Journal 2020 – Starting Again…
There is a blue hard bound journal in my library bookcase that I started a number of years ago that served as a record of all the recipes I tried and what my thoughts were about each recipe and where the recipe came from. I kept it up for a number of years but appear to have stopped for some reason. I am going to start recording here in this website (starting December 2020). At some point I hope to add the entries from the journal since it was very helpful and useful when memories failed or kicked in. It was helpful when memories recall a certain dish and the reactions from preparing it. Many of them turned into favorites that get repeated over and over. I still have a lot of recipes to add to this digital collection so who knows if I will ever get the old entries added from the hard bound journal.
12-09-2020 Old Fashioned Date-Nut Bread
Had lots of pitted dates to use up since they were starting to crystalize. Made a loaf of date nut bread. using a excellent recipe from King Authur Flour since I could not find the family favorite in the mess in my recipe box.
12-12-2020 Could not find my recipe for Thumbprint cookies. Went on an internet search to find a similar recipe. Found a u-tube -video and recipe from Emeril that sounded pretty good called Raspberry Lemon Thumbprint Cookies. I used strawberry jam since that was what was open. These turned out excellent. The shortbread was really good and the fruit jam was just enough. This should be a keeper recipe.
screenshots in photo album on tablet
link to video show step by step
12-12-2020 Cranberry Nut Bread — made mini loaves of cranberry nut bread since I had two bags of fresh cranberries. Put one bag of cranberries in the freezer. Made into mini loaves so there would be a variety of mini loaves to choose from for trays for the holiday. There are already mini zucchini bread, date nut and now cranberry mini loaves of bread.
12/12/20 trying a different variation for thumbprints. Used strawberry jam Raspberry Lemon Thumbprints Raspberry Lemon Thumbprint Cookies
12/20/20 more Thumbprint cookies but with apricot jam. These did not last long and were so good.
12-24-2020 Sticky Toffee Pudding – gave recipe and tray of mini breads (zucchini, date, cranberry) to Ervin for the holiday as thanks for being a great neighbor.
12/26/20 Sticky Toffee Pudding again but used the alternate recipe that had the fresh ginger in it. Prefer it with the ginger. Cooked the cream longer so it was thicker and more like toffee.
12/??/20 Sugar Cookies – trying a different recipe for cut outs sugar cookies
12/25/2020 ham baked off for the holiday. nine pound ham
12/27/2020 tried a different sugar cookie recipe for cut out cookies Best Cut-Out Cookie Recipe
12/30/2020 ham and bean soup being simmered for putting in the freezer
01/2021 sour cream cookies with raisins – just a double batch and also a batch of box brownies
01/27/21 Chilies in Nut Sauce – without the nuts and without the green peppers – just the filling. Mexican
01/27/21 double batch sour cream cookies with raisins- they disappear too quickly so had to make some more. Still had some sour cream to use up.
March 2021 – made first batch of the mincemeat filled cookies from the Lee Bailey’s book. Did not roll out the dough thin enough so there was not many of cookies to stack double cookies. So when rerolling scraps made the dough thinner and only made a single layer of dough folded in half with tiny amount of mincemeat to make more cookies. Filled Cookies with mincemeat
March 2021 repeat – had to make another batch of cookies to use up the jar of mincemeat so made this recipe again watching the thickness of the dough. Rolled thinner so could get more circles to stack the cookies with the filling inside. Also made a bunch of single circles folded in half to have more cookies. The full circles with filling are the best but wanted more than just a few cookies.
04/10/21 Easter was early this year. Had bought a spiral ham for the holiday. Had clipped a recipe from Williams Sonoma test kitchen to try to use up some of the ham.
Biscuits with Sliced Ham and Apricot Preserves
These were really good. A recipe to keep. The Dijon mustard and the apricot preserves added just the right extra to the biscuits. Biscuits by themselves were great as well.
October 31, 2021
10/30/31 Baked Beans with great northern beans. Used Mom’s Quick Baked Bean recipe. Bought some thick cut bacon from Morgan’s and cut up to add to the beans. Used Sweet Baby Ray Sweet and Spicy sauce and more onions than original recipe. Came out tasting good. The beans could have been cooked a little longer in the first cooking on the stove. Think it must be the hard water that makes making baked beans not as good as Mom’s Humphrey.
Made Molasses Oatmeal Bread to got along with the beans. The bread just did not rise like it should have. Probably since the yeast in the freezer is several years old now. Will try again with some fresh yeast. Tastes okay but is really heavy and dense.
10/31/31 made Moroccan Chicken with Couscous for dinner.
11/01/21 Made Pumpkin Bars with cream cheese frosting.
12/26/21 Turkey Dinner Pie – using up the turkey from Thanksgiving. Made into a loaf. Is a keeper recipe. Easy and a great way to combine all of the leftovers into one casserole dish.
