Christmas recipes and memories

 

December 10, 2023

 

Dear Family:

Enjoy preparing for your Christmas and your Christmas traditions.  Brad tells me that all the Schnell families are coming to Spokane the night of Christmas or the day after.  Great idea.  Megan tells me that Michael's family is coming for Christmas and then a day or so later they are having a Meek family reunion with Marissa/Clark and Megan's sister Marrja's family all coming.  They've rented a house for the special occasion.  

I'm thinking that Chuck will be looking down from heaven and smiling.  I couldn't be happier for them.

I wonder why families started making these or their special recipes for the holidays?  Was it because during the depression there was no money to buy gifts so a mother found a way to acquire the ingredients for these special treats? Was it because the mom wanted to start making special "treat" traditions for her family? Was it because making things for her family was her "Love Language"?

 I don't know, but my mom made fudge, caramels and divinity if there was a clear day.  (Never make divinity when it is raining - it won't set up.)  I do know that I wanted to create wonderful memories for my children so I made these treats.  I added the "Krispie Candy" or Scotch a roos.  There was candy around all month.  My kids didn't like fruitcake, but I did, so I usually made fruitcake, and cookies as well.  (I also included the recipe for  Carmel Corn that Brian brought home from Primary in 1978.  I kept his handwritten version for 50 years and just tossed it a couple years ago.  Actually it was hard to do that.

 You may want these recipes, you may not.  But I thought that you should have the choice.   When I was young, there weren't these fancy especially made "Stocking" to hang from the 

mantle.  First of all, we didn't have a mantle in our small house on the farm.  We put our stockings (we chose one out of our drawer or we begged one from Dad) on the ouch.  In the morning there was an orange  in the toe of the stocking and hard candy, a candy cane and mixed nuts in the shell.  When we lived on the farm, we raised what we ate, or sold what we raised for money to purchase flour, sugar etc.  Mom always got $25 from her father (who lived by himself in an apartment on South Temple) in Salt Lake City.  She found a way to make $25 stretch to buy a turkey and gifts for the 4 little girls.

I remember getting a green wallet with brown acorn nuts on it one year.  Another year I got a skirt that Mom had made from one of her velvet formals when she was a girl.  (I remember she said she sat up all Christmas Eve trying to put a zipper in the velvet skirt.  (And she let me know that she was up all night with it.) When we finally moved to LaGrande and then Portland, Dad had a job and so our Christmases weren't so sparse.

But the thing I remember most is the wonderful smells and the wonderful food; Mom's homemade rolls, candied yams, corn, turkey, and mashed potatoes and gravy with stuffing. She made pie and carrot pudding.  Now that I look at the carrot pudding recipe I see that it made from very common staples that were always on hand.  Canned milk (evaporated milk) was commonly kept in kitchens back then and was used in pumpkin pie and caramel sauce for the pudding.  One thing she did make ahead was a special Christmas bread.  It was white with candied fruit in it and frosted.  Glennda and Judy loved it.

 What surprised me was that mom made all that stuff in one day.  We were all helpers; breaking the homemade bread up into little pieces, peeling potatoes, slicing yams.  She put the pudding on to steam for 3 hours first and then we all worked to help with the rest.  She always made her rolls.  (I'll attach that old recipe.  As you know I started using the Monkey bread recipe instead, but I used Mom's roll recipe for years and made cinnamon rolls with it as well.)  Dad didn't help because he was really busy milking the cows morning and night and feeding them in the shed/barn.  Eggs needed to be gathered as well.  

 I was 12 when we moved to Portland.  Mom made a friend named Lucille Simmers. Lucille gave mom a recipe for GOOD RED PUNCH.  It was made with Kool-aid, Sugar, Pineapple Juice and 7up.  Judy loved it.  But after we girls started putting on the special events with our families we changed the good red punch to Cranberry Juice with 7up.  It tasted just as good.

Next week I'll talk about the Christmas Eve Pageants that we 3 girls started and kept up with for a long time.  I think I even have some of the programs. 

All the time I've been writing this letter I've been smiling.  I loved helping mom with my little sisters.  I loved making wonderful "food" traditions for my family.  I loved getting our 3 families together for Christmas eve.  Some years Mom, Dad and Jay came from out of town or others heard about it and wanted to join.  I think Bill, Sally, Rob, Haley and Mandy came one year.  Good times were had by all.

I will miss getting together with Judy and Glennda to recreate these wonderful goodies like we did a couple years before Judy passed away.  We had so much fun and Don and Scott joined in for tasting and comments.  Glennda and I just don't have the heart to do it without her. 

I will admit that I got a call from Brad and Glennda since Thanksgiving saying that they missed my Monkey Bread at their Thanksgiving Dinner.  Mom’s like those kind of compliments!!

 Have a wonderful week.  Thanks for posting the photos on Facebook and Instagram.  I love them. 

 

Love Mom, Grandma, Great Grandma, Sister and Aunt Suzanne  

 

 

HOME MADE CARAMELS

Easy but follow directions exactly.

 

2 cups cream                                                                                                1 teaspoon vanilla (add at end)

2 cups sugar

1 ½ cup Light Karo syrup

1 Cup butter

 

In cast iron (preferably) or other heavy 6 quart pan, add the above ingredients (except vanilla).  Heat over medium heat to hard ball stage (232 degrees).  STIRRING CONSTANTLY FROM BEGINNING TO END TO PREVENT SKORTCHING.  SKORTCHING MAKES UGLY CARAMELS.   I don’t use a thermometer.  Test frequently in water once it starts turning golden.  Your test dropped into cold water will hold shape and sounds “click” when dropped on the counter.  Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 cup nuts if desired.  Put into 9x13 inch buttered pan.

 

I put chopped nuts in the pan before pouring cooked caramel liquid.  If you want to use whole nuts.  Add them after you have poured caramel mixture in the pan.

 

When cooled, put out of pan onto cutting board.  Cut with large knife into squares and wrap in waxed paper squares.

 

It takes about 45 minutes beginning to end.

 Suzanne Short

Carmel Popcorn (written to edit Brian’s handwritten version from 1978 in a Primary class)

 

Melt one cube butter

Add two cups brown sugar

Add ½ C Karo syrup

Bring all to good boil

Add:  ¼ t cream tartar and ½ t baking soda

Stir and pour all over popcorn