Last night, I was prayin’ and writing on paper. Jim was watching TV and I had out my paper, sitting on the couch. I put some housewifery ideas on paper and was prayin’ and writing down my prayers, too. I thought of the homemaking spirit and how, if it isn’t written down, it would be lost. Of course, you won’t hear about it on TV or in most churches. So unless it is hand fed to some of you, ya won’t catch it, and thank God for the many writers on the internet that write about homemaking. I love Laine’s writings and some of the other writings that you sent in lately, Michelle

Before I write further, I wanted to answer Nancy’s email about needing simple meal ideas. Nancy, you were talking about making bread. Well, you said you had a bread machine and that would be a great help with the four extra children. I would sure use it and then, maybe later on this fall, learn to make it from scratch.

I would put the children to work, too, to help with the homemaking. I used to stand our children on a chair up to the sink and have them do dishes when they were about 3 or 4. They make a mess, but they do get some dishes washed, and they learn how to help. I mean, make it safe for them and put all the sharp stuff away.

I wanted to tell you, Nancy, a few simple meal ideas. Aunt Toot had seven children and I had six, and we used to exchange meal ideas. One thing we did is we made a lot of meals with the boxed mac and cheese, especially in the summer. Just take a box of the mac and cheese, make it as usual, and add a can of mixed vegetables and a can of cream of something soup. Or just the mix and a can of soup and extra cheese. Just stir it all up and cook it until it bubbles. Toot used to put a can of already-made chill in hers with extra cheese.

Back in the old days, hot dogs were all meat and a better product than today. Also, baloney was all meat and very good. My grandmother used to fry baloney in the morning for breakfast and make fried potatoes with it. One meal I fixed a few days ago, that was old fashioned and Papa loved, went like this. I got out my big cast iron skillet and put some grease in it. Then I took a pound of hot dogs and fried them in the skillet. After they were brown, I put in my beans that I had mixed with catsup and mustard and brown sugar. (I drain the pork and beans first, and then add about a half cup of brown sugar, a squirt of mustard, and about a fourth cup of catsup. I was using 2 cans of pork and beans, drained and rinsed. I don’t leave all the goo on them.) So, anyway, after I put all this together, I laid some onions on the top and a slice of green pepper. Then I baked this all in the oven until it bubbled and was browned. It was very good and Papa ate it as leftovers. And Jim isn’t one to eat a lot of leftovers, but he loved this dish.

Now, if your family likes onions and peppers, then you could fry them up with the hot dogs when you fried them. But Jim doesn’t like to eat onions. So I just put a few, in big slices, on the tops of my casseroles to get an onion and pepper flavor. My Jim loves black pepper, the coarsely ground kind. And I get that at the Dollar Store sometimes, or I buy it at the Amish store. I put a lot of the black pepper in the beans I made.

And ya know, back in the old days, the mothers made lots of fried potatoes, often fried with onions. Just get out a big skillet and put some grease in it and start slicing potatoes in the pan. Have your flame up high and just slice more potatoes in as the others cook. After they are all browned, put a lid on them, and a bit of water, and let them simmer and get done. Kim said to just turn them once when ya think they are really crisp. Even if they all stick together. Kim is such a good cook, and that is a good tip and has helped me to get better fried potatoes. Another thing we did with fried potatoes was when they were done, we would scramble up eggs with them and fry them until they were done. It makes the potatoes go further. Or after the potatoes are fried, just lay cheese on the top, put your lid back on, and let the cheese melt.

I have a collection of cast iron skillets and bakeware, and that is all I use to cook with. Except when I make Jim’s fried eggs, I use a nonstick skillet that I use only for eggs. Jim uses my egg skillet to make popcorn in it. Mama ain’t so happy about that. But, boy, he makes the best popcorn.

Ya know, lately, I told the Lord, “What more could I give my readers than a picture of a homemaker in today’s world?” Last night, as I wrote my prayers, I said “Oh Lord, help me to be the best homemaker of all. Help me not to just make soap once in a while, but to make it all the time. To show a pattern of good works.” Not that I don’t have the money to buy soap, as I do. But I don’t want to use my liberty to cause another woman to sin. I want to be an example.

Now that I have the attention of some of you, I want to show you a true working mother … a mother in the home. I know how to do that. “But, Lord, please keep me steady and diligent in the things of God.” Every day, I think of the mothers with children that roam the streets of NYC. My kids tell me about them. “Mom, whole families are out walking around with their children.” It breaks my heart! I think, “Man, this don’t have to be.” A woman of faith would know what to do. And I don’t say that casually. I have been there.

When I first moved here in 1973, there was these huge water bugs that lived in the root cellar. They were hard to get rid of, but I got rid of them. I never see a bug in this house now. I mean, an occasional fly or some ants, but they ain’t hard to get rid of. But I used boric acid all over my house and I rarely see a bug. I have told you many times that this house was no palace when I moved into it, pregnant with our son, and Jim was here a while before he was saved. He got saved in 1979. But, ya know, if a woman has a roof over her head, and a stove to cook on, and running water, and a place to bed down her children and keep them warm and dry … then she can make a home out of anything. Why let someone kick you out of your home? I mean, some folks would rather live on the street than in a cheap apartment. And that is just plain foolishness.

In the old days, a man would buy a piece of land he thought he could work and make a living on. He barely looked at the house. Mother was to make a home out of whatever she got. A fancy house was never a top priority. I mean, what are we doing here that we think we have to have a fancy house to care for our families?

So many are poor. We have a new class of folks in our country called the working poor. It used to be, in our country, that you were poor if you didn’t work. Now we have families who work but are poor. But, ya know, the mother is so needed in the home to make a place of refuge for her family. Folks’ souls are needing to be fed and nourished. Yet Mother can do things like the mothers did in the Depression era. She can make a garden and can all of her food, like the old time mothers did … they survived, so can we. Find a cheap house to rent and fix it up yourself. I am sure the landlord would love ya for it. Make sure you have some space for a garden.

