Grandma Marian's "White Salad"

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we hosted the traditional Thanksgiving Dinner at our house last  Thursday.  I'm sure everyone has a different list of what is considered the traditional Thanksgiving menu, but for my family it is always the same:

Turkey and Gravy

Mashed Potatoes

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Cranberry Sauce

Green Bean Casserole

Escalloped Corn

White Salad

Dinner Rolls

Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream

This is tradition in our family because this is always what my Grandma Marian served on Thanksgiving.  Today, I want to share with you her recipe for "White Salad."  This is my favorite fruit salad, and when Grandma was still cooking, it was hers too.  My mother and aunt were reminiscing about the fact that she used to take it everywhere.  It is delicious, and it was the first leftover to be finished off.  I don't know why I don't make it more often because it's really not difficult either.

Here is what you'll need:

• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup distilled vinegar
• Non-dairy whipped topping (thawed) or slightly sweetened whipped cream (about a cup and a half).
• 1 15oz. can of mandarin oranges
• 1 15oz. can of pineapple tidbits
• red and green grapes (at least a cup of each)
• at least 1 cup of miniature marshmallows
• red cherries for garnish (optional)

Directions:

Early in the morning or the night before the meal, you will need to make the first part of the salad dressing.

1. Have your fire hot enough to boil a little bit of water in the bottom of a double boiler.

2. Before putting it over the hot water, lightly beat two eggs in the top part of the double boiler.

3. Beat in the 1/4 cup of sugar and the 1/4 cup of distilled vinegar.

4.  Once thoroughly combined, put the top of the double boiler over the boiling water.

5. Stirring constantly, cook until it has thickened enough that it coats a spoon.

6. Remove from the heat and cool slightly.  Cover, then chill thoroughly in the refrigerator.  (This doesn't take that long because there really isn't that much volume here.)

7. While the dressing is chilling and long before you plan to assemble the salad, wash the grapes and cut them in half.  Place them on paper towels to dry.  Also drain the cans of mandarin oranges and pineapple tidbits.  Let them rest in a colander for quite a while.  You want the fruit to be as dry as possible.

8. Once the cooked part of the dressing is thoroughly chilled, beat the whipped topping or the whipped cream into the custard part.  The directions for the amount of whipped topping literally say "until it looks right" on the recipe that I copied from Grandma.  This was the phrase that she and her mother both used when they tried to tell someone else how they cooked by guess and by golly.

I don't really think you can mess up this part.  If you want to make this salad larger by adding more fruit, you can always add more whipped topping to the custard at this step.  The only thing that will happen is that the sweet and sour flavor of the dressing will tend toward the sweeter side.

In the pictures here, I would say that I added about one and a half cups of whipped topping.

9. Combine the fruits and then fold in the dressing.

10. Add about a cup of miniature marshmallows.  DON'T SKIP THIS STEP in an effort to cut back on the calories.  The value of the marshmallows is not so much in the flavor as it is in their ability to absorb the juices which will be drawn out of the fruit.  Their primary function is to keep the salad from turning watery.

11. If desired, garnish the top of the salad with a red cherry or more.  Refrigerate until serving.

The last picture above didn't get taken until the salad had been passed around the table once.  That's why a chunk of the salad is missing on the right side.

You will note that the salad dressing doesn't appear very white.  That's because my chickens are free range, so their egg yolks are darker than what you would get out of the store.

This is really an excellent fruit salad: tangy, sweet, and colorful.  Bon appetit!

Vintage Recipe for Cole Slaw Dressing

As many of you probably know, the Midwest has been socked with sweltering weather for the last few days.  This has made it so that we haven't had any desire to fire the Margin Gem since the 17th, and we have been avoiding cooking much with the gas stove, too. Tonight, however, I headed down to the summer kitchen to try a quick vintage recipe.

During the summer, I spent some time looking at more of the recipes in the 1926 West Pottawattamie County Farm Bureau Women's Cookbook (some of you may recall that I had tried a candy recipe from this cookbook just before Christmas).  I know that many of the regular readers of this blog are interested in homesteading and self-sufficiency, so when I ran across this recipe, I made a mental note to try it because it uses ingredients that many homesteaders would either be able to produce on their own or would usually keep on hand.  I'm excited to also tell you that it turned out to be delicious!

For one head of cabbage, you'll need 3 egg yolks, 2/3 cup sugar, 2/3 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup cream, salt and pepper. 

Here is what you do:

In a heavy saucepan, beat the egg yolks.  Then beat in the sugar.  Add the vinegar and place it over the fire to bring it to a boil.  Stir constantly.

The egg yolk, sugar, and vinegar mixture on the fire.

I was able to cook the dressing on a very small fire
made only of corn cobs and pieces of bark picked
up from the ground in the shed where we split our
firewood.

Once the egg, sugar, and vinegar mixture has come to a good boil, add the 1/2 cup cream.  Bring back to a hard boil and then remove from heat.

The salad dressing once the cream has been added.  I was using
cream from our own cow, so you see white lumps of cream
which were very thick and had not yet melted when I snapped
the picture.

Add salt and pepper to taste, and then chill the dressing mixture.  It will congeal to a soft set as it cools in the refrigerator.

Nancy shredding the carrots and cabbage using
Granny's Saladmaster.

While the salad dressing was chilling in the refrigerator, Nancy and I prepared the cabbage and carrots with my grandmother's ancient Saladmaster.  Somewhere I have the advertising brochure that went with the Saladmaster cookware set. It was purchased for three hundred and some dollars in the 1960s, and I'm sure that it was a major purchase for my grandparents at the time. 

I can remember Granny making cole slaw with this machine when our house was still her house in the late 1970s.  Her cole slaw was always outstanding, but she made the dressing with Miracle Whip--which, of course, would have meant that there would have been no reason to fire up the Riverside Bakewell and write a blog post. :)

When the cabbage and the carrots were ready, the dressing was cool.  We combined everything and threw in a few dried cranberries.  The results were great!

The finished cole slaw.

Here is how the recipe originally appeared on page 129 of the 1926 cookbook:

Dressing for Cabbage Slaw

Mrs. Geo. J. Ward

3 egg yolks beaten                            2/3 cup vinegar

2/3 cup sugar                                    Salt and pepper



Beat the sugar into egg yolks, add vinegar and seasoning.  Boil this mixture, stirring all the time.  Add 1/2 cp sweet cream, let boil again.  When cold mix with chopped cabbage.


Again, I have to say that I'm very impressed with this simple old recipe.  It is easy and delicious, made of things that I always have on hand, and I can pronounce everything that is in it.  That's what I'd call a winner.