Peanut Butter Cookie Day

Strictly speaking, this isn’t a recipe for cookies, but they are peanut butter based, so I think I can get away with it! I only just found out it’s peanut butter cookie day, so I’m late in posting.

I’m afraid I don’t have a picture for this. It’s a tray bake and I’ve not made it in a while. I would have made some for this post, but I’ve found I have no peanut butter!

Peanut Fingers

Ingredients

170g SR flour

125g caster sugar

4x20ml tablespoons peanut butter

½ x5ml teaspoon salt

2 eggs

60g peanuts (roasted)

85g margarine

2x20ml tablespoons milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease a Swiss roll tin.

Sieve the flour and salt together and add the margarine cut into pieces. Rub into the flour.

Stir in the sugar.

Beat the eggs and milk together and stir into the mixture with the peanut butter.

Spread in the tray and sprinkle over with the roasted peanuts.

Bake in the centre of the oven for 25-30 minutes.

You can find more recipes in Viv’s Family Recipes. It is available on a number of platforms in several formats. You can get it by clicking on the title or the book cover in the side bar.

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Nectar Cakes

Image by Gasfull from Pixabay

When my son was small, about 6 or 7 years old, he enjoyed eating honey. One day, he suggested making cakes using it and so we came up with the following recipe, which we called Nectar Cakes.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry (Home made or bought.)

125g margarine

125g runny honey

125g flour

2 eggs

Method

Roll out the pastry and cut rounds. Place one pastry round in each hole of a bun tin.

Put all the other ingredients into a food processor and blend on high power until creamy.

Put spoonfuls of the mixture into the pastry cases and bake in the oven at 180C for about 15 minutes.

When I was writing my Wolves of Vimar books, Carthinal decided he would enjoy these cakes, and so I had Lillora, Mabryl’s housekeeper, make them. (Mabryl is Carthinal’s teacher of magic.) Carthinal was not above creeping into the kitchen and stealing a few when Lillora wasn’t looking.

(See The Making of a Mage. A Wolves of Vimar prequel.)

In the book that I’m currently editing (Immortal’s Death. Book 4 of The Wolves of Vimar series) Randa, one of the companions who call themselves Wolf, is also partial to these cakes.

I must admit that I don’t blame either one of them. They are yummy, if a bit heavy in the honey.

If you would like to find more recipes from my friends and family, check out Viv’s Family Recipes.

There are a few ancient recipes there as well as modern ones. These give us an insight into how people lived in the early 20^th Century. Also the book contains snippets of information about the various recipes and the people who gave them to me.

At the end, there are a few Hints and Tips from the early 20^th Century, too. (There were more in the original book I took these from, but many were possible dangerous, so I didn’t include them!) As well as some ancient remedies for coughs and sore throats.

You can get the book in a number of formats from your favourite seller. Just click on the book title in this post.

If you want to find out about the friends who call themselves Wolf, especially Carthinal, you can get the books by clicking on the cover in the sidebar, or the book title above.

They are also in a number of formats and from numerous sellers, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo etc.

If you make these cakes, I would be delighted to hear what you think about them, and possibly see a picture of how they turned out. Leave your comments in the comments box.

rock cake recipe

I made these rock cakes the other day. They are among my husband’s favourites.

Here is the recipe so you can make them, too.

Ingredients

250g SR flour

125g caster sugar

125g margarine

1 egg

Dried fruit to taste.

Method

Rub margarine into flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. (Or use a mixer.)

Add sugar and dried fruit and mix well in.

Add the eggs. This is a very stiff mixture.

Break into pieces and bake on a baking tray at 180o C for about 10 minutes.

For the next couple of days, Viv’s Family Recipes will be available of a mere 0.99 ($ or £). Get your copy, and make some more of my recipes collected over the years from friends and family. Click on this link or the book cover in the sidebar.

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baking

I made this bun loaf. It’s delicious served in slices with butter.

Here’s the bun loaf recipe: It was one from my Mum’s sister, Auntie Millie.

Ingredients

375g flour

250g sugar

170g mixed dried fruit

1 egg

A little milk

½x5ml teaspoon mixed spice

2x20ml tablespoons marmalade

Method

Cream the margarine and sugar together until light and creamy.

Add the egg and beat well.

Fold in the flour and then add the other ingredients.

Put into a well-greased loaf tin and bake at 180C for about 1½ hours.

And now for a rock cake recipe. This was from Auntie Millie’s friend, whom I called Auntie Wyn. (In those distant days, any adult was either Mr or Mrs , or Auntie or Uncle if they were friends of the family. Children calling adults by their first names was not done.)

Ingredients

250g SR flour

125g caster sugar

125g margarine

1 egg

Dried fruit to taste.

Method

Rub margarine into flour until it resembles fine breadcrumbs. (Or use a mixer.)

Add sugar and dried fruit and mix well in.

Add the eggs. This is a very stiff mixture.

Break into pieces and bake on a baking tray at 180 o C for about 10 minutes.

They are delicious straight from the oven. Well. I suggest letting them cool a bit first!

You can find more of my family’s recipes for only 0.99 (£ or $) from today until March 6th in Viv’s Family Recipes.

