A "Sample" of My Cookbook Collection

This morning, before my husband left for work he said, "you like going through your old cookbooks, don't you?" The poor guy, I have my "collection" all over the place right now. They are next to my side of the bed, spilling out of the bookcase in the dining room and next to the computer! He's even tried to tell me I have enough cookbooks. Shame on him, right?!?!?!? He should know that after being together almost 25 years, I will NEVER have enough cookbooks!!! LOL.  Lately, I've been looking through the ones that belonged to my mother-in-law. She passed away in January of 2011 and we miss her all the time.

She worked for a number of years at the May Company in Cleveland, Ohio. One of the cookbooks I acquired from her, "Celebrate Our 1st Cookbook," I'm guessing was distributed to all of the employees around the holidays. I found some of the names of the recipes in the cookbook to be quite, ahem, different. These three kind of stood out to me - "Ham and Pickle Puffs," "Sneaky Pete Slush," and "Cranberry Velvet." Anyways, since I had no "bakery" around, I decided to make this cookie  recipe from the cookbook:

 

Oh, my goodness - the cookies were AMAZING! Here is the recipe if you would like to make them:

 

Chocolate Crispy Cookies

 

Ingredients:

 

1 1/2 cups white flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup margarine, softened

1 cup white sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups crispy rice cereal

  (like Rice Krispies)

1 cup milk chocolate morsels

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a large cookie sheet with non-stick cooking spray. Set aside. In a large bowl, put the flour, baking soda, salt, margarine, sugar, egg and vanilla extract. Mix well with large spoon and then add the crispy rice cereal and the milk chocolate morsels. I used my hands to mix everything together, so feel free to do that! Roll into 2 1/2 dozen equal-sized balls. Bake 15 at a time on a sheet. They do spread some, but not a ton. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the cookies are starting to turn golden brown. Remove immediately to a wire rack. Store in a covered container at room temperature.

 

I like to play a little game with my Facebook "peeps." I'll post a picture and then try asking everyone to guess what the "secret" or "mystery" ingredient is. On one of the food groups I am part of, someone did indeed guess the "mystery" ingredient - crispy rice cereal!  One gal guessed hard boiled eggs!  I knew that I had seen a recipe using hard boiled egg yolks recently. After just a quick look through an old Slovenian cookbook (which is part of my mother-in-law's "collection"), I found a recipe for, "Vanilla Vienna Cookies." It uses two hard cooked egg yolks among other ingredients. The first line of the directions says, "cream together for 1/2 hour, butter, sugar, hard cooked egg yolks." Hmm, okay. A half hour? That seems a bit excessive doesn't it?? I want to make those cookies, but I don't think I'll cream it together for a 1/2 hour :) I'll keep you all updated how the cookies turn out! I also found a super duper easy recipe for "Slovak Potato Soup." That is one to try when the weather gets a bit cooler. My mother-in-law was part Slovak and so am I!