Mama's kitchen: Old favorites bring back fond memories

Mama was a great pie-baker, specializing in thick, flaky crusts that melted in your mouth. She said it was because she always added a dash of vinegar to the pastry. Her apple pies were truly memorable, filled with sweet-tart apples from our little orchard in Chilco, enriched with cinnamon and nutmeg and served with Buttercup’s heavy top cream.

Of course they were baked to perfection in our wood stove oven, and accompanied by a plate of sliced cheddar.

“An apple pie without the cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze,” Mama always sang out as she placed it on the table.

From those days back in the ‘30s, throughout her lifetime, that was the way her apple pie was always served.

Cheese played a role in much of her cookery, serving as protein when meat was short. It was melted into scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese (of course!) and in big grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches of homemade bread served with fried potatoes and onions.

My favorite salad was the apple salad Mama used to make — sort of a take-off of Waldorf Salad, and made special by the big bagful of walnuts we received each Christmas from her brother, my Uncle Wayne, in Walnut Grove, Calif.

Apple/Cheese Salad

Firm, crisp, tart apples (1 for each person)

1 cup chopped walnuts

1 cup diced cubes of sharp cheddar cheese

3/4 cup raisins

3/4 cup chopped celery

1 teaspoon cider vinegar or lemon juice

Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip salad dressing

Wash and core the apples and don’t peel unless the skin is tough or damaged. Slice, then chop into half-inch dice. Place in a bowl and toss with the vinegar or lemon juice, then add remaining ingredients and stir in dressing to your taste.

Of course Mother made boiled dressing beforehand and let it chill for the salad, but mayo works just fine. You can replace raisins with grapes in season — a la Waldorf, if you wish.

Speaking of apples, here’s another heavenly memory from the old cast iron skillet. This works for breakfast, brunch or supper. You’ve got to try this one!

Oven Apple Pancakes

(4-6 servings)

2 large, firm cooking apples, peeled, cored sliced

2 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1 tablespoon lemon juice

4 tablespoons butter

3 eggs

½ cup whole milk or light cream

½ cup flour

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Toss apple slices with the maple syrup and lemon juice and set aside. Melt the butter in a medium cast-iron skillet and remove from heat.

Beat eggs and milk in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of the melted butter. In another bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon and salt and whisk in the egg mixture until smooth.

Return skillet to heat and sauté the apples in the remaining butter over high heat. Toss and turn with a spatula for even cooking; don’t let them get mushy. After 2-3 minutes, spread them evenly over the bottom of the skillet and slowly pour on the batter. Bake in the oven for 15-18 minutes until very puffy and lightly browned. Serve in wedges immediately (it will fall soon like a soufflé) directly from the pan and drizzle with warm maple syrup or cream.

Our meals were often accompanied by Grandma Davidson’s corn bread sticks. When she stayed with us, she was always in the kitchen — churning milk, shelling peas, grinding dried corn for cornmeal, or baking something. I loved her cornmeal sticks which she baked in the (now lost) cast iron corncob-shaped baking pan. Here’s her recipe.

Cornbread sticks

1 scant cup sugar

½ cup shortening (half butter if you wish)

2 eggs

1 ½ cups cornmeal

1 ½ cups flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1½ cups milk

Cream sugar and shortening, add eggs and beat well. Combine cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt; add alternately with milk. Pour into greased and floured cakepan (or corncob pan or iron skillet) and bake at 350 45 minutes — less for the cob shaped pan.

Maybe it was a Norwegian thing, but Mama always cooked radishes — taking away the “burp” quality — and often with other quick-cooking veggies. I’ve always loved them that way. She was finally persuaded by her visiting younger brother — my Uncle Keith — to leave some raw, since he preferred them that way. He would put several on a small plate with a big gout of soft butter and a small pile of salt. Then, he would dip each radish into the butter, then the salt and munch away contentedly.

The other evening, I enjoyed a supper of beautiful fresh green beans (a much appreciated gift from old pal Ginger Curtis via her sister Rita Runberg’s Priest River garden). When they were about half cooked, I tossed in a handful of bright red radishes from the Farmer’s Market, and let them boil along with the beans for about 6-8 minutes. I drained them together, tossed them back into the empty saucepan with a great dollop of butter, a handful of chopped chives from my front-porch potager and a sprinkle of black Hawaiian sea salt, shook it over the still-warm burner and poured it into a shallow bowl. A slice of rye bread (no corn sticks, darn it!) and a dipping bowl of Litehouse 1000 Island Dressing — and I had a repast to die for! If I’d have had some small white onions on hand, I’d have cooked them with the beans and radishes for the perfect combination.

That supper, by the way, is the reason for this column. Such a wave of nostalgia came over me as I savored the cooked radishes that I just had to stop and remember those old days in Chilco before we moved to Coeur d’Alene in 1936. I have always loved simple food — vegetables in particular — because of that background and so today I’ve shared some of my culinary memories with you — as a gift from Mama, Grandma — and me. Enjoy!

Valle Novak writes the Country Chef and Weekend Gardener columns for the Daily Bee. She can be reached at bcdailybee@bonnercountydailybee.com or by phone at 208-265-4688.