This little book is not only a recipe book, but gives insight into how different things were in food preparation and cooking in the past. Some of the recipes date back to 1909, from my Grandmother. Many of these old recipes contain a lot of fat, and require long cooking.

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Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Food Column – Carol Taylor – A – Z of Food – ‘J’ for Jelly Beans, Jalapenos, Jack Fruit and Jerky all with a little Jus

Some interesting foods and recipes courtesy of Sally Cronin and Carol Taylor

Stuck for a present for someone you love?

What about a copy of Viv’s Family Recipes?

An excellent stocking filler for the cook in your life.

The recipes in this book date from the beginning of the 20th Century and cover the time up until the present day.

The very old ones come from a little book that Viv’s Grandmother had, in which she jotted down some recipes and her accounts, and dated them as 1909. Other recipes are from recipe books that belonged to Viv’s mother and aunt, many of which are mid 20th Century. It gives an interesting picture of how the foods we eat have changed over a century.

But this is not only a recipe book. Viv has put in comments that she remembers about the various people who supplied the recipes. There are also hints and tips about cleaning from early times as well as some of her grandmother’s old-fashioned ways of getting rid of coughs and colds.

Why not buy a copy for your favourite cook? They will be delighted with the historical information, and maybe wish to try out some of the old recipes that we no longer cook.

To buy, click here and the link will take you to Amazon where you are. Or click on the book cover in the side bar.

I would love to hear from you, especially if you choose to give the book as a present. Let me know how your loved one liked it. Or better still, post a review on Amazon.

Viv’s Family Recipes

Many years ago, I came by a small book that had belonged to my grandmother. In it were some recipes, and at the back, some of her accounts.

Then some years later, when I married, my mother gave me an exercise book in which she had written some of her recipes.

When her eldest sister died, who had no children, I acquired her recipe book.

My grandmother’s book had accounts dated 1909, many of my aunt’s would have been thirties and forties, and I suspect many of those my mother wrote down for me would have been fifties and sixties.

Added to recipes that I had acquired from friends, I thought this would make an interesting read for anyone interested in cooking, especially the kind of things our ancestors cooked.

I put together a book of these recipes that I called Viv’s Family Recipes. I added a few comments about the people who gave them as well, and in my Aunt’s book were some hints and tips for cleaning, which I added alongside some cures for ailments I remember from my Grandmother.

Viv’s Family Recipes is now on offer for the meagre price of $0.99, £0.99 until Thursday 21st November, so Hurry and get your copy. On Friday it will be back to its normal price.

Click here or on the cover in the side bar to take you to Amazon where you are.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to reblog this, I would be most grateful.

Historical Recipes FREE.

Do you enjoy cooking? Do you like history? Well, you will enjoy Viv’s Family Recipes.

This little book is a collection of recipes from the author’s family, collected over the 20th century from 1909 to the end. It gives an insight into how we ate and cooked throughout the last century, as well as a few comments about the people whom she got the recipes from.

The book  also contains a few hints and tips from long ago about cleaning, as well as cures for coughs and colds.

From today, 5th February, until 20th Feb, Viv’s Family Recipes is FREE on Amazon.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get this interesting book absolutely free. Just click on the book cover.

if you buy this book, please leave a review on Amazon. Reviews are important to authors. That’s the way most of us get our books in the public eye.

Thank you for reading, and if you have, for buying this book. Leave a comment in the box. I’d love to hear from you.

How to Joint a Chicken

1. Use a fresh chicken that has not been frozen if you want to freeze the joints.
2. Remove the string that is trussing the chicken, if there is any.

3. Remove any feathers that have been left on the bird.
4. Cut off the end of the wings. They have very little, if any, meat, and so are going to be removed after cooking, anyway.

5. Remove the legs. To do this, cut the skin , then bend the leg backwards. This breaks the joint allowing you to see where to cut.

6. If you want, you can separate the thighs from the drumsticks. this depends on preference, or the size of the chicken. With a small chicken, you might want to leave them whole

7. Remove the wings, taking some of the breast with it. To locate the joint, use your finger. It’s easier to find with some of the breast there Wings have very little meat on them. and this makes them a bit more substantial.

8. To remove the breast, feel for the breastbone with your finger, then, with a sharp, pointed knife, cut straight down until you meet the main carcass.

9. Then, using the point of your knife, gently loosen the meat from the carcass, keeping as close to the bones as possible.

 

10. Do the same on the other side.
11. Don’t throw away the carcass. There is still quite a lot of meat on it if you search. I cut as much off as I can, then freeze the bits. The next chicken I joint, I add the bits to the bag. Remember to date the first lot, though, so you know when to eat them by. You can use these in stir fries.

 
12. Don’t forget to freeze all the joints immediately. Freeze the carcass as well and use it to make stock for casseroles, gravies and soup.

Here are the joints you will now have in front of you, including the carcass that I’ve cut in half for freezing/

 

To find out some recipes as to how to use these joints, why not buy Viv’s Family Recipes? Click on the picture on the side bar and you will be taken to Amazon in your own country or follow the link above.

I love hearing from you, so please add a comment.

Special offer

Don’t forget to get your copy of Viv’s Family Recipes at the special price of 0.99(£ or $). The offer ends today.

Click the book cover or this link. The link will take you to its page on Amazon. In your country.

http://mybook.to/FamilyRecipes