Category Archives: historical recipes

historical recipes, Recipe book, recipes

Savoury Pancake Recipe for Shrove Tuesday

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Image by Kavinda F from Pixabay

Today is Shrove Tuesday, AKA Pancake Day.

Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent begins, with Ash Wednesday the following day.

Many thanks to Wikipedia for the following information.

The name “Shrove Tuesday” comes from to shrive, meaning absolution following confession. Christians traditionally visit their church on Shrove Tuesday to confess their sins and cleanse their soul before the start of Lent.

Indulging in food that might be given up as a sacrifice for the upcoming forty days of Lent, is associated with Shrove Tuesday.

The Mardi Gras celebrations held, most famously in New Orleans, are a part of this. Mardi Gras is French for Fat Tuesday, so called because of the eating of rich food that will be given up for the duration of Lent.

Many people still observe the day through eating pancakes.

On Shrove Tuesday, churches burn the palms distributed during the previous year’s Palm Sunday liturgies to make the ashes used during the services held on the next day, Ash Wednesday, when a penitential service is held.

The priest puts a cross of ashes (usually from the palm crosses burned the previous day) on the foreheads of the penitents, saying  “From dust you came and to dust you will return.” This is a reminder of mortality and the need to repent of sins.

Lent is a time of remembering Jesus withdrawing to the Wilderness before His arrest and crucifixion. Here He fasted, was tempted by Satan, but held firm.

Christians fast in memory of this event.

But on Shrove Tuesday people eat foods they are going to give up during the 40 days of Lent.

This has come down to us as eating pancakes made from, nowadays, flour, eggs and milk.

Maybe you would like to try something different for your pancakes this year. Often they are served sweet, with sugar and lemon, chocolate spread or other sweet things. My Grandma served a delicious savoury pancake that is also excellent for vegetarians.

Here is the recipe,

Savoury Pancake filling

(Grandma’s recipe)

Pancakes made however you like them, or you can buy unsweetened ones.

Ingredients

125g large open capped mushrooms

2 onions

2 tomatoes

½ x1 teaspoon of sweet herbs (I would guess that this is similar to Herbes de Provence, since you seem to be no longer able to get sweet herbs. I have used Herbes de Provence quite successfully.)

Method

Fry the onion a little and add the mushrooms and tomatoes.

Continue cooking until all vegetables are done, and add salt and pepper to taste.

Serve hot on pancakes, rolled up. 

Are you interested in historical recipes? If so, you might be interested in Viv’s Family Recipes.

This recipe book is the culmination of many years of cooking and baking by the author. She is passionate about food quality and believes that home cooked is best.

She has inherited a recipe book from her mother’s eldest sister and a small one from her grandmother that contains recipes from the turn of the 19th century. She has also included many recipes from other family and friends from many places and times.

It is an interesting look at how our diets have changed over the years as well as our cooking methods. Many of the older recipes are done by long steaming. There are also some interesting ‘Hints and Tips’ from long ago.

The book also has some interesting comments about the people whose recipes appear in the book.

Like to explore more about these recipes? Then click the button below.

Take me to the book store of my choice.

Do you have any favourite pancake recipes? Let us know in the comments.

historical recipes, Recipe book, recipes

Nectar Cakes

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Image by Gasfull from Pixabay

When my son was small, about 6 or 7 years old, he enjoyed eating honey. One day, he suggested making cakes using it and so we came up with the following recipe, which we called Nectar Cakes.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredients

Shortcrust pastry (Home made or bought.)

125g margarine

125g runny honey

125g flour

2 eggs

Method

Roll out the pastry and cut rounds. Place one pastry round in each hole of a bun tin.

Put all the other ingredients into a food processor and blend on high power until creamy.

Put spoonfuls of the mixture into the pastry cases and bake in the oven at 180C for about 15 minutes.

When I was writing my Wolves of Vimar books, Carthinal decided he would enjoy these cakes, and so I had Lillora, Mabryl’s housekeeper, make them. (Mabryl is Carthinal’s teacher of magic.) Carthinal was not above creeping into the kitchen and stealing a few when Lillora wasn’t looking.

