Southern Cucumber Salad Relish

In the vintage era a relish was any kind of side item with a sour or sour sweet taste.  This term usually applied to pickles, chutney, piccalilli, etc.  We have changed the meaning in the modern era to mean chopped pickles added to hot dogs or various salads.  It was not uncommon to have a dill pickle with dinner as such practices were thought to aid in digestion which has some foundation in fact if the pickles are lacto fermented.  In this case I am sharing a family recipe for Cucumber Salad, a dish most often served with pork but I eat it with just about anything (ok not ice cream).  It's simple to make and tastes better the day after it's made so the flavors can meld together.  The last time I made it I stuck with organic cucumbers and it just tasted divine.  You don't need to use any special vinegar with it, just plain white vinegar will do fine.

Edited 04/17/2024: I revisited making this recipe after a long time and found some tweaks were needed so here is the updated recipe.

Amish Style Apple Sausage Stuffing

     I'm from Maryland originally, just outside of west Baltimore to be more exact and the traditional recipes for a holiday table are as varied as the many different cultures that make up the citizenry.  The 1940's saw a surge in interest in Amish style cooking, probably because it was frugal and filling, 2 things that were necessary on a wartime rationing diet.

Scalloped Apples & Sweet Potatoes

     In the realm of sweet potato recipes lives the Southern style marshmallow baked sweet potatoes that seem to occupy space on every holiday table in America... right next to the green bean casserole.  I have fought with this denizen of overindulgence for many a year as I cannot abide this sticky sweet concoction yet I love sweet potatoes and yearned to be able to set them free from a syrupy, gooey, marshmallow laden fate.  At first I tried mashed sweet potatoes with a praline topping, better but equally as sweet and almost akin to an uncrusted sweet potato pie.  Luckily this year, thanks to the Gutenberg Project, I was able to find this recipe.

Creole Yam Casserole

This is a recipe I've used a couple of times.  It's got many names and variations but I call it Creole because of the use of a praline pecan topping.  Basically imagine it's a crustless sweet potato pie and it makes a nice sweet counterpart to the more savory items on a holiday table.

Eggplant Creole

Note: This recipe has been edited 12/18/14 from the original as I finally got it to come together the way the original was supposed to look like when finished.

This recipe is from a Crisco sponsored cookbook printed in the early 1920's.  When I first saw it I expected something spicy, after all it's Creole and Louisiana is known for it's fiery foods but in this case Creole seems to be mean cooked with tomatoes.  I made this recipe the way the original was laid out but immediately saw the need for some changes as the cooking directions are rather vague as vintage recipes are wont to be and it also calls for the boiling of the eggplant which was something of a disaster (We now boil the eggplant, see below).  Keep this in mind when you make it that this is the modified, kitchen tested recipe which is what sets this blog apart from other vintage recipe sites.  This recipe was a side dish in it's original form but by the 1930's the Great Depression had turned it into a main dish.  I ate it with a poached egg on top and it is both a nutritious and filling meal that doesn't cost that much.  This recipe lived on into the 1960's where it appears again in another of my cookbooks returning to it's roots as a side dish.

Easy Fried Apples

Back in the vintage era people were enamored with apples.  It shows in all the vintage cookbooks I have since there are so many apple based recipes.  It makes sense however since no fruit stores better than an apple.  They get a bit sandy textured when they have been barreled which makes them unsuitable for eating out of hand, but they are still perfectly usable in recipes.  This was one I did with some BBQ pork chops awhile ago and is quite easy to prepare.



Fried Apples

Organic Granny Smith Apples, 1 per person
Lemon Juice
Brown Sugar
Unsalted Butter

Wash and core (and peel if desired) the apples.  Slice into slices 1/4" thick and sprinkle with lemon juice.  Dip each slice into brown sugar an place on a plate.  Heat frying pan on medium heat and add 1T butter.  When butter is hot place apple slices in pan and fry about 2-3 mins a side.  The sugar will come off and form a caramel sauce so don't let it burn, lowering heat as necessary.  When serving drizzle some sauce over the cooked apple slices.

Captain Obvious Ad Company

Apparently beans are only baked if the label says "baked" on it.  Who knew?  All this time I was shelling out the lettuce to buy cans of garbanzo beans and they're not baked, only canned.  This ad was clearly brought to you by the Captain Obvious Ad Co since I think an old yokel would be able to tell the difference between canned beans and baked beans... but one never knows.  People must have been lining around the corner to  thank Heinz for saving us from those nasty unbaked boiled beans in a can that everyone else was selling.  Apparently baking made all the difference in the final product as it was more "digestible".

Hungarian Coleslaw

I've made this recipe on a number of occasions but I have not yet had the chance to post it on the blog. I once heard it said that Hungarians have more ways to prepare cabbage than any other Eastern European ethnic group and none of them involves boiling.  Hungarians actually hate boiled cabbage and prefer to fry it in lard or eat it raw like this coleslaw.  I've never been a great fan of coleslaw, I dislike vinegar based slaws and Marzetti slaw dressing makes me run away in fear.  What makes this recipe different is it's sour cream based rather than mayonnaise based.  Hungarians have a special love for sour cream and you'll rarely find a recipe that doesn't include it or have it on the side.  You will need a slaw shredder or mandolin slicer to get the cabbage into nice thin strips. 

Southern Style Baked Macaroni 'n Cheese

Sometimes it's the simple food that we want the most, like a nice dinner of Macaroni and Cheese (with ham in the case).  Macaroni and Cheese occupies a vaunted position in the ranks of Southern Soul Foods and while it's not the healthiest thing to eat, making it yourself from scratch helps you control the ingredients and the final product will taste 100 times better than any over processed box variety of mac n cheese.  Don't be daunted by this recipe, it has perhaps a little more prep time than you're used to but it comes together very easily.  Just have all your ingredients prepped and ready to go before you start, it makes everything so much quicker.

Recipe: Creole Mustard Greens

Makes an interesting presentation

I've been on a "greens" kick lately and after the Collard Green Recipe was a success dad mentioned that he had never had mustard greens before and neither had I.  So I decided to look into it and find something that sounded at least halfway decent.  I'm sorry, I really don't cook my greens with ham hocks, salt pork, fatback or smoked turkey legs because I can't stomach the 2 weeks worth of sodium intake that using such meats adds to the recipe.  I do, however, like using bacon and after digging up the collard greens recipe last week I found out using bacon is Creole Style.

Recipe: Southern Style Cheese Grits

Garlic Cheese Grits

Today we have our first recipe hooray!  Dad wanted some steamed shrimp over the weekend so I decided to make some side dishes of Cheese Grits and Collard Greens.  I'll post the Collard Green recipe tomorrow and on Thursday I have a treat for you, a recipe for Butterscotch cake from the 1934 Spry Cookbook "What to Eat For Dinner".