Image 1 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 2 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 3 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 4 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 5 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 6 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 7 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 8 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 9 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 10 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 11 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 12 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 13 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 14 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 15 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 16 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 17 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 18 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 19 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]
Image 20 — "What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

"What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Tuesday! Welcome to another week of fun cookbooks

This is “What's for Dinner Tonight?” from the Fox Hill Elementary School in Indianapolis, Indiana!

Or wait… is it the Fox Hill Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri?

Or maybe, could it be the one in Watford City, North Dakota?

Or perhaps-

Nah I’m kidding, it’s the one in Indianapolis. While the book doesn’t explicitly say it, there is a drawing of a fox named Phineas on one of the pages. It just so happens that Phineas the fox is still the present mascot of Fox Hill Elementary in Indianapolis

However, what we definitely don’t know is what year this came out. Exciting!! 🫩 For what it’s worth, I did try looking up some of the names but the recipe contributors aren’t identified by adults but rather by the children who attended the school. It is very hard to find out a lot of information about where people attended school when most of the children listed in the book are reasonably still alive, but if anyone wants to try and shout out a year, be my guest!

By the way, this is the first book of a few that was graciously donated by u/Neakhanie, so a huge shout out to them!

Most of the recipes outlandishin this book seem to lean more towards the simplistic side. This tends to be the case with a lot of children’s organization cookbooks, so I suspect that the recipes are purposely curated to be kid-approved. That or maybe the children got to pick the recipes that they brought. Either way, Erica Cleaver’s recipe probably would raise a few brows today based on the title 😵‍💫

I also love the salad recipe that’s just called The Salad. I’m curious how many times the person who wrote that recipe would volunteer to bring “the salad” to functions. Doesn’t sound bad, though. Bacon is always a win in my book

Strangely interested in the Spinach New Orleans particularly because I’m a fan of stuffing and am always looking for an excuse to make it more often. It’s a combination of ingredients that would be very unique to my taste buds, but I’m not against trying it

I love the “Moose” in a Minute idea and hello?? That Lemon Yogurt Pie sounds so good, I must make that 🫣

All in all, I always enjoy looking through these and if you managed to make it this far I’m sure you feel the same. Have fun browsing and sound off in the comments below as always! See you around

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 2 days ago

"What's for Dinner Tonight?" [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Tuesday! Welcome to another week of fun cookbooks

This is “What's for Dinner Tonight?” from the Fox Hill Elementary School in Indianapolis, Indiana!

Or wait… is it the Fox Hill Elementary School in Kansas City, Missouri?

Or maybe, could it be the one in Watford City, North Dakota?

Or perhaps-

Nah I’m kidding, it’s the one in Indianapolis. While the book doesn’t explicitly say it, there is a drawing of a fox named Phineas on one of the pages. It just so happens that Phineas the fox is still the present mascot of Fox Hill Elementary in Indianapolis

However, what we definitely don’t know is what year this came out. Exciting!! 🫩 For what it’s worth, I did try looking up some of the names but the recipe contributors aren’t identified by adults but rather by the children who attended the school. It is very hard to find out a lot of information about where people attended school when most of the children listed in the book are reasonably still alive, but if anyone wants to try and shout out a year, be my guest!

By the way, this is the first book of a few that was graciously donated by u/Neakhanie, so a huge shout out to them!

Most of the recipes outlandishin this book seem to lean more towards the simplistic side. This tends to be the case with a lot of children’s organization cookbooks, so I suspect that the recipes are purposely curated to be kid-approved. That or maybe the children got to pick the recipes that they brought. Either way, Erica Cleaver’s recipe probably would raise a few brows today based on the title 😵‍💫

I also love the salad recipe that’s just called The Salad. I’m curious how many times the person who wrote that recipe would volunteer to bring “the salad” to functions. Doesn’t sound bad, though. Bacon is always a win in my book

Strangely interested in the Spinach New Orleans particularly because I’m a fan of stuffing and am always looking for an excuse to make it more often. It’s a combination of ingredients that would be very unique to my taste buds, but I’m not against trying it

I love the “Moose” in a Minute idea and hello?? That Lemon Yogurt Pie sounds so good, I must make that 🫣

All in all, I always enjoy looking through these and if you managed to make it this far I’m sure you feel the same. Have fun browsing and sound off in the comments below as always! See you around

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 2 days ago

Recipe Card Batch: Apple Pie, Butter Scotch Pie, Custard Pie, Graham Cracker Pie Crust, Lemon Pie, Pumpkin Pie, Raisin Pie

Hello everyone!

Today I bring forth some recipe cards. As stated before, my recipe card collection consists of recipes from family members and recipes from total strangers. The latter comes in the form of collections I’ve bought online, or just random recipe cards that I’ve found inside cookbooks I’ve bought

Today’s cards come from a collection that I bought from ebay. Informally, I am calling the collection that all of these cards are from the “big ol bag” collection, because I’m just so creative when it comes to naming collections. See that bag on the last slide? Whether or not you’ll come to like this person’s recipes, you’ll be seeing a lot of them because that bag contains FOUR HUNDRED cards. This person could’ve wrote a whole cookbook

It might seem weird to some of you, but I’m going to include an image of which bag/box the recipe cards I post each time because someone out there might care which recipes are from the same person rather than just viewing an entire catalog of recipe cards without knowing which ones came from where. While I know absolutely nothing about the person behind these cards, you can learn a thing or two about a person based on their recipe cards. I’ll do my best to keep my card uploads organized by collection so that way anyone who cares about that kind of thing won’t have to stress later on

