lizprince

I love the community cookbooks and like many of you love to collect them. Some of my favorites are The Star of Texas, River Roads, and Cotton Country. My grandmother also collected community cookbooks. Two of the more interesting ones she had in her collection were Recipes from Possumneck, Mississippi and the The Dixie Cookbook from Winn Parish, Louisiana. The Dixie Cookbook does not contain oven temperatures or cooking times. I guess the ladies submitting recipes and cooking from this book just knew when something was ready.

I think red karo is referring to the label. I was curious and followed the history of Karo link listed above. At the page, there were several pictures of the old packaging amoung them, a red label can. With regard to the pound cake, I have a similiar recipe with a pound of each sugar, butter and flour plus 10 eggs. If I had to guess ten eggs probably equals a pound. It is a fabulous pound cake. I find Louisiana interesting and bizarre. Being Thanksgiving, I kind of miss it today.

I have a cookbook from Winnfield, Louisiana "The Dixie Cookbook". It was published before 1929; I am still trying to pin a date to it. The pecan pie recipe has the following ingredients: sugar, red karo,mashed pecans, eggs, butter size of walnut, and pinch of salt. This is the recipe my grandmother used for years. And it was delicious! I might have to make a pecan pie for Thanksgiving.

Chicken and Dumplings, I can not think of a better comfort food! My Grandmother was from Northern Louisiana and here is her recipe. 2 cups flour 1/3 cup shortening 1 egg salt warm milk (enought to make a workable dough) Cut shortening into flour and salt. Add egg and milk. Roll dough very thin. Cut into strips. Pinch and drop into boiling broth with meat. Do not over cook... work fast. Enjoy!

Cucumber Tea Sandwiches are my absolute favorite! For my son's baptism, I served an assortment of sandwiches including one the men really loved...beef tenderloin and caramelized onions with a horseradish mayonnaise