MerryHeartCrafts.comMountain Momma… Country Living

The girls and I made molasses cookies today.  They are one of my favorites.  I thought I would share the recipe I use:

1 cup butter- softened, 1 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup molasses, 2 eggs-slightly beaten, 1/4 tsp salt, 2 1/4 tsp. baking soda, 2 1/4 tsp. ground ginger, 1 1/4 tsp. ground cloves, 4 cups flour (I use 3 cups whole wheat and 1 cup unbleached all purpose)  Combine all ingredients and drop by spoon onto cookie sheet.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10 min.  Sprinkle tops with sugar.

These cookies always make me think of fall, however it has been pretty warm here today, upper 80′s.  The night temperature though has been cooling down nicely.  It was mid 50′s this morning, nice sleeping weather. 

Enjoy your day and God bless.

We did make cookies this afternoon.  It seems like it has been a long time since we made cookies.   We have made lots of other desserts this summer, just not cookies.  Here’s the recipe I like to use:

1/2 cup shortening, 1/2 cup butter, softened.  1 cup packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup white sugar, 2 eggs, 1 tsp. vanilla, 3 cups self-rising flour.  I use 2 cups white flour, 1 cup fresh ground wheat flour.  Add 1 12 oz package chocolate chips.  I use the mini chocolate chips.  I think they do much better, makes you think there is more chocolate in each cookie.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 min.  We are enjoying them now with a tall glass of fresh milk.  Life is good!

We gathered the corn this morning but because of my back problems it had gotten a little bit hard so we are making pickled corn from it.  I really like pickled corn with brown beans and corn bread.  When I make pickled corn, I cut it off the cob-do not scrape the cob.  Then I put it into a crock, cover it with cold water.  Put a plate on top of this so the corn stays under the salted water.  For every gallon of water I need to cover the corn, I add 10 tbsp. of canning salt.  Let the corn sit in the crock for 1 week.  Drain the salted water off and rinse the corn.  Put into jars and process in water bath canner.  10 min. pts and 15 min. qts.  When it is time to eat it, we like to heat it up in a cast iron skillet with just a little bit of oil.  To make myself feel better I use olive oil.  The old way is to use lard.

More cookies are ready to come out of the oven.  Enjoy your day and God bless.

I thought I would post a few pictures of things that are growing in our garden. 

Green beans starting to set on the vine.  I will soon be able to pick some of these and enjoy them.

Our hot peppers.  They will taste so good in our homemade salsa.

Sweet banana peppers.  YUM!  Hubby and I have had to start watering our garden.  It is so dry here.  Forecast is calling for a chance of rain over the weekend.  We really need it.  Seems like no matter how much you water, it never does the garden as much good as rain from God does.  I think I forgot to tell everyone what a nice weekend we had here-very cool temperatures.  Two mornings when we got up the temperature was 43 degrees- then up to the lower 50′s, upper 50′s and today mid 60′s.  Daytime temperatures over the weekend were great-low to mid 70′s.  Starting Monday though its been back up to HOT-not near as hot as some places but hot for us.  96 degrees yesterday when Hubby came through Christiansburg.  Upper 80′s here on the farm. 

Last nights supper was grilled chicken, green beans, pasta salad and rolls.  I fixed everything on the grill so as not to heat the house up any more than it already was.  We ate outside at the picnic table.  It was really nice.  A little breeze was blowing which helped a lot .  Yesterday I got a recipe from my friend Vicki-applesauce pie.  I made it and thought it was really good.  I wanted to share it with you all.

2 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 2 tbsp flour, 1 tsp.ground nutmeg, 1 stick melted butter, 1 cup applesauce, 1 tsp vanilla.  Combine sugar, flour, and nutmeg.(You can use cinnamon instead or a little of both).  Beat eggs, add eggs to dry ingredients.    Gently combine butter applesauce and vanilla until mixed.  Pour into pie shell.  Bake at 350 for 45 min or until golden brown.   (I would recommend if your applesauce is sweet to cut down some on the sugar, I didn’t but Hubby thought it was a little too sweet.  I thought it was just fine.)

Enjoy your day and God bless.

My accomplishment for the day.  This cake goes by several different names.  Some call it a stack cake.  Some call it a lassie (molasses) cake.  No matter what name you call it, it is just plain GOOD.  When I was growing up in the mountains of southwest va, this cake was very popular among my mom’s family.  You very seldom had any type of family get together that someone didn’t make this cake.  Of course, as a young girl I took this for granted.  Ate the cake and never thought about learning to make it myself.  Then we moved away from family and of course I wanted me some stack cake.  I called my aunt and got the recipe.  It has taken much trial and error but I think I’ve just about got it right.  This is a recipe I want to pass down to my girls.  Old mountain recipes will be lost if we don’t teach the next generation how to make them (even if they don’t want to learn).  If anyone is interested in the recipe, here it is:  1/2 cup oil, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs,   1 1/2 tsp. ginger, 1/2 cup hot water, 1/2 cup molasses, 3 cups self-rising flour.  Mix all ingredients together.  Turn mixture onto floured surface.  Knead until slightly stiff.  Divide into 6 parts.  Put wax paper into round cake pans. ( I do three at a time)  Take each section of dough, spread out thinly in cake pans.  Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. Romove from oven.  Place on cooling rack.  Repeat process for the other 3 sections.  Spread apple butter between the sections.  Let set overnight to allow the apple butter to moisten the cake layers.  Then serve.  Many enjoy this cake with buttermilk.  Any questions, just leave a comment or e-mail me.  Enjoy and God Bless.