Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread

The classic children's book Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin prompted a colleague and me, many years ago by now, to collaborate and so got our classes involved in a baking project. We guadrupled the recipe to satisfy all the eager participants and so an annual ritual evolved for my class. The students and my colleagues all enjoyed the results. So to keep in step with the season I pulled out my well-used yellow zeroxed copy of Grandmother's Famous Cranberry Bread and baked a loaf for old time's sake. It was still warm when I sliced it to take this picture:

I had forgotten the authors' names so I googled the title and got not only their names but also a great synopsis of the book which is still very popular today:

Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin was published in 1971 by Parents’ Magazine Press. It is the story of a young girl named Maggie who lives with her Grandmother near a cranberry bog in New England. Each year they each invite a guest to Thanksgiving dinner which always includes Grandmother’s famous cranberry bread made with a very secret recipe.

Grandmother invites the dashing Mr. Horace while Maggie invites Mr. Whiskers. Grandmother cannot stand Mr. Whiskers and is sure he is out to steal her recipe. The story takes some interesting twists and ends up demonstrating that looks can be deceiving.

Cranberry Thanksgiving is a colorful book with fun illustrations and interesting characters. Perhaps most fun is the inclusion of Grandmother’s Famous Cranberry Bread recipe at the end of the book. Making this recipe each year for Thanksgiving often becomes a beloved tradition for those who meet Maggie, Grandmother, Mr. Horace and Mr. Whiskers.

Recipe
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tespoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon grated orange peel
3/4 cup orange juice
1 1/2 fresh or frozen cranberries, chopped
1 1/2 cups light raisins

Mix the dry ingredients.
Add butter and blend as for pie pastry.

.chop cranberries in food processer
.add orange peel and juice
.add egg
whirl to blend
Add wet mixture to flour mixture and stir until blended adding the raisins.

Spoon into a greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.

Bake at 350o for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on rack for 10 minutes before removing from pan.

If you choose, you may substitute cranberries for the raisins to have an all cranberry bread (that is what I did). Also a great extra is to sprinkle sugar on top of the loaf before baking. This adds a shiny, crusty surface to this loaf.

Lunch Today - combination plate

Do you remember the term,"combination plate"? When salads as a meal first became popular in the culture in which I lived as a kid, a salad today known as "Chef's Salad", was referred to as a combination plate. Today I had the fresh red leaf lettuce soaking in salt water and the eggs boiled as I came in very sweaty from pulling weeds and spreading bark mulch. With parsley, dill and chives in hand I was ready to fix a wonderful feast for Al and me.

Salads are scrumptious, satisfying and easy to put together. In no time I had the lettuce chopped and then raided the fridge to discover some bean salad on its last legs and a cantaloupe. Al opened a tin of tuna and this is the outcome we've just enjoyed. But the dressing... this salad is all about the dressing.

My dear Mother taught me basically everything I know in the kitchen and I am more indebted to her than I ever imagined. This is the only dressing she knew as we were growing up since we only had lettuce salads in summer when we picked huge piles of lettuce and sorted them on a table outside to make sure no unwelcome guests were present under a leaf. The lettuce then was always chopped up quite finely along with a handful of baby dill weed and green onions, all growing plentifully in the back garden. The dressing was and simply is a mixture of: cream (I use half and half but whipping cream would be fabulous), vinegar, sugar. The vinegar will thicken the cream somewhat then of course you need a fair bit of sugar to offset the tang. Just pour this liberally over your plate full of greens and dig in...it's terrific!

I grew up in a home of eight children, five girls and three boys, a Mennonite home with strong Godly parents. I am the third oldest and I treasure my parents, siblings and heritage greatly. From a very young age,we worked alongside Mom in the kitchen. She would assign our duties: peeling potatoes, picking and sorting lettuce, rolling the "Klops"-the most delicious meatballs imaginable to a hungry teen, baking bread - yes, kneading it, chopping vegetables, pretending we were the cannery as we in assembly line fashion got jars and jars of vegetables ready for the canner - it just made the work fun when we pretended to have fun!, washing and drying dishes after every meal even when we had to get back to school on time for the afternoon. We always helped in the kitchen, with the laundry in summer when we were home - hanging the clothes out on a line and then getting them back in, their fresh lovely scent tickling our noses, then the ironing, yes in those days we ironed everything, and house-cleaning. This is where we learned our cooking and house-keepiing skills. On school days Mom prepared a feast, the main hot dinner-type meal of the day ready for all of us, every day- meat, potatoes, vegetables and lots of bread with some variations. My father maintained that Mom was an expert in cooking, which she was, and she should continue cooking in the same style even in their last years together. She did, but she knew where to draw the line.

Back to the salads: Growing up in our little Prairie town, I babysat for our next door neighbors- a doctors family. It was a wonderful place to be. One evening I was given the instructions to prepare a salad for the good doctor when he got home. I imagine I would have only been twelve or thirteen at the time. I was desperate to know what kind of dressing he might like and since I didn't see any prepared ones in the fridge I prepared the only one I knew how. Later his wife, who was not from a Mennonite background told me how much her husband had enjoyed the dressing on his salad. It was just like his Mom's used to be - he was from a Mennonite background. So phew, I was pleased that I trusted my judgment on that.

Parsley

 

 

 

In my Mother's garden, among the many rows of vegetables she would grow every summer, we would always find her "herb garden" composed of significant rows of: dill (dell), summer savory (Paepa Krut), and parsley (Petahzell)-only three kinds of herbs, that's all that was required to flavour the hearty soups and Mennonite dishes. To this day I like to have the same herbs in my garden. The parsley always comes up strong and vigorous. More reluctant are the other two but with some coaxing I've managed to have a number of promising dill seedlings which I found strewn throughout the garden. But alas, I could only find one tiny "Pepper Weed" or Summer Savoury. But more might be coming - it's slow to get started. If all else fails, I can always pick up a bouquet of this fabulous herb at one of a number of great outdoor vegetable stands.

I've come to bring in a bunch of parsley, chop it up and sprinkle it over all the food before serving - even the roast beef is enhanced by the verdant green color of parsley. But more importantly is the fact that Parsley is loaded with vitamins and minerals. I've included a quote from a link which has lots of great information.

Now I keep a small pot of parsley on a table near my back door as a reminder to pinch off a bunch as I walk by, munch on it and feel my breath freshen and know that it is improving my health.

Another thing I discovered again today as I took the photos is that as the parsley plant grows, and it grows quickly, it develops beautiful seed heads - nice enough to use in an arrangement - which are delightfully fragrant. I've included a picture of a seed head, although not fully developed, it is very fragrant already. As it matures, the seeds will fall into the ground and new plants will grow. It's such a lavish, rich and generous gift the Lord has given to us - more than we can use. I am humbled.

http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=100


Parsley for a Healthy Heart
Parsley is a good source of folic acid, one of the most important B vitamins. While it plays numerous roles in the body, one of its most critical roles in relation to cardiovascular health is its necessary participation in the process through which the body converts homocysteine into benign molecules. Homocysteine is a potentially dangerous molecule that, at high levels, can directly damage blood vessels, and high levels of homocysteine are associated with a significantly increased risk of heart attack and stroke in people with atherosclerosis or diabetic heart disease. Enjoying foods rich in folic acid, like parsley, is an especially good idea for individuals who either have, or wish to prevent, these diseases. Folic acid is also a critical nutrient for proper cell division and is therefore vitally important for cancer-prevention in two areas of the body that contain rapidly dividing cells-the colon, and in women, the cervix.