Jim and I were riding down Main Street here in our town the other day. And, right at a side yard, a mother had made a clothesline. She just took a rope and tied it between 2 small trees. I said to myself, “Oh, Lord, bless that little Mother for her ingenuity.” She did what she had to do to make a clothesline. Well, heck, I have had to do stuff like that. Makin’ do that is what it’s all about. The problem is that many mothers don’t have the guts to live poor? They would rather be at a homeless shelter. But the wise woman builds a home. And, ya know, I think it is just all about not givin’ up. Just trusting in the Lord to help ya to make a place a home for the family.

Years ago, I used to go to an Amish store … well, we still go. But I wanted to buy all the packages of dried herbs, etc. Well, all I could afford was my bread flour and basic necessities, like corn oil and oatmeal in bulk. And I would wish to have some flavored coffees and teas but, heck fire, I had six children, and I had to be sensible and buy what I needed, not what I wanted. So I prayed and the Lord taught me to grow my own herbs in my yard. He taught me to dry flowers and to make the flavored vinegars and oils. I learned to make soap and to make all the stuff I wanted to buy. Often, when I would go to an Amish store, I wanted to cry. When I would walk in, I would see all the stuff the Amish mothers put together to sell. The works of their hands would bring a holy conviction of God upon me. I would get so ashamed of myself that my hands were idle and that I had no excuse for not growing my own food and herbs for cooking and for healing. I thought, “Lord, why don’t I make my own medicine cabinet out of healing herbs?”

Ya know, back in the old days, even the mothers who didn’t have a garden usually made pickles in the summer, and jams and jellies and catsup. They would buy a bushel of cucumbers from a farmer, and some fruit to make jams and jellies. When fall came, they would buy some bushels of apples and potatoes to keep in the root cellar for the fall and winter. Mother made bread several times a week and biscuits in between. Mother did what she could to make a home. Each day, she looked over the home and decided, “Now what do I need to buy at he store and what can I make with my hands?” or “How much money can I save on the grocery bill so that I can give my husband some money back to pay bills with?”

Oh, how I would scrimp and save in August to give Jim money back out of the groceries to be able to pay our taxes in the fall. That was my job, to make food for the table and to do it wisely … it was my burden, too, to pay the taxes. I stayed hidden away unto God and listened to His voice. My family needed me at home. And even now, Jim would be lost if I went out and got a job. He loves coming home to home cooked meals and to a wife who loves him and puts his dignity first.

Yesterday, early in the morning, Jim took me to the Amish village. He gave me a roll of bills to buy stuff with. But I wanted to honor the Lord and still buy supplies to make things with. I bought Baby Rose some darling cloth hankies for 39

Well I am not up early. It’s 6:00 am. But thought I could write about pickles while I visit with Papa. You would be proud of me. I have a pickle recipe in front of me. But I have made enough bread and butter pickles in my day to not need a recipe anymore.

Ok, you need about 5 pounds of cucumbers and a few onions and green peppers. Just take a big pan and put cold water in it and slice the cukes up in it with the onions and peppers. You don’t have to peel the cukes. Just wash them good and slice the cukes with the peeling on them.

Put the cukes and onions and peppers in the pan and add salt to the water, a half cup of regular salt, or table salt. Stir the salt about so it is mixed up good. And make sure your pan is big enough so the water covers the cukes, etc. You can lay a dinner plate over the cukes to keep the veggies under water. They need to sit overnight.

Then the next day, just drain the cukes and put back in the drainer. While they are resting in your drainer, make up the syrup for the pickles. In a big pan on the stove, pour in 5 cups of sugar and 5 cups of vinegar. I use white or apple cider … it don’t matter. Ok, then add the spices. The spices are a tablespoon of celery seed, 2 tablespoons of mustard seed, half teaspoon of turmeric … 1 teaspoon of ginger. Stir all of this up good … then add your cukes. Bring all of this to a simmer and let it simmer a few minutes. Don’t boil.

Fill your washed and cleaned jars with the hot mixture. Then just seal them with a canning lid and ring … and you are done. Now, if the jar don’t seal, you need to use those pickles first. Just put them in the fridge and use them for the family.

Ok so I lied. I have a recipe here that is for 2 pounds of cukes and so I am trying to figure all this out to go like my recipe. Well, dang, I don’t use a recipe and have lost the original years ago. But you all won’t try this unless I say I am quoting from a recipe. But this is how I do it. I always use the 5 cups of vinegar for the 5 cups of sugar. Then my spices go like this. A teaspoon of turmeric about? … and I always use turmeric … ya need that for sure. And I always put in mustard seed, about 2 tablespoons. But the rest is inspiration. If I have some fresh garlic, I would hide some in there. I may add some black pepper. In one jar, I may add a hot pepper … or a head of dill. I put in whatever flips my trigger.

And I pickle whatever looks lonely on my table. I have used this recipe to pickle little green tomatoes, carrots, cauliflower, celery. I have pickled a lot of zucchini if my cucumbers didn’t do well. I just cut the zucchini up to look like pickles and the family didn’t know the difference. I have pickled watermelon rind just once and that was another recipe. It was pretty good, really.

I have made apple pie with zucchini when I ran out of apples. You can cut it up to look like apple slices and, if ya put enough brown sugar on it and apple pie spices, no one will catch ya. I have even made apple butter with zucchini. I have made jam with zucchini.

Jillr used to make pineapple slices with zucchini. She would take a big oversized zucchini, clean out the seeds, then slice it, and it looked like slices of pineapple. She had a sugar syrup she would make using a can of pineapple juice. Then she would put this in quart jars. Jill would get a bone from the store and cook it for a few days with onions, etc. and can up the broth.

The old time mothers during the Depression would send their child to the store and ask the butcher for a bone for the dog, but they had no dog. Then Mother would make a broth and feed her family soup for supper. Hey, ya do what ya gotta do to make it, huh? The butcher knew all those folks comin’ in askin’ for dog bones didn’t plan to give it to the dog. But he knew the family was hungry and had nothing to eat, and he respected their family pride. Mother did whatever it took to keep the family warm and fed and happy.