And because I know nothing about the person who wrote these, I can’t really answer any questions about the recipes themselves. These recipes don’t all have instructions attached, but since this person wrote these for their own personal use, they probably already knew how to cook the pies and didn’t need to give themselves instruction on every recipe. Since none of these pies are unique in concept, you can compare the cards to recipes online to kind of get an idea how to make them

What I do find interesting is that there are two variations for lemon pie and custard pie. It’s neat to have different versions of the same recipe on hand to see which version is better to serve, in my opinion

While I do love pies, I don’t have a lot of experience in making them, so I don’t have a lot of thoughts about the recipes. But, these are really cool for me to have and they’re equally cool to share. If you never end up using these, at the very least, hopefully it’s fun to see how a specific individual cooked certain things

Transcriptions are in the comments below!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 3 days ago

(500+ PAGES) Cooking Across Georgia II (2005) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Sunday!

This is Cooking Across Georgia II. Cooking Across Georgia I probably exists somewhere, but I haven't come across it yet

The main appeal of the book, as already stressed by the title, is that it's over 500 pages long 😵‍💫 this is the community cookbook version of “how to cook everything”, because while some pages only have 1 recipe, a good amount of them have 2. By my estimation, there are definitely over 700+ recipes. This is my longest upload to date, but I'm so excited to finally have it out on the internet!

Surely this means there are good recipes in here. I took pictures of some of my favorites but due to how long the book is, I didn't have time to scrutinize every recipe to make little observations like I always do in these posts

If the pictures at all intrigue you, it's definitely worse checking out the full cookbook in the comments!

Thank you for stopping by, and I'll see you next time!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 4 days ago

Here's What's Cooking at Unity (1991) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Friday! I am so ready for the weekend 🫠

This is Here’s What’s Cooking in Unity from my side of the world in Olympia, WA. After getting a long string of really interesting cookbooks, this one’s just going to be a run-of-the-mill church one. This shall be a nice dopamine reset

Starting off, I like the green beans with herbs recipe mainly because I always prefer flavored vegetables to plain ones and these seem like solid ingredients to season the beans with. Also, I’m not really a tomato guy but despite that, wouldn’t the Tomato Noodle Soup taste better with condensed tomato soup rather than tomato juice? 😵‍💫 Just my imagination, I suppose

I’m also mildly intrigued by the Chinese Cucumbers. A, because I’m not fully seeing the alleged “Chinese” influence aside from the ginger, and B, because of all the dressed cucumber recipes I’ve seen, this is a new one. I’m so tempted to make this for my mom and grandma but I just don’t know if my grandma would want sweet-flavored cucumber slices. Might be worth keeping in the backlog

The Pumpkin Stew sounds interesting, but hold on, is that a fried rice recipe I see?? With MSG?? Holy moly, I think this is the first time I’ve seen a fried rice recipe in a community cookbook that adds it in there. This is actually a solid recipe, all things considered. Some fried rice recipes in books like these completely deviate from the idea of fried rice as a whole by adding weird stuff

The Key Lime Pie sounds good. Can anyone vouch for it? It seems really simplistic, but if it sounds good I definitely want to try and make it

Lastly, I wanted to include a picture from the coupon section because these are so cool to me especially when they’re fully in-tact. I do like to joke with my mom occasionally about the ones I come across that say “no expiration date”, like, does that mean they could technically take it today? I’m not gonna actually try it don’t worry. I work in customer service, I know not to pull stunts like that lol

Nevertheless, this cookbook was a short one but still as interesting to flip through all the same. I hope you all enjoy/ed looking through it as well! Feel free to shout out your thoughts in the comments and I’ll see you soon!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 6 days ago

Here's What's Cooking at Unity (1991) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

​

Hello everyone and happy Friday! I am so ready for the weekend 🫠

This is Here’s What’s Cooking in Unity from my side of the world in Olympia, WA. After getting a long string of really interesting cookbooks, this one’s just going to be a run-of-the-mill church one. This shall be a nice dopamine reset

Starting off, I like the green beans with herbs recipe mainly because I always prefer flavored vegetables to plain ones and these seem like solid ingredients to season the beans with. Also, I’m not really a tomato guy but despite that, wouldn’t the Tomato Noodle Soup taste better with condensed tomato soup rather than tomato juice? 😵‍💫 Just my imagination, I suppose

I’m also mildly intrigued by the Chinese Cucumbers. A, because I’m not fully seeing the alleged “Chinese” influence aside from the ginger, and B, because of all the dressed cucumber recipes I’ve seen, this is a new one. I’m so tempted to make this for my mom and grandma but I just don’t know if my grandma would want sweet-flavored cucumber slices. Might be worth keeping in the backlog

The Pumpkin Stew sounds interesting, but hold on, is that a fried rice recipe I see?? With MSG?? Holy moly, I think this is the first time I’ve seen a fried rice recipe in a community cookbook that adds it in there. This is actually a solid recipe, all things considered. Some fried rice recipes in books like these completely deviate from the idea of fried rice as a whole by adding weird stuff

The Key Lime Pie sounds good. Can anyone vouch for it? It seems really simplistic, but if it sounds good I definitely want to try and make it

Lastly, I wanted to include a picture from the coupon section because these are so cool to me especially when they’re fully in-tact. I do like to joke with my mom occasionally about the ones I come across that say “no expiration date”, like, does that mean they could technically take it today? I’m not gonna actually try it don’t worry. I work in customer service, I know not to pull stunts like that lol

