Apple Butter

This card was Albert's mother's, Henrietta Blubaugh's, and it is for the big copper kettle, not for your kitchen. The Blubaughs made apple butter outdoors every October as long as anybody can remember, and now our church does it the same way, on the first Saturday of October, to sell at the bazaar. This year it was October 4. We started the fires at five in the morning under two kettles, and we stirred with the long wooden paddles in shifts until almost four in the afternoon, and we put up 112 quarts. Mother Blubaugh always set three clean silver dollars in the bottom of the kettle to rattle around and keep the butter from sticking. We still do. Nobody will say whether it works and nobody will stop.

Below is the card, and then how I make a batch in the kitchen for the family.

In measuring cups:

• 6 pounds of apples (about 18 medium), peeled, cored and quartered. A mix of tart and sweet is best.
• 2 quarts of sweet cider
• 2 cups sugar (I use half brown and half white)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

How:

1. Boil the cider in a big heavy kettle until it is cooked down by half, 30 to 40 minutes.
2. Add the apples and cook until they are soft, about half an hour.
3. Put them through a food mill or press them through a sieve, and put the sauce back in the kettle.
4. Cook it on low, stirring often, for 2 to 3 hours, until it is thick and dark brown. Mind it: it spits, and it scorches if you walk away. It's done when a spoonful on a cold saucer doesn't leave a ring of juice around the edge.
5. Stir in the sugar and spices for the last half hour.
6. Ladle it hot into hot pint jars, leaving 1/4 inch at the top. Wipe the rims, put on the lids, and process in a boiling water bath. I do 10 minutes because we're over 1,000 feet. Lower down it's 5. Makes about 5 pints.

Angel Food Cake

My mother, Lillian, made this every Sunday from spring to fall, when the hens were laying. I have baked it for the Blubaugh reunion every August since 1954, the second summer we were married, and this year I took three. Albert's cousin asked if anybody ever brings anything else to that reunion. Somebody brought a store cake once. We don't talk about it.

You'll have twelve yolks left over. Make egg noodles.

In measuring cups:

• 1 1/2 cups egg whites (about 12 large eggs), at room temperature
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cream of tartar (the card says 1; I've found 1 1/2 holds up better)
• 1 1/2 cups sugar, divided in half
• 1 cup cake flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

How:

1. Heat the oven to 350 or 375. Mine runs hot, so I use 350.
2. Sift the flour with half the sugar (3/4 cup). Mother sifted it five times. I do too.
3. Beat the whites with the salt and cream of tartar until foamy. Add the other 3/4 cup sugar two tablespoons at a time and keep beating until the whites stand up in stiff, shiny peaks. Beat in the flavorings.
4. Sprinkle the flour mixture over the whites a quarter at a time and fold it in gently with a big spoon. Don't stir. Don't beat. Fold.
5. Spoon it into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan and run a knife through it once to break the big air bubbles.
6. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until the top is golden and springs back when you touch it.
7. Turn the pan upside down over the neck of a pop bottle and let it hang until it's completely cool, an hour and a half or so. Then run a knife around the sides and turn it out.

Apple Dumplings

Aunt Marie, my mother's sister, made these for the threshing dinners when I was a girl, when the threshing crew went farm to farm and every wife tried to outdo the last one. Aunt Marie always won. She'd bake four big pans of them and the men would eat them in a bowl with milk poured over, and so does Albert, to this day.

In measuring cups:

• Pastry: 2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2/3 cup lard or shortening, 5 to 6 tablespoons ice water
• 6 small baking apples, peeled and cored
• 1/2 cup sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon cinnamon, and a little butter, for the middles
• Syrup: 2 cups sugar, 2 cups water, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/4 cup butter

How:

1. Heat the oven to 375.
2. Boil the sugar, water and spices for the syrup 5 minutes. Take it off and stir in the butter.
3. Make the pastry, roll it out a little thicker than a pie crust, and cut six squares about 7 inches across.
4. Set an apple on each square, fill the hole with the cinnamon sugar and a dab of butter, and bring the four corners up over the top and pinch the edges shut.
5. Set them in a baking dish, pour the hot syrup around them, and bake 35 to 45 minutes, spooning the syrup over them two or three times, until they're golden and a fork goes easy into the apple.
6. Serve warm. Milk over the top is the farm way.

Bread and Butter Pickles

Wanda Wentworth gave me this at a church supper in 1962, written on the back of a bulletin, and I still have the bulletin. Wanda's pickles took the blue ribbon at the county fair so many years in a row they finally asked her to judge instead. This is very close to the one in the Ball Blue Book, which is a good sign: it means it's been tested.

