Sue’s Baking Powder Biscuits

May 2, 2023January 8, 2023 VintageJenny

In this installment of Sue and Ruth Ann’s cooking lessons, Sue’s Baking Powder Biscuits take center stage. I find it interesting that When Sue Began to Cook waits until nearly the middle of the book to introduce biscuits. In many beginning cookbooks it appears as the first recipe that a young cook learns. It was that important to the vintage kitchen.

Hardly a week went by without seeing fresh biscuits on the table. Biscuits with butter appeared with dinner. Biscuits with jam appeared at breakfast, luncheon, and teatime. The recipe at the end of this post makes it easy for you to make Sue’s Baking Powder Biscuits, too.

This is Lesson 23 of When Sue Began to Cook, a cookbook from 1924 in the Bettina’s Best Recipes series. If you’re new to the series, click on the link to visit Lesson 1. This book contains a story along with the cooking lessons and you don’t want to miss anything!

Sue’s Diary from Biscuit Saturday

I really think this was the most interesting cooking lesson we’ve had yet!

Mother has often told us that it is very important to a cook to know how to make good baking-powder biscuits, because you use the recipe in so many ways. For meat pie, for instance, and strawberry shortcake, and those good little “roll-em-ups” that Grandmother makes. And oh, lots of other things. So I can tell you we were excited when Mother said we might try baking powder biscuits today.

I supposed biscuits would be very hard to do! But they weren’t, not one bit. They were easy. And it was such fun to see the fat brown little biskittens coming out of the oven looking for all the world like Mother’s own!

Mother says most people work too hard over them and handle them too much. And the main thing to remember is to handle them just as little as possible. And never, never use a rolling pin!

We ate up all of Ruth Ann’s as well as mine for lunch. And Ruth Ann said she was going straight home and make some more at her Grandmother’s for dinner, just for practice. (I hope she won’t learn to make such perfect ones that she’ll get ‘way ahead of me.)

Print Recipe

Sue’s Baking Powder Biscuits

from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924.

Course: Bread, Breakfast

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Bettina’s Best Recipes, Ruth Ann, Twenties recipes, When Sue Began to Cook

Ingredients

2 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
3 tbsp lard
⅔ cup milk

Instructions

Mother had Ruth Ann and me each measure out our flour and our baking powder and our salt into a flour sifter and put it through twice.
Then we each emptied the mixture into our own mixing bowl. Then we measured the lard very carefully in on top of the flour mixture.
Then we each took our funny little spatula and cut the lard right into the flour. (Mother showed us how.) It took quite a while, but when it was all flaky and nicely mixed, we added the milk slowly and went on mixing with the knife.
After the milk was all mixed in, Mother had us press the mixture softly into kind of a little ball of dough, not handling it much, and lift it out onto the mixing board that we had sprinkled with a little flour.
We each patted our dough ball down with our fingers into a shape about half an inch thick. Then we each took a biscuit cutter, dipped it in a little flour, and cut out biscuits with it.
Ruth Ann and I each had about fourteen biscuits. We each lifted these into a pie pan, (no, we didn't flour or butter it) and baked them in a moderately hot oven for from twelve to fifteen minutes.
Note: Moderate oven = 375 degrees F.

Sue Makes Meat Loaf

February 21, 2023January 7, 2023 VintageJenny

On their 18th Saturday cooking lesson, Sue makes Meat Loaf. This is a classic recipe that may be close to the one you know. We are cruising through the 1924 book When Sue Began to Cook, by Louise Weaver and Helen LeCron. If you’re just finding this series and you want to start at the beginning of Sue’s story, click the linked book title to go to the beginning.

Notes from Sue’s Diary on the Best Kitchen Helpers

“Can you guess the names of my two favorite kitchen helpers?” Mother asked us this morning when our lesson began.

(The answer ought to have been “Robin and Sue” but I somehow knew that wasn’t it.)

“Besides my two youngsters of course,” Mother went on with a twinkle in her eye. “Well, I’m thinking of my faithful food chopper and my kind kitchen scissors. I couldn’t keep house without them. Of course we had this meat ground up at the meat market (that is the easiest way when it’s possible) but Sue knows how often I grind up leftover meat for croquettes and meat cakes, and of course I always use the food chopper.”

“The chopper’s good for raisins and figs and dates to go in cookies, too,” I suggested.