Nevertheless, this cookbook was a short one but still as interesting to flip through all the same. I hope you all enjoy/ed looking through it as well! Feel free to shout out your thoughts in the comments and I’ll see you soon!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 6 days ago

Traffic Stoppers (1988) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Wednesday! Two uploads nearly back to back? I'm killing it 🫣

This is Traffic Stoppers from the Washington State Patrol. While the community cookbooks are commonly referred to as “church cookbooks”, there was a time when it felt like every organization had a cookbook. So it's really not a shock to me that even law enforcement agencies had them. Maybe one day someone will come across an IRS cookbook or an FBI cookbook 😵‍💫

Joking aside, what are the recipes like? I first noticed the bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, but to Jackie they are “Angels on Horseback”. A very interesting name considering that if you Google Angels on Horseback, people use that to refer to OYSTERS wrapped in bacon. I wonder if this confused anyone at the function. The Beef Foldovers sound really good though

Not a whole lot of opinions from me because this book doesn’t have a whole lot of groundbreaking stuff, and aside from the interesting seafood recipes, a lot of the meat section leans towards standard 80’s cooking

I did, naturally, find intrigue in the desserts section. The Bark Candy Cookies sound good, although I’d be a bit worried about storing them in the fridge because I feel like that would soften them

The brownies also have me intrigued because it makes use of chocolate syrup. Part of me wants to try it but I have a tried and true brownie recipe that my family already loves so I think they’d hate me if I deviated from it. Curious about the results if anyone else tries it though!

Call me crazy, but the Zucchini Candy sounds kind of cool. I can’t try this at the moment because I don’t have a dehydrator and I think my mom will kill me if I try to bring another appliance into the house, but it’s an idea I haven’t seen until now and that’s what I like about it. Another idea I stumbled across is the Pinto Bean Pie. You can’t see it unless you check out the full book, but the contributor said it tastes like Pecan Pie

I’ll let the rest of the pics speak for themselves, but hopefully you all found something in this cookbook that you enjoyed! If nothing else, getting to check out the pages is pretty fun. I’ll see you in the next post!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 8 days ago

Traffic Stoppers (1988) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Wednesday! Two uploads nearly back to back? I'm killing it 🫣

This is Traffic Stoppers from the Washington State Patrol. While the community cookbooks are commonly referred to as “church cookbooks”, there was a time when it felt like every organization had a cookbook. So it's really not a shock to me that even law enforcement agencies had them. Maybe one day someone will come across an IRS cookbook or an FBI cookbook 😵‍💫

Joking aside, what are the recipes like? I first noticed the bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, but to Jackie they are “Angels on Horseback”. A very interesting name considering that if you Google Angels on Horseback, people use that to refer to OYSTERS wrapped in bacon. I wonder if this confused anyone at the function. The Beef Foldovers sound really good though

Not a whole lot of opinions from me because this book doesn’t have a whole lot of groundbreaking stuff, and aside from the interesting seafood recipes, a lot of the meat section leans towards standard 80’s cooking

I did, naturally, find intrigue in the desserts section. The Bark Candy Cookies sound good, although I’d be a bit worried about storing them in the fridge because I feel like that would soften them

The brownies also have me intrigued because it makes use of chocolate syrup. Part of me wants to try it but I have a tried and true brownie recipe that my family already loves so I think they’d hate me if I deviated from it. Curious about the results if anyone else tries it though!

Call me crazy, but the Zucchini Candy sounds kind of cool. I can’t try this at the moment because I don’t have a dehydrator and I think my mom will kill me if I try to bring another appliance into the house, but it’s an idea I haven’t seen until now and that’s what I like about it. Another idea I stumbled across is the Pinto Bean Pie. You can’t see it unless you check out the full book, but the contributor said it tastes like Pecan Pie

I’ll let the rest of the pics speak for themselves, but hopefully you all found something in this cookbook that you enjoyed! If nothing else, getting to check out the pages is pretty fun. I’ll see you in the next post!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 8 days ago

The Wood Stove [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Monday! I hope we’re starting off the week with a bang!

This is The Wood Stove. I have a fun and not so fun fact about this book. The not so fun fact is that there is no publication year or official location of where this book was published. The introduction of the book says that some of the recipes were gathered in the many parts of the world where Weyerhaeuser people live, and with such an exotic name I’m assuming they’re referring to The Weyerhaeuser Company, a timber company headquartered in Washington state

There are a few references to cities in Washington, so I’m willing to believe that’s where most of the contributors lived at the time, but it doesn’t really help because Weyerhaeuser has notable locations in Seattle, Tacoma, and Federal Way. For anyone who doesn’t live in Washington, those are three distinct cities. So I can’t pinpoint an exact spot

There’s not a whole lot of hints on the inside of the book as far as when it could’ve been produced. I do know some of you sleuths like looking up obituaries to try and narrow down a decade at least, so be my guest if that’s what you wanna try. The formatting is similar to a couple of 80’s books that I have, but I don’t want to be too confident in guessing

The fun fact though is that every recipe here has the contributor’s name printed in what I assume is their own handwriting, so it’s almost like you’re getting autographed recipes lol. This isn’t as cool as the book of entirely handwritten recipes that I posted, but it’s kind of a neat detail nonetheless

Onto the recipes! The very first one I had to stop and read is the “Sin Fizz”. An excellent breakfast for the morning after. The morning after what, Bob? 🤨 Jokes aside, if you’ve ever wanted a boozy Orange Julius, this is probably the way to go

Jo has the right idea with the cream cheese appetizer. Soy sauce and sesame seeds are a good combo, and I’m sure the saltiness would go well with cream cheese. Crackers of choice would probably be rice crackers

One thing that I’m really appreciating about this cookbook is that the recipes seem to have little memos and stories attached to them, which I love to see because while it is nice to have fun recipes, I also like knowing where the recipes came from or when the contributor liked serving it. I’m a huge fan of backstories

I’m also kind of a fan of that Baked Chili Casserole recipe. I would need to see this made in action to trust if it turns out as well as it reads, but all the ingredients together don’t sound that bad

Because this is a shorter cookbook, I don’t have a whole lot of thoughts, but this was still a fun one to flip through! Hopefully you feel the same. Thank you for stopping by, and I’ll catch you in the next scan!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 10 days ago

The Wood Stove [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Monday! I hope we’re starting off the week with a bang!

