Things Remembered
Page 32
1½ cups flour, after sifting
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 eggs, divided, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
½ cup pineapple juice
5 tablespoons butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 20-ounce can pineapple rings
4 to 5 maraschino cherries, cut in half
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Mix flour, salt, and baking powder together. Beat 3 egg whites until stiff. Set aside (in another bowl, if necessary). Beat 3 egg yolks well, then add sugar and continue beating. Alternately add the pineapple juice and flour mix. Fold in egg whites.
In cast-iron pan on stove, melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugar to coat the pan. Turn off burner and decorate the pan with pineapple rings, each having a half a cherry in the center.
Pour cake batter over and put in oven. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clean. When done, let sit for 5 minutes, then invert onto a flat plate.
(I cut out a round of cardboard, cover it with foil, then place it inside the pan because the topping is very sticky. That way, the cake doesn’t have to “fall” onto a plate, and doesn’t get stuck on the pan as much. You always have to do a little cleanup.)
MAMA ARLENE’S MEATLOAF
Submitted by Luann E.
I’m not much of a meatloaf fan, but my husband, Pete, loves it so much he’d choose it for his birthday dinner. When I do cook it, he’s as pleased as if I’d prepared a seven-course gourmet meal. And then there’s the residual wall-to-wall grins for the next few days over meatloaf sandwiches.
2 slices whole wheat bread without crust
2 tablespoons water (approximately)
1 large egg, beaten
½ large yellow onion, chopped
1½ pounds lean ground beef
2 tablespoons Italian seasoning
pepper to taste
1 15-ounce can tomato sauce
Break bread into pieces (about a square inch in size) and place in large mixing bowl. Add water and mash with fingers into meal. Add egg, onion, and the ground beef. Mash all together, adding in 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning, and about an ⅛ cup of tomato sauce.
Form into a ball and place on 9x13-inch baking pan. Form into a loaf about 2½ inches high. Pour remaining tomato sauce over loaf and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of Italian seasoning. Bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees until barely pink in center.
GRANDMA VITA’S SICILIAN SPAGHETTI SAUCE
Submitted by Luann E.
When I was a little girl, I’d come home from school to the sweet aroma of my mom’s spaghetti sauce, rich and fragrant with Italian seasonings and red wine. My mouth would water as I stirred with the big wooden spoon, breathing in the steam rising from the stockpot.
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 pound lean ground beef
4 15-ounce cans tomato sauce
2 15-ounce cans tomato pieces
2 cups red wine (the better the wine, the better the sauce)
2 cups water
1½ cups sliced mushrooms
1 tablespoon of butter
4 tablespoons Italian seasonings
4 tablespoons dried parsley
½ teaspoon baking soda
Sauté onion in olive oil in large stockpot. When cooked clear, add garlic and sauté for a minute or two. Add ground beef, breaking up with spoon and cooking until brown. Add tomato sauce, tomato pieces, red wine, and water. In separate pan, sauté mushrooms in butter. When cooked through, add to stockpot. Add remaining seasonings and baking soda. Simmer for approximately 4 hours until sauce is mellow.
TATER TOTS CASSEROLE
Submitted by Kathy C.
With two teenage boys and two adult careers in our family I had to come up with something that would come together fast and gather everyone around the dinner table rather than going out for pizza. This has fit the bill for more years than I want to remember.
2 pounds ground beef
1 onion, finely chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of celery soup
1 can golden mushroom soup
1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
1 large package Tater Tots
Salt and pepper to taste
Brown ground beef with onion. Drain. Put in a 9x13-inch baking dish. Combine soups together and pour over ground beef. Sprinkle cheese over top. Top with Tater Tots. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
NO-FROST PRUNE CAKE
Submitted by Marge B.
Prunes come in and out of popularity, but this recipe for No-Frost Prune Cake has never stopped being a favorite of my family.
½ pound (1½ cups) dried prunes
1½ cups sugar
½ cup oil
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1¼ teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon cloves
Cover prunes with water and cook until tender. Dice prunes and set aside. Reserve ⅔ cup of cooked prune liquid.