And ya know, if ya make jam or jelly and it don’t turn out, or set up, then pack it in your cupboard and use it for pancake syrup. Or you can use it in bread for a cup of the liquid. Or in muffins or whatever.

The old time mothers didn’t use recipes. They used what they had in the cupboard and nothing was wasted.

I use a pressure canner to can beans. Yet the old time mothers didn’t use anything but the water bath method to can their beans. For my tomatoes, I use what we have always called the “open kettle method.” I just have 2 pots on the stove. One is the tomatoes boiling and the other is the jars and canning lids and rings boiling. And then you work quickly to fill the jars while everything is boiling. Then you cap the jars and you are done. You have to work real fast and make sure the children aren’t around at the time … or they could get burned from splashing hot water. I am thankful to say I have never burned any of my children during canning time. But my kitchen is so small that there is no room in there for more than one person, anyway.

I have the Little Rose today, later this morning.

Jim used to help his mother can when he was a boy. She canned outside and it was Jim’s job to dig two fire pits and put bricks around them for the big washtubs to rest on. One washtub held the jars and the other one held the food to be canned. Mom Hultquist made all sorts of things in her washtubs. She made ketchup, pickles, and canned many vegetables for the winter. She made root beer for the neighbor children in her big washtubs. She canned her corn on the cob in big jars. She made many different kinds of pickles.

All the old timers made a barrel of sauerkraut for the winter to keep in the root cellar. But you can make sauerkraut in a few canning quart jars. Its easy — it just has to ferment. I am good at fermenting. (No snickering from the balcony, thank you so very much.)

In the fall, I make blender ketchup. Jim loves it and even puts it on his fried potatoes … it is so delicious!! I make it in the fall after all the other good tomatoes have been canned. My sister-in-law Kris used to let me come and glean the rest of her tomatoes she didn’t want in her garden after she had canned. And in the fall, I would take the less than perfect tomatoes and clean them up and make tomato sauce and ketchup. Kris had the big farm garden and often planted extra for me, plus I had my own town garden.

The old time Mothers would make piccalilli in the fall. Just before a frost, they would pick the last of the vegetables in their gardens. They may have a handful of beans, and some small green tomatoes, and some onions and dill. A few small peppers and a few cucumbers. Some little heads of cauliflowers, cabbage, or broccoli that grew back after the big heads were cut. But whatever it was, they picked it, as they wouldn’t waste anything. They would take these odds and ends into their kitchens and put it all through their steel grinders mixed with vinegar, sugar, fresh herbs and spices. And they made a pickle relish and canned it for their winter family tables.

Most old time families had pickles on the table for most every meal and snack. Also homemade breads and berry jams and home churned butter. And this was not so long ago. And we can do all of this now, if we need to, or if we just put our minds to it.

Mom Hultquist had to have all her canning done by Saturday, as she needed the washtubs for the Saturday night baths. Then Monday, she had to have them for wash day. She had 13 children and never lost one through any kind of neglect. That says a lot for her. Never had a miscarriage and raised her children right through the Depression era. What a woman.

I know some of my homestead writings to some of you lately are over the top. And yet I feel a real calling to write this stuff. I feel such a calling to leave something behind … my footprints in the sand, I guess.

I know that I am a cook who moves by inspiration and not usually by a recipe. But the pioneer mothers didn’t have all the right ingredients all the time, either. In the summer I used to go out to my garden at supper time, and whatever I had a lot of, that was supper for the night. Once Jim grew these carrots that were fat as sweet potatoes. I had to take an ax to ‘em to get them cut in half, but once boiled, they were good. I mean, a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

Well, I raised six children, and they were all well and healthy and still are. All of them are on the thin side and Jim is, too. So when I write about the Pioneer Mothers some of the writings are a lot “me.”

I don’t write recipes I have never tried. Well, I don’t write recipes, anyway. When I first learned to cook as a young bride of 19, I used the recipes. But over the years, you learn how to cook and then you know what you can do with a recipe. When I had all of my children at home and little groceries, I just decided I would make it, one way or the other, and I did.

And my children will tell you the funniest stories you ever heard about some of the meals I put together. Christian Joy loves to tell about bringing her boyfriend home for supper. I had just one can of green beans for a vegetable. So I just put three beans on David’s plate … he was about 7 or 8. So he ate his beans. I mean, I had a lot of other food out, too. But, anyway, he asks if he can have more beans and I said yes. And he went in the kitchen and got three more beans. But, like I said, we had a lot of other cheap food out, too. But Christian’s boyfriend didn’t know this and will never forget it. Christian Joy and I love to laugh. And I think she just brought friends home to supper so she could laugh later at their expressions.

Also, I had a friend I went to school with, Janice. She came from a family of seven children. They were having company, and so the mother told the children not to ask for seconds, as she didn’t want to be embarrassed about not having enough. So after the dinner was over, the children licked their plates. The mother, of course, was embarrassed to pieces. She was a dear old Catholic mother and was mortified that her children licked their plates.

But, ya know, we as mothers have to learn to laugh at ourselves and our problems and go on. Yet a lot of what I write is serious and may help some dear mother in the by and by, long after I am happily dead and on to my reward.

The family joke, too, was that Mom started out every meal with a pound of hamburger and went on from there. I remember once Christian Joy inviting someone to dinner and she ran out in the kitchen as I am frying the hamburger. As she looked into the fryin’ pan, she says, “I hope this is goin’ somewhere, Mom. I really do.” And I said, “It is, Christian Joy, don’t worry.”

Sometimes the kids would be embarrassed at what I put on the table, especially if we had company. But then, often, we would all break out laughing and it was a meal we never forgot.

Jim would get sick of all of us and he would bang his fist on the table and yell “Eat!” Dan loves to tell the story now that when Papa yelled “Eat,” their milk glasses would rise into the air about a foot and the children learned to catch them in midair.