This is The Wood Stove. I have a fun and not so fun fact about this book. The not so fun fact is that there is no publication year or official location of where this book was published. The introduction of the book says that some of the recipes were gathered in the many parts of the world where Weyerhaeuser people live, and with such an exotic name I’m assuming they’re referring to The Weyerhaeuser Company, a timber company headquartered in Washington state

There are a few references to cities in Washington, so I’m willing to believe that’s where most of the contributors lived at the time, but it doesn’t really help because Weyerhaeuser has notable locations in Seattle, Tacoma, and Federal Way. For anyone who doesn’t live in Washington, those are three distinct cities. So I can’t pinpoint an exact spot

There’s not a whole lot of hints on the inside of the book as far as when it could’ve been produced. I do know some of you sleuths like looking up obituaries to try and narrow down a decade at least, so be my guest if that’s what you wanna try. The formatting is similar to a couple of 80’s books that I have, but I don’t want to be too confident in guessing

The fun fact though is that every recipe here has the contributor’s name printed in what I assume is their own handwriting, so it’s almost like you’re getting autographed recipes lol. This isn’t as cool as the book of entirely handwritten recipes that I posted, but it’s kind of a neat detail nonetheless

Onto the recipes! The very first one I had to stop and read is the “Sin Fizz”. An excellent breakfast for the morning after. The morning after what, Bob? 🤨 Jokes aside, if you’ve ever wanted a boozy Orange Julius, this is probably the way to go

Jo has the right idea with the cream cheese appetizer. Soy sauce and sesame seeds are a good combo, and I’m sure the saltiness would go well with cream cheese. Crackers of choice would probably be rice crackers

One thing that I’m really appreciating about this cookbook is that the recipes seem to have little memos and stories attached to them, which I love to see because while it is nice to have fun recipes, I also like knowing where the recipes came from or when the contributor liked serving it. I’m a huge fan of backstories

I’m also kind of a fan of that Baked Chili Casserole recipe. I would need to see this made in action to trust if it turns out as well as it reads, but all the ingredients together don’t sound that bad

Because this is a shorter cookbook, I don’t have a whole lot of thoughts, but this was still a fun one to flip through! Hopefully you feel the same. Thank you for stopping by, and I’ll catch you in the next scan!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 10 days ago

Community Cook Book (Hanover Library) (1978) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Sunday!

Today’s scan is a return to form as I uploaded a book from my own collection. This is Community Cook Book. Perhaps not the most exciting name, but at least the drawing is pretty cool!

I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to figure out where this cookbook came from because the book doesn’t say the state it’s from and there just so happens to be several cities named Hanover in North America, including one in Canada. But I was able to figure it out really easily because the librarian listed at the beginning, “Mrs. Robert Springer”, whose actual name is Judy Springer, has an obituary online and it confirmed that she was married to a Robert Springer and was the librarian for over 40 years in the public library of Hanover, Kansas

She sounded like a truly remarkable woman and she passed away in 2024. Deep condolences to her family

Getting into the recipes themselves, the cookbook starts off with a lot of gelatin salads so I’m assuming this was a pretty big thing for the contributors. I also came across some salads I’ve never seen before, such as the Macaroni Fruit Salad. I remember my family making that one rice dessert that’s cooked rice, cool whip, and pineapple. I’ve never been a fan but I do know that a starch and cool whip can go together, so i imagine this recipe would probably hold up well even if not everyone would like it

The Spanish Rice instantly caught my attention. Mustard in spanish rice. That’s definitely a new one

The late Judy Springer has a few recipes in this book, and I definitely wanted to highlight the chicken casserole with biscuits because that sounds amazing. As someone who grew up on frozen chicken pot pies, I would never say no to putting dough over chicken

The Macaroni Pizza also sounds pretty interesting. I’ve never seen a preparation like that either, and I’m very confident that I would like it, as long as I have permission to also add pepperoni

The Peanut Butter Pie is one I also wanted to point out because I’m so used to seeing it made with cream cheese and I’ve only seen maybe two other recipes that don’t call for it. This is definitely a unique way to prepare it, but I think I’d still prefer the popular version of the recipe. I am adding the Peanut Mallow Bars recipe to my list of treats I want to make. Those sound very good

Overall, this cookbook is small but it features a surprising amount of recipes that I haven’t seen, which always makes for a fun reading experience. Hopefully you find some enjoyment in this book as well. If you have any thoughts, feel free to shout them out in the comments! I will see you in the next scan

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 11 days ago

Community Cook Book (Hanover Library) (1978) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Sunday!

Today’s scan is a return to form as I uploaded a book from my own collection. This is Community Cook Book. Perhaps not the most exciting name, but at least the drawing is pretty cool!