“Yes, and for cheese when it isn’t too fresh. It’s much easier to grind it than to grate it. And it’s good for dry bread and crackers, too.”

I nodded my head. It’s my job to keep Mother’s crumb-jar filled. I take the stale ends of the bread from the bread box and put them through the chopper and then into the glass jar we keep for that purpose. “You chop cabbage in the food chopper, too, don’t you Mother?” I added, remembering the cole slaw we had for dinner one day last week.

“Yes, and for dozens of other things. But the kitchen scissors are just as convenient. I use them to cut up parsley and to shred lettuce, and to cut up green and red peppers for garnishing.”

“And for cutting off the pie dough around the edge of the pan,” I said.

“Yes, and for cutting up the fruit for salad or for a fruit cup,” Mother said. “You know the food chopper would press too much juice out of the fruits.”

“But how in the world do you ever get the chopper clean after you’ve used it, Aunt Bettina?” asked Ruth Ann.

“Well, after this lesson I’ll show you girls just how to take it apart and put it together again,” Mother answered. “And of course it has to be washed just like any other kitchen tool. But to clean it quickly I always run a piece of dry bread through it. In fact, I never use it for anything without putting a piece of bread through first. The bread takes up the odors of any stray piece of food that may have lodged in it.”

Print Recipe

Sue’s Meat Loaf

Recipe from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924.

Ingredients

2 cups round steak, ground up The butcher ground it. (We would call this hamburger.)
½ cup pork butt, ground up The butcher ground it. (Ground pork would work fine. ¼ lb is plenty.)
1 cup cracker crumbs
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
¼ tsp celery salt or use ⅛ tsp celery seed to limit the salt
1 tbsp onion, chopped fine
1 egg, lightly beaten
½ cup milk
1 tbsp melted butter

Instructions

Mother had us each put our round steak, pork butt, cracker crumbs, salt, pepper, celery, salt and onion in a big bowl and mix it all up together as well as we could with a spoon.
Then we beat the egg and added the milk and poured that into the bowl, too. We mixed it all just as well as we could.
Then we buttered a loaf-cake pan. We dipped a little clean brown piece of paper in some butter to do it. And then we emptied our meat mixture into the cake pan. Mother had us wash our hands and then pat the meat mixture into kind of a loaf shape in the pan.
Then we melted the butter and poured it all over the top of the loaf to make it get brown and nice.
We each popped our loaf into a hot oven and turned down the heat to make a moderate oven of it. And then we baked our loaves forty-five minutes by the clock. When we took the meat out, it was crusty and brown, and looked dee-licious!
Note: Hot oven = 425 degrees, Moderate oven = 375 degrees.

Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen

Sue Makes Apricot Conserve

February 7, 2023January 6, 2023 VintageJenny

Homemade jams and jellies were a way of life for Twenties households. Every house that housed a cook contained a shelf or cabinet of these jewel-like delicacies that brought color to the table during the winter and early spring. Bettina’s house is no different. In Lesson 17 of When Sue Began to Cook, Sue makes Apricot Conserve.

The recipe goes into great detail about how to seal jams and jellies with paraffin wax. This was done up to the early 1970s, but is no longer considered safe. Here’s a link from the University of Minnesota Extension Service that explains why: Canning Jams and Conserves. So don’t do that. Instead, use a hot water bath for canning, which is safe. Consult a copy of the Ball Blue Book on canning if you want detailed directions on canning jams and conserves.

Notes from Sue’s Apricot Conserve diary

When I am grown up, I intend to have my jam shelves full all the time, and everything marked with the neatest labels!

At our house we always make jam in March, because that is the time our supply begins to get low. And Mother says she couldn’t possibly keep house without jam on hand.

Ruth Ann wanted to send her jam to her mother, but we persuaded her not to do it this time. “But Grandmother has lots and lots of it on hand,” Ruth Ann objected.

“We’ll put away two of your jars to use when you and Sue have that luncheon for the girls next fall — the meal that you’re going to prepare all by yourselves to show your friends what you’ve learned this year,” Mother said. “But I’d like it if you’d use all the rest for yourself — for your school lunches.” (Ruth Ann always carries her lunch to school and she has told us she never feels like eating very much.) “And I’ll tell you how to make the best little jam sandwiches you ever ate!”

