Category: BOOKS

Tuesday's Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping

Lemon Sauce
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 1 tablespoon flour+
  • 1/2 cup water
  • 3 tablespoons lemon juice
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon butter
Mix together the flour, sugar and salt. Add the water and beat vigorously. Cook over medium heat for 2 minutes. Add the lemon juice and butter. Cook 2 more minutes. If too thin sprinkle in a bit more Wondra flour until desired consistency is reached. Serve immediately over grilled fish. I grilled Mahi Mahi and it was really delicious.

Recipe (page 253) adapted from ‘A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband’ by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron

Tuesday's Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping

Celery Seed Dressing
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon mustard
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1 teaspoon celery seed
  • 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • 4 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon white vinegar
  • 1 cup salad oil


Blend together in small food processor for 3 minutes. Chill. This is a thick dressing so shake vigorously before serving. I spooned a small portion into a bowl and microwaved it for a few seconds and served it warm. It thins out dramatically when warmed. It was yummy!


Keep bottled in refrigerator

Recipe (page 85) adapted from ‘A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband’ by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron

Tuesday's Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping

White Cakes (cupcakes) and White Mountain Cream Icing

CUP CAKES
1/3 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup milk
2 cups sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon lemon extract
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites, stiffly beaten

Cream the butter, add the sugar and continue creaming. Alternately add the dry ingredients. Add the milk. Beat well and add flavorings. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites. Fill well greased muffin tins 2/3 full or use muffin papers*. Bake 15-18 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from oven to cooling rack for 5 minutes before removing cakes. Carefully remove and cool completely.

ICING
1 cup granulated sugar
1/8 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water
1 egg water

In a saucepan pour the water, sugar and cream of tartar without stirring! Remove from heat as soon as syrup forms strings when dropped from a spoon. Pour very slowly onto the stiffly beaten egg white. Beat vigorously until cool. Add vanilla and blend in. Spread immediately. If icing gets too hard to spread add a little war water and beat again.

*The original recipe calls for baking the entire mix in a 13 x 9 pan on wax paper and then cutting into decorative shapes with fancy cutters after the cake is cooled.

Recipe (page 24) adapted from ‘A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband’ by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron

The Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping



I found this awesome book at a rummage sale a few years ago and it’s just been sitting on the shelf begging to be read, “A Thousand Ways to Please A Husband with Bettina’s Best Recipes”, by Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron. This is a 1932 complete revised edition. It was originally written in 1917.

It appears (I have hardly began to read it, only leafed through it so far) to have been written as a novel of Bettina’s life and interjects the recipes as needed to emphasis the points of the message.

By today’s standards it is obviously outdated, but I found it amusingly quaint and it has some awesome recipes. It’s in like new condition. This too I find amazing, it obviously wasn’t well used. Over the next few weeks, on Tuesdays, I will post several of the more appealing recipes that I’ve adapted to today’s ingredients and standards.

~*~My little Cookbook Corner of the World~*~

Let’s face it, there is no one cookbook for anyone. If you’re like me, you have at least 6 or maybe 60, oh let’s be honest I quit counting a long time ago. I can’t resist browsing through the old books at antique stores. I especially love old church or organization cook books. Some of my favorite recipes originally came from one of those. Many of the pages are dogeared and lots of notes are written in the margins, mostly by me, but the used books sometimes have 2 or 3 people’s writings.

Now the other thing we all do is MODIFY those recipes to our family and their personal preferences. Did you know that all you have to do is make 2 major changes and you can call the recipe your own? or so I’m told.