(See The Making of a Mage. A Wolves of Vimar prequel.)

In the book that I’m currently editing (Immortal’s Death. Book 4 of The Wolves of Vimar series) Randa, one of the companions who call themselves Wolf, is also partial to these cakes.

I must admit that I don’t blame either one of them. They are yummy, if a bit heavy in the honey.

If you would like to find more recipes from my friends and family, check out Viv’s Family Recipes.

There are a few ancient recipes there as well as modern ones. These give us an insight into how people lived in the early 20th Century. Also the book contains snippets of information about the various recipes and the people who gave them to me.

At the end, there are a few Hints and Tips from the early 20th Century, too. (There were more in the original book I took these from, but many were possible dangerous, so I didn’t include them!) As well as some ancient remedies for coughs and sore throats.

You can get the book in a number of formats from your favourite seller. Just click on the book title in this post.

If you want to find out about the friends who call themselves Wolf, especially Carthinal, you can get the books by clicking on the cover in the sidebar, or the book title above.

They are also in a number of formats and from numerous sellers, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo etc.

If you make these cakes, I would be delighted to hear what you think about them, and possibly see a picture of how they turned out. Leave your comments in the comments box.

Give Away, historical recipes, offers, Recipe book, recipes

Some cleaning hints and tips, and an offer

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Image by ds_30 from Pixabay

Some years ago, I was trying to clean a very greasy surface. I tried all the things on offer in the supermarket that said they ‘cuts through grease’. They made it a bit better, but didn’t get it off properly.

Then I tried a liquid detergent. That which we more commonly call ‘washing-up liquid’. It worked like a charm.

It got me to thinking that perhaps we are being conned by the large companies that make these products.

Why should we need a different product for bathrooms and kitchens? People buy ‘bathroom cleaner’, and ‘kitchen cleaner’. Weird. They do exactly the same job.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

I find that ‘washing-up liquid’ (aka liquid detergent) is often the best thing for cleaning. Yes, we might occasionally need a scouring powder if something is ground in or dried up, but why do we need all these different products that are essentially the same thing?

If your sink gets blocked up, use washing soda (sodium carbonate). It’s excellent for dissolving grease. Forget the stuff called ‘sink unblocker.’

Image by sandid from Pixabay

Use a scrunched up newspaper for drying windows (or mirrors) after cleaning. Hey presto! Streak-free glass.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

Lemon and vinegar are excellent cleaning things. Lemon mixed with a bit of salt is excellent for cleaning chopping boards.

In Viv’s Family Recipes, there are some more tips. These are ones gathered from my Aunt’s old recipe book that I inherited. Our parents and grandparents didn’t have all the ‘modern’ cleaning products we have now.

From today until Monday, the ebook version of Viv’s Family Recipes is FREE on Amazon. So if you would like some more old-fashioned tips click here to go to Amazon where you are. Or click on the book cover in the side bar.

The book also contains recipes gathered from Viv’s family and friends over a century. Some date back to 1909. It is interesting to see the kind of things that people ate over 100 years ago.

Here are the current ratings for this 5* book. (February 20th)

13 in Culinary Arts & Techniques (Kindle Store)

15 in Weight Loss Food Counters

11 in Low Budget Cooking

I would love to hear from you. Please leave a comment in the comments box.

christmas, historical recipes, Recipe book, recipes

Stuck for a present for someone you love?

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What about a copy of Viv’s Family Recipes?

An excellent stocking filler for the cook in your life.

The recipes in this book date from the beginning of the 20th Century and cover the time up until the present day.

The very old ones come from a little book that Viv’s Grandmother had, in which she jotted down some recipes and her accounts, and dated them as 1909. Other recipes are from recipe books that belonged to Viv’s mother and aunt, many of which are mid 20th Century. It gives an interesting picture of how the foods we eat have changed over a century.