Sometimes I had to pretend I had dropped something under the table so I could hide my laughing face.

One time, Mary had a friend over for “Tuna Casserole.” Patty said she loved Tuna Casserole. Well, I forgot the tuna or I didn’t have any to put in … I cant remember. And later Patty said, “That was good Tuna Casserole but it didn’t have any tuna in it.”

And so go the tales … in the life here at the Hultquist Homestead.

I would like to write about the many uses of the common and humble newspaper.

My Jim, the man of the house, doesn’t subscribe to the daily newspaper but buys one a few times a week. After he reads it, I will gather it up to save it. I throw away all the siick pages with the ads. Then I cut the sheets in half and half again so that I have sheets the size of paper towels.

I use these sheets to wash windows. Great for washing car windows, too. Just wet your sheet and you don’t need soap, as the newsprint cuts through the dirt in the windows. Just scrub with the wet paper. Then, take a dry sheet and wipe the windows dry.

Now, the cutting up of the newspaper sheets is a good project to have the children do. If you have these little sheets, all cut up and stacked in plain sight, then the family will think of many ways to use them. Leave some of the newpaper sheets uncut to lay on the table for craft projects and easy clean up. The old time Mothers made many sewing patterns out of newspaper and traded patterns with other housewives.

When I bake cookies, I have no place but the table to set my hot cookie sheets, so I set them on a newspaper on my table. I also put folded newspaper at the bottom of my potato bin to soak up any moisture from the potatoes. If you get a rotten potato, it shows up pretty quick on the white paper.

I use the newspaper in the garden to wrap the bottoms of my tomato plants and other plants, like cabbage. The smell of the newsprint keeps the bugs away. Cabbage plants, especially, get my newspaper as they need to be good and dry at the stem, so they don’t rot. The newsprint keeps each plant neat and tidy. Also, lay the newspaper down on the ground between plants as a mulch … cover with grass clippings. The newsprint will rot in the ground and, after many seasons, the dirt becomes more fluffy and full of air.

Now we can move onto paper sacks that come into the home. Save these for many uses. You can even use a sandwich bag size of a sack to bake a loaf of bread in, but make sure the sack has a flat bottom that will stand up. Balance it and make sure it won’t fall over.

Also, you can use paper sacks like seed pots for young plants. Just take your sack and fold the top down to the size you need — if you want to start a cucumber plant inside, for example. The ground has to be very warm for cukes. So you can get a good plant goin’ in the house before you plant it in your garden. When you plant the cuke, just dig a big hole in the garden, set the whole sack in the hole, and cover about it with dirt. Also, put a big stick beside the plant. This, way when the plant gets dry and bushy, you can pour water on it at the plant base, rather than watering the dirt all around it.

Save a few pans of soapy dish water each day to pour on your cuke plants. This water keeps the plant clean and the soap gets rid of bugs. The old time Mothers always saved their dishwater and their laundry water for the garden plants in the summer. If you can find an old enamel dish pan at a sale this summer, you will have a ball doin’ the dishes the old fashioned way and saving the dishwater for the garden.

But, yes, save all the good paper that comes into your home and find ways to use it. You can use at least three times before discarding it. Just wipe it off and stack it neatly in the cupboard. Also, I use the ziplock bags and wash them with the dishes after each use. When the zip part wears off, I just take a cothes pin and seal them shut. You can prop the plastic bags up in the dish drainer to dry.

In the summer and fall, I often use a thick piece of newpaper to lay fresh melons or pumpkins on to cut them up. I use the paper like a cutting board. Then, after the melon is cut, I can carry the seeds and rind out to the compost bin on the newspaper. And you can throw the newspaper in the compost bin, too.

Also, as I work at my table, I will put a sheet of newspaper down to peel potatoes on. But with all the talk about germs on the cutting boards? Just use fresh newsprint for many of your cutting board chores. When the paper gets chopped and soggy, just get a new piece of newspaper … make sure it’s about an inch thick.

Ok, and now on to the fancy seed packets that you have left over after you plant the garden. If you are careful to cut the tops off neatly with the scissors, you can use the seed packets to decorate with. Just tape some cute ones in the kitchen window to tell you it is almost spring.

Of course, here in Iowa, we have had record snow storms in April. One year, in April 1973, I had my whole garden planted — it snowed 3 ft deep over the top. The peas and onions loved it. Last summer, I planted mustard greens and they lasted into December. It took a lot of frost to kill those greens.

You could use your empty seed packets like a border above the kitchen window. Or paste some seed packets on your tin cans or glass jars, for cute country storage jars. Also, you can use the seed packets for your sewing basket. Use a packet to store special buttons in, or a little ribbon or piece of lace. You could use one for storing needles and another one for straight pins. Just tack a bit of tape at the top to seal the packets shut. Or even take the seed packet and fill it with dirt and plant a flower in it and set it in a little chipped china cup.

With old chipped dishes, I make borders in my flower and herb gardens. I have an old wooden chair that I put right in the middle of my herb garden. I put old pans here and there and catch the rain water. Then, when I go by the garden, I just water what ever plant that is crying the hardest, with the pan of rain water.

Bein’ an old stingy housewife is fun and adventuresome. As long as you are gracious and loving with things that matter. The old time housewives saved every piece of string that came into the house, and all of the white paper that wrapped her groceries. The children used the paper to color on and Mother made grocery lists on it. Nothing was ever wasted. She saved empty cocoa cans and vanilla extract bottles for houseplants.

Well, I wanted to write about the ways the Mothers used feed sacks to sew their clothes with, but that will have to be for another day.

Good Morning to you.

Last evening, Jim had to work. And I had about 10 pounds of chicken thighs and legs in my freezer that were taking up space. I had gotten this chicken on sale for, I think, 39¢ a pound. This summer, the kids were here a lot and so I would have used this chicken right up but with the winter months, I just haven’t used this chicken. Jim ain’t all that crazy for chicken.

