My Recipe Boxes

I got my first recipe box from Mark's Grandma Wegley in December of 1997. She loved to cook and could make the meanest Boston Chocolate Cream and Lemon Meranguine Pie. She wrote me a lovely note, and gave me the box full of her recipes! 

My second box came after Grandma Fenstermacker passed away. Mom gave it too me. Just recently I reorganized the box. I found at least 5 Porcine meatball recipes, 12 fudge recipes from various people, several tips and tricks recipes, and her famous Calico bean recipe. 

 

1. My favorite tofu chili that has a wonderful cilantro pesto as a topper. It came from my mom's vegetarian cookbook.

2. Sonic the Hedge Hog Chili Dog- we got this out of Ethan's Sonic books when he was about 12-14 years of age.

3. Mrs Leander's Pumpkin bars-I think my mom watched her kids

4. Broccoli Cornbread by Mrs Wanda Deiterich (Wendy Knobloch's mom). It is so amazingly moist and yummy. I made this a lot in Arkansas!

5. Reeser's Peanut Butter Bars from Arline Wegley. She used to make these all the time for Sunday after church lunches.

6. Wendy's Awesome Quiche- Wendy Knobloch has given me several recipes along with this one. One of my favorites is her Southern Tunafish recipe and her Gumbo.

   

1. Southern Chicken Crockpot Stew-we love this one. We eat it as a dip, with chips on the side. I got this one from Heidi and Thomas Wagner who lived near us in Arkansas

2. Kielbasa Bean Soup- Arline gave me this recipe from Mark's childhood. So yummy, tasty, and can warm the coldest soul on a hot day!

3. Chocolate No Bake- from my mom. She and Arline make these the best. Mine rarely harden for some reason. 

4. I discovered this recipe on Annie's Eats years ago. Mark and the kids still rave about this one! It's more of a Halloween treat.

 Then there's these. Foods that continued to remind me of so many great memories. I still remember being a newlywed, walking around Safeway trying to buy the best ingredients for these steam clams. The meat market gave me this recipe card and several pointers on cooking them. I had never made clams, but we both loved going on dates to the Seattle waterfront and sharing steamer clams at Ivars. Since I had already mastered a salad (one of Marks favorites with eggs and veggies on it) I decided to try steamer clams, plus I hadn't used my larger steamer pan I had received as a wedding present. I wanted to make more memories with my best friend. He still remembers those clams and talked highly about them to the kids just the other day. I found this picture from Mark and I's first Christmas in 1994. It shows how I used to deck the table all out for our meals. I love that I still have the recipe card...such perfect memories. When I cook with a recipe I always get the recipes dirty. I feel like it's just a part of the recipes' history. 

 

I found this second little gem in my Grandma Fenstermacker's recipe box. I wonder if in all the years that mom has made us baked beans by memory (we beg for them at every holiday), if this recipe would taste the same or differt from mom's dish. Maybe this week I will have to try it!

The one recipe that I was focused on finding though has gone missing. It is Mike's curry recipe. I have made it at least a dozen times and could probably do it by memory but it's important for me to find the original. It's not in these two boxes but I will find it and put it back in there!