Retro holiday recipe share

Normally I don't post recipes on my blog, but when the holidays roll around, I tend to reminisce about dishes my mother made or special recipes I shared with friends over the years.

Most of us consider candy a holiday treat. When I was growing up, the holidays weren't complete without my grandmother's homemade divinity or my mother's peanut brittle. As an adult, a candy I took to many a faculty Christmas party was a fudge made famous by a local department store. Stripling's super-smooth marshmallow fudge was a favorite in Fort Worth. The Texas department store is long gone, but the recipe is still being passed around, and I'd like to share it with you.

Stripling's Fudge

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

17 large marshmallows

2/3 cups evaporated milk

Melt all ingredients and boil for 5 minutes. Don't stir much. It will be streaked and yellowish.

Pour over:

1 stick butter

12 ounce package of chocolate chips

Beat 2-3 minutes. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla. Pour into a greased, thick container such as Pyrex. To speed the cooling process, you can put the fudge in the freezer for a couple of minutes.

Architect's rendering of the Stripling's store at Seminary South Shopping Center, c. 1962
mall-hall-of-fame.blogspot.com

Seminary South Shopping Center, c. 1962
mallsofamerica.blogspot.com

Upper floor of Stripling's...when department stores were elegant and uncrowded
fortwortharchitecture.com

Happy New Year...and don't forget your black-eyed peas

That's what my mother would say to me every New Year's Day after I married and left home.

I don't know if it's a New Year's Day tradition where you live, but here in Texas where I grew up, everyone eats black-eyed peas on January 1st for good luck.

I'm 62 years old, and I can't recall missing a single New Year's Day eating my lucky peas, and since I've had a pretty darn fantastic life, I can attest that they work. When I was a kid growing up in the 1950s and 60s, my mother always made them the traditional Southern way, boiled with onions and salt pork and served with homemade cornbread.

cdkitchen.com

Traditional Southern Black-eyed Peas

Sort through a 1-lb. bag of dried black-eyed peas, removing any rocks or stems, as well as any discolored or shriveled peas.

Rinse peas. Drain and add 6 to 8 cups of fresh water.

Add one smoked ham hock or one piece of salt pork, scored to the rind. Heat pot on medium. Bring peas to a boil and then reduce heat to medium-low.

Cook peas at a simmer for 2 to 3 hours. Towards the end of the cooking time, you can add two crushed cloves of garlic or half to a whole chopped onion if desired. Add salt and pepper to taste.

The peas are ready when they are tender and the surrounding liquid is thickened. If the ham hock or salt pork is meaty, pull off the meat and add to the peas. Discard the bone or rind.

These days, I usually have my peas in what is commonly known as Texas Caviar. It's delicious and a lot less time-consuming to prepare.

chowtimes.com

Texas Caviar

1 (15.8 ounce) can black-eyed peas, drained

1 (15.8 ounce) can black beans, drained
1 (14.5 ounce) can petite diced tomatoes, drained
2 fresh medium jalapenos, stemmed, seeded and minced
1 small onion, diced small
1/2 yellow bell pepper, stemmed, seeded and diced small
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
6 tablespoons red wine vinegar
6 tablespoons olive oil (not extra virgin)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin

Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl; cover and refrigerate 2 hours or up to 2 days. Before serving, adjust seasonings to taste, adding extra vinegar, salt and pepper. Transfer to a serving bowl.

I don't know what it is about the holidays that makes you want to talk about food, but the holiday season is officially over, so I'm done with the recipes for a while and back to talking about other aspects of mid-century living.

Partytime!

There's no sense writing a serious post about furniture or architecture on a holiday weekend. People are either too busy or feeling too jovial or too depressed to read something like that. Food and drink, on the other hand, are always good subjects for the holidays, so you'll get a couple more, and then we'll go back to my more standard fare till the next one rolls around.

I'm old enough to have seen my share of New Year's Eve parties in the 60s, and I remember some that my parents had in the 1950s.  If you're wanting an authentic mid-century party, then here are some drink recipes that were popular back then...starting with my favorite at the time, the whiskey sour. Have a wonderful New Year's Eve, and be sure to have a designated driver. We want you safe and sound tomorrow to celebrate New Year's Day!