But, anyway, I got out my big turkey roaster and put all the chicken in it. Then I put it in the oven with water half way up. When the chicken was all about half done, I took some out for B-B-Q chicken for our meal that evening. Then I left the rest in the roaster and let it cook to make a broth. I put in a lot of onions and garlic. Parsley, celery seed, black pepper and, of course, salt. I let it all cook for about 2 hours with the lid off on a low temperature. Later, I took out the chicken pieces and put them in plastic bags for different meals and put them in the freezer. Then I put the broth in a big pan and put it on the porch to stay cold. The fat will go to the top and I will skim it off and save this to make biscuits or gravy or whatever.

The broth I will use to make a chicken soup or chicken and dumplings or noodles. Jim likes the soup and homemade noodles. But I won’t be able to have this right away. Jim will eat chicken at intervals, but not a lot.

Now, when ya go to use the broth, if it needs some extra taste you could add a can of chicken soup from the store. But the broth is good to use for a lot of things. Like when you make fried potatoes and they are brown but not done? Just put some broth in the potatoes and put a lid on them and let them simmer a bit. Or make a gravy or biscuits with the broth. Instead of puttng in the milk for your biscuits, just use the chicken broth. You could pressure can your chicken broth, too. But in the winter, I put stuff on my closed in porch and it stays good. I will use my broth pretty quick … within a week. But if ya plan on keeping the broth a while, you should either freeze it or can it.

Really, it is better to cook the chicken broth all day with the chicken in it. But I didn’t because I needed my oven space for the B-B-Q chicken I made for supper.

Also, I just fill the water up in my roaster about half way … it barely covers the chicken … and then I don’t put a lid on it. This way, the broth is more concentrated. You need to bring the broth to a boil in the oven and then let it simmer a few hours.

And, ya know, around our area, the ground beef is way over priced. At this time last year, I was buying ground beef for 59¢ a pound. I would go to this one grocery store early in the morning and buy the day old hamburgar that the restaurants would buy if they got there before me. But, often, I beat them to the punch. Now this store has closed. RATS! And now the stores around here are so expensive and the ground beef is almost 3 bucks a pound.

Ya know, I was so happy last evening to cook up all that meat and have it on hand to use. I was frying up ground turkey with the hamburger to make the beef stretch, usually half and half. But even at that, it seems like a lot to spend on ground beef. Most of the things I make for the family has ground beef in it. When I go to the market I tell Jim as we walk through the store, “How can growing families afford these prices?” It breaks my heart when I think of them.

And, ya know, when I had most of my happy brood at home, I think I started out every meal with a pound of hamburger. I made spaghetti and casseroles and chili and vegetable soup with hamburger. Well, it was the cheapest meat you can buy around here. Then when the ground beef went up, I mixed it with turkey and the turkey is only 89¢ a pound or less in our area.

One thing I did is take a big skillet and put in a few pounds of ground beef and a few pounds of turkey and cook this up with a lot of seasonings. Then, after it cooled, I would package this up to use for soups and stews and casseroles. I would cook green peppers and onions in the meat, and garlic and black pepper. This way, it disguised the turkey. But this is fun to make up this ground meat mixture and it comes in mighty handy when you are in a hurry.

I think in our store, the ground pork may be on sale. One thing I have done with this is to buy a pound of hot sausage and mix it with fresh ground pork. This way, you get 2 pounds of sausage for cheaper. Add more of your own seasonings if it isn’t spicey enough.

But, ya know, all of this takes time. And you have to just think of it as a project and go do it.

Also, to make the milk stretch, I mixed my whole milk half with instant milk. And I always made a lot of yogurt and had this on hand. I made it in crocks. I would go to the store early and buy outdated cream and I made the yogurt with cream. I would get the pints of cream for sometimes 10¢ a pint. I didn’t make the yogurt until I got the cream on sale. But I would use the yogurt in my baking. David loved my yogurt and it was so good. Mine was a cross between a thick cream and yogurt. It was very rich and was good on desserts.

I bought buttermilk when I got it on sale and I would make it last for months. When it got down to about half full, I would put fresh milk in it and let it set out overnight on the kitchen cabinet. And this made a quart of buttermilk again. Buttermilk has cultures in it, like yogurt. And, just as you make yogurt from a start of fresh yogurt, you make the buttermilk the same way with a start of buttermilk. Each has a culture in it and when it is set in a warm place it will grow, like yeast grows.

Also, back during the Depression, the old time Mothers used a lot of the canned milk, as it had become popular … they used it in place of cream. And one recipe that came out of this era was a way to stretch your butter. You take a pound of butter and let it go to room temperature. Then mix this with a can of canned milk. Then mix this up with your mixer until it is all mixed together and creamy. Now, I used this recipe a lot and it makes 2 pounds of butter. I had a lovely old time crock I used to put my butter mixture in. And I just kept it in the fridge and took it out for meals.

I tried to just cook and bake from scratch … it takes a lot of time, but it’s worth it. I had to cook and bake for my family. I had no choice. By faith, we had all the 6 children and I knew the Lord wanted us to care for them. I had a lot of anxious moments. But the Lord always pulled us through.

And, oh, I had so much laundry and some of the time, I made my own laundry soap. But, ya know, for your dark clothes you can use any cheap soap? And then, if you want to brighten up the whites, just use the more expensive laundry soap, if you must. But I still use cheap soap for the dark clothes. And for the white socks and underwear you can put in a cup of bleach. But one doesn’t need Tide for dark clothes. If you can afford Tide, it is nice for the colored clothes and the whites. If I see Tide on sale I will buy it, just for special light clothes. And when I could I hung my clothes outside on the clothesline. And in the winter I hung them in the house if my dryer was down. But, oh, those dryers take so much electricity! I just hooked up a clothes line in my dining room and hung clothes on it at night.