In measuring cups:

• 4 quarts of thinly sliced pickling cucumbers (don't peel them)
• 6 medium onions, sliced thin
• 2 green peppers, cut in strips
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1/3 cup canning salt (not table salt; it clouds the brine)
• Crushed ice
• 5 cups sugar
• 3 cups cider vinegar (5 percent acid; it says on the label)
• 2 tablespoons mustard seed, 1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric, 1 1/2 teaspoons celery seed

How:

1. Mix the cucumbers, onions, peppers, garlic and salt in a big crock or bowl. Cover with crushed ice and let it stand 3 hours. Drain it very well and fish out the garlic.
2. Bring the sugar, vinegar and spices to a boil in a big kettle. Add the vegetables and bring it back just to a boil. Don't cook them or they go soft.
3. Pack hot into hot pint jars, leaving 1/2 inch at the top. Lids on.
4. Boiling water bath: 10 minutes at sea level. I do 15 up here. Makes about 7 pints.

Don't cut back the vinegar. That's what keeps them safe on the shelf.

Buckwheat Cakes

Mother Blubaugh kept a crock of buckwheat batter going every winter from the first frost until the sap ran in the spring, and every morning she baked cakes from it and set a cup aside for the next day. Albert says when he smells buckwheat cakes he's nine years old and it's ten degrees out and he's late for the barn. We eat them with sausage and our own maple syrup. Up here on the mountain there's no other way.

In measuring cups:

• 1 package dry yeast (or a cake of the fresh kind), dissolved in 1/2 cup warm water
• 2 cups buckwheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 cups warm water
• In the morning: 1/2 teaspoon baking soda in 1/4 cup warm water, and 1 tablespoon molasses

How:

1. The night before, mix the yeast, flours, salt and warm water in a crock or a big bowl. It needs room; it rises. Cover it and leave it on the counter overnight.
2. In the morning, stir in the soda water and the molasses.
3. Bake on a hot greased griddle, about 1/4 cup to a cake. Turn them once, when the bubbles on top break and stay open.
4. Before you bake the last of it, save 1 cup of batter in a jar in the refrigerator. Next time, use that cup in place of the yeast, add the flours, salt and water again at night, and go on the same way. Mother kept hers going in the cold cellar all winter.

Chicken and Dumplings

This one is mine. I have made the dumplings for our church's chicken and dumpling supper the first Saturday of November every year since 1958, and for the last ten years I've been in charge of the whole kitchen. For the supper we do it eighteen times over. This year's is Saturday, November 1. Come hungry.

A note for our friends from the eastern part of the state: this is not pot pie. What you call pot pie, with the square noodles, is a different thing entirely, and it will get its own card when I get to P.

In measuring cups:

• 1 stewing hen, 5 to 6 pounds, cut up
• Water to cover, about 3 quarts
• 1 onion, 2 or 3 celery tops, 1 tablespoon salt, pepper
• Dumplings: 2 cups flour, 4 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons lard or shortening, about 3/4 cup milk

How:

1. Simmer the hen with the onion, celery, salt and pepper, covered, 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the meat falls off the bones. Take out the chicken, pick the meat off, and put it back in the broth. Throw out the onion and celery.
2. If you like it thicker, shake 1/4 cup flour with 1/2 cup cold water in a jar and stir it into the simmering broth.
3. For the dumplings, cut the lard into the flour, baking powder and salt with a fork until it looks like meal. Stir in the milk just until it's all wet. Don't overmix or they'll be tough.
4. Drop by tablespoons onto the gently simmering broth. Put the lid on tight and simmer 15 minutes. Do not lift the lid. If you lift the lid, the steam goes out and the dumplings go flat, and it's your own fault.
5. Serves 6 to 8, or 4 farmers.

Chow-Chow

My sister Dolores wrote this card out for me before she married and moved to Ohio, and she still sends me a jar every Christmas so I can tell her hers is better. It's what you make at the end of the garden, the last week of September, with the green tomatoes that won't ripen before frost and the cabbage and peppers you have left.

In measuring cups:

• 1 medium head of cabbage, chopped fine (about 6 cups)
• 1 quart chopped green tomatoes
• 6 onions, 6 green peppers and 6 red peppers, all chopped fine
• 1/2 cup canning salt
• 3 cups cider vinegar (5 percent acid)
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tablespoons mustard seed, 1 tablespoon celery seed, 1 teaspoon turmeric

How:

1. Mix the vegetables with the salt in a crock, cover, and let stand overnight. In the morning drain them well and press out the juice.
2. Bring the vinegar, sugar and spices to a boil, add the vegetables, and boil 10 minutes, stirring.
3. Pack hot into hot pint jars, 1/2 inch at the top. Boiling water bath 10 minutes at sea level, 15 up here. Makes about 6 pints.

Good on beans, on hot dogs, on everything. Albert eats it out of the jar with a fork when he thinks I'm not looking.