Gone with the wind.........

I had decades worth of recipes written on scraps of paper and 3 x 5 cards that I had been gathering since my teens, my Mom's, and Gramma's, wonderful family recipes of all my favorites ... my Mom's Chili Verde, her amazingly easy, flavorful Chop Suey, Granny's Chicken and Dumplings, desserts, salads, and of course, recipes for those marvelous soups and stews that warmed us on the cold blustery days... anyway, I had always intended to put them all into a book, or to at least digitize them so that they could be saved and shared. I loved those scraps of paper and never got around to it. Those grubby bits of paper and card stock, spattered by ingredients, creased and worn, soft from years of being refolded after use, and smelling oh so faintly of spices, felt real to me. tangible and homey. My mothers familiar scrawl, her funny little notes........Pulling out those handwritten treasures was almost a form of therapy, certainly they were a touchstone for me. They lived in a beautiful wooden and metal scrollwork box on a shelf in my dining room.

We found what was left of the box after the fire, we kinda recognized a bit of the metal scrollwork... my son pried it open while we held our breath, hoping that the once lovely box had somehow protected those vulnerable pages......
Once he peeled back the burned layers of what was left, a few charred edges of my treasured "receipts" fluttered out, then they just disintegrated and disappeared on the breeze.

So my mission now is to piece together those recipes, add in more that I find along the way, and get a cookbook published for my Mom. I think she would have loved that.

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Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Pease Porridge Hot....

Pease Porridge cold.......

Oh! Pea Soup! So delicious and smooth and smokey...... Really wonderful stuff and unbelievably easy to make......


A delicious pea soup recipe with ham and seasonings.
Cook Time: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Ingredients:
1 pound dry green split peas
2 quarts water
1 meaty ham bone
1 cup chopped onion
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon dried marjoram, crushed
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme, crushed
dash pepper
1 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped carrot
1/2 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Preparation:
Directions for split pea soup In a large saucepan or Dutch oven, cover dried peas with 2 quarts of water. Bring split peas to a boil; boil gently for 2 minutes. Set aside to soak for 1 hour. Add ham bone, chopped onion, garlic powder, marjoram, thyme, and pepper. Bring split pea soup to a boil; cover, reduce heat, and simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove meat from bone; dice and return to pea soup with chopped celery and carrot. Simmer split pea soup slowly for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Taste split pea soup and add salt. Use stick blender to smooth it into a velvety puree or leave it as is for rustic style................

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