The First Country Wife Cookbook Story

When our children began to get out of little childhood, we began giving them even more responsibility.  When J was 12 years old his father hurt is back on a wood project so J took over Dad's part of the cow chores, learning to milk with the milking machine. I did the morning milking and he did the evening milking.  I had always done the morning milking since I could go to work a little later than Dad.

When the children began to get into their teens, it was obvious that they were old enough to use the stove, the oven, and the pantry to support their eating habits.  SO I decided to write up a simple cookbook of the easiest foods we ate.  I formatted it and printed out a copy for the kitchen which became tomato sauce spattered almost  immediately and tattered and torn.  Because it was not fancy at all, and because it was on the computer, I was able to print out a new copy at will.

Later on as new recipes came to be popular, I added those recipes and eventually had quite a few recipes.

The first recipes in the cookbook was:

APPLE CRISP

In a large mixer bowl combine:

1 cup flour

1 cup oatmeal, uncooked

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup oleo or butter. (at some point we stopped using oleomargarine altogether and when we needed fat in a recipe, just used butter)

1 Tablespoon cinnamon

Combine well until all crumbs are about the same size and uniform in color. In 9 x 13 pan place sliced apples-about 10-15 apples cored and peeled. The apples should come up almost to the top of the pan. Now put the apple slices in a very large bowl and sprinkle over the apples 2/3 cup white sugar and 1 Tablespoon cinnamon. Mix all together with your hands until all the apples are well coated with the cinnamon/ sugar mixture. Feel free to lick your fingers after putting the apples in the 9 by 13 pan.  

Once the apples are coated and in the pan,  sprinkle the "crisp" on top of the apples as uniformly as possible.  Bake in 350 degree F. oven for 35-45 minutes.