My 4-H Cookbook

Above left is the cover of my cookbook, You Learn to Bake, from 1974 when I was a member of the Mossville Merry Maids 4-H Club. The book was printed in May 1970 in Urbana, Illinois, from the Cooperative Extension Service, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Above right is a portion of my favorite recipe, Oatmeal Drop Cookies. You can see my mom wrote in the book that I had done a good job (at age 11) making these cookies. That's 'cause I always had my dad's strong arm to stir the batter once I'd added the oatmeal. When I made the cookies to enter in the Heart of Illinois Fair (in Peoria), Dad was at work and unavailable to stir. I couldn't get the mixture stirred up very well with my scrawny little arms, and as a result received only a third-place ribbon for my efforts. (That's right, Dad, it's all your fault!)

• Oatmeal Drop Cookies (full recipe)

Soon, I'll upload more of the recipes for you to try.

My Mom's Cookbook for Me

Above is the first page of the cookbook my mom put together for me so that I'd be able to do my best to try to recreate her cooking. She bought a blank book in the late '70s and started this for me, as you can see by her handwritten entry.

Click on the recipe names below to go to Mom's recipe:

• Corn Fritters

• Lasagne

• Baking Powder Biscuits

• Swiss Steak (Mom would flour & pound the heck out of the meat and make this in a huge, heavy skillet. She'd always make Spanish rice with the leftover sauce & chopped up the leftover meat to put in it too!)

• Mom's Beef Pot Roast (This is the ultimate Sunday dinner in our family!)

• Chili

• Mom's Fudge

• Pizza Balls (I've added to Mom's recipe -- I use 1 lb. ground chuck & 1 lb. sausage)

• Fresh Apple Cake

• Pumpkin for Pie

• Cookies (Thumb Print)

• Spaghetti Sauce

• Chicken & Noodles (My brother, Mike, and I would always sneak into the noodles while they were drying on the kitchen counter. Ah, yes, nothing better than pure flour & egg!)

• Salmon Patties

Peanuts Cook Book

Scholastic Book Services, third printing, February 1970

This is a book my brother, Mike, got through the Scholastic Book Club at school. We cooked the dickens out of stuff in it!

Click the recipe names below to open a new page that contains the scanned-in recipe!

• Lucy's Lemon Squares

• Icing (We used to make this and just eat it out of the bowl by the spoonful! Good grief!)

• Charlie Brown's Mother's Buttered Oven-Potatoes

• Divine Divinity

Recipes coming soon from the Peanuts cookbook include:

• Great Pumpkin Cookies

• Security Cinnamon Toast

• More!