I was so worried that I wouldn’t be able to figure out where this cookbook came from because the book doesn’t say the state it’s from and there just so happens to be several cities named Hanover in North America, including one in Canada. But I was able to figure it out really easily because the librarian listed at the beginning, “Mrs. Robert Springer”, whose actual name is Judy Springer, has an obituary online and it confirmed that she was married to a Robert Springer and was the librarian for over 40 years in the public library of Hanover, Kansas

She sounded like a truly remarkable woman and she passed away in 2024. Deep condolences to her family

Getting into the recipes themselves, the cookbook starts off with a lot of gelatin salads so I’m assuming this was a pretty big thing for the contributors. I also came across some salads I’ve never seen before, such as the Macaroni Fruit Salad. I remember my family making that one rice dessert that’s cooked rice, cool whip, and pineapple. I’ve never been a fan but I do know that a starch and cool whip can go together, so i imagine this recipe would probably hold up well even if not everyone would like it

The Spanish Rice instantly caught my attention. Mustard in spanish rice. That’s definitely a new one

The late Judy Springer has a few recipes in this book, and I definitely wanted to highlight the chicken casserole with biscuits because that sounds amazing. As someone who grew up on frozen chicken pot pies, I would never say no to putting dough over chicken

The Macaroni Pizza also sounds pretty interesting. I’ve never seen a preparation like that either, and I’m very confident that I would like it, as long as I have permission to also add pepperoni

The Peanut Butter Pie is one I also wanted to point out because I’m so used to seeing it made with cream cheese and I’ve only seen maybe two other recipes that don’t call for it. This is definitely a unique way to prepare it, but I think I’d still prefer the popular version of the recipe. I am adding the Peanut Mallow Bars recipe to my list of treats I want to make. Those sound very good

Overall, this cookbook is small but it features a surprising amount of recipes that I haven’t seen, which always makes for a fun reading experience. Hopefully you find some enjoyment in this book as well. If you have any thoughts, feel free to shout them out in the comments! I will see you in the next scan

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 11 days ago

The Village Cookery (1995) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Saturday!

We are so back. I finally have a scan to share again and I’m so happy to be getting back into the swing of things after a couple solid weeks of craziness. Let’s get hyped up for today’s upload!

This is The Village Cookery which comes from a retirement home community in Alabama. This is yet another book that is on loan to me from the collection of u/madmun! I remember seeing this on ebay and getting really excited because I thought this was going to be some down-home, amish kind of cooking, but it’s unfortunately not that. It is, however, a cookbook that was published by General Publishing and Binding, and don’t ask me why, but cookbooks from this publisher specifically always seem to be of really high quality

Starting off, the Redneck Caviar seems kind of interesting. Never had caviar but I’m always fascinated by people’s attempts to try and make a more budget-friendly version. Something I am familiar with though is fried pickles, and I’m glad to see a recipe for it

And as someone who loves flavored teas, the Almond Tea also sounds very nice. I love the little hint at the bottom. Lemon peel in ice cubes don’t make drinks tangy or zesty or sour or refreshing - just “interesting”. Love that 😵‍💫

To this day I still get gelatin salads that manage to surprise me 😭 what is that Crisp Summer Salad? This probably wouldn’t be a bad recipe if you just used sugar and lemon juice in place of jello. Love that I have permission to use either lemon or lime jello, I like having options when it comes to encasing raw onion and radish into my gelatin. You could probably use orange gelatin too if you want, why stop at just two options 🫪

Joking aside, this cookbook does have a lot of good recipes, or at least recipes that are very unique. The Tomato Pudding is something I haven’t seen before, but honestly, I don’t think I would hate it that much if I tried it

I’m noticing a lot of southern influence with this being Alabama, and I’m sure by now you guys know how I feel about the exciting regional differences that come through in books like these. In case it’s not clear enough in the pictures, it’s definitely clear enough in the full book

I love the little story behind the Peppermint Fruit Roll! I wish more anecdotes like this would be attached to recipes

The Chocolate Pizza sounds really fun to make, but I’m really curious how a bar recipe became known as a “pizza” aside from the fact that you can make this in a pizza pan. I’m probably leaning more towards using a 9x13 for this, but that’s just because if I’m going to make desserts like that I prefer the bars to be a little thicker. No idea where you can find green maraschino cherries. They look very pretty, but it doesn’t look like any of my local stores stock them. I didn’t even know they existed before today. I’m also interested in trying the Rum Custard

And my sweet tooth is really liking the Strawberry Butter mainly because I know how to make honey butter and why has it never occurred to me that you can make this with jam instead? 😵‍💫 I want to say that this would be a great accompaniment for corn bread but I recently learned that corn bread in the south is very different from the north, so before any Alabama residents come for me, I’m used to the “cakey” version of corn bread 🥴

Last thing I wanted to point out is that this cookbook also has a dedicated hints section, like 20 pages of household and cooking hints, and as someone who has a small collection of dedicated hint books, some of these are ones I’ve never seen before which makes them really cool to me. I hope that’s something you get around to checking out

Other than that, please enjoy the pictures and/or the full cookbook down below and I’ll be sure to see you around for the next book I share!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 12 days ago

The Village Cookery (1995) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Saturday!

We are so back. I finally have a scan to share again and I’m so happy to be getting back into the swing of things after a couple solid weeks of craziness. Let’s get hyped up for today’s upload!