But this is not only a recipe book. Viv has put in comments that she remembers about the various people who supplied the recipes. There are also hints and tips about cleaning from early times as well as some of her grandmother’s old-fashioned ways of getting rid of coughs and colds.

Why not buy a copy for your favourite cook? They will be delighted with the historical information, and maybe wish to try out some of the old recipes that we no longer cook.

To buy, click here and the link will take you to Amazon where you are. Or click on the book cover in the side bar.

I would love to hear from you, especially if you choose to give the book as a present. Let me know how your loved one liked it. Or better still, post a review on Amazon.

historical recipes, offers, Recipe book, recipes

Viv’s Family Recipes

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Many years ago, I came by a small book that had belonged to my grandmother. In it were some recipes, and at the back, some of her accounts.

Then some years later, when I married, my mother gave me an exercise book in which she had written some of her recipes.

When her eldest sister died, who had no children, I acquired her recipe book.

My grandmother’s book had accounts dated 1909, many of my aunt’s would have been thirties and forties, and I suspect many of those my mother wrote down for me would have been fifties and sixties.

Added to recipes that I had acquired from friends, I thought this would make an interesting read for anyone interested in cooking, especially the kind of things our ancestors cooked.

I put together a book of these recipes that I called Viv’s Family Recipes. I added a few comments about the people who gave them as well, and in my Aunt’s book were some hints and tips for cleaning, which I added alongside some cures for ailments I remember from my Grandmother.

Viv’s Family Recipes is now on offer for the meagre price of $0.99, £0.99 until Thursday 21st November, so Hurry and get your copy. On Friday it will be back to its normal price.

Click here or on the cover in the side bar to take you to Amazon where you are.

Thank you for reading. If you would like to reblog this, I would be most grateful.

Give Away, historical recipes, history, offers, Recipe book, recipes

Historical Recipes FREE.

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Do you enjoy cooking? Do you like history? Well, you will enjoy Viv’s Family Recipes.

This little book is a collection of recipes from the author’s family, collected over the 20th century from 1909 to the end. It gives an insight into how we ate and cooked throughout the last century, as well as a few comments about the people whom she got the recipes from.

vivsfamilyrecipecover

The book  also contains a few hints and tips from long ago about cleaning, as well as cures for coughs and colds.

From today, 5th February, until 20th Feb, Viv’s Family Recipes is FREE on Amazon.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to get this interesting book absolutely free. Just click on the book cover.

if you buy this book, please leave a review on Amazon. Reviews are important to authors. That’s the way most of us get our books in the public eye.

Thank you for reading, and if you have, for buying this book. Leave a comment in the box. I’d love to hear from you.

historical recipes, Recipe book, recipes

A recipe from 1909

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I inherited a small book of hand-written recipes from my Grandmother. The back of the book had some of her household accounts and they were dated, so I know the date of the recipes was around 1909.

I found it interesting to peruse these old recipes and compare them with the food we eat now. There was so much more fat then, and it was mainly animal fat.

I thought you might be interested in looking at some of our history, as far as food is concerned, and so here is one of the puddings from Grandma’s Little Book.

Of course, the weights and measures were in imperial measures, so I changed them for a more modern audience. If you live in the USA, I’ve put Grandma’s measures in brackets.

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This is not a picture of the Amber Pudding, but the nearest I could find as to what I think it is. It will not have the sauce.

 

Amber Pudding

Ingredients

Just over 100g (8oz)  breadcrumbs

100g (8oz) beef suet

60g (2oz)moist brown sugar

2 eggs

3 dessertspoons marmalade

Method

Mix all ingredients well together.

Put into a buttered basin.

Steam for 2 hours.

If you find these old recipes interesting, you can find out more in Viv’s Family Recipes.  See the book on My Books page. Click on the link here and it will take you directly to the book’s page on Amazon.

historical recipes, offers, Recipe book

Special offer

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Don’t forget to get your copy of Viv’s Family Recipes at the special price of 0.99(£ or $). The offer ends today.

Click the book cover or this link. The link will take you to its page on Amazon. In your country.

http://mybook.to/FamilyRecipes