12/28/21 No Fuss Focassia using the King Author Baking Focaccia kit that recently ordered with the baking pan, flour, spices, dough enhancer recipe.
12/11/21 Cinnamon Rolls from Mrs. Burleson’s recipe – family tradition
12/11/21 Golden Fruitcake with the King Arthur recipe and using fruit cake the special snowflake pan that had the two types of candied fruit. Bought some rum to soak the fruit in.
12/22/21 Cinnamon Rolls – Mrs. Burleson’s recipe
12/24/27 Vanilla Glazed Cinnamon Bun mix from King Arthur
12/25/21 Lasagna with Italian Sausage and Marina Sauce
12/27/21 No-Knead County Style Bread – using the new Dutch Oven
12/30/21 No-Knead County Style Bread – second attempt to see if bread is softer
12/30/21 Filled Cookies with Mincemeat
2022
01/02/2022 – Raspberry Lemon Thumbprint Cookies – double batch
01/05/2022 – White cake with raspberry filling and cream cheese frosting
01/05/2022 – No-Knead Crusty White Bread 2016 Recipe of the Year
01/05/22 – Homemade Bean Soup with the dry bean mix from OakHill and added can of Black Beans and left over ham gravy
02/22 Filled Cookies with mincemeat – half cookies to make more of them
02/06/22 another batch of Filled Cookies with mincemeat (rest of jar) and raspberry filling.
02/09/22 Double batch of Cape Cod Soft Molasses Cookies – with expresso powder and black pepper.
02/12/22 Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting from Taste of Home
02/25/22 Cinnamon Rolls
03/03/22 Double batch of Honey Drop Cookies made with apricot jam in between stacked cookies. A Family favorite that has not been made in a while.
04/17/22 Scalloped Sweet Corn Casserole – had lots of frozen corn in the freezer to use so went searching for a new recipe. Made the one from TasteofHome that Mike found. Turned out okay but on the dry side. Used crackers instead of Rice Krispies for topping. Not sure if I used tooo much cubed bread in recipe or not. Should have been more creamy so it was on the dry side.
04/17/22 Kitchen Sink Carrot Cake with cream cheese frosting
4/2022 Biscuits with Ham, Apricot jam and Mustard
https://crossfieldcollection.com/recipe/biscuits-with-sl…pricot-
04/28/22 Pineapple Upside Down Cake
06-28-22 Choc Chip Cookies with expresso powder added
06-30-22 Cap Cod Soft Molasses Cookies
07/01/22 Apple Shortbread with mix from Oak Hill.
07/02/22 Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
07/22 – bought a new mincemeat tart pan and used one of the new jars of Richardson Mincemeat. Excellent but not sure it is worth the extra cost for this mincemeat. Nonesuch Mincemeat is just fine and what we are used to using. Mincemeat pan has rounded bottoms for each little tartlet.
07/31/22 Mini Lemon Tarts with Shortbread Crust – trying out the new tart pans that I recently bought. One pan has holes in bottom to make crispy bottoms and one does not.
07/31/22 Swiss Steak – used fresh green beans from the garden and the last of the canned 2021 tomatoes. Pounded a flank steak and then simmered until tender. Came out excellent.
Canned Peach Slices – canned pints of peaches using a new variety of peaches.
Tomato Sauce – not a huge crop of Roma tomatoes and Amish paste tomatoes – it was too dry and did not get a huge crop like we have other years. Canned up mostly pints of just thickened sauce so that I could add the extras later on.
Spag Sauce – canned up quite a bit of just spag sauce with herbs from the garden. Did not include peppers or onions so that I could water bath the jars and add more stuff later.
Tomatoes = bought a bushel of tomatoes to just have canned tomatoes on the shelf.
Pears = canned up 7 pints of just pear slices since there were so many pears. Gave away four bushels of pears we picked off the tree to neighbors and there are still lots of drops if I wanted to do more.
Pear Mincemeat – used family recipe that Dad liked. The pear trees were loaded this year. Make seven pints of mincemeat.
09-07-22 Double batch Choc Chip cookies
09-07-22 Pear mincemeat Filled Cookies
09-14-22 Pumpkin Cookies with raisins and walnuts
9-15-22 Pumpkin Cake with Cider Glaze
09-16-22 Sweet Bread with Rosins- Mary Glow
10/2/22 Harvest Apple Cake with local Cortland apples
10/03/22 Oven BBQ Baby Back Ribs
10/15/22 Autumn Sweet Rolls with Cider Glaze
10/15/22 Pumpkin muffins with the last of the frozen pumpkin puree from the freezer
December 2022
12/2022 Coconut Cookies
12/2022 Apple Crescent Dumplings
12/2022 Shortbread in snowflake shortbread pan
12/2022 Date and Walnut Bars
2025 Journal Recipes
02/01/2025 My Best Clam Chowder