“How?” asked Ruth Ann, not so very much interested. I believe she’d really rather give her jars to Mrs. Rambler than to use them up herself.

“Just add a few chopped nuts to the conserve you are using, and then make your sandwiches,” Mother said. “All children like them, and they’re good party sandwiches, too. That’s a little trick I learned long ago. Besides, Ruth Ann, if you will really teach yourself to eat, and get fat and rosy, that will be the best gift you could possibly have for your mother when she comes home.”

“But I know what I’m going to do with my jars. At least four of them,” I said, suddenly thinking of something nice. “I’m going to tie them up in the cunningest way, with tissue paper and ribbon, and put them in a pretty fruit basket. For the table, you know. And I’ll send them to Cousin Kathleen for a wedding present.”

Print Recipe

Apricot Conserve

This is Mother's delicious jam recipe from When Sue Began to Cook, 1924

Course: Breakfast, Dessert, Tea time

Cuisine: American

Keyword: apricots, conserve, jam, pineapple, preserves, Twenties, When Sue Began to Cook

Equipment

6-8 1/2 pint jelly jars The original recipe does not specify how many. At least six.
6-8 Sets lids and rings for jelly jars
1 wide mouth canning funnel
1 Pair canning tongs For retrieving hot jars from water

Ingredients

1 lb dried apricots
3 cups water
2 cups shredded pineapple We bought it already shredded, but you can cut the sliced pineapple very fine and use it.
1 cup pineapple juice
Sugar I'll explain that later.

Instructions

Friday night after school Mother had us wash the apricots by holding them in a colander under the cold water faucet till they were clean. Then we covered them with three cups of clean cold water and left them all night. (We put them in a good-sized enameled saucepan.)
This morning we put our apricots (water and all) over a slow fire and cooked them for twenty five minutes, stirring them almost all the time so they wouldn't scorch. When they were cooked long enough, we pressed them through the coarse-meshed colander with the potato masher until all the pulp was pressed through.
Then we put the pulp back in the white-enameled saucepan and added the pineapple and juice and cooked it very slowly for about fifteen minutes more. Then we took the mixture away from the fire and measured it very carefully with a measuring cup. We had to know the exact amount so we could add half as much sugar as there was apricot mixture.
We added the sugar and put it all back in the saucepan again, and cooked it slowly some more until it was very thick. We stirred it every little while with a wooden spoon. (A wooden spoon is good because it doesn't get hot.) Mother said it was done when the spoon left a track for a second in the bottom of the pan when we stirred. You see, the conserve was so thick it couldn't get back into place quickly.
We took the conserve off the fire right way and poured it into some hot sterilized jelly glasses. We let the glasses of conserve get cool and then we poured melted parafeen [paraffin wax] over the tops to seal them. Mother showed us how. This keeps the conserve from spoiling till we want to use it.
To sterilize the glasses (that means to get them perfectly clean) we put them on a clean dish cloth in the bottom of the [metal] dishpan and covered them with cold water. (Of course the glasses had been washed clean anyway.) We set the dishpan over the fire and let the water come to a boil. Not a fast boil, just a bubble once in a while. Mother had us leave the glasses in the water til we were ready to use them. We put them on [the fire] when we began to cook the conserve.
[Note: I have a metal dishpan at my house and I would not do this. Instead, use a stock pot. A water bath canner would work too, provided you don't have an electric ceramic cooktop. For these small jars, though, a 6.5 – 8 quart stock pot should be fine. The dishcloth or towel in the bottom of the pot is so the jars don't clink against one another while they're on a soft boil. I never use one.]
When we were ready to fill the glasses we took them out and set them, right side up, in a flat-bottomed pan on another cloth with two inches of boiling water standing in the pan. We put a wide-mouthed funnel in each glass when we filled it, and then we could pour the conserve in without spilling it. We filled each glass about two-thirds full.
Mother keeps her parafeen in a little tin bucket and uses it over and over again. When she wants some parafeen, she sets the bucket over the fire til the parafeen melts and then pours it out on top of the jam or jelly to cover it. Of course you know that parafeen hardens right away.
When Mother opens a glass of jelly she always saves the little cake of parafeen and drops it back in her little tin.
[Note: It is no longer recommended to seal jars of jelly or jam with paraffin, let alone use it more than once. See Notes section below. I am including this information because I am releasing the book chapters verbatim.]
After the jars of conserve were cold, and sealed up with the parafeen, Mother let us stick little lablels on them, Conserve Delicious, printed as neatly as we could. Mother always marks everything like that and then she knows just what kind of jam she is opening.
When I am grown up, I intend to have my jam shelves full all the time, and everything marked with the neatest labels!