Sift together dry ingredients in separate bowl. Combine oil, eggs, and sugar and beat on medium/high with a mixer for 2 minutes. With mixer on low, alternate prune juice and flour mixture three times, starting with juice and ending with flour mixture. Just mix to blend. Stir in prunes and then pour mixture into a greased and floured 13x9-inch pan. Sprinkle with crumb topping (recipe below)
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until cake passes the toothpick test. This is a very moist cake so it’s important to make sure it’s baked long enough or it will appear underdone.
TOPPING
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup sugar
2 tablespoons flour
½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Cut butter into sugar and flour until it forms a coarse crumb. Add nuts.
Note from Georgia: John and I love pecans so I put a cup (or more) into the batter rather than in the topping. We’re part of the family that loves this cake!
EASY MINCEMEAT FRUITCAKE
Submitted by Julie W.
I love that people are always surprised when they like my fruitcake. I can’t remember where I got the original inspiration for the recipe, only that I’ve tweaked it beyond recognition since then. It freezes so well we’ve actually had one for dessert on July 4th!
1 jar mincemeat
1 cup raisins
1 cup nuts (I use pecans and always add more)
1 cup sugar
½ cup oil
candied fruit (This is to your personal taste. I like the mixed fruit with citron and always add at least a full container. Then I add about a half cup of red and green cherries and save the rest to decorate the top of the cake. The recipe is very forgiving about these ingredients.)
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
2½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
Combine mincemeat, raisins, nuts, sugar, oil, fruit, and vanilla and mix well. Add eggs and mix well. Add dry ingredients and mix until well blended.
Grease lightly two loaf pans and bake at 325 degrees for 1½ hours. Test with toothpick. Let cool in pans.
OLD-FASHIONED BANANA BREAD
Submitted by Mary S.
This is almost as easy as a mix but tastes so much better. There are times my family purposely ignores—or even hides—fresh bananas just so I’ll make homemade banana bread for them. I don’t know what it does to the recipe to let the batter stand for twenty minutes before baking, but it makes a big difference in the taste.
2 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup walnuts or pecans (optional)
½ cup shortening
2 eggs
1½ cups mashed b
ananas
Stir dry ingredients together to blend and set aside. Beat shortening and eggs. Add bananas. Add dry ingredients. Pour into lightly greased and floured loaf pan and let stand 20 minutes before baking.
Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour, using the toothpick test to check to see if it’s done.
APPLESAUCE CAKE
Submitted by Georgia B.
This is one of the recipes I mentioned in the original Things Remembered release. If it isn’t my favorite cake recipe, it’s right up there in the top three. I particularly love cakes that are so flavorful they don’t need frosting to set them off. Best of all, this one is from my mom.
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sifted flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground cloves
½ cup milk
1 cup raisins
1 cup nuts
¾ cup applesauce
1 cup rolled oats
Beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Add eggs. Beat well. Sift together dry ingredients (they just need to be mixed together well if you don’t have a sifter) and add to creamed mixture alternately with milk. (Start with one third flour mixture, then one third milk, and continue until all ingredients are incorporated.) Stir—use a spoon, not a mixer—in raisins, nuts, applesauce, and oats. Pour batter into greased ring mold. It really cooks best in a ring mold (or angel food cake pan), so only substitute if you absolutely have to.
You can frost with a light glaze for presentation, but it isn’t necessary.
Cook at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes. Test with toothpick.
P.S.
About the author
Meet Georgia Bockoven
GEORGIA BOCKOVEN is an award-winning author who began writing fiction after a successful career as a freelance journalist and photographer. Her books have sold the world over. The mother of two, she resides in Northern California with her husband, John.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
About the book
Discussion Questions for Things Remembered
1. Taking into consideration the emotionally wounded state Karla was in when she came to live with Anna as a child, do you think their adversarial relationship was a given, or was there something Anna could, or should, have done to ease the transition that she didn’t?
2. How big a factor were the ages of the three girls in their response to Anna when they came to live with her?
3. Grandparents taking over the rearing of their grandchildren is not uncommon in today’s society. How do you feel about the way the book handles the problems created by combining two vastly different generations? Is love always enough in a situation like this?
4. Could Karla have made the transition in her feelings for Anna without coming to terms with her mother’s death?
5. Do you think Anna was right when she said that she and Karla were alike? How important, or unimportant, was the realization?