And, ya know, around here, catering to the man of the house, I run out of brown sugar a lot. Jim loves baked beans with brown sugar and sweet potatoes. And with the baking of cookies and desserts that call for brown sugar I run out. So this is what I do. I just use white sugar and I put in a tablespoon or 2 of molasses. A jar of molasses lasts a long time for me, and I usually have it on hand. But Jim has never been able to tell that I am using molasses and white sugar instead of brown sugar.

And in the old days, I would run out of powdered sugar. And I would just put the regular table sugar in the blender with some white flour and blend it up to powdered sugar. This makes a wonderful icing for cake. To make a butter frosting with this, just put the butter in a pan and melt it … then add the sugar-flour mixture and stir with milk. It makes a nice frosting. Add about 2 tablespoons of flour to 2 cups of plain sugar to blend it in the blender. But the plain sugar will grind to a powder and it looks like powdered sugar.

I do buy the brown sugar and powdered but if I run out of either, I don’t worry about it. I want to stay home and not be running back and forth to the store.

Another thing I did to get more sweetness to the baked beans without using all the brown sugar is that I added a diced apple to the beans. Jim really liked this dish. I put in the ring baloney, sliced, and an apple, a few onions, the molassses, and the white sugar. And, of course, salt and pepper. The left overs, I put in the fridge and made a sandwich out of this. During the Depression, this bean sandwich was popular, as meat was rationed. So the beans were the protein and not always meat. You just spread the cold baked beans on homemade bread and put on mayo and a slice of tomato and lettuce. This is probably my favorite sandwich.

I love vegetables. And Papa loves baked beans, so we are a team.

I noticed in the new Crowned with Silver magazine that they have a place for writing about ways to lower your food budget.

Many of you young Moms probably don’t have the really big pans to cook with. Ya know, sometimes you can pick these up for a song at the Salvation Army or at garage sales in the summer.

The good enamel pans that you can get from the stove top to the oven are so handy. When you are busy with the children it’s hard to watch the soup on the stove. If you can just take the pot and put it on a low temperature in the oven, then you don’t have to watch it so close. It can simmer in there and be out of sight and off the stove top for a while. I know sometimes I would have a soup goin’ on the stove early morning and need to fix breakfast for the family. I needed my stove top but needed to get the soup done for lunch.

Most of my pots and pans are old fashioned and I love them like that. I have a neat collection of cast iron that I use a lot. And I hate the plastic containers but use the baggies or glass jars to store things in. The big plastic containers I think are so bulky and take up a lot of space.

Yesterday, as Papa and me were out shopping, I told Jim I needed to send in the simple recipe I had for chicken soup. I used to make it for the children and they loved it. It’s very quick and easy. Just take a can of chicken noodle soup and a can of cream of chicken and a can of mixed vegetables. Just dilute each can of soup with water and throw it all together. If you have leftover chicken, you could put that in. Or cook up some onions to put in it. Put in parsley and some other herbs. It’s a quick soup, and my children always loved it. It’s not homemade but would do in a pinch.

I used tuna in place of chicken in my soup at times. The kids thought the tuna was chicken. When they found out it was tuna, they called it “Chicken of the Sea Soup.” My kids were always diggin’ around in their food, wondering what Mama put in it this time.

And we did a load of stuff with a box of macaroni and cheese. You can add a can of cream of something soup to it to make it taste better. We would often add more cheese to it, with the can of soup to stretch it. Aunt Toot used to add a can of prepared chili to her macaroni and cheese. I have fried up hamburger with onions, added it to the mac and cheese, then added a can of stewed tomatoes and some green beans. Or, for another meal, add tuna and peas to make a tuna caserole.

I mean, a hot meal can go a long ways in keeping the family happy and content. Just serve each meal with dignity and grace. No matter what it is, just be thankful for it and keep the faith. And ya know? No, maybe your husbands wouldn’t eat this stuff. But, ya know, the kids probably would, and it is so much cheaper then fixing meat sandwiches or whatever. And, if you have a bunch of little ones, it’s so much easier to make a casserole and dish it up. Making sandwiches for a whole bunch of children to me is a lot of work, and a hot dish with vegetables is so much better for them.

I buy the cans of mixed vegetables at Aldies for about 39

You need a big gallon jar to make this mix. Or just make it in a big bowl or a sack* and then distribute it into other containers. But this mix will last a big family the whole winter, well past Christmas.

Ok, put in your bowl:
7 and a half cups of instant milk.
Add:
2 cups of sugar
1 cup of cocoa
one fourth teaspoon of salt.
Now mix this up really good and you got it, Darlin’. Use a third cup of mix for a mug of hot water.

Now, of course you could add less instant milk and add a container of the instant dry cream. Or add brown sugar instead of white, or use powdered sugar. You could add a can of Herseys Cocoa Mix to this, too. But, if you are poor, you can just make it simple like my recipe.

And it’s ok to be poor. It ain’t a sin — it’s just uncomfortable. You won’t have the same kick in your cocoa as your rich friends but you will be thinner, and for this, you can smile smugly. And, actually, you could laugh out loud when no one else is around.

But you must never, ever complain that you don’t have the money to buy the dry cream or the Herseys Cocoa Mix. Never let the rich ladies see you sweat … as they don’t know that you have to make your Christmas Cocoa Mix with just cocoa and instant milk and plain table sugar with a pinch of salt. Of course you can’t afford a vanilla bean that costs 3 dollars! But add instant vanilla pudding and fake it, and smile big like you have a vanilla bean in your Cocoa Mix but some how it just dissolved. Hhmmph!!! Never let the devil see ya sweat. Or Jezabel, who couldn’t make a biscuit if her life depended on it.

Ya know, Dixie used to tell me a story. It was about this husband who was always drunk. At one point, he got full of whiskey and shot up the town with his shot gun. His wife was a saint and prayin’ for her wayward husband. When someone asked her about her husband shooting all the street lights out, she said, “Well, he is a pretty good shot for being so drunk.” This woman never let the devil see her sweat. And ya know what? That woman’s husband got saved because his wife wouldn’t give up prayin’ for him. And that’s all it takes, simply, is prayer.