Notes

This is an early spring/winter recipe, when no fresh apricots are available.

Note on paraffin and canning: Long ago (and in some cases not so long ago) melted paraffin wax was used to seal hot jellies and jams from the air. That is no longer considered safe because the paraffin can change with temperature, shrinking to allow bacteria into the “sealed” jams. So if you want to use this recipe you have three options: hot water bath canning, pressure canning, or freezing in plastic freezer containers instead of jam jars. An edition of the Ball Blue Book will give information on how to do all three.

Cooking Techniques · The Vintage Kitchen · Uncategorized

Sue Makes Spanish Rice

January 24, 2023January 6, 2023 VintageJenny

This is Lesson 16 from When Sue Began to Cook, a cookbook in the Bettina cookbook series by Louise Weaver and Helen LeCron. Sue and her friend Ruth Ann are learning to cook from Sue’s mother Bettina, a 1920s master of the kitchen. If this series is new to you, click the link to be transported back to Lesson 1.

This week Sue and Ruth Ann learn to make Spanish Rice. The recipe for Spanish Rice has changed quite a bit over the past 100 years. I don’t make it now like I made it in the 1980s, even. And this recipe is older still.

Once in a while you will find a recipe for Spanish Rice in an antique periodical, but not often. Of the three 1920s cookbooks I consulted from the shelf, the recipe appeared in only one of them, and it was similar but a different version and a completely different preparation. You may find Sue’s comments and description of cooking rice a bit hilarious. I know I did. Unless you want to recreate this for historical purposes, please don’t cook rice like pasta. The rice will thank you.

Sue’s Spanish Rice Diary

We had Jean and Aunt Alice here to lunch and Mother let us serve the Spanish Rice we made this morning! And they each had two helpings of it!

Mother doesn’t believe in making company of people. She says the very nicest way of all is to have things simple and dainty and good all of the time, and then you don’t mind who happens in — you’re always ready. (But of course Mother keeps her Emergency Shelf stocked with extras, so she always knows there is plenty of food in the house.)

But to get back to my story. Mother told us this was a good time to have a lesson in table setting and she said she would make it a company meal, so that it would be more interesting. “We’ll ‘phone to Jean and Aunt Alice and see if they can’t come over.”

“But will Spanish Rice be enough to give them?” I asked.

“Spanish Rice and hot chocolate, and a good fruit salad,” said Mother. “And for dessert we’ll have some burnt sugar cake with whipped cream. That’s enough for anybody. You girls can make the Spanish Rice and set the table, and I will attend to the rest.”

Of course I knew in a general way how a table should be set, but Ruth Ann didn’t, and so Mother gave us a regular lesson on the subject and the table really did look lovely. (We used a tablecloth this time and not doilies.)

Print Recipe

Spanish Rice from When Sue Began to Cook

Sue and Ruth Ann learn to make Spanish Rice in 1924

Course: Side Dish

Cuisine: American

Keyword: lesson, rice, Twenties

Servings: 6

Ingredients

⅔ cup rice to make 1½ cups cooked instructions for cooking in recipe
½ cup bacon, cut into small pieces
2 tbsp chopped onion we cut it very fine with the chopper in the wooden bowl
2 tbsp green pepper also chopped fine
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp paprika
2 cups tomato pulp This can be pureed tomatoes or diced tomatoes pureed in a blender or food processor, with part of the juice

