Birthday Chocolates

I always loved going up the ‘path’ to visit Grandmama Elliott for our 30 minute visits in the afternoon. We would sit out on the porch swing and eat ‘birthday chocolates’ and talk about school or whatever was going on that day.

At birthday parties, it seems that Grandmama was concerned that the smaller kids would feel left out when the birthday person opens their presents. She used to buy the miniature ‘Reece's Peanut Butter Cups’ in the box to wrap and give as a gift to the others. Those Reece's Peanut Butter Cups became known as ‘Birthday Chocolates.’ Grandmama seemed to always keep some on hand. Here's a recipe to make your own. It's fun and tasty too!

Peanut Butter Cups

2 cups milk chocolate chips
2 tablespoons shortening
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup peanut butter, crunchy or smooth
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2/3 cup graham cracker crumbs

In a small bowl, melt 1cup chips and 1 T shortening in microwave for 1 minute, stir and microwave for an additional 30 seconds or until melted and smooth. Do this in steps so the chocolate doesn't harden before you finish filling the cups...

In 2-quart saucepan combine butter or margarine and peanut butter. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until melted (4 to 6 minutes). Stir in confectioners' sugar and graham cracker crumbs. Let mixture cool completely.

The easiest way to make the cups is to use some sort of squeeze bottle, or maybe even a plastic bag with one corner cut to fill the cups. First, line your cups with the paper or use a mold*. Form all of the balls of the PB mixture by rolling about a teaspoon of the dough in your hands and forming it into a ball. Set the PB balls on a cookie sheet. Fill a squeeze bottle with chocolate, squeeze a bottom into all of the cups, place a peanut butter ball in the middle of the chocolate and then squeeze the remaining chocolate in around the sides and tops of the cups. Freeze until firm. Store refrigerated.

*If you look in kitchen specialty shops or candy making equipment shops, you can find the plastic candy cup molds to make these. You follow the same procedure as above. When chilled, they just pop right out when you bend the mold back and forth!

All Things Liver

Liver and Onions

2 pounds sliced beef liver
1 1/2 cups milk, or as needed
1/4 cup butter, divided

(If you have it, use bacon grease instead!)

2 large Vidalia onions, sliced into rings
2 cups all-purpose flour, or as needed

salt, pepper and garlic powder to taste

 

Gently rinse liver slices under cold water, and place in a medium bowl. Pour in enough milk to cover. Let stand while preparing onions. (I would soak it 30 minutes to an hour - whatever you have time for.) This step takes the bitter taste of the liver out.

 
Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Separate onion rings, and saute them in butter until soft. Remove onions, and melt remaining butter in the skillet. Season the flour with salt, pepper and garlic powder and put it in a shallow dish or on a plate. Drain milk from liver, and coat slices in the flour mixture.
 

When the butter has melted, turn the heat up to medium-high, and place the coated liver slices in the pan. Cook until nice and brown on the bottom. Turn, and cook on the other side until browned. Add onions, and reduce heat to medium. Cook a bit longer to taste. Enjoy!

 

 

Southern Fried Chicken Livers

 

1 pound chicken livers

1 egg  

1/2 cup milk

Texas Pete, a few shakes or to taste

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste
1 quart vegetable oil for frying

Place the chicken livers in a colander, and rinse with water. Drain the livers well. Whisk together the egg and milk in a shallow bowl until well blended. Shake in a few drops of texas pete, or more to taste. Place the flour, garlic powder, and salt and pepper in a resealable plastic zipper bag, and shake to combine.
 
Heat oil in a deep-fryer to 375 degrees F. My fryer has a vented lid that can be used while frying to reduce the chance of burning yourself due to popping and spattering.
 
Place the chicken livers in the bowl of egg and milk mixture, and coat each liver. Place the livers, one at a time, into the plastic bag of flour mixture, and shake the bag to coat the each liver completely.
 
Gently place the coated livers, a few at a time, into the basket of the fryer. Cover the fryer with the fryer lid to avoid getting burned by spatters of oil that will pop out as the livers fry. Drop the basket and deep fry the livers until crisp and golden brown, 5 to 6 minutes.

I stress the safety of the fry lid because livers can pop! I just want you all to take this recipe and make it your own! Feel free to add your favorite herbs and spices...this is my basic recipe...I often add paprika, poultry seasoning, cajun, anything to the flour.If you like extra crispy....Flour first, then egg mixture, then flour again! Makes the coating thicker and crispier!

 
Bacon-Wrapped Teriyaki Chicken Skewers

1 lb. chicken livers
Approximately 8 oz. bacon (not thick cut)
Teriyaki sauce, Kikkoman Teriyaki Baste and Glaze
Kebab skewers

Wrap bacon around chicken liver, stretching the bacon to fit, if needed. Secure with a skewer. Repeat until skewer is full. Repeat with remaining chicken livers and skewers.

Pour teriyaki sauce over skewers, reserving about 1/4 cup. Marinate skewers for at least 4 hours, but no more than 8 hours.

Preheat grill to medium-high heat. Place skewers on grill and baste with reserved teriyaki sauce. Cook until bacon is done about 7 minutes and flip skewers. Baste again with teriyaki sauce and cook for another 7 minutes making sure not to burn the bacon.

Hush Puppies

My Mama gave me this recipe and she got it from her best friend, Sarah Ann Aycock. Short, but sweet! (The recipe... Sarah Ann isn't short, but she sure is sweet!)