We ain’t supernatural. We can’t make things happen. But we can stand with our arms raised up like Moses so that God can defeat the army against us. Just stand, dear saints, with arms lifted to Jesus, for in Him comes your help. Stand up in His glory. Having done all to stand “Stand.” Stand in Him and, when your arms feel tired, let the saints come along and help you hold up your arms of faith. But don’t put ‘em down, dear Mothers and wives. If ya don’t give up, you will see His glory.

*Put 2 paper grocery sacks together to make it strong. Then roll down the top of the sack to make a bowl. Roll about half way down.

I am going to give you a recipe for a Baking Mix. I used to use this mix a lot around Christmas, as it is so quick and easy to use. You can use it for pancakes or muffins or quick breads. I used mine mainly for pancakes and biscuits.

Here is the mix. First off, you may have to go to the Buck Store and buy a big plastic dish pan to mix all of this in. Or use a big turkey roaster. Or, possibly, use a big paper grocery sack? I mean, put 2 paper sacks together to make it strong. Then roll down the top of the sack to make a bowl. Roll about half way down.

Here is the Recipe.

Take a five pound bag of flour. You could use half whole wheat. Anyway, pour this in the bowl.

Add to this 3 cups of instant milk.

Add a cup of baking powder and 1 cup of sugar.
3 tablespoons of salt.

Mix this all up with your hands.

Then throw in 2 pounds of shortening or lard. Now roll up your sleeves and work this shortening into the dry mix. Just mess with it and play with it. Squeeze it in your hands and rub the lard into the flour until you have all of the lard mixed into the flour mix. Now, there is no perfect way to do this. Just be a kid again and mix it all up and have fun.. And that will take you about a half an hour?

When you have this all done, then put the mix in some containers, like coffee cans or whatever. Keep one sack of it in the kitchen in a cool place to make biscuits, and keep the rest in the fridge. When it gets steadily cold here in Iowa, I store things on my closed in front porch.

To make biscuits with your mix, just put 2 cups of mix in your bowl, add a half cup of water, and stir to make a dough.

To make muffins, just put 2 cups of mix in your bowl and add a couple tablespoons of sugar, brown or white. Add a large egg and 2 thirds cup of water and stir up your muffins … the dough will be clunky. Don’t over stir it. Bake in a hot oven. You can add a cup of fruit to this, like apples or raisins, and add cinnamon to taste. Just experiment.

For pancakes, you add more water than the muffins or biscuits. Just put in a few cups of mix and an egg, and add water until the pancakes look right. The pancake batter should look like school glue, or that consistency.

I am hell at recipes. God help us. I just cook and bake by inspiration. I do go by a recipe, as far as the mix goes, but from then on, I go by hook and by crook.

But, Good Night, ya got enough mix here to kill an elephant, so if ya make a mistake making something, you can try it a half a hundred more times until ya get it right. And if ya goof this up, throw it outside to a crow.

Ok, I guess I have done all the damage I can do on this baking mix. I better write down the Cocoa Mix and keep on keepin’ on.

Dear Wise Christmas Sisters,

Yesterday, Papa and me went to the Dollar Store, and I got so many cute things. I put way more in my shopping basket than what I need. Then, just before I got to the check out, I put a bunch of stuff back. I will say about candy and crackers, “Oh, I don’t need them I can make them.” And I will look over my cart and think of what I can make at home and not buy.

I used to make crackers out of left over bread dough. Just roll out the bread dough really thin and then cut it in squares with a pizza cutter. Then prick holes in the squares and salt them or put parmesan cheeese over the top, and bake them like cookies. You could put garlic and pepper on them. But the old time Mothers never bought crackers … they made them.

And I used to make bread sticks a lot to use with soup. Just take your bread dough and flatten it on a pan and let it rise about 15 minutes … not long. Then just cut strips with your pizza cutter. I would fix these plain and then, when they came out of the oven, I would butter them and put Parmesan cheese on ‘em. Our children would eat these as they played outside on winter evenings after supper. They would run in the house, “Mom, can I bring out bread sticks for Nathan and Tiffany?” (neighbor children.) I would say “Sure, I have plenty.” And my bread sticks were big and fat and, when you ate one, you got filled up.

Anytime I made bread, I made a lot of dough and made bread rolls, cinnamon rolls, and a few loaves of bread. At Christmas, I would take my bread dough and make 3 long strands of bread. I would sugar and spice the long ropes with cinnamon and brown sugar and butter. Then I would braid the pieces. Sometimes, I would put the braided dough on a long cookie sheet and then flatten it so it would be wide, then let it rise and bake it. After it was done, I would decorate the bread. Sometimes, I would sprinkle on homemade green sugar. But then sometimes, I would put some butter frosting on it and color this green. Then I would take the marachino cherries, slice them in half, and put them on the bread. And then put pecans on it, like every other one. Pecan and then cherry, etc., down the center of the loaf. If ya just used a package of pecans sparingly, and the cherries, you can make a lot of Christmas bread with them. Then sometimes I would make the cinnamon braid and I would put it in a circle and bake it like that, in a round pan. Or make a circle with the dough and put it on a large cookie sheet and it will turn out like a Christmas wreath. And then just decorate it like a Christmas Wreath.

You could even use the frozen bread dough for some of this until you felt sure enough of yourself to make your own. But a bread machime, I think, would interrupt my creativity. But, ya know, with a big family I would just make up a big bunch of bread dough and make things for Christmas. And we always give Christmas bread to the neighbors. To use the frozen bread dough, just put your loaf out on the cupboard and let it soften, and then slice it length wise in thirds. Then butter it and put the cinnamon on it and the brown or white sugar. Then braid it up tight and put it in a loaf pan and let it rise, and bake it. When it is done and cooled, you could frost it with butter frosting. White frosting with colored sugar on the top looks “Christmasy.” Or stick nuts and cherries on the top of the bread, down in the frosting, so it will stick good.

