Our Not Too Secret Family Recipes
I will share some favorite family recipes on these pages, with some cooking basics to make things easy. These everyday and special meals recipes are straight forward and most recipes with ingredients that could be in any kitchen.
I settled on making the format of this collection to be a simple three ring binder with all the pages in sheet protectors in order to prevent the damage that comes from having it open while busy in the kitchen. The splatter from the little mixer mishap could just be wiped off in a moment. Also I wanted to make this book so it could sit open on any book holder and the print to be large and bold enough to be seen while on the counter some distance away. The .doc files are in the large print format if
you want
to print the recipes in that option.
This recipe collection is a legacy of sorts for my children. It is all about the smells and tastes that trigger the happy memories of a holiday or Sunday dinner. My hope was that with this collection of recipes they could make the same dishes that they enjoyed growing up.
My children would not have to spend years trying to find a few good recipes. They will have their Grandma Pat's baked beans or pickles recipe which were so often associated with the family gatherings.
Here are some of our favorites so far.
Over the years I had been using recipes less and cooking many meals by sight, and knowing the recipes by heart. In order to give my family the recipes, that meant stopping and actually measuring and writing it all down.
That point was driven home when my son had been invited to a cookout and wanted to make Grandma's baked beans for it. We were on the phone and I was attempting to walk him though it and said, ‘Just envision enough to fill the palm of your hand’. His response of “You’re kidding, right?”
Shortly afterward, my daughter wanted to know how to make the Pina Colada filling for our Christmas bread so I began to rattle off the list of the ingredients, she finally told me she would just about have to follow me during the making of it with a video camera since I couldn’t say the measurements of the ingredients.
It took some time but eventually the old favorites had measurements taken and written down and new favorites have been added over
time.
After printing up notebooks of the recipes for all of our family, I realized that it would be good to have the recipes online so they could use their phones to double check for any needed ingredients while at the store.
Just making the simple everyday meals for your family can be a pleasure, being more about the love that you share than adding some obscure ingredients.
A lifetime of home-style cooking that reflected the simplicity of the rural midwest farm areas we lived in is gathered here.
By serving often the foods that the family enjoyed and caring attention to the taste it was creating a sense of family continuity with each repeat.
