Recommended Reading (Cookbooks)

My Grandma's Mennonite Treasury of Recipes. In it she wrote by many recipes and even marked in that if you put sunflower seeds into bran muffins the seeds turn green but are not poisonous. I learned about canning soups from Grandma's book. Most of the recipes are somewhat outdated, or, well, from another era. Like probably not a lot of cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk, you know?

The green Christian Home Cookbook. I've only ever heard it called the green Christian Home! "The green" is part of the name I guess. It was my mom's go-to book, and also is from another time and place. I have three recipes I still use: Baking Powder Biscuits pg 32; Old Fashioned Beef Stew and Unbaked Chocolate Cookies. (Forget the pages of those.)

Surely we all have Kitchen Treasures. Back when I was a bride that was my one and only tried and true book. Now, oh no, I hardly look in it anymore unless I want some basic Mennonite supper recipe. Or if I can't find it in another book I'll look in KT as a last resort. It has a wealth of canning and baking ideas. Why don't I use it more? Hmmm...

Southern Country 2 has some of my favoritest of favorite recipes in it. And coming from a born and bred Northerner who loves trying out recipes from other cultures, this one has a lotta Southern flavor. Pulled pork barbeque (There in Alabama, barbeque is something you EAT, it's NOT the thing you grill on!) and cherry limeades, gumbos, oh, you just gotta read this book to see!

Family Home Cookin' by the John D. Penner heirs was another staple as a young bride. EVERYONE from Rosenort was cooking from this book! Good, hearty Mennonite food.

And one time, long long ago, when I was youngish teenager, my very own Schartner relatives put together Treasured Recipes. Pardon me if I say I never used this one very much. I dunno why, other than a lot of the recipes were just too, um, too old. The ingredients dated back to the lard and cracklings days. I've always used Aunt Eva's bbq baked beans from this book, though, and have added some hickory to it. There's a grand Reese's peanut butter bars recipe in it as well...

My friend, Rachel, gave me the family cookbook HER relatives (or Tom's???) put together. Now THAT'S a book where you'll find everything you ever wanted to cook! There's about six of every type of recipe in it. Every aunt and cousin must have added every version of each thing! This one is titled Home Cooking Favorites.

The Prairie Range is my current favorite. It's from a friend from Oklahoma and arrived via Canada Post as a housewarming gift when we bought "the farm". It's enough familiar and enough exotic and enough practical to be just right!

My friend, Lyndsay, compiled a recipe book as a fundraiser for her sick boy. She called it Gathering Recipes Shared Between Friends. It's not our "usual" Mennonite cooking and therefore an excellent place for NEW ideas!

A Taste of the Peace was compiled by the ladies of the Heart Valley Congregation. It's great for company food, but I don't use much from it for everyday. A little heavy on the cream cheese!

The Friesen Family Cookbook was named Our Family Favorites. I've gotten some excellent tips outa that book, like meat care and other such things.

And then there was another cookbook from the Goossen family I joined a few years ago, called Favorites from Our Table. It's purpose was meant to help out young cooks and therefore it's got TOO much and TOO many instructions and details. Bogs one down. To follow directions exactly, you use wayyyy too many dishes so I don't use it much either. I don't have the second printing edition, which they say has lightened up a bit.

(to be continued)