These little ham & cheese quiches are great for school lunches or to take on a picnic. I’m not sure where or when Mum collected this recipe, but while the recipe will make 8 to 10 quiches I’m not sure that the cost would now be $5.
Mum seems to have collected this recipe from the Herald Sun as there is a completed crossword on the other side. Until recently Mum did the crossword every day, while she doesn’t do them now she is still does read the paper every day.
As well as handwritten recipes in Beb’s Recipe Drawer there were many recipes cut out from newspapers and magazines. This Beef Goulash recipe comes from the New Idea and would be a great dish on a cold winter’s day.
I’m sure Mum would have gotten this recipe from Mrs Wood to bake cakes to send over to Dad in England during WW2. Mrs Wood was Mum’s sister’s mother-in-law. She was a wonderful cook and I can remember visiting her house in East Malvern where there would always be plates of biscuits and freshly baked cake for afternoon tea. The Soldier’s Cake Tins referred to were used to bake a cake in to be sent overseas to the troops. The tins came with a lid so the cakes were baked then sealed to be sent off. Cake shops also sold fruit cakes that fitted into the special “Willow” cake tins. Fruit cakes with brandy were usually the cakes made this way as the brandy stopped the cake going mouldy during the time it took to reach the soldiers, wherever they were serving.
MRS WOOD’S XMAS CAKES
Combine the fruit and brandy, leave overnight to marinate. Beat the butter and sugar together, add eggs one at a time. Add sifted flours and spices. Add fruit and nuts. Combine boiling water and carb soda and mix in well. Bake in prepared tins – 3 hours, turn after 1½ hours. Soldier tins measured 7½ inches = approx 20cm. So the mixture makes 2 x 20cm cakes – the ingredients can be halved for 1 cake.
This is a great example of Mum collecting the ingredients and basic cooking method and working the rest out as she went along. The way it’s been written down it looks like the block of Hazelnut Chocolate was almost an afterthought, but it certainly adds to the flavour. When we made it we changed the almond to hazelnuts, but you could make it with plain chocolate and the almonds if you liked, I guess that would make it a Choc Almond Slice though. The verdict the way we made it was Yummm.
CHOCOLATE HAZELNUT SLICE
Combine butter, condensed milk and golden syrup. When mixed add crushed biscuits, almonds and melted block of chocolate. Mix well and spread into tray. Put in fridge until set.
Around the 1970s it became popular to grown zucchinis in backyard vegetable patches, they were easy to grow and produced a good crop. As a result recipes for slices, soups, and cakes started to pop up everywhere. This cake is just one of the many. We tried it out without the nuts, mixed fruit or coconut. It came out very moist and we feel that it needs the either the nuts or fruit to give it more flavour. Lemon icing would be a good addition as well.
ZUCCHINI CAKE
Wash and grate zucchinis (skin and all). Beat eggs well and gradually add sugar and beat till thick and creamy. Add vanilla, oil and zucchini and nuts/fruit/coconut, if using, mix well. Add dry ingredients that have been sifted together. Pour mixture into 2 loaf tins or a large cake tin. Bake at 180ºC for 1 hour or 1¼ if using larger tin. Mixture is not very thick. Ice, if desired.
Long before we found out that almonds were so good for us Mum was making these for nibbling on.
HOT & SPICY ALMONDS
Peel & crush garlic, put in heavy frying pan with all the other ingredients. Place over medium heat and toss mixture with spatula or wooden spoon until nuts turn light brown and look nicely crisp. Allow to cool and store in a clean jar.
Mum used whatever pieces of paper came to hand to write down recipes. This piece had someone’s address on it, but there was still lots of blank space to add a recipe!!
CHICKEN & TORTELLINI SALAD
Dressing:
Add pasta to a large pan of boiling water. Boil uncovered till tender. Drain. Rinse pasta under cold water, drain well. Meanwhile, heat oil in non stick pan, add fillets, cook 5 mins on each side or until cooked. Cut diagonally into 2 cm strips. Make dressing – combine all ingredients in jar, shake well. Combine, pasta, fillets, spinach and tomato in large bowl, add dressing toss well. Garnish with lemon rind.
Fruitcakes are essentially easy to make once the fruit is prepared. You can tell this is an old recipe as it has an ingredient not heard of today – Parisienne Essence. Parisienne essence has nothing to do with Paris or even French cooking it was a flavouring used to darken dishes and was used in gravies, fruitcakes and puddings. Leaving it out of this recipe won’t affect the finished cake as there are plenty of other ingredients to give it a good flavour.
RICH BOILED FRUIT CAKE
Or use 1.25kg of mixed fruits of your choice
Place all the fruit, golden syrup, rum or sherry and water in a saucepan. Bring to the boil stirring occasionally and simmer for two minutes. Pour into a bowl, cover and allow to stand overnight. Cream butter and brown sugar well together. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Sift dry ingredients, then sift half over the fruit mixture. Mix lightly and then blend into the creamed mixture. Add remainder of flour and blend well. Turn into a 22cm cake tin which has been lined with brown paper and with baking paper (the original recipe says 2 layers of brown and 2 of white, while that might be a bit much you shouldn’t skimp on the paper as the cake cooks slowly and the paper stops it drying out). Top with blanched almonds. Bake at 140°C for 3½ hours or till done.
Pasta dishes have come a long way since Mum first cooked this recipe, but that’s not to say that her version wasn’t tasty.
SPAGHETTI & MEAT SAUCE
Melt a little butter in a saucepan and fry the chopped garlic and onion until soft but not brown. Add the minced meat, salt, pepper, herbs, cloves, tomato puree, water and wine. Cover and simmer gently for ¾ hour. In a large quantity of salted water cook the spaghetti till soft, about ¾ hour. Drain and place in serving dish. Mix about a third of the sauce into spaghetti and put the rest of the sauce on top. Top with cheese.
Beb's Recipe Drawer 