This is The Village Cookery which comes from a retirement home community in Alabama. This is yet another book that is on loan to me from the collection of u/madmun! I remember seeing this on ebay and getting really excited because I thought this was going to be some down-home, amish kind of cooking, but it’s unfortunately not that. It is, however, a cookbook that was published by General Publishing and Binding, and don’t ask me why, but cookbooks from this publisher specifically always seem to be of really high quality

Starting off, the Redneck Caviar seems kind of interesting. Never had caviar but I’m always fascinated by people’s attempts to try and make a more budget-friendly version. Something I am familiar with though is fried pickles, and I’m glad to see a recipe for it

And as someone who loves flavored teas, the Almond Tea also sounds very nice. I love the little hint at the bottom. Lemon peel in ice cubes don’t make drinks tangy or zesty or sour or refreshing - just “interesting”. Love that 😵‍💫

To this day I still get gelatin salads that manage to surprise me 😭 what is that Crisp Summer Salad? This probably wouldn’t be a bad recipe if you just used sugar and lemon juice in place of jello. Love that I have permission to use either lemon or lime jello, I like having options when it comes to encasing raw onion and radish into my gelatin. You could probably use orange gelatin too if you want, why stop at just two options 🫪

Joking aside, this cookbook does have a lot of good recipes, or at least recipes that are very unique. The Tomato Pudding is something I haven’t seen before, but honestly, I don’t think I would hate it that much if I tried it

I’m noticing a lot of southern influence with this being Alabama, and I’m sure by now you guys know how I feel about the exciting regional differences that come through in books like these. In case it’s not clear enough in the pictures, it’s definitely clear enough in the full book

I love the little story behind the Peppermint Fruit Roll! I wish more anecdotes like this would be attached to recipes

The Chocolate Pizza sounds really fun to make, but I’m really curious how a bar recipe became known as a “pizza” aside from the fact that you can make this in a pizza pan. I’m probably leaning more towards using a 9x13 for this, but that’s just because if I’m going to make desserts like that I prefer the bars to be a little thicker. No idea where you can find green maraschino cherries. They look very pretty, but it doesn’t look like any of my local stores stock them. I didn’t even know they existed before today. I’m also interested in trying the Rum Custard

And my sweet tooth is really liking the Strawberry Butter mainly because I know how to make honey butter and why has it never occurred to me that you can make this with jam instead? 😵‍💫 I want to say that this would be a great accompaniment for corn bread but I recently learned that corn bread in the south is very different from the north, so before any Alabama residents come for me, I’m used to the “cakey” version of corn bread 🥴

Last thing I wanted to point out is that this cookbook also has a dedicated hints section, like 20 pages of household and cooking hints, and as someone who has a small collection of dedicated hint books, some of these are ones I’ve never seen before which makes them really cool to me. I hope that’s something you get around to checking out

Other than that, please enjoy the pictures and/or the full cookbook down below and I’ll be sure to see you around for the next book I share!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 12 days ago

Two more recipes from my great aunt, as written by my grandma: Coconut Cake and 5 Hour Stew

Hello everyone and happy Thursday!

Last week I shared some recipe cards from my grandma as well as all the little stories that came with them. Thank you all so much for all the upvotes and comments on that post. I was a little worried that posting about my own grandmother’s anecdotes might come off as pretentious, but I’m glad that it was able to bring you guys entertainment and (hopefully) inspiration as well

Today I just wanted to share the last two recipe cards that my grandma has that are recipes from her older sister, Sharlene, who I’ll re-iterate passed in 2019. The only person in the family that has the rest of her recipes are one of her daughters, and not only is she not very connected with our family, but I personally have only talked to her about twice in my life, so I think she’d be a little weirded out if I randomly asked her to look at her mom’s recipe cards lol

As said, my grandma and Sharlene were very big on cooking shows and magazines (my grandma still watches cooking shows even though she doesn’t cook anymore), so it is 95% likely that these recipes probably aren’t her own and they just came from a newspaper or something. Still, I think it’s a little nice to share a card that my grandma wrote down, because to write a recipe down means that you cared about it at one point

The two recipes are of course, the 5 Hour Stew and the Coconut Cake. My grandma doesn’t remember anything about the stew, but she used to make the Coconut Cake for my aunt every year on her birthday because she thought it was her favorite, until one day my aunt told her that it wasn’t her favorite. A nice gesture nonetheless!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 14 days ago

Star-Spangled Recipes (2007) [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Tuesday!

This is Star-Spangled Recipes, from the collection of u/madmun!

Since this is a smaller cookbook, there’s not a whole lot of opportunity for unique and exciting recipes, but I did my best to highlight what I could. The cornbread salad sounds mildly interesting, for starters

Both the Chicken Casserole and Honey and Spice Barbecue Chicken sound good, and that’s a rarity for me to say because I’m kinda picky when it comes to entrees. I’m a huge fan of Stove Top though, so I will gladly accept it even in casserole form lol I’ve also seen the Italian Crescent Casserole before and it sounds absolutely amazing

Love the idea of the Chocolate Sundae Cake, and naturally the Dirt Cake is an absolute classic that I would like to try to make at some point. The Reese’s Cup Pie also sounds so simple and quite good!