6. If you were to give Grace her own book, how do you see it ending? Did you like or understand her? Did you see any redeeming qualities in her?
7. Do you think Karla, Heather, and Grace carried their emotional baggage into the relationships they had with the men in their lives? How?
8. Why do you feel it was so important to Heather to have Anna to herself in the end, even to the exclusion of her sisters, even to the point of going against her doctor’s advice and traveling to Sacramento for Thanksgiving?
9. Things Remembered is a book about women and their relationships. Did you see yourself, your friends, or your own family members in any of the characters? If so, did it hurt or help your enjoyment of the story?
10. Do you think setting the book in the fall and including the holidays made it different than it would have been had it been set in another season?
Read on
Have You Read?
More by Georgia Bockoven
THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED
“As Jessie Patrick Reed’s attorney, I’m writing to you on behalf of your father, Jessie Patrick Reed. I regret to inform you that Mr. Reed is dying. He has expressed a desire to see you. . . .”
Elizabeth, even though sustained by a loving family, has suffered the most from her father’s seeming abandonment and for years has protected herself with a deep-seated anger that she hides from everyone.
Ginger, in love with a married man, will be forced to reevaluate every relationship she’s ever had and will reach stunning conclusions that will change her life forever.
Rachel learns of her father’s existence the same day she finds out that her husband of ten years has had an affair. She will receive the understanding and support she needs to survive from an unlikely and surprising source.
Christine is a young filmmaker, barely out of college, who now must decide if her few precious memories of a man she believed to be long dead are enough to give him a second chance.
Four sisters who never knew the others existed will find strength, love, and answers in the most unexpected places in . . . The Year Everything Changed.
ANOTHER SUMMER
Weaving together love and laughter, heartache and hope, promise and passion, Another Summer returns to the world of The Beach House with new stories entwined in a powerful emotional journey.
A twentieth high school reunion reunites lovers who must learn to trust again. Teenagers from opposite worlds discover that having a chip on their shoulder only makes it harder to get through doors. An ambitious corporate attorney finds herself falling for the man she has vowed to destroy in the courtroom. A young family, reeling from a devastating loss, meets a mysterious older couple and a half-starved stray cat that will guide them back to each other.
None of these people will leave the beach house the same as they were before. . . .
DISGUISED BLESSING
After years of being alone, Catherine Miller thinks she’s finally found happiness. Engaged to an adoring, successful executive, she lives in a luxurious house, and her beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter, Linda, is on the brink of college and adulthood. Then, Catherine’s rose-colored world is shattered. Her daughter is burned terribly in a freak accident, and just when Catherine needs him most, her fiancé abandons her. Now Catherine must call on every ounce of courage and strength she has to help her beloved daughter recover. Fortunately, she’s got help in fire captain Rick Sawyer, an expert burn counselor. Ruggedly handsome, appealingly down-to-earth, Rick is like no man Catherine has ever met. But Catherine made the wrong choice before. How can she trust her emotions—especially when it’s not just her heart at stake but her daughter’s life too?
In the tradition of Barbara Delinsky comes this poignant, moving story of the bonds of family, the strength of love, and the courage to dare.
THE BEACH HOUSE
The beach house is a peaceful haven, a place to escape everyday problems. Here, three families find their feelings intensified and their lives transformed each summer.
When thirty-year-old Julia, mourning the death of her husband, decides to sell the Santa Cruz beach house they owned together, she sets in motion a final summer that will change the lives of all the families who rent it year after year. Teenaged Chris discovers the bittersweet joy of first love. Maggie and Joe, married sixty-five years, courageously face a separation that even their devotion cannot prevent. The married woman Peter yearns for suddenly comes within his reach. And Julia ultimately finds the strength to rebuild her life—something she once thought impossible.
With equal measures of heartbreak and happiness, bestselling author Georgia Bockoven’s unforgettable novel tells of the beauty of life and the power of love, and speaks to every woman who has ever clung to a child or loved a man.
Credits
Cover design by Emin Mancheril
>
Cover photograph © by Jupiter Images
Books by Georgia Bockoven
The Year Everything Changed
Things Remembered
Another Summer
Disguised Blessing
The Beach House
An Unspoken Promise