2 cups Corn Meal
1 cup Flour
1 T Baking Powder
1 sm Onion, chopped
2 Eggs
1 t Sugar
½ t pepper
½ cup Buttermilk

Heat oil to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients in a medium bowl. Drop by teaspoon fulls in oil. Turn when brown on the bottom. Drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.
Store leftovers in frig. (If there are any!)
 

Old Fashioned Chicken and Dumplin's

My Mama used to make Chicken and Dumplin's for her Daddy every Sunday. It was his favorite dish. He died when I was 8 years old. Mama was devastated and refused to make chicken and dumplin's again. One year, close to Christmas, Mama decided to make chicken and dumplin's. I was about 16 at the time. She cut her hand with a chef knife and had to go to the hospital to get stitches. Here's a very old recipe for Chicken and Dumplin's:

Base:
Stew a chicken. When tender, pick the meat from the bones. Put meat in a large pan with tight fitting lid and add 4 cups of broth. Bring to boil.

Dumplings:

1 1/2 cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 tablespoons shortening

3/4 cup milk
3 eggs, boiled and sliced

Place egg slices on a paper towel and salt them to dry out a bit.

Sift together dry ingredients and cut in the shortening. Stir in enough milk, mixing only to moisten the dough thoroughly. Drop by teaspoonfuls into boiling chicken broth. Dip the spoon into the boiling liquid first so that the dough will slide off easily. Add egg slices. Cover pan tightly and cook 15 minutes. Enough for 6 servings.

* Another alternative for the dumplin's is to roll them out on a floured surface and cut into strips. Some people prefer this because it makes a firmer, less doughy dumplin'.

**Notice with these OLD recipes, there are very few references to time and temperature. These were cooks who knew how to cook by smell, touch and taste. Times or temperatures were often a suggestion to young cooks.

Corn Pone and Corn Cob Jelly

Two and a half acres of corn for a family of three was standard corn planting in the mountains of West Virginia, any more was for the hogs and chickens.

A standard pone recipe is:


1 cup corn meal
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup boiling water
1 tablespoon lard or fat

Combine the meal and salt and, while blending gradually add water. Melt the fat in the baking pan. After pan is greased, pour surplus into the mixture and blend.
The mix should not be more than one inch thick in the baking pan to start with. It will rise very little. (to make it rise like corn bread, 2 teaspoons of baking powder would be needed) The pone will develop a rich, brown
crunchy crust. In this modern day it would take about 50-60 minutes in a 350 oven.
It was usually baked in a "step oven" on the wood stove or fried on a griddle where a stove lid was removed. Corn bread and corn pone was a staple in the mountaineer diet. With greens, called "salit greens", boiled eggs, meat, and of course, cold milk from the spring house. Salit greens were pokeweed greens that were boiled for a very long time as it was thought that they were poisonous if you didn't. It tasted like spinach. This was good eating and friends were always welcome.

Not to waste anything Jelly was made from the corn cobs. This jelly tastes a lot like apple jelly and has a pretty red color.

Boil 12 bright red corn cobs in 3 pints of water for 30 minutes. Remove from heat and strain. If needed, add enough water to make 4 cups liquid. Add one package fruit pectin and bring to full boil. Add 4 cups sugar and boil 2 or 3 minutes until jelly stage.

Fritters

A fritter is a 'small cake of batter, sometimes containing corn, fruit, clams, or some other ingredient, fried in deep fat or sautéed.'

Basically, a fritter is some flour, milk, eggs, melted butter and 'whatever else you got on hand'. I've had oyster fritters in Topping, Va made fresh out the water by my Grandmama and Great-Aunt Vashti. I've had corn fritters, apple fritters, banana fritters, squash fritters... the list could go on forever! If you had a little bit of somethin' and a lot of people to feed, you threw it in a fritter batter to stretch what you had. Here's an OLD Corn Fritter recipe:

2 cups chopped corn
1/2 cup sweet milk

1/2 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon melted butter
2 eggs
pepper to taste

Mix ingredients well. Drop by small spoonfuls into hot fat and fry until golden brown.

This recipe reminds me of Christmas time, cooler weather, sharing favorite dishes and family and friends spending time together. It reminds me of my Mom and all the times we cooked together making memories that last a lifetime. We used to travel to the mountains each year and go to the all the shops. There was a little place that was a Christmas Shop all year round. I bought one of my favorite cookbooks there... The Nutcracker Sweet. That is where I first found a recipe for this wonderful treat!

Monkey Bread


4 tubes refrigerator biscuits
¾ cup Sugar
 1 t Cinnamon

¾ cup Butter
1 cup Sugar
½ t Cinnamon

In a saucepan, heat butter, sugar, syrup and cinnamon to boiling. Cut biscuits into fours and roll into balls. Combine sugar and cinnamon and roll biscuits in cinnamon and sugar. Butter or spray a loaf pan. Stack biscuits into loaf pan. Pour syrup over biscuits and bake at 350 for 40 to 50 minutes. When partly cool, turn out onto serving platter. To serve, let each person pull pieces off. If desired, drizzle with basic sugar glaze. Recipe below…

Basic Sugar Glaze

2 cups Powdered Sugar
2 T Butter or Margarine, softened
1 t Vanilla
3 to 4 T Milk or Half-n-Half

Combine all ingredients, adding enough milk for desired consistency.
Makes 1 ½ cups glaze.