Hopefully you guys found some interesting recipes via the pictures, but if not, you can always check out the full PDF down below in the comments! Thank you for reading and I’ll see you in my next post!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 14 days ago

Two recipes from my grandma’s neighbor, Florence Flintoff: Spaghetti Sauce and Peanut Crunchies

Florence lived from 1921 to 2011 and was the next door neighbor to my grandma. I have very vague memories of her. I know I went over to her house and visited her when I was little, and I do remember she was nice, but I don't remember much beyond that

These recipes were passed out during her memorial. Even though she died in 2011, I can assure you these recipes had been used for decades before her passing because Florence was known for this spaghetti sauce by her entire family. Florence used to host dinners and this was always the top pick

The peanut crunchies were also a hit I'm sure. I have never seen this recipe before but they sound really good

I wish I had other recipes of hers to share but unfortunately this was all that was given out upon her death. Hopefully these are worthy to somebody because they are now preserved for future generations

Thanks for checking this out!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 18 days ago

Alpha Kappa Cooks [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Saturday! Welcome back to another book upload

Today’s scan is Alpha Kappa Cooks, and the organization that made this one comes from an educator’s sorority. There’s no year of publication, but the first page is dedicated to the metric system, so I think that should give you a solid clue of a potential range of years

Before anyone looks at the PDF, yes some of the pages are wildly different sizes and I’m really not sure why and there are 6 pages missing from the actual book, those being Page 9-10, 143-144, and 179-180, so naturally they’re also missing from the PDF. Rest in peace to the recipes we’ve lost as a result

Before we get any further, this is another book from the collection of u/madmun. Just wanting to shout out credit where it’s due!

Trying to make the most out of the situation, there are some pretty cool recipes in here, starting off with the Dips for Fresh Strawberries. I like the idea of the Orange-Cream one, personally

The German Punch also jumped out at me because I haven’t seen such a mixture of flavors before. Grape juice, ginger ale, and grapefruit juice are probably good, it’s the cider that is definitely going to introduce a unique profile. Can’t knock it till I try it, though. Anyone wanna drink some punch with me so I can justify making a large batch of drinks?

Would you believe that I’ve gone about 20 scans without mentioning a jello salad? I try to stay quiet, but the Lime Vegetable Salad really needs to be addressed 🫠. Why are we mixing lime jello with ONION of all things

I was almost in shock when I saw the Orange Sherbert Salad which is more my kind of jello salad, but like, are we sure that’s the recipe, Candy? We don’t want to add cottage cheese or celery or cheddar cheese?

The lemon cheese cake sounds really good. My mom’s birthday is coming up and she wants a lemon dessert so naturally I’ve been spotting lemon things left and right lol

Overall I found this one to be an interesting cookbook. Sound off your thoughts in the comments as always, and I’ll catch you in the next post!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 19 days ago

Alpha Kappa Cooks [FULL BOOK IN COMMENTS]

Hello everyone and happy Saturday! Welcome back to another book upload

Today’s scan is Alpha Kappa Cooks, and the organization that made this one comes from an educator’s sorority. There’s no year of publication, but the first page is dedicated to the metric system, so I think that should give you a solid clue of a potential range of years

Before anyone looks at the PDF, yes some of the pages are wildly different sizes and I’m really not sure why and there are 6 pages missing from the actual book, those being Page 9-10, 143-144, and 179-180, so naturally they’re also missing from the PDF. Rest in peace to the recipes we’ve lost as a result

Before we get any further, this is another book from the collection of u/madmun. Just wanting to shout out credit where it’s due!

Trying to make the most out of the situation, there are some pretty cool recipes in here, starting off with the Dips for Fresh Strawberries. I like the idea of the Orange-Cream one, personally

The German Punch also jumped out at me because I haven’t seen such a mixture of flavors before. Grape juice, ginger ale, and grapefruit juice are probably good, it’s the cider that is definitely going to introduce a unique profile. Can’t knock it till I try it, though. Anyone wanna drink some punch with me so I can justify making a large batch of drinks?

Would you believe that I’ve gone about 20 scans without mentioning a jello salad? I try to stay quiet, but the Lime Vegetable Salad really needs to be addressed 🫠. Why are we mixing lime jello with ONION of all things

I was almost in shock when I saw the Orange Sherbert Salad which is more my kind of jello salad, but like, are we sure that’s the recipe, Candy? We don’t want to add cottage cheese or celery or cheddar cheese?

The lemon cheese cake sounds really good. My mom’s birthday is coming up and she wants a lemon dessert so naturally I’ve been spotting lemon things left and right lol

Overall I found this one to be an interesting cookbook. Sound off your thoughts in the comments as always, and I’ll catch you in the next post!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 19 days ago

Some of my grandma Wanda's handwritten recipes, and the little stories and tips I learned from her

Immediately when you tell people that you have a grandmother with recipe cards, the first reaction that you might get is “oh that’s so cool! I bet she cooked some wonderful stuff for you”

And, well, um 😶. My grandma is definitely a fanatic when it comes to food, but she’s always been more of an eater than a cook. She’s also quite adventurous at that. I can still remember very vividly when she said she’s never had garlic and ice cream together, “although it would probably be a fabulous combination”. Can’t say I’m agreeing with her on that 🫠

By the time I came along, my grandfather had passed away and my grandma wasn’t cooking much. On top of that, she’s always been a huge socialite up until just a few years ago, so her cooking was less “Sunday dinner with the family” and more “appetizers I’m going to bring to the party”. Stuff that my grandma did make me are things that don’t warrant a recipe card, like steak salad (leftover steak strips over a Caesar Salad kit) and packaged bacon strips

Why am I bringing all of this up? When I decided to dedicate myself to archiving all the recipes that I do, I realized that it would be important to also archive family recipes. I knew I wanted to start archiving recipe cards, and I specifically wanted to start out with my family