Whiskey Sour

2 oz. whiskey

½ oz. fresh lemon juice

½ tsp. sugar

1 cherry

½ lemon slice

Put all ingredients in mixing glass and add ice cubes. Strain into highball glass. Add lemon slice and cherry to garnish.

Tom Collins

1 oz. fresh lemon juice

1 tsp. sugar

1 ½ oz. gin

Lemon slices

Mix sugar, gin and juice over ice in mixing glass. Stir, strain into cocktail glass with ice and top off with soda water. Garnish with lemon slices.

Brandy Alexander

¾ oz. cream

¾ oz. brandy

¾ oz. dark crème de cacao

Nutmeg

Pour the liquors and cream into a mixing glass. Shake and pour into martini glass. Garnish with a sprinkle of nutmeg on top or on rim of glass.

White Russian

1 oz. vodka

½ oz. coffee liqueur

1 oz. heavy cream

Pour vodka, coffee liqueur and heavy cream into a cocktail glass. Stir well.

Manhattan

1 ¾ oz. bourbon

¾ oz. sweet vermouth

1 dash aromatic bitters

1 Maraschino cherry

Pour bitters and liquors over ice in a mixing glass. Stir and strain into martini glass. Garnish with a Maraschino cherry.

Stinger

1 oz. cognac

1 oz. crème de menthe

Put all ingredients in mixing glass. Shake briskly. Serve in a brandy snifter.

Gibson Martini

2 ½ oz. gin or vodka

¾ oz. dry vermouth

3-5 cocktail onions

Stir gin or vodka and vermouth on ice in a mixing glass. Strain into a martini glass and add cocktail onions.

Old Fashioned

2 dashes aromatic bitters

½ tsp. sugar dissolved with water and bitters

1 ½ oz. bourbon

1 cherry

1 orange slice

1 lemon wedge

Fill glass with ice. Add cherry, orange slice and lemon wedge. Pour in bourbon. Serve in a rocks glass over ice.

Vodka Gimlet

1 ½ oz. vodka

¾ oz. lime juice

3-4 lime slices

Pour vodka and lime juice into mixing glass. Shake and strain into martini glass. Add lime slices.

Kromex

Kromex, a division of Alcoa Aluminum Company, began producing kitchenware and serveware around 1957. Products included canister sets, salt and pepper sets, coffee and tea services, drinking glasses, spice sets, ice buckets, cake servers and trays of all sizes. Although very popular, the items were produced for a very short time.

At the time Kromex was manufactured, Alcoa was already primarily an industrial firm. In the early 1960s the company was purchased by Reynolds Aluminum, who phased out production of items for household use and concentrated on industrial production.

I recently found two Kromex tidbit servers on eBay that are in mint condition. They look like they were stored in someone’s china cabinet and never used. I got one for $4.99 and the other for $9.99. They’ll be great for serving homemade candy and slices of cheese logs over the holidays…made from my mother’s and grandmother’s recipes from back in the 1950s and 60s, of course. I’ll post more old family recipes in December.

In this post, I’ve included a recipe for a candy I remember my mother making in the 1950s. I’m sure she found it in Good Housekeeping or Ladies’ Home Journal, because she was always clipping recipes from magazines and stuffing them into her battered Better Homes and Gardens cookbook with the red-and-white-check cover. The ingredients may sound a little odd, but it was one of my favorite holiday candies…sweet, slightly salty and delightfully crunchy.

My recent Kromex finds on eBay...just in time for the holidays

Martha's Butterscotch Crunch (c. 1956)

Ingredients:

½ c. peanut butter

6 oz. package butterscotch chips

3 oz can chow mein noodles

2 c. miniature marshmallows

Combine peanut butter and butterscotch in double boiler.  Melt completely.  Stir well.  Add noodles and marshmallows.  Allow marshmallows to melt slightly.  Drop by spoon on waxed paper.  Chill until set.