Instructions

Mother said this was a good time for us to learn to make good boiled rice. (She doesn't think very many people make it right.) She had us each wash two-thirds of a cup of rice by putting it in a fine meshed sieve and holding it under the faucet till the rice was clean. Then we each put five and a third cups of boiling water in a saucepan and added the rice. (Rice ought to be cooked in eight times as much water as there is rice.) Then we added 2/3 of a level teaspoon of salt. (There ought to be a level teaspoon of salt for each cup of rice.) I forgot to say that Mother had us put the rice in the saucepan slowly so the water wouldn't stop bubbling.
We boiled the rice (the water bubbling all the time) for twenty minutes by the clock, and stirred it with a fork every once in a while during the cooking. (A fork is better than a spoon because a spoon mashes it down and makes it mushy.)
When the rice had cooked long enough, we poured it into a strainer and let the liquid drain off, and then we let cold water from the faucet run through the cooked rice to wash off the extra starch. Then our boiled rice was ready to be used.
To make the Spanish Rice, we put the pieces of bacon in a frying pan (of course I mean that Ruth Ann and I each had a frying pan) and when the pan was hot we added the onion and the green pepper. We cooked it all, stirring around all the time with a fork, until the onion was brown.
Then we added the salt, paprika, and boiled rice, and kept on cooking and stirring until the rice was light brown. Then we added the tomato pulp and cooked it together for about ten minutes more. It was quite thick by that time. Then it was ready to be poured into hot dishes and served.

Notes

The 2/3 tsp salt in cooking the rice is in addition to the 1 tsp salt that goes into the finished Spanish Rice recipe. Omit the salt from cooking the rice if you like.

The Creative Corner · Vintage Needlework

Embroidery Lesson: Outline stitches to fill

September 14, 2021August 18, 2021 VintageJenny

What do you do if you have an outline of something and you want to fill it with color? You could use another fabric and appliqué the center. You could use a satin stitch and embroider the center. Or you could use variations of the versatile outline stitches from the last lesson to fill your design. This third embroidery lesson shows you how to use outline stitches to fill your embroidery design.

Embroidered ship on the water. An owl sits on the prow, and embroidered waves swirl below the ship. — This ship uses outline stitches to fill the design.

This ship became the center of a cushion. The entire project was embroidered with outline stitch variations. These stitches are incredibly useful, yet little used today. The outline stitches give this piece wonderful texture and interest. Best of all, the stitches are easy to do and you can use them for any size project.

You will need

Like all the embroidery projects, for today’s embroidery lesson on outline stitches to fill, you will need

an embroidery needle with an eye large enough for your thread
six-strand embroidery floss for practice
an embroidery hoop to hold your fabric taught

Take a running stitch… and whip it

Embroidered running stitch that has another thread wound through it. Use this outline stitch to fill a large area. Text: Overcast running stitch.

Here you see a whipped or overcast running stitch. First you follow the line with the running stitch. Then you stitch a second line, starting at the beginning. Instead of going through the fabric you overcast, or whip, the running stitches. Always place the overcast stitches in the same direction so that the design stays consistent. You can make this in one color, or use two contrasting colors for increased interest.

Slanted snailtrail stitch

Snailtrail embroidery stitch made with the needle entering the fabric at a sharp angle. Use this outline stitch to fill a large area of embroidery. Text: Slanted snailtrail.

In the last lesson you learned how to make a snailtrail stitch by passing the needle perpendicular to the design line. This time the needle passes through the fabric at a deep slant or angle, like you see in the illustration. When the needle follows the direction of the line instead of working at a right angle to it (as you did in Lesson 2), you see a very different effect from the stitch.

Backstitched chain stitch

Embroidery illustration of a line of chain stitch. Over the top of the chains a needle passes a second time making back stitches at each loop join. Use this outline stitch to fill a large area. Text: Chain stitch with backstitch.

In this version of the chain stitch, you take a small back stitch over the chain. Using a different color is most effective. You might try this with either a different weight of thread for the backstitch, or the same thread in the same color, and see how you like it. To make this, complete the row of chain stitch as normal, and then go over the embroidery a second time with small backstitches.

Darning stitch

This stitch is easy and quick. You take long stitches that cover the embroidered area and combine them with short underneath stitches. As you go, alternate so that the new row’s stitches always span the last row’s space between stitches. If your stitches were further apart it would look like a brick wall. Worked closely, the stitches have a satin-like effect. Keep your stitches even as you work for the best overall effect.

Try it yourself

Grab some fabric and thread and give these stitches a try. Most of us don’t even think about using anything but a satin stitch, or maybe a long and short stitch, to fill areas like embroidered flowers, leaves, and figures. Using outline stitches to fill embroidered spaces opens up a whole new world of texture, color, and possibility. Best of all, these are easy and relatively quick stitches.

Next time I’ll give you the pattern for the Ship of Dreams above, and you can make it yourself with the stitches you learned. Drop me a note and let me know how you liked these stitches! I look forward to hearing from you.