The roadblock is, after looking through my grandma’s recipes, there’s not a single thing in her collection that she’s ever made me and even my mom doesn’t recognize some of them, so I can’t relate to these recipes on a personal level. But I also didn’t want to just post random recipe cards from her without any context, because sometimes a recipe’s meaning comes from the story behind it. It didn’t feel right to share recipes she had in her collection while also saying “yeah, I don’t know if she ever cooked these” 😵‍💫

So while I did promise recipe card uploads a couple of weeks ago, I want to thank everyone for being patient while I worked on this blog. My dear grandma is 87 and gets confused/distracted easily, so getting her to understand that I wanted to know the stories behind her recipe cards took a few patient tries on my part

These aren’t all of her recipe cards, but as I sat down and talked with her about them, the ones I’m sharing in these blog have the most stories behind them, and are ones that she's actually cooked/tried. And don’t worry, for the people who can’t decipher her handwriting, I have provided transcriptions in the comments because recipes are educational and education should be accessible to everyone 🙂‍↕️

Also, for anyone curious, yes, the pictures I added of her in this blog are recent! Aside from the obvious one where she’s visibly younger

Almond Roca - When I asked my grandma about this one she said that this recipe was the one that she made for all the men in her life, but she also made it for one of her sisters and my aunt and they both liked it too. While she doesn’t make this one anymore, she used to make it a lot

Apple Squares - This one came from her older sister Shar (pictured in slide 16, 1937-2019). According to my grandma, it was her sister who used to make these a lot, but my grandma did make these for the wedding shower in the note. Jerry is my grandmother’s late husband (pictured in slide 15, 1941-1998). He and my grandmother had a very strong marriage, so it was important to my grandma to note when he liked something she made. A cute little anecdote, instead of telling my grandma that he didn’t like something she made, my grandfather always said “you don’t have to go through the trouble of making it again”

Baked Beans - Another one from her sister Shar. My grandma said this one is an easy one, and also mentioned that the trick is to not fry the bacon too crispy. She wrote cider vinegar on the card because my grandma is a strong believer in apple cider vinegar, and she told me that any time vinegar is called for in a recipe to just use apple cider vinegar, and she also says it can be used in place of lemon or lime juice in a recipe, at least in her personal experience

Cocktail Sauce - My grandma either believes she came up with it or she adapted it to her liking

Crab Dip - My grandma knows she made this one at some point but doesn't remember when. This one comes from Carol Ann, a friend of the family who is still alive to my knowledge. My grandma said you can use real or imitation crab for the recipe, but “real is always better”. Crab is one of my grandma's favorites. She also said that Carol Ann is a good cook, I suppose that means to trust the recipe 😛

Dinner Rolls - This one comes from her friend Lana. Her husband was a golfing buddy to my grandfather, so naturally the wives got acquainted too. They were in a “gal's group” together, my grandma said. These were very popular. A lot of hostesses at gatherings would always ask Lana to make these. My grandma believes this actually could be Lana's own recipe. Ignore the April 2000 date, that's probably when my grandma got the recipe but my grandma knew Lana long before 2000

Fruit Pizza - Despite the recipe saying to use fruit, my grandma said she always made this around Valentine's Day and used cherry pie filling to be festive. This also comes from a family member of hers - Ilene, who would be a distant relative to me.

Fudge - “Old Family Recipe” refers to the fact that this was passed down from my great grandmother Florence (pictured in slide 17, 1918-2016). My grandma calls it the best fudge. It's a lot of work but very worth it. She made it for a lot of years and always had to make it because it was everyone's favorite recipe.

Orange Drink - This one is from my grandma's late neighbor and dear friend Karen. I have very limited memories of Karen outside of the fact that I remember her being very independent. My grandma asked me to walk her home across the street once and Karen refused, insisting that she didn't want to lose her independence. Karen and my grandmother enjoyed gin and tonics together usually but my grandma said vodka in this drink is very good. She says it tastes like an Orange Julius. Can't confirm. Vodka added to anything tastes like hand sanitizer to me 😅 This is also meant to be blended

Popcorn Party Treat - My grandma got this one from an old work friend, and she used to make this one a lot

Pork and Noodles - Another one from her sister Shar. My grandma said this was actually Shar's favorite recipe. Because their parents were frugal, they also grew up to be frugal, so my grandma told me specifically that you can just use cheap pork for it, and also to discard the fat. My grandma said she'd like to make this again, but her energy for cooking isn't what it used to be, so it's hard to say if she ever will

Root Beer Float - Another one from her friend Karen. All my grandma said about this one is that it's a good recipe

And finally, a cooking tip from my grandma! She said any time a recipe calls for garlic to put it in the oven because it's much better than raw garlic (although my grandma is a huge garlic fan and would absolutely eat it raw). Putting it in the oven makes it sweeter and tastier, and she told me that I might learn to love it. Bless my dear grandma, she consistently forgets that my aversion to garlic has nothing to do with taste and everything to do with the fact that it makes me sick. So I'm passing this along because maybe she'll convert a garlic skeptic from a distance 😵‍💫

That brings us to the end of this blog. I was really happy to get a chance to share some family recipes for once, and there’s still going to be some opportunities where I do so in the future. I hope you enjoyed the glimpse of my grandmother’s thoughts and opinions. I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I am thankful that I’m getting some stories from her while she’s still alive

One teensy favor, if you guys do decide to use these recipe cards, it would really make me happy if you let me know how the results turn out. No pressure to do so, it’s just that since these are from my grandma’s collection, it would be nice to know if they had a positive impact on anyone’s day

Thank you so much for stopping by, and I’ll see you in my next post!

u/_Alpha_Mail_ — 20 days ago