I think heirloom recipes are just as important and just as much fun. The first bite of my mother's strawberry shortcake recipe, takes me back years to the lingering light of a summer day in northeastern Oklahoma with the family around the dining room table enjoying strawberries with whipped cream and flaky, barely sweet biscuits.
So, in that spirit, I'm offering some heirloom recipes. Some are made from plants we grow at Fink Farms, and some not. Some are old recipes from friends and family. Some are simply good recipes enjoyed summer after summer.
Green Tomato Pie by Jo Ann (Floerke) Morrison (1931-1996)
This recipe was contributed by my friend Cliff Morrison, whose mother made this pie.
- 1 cup brown sugar
- ¼ c white sugar
- 4 tablespoons flour
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 6 to 8 small green tomatoes, thinly sliced
- 1 lemon, quartered
- 1 teaspoon salt
Crumble together the sugars, flour, butter and salt. Combine with the tomato slices. Layer the tomatoes and lemon quarters in an unbaked pie shell. Lattice the pie with pastry strips. Bake at 425º F for 25 to 30 minutes.
(Karen found that the greener the tomatoes the less juicy the pie.) The resulting pie tastes somewhat like apple pie.
Squash Puffs by Jo Ann (Floerke) Morrison
2 cups summer squash, grated
1 egg
1 cup Bisquick
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix the ingredients. Deep fry them by dropping spoonfuls into hot oil.
Squash Relish by Jo Ann (Floerke) Morrison
Yields about 8 pints
Grind the following ingredients together and refrigerate them overnight. The next day, wash and drain the squash.
- 10 cups of squash
- 4 cups of onions
- 5 tablespoons salt
Add the following ingredient to the squash:
- 1 ¼ cups red vinegar
- 4 ½ cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons celery salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon turmeric
Mix in the following ingredients. You can also add 7 or 8 small hot peppers. Boil the relish in jars for 30 minutes.
- 1 can of pimentos
- 1 sweet pepper
- 1 to 3 green peppers
(Note: if you want to check up on your knowledge of safe food canning and preservation, you might want to check this Ball guide.)
Karen's Nectacrine, Plum and Basil Salad / Salsa
I don't know how much time it takes for a dish or a recipe to become "traditional," but every summer when the basil starts growing faster than we can use it, I think of this recipe that Karen makes when the nectarines, plums and basil ripen. It makes about 2 ¾ cups.
- 2 large (about ¾ lb. total) firm-rip nectarines, pitted and diced
- 3 large (about 6 oz. total) firm-ripe plums, pitted and diced
- ¼ cup firmly packed fresh basil leaves, minced
- 1½ tablespoons balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar
- 1 tablespoon honey
In a bowl, mix nectarines, plums, basil, balsamic vinegar and honey.
Betty Hartman's Strawberry Shortcake
At Fink Farms, we grow strawberries, but it's a good year if we can even get four berries. I found exceptional strawberries at a nearby farm stand and made a search for this recipe.
This back-of-the-Bisquick-box recipe was my mother's for strawberry (and other berry) shortcake. It's simple and it's so good that it makes stop and savor every forkful. It serves about six.
- 1 quart (4 cups) strawberries, sliced
- ¼ cup sugar
- 2 ⅓ cups Bisquick mix
- ½ cup milk
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream
Heat the oven to 425º F. In a large bowl, mix the strawberries and ¼ cup of sugar and set aside.
In a medium bowl, stir together the Bisquick, milk, 3 tablespoons of sugar and the butter until a soft dough forms. On an ungreased cookie sheet, drop the dough from a spoon to make six biscuits. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until they are golden brown.
Meanwhile, in a small bowl, beat the whipping cream with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form.
Split the warm shortcakes. Fill and top with strawberries and whipped cream. (We substituted vanilla ice cream for the whipped cream.)
Zucchini "Apple" Crisp
Given the prolific nature of zucchinis, you can never have enough zucchini recipes, right? It's the lemon juice in this recipe that gives the tartness of apples; and it's the spices that give it that traditional "apple" pie scent and flavor. Since this is a crisp, you don't have to roll out dough for a pie crust. This recipe was found on TasteofHome.com.
- 8 cups of zucchini, sliced as apples are for pie
- ¾ cup lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 ⅓ cups packed brown sugar
- 1 cut all-purpose flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- ⅔ cup butter, softened
- Whipped cream or ice cream, optional
Place zucchini and lemon juice in a large saucepan. Cover and cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until zucchini is tender, about 15 minutes. Add nutmeg, sugar and cinnamon; blend until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat. Pour into a greased 13-inch x 9-inch baking pan.
For the crisp topping, combine brown sugar, flour, oats and butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over the zucchini. Bake at 375º F for 50 minutes or until the topping is golden brown. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream, if desired.
Mock Apricot Jam with Zucchini
Here's an odd one that I heard about from fellow gardener Kate Parankema and found on RecipeCurio.com, which focuses on "charming vintage recipes."
Simmer 6 cups of grated, peeled zucchini 10 minutes. Add 6 cups of sugar, ¼ cup of lemon juice, a 20-ounce can of crushed pineapple and 2 small (or 1 large) boxes of apricot gelatin mix. Cook until sugar is dissolved, put into sterilized jars. Please read RecipeCurio's page on Safe Canning & Food Preservation before making this recipe. As the page notes, safety guidelines for home canning and preservation are higher today than they may have been in the past.
(Note: I found apricot gelatin on Amazon.com.)
Preserving heirloom recipes
FamilyTree recently offered a great idea for preserving those heirloom recipes you don't want to lose: turn handwritten recipes into tea towels. Blogger Emma Jeffery of Hello Beautiful tells how in this Spoonflower blog post. These would make great gifts!
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