Jane's recipes - Burger Stew

Mom and Jane both made this one.  Jane called hers Slumgullion. Mom called her version goulash. 

Veg-all is still a popular brand here in the south.  Not sure about the rest of the country. I grew up on a cattle farm. If you've never put a whole cow in the deep freeze then you probably don't have any idea just how much hamburger you get when you purchase your beef that way.  This was a quick easy meal that my brother and I both knew and could prepare on those nights when it was our turn to cook.  It was usually doubled and made in Mom's Miracle-maid electric skillet.  This pan was pre-microwave so just dumping 2 lns of burger in the skillet with a little water was a great way to get dinner going after school.

 

Ve-hicles

One of the benefits of working from home is saving wear and tear and milage on the vehicles. The truck is used for most business trips, hauling trash and is my primary ride. The mustang goes to church every Sunday or she gets cranky and eats her battery. Neither one is used daily.  

On the last work trip I noticed the truck's mileage was really bad. I normally average around 25mpg. It's down to 19. So a little sleuthing was in order. I didn't remember ever having the air filter changed while doing the oil so I started there. The air cleaner box is fed from the wheelwell which I found interesting. No "forced" air from the front grill. After getting it open of course I found that it was way past due for changing. I also found a deep layer of nut hulls. I blew it out with compressed air and then started looking for other mischief. 

When I was younger and newly divorced I rented a house that had a detached workshop/garage. It was the perfect place to park my brand new Mazda SE7 pickup. This was the first nee vehicle I'd ever bought. That shop was infested with squirrels. One day the truck was running like crap so I took it to the dealer where the found the dang things had chewed on all of the spark plug wires. Darn things...

Looking around under the hood I found a very snug looking, fuzzy nest pulled from the insulation on the firewall. Thankfully I haven't found any other damage.

I'm surprised they tried to make a home there. The neighborhood cats all hide under the truck. Gun-dog must inspect for cats on every walk.  At least the issue was minimal.Mileage is back up in the 24-25mpg range again.

 

 

Jane's Recipes - Cast Iron

As you can imagine I really enjoy open fire cooking and cast iron.  I was surprised to find this in the box. I don't remember seeing any of these molds in Jane's kitchen. I'm not sure where she got this pamphlet.  It may be useful if you have one of these John Wright cookie molds.

 

 

Jame's Recipes - Fudge

When you start looking at these old recipes you start to find some that "everyone" makes.  These are good examples.  The Foolproof Chocolate Fudge recipe is on an old Broden Sweetened Condensed Milk label.  This is the one that my mom used when she didn't want to go through the long, involved "make a ball" process from Aunt Sug's fudge recipe.  I have that one someplace and will post it sometime.

Jane's Recipes - Zucchinni AND Funnel Cake

This one is interesting because my wife remembers her mom making funnel cake.  They were all together on one photocopied sheet. So you get 2 zucchini bread recipes along with the funnel cake.

Jane's Recipes

While cleaning out some stuff I found my mother-in-law's recipe box.  I've scanned in those that she actually used. I've always been fascinated by vintage recipes.  I used to follow a "rescued recipes" blog so I figured I'd post these, scanned in, "as-is." I may post pictures and comments if I feel like trying them out. Jane was a lunch lady and then a teacher's aide. She usually cooked from memory so most of these are for desserts or baked goods.  I just don't need to add that much to my mid section.

 

2023 Brunswick Stew

Every year we make adjustments and manage to make minor improvements to the process.  After last year I made some adjustments to the pipe burner to improve the efficiency of the flame. This is one of the burners for on of our smaller pots.

 

 I added new holes between the existing holes (we copied one of the existing burners) and increased the size of some of the holes to make them graduated.  What I got was a very nice blue flame with no yellow.

It made a huge difference in getting the stew to temperature. It also made a hot spot in the middle of the burner that scorched the stew in that area.  This is due to the shape of the carolina cooker pot being more pointed on the bottom that a more traditional/antique pot with a flatter bottom.  I'll be welding some of the center holes shut and drilling new holes toward the outer edges of the burner.

 

The new jet burners worked great. We'll be building more.  The keggle was another success.  The convex bottom causes the boil to churn the pot and pretty much just shreds the chicken.

 

 The big change this year was to how we process the stock. Everyone on the team has a bad back or shoulder or something.  So we didn't want to crouch over to strain the stock into the 2 gallon buckets we use to chill/store it so we dumped it into my 15 gallon brew pot (Center).  This allowed the fat to rise to the top and we drained from the valve, resulting in a lower fat stock.