Butter Frosting: Just take a stick of butter, put it in your sauce pan, and melt it. Put in about a fourth cup of milk. Then, just add as much powdered sugar as ya need to make a thick frosting. (I have never used a recipe for this — sorry.) But then, at the end, just put in vanilla. There were years, back raising the children, that I would run out of powdered sugar. So I would use half powdered sugar and half flour. I really like it better with using half flour. Ya have to keep stirring when ya use the flour and let it thicken.

And, ya know, I couldn’t afford all the sugars when we had all the kids home. Often, I would make the powdered sugar with putting plain table sugar in my blender with a bit of white flour, and then just blend it up. This makes a nice powdered sugar, and often I would add molasses to my white sugar to make brown sugar. Heck, if I got white sugar and plenty of it for baking, I was cookin’ on all 4 burners, huh?

But I always just made up my mind that my children would not have lean Christmases, as long as I could buy flour and lard and sugar. I mean, I would not confess negative over my Home Christmas. If the children would ask to invite the neighbor children in for cocoa and treats, then I made the children welcome. My children were proud of Mama, that she made such good holiday treats. And, of course, many of the neighbor children had never tasted a homemade cookie, and they loved my baked goods. But I would just try to be gracious and kind hearted and enjoy the children.

Often, we didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of … just kidding. But, ya know, I would just get busy and make a Christmas. Papa would haul in a big 50 pound bag of white flour on his shoulder and I would make Christmas out of it. Papa would carry it in at Christmas and slam it on the table like it was fresh meat, and he would say, “There ya go, woman … ya got flour.” And with some meat and some potatoes and vegetables, we raised 6 children, and always had a Merry Christmas.

And I never started baking for Christmas unless I had a pot of homemade soup bubbling on the stove. Even if I started early morning, I had to have soup on the stove. Because once I got going on the baking, I didn’t want to stop and make dinner. So the older kids could serve their own soup and fix some for the little ones while I baked. It is a common sight to see spilled soup on my table, mixed with flour. Because I never baked without making soup first And then I would make the bread dough as the soup simmered. Then the first part of the dough I would make pan rolls. I would just take the dough before it rose and put it on my baking sheet and cut it like a cake? Then I just had this to rise once and I baked it, and it was ready for the family for lunch … just pan rolls.

But I was not a stingy mother who was always yelling out, “Don’t eat that! We wont have enough.” My children were all thin, and still are, but I always made sure that my children were well fed. I didn’t want them to get sick, as we couldn’t afford a doctor. So they had plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables, and much homemade vegetable soups and stews. I didn’t think about vitamins; I thought about having a wholesome homemade home to raise my babies in. I thought of their souls and their comfort.

I always had the coffee on for Papa … he needed it … it was a comfort to him, and especially at Christmas, with a piece of cherry pie. A cup of coffee is very comforting to a man, and a hot supper.

A wise Mother builds her house, and especially at Christmas time.

Make a homemade Christmas for your dear Families … don’t think about going to the store first. Go through the pantry cupboards and look at what you have. Do you have some hamburger, and some potatoes and vegetables? Fry up some meat with some onions and fresh pepper and salt. This is the smell of home and family. After the meat has cooked, just throw in some tomato soup and start adding vegetables. Add water to cover the vegetables. Let this cook slowly on the stove, or bake it in a slow oven for a few hours.

Then, if you have no flour or sugar, at least you have lunch started, and you can make a quick trip to the store. But if you have flour and sugar, just stay home and start making Christmas.

If you have to go out, here is a list of things you may need.

1. Well, first off make sure you have plenty of flour and sugar, and shortening or lard.
2. I always have cocoa in my cupboard.
3. Do you have cinnamon? For winter, I often fix a shaker of cinnamon and sugar for the table or to put next to the stove to cook with.
4. And, even now, as the children are grown, I still have a huge box of instant milk that I cook with. Baby Rose drinks a lot of fresh whole milk, so I sometimes run out of milk and the instant milk is very handy to have to cook and bake with. And God knows I NEVER measure instant milk. To make gravy or to bake with, just throw some dry milk in, and add water until it looks right. If I had to measure stuff all the time, I would be as crazy as a Loon. Not to mention, I wouldn’t get anything else done.
5. Well, ya need eggs …do ya have some? No? Well, write it down on your list.
6. Ya got chocolate chips? If you can afford them, be sure to get some for the Christmas Chocolate Chip Cookies. And, heck, you don’t need to put a whole package in your recipe. Just use a fourth of a bag per recipe. JillR, if she ran out, would just put one chocolate chip on each cookie. Her kids couldn’t wait to eat to the middle of the cookie to get the chocolate chip. She could make a package of chocolate chips last for months. If the cookies had just one chocolate chip in them, they were “Chocolate Chip Cookies,” by golly, and no one complained. If you are poor, its legal to B.S. your kids. (That’s the law, I think.) But, ya know, if Mama is ok, then all is well at the house.
7. Hey, and don’t forget to buy coffee at the store for Papa and the neighbors who stop by for a Christmas visit.
8. And, ya know, if ya plan to make Cocoa Mix for the holidays, don’t forget the instant milk. I used to make ours with just the instant milk and sugar and cocoa. I mean, if you have the money, it’s nice to buy the instant coffee cream to put in it, or a can of the cocoa drink powder, but ya don’t need it. The kids won’t know the difference, anyway. Be sure to put your cocoa mix in a big fancy jar, or even a coffee can, decorated with old-fashioned Christmas paper and a brown string. Put a third cup measureing cup down in the mix, so the kids know how much to use. And, if you are rich, buy a vanilla bean to stick down in the dry mix. But, if ya ain’t rich, buy a few packages of instant vanilla puddng mix to put in the Cocoa Mix. That makes it MMMM Good.

These are simple things to make, and it will keep you from running to the store all the time. Just fill your pantry with as much as you can so that you can feel free to make a homemade Christmas